JOHN SUMSER,
E D I T O R

LINDA WILSON,
R E P O R T E R


S P O N S O R S


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The advertising
industry is on
the verge of
being shattered
into a thousand
fragments due to
the knowledge explosion
and the proliferation
of new technologies.
There are no
more grand theories
that hold sway
over the entire
industry.
Michael Strangelove


Advertising is
one of the minor
arts, so don't
be intimidated
by it. Try
not to lose
your sense of
playfulness.
Keep it fun.
Robert Bly



Reality
is more
complex
than
it seems.
John Gall



The System
is its own
best
explanation.
John Gall



It's better to
do a few things
really well than
than to do
a lot of things
badly.
If you can't
make the necessary
commitments of
time and energy
to your
electronic
marketing
efforts
scale back
your plan.
John Sumser


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January 11, 1997

Weekend Reading

Here are this weekend's "must-reads".

  • A Seller's Market? from AdWeek's Interactive Quarterly
    Wednesday's column mentioned that in terms of buying banner ads on the web, it is a seller's market right now. This article discusses the demand for banner ads and comes to the same conclusion. It also discusses how the shortage of particular targeted ad buys will evolve, and other methods of targeting based on demographic and user information. If you do any ad buying read this article.
  • Finding Email Addresses of the Media from Chapter 6 of Publicity on the Internet by Steve O'Keefe
  • Released this month, Steve O'Keefe's book covers in part a subject that most of the Internet marketing and advertising books don't -- publicity and online press release distribution. This informative excerpt from the book discusses ways to find email addresses both online, off-line, and from online services and includes a link to the book's companion web site that has a multitude of links to promotion resources. O'Keefe is a low profile high performance marketer who really knows his stuff.
  • Banners that Move Make a Big Impression from Advertising Age
    As online advertising evolves so does banner design. This article discusses where interactivity is taking banner design and how advertisers are using animated gifs, electronic forms, and Shockwave-enhanced games. --Linda Wilson

January 10, 1997

Odd Bedfellows

Here at IBM Central, we're Mac users. The past months have been a rocky time as we've come face to face with the question of whether or not to invest in "Wintel" platforms as a means of continuing into the future. It's not been a good time to be a Mac user.

This week, we had the pleasure of downloading the live version of Internet Explorer (finally). It's a solid tool and seems to crash less than the alternatives. In an announcement that really surprised us, Apple has said that it will be bundling the Microsoft browser with future Apple computers. Maybe there's light at the end of the tunnel.

January 9, 1997

Advertising Resources

Attorney, Mark Welsh has created a useful list of advertising resources. If you are considering buying advertising for your site, Web Site Banner Advertising has many links to articles and sites that can help you get started. Online advertising can be very confusing and hard to evaluate. While you will still have a lot of research ahead of you, this site will identify some of the scams that exist and identify companies that have been less than ethical. This site also includes a page on public service ad banners, a concept that has been getting a lot of discussion time on some of the marketing mailing lists. Community obligation issues aside, a public service banner can be a good way to implement advertising banners into your site's design prior to having your advertising system in place. Mark provides many public service banners on his site that can be used immediately. This site has resources for both advertisers and ad buyers. --Linda Wilson

January 8, 1997

Advertising Advice

We just finished buying banner advertising for a client on the major search engines. This task sounds relatively simple but here is a list of do's and don'ts based on personal experience:

  • Leave a lot of time before you want the ads to appear.
    Like it or not, many search engines are short staffed, and frankly it's a seller's market right now. We had trouble getting email and phone calls answered in a timely fashion.
  • Decide if you want to buy the advertising yourself or hire a broker.
    The problem with brokers is that they choose the best advertising for your site from the sites they represent. While there is no extra fee (the brokers are paid by the site where the ads are placed), you might not be able to negotiate as good a deal due to the fact that the site must pay the broker a percentage of your ad buy.
  • Consider buying keywords
    Advertising is priced per thousand (CPM) impressions (number of people who view the page). There are several different rates ranging from $20 CPM to $60 CPM depending on where your ad is placed and therefore how targeted your market is. The most expensive type of advertising is keyword advertising. For example if you sell telephone equipment, you could purchase the word "telephone", so that each time the word telephone is typed into the search engine, your banner is displayed. To decide what type of advertising is right for you takes some trial and error, but consider the following. Keyword advertsing delivers a higher rate of click through (more people click the banner and go to your site) than other types of search engine advertising. If your objective is to drive traffic to your site, the cost per person delivered can actually be lower and more cost effective with this type of advertising.
  • Watch search engine popularity
    We purchased our ads from the top five search engines (you might be surprised who is number one). However, current ranking is not as important as the number of impressions the engine gets on the words or topic area you are interested in. Different search engines are used for different types of searches. The most heavily trafficed search engine may deliver the lowest number of impressions on a specific word. The other thing you need to consider is rate of growth. Many search engines do not charge you for the increase in traffic during your contract. For example AOL had 13,000 impressions on one of the topic areas in November and now is obtaining a calculated average of 40,000 impressions a month. While a leap that great is unusual, the advertiser can really benefit if they buy a three month contract which includes all the traffic obtained and is based on the traffic rates prior to purchase.
  • Get first right of refusal
    Make sure you get them to include "first right of refusal" in your contract. This entitles you to be first in line to re-purchase the category or keyword and any increase in traffic after your contract expires.
  • Change your banners
    Most advertisers recommend you change banners frequently. Watch your click through rates and when they start to decline change your banner design slightly.
  • Negotiate
    Don't be afraid to negotiate and ask for discounts if you are willing to sign a 3, 6, or 12 month contract. Be careful though, the net is changing at such a rapid pace you need to be able to adapt quickly and react to what works at that time.
--Linda Wilson

