e-Marketing Today

Source: ActivMedia ResearchOnline markets for Fashion & Style products (F&S) awoke in 1999, and promise to have a fabulous season in 2000. An influx of traditional mainstream shoppers to the Web in the past year has been encouraged by arrival of traditional mainstream marketers who are no longer merely testing the potential for online sales. Companies like JC Penney’s just closed a $100 million e-commerce season for 1999, up 370% from 1998’s meager beginnings. The result, across all F&S categories, is a $4.2 Billion online marketplace that still represents only 1.3% of the total $325 Billion spent for these goods in the U.S. Clearly, the potential for online markets in Fashion & Style merchandise is huge.

(New York, NY - October 14, 2003) — Jupiter Research, a division of Jupitermedia Corporation (Nasdaq: JUPM), today announced that according to a new report from its Jupiter Research division, only 14% of consumers say that personalized offers or recommendations on shopping Web sites lead them to buy more often from online stores, and just 8% say that personalization increases their repeat visits to content, news or entertainment Web sites. This is in contrast to the majority of consumers who stated that basic site improvements would make them buy or visit Web sites more often — 54% cited faster-loading pages and 52% cited better navigation as greater incentives. The report outlines why personalization efforts on Web sites often fail and suggests other alternatives.Based on interviews with dozens of companies and a recent Jupiter Research executive survey, the new report “Beyond the Personalization Myth: Cost Effective Alternatives to Influence Intent” finds that building and operating a personalized Web site can cost four or more times more than operating a comparable dynamic site. Yet most sites that have deployed personalization have realized inadequate returns on their investments. According to Matthew Berk, Research Director at Jupiter Research, “Most Web site personalization projects fail to deliver real business benefits. Our industry has always assumed that a personalized Web site was a better one, both for the visitor and the site operator. Our research has found that this is not the case.”

According to the report, for every intended benefit tied to a personalization-related agenda, site operators can select from many other tactics to achieve the same goals, at far lower cost. “To drive key business metrics, most sites are better off focusing on the basics, like usability, information architecture and making key tasks easy for users to accomplish,” said David Schatsky, Senior Vice President at Jupiter Research.

The complete findings of this report are immediately available to Jupiter Research clients online. For more information about this report or Jupiter Research’s Site Technologies & Operations research service, please contact Kieran Kelly at 1-800-481-1212 or e-mail researchsales@jupitermedia.com.

NEW YORK, August 22, 2003 - The Direct Marketing Association (The DMA) today acknowledged that it proposed to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) an innovative and groundbreaking industry/law enforcement cooperative effort to identify and prosecute spammers. Operation Slam Spam, as the effort is now called, represents the first concrete step by any group to publicly put all spammers on notice that federal and international law enforcement bodies now will have formal assistance and major resources devoted from industry to identify, prosecute, and lock up the bad actors who threaten to wholly undermine e-mail as a viable communications medium.

“Our message to spammers is: If you’re lying to consumers, not honoring consumers’ requests, trying to swindle consumers, and ruin the Internet economy - the end is near,” said H. Robert Wientzen, president & CEO, The DMA. “Spammers are taking the Internet on a joy ride, and we are going to work hard to put a stop to it.”

A broad consensus has emerged among industry leaders, government officials, law enforcement agencies, and consumer groups that the vast majority of spam, pitching consumers with everything from fraudulent Nigerian money-laundering schemes to organ enlargement pills, comes from no more than 200 - 300 offenders globally.

The FBI and The DMA are still in the early stages of implementing Operation Slam Spam, and a more formal and detailed announcement about the group is not expected for another few weeks. With Operation Slam Spam, industry would provide technical expertise and resources to federal law enforcement officials.

“The DMA initiated discussions with the FBI as one part of a long-standing, multi-pronged approach to rid the Internet of spammers,” said Wientzen. “It has been our expressed desire for a long time to arm law enforcement officials with additional private-sector resources, support federal anti-spam legislation, and work with industry on technological solutions that help curb the growth of spam. Today’s announcement is simply the next logical step in our plan.”

“Delivery rates for legitimate e-mail communications are dropping significantly,” said Wientzen. “Our members can no longer depend on this promising technology to communicate with their business partners, let alone customers and prospects. The larger problem is that individual consumers also can’t depend on e-mail to receive communications that they have specifically requested - not just legitimate advertisements, but bill-payment receipts, travel reservation confirmations, and even holiday party invitations from wrongfully blacklisted companies, relatives and friends.”

Legitimate e-mail marketing has become an important and valuable marketing tool that consumers respond to in great numbers. A recent survey conducted by The DMA showed that 45.8 million adult Americans purchased products and services such as clothing, books, travel and hotels at least once in the preceding 12 months in response to a legitimate e-mail advertisement, accounting for at least $7.1 billion in sales. Eleven million Americans, representing 9 percent of e-mail users, have made at least one purchase of similar goods and services in response to unsolicited e-mail advertisements. Significantly, 69 percent of e-mail purchasers report savings by shopping via the medium, on average saving $48 per purchase.

Marketing and C-Level Executives Are Dissatisfied With the Way They Generate New Business Yet More Than Half Lack Formal Process to Correct the Problem

U.S. companies may be suffering huge losses in revenue due to mismanagement of new business development activities, according to an online survey fielded by two leading executive organizations. Many of the corporate officers polled believe revenues at their companies could increase by more than 20 percent through the adoption of improved prospect harvesting practices.

Entitled “Gauging the Cost of What’s Lost,” the study suggests that while companies may be good at generating large volumes of business leads, most prospects languish because sales is too frequently focused on only closing the most promising and qualified short-term opportunities. According to business acquisition experts, an estimated 80 percent of leads are typically lost, ignored or discarded, compromising top-line revenue growth. Some 73 percent of respondents in this survey say their company has no process for re-qualifying and revisiting business leads.

The study is based on a third-quarter, 2004 online survey of nearly 800 respondents in which CEOs, CFOs, COOs and Division or Group Executives represent 47 percent of the respondents, while nearly 20 percent represent CMOs and Senior VPs or VPs of Sales. Approximately 13 percent of the respondents represent companies with more than $250 million in annualized revenue. The study was fielded by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, whose members include more than 1,000 top decision makers at high-technology companies, and the Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum, an elite group of 500 senior managers dedicated to furthering operational visibility and financial accountability at global corporations. The survey was underwritten by Wendover Consulting, