Marketing Consulting

by BMIElite on September 30, 2011 Leave a Comment

Search Engine Marketing Increasing Traffic For Your Company

by Matt Genna

Imagine getting into your car, backing out of your drive way, but not being able to drive to your destination because the road is blocked off. What do you do? You now have little to no options but tons of frustration; this is what it would be like if there were no search engines available.

In this case, the car symbolizes a person’s idea or need, while the road symbolizes a search engine. Search engines help people navigate the World Wide Web efficiently, bringing the most relevant results to the user based on what they were looking for. Luckily, we are privileged enough to use such a tool in our daily lives as long as you have access to an internet connection.

Many times a company or business will find themselves wondering why their website isn’t at the top of the list when searching vaguely for the type of service or product they’re providing, and nine times out of ten it is because they haven’t properly done any research on Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Search Engine Marketing is a process of internet marketing that uses paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion to help increase a websites visibility in a search engine result page.

It has been said that 93% of the users who use search engines will not look past the second page of the search results that they will acquire. This is why many companies and businesses care about where their website will land after searching for a specific market that they dabble in within a search engine. But it isn’t always the top results being the first to be clicked on, search engines also could help you generate traffic to your website through the advertisements being shown on the search engine results page or through sponsored link pages based on keywords in the users search, this is known as Contextual Advertising. Contextual Advertising is the process in which marketers will place ads on various websites that are similar to their products or services, mainly to catch the user’s eye that is browsing the other website, but is interested in the same topic. For example, if a user is viewing a website pertaining to sports memorabilia, and an ad pops up relating to a sale on baseball cards, this is Contextual Advertising. Companies use this method all the time, and search engines realize how valuable of an asset this is and will charge the company for the amount of times that a user will click on any of these advertisements; this is what is known as Paid Inclusion or Pay Per Click. This is a better way of marketing in my opinion because you will only be paying for something that will show results, while increasing your ranking on search engines due to the traffic that is being generated through all these types of outlets.

Filed Under: BMI Elite Blog, Digital Advertising, Digital Branding, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Campaign, Marketing Consulting, Marketing Strategy, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: contextual advertising, marketing campaign, marketing campaigns, search campaign, search campaigns, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search marketing, sem, seo

by BMIElite on September 21, 2011 Leave a Comment

More Infamous Examples of Viral Marketing

by Jennifer O’Brien

An early example of viral marketing comes from Mystery Science Theater 3000. In the early 1990s this TV show had little distribution. They prompted their viewers at the end of the show to start recording it on video tape and pass it on to friends. This was a unique viral/word of mouth marketing technique in a time when not many people were using the internet.

Another unique example of viral marketing was created by BMW in 2001. They made a series of eight short films called The Hire and posted them on their website. These films were very expensive to make and starred actors like Don Cheadle, Clive Owen, and Madonna. In the end, the cost was worth it because it was viewed by 11 million people in a very short amount of time and prompted sales to go up 12% just in 2001!

In 2006, Jack Links Beef Jerky came up with a series of clever videos called Messin with Sasquatch which eventually became television commercials. These short films show a group of people walking around in the woods who see Sasquatch and play practical jokes on him. The videos became popular on YouTube where people were led to the company’s website.

A very recent example of viral marketing is from J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books. She sent her fans on a hunt to find a hidden message. She posted geographical coordinated on her nine favorite fan sites. When her fans plugged the coordinates in Google maps, they found a letter at each location. These letters made up the word POTTERMORE and fans began to try and decode the message. People were talking about it like crazy on social media sites and wondering with anticipation what it could mean. When fans typed in pottermore.com all that popped up was a sign that said (coming soon).

It was finally announced that Pottermore.com will be an unbelievable website for Harry Potter fans to do many cool things. Fans will be able to create an account, choose which house of Hogwarts they want to be a part of, read the backstories of different characters, and do many things to interact with the story and continue on the journey. The site will be open to one million people on July 30^thof this year, and be open to everybody sometime in October. This is an extremely unique and creative example of viral marketing! I suppose that should be expected from the author who brought us seven incredibly unique and creative books.

Filed Under: BMI Elite Blog, Digital Advertising, Digital Branding, Digital Marketing, Guerilla Marketing, Marketing Campaign, Marketing Consulting, Marketing Strategy, Online Marketing, Video Marketing, Viral Marketing, Viral Marketing Campaign, Word of Mouth Marketing Tagged With: BMW viral, harry potter, marketing strategy, mst3k viral campaign, mystery science theater 3000, pottermore, pottermore viral, pottermore viral campaign, video marketing, viral campaign, viral marketing, viral marketing campaign

by BMIElite on September 15, 2011 Leave a Comment

Viral Campaigns Making An Impact On The Web

by Matt Genna

Many times you hear about something, whether it being a product or service, through all types of sources. Some of those sources could have been through the media, a newspaper ad, a TV commercial, but usually the biggest form of communication is through word of mouth. Your friends, family members, classmates and co-workers actually have the biggest impact on spreading information about something then let’s say a commercial on TV. This is due to a trust that you have already established with them.

When trusting someone, you then trust their opinions. When someone you trust tells you about a certain product or service that they have tried out, and it’s positive feedback about it, you are more than likely going to check it out. This usually happens due to a successful Viral Marketing campaign. You see, at one point the person who expressed positive feedback about the product or service that you are now looking up, at one point was subjected to some sort of advertisement.

Viral Marketing or Viral advertising is in short, a “marketing buzz”. It uses the form of “hear-say” if you would, to spread a buzz between consumers who were specifically targeted in a type of market to advertise. Many times you will find this specific form of advertising popping up throughout the internet on outlets like social networks and social media websites. This is due to the amount of consumers that can be reached out to on these specific websites. Social networks like Facebook or Twitter have been rapidly growing with the amount of people that are constantly connecting to it throughout the world. Also, it is very easy to target a specific group of consumers if needed, just by either searching or visiting the groups or forums that are linked to the social networking sites.

Another source for a successful Viral Marketing campaign is through social media websites. Examples of social media websites are sites like Youtube and Vimeo. These sites allow anyone from anywhere to upload any type of media content to the internet. With that alone being a great tool for advertising, they also allow users that have accounts with these websites to login and post comments on their thoughts of the video. Now, what some marketers will do is post up a video that is entertaining to the masses but still getting their product or service across. For example, if you look at something like the movie “Twilight” and search for it on Youtube, you will not only find cuts of the actual movie, but you will also see fan-made videos of them, like parodies. Many times this is the most popular videos due to a majority of the people on these sites enjoying funny videos, now see, you might be asking how does that have to do with anything? It’s simple. When watching these videos, you’re not only getting a good laugh but you’re now aware of the movie and will recognize the name of the movie if it’s being talked about. Also, most of the time people will check out the movies in which are being made into a parody skit to see how well the parody was actually put together.

So as you can see, Viral Marketing can be quite the successful advertising technique. It all depends on what it is that you want to advertise, I say this because it has to mesh well with peoples interests on these social networking or social media sites. The users have to respond well to it on these sites for it to create a popular buzz, and with these sites being the most used websites on the internet, you can see how Viral Marketing campaigns can make quite the impact.

Filed Under: BMI Elite Blog, Digital Advertising, Digital Branding, Digital Marketing, Marketing Campaign, Marketing Consulting, Marketing Strategy, Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Viral Marketing, Viral Marketing Campaign Tagged With: marketing buzz, marketing campaign, marketing campaigns, marketing strategy, social networks, viral advertising, viral marketing, viral marketing campaign, viral marketing campaigns, viral marketing strategy

by BMIElite on September 12, 2011 Leave a Comment

Viral Marketing: Using Social Media To Get Your Product Exposed

by Matt Genna

If you own a computer or smart phone, chances are you’re familiar with websites like YouTube, Vimeo, etc., as they are popular ways for people to view various types of online media. On these websites anyone can login and upload endless types of content, whether it’s a video cut of your home videos or pictures in which you could create a slideshow to show everyone on the web. Regardless of whatever you choose to put on, it’s almost guaranteed that a wide array of people from all parts of the world will be able to access it. With that being said, as a marketer, you can only imagine the possibilities of the endless types of markets you can tap into.

Marketers recognized this and it is the reason why they use these social media outlets to advertise various products and services. However, most people today are also savvy to the ways in which marketers use social media to advertise; this is why marketers have to come up with creative techniques to catch a random person’s eye on the web. People don’t like to be bothered when browsing the web, which is why there are things like pop-up blockers, spam filters and so on, so it’s quite the challenge for marketers to actually get their advertising efforts across to the masses through any form of internet marketing. One of the routes many marketers choose to go in this case, however, is viral marketing.

Viral marketing often uses pre-existing social networks to create a “buzz” about a company or product through a self-replicating viral process. In other words, viral marketing can take advantage of an already established social network, creating hype about a company or product through the mouths of the people in the social network. In this case, marketers use video clips as a way to create the buzz around the people. Most of the time when referring to these types of videos, marketers will create humorous video content, seeing as most people seem to enjoy watching funny videos when browsing these types of websites.

The trick is to provide the user watching the video with something they enjoy watching enough to spread the word to their friends and family while still advertising whatever it is they need. But, not only does the viral campaign need to be well put together to work, but so does the product or service as well. You can only advertise something so far before it will have to hold up to the hype created around it. Let’s take the movie trailer for “Snakes on a Plane” for example – as soon as this trailer hit the web and found its way onto YouTube, there was an immediate reaction from the people. When searching the name on YouTube after being released, you could easily find trailers that people made mocking the film, parodies of it, etc. – everyone was talking about this film. And although there was so much hype surrounded around the film, the film itself ended up showing a mediocre box office.

So, if you are considering marketing through social media, you should also consider if the product or service in which you are advertising is right for this type of marketing technique. It’s all about the timing for any type of marketing, so be sure to take that into consideration also when advertising. But when advertising through viral social media, know that it works when executed properly.

Filed Under: BMI Elite Blog, Digital Marketing, Integrated Marketing, Marketing Campaign, Marketing Consulting, Marketing Strategy, Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Viral Marketing Tagged With: marketing digital, social media marketing, social media viral, video sharing, vimeo, vimeo viral marketing, viral marketing, viral marketing campaign, viral social media, viral video production, viral videos, what is viral marketing, youtube, youtube viral marketing

by BMIElite on September 9, 2011 Leave a Comment

How Social Media has Increased the Use of Viral Marketing

by Jennifer O’Brien

Using social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace has become a way of life for many people. People are always logged on looking at pages, checking the newsfeed, changing their status, etc. This massive use of social media has left a big opening for viral marketing to flourish. And, in a way, viral marketing and social media sites have become indistinguishable with viral marketing being the concept and social media being the tool or medium.

The basic premise of viral marketing is word of mouth which goes great with social media sites where people communicate and share things. The newsfeed is where most of the viral marketing takes place. Every time you like a page, post a comment, “check in” somewhere, RSVP to an event, etc., it is loaded onto the newsfeed. Then all of your friends are able to view your activity on the newsfeed. As you can imagine, this is a great opportunity for marketers and there are many ways to market virally on social media sites.

One way is by the use of applications via social media sites. For example, foursquare, an application which enables you to “check in” at certain places via your smartphone and gives you the option of posting on Facebook and Twitter. Every time you “check in”, it is loaded on to your newsfeed for all of your friends to view. This is a great way for foursquare and the locations that people checked in to market virally.

It is now possible for a company to have its own page. When a social media user likes or follows a company’s page, it is posted on the newsfeed; thereafter, users are exposed to the updates of the company. This is a great opportunity for businesses because they have the possibility of being seen by all of the users’ friends and followers.

Social media sites have increased viral marketing through YouTube as well. People are able to post videos from YouTube to their newsfeed. There are many companies who use YouTube to do viral marketing and people posting videos on their Facebook or Twitter accounts has helped bring viral to a higher level of social.

Social media sites are a great channel for viral marketing to occur and it is certain that this has caused a drastic increase in viral marketing.

Filed Under: BMI Elite Blog, Digital Branding, Digital Marketing, Integrated Marketing, Marketing Campaign, Marketing Consulting, Marketing Strategy, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Viral Marketing Tagged With: marketing campaign, marketing management, online marketing, smm, social media, social media blogs, social media campaign, social media marketing, social media marketing tips, social media networking, social media sites, social media today, top social media sites, viral marketing, viral media

by BMIElite on September 1, 2011 Leave a Comment

Viral Marketing: Marketing By Numbers

by Matt Genna

Social networks today are some of the most visited websites by millions of people around the world. They help keep everyone in contact with relatives and friends no matter where they are located; it keeps them up to date with events and lists the birthdays of all your friends so one doesn’t miss an important day. It has become a crutch in a sense, because many people rely on these sites for each of these things.

It is because of this daily high demand of the people that not only the social networks profit but the marketers as well. Marketers who indulge into the social networks with their advertisements benefit because of all the people that are subjected to the advertisements when visiting the social networks, a chain reaction you could say happens. But sometimes it isn’t just about having a flashy banner, or pop up.

In marketing, when advertising ones service or product it is good to evaluate who would use that product or service the most, as in let’s say age range. The age range of most people that use social networks are between 14 and 35. Knowing this, it could make or break marketer’s advertisement efforts if the product or service doesn’t benefit them in anyway, thus causing them to ignore and possibly creating a negative gossip surrounding the product or service, depending on how the marketer went about advertising it to the people in the social network. For example, people tend to not react in a positive matter when being spammed with all different sorts of un-needed advertisements.

But when advertising successfully, the outcome could be highly beneficial. In order to successfully advertise on a social network you would first need to analyze your campaign and if it’s the best form of advertising for the product or service to attract your targeted audience. The second thing you would need to do is select the best social networks for the product or service you are providing. The third thing you would need to do is target groups or forums on the social network that in which relate to your product or service. Once doing that, the fourth step would be to now spread the word of your product or service throughout the groups and forums, not by posting as the owner or employee of the company, but as a normal person. Doing this, people will react and listen better at times, this is because they will end up trusting someone who comes off as a consumer that has tried the product or service and are providing them with informative feedback.

Once the people on the forums or groups see the feedback from others that are a part of the same group or forum, they then will generate their opinions on the product or service. Thus, causing a viral word about the product through word of mouth, this is an example of Viral Marketing. In order to have a successful Viral Marketing campaign, or any form of marketing campaign, you need the masses to back you up and help spread the word of your product or service in a positive way. “Marketing by Numbers” for short.

Filed Under: BMI Elite Blog, Digital Advertising, Digital Branding, Digital Marketing, Marketing Campaign, Marketing Consulting, Marketing Strategy, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Viral Marketing, Viral Marketing Campaign Tagged With: facebook, marketing campaign, marketing campaigns, social media, social network, social networks, twitter, viral marketing, viral marketing campaign, viral marketing campaigns

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