Wednesday, March 17, 2004

A Branson story & more...

How to Stand Out In a Crowded Marketplace: "Sir Freddie Laker, veteran of the now bankrupt Laker Airways, had some sombre advice for Richard Branson. Richard was about to start up Virgin Atlantic and wanted some words of wisdom.
As Richard Branson tells the story, 'Sir Freddie sat me down and said, 'If you're going to take on PanAm, TWA and British Airways, you've got to use yourself and get out there and realise that if you dress up in a captain's outfit when you launch the airline, you'll get on the front page. If you turn up in ordinary business clothes, you'll be lucky to get a mention.
'Remember the photographers have got a job to do; they'll turn up to your events and give you one chance. If you don't give them a photo that will get them on the front page, they won't turn up at your next event.''

You can tell Branson was listening carefully, because on Feb 29, 1984, he turned up in World War I flying leather gear and announced the formation of Virgin Atlantic Airways. A CEO going out of his way to give them great pictures was like manna from heaven. In the inevitable massive publicity that followed, few of the readers realised that Virgin Atlantic hadn't even got itself a plane.

When the competition zips, you zap!

Richard Branson learned the zip-zap system quickly, but Harley Davidson took its time. It was the early 1980s and Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha and Suzuki ruled resolutely on the bike landscape in the U.S. Harley's balance sheet was literally dripping with red ink and teetering on bankruptcy.

In the midst of chaos, Harley took time out. First they stopped complaining and whining about protection of local industry.

Then they looked at their competition and drew up a list of comparisons. The Japanese bike makers stressed the high-tech side of things. Harley chose to talk about heritage and tradition. The Japanese pumped advertising dollars into touting new engines, new frames and new suspensions. Harley stuck to its guns with mystique and sheer quality.

Then suddenly like a phoenix, Harley rose again. Let's be the alternative, they decided. Let's do everything the competition can't do. When everyone's zipping, you zap.

...customers knows exactly WHY they should choose you. When you're sitting out on a limb, it's easier for customers to spot you, than when your covered with foliage...

When you think about it, most business is pretty insipid. Most companies get their ideas from other companies. Companies will often say, "They did it, so we can do it or we must do it." And so they go about creating clones of each other. Too scared to break the mould, they duplicate remorsely. This makes it quite easy to stand out in a cluttered marketplace.

First, all you need to do is to make a list of your biggest competitors. Richard Branson did. That gave him a starting point. Then he did exactly the opposite. That's it. Just by doing the opposite and tying it in with your story, you can be spotted a mile off.

Audit your material. Try the zap system. Look at your website. Does it look like a million websites out there? Is it just another sales pitch or is it a true resource? Look at your sales pitch? Is there a way to zap your audience by changing what you say? Or the way you say it? I'm betting my bank balance there is another way. Does your brochure blah, blah, blah its way into mediocrity and sameness? Find a way to stop being a wallflower.

And don't confuse zap with creativity, OK? Already squillions of dollars are wasted each day over creative ideas that have no legs. Zapping is just about being yourself. Different. Whether you're loud or quiet hardly matters.

And if you want to look for inspiration, you don't have to look further than Shakespeare who said: To thine own self be true, for it must follow as dost the night the day, that canst not then be false to any man."

Google

Monday, March 08, 2004


Insurance Norwich Union Direct (NUD), the direct arm of insurance company Norwich Union, has used Pay-for-Performance”! search since 2000 and reports that 50% of the leads generated by Overture go on to request quotations. Travel company Airline Network estimates that for
every £1 spent with Overture, it recoups £50 in sales. As a result, it has increased its spend on Pay-for-Performance”! by nearly eight times.

Google

Could do with getting access to this report...netimperative: "November 2003: Online Travel
Free to members, �99 to non-members.
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Case study PPC PDF

A 424% return on advertising spend is exceptional – this is the return that Figleaves, one of the web’s favourite underwear and lingerie retailers, saw from their campaign across Espotting’s UK network.

1) Keywords
They key for Figleaves was striking a balance between the high traffic, generic search terms, and more targeted terms that tend to convert at a higher rate. Generic terms, such as ‘underwear’ are great traffic drivers as the demand for these terms is high, leading to large search volumes. In comparison more targeted terms like ‘2xist boxer shorts’ have lower search volumes, but because users are much more specific with what they have searched for, they deliver excellent conversion rates. As a bonus, the lower demand also results in more economical bid prices.

2) Titles & Descriptions

Once a user has performed a search, it is the job of the title and description to encourage them to click on a listing. Figleaves ensured that each title included the searched-for term. This not only led to increases in click through rates, but was also an important traffic qualifier – effective titles and descriptions let the user know exactly the content of the site and ensure that only interested users click through.

3) Deep Link

Figleaves also ensured the shortest path to purchase by sending the user straight to the relevant section of the site - eg. a user searching for ‘Calvin Klein boxer shorts’ is delivered through to the area of the site where these can be purchased. ‘Deep linking’ is useful for consumers who want to find what they are looking for with a minimum of effort, and also maximizes conversions by reducing the number of points at which a user can leave the site before purchasing.

4) Maximising Effectiveness

Simply choosing keywords, titles and descriptions is not where the job ended – throught the campaign Figleaves worked with the Espotting team to monitor, tweak and adjust their selection of keywords, dropping underperforming terms and reallocating budget to those that converted best. Figleaves used a combination of their own reporting tools combined with Espotting’s reporting functionality to precisely calculate the returns being delivered by each individual keyword.

THE RESULTS

The targeted nature of the traffic sent through to the Figleaves site meant they saw a 424% return on their advertising investment.

Google

CPC Report
...even the best rich-media adverts obtaining response rates of only 2.1%, the question facing many marketing directors is whether they can continue to justify current levels of spending in a form of online advertising which delivers such a low and unquantifiable return.

The CPC model delivers a clear and measurable return on investment. For instance a recent campaign for a leading online European holiday firm resulted in £37 of sales for each £1 invested in CPC search advertising. This level of return is not unusual and is causing many firms to revaluate how their online marketing budget is being carved up...

The brand building potential of search marketing shouldn’t be ignored and can be particularly important for new entrants into a market or small companies with small marketing budgets. Through the use of search, these types of companies can appear alongside the big brands in search listings and as a result build brand awareness. New players can of course target their spending so that they secure the top spot in a search ranking, for instance during the months following launch to gain recognition. In fact, recent research from
DoubleClick revealed that 41% of internet users gained initial brand awareness from search alone – that’s without the logos and cool graphics.

For businesses of all sizes, search should be a vital component of a company’s online marketing strategy – its targeted, unobtrusive, measurable and low in cost. Arguably, everything that traditional online advertising isn’t.

Google
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