MyAdvertisingMarket.com

September 28, 2009

What Is The Price Of Freedom?

Filed under: Business Trends — Tags: , , , , , — admin @ 7:55 pm

Facebook is finding out the cost of freedom — $9.5 million.

A couple years ago Facebook started a marketing division called Beacon. Beacon worked as a go-between for Facebook and third-party businesses, such as, Blockbuster, Fandango and Overstock.com. The idea was to show a Facebook member’s friends recent purchases in the belief that it would be a “trusted referral”. If I bought a movie ticket through Fandango, my friends on Facebook would be offered to buy tickets, too.

Sharing a consumer’s information is usually not a good thing to do… as Facebook found out. People became outraged at their opt-out program. Unless you were clever enough to catch their 4 second pop-up to opt-out, you were automatically opted-in. Then your friends were exposed to your purchasing patterns including the holiday gift you purchased for them.

A lawsuit was filed against Facebook which they have agreed to settle. The settlement calls for Facebook to fund a foundation to promote online privacy, safety and security with $9.5 million.

March 27, 2009

The Form Of Consumer Relations

Filed under: marketing and advertising — Tags: , , — admin @ 4:57 pm

If I had to pick out just one unique feature of advertising on the Internet, it would be the ability for interaction between the business and the consumer. The world wide web is different than a billboard or broadcasting in that it allows communication to flow in both directions. Broadcasting pushes a message onto a consumer. The web allows a consumer to respond in real time.

The Form
What is the best way for a business to communicate with a consumer? We used to suggest giving the consumer all possible options, such as, listing your phone number, email address and the use of cgi forms. Unfortunately, unsolicited email and phone calls became overwhelming. After all, you don’t want to lose a legitimate customer in the avalanche of spam that is a result of posting your email address on a website. This problem became exasperated when spammers developed email bots. An email bot is a software program that works like a robot scouring the web for the “@” character and gathering all the email addresses it can find. It use to be that implementing a cgi form eliminated this problem; however, now the robots are sophisticated enough to find forms and fill them out with spam. In fact, this blog gets spam comments submitted on a frequent basis.

example of a mailto
eample of a cgi form

Keeping the line of communication open between the business and the consumer is very important. At the moment, there does not appear to be one simple solution. The two best methods are cgi forms and mailto forms. Following is a list of pro’s and con’s:

Pro’s

  • The cgi form has proven to be the most successful measurable method for conducting business over the Internet.
  • A cgi form is more secure and less likely to cause privacy violations.
  • A mailto form offers more accessibility for people with disabilities.
  • A mailto form can be sent to an email address that automatically filters spam (Warning: there is no 100% successful spam filter and legitimate customers can mistakenly be filtered out.)

Con’s

  • A mailto form exposes an email address to spam.
  • A cgi form requires more sophisticated computer programming skills.
  • A cgi form needs additional programming if spam filtering is attempted.
  • Mailto forms require the user to have an email software client on their computer. (If the consumer is on a computer at their workplace, internet kiosk, borrowed computer, etc., the mailto form will not work.)

Your input on this matter is welcomed. Can you think of additional advantages and disadvantages? Do you know of any other solutions?

February 15, 2009

Are There Website Rules or Standards?

Filed under: marketing and advertising — Tags: , , — admin @ 7:38 pm

Site Programming

  1. Avoid Bells and Whistles – Ask what program(s) the website will be written with
    1. HTML authoring programs to avoid
      1. Dreamweaver
      2. Microsoft FrontPage
      3. Adobe GoLive
      4. Automated website builders from hosting companies
    2. Website programming languages and tools to avoid – “Push” Technologies – Programming that the viewer may not desire and that could be infected, with potentially harmful results
      1. Java, Javascript
      2. Cookies
      3. ActiveX
      4. Active Server Pages
      5. Flash
      6. Frames
      7. Anything requiring a browser “plug-in”
    3. Security and Privacy – Can your website be seen with your webbrowser’s security settings on high? – “Pull Technologies”
      1. Website publishers should assume responsibility to your viewers.
      2. Businesses should comprehend the risks prior to “pushing” potentially harmful or malicious content on their viewers.
      3. Attempt to explain any download prior to viewers “pulling” it
    4. Re-tool and clean house if need be
    5. The best coding is done by hand
    6. Construct more than one website, e.g. one for marketing and customer lead generation, one for customer care and service

    Bells and whistles will NEVER help your page’s search engine ranking. In fact, it will hurt your site’s indexing or ranking in the search engines and will most likely eliminate some percentage of your viewers from properly accessing and utilizing your website. So, just don’t do it!

  2. Adhere to W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium) Standards – “Official HTML Coding Rules”
    1. Web Accessibility Initiative – http://www.w3.org/WAI/
      1. Test with images turned off
      2. Without using the mouse, use the keyboard to navigate through the links and form controls on a page (for example, using the “Tab” key), making sure that you can access all links and form controls, and that the links clearly indicate what they lead to.
    2. Viewers with Disabilities – Numbers in the tens of millions
      1. ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) – http://www.ada.gov
        • Priceline.com
        • Ramada.com
        • Eliot Spitzer’s office – http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2004/aug/aug19a_04.html
      2. Text browsers
      3. Voice browsers
      4. Assistive technology
      5. Screen reader software
    3. Viewers with handhelds, phones, other mobile devices that have various levels of viewability
    4. Google’s Homepage – KISS
  3. Test and Validate the Code
    1. View Your Site in Different Web Browsers
      1. Internet Explorer
      2. Netscape
      3. Mozilla/Firefox
      4. Opera
      5. Text Based Browsers such as Lynx
    2. Website Validators for finding code errors
    3. Make sure the form(s) get processed properly and are easy to read

What Do I Need to Know About Website Content?

Filed under: marketing and advertising — Tags: , , — admin @ 7:34 pm

Site Content

  1. Content Development Plan – Must grab viewer’s interest
    1. Sales
    2. Service
    3. Marketing
    4. Promotions
    5. Photos/Images
    6. Geographic segments demographic segments, etc..
  2. Create Good Copy
    1. Important to have solid foundation
    2. On-going refinement
    3. Attention to keywords
    4. Learn from your viewers – Give the people what they want
  3. Assess Navigability
    1. Any page can be the first page that a viewer sees
    2. Easy to find one’s way around
    3. Easy to find contact information or a contact form
    4. Overall easy to find the info
    5. Not a lot of clicking required
  4. Assess User Friendliness
    1. Good crisp images
    2. Good product/service descriptions
    3. No broken links
    4. Clean lines
    5. Load times
    6. Spell checked

What Are the Basics for Advertising on the Web?

Filed under: marketing and advertising — Tags: , , — admin @ 7:18 pm

Marketing/Advertising/Accessibility/Audience/Traffic

  1. Search Engines
    1. Most Popular
      • Google
      • MSN
      • Yahoo
      • AOL
    2. Complex Algorithms – Criteria used by the Search Engines to rank pages.
      • Copy
      • Accessibility
      • Keywords
      • Links to your site
    3. Submission Process
    4. Your entire website should be cataloged and available
  2. Integrated Marketing
    1. Part of something bigger
      • Industry leading sites
      • Established networks of websites
      • Connect to the website in other advertising, don’t just show the URL
    2. Ad campaigns
      • Statistics and analysis
      • Learn what ads work and what ones don’t
      • Internal ad campaigns
      • Be aware of “pay-per-click”
  3. Website Logs
    1. More statistics and analysis
    2. Traffic
    3. Viewer behavior
    4. Entry pages, exit pages, most popular pages, etc
    5. Can be dangerously misleading
  4. Interaction
    1. Customers
    2. Potential cutomers
    3. Past customers
    4. Your ISP
    5. Peers
    6. E-mail marketing
    7. Forms
    8. Competitor’s websites
  5. Legal Considerations and Crisis Management Plans
    1. Meeting current FTC guidelines for consumer privacy and accessibility standards
    2. Adhering to applicable federal, state and local laws
    3. Privacy and security policies
    4. Liability, class action lawsuits, insurance, etc.

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