Category Archives: brand

brand, business, Marketing, News, sales, service

Has Google Become Too Big?

Everybody loves Google or so the saying goes. A few years ago if you wore a Google T shirt you would be greeted by smiles as you walked down the street. But that was a couple of years ago. The market place has changed with Google now controlling at least 75 percent of the search engine market and respectively the same amount of advertising and they now hold a very secure position. Fundamentally Google has not done anything wrong. It is just that you have no choice when it comes to advertising. Small and big e-commerce sites all use Google advertising. For example Tech crunch , Digg etc.

Effectively there is no competition which means that Google can dictate terms and conditions and have a very big say over who does what in the market. If a website owner was to say the wrong thing they could find themselves on the other side of the fence with no advertisers. Now the much talked about takeover of Yahoo by Microsoft is the first step in readdressing this problem. I am still not comfortable though. Both of these companies have such a large influence and control of the most dynamic communication medium. Is it time that we should start to worry?

Maybe not just yet, but the signs are there. While we have all become Google search converts. What would it take for some of us to start using another search engine? The array of products that Google provides are truly amazing. From Gmail to Youtube all for no cost to the user and paid for by advertising. But as the old saying goes Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Is Google too powerful?

brand, Marketing

Real Time Advert Statistics

Without a doubt there is one area that the internet thrashes all competition hands down and that is statistics and user information. On the advertising campaign you can see everything. From when they first visited to which page they went to, when did they comeback? How long did they stay? What sort of computer do they have? Which country are they are from? Is that country planning to invade yours etc. Some people have a great deal of fear about so much information being available and how to use it. The rest of us just get on and use the information to cater for our products and understand our markets.

 

There was a time a few years ago, a little bit less now where you came across a poll on a website. Websites would ask questions like who would you vote for in an election campaign? Should Policemen be paid more? What is your favourite colour? etc. Now days that is not strictly necessary because you can track the user when he enters your site and see where it is that he clicks (goes). For example if I do a blog post about money I can see that it has attracted more page views then a post about writing letters. I am sure that it happens that marketing campaigns go live before they are tested on the market. It would be the only explanation for such miserable campaigns like modo , or Iceland’s freezer food . If they had taken five minutes to put a few trial pages on the internet they could have seen if anybody was really interested in their marketing message. We at Work Connexions provide statistics for adverts and blogging. So you can see if you are onto a winner before you go and print up five thousand copies and publicise the press release.

brand, business, development, E-Commerce, work connexions

Content is Timeless

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As with the last couple weeks I have been blogging about why communities and online social media groups are going to grow significantly more and will change all forms of media in the next 18 months. Is this really interesting? Well the change could be, as advertisers are going to have so much choice to reach their target market that marketing departments are going to be expanding and working overtime to understand and use this technology.

There is nothing essentially new in blogging, in the old days you had magazines and papers where people submitted or where commissioned to write news pieces about relevant issues. The readers than replied to that by sending in a letter to say what they thought about any relevant topic. After about a month that whole particular topic would pass and the readers would move on to discuss a new hot issue. In the online media if you can write one good article in theory that article can be discussed for 6 months, a year, two years. So from one piece of advertising/writing you can get so much more advertising milege. As the article sits on the internet it can become internet real estate growing in value over the months as traffic comes to the site and comments increase. If you are going to say something on the internet, it is good to remember that although it may be a fast form of communication, your writing contribution will be there possibly for a long time.

I could write about the new year now as I am typing this on the last day of year but that would limit its market. So to gain the maximum affect, It is good to take the long term view. Whoever would have thought that about online media?

brand, business, development, E-Commerce, Marketing, News, Websites, work connexions

Changing of World Media

New Media, there has been some discussion about this on the internet and it is clear that Newspapers, music, film, magazine are all changing. The changes that begun in the nineties are now coming to fruition. Media will never be the same again. Read Seth’s blog post here about what he predicted. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/12/how-long-has-it.html . If you tie this in with mobile phones it is going to be a very different world. Maybe even more exciting than the Roman Empire.

brand, business, development, E-Commerce, sales, Websites, work

E-mail Signatures and stamps

Quite often I get asked where do I come from. It is one of those conversation starters. Especially nowadays, as we can do business with everyone in the world, or least have the potential to.

All too often I wonder where does this person live? We might know that they are based in America, but where? There over 50 states, each one at least 3 times bigger than the UK….. The outcome of such thoughts is that I have taken to adding a signature to the bottom of my email. Stating that we are a Manx company. A bit like James Brown really “say it loud I am black and I am proud”. Seriously I do have a slight nostalgia for post marks. I could always tell from the postmark if it was a letter from a loved one and more importantly where they were. On the other hand I am glad that we do not have to pay postage for each email that we send. I am averaging over 20 emails a day at current rates that would be £5.60 and quite a few trips to the post office. 

Put a Post Mark on your email and say where you are sending it from……