January 7, 1997

Search Techniques

Many discussions about online marketing center around search engines. Most of the time we are concerned with the editorial and how to be a part of it, or advertising on the search engines. However, marketers are also big users of search engines, and being a good researcher is a skill. We consider ourselves to be good searchers but there is always a desire to improve our search skills and find relevant information faster. Some would argue that the real experts in searching are librarians. LEO (Librarians and Educators Online) have created a free resource site called Search Insider which provides search tips, news, reviews, and advice related to searching the Web. Search Insider also covers new search sites and developments to existing search engines that can be important to marketers. The bulk of the information on this site covers tips and tricks for effective searching or analysis of which search engine is best for which task. --Linda Wilson

January 6, 1997

NetMailer Invents "Bcc"

Ooooops. That's essentially what we said last week (Netmailer invents Bcc). Just in case you don't know, that bcc area on Eudora and most other mailers will hide your recipients list. It's a boon to smart people everywhere who don't want to burden their recipients with long lists of addresses (or don't want to let everyone know who's getting a copy of the mail...(we often bcc Bill Gates when writing Steve Case and vice versa).

In spite of our blunder, NetMailer from Alpha Software is still a reasonably priced tool. we still suggest reading their article on email.

Now, we're going to wipe some of this egg off of our faces.


Take a look at the Archives. We've indexed all the past issues with topic pointers.



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Check out the Archives....75 Weeks of Back issues including:

Week Ending January 5, 1997 Including:
  • Drowning In Mail
  • Mediocrity
  • Two Research Resources
  • Alta Vista Ads
  • Weekend: 1996
Week Ending December 29, 1996 Including:
  • Forum One
  • New Domain Names
  • New weekend Feature
  • Navigator 4.0
  • Cascasing Style Sheets
Week Ending December 22, 1996 Including:
  • Staying Abreast
  • Project Cool
  • Personal Casting
  • Look Smart
  • Demographics
Week Ending December 15, 1996 Including:
  • New Ad Age Supplement
  • Marketing Awards
  • Reference.com
  • Media Bistro
  • Cows at TUCOWS
Week Ending December 08, 1996 Including:
  • Lycos Changes
  • Websites That Suck
  • Ultra Whatsit
  • Excite
  • Web University
Week Ending December 01, 1996 Including:
  • Internet Commercials
  • More About Search Engines
  • Convenience Is King
  • PR Update
  • Evolution of Search Engines
  • Pathfinder Turns 2
Week Ending November 24, 1996 Including:
  • Fundamentals
  • Notable Bookmarks
  • Web Digest for Marketers
  • Effective Banners
  • Internet Fever
  • GIF Wizard
Week Ending November 17, 1996 Including:
  • Fundamentals
  • Sharrow
  • Advertising Tools
  • More Fundamentals
  • Wilson Internet Services
  • Editor and Publisher Interactive
Week Ending November 10, 1996 Including:
  • Gamelan
  • Design Excellence
  • Java
  • Superscape
  • The New 5 Ps
Week Ending November 3, 1996 Including:
  • Office Humor
  • High End and Personal
  • Net Post
  • Types of Links Redux
  • Who's Marketing Online
Week Ending October 27, 1996 Including:
  • WiReD IPO
  • Art and The Zen of Websites
  • Stalker Page
  • Dave Winer
  • Killer Websites
Week Ending October 20, 1996 Including:
  • The SOS
  • Do You Need A Website?
  • Big Boy Internets
  • 809 Phone Scam
  • Advertising Resources
Week Ending October 13, 1996 Including:
  • Little Email Things
  • Snorkeling The Web
  • Red Herring
  • Webmaster, Inc
Week Ending October 6, 1996 Including:
  • Len Duffy Interview
    • Marketing On The Web
    • Small Competitors
    • The Personal Touch
    • Integrating The Web Into Your Marketing
Week Ending September 29, 1996 Including:
  • How Much Will Your Website Cost?
  • The Jimmy Stewart Approach
  • Product Development
  • Components of Marketing
  • Back In The Saddle Again
  • Much, Much More
Complete Indexed Archives(17 months of marketing and design)

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All material on this site is © 1995, 1996 by IBN (The Internet Business Network), Mill Valley, CA 94941