October-Design

Disclaimer- this post is a little self-serving because it contains useful information on Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and because October-Design has launched a new web application called AdPages that helps clients manage SEM and online advertising, and for October-Design services delivery.  Regardless, the information is good and can help you determine if SEM is right for you.

Business is turning over every rock in order to find the most cost effective marketing vehicles, I know, my back hurts for all the rolling stones we have been moving lately.  One vehicle has seen amazing growth and that is Search Engine Marketing. Search engines deliver advertising to consumers when they are looking for relative products and services.  My personal experience with the growth in SEM can be illustrated by the increased bid price for certain keywords.  In the early days (circa 2000) we could bid keywords for .10¢ per click.  Today, the same keywords range around $3.00 – $5.00 that is if you want to be listed on the first page of results.

SEM is booming and here are some of the market drivers making this such a cost effective alternative to traditional phone directory and newspaper advertising.

One obvious and logical driver is the economy.  We have to market in order to sell our products, but revenues are down.  SEM looks like a good alternative to traditional media because of the low unit cost and proven Return On Investment (ROI).

Another driver is ubiquity.  7% of the daily U.S. web traffic goes through Google (Hitwise.com, July 09).  Also Search Bars are now featured at the top of all major browsers in the browser chrome. You now have a very easy path to conducting search queries.

Most important, we use search engines to find the answer to everything.  Nielsen.com reports total searches for the month of April 2009 were up 4% to 8.6 billion, with Google gobbling up 5.5 billion (64%) all by itself.  Not to put too fine a point on that factoid, there is a brandnomer that has recently become popular when describing searches.  Ever used the phrase “Just google it” or “google it”?  “Google” is now commonly used to describe the activity of searching for something online, whether you use Google, Yahoo, MSN, Bing, or any of the other search engines.

In short, search engines are the gateway to the billions of web pages that live on the Internet.  At the 35,000 ft. view, search engines have become the glue that holds the World Wide Web together and makes finding anything possible.  No short feat for a technology that is less than a couple decades old.  It makes sense that business would turn to Search Engine Marketing because that’s where the consumers are, asking for their product information.

October-Design invested in the development of a web application called AdPages.  AdPages was engineered to fill in the gaps or disconnect between search advertising, landing pages and lead tracking.  AdPages collate these services in to one streamlined and user-friendly application.  Our solution combines automated services and human input to deliver the best of both worlds; efficiency where it could be had, and human expertise where it is most needed.  For more facts on Search Engine Marketing and online Display Advertising, you can read our published fact sheet titled “Search Marketing Fact Sheet”.

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My last couple blog posts focused on the elusive consumers changing preferences and opinions.  For the last installment in this line of blogging, I offer up a pearl of advice.  No matter what you say, what you look like and where you are, right now you better be focused on VALUE, VALUE, VALUE.

Consumers are spending less than before.  When they do make a purchase they want a value…not the least expensive necessarily, but something they can get the most for the money spent.

Here are a couple real world examples from brands that are doing fairly well in this environment.

1.) VOLKSWAGEN: CC Sedan
Price Range: $27,000 – $39,000
Value Proposition: No Charge for Scheduled Maintenance for 3 years or 36,000 miles.
Estimated value over three years is $6,400.
The consumer take: Not only am I getting the car I wanted but now I get my maintance for 3 years, for free!

2.) MAYTAG: Laundry, Ranges, Dishwashers and Refrigerators
Price Range: $799 – $2,499
Value Proposition: May is Maytag Month with $600 cash back
(fine print: $100 frig., $150 cooking, $150 cleaning, $200 laundry)
The consumer take: Maytag is going to pay me to buy their product, that’s hundreds of dollars of savings.  (Of course, we all know most are in the market for only 1-2 appliances at any given time so most would not qualify for the full $600.)

3.) FILENE’S BASEMENT: Retail chain
Price Range: Various; Discount European and American Designer Clothing
Value Proposition: Savings of 60-75% on Italian designers and 40-85% on sportswear from American designers.
The consumer take: Filene’s has always offered designer goods at a discount but the percentage savings just went up!

From soft goods to automobiles, knowledgable marketers are now focused on VALUE in their ad message.   To succeed right businesses need to do the same.

Look for opportunities to promote your value proposition for your product service or good.  Hang the flowery, over-the-top “quality” and “service” pitch; consumers are filtering those words out from your message anyway.  Right now, value is king. Give consumers “more bang for their buck” or “more for less” and you will succeed.
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Like everything else in our ever-changing world, how we spend our leisure time is being dramatically overhauled by technology. The marketers challenge is how to keep up.

Santa was good to our family this holiday and brought us a Wii with all the accoutrements. Since December 25th, it has profoundly changed how Wii interact as a family and how Wii spend our leisure time. Given a choice between watching TV and playing Wii, the choice was obvious and clear, we chose the Wii. And why not? One is passive and the other active. Depending on the game and peripheral, your whole person in engaged and required to complete the task. The Wii is difficult enough to make the game challenging but easy enough that anybody can participate. And that is the real hook.

According to 2007 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, The American Time Use Survey (ATUS), 96% of men spend 5.48 hours per day on leisure and sport activities; of that group 81% spend 2.88 hours watching TV*. 81% of women spend 4.76 hours on leisure and sport activities and of their group, 77% of women spend 2.38 hours watching TV. Television is the main vehicle for mass marketing.

Families and game console enthusiast are flocking to the Wii as the console of choice. To support that anecdotal claim, Wii announced it sold more than 7.2 million consoles (world wide) in November 2008 alone. By comparison 10 million Television(1) units were sold for all of third quarter 2008, which was a 12% increase year over year. And 3.5 million XBox consoles were sold for the November time period.

I submit the following to illustrate further the change in our families leisure time use. Sunday nights, before the bedtime routine, is game night at our house. We play board games like Blokus and Rumis (www.blokus.com) which are great games and very enjoyable. But then there was Wii, and ever since, the game draw has been closed. As wistful as that might read, game play has continued but now, more interactive and exciting for the whole family. Wii makes the experience and time spent much more enjoyable. We didn’t change our habit, just how we execute that activity.

And that is the challenge and opportunity for marketers. We are watching television less and playing game consoles more. Marketers are trying to catch up and figure out how to best utilize this new medium. Indeed, I already received one “in-game” advertisement that I recognized as and “advertisement”. The game was Rock Band 2 and the advertiser was Fender Guitars. The advert described how Fender Guitar’s raised fret board is easier for children to learn to play guitar.

As games and consules increase in their ability to virtually put us into the game play, all other passive forms of entertainment will continue to diminish in importance and relevance to marketers and more broadly, people in general.

* Computer and game systems are not line items in the ATUS study, but no doubtedly account for some of the “Television” time reported.
(1) DisplaySearch.com