Category: Advertising - Marketing

After being live with our CoolTea Classifieds for over 30-days, I was curious to see what the view-to-click ratio was for the ads that you see along the right side of your screen when viewing the classified listings.

Turns out the number is just a little bit higher than traditional direct mail responses.

In the old days with direct mail (analog materials with real postage circa mid 1980s), getting a two percent return was considered a good thing. Meaning if you sent out 10,000 brochures to a targeted list, you could expect two percent or 200 recipients of your mailing to respond to your offer (e.g., call you, mail in the tear-off, etc.).

Today there are many new advertising and direct marketing models springing forth - some are bogus in my opinion and others are really exciting. For example, Google ad-words is something most people know about and is a system that leverage PPC (pay-per-click) and pay-per-views.

I’d love to hear from some of you PPC experts about what you think is a good ratio for you and your clients so in the spirit of sharing, I’ll go first and share the following as a data-point.

In the first month of CoolTea Classifieds running the small banner ads you see on the right, not the text listings, but the blinking, rotating graphic ads with links, on average each ad in our database was viewed by 4,000 people and generated 127 click throughs.

Thus these ads achieved a 3.175% click response (127clicks/4000views) - not bad for the first month.

Moral of the story IMHO, fifty-bucks per month is a bargain price for classified ads that brand your message to 4000 and generate 127 people clicking into your site / offer.

Below is a ten minute video clip I produced for Saint Patrick’s Church that features their Bible Camp 2007 - A Quest for Truth. The clip is currently hosted at YouTube and originally I wanted to share this as a heart-warming, intimate look of the children and families who participated with this year’s camp.

It is truly an Americana inspiration and gives hope to the soul - especially when we are bombarded with negative news from so many corners of the globe, this humble clip shows youth from all walks of life singing, playing, building, learning, and sharing in manner that gives me hope for the upcoming generation - a generation I’ve heard referenced as “The Rainbow Generation.”

It is also a great example of Church Marketing and the power of today’s multimedia technology. The Pastor shot the footage with a simple, handheld video camera - nothing fancy - no lighting, no staging, no separate sound team, etc. He handed me approx 6 or 7 mpeg-1 clips, each of which varied in length from 5 minutes to 15 minutes.

The hardest part for me was finding “The Arch of the Story” and how best to present these clips. Knowing I was limited to 100 meg file and 10 minutes max per YouTube, I started with the end in mind. Showing a strong finish, with professionally recorded patriotic music - Thank You Katie - timed to a slide show of higher resolution pictures taken from one of the Religious Ed leaders per the Pastor’s permission, I then worked backwards.

I also knew that the kids signing the Americana medley was also a strong start, even though that section occurred toward the end of the bible camp week, I put it upfront to give a sense of the “stars of the show.” With beginning and ending in place, I then edited the clips for those scenes that reflected the week’s activities - including making their Resurrection Butterflies, FBI Badges (firm believers in Christ), plus sundry other crafts.

Once I had a story board in mind, the next issue was of Sonic Branding - e.g., what kind of opening sound and visual theme could we create to help brand the church and use as opener for the other videos in development? Thus I found some funkee orchestral flute-guitar rock clip that was in my sound library that I had created over seven years ago with Acid Loops, and put this sonic bed to a beat with the lead images from their web site and voila - opening sonic / visual branding bug :>)

Lastly, I had to decide on project settings with Vegas. I started with Square Pixel 640×480 1.0 PAR (pixel aspect ratio) thinking we were just going to distribute the finished clip on the web, but as I got into it, I realized that some of the families might want a VideoCD or DVD version for their family archives, thus backed up and created the Rectangular Pixel (740×480 .909 PAR) version required for TV sets. In the end, I created two versions so that no black bars would appear in either version and both would display correctly - e.g., TV version on TVs and the squared computer version on monitors.

Enjoy!

This audio interview is approximately 18 minutes in length and the file is a 4.3 meg mp3 file
If you don’t have flash player click here to download mp3 file

Links to Wilder’s Web Site
Here we talk with Wilder Baker, Principle of GPS 4 Management and Chairman of American Advertising Federation (AAF - advertising’s largest trade association)

Some of the Themes Discussed in This Interview with Wilder Include:

• How advertising relates to marketing …
• The ultimate marketing lessons learned from package goods companies like Proctor & Gamble, Kraft and others…
• How big companies lose their way and marketing ROI …
• Growth of internet as advertising medium …
• How even consumer products are really business to business products …
• Global marketing trends - e.g., visual first in Europe then followed by copy, whereas in US, copy usually first then visual …
• A case study of success - $50 million in two years …
• How to get in touch with your customers and critical importance of doing so …
• A David Ogilvy story …
• Driving home improtance Customer Focus vs Marketing - e.g., being in tune with your client and their needs and making that your priority …

This audio interview is approximately 17 minutes in length and the file is a 4.2 meg mp3 file
If you don’t have flash player click here to download mp3 file

Some of the Themes Discussed in This Interview with Paul Include:

• The differences between trade promotion, consumer promotion, and advertising in the marketing mix …
• Importance of catering to multiple consumers - such as the ultimate consumer, the trade, and your sales force …
• The metrics of promotion and advertising …
• Spillage with coupons, rebates and loyalty programs …
• Re-evaluating a product category and lifestyle changes …
• “Let go of my ego” - an account of success with Eggo Waffles …
• An example of tactical priorities via Mrs. Smith Pies vs Sarah Lee …
• And, a reminder, if there is a Marketing Will there is a Marketing Way …

About Paul Paul Jeffery
Paul is a seasoned brand expert and most recently a Director of Strategy & Planning for a leading sales promotion agency based in the metro NY area.

This audio interview is approximately 17 minutes in length and the file is a 4.2 meg mp3 file
If you don’t have flash player click here to download the mp3 file

Links To Mark’s Web Sites
Here we talk with Mark Stevens - Author of Your Marketing Sucks

Some of the Themes Discussed in This Interview with Mark Include:

• Why most marketing sucks and the origins of his book …
• How there is no such thing as integrated marketing That marketing is really about the art and science of growing a business …
• How training your retail personnel is Marketing …
• Marketing ROI …
• Romancing customers is where it’s at so forget business schools and their 4 P’s of Marketing …
• The universal equation for perpetual growth …
• An example of lodging company romancing their customers at no cost …

This audio interview is approximately 17 minutes in length and the file is a 4.2 meg mp3 file
If you don’t have flash player click here to download the mp3 file

Links to Zuhair’s Web Site
Here we talk with Zuhair Suidan, Author of The Critically Acclaimed Workshops, Practical Tools for Strategic Marketing - THE Essential Workshop for Technology Marketers

Some of the Themes Discussed in This Interview with Zuhair Include:

• How his workshops help you to become an active participant in the marketing strategy development and deployment in your company …
• What it means to be market ready for 2006 …
• What does marketing mean today and is integrated marketing an oxymoron …
• The keys to developing rapid consensus with plan stakeholders …
• How do we measure Marketing ROI …
• How to undercover and articulate your brand’s value …
• Two case studies of success - one conventional and one unconventional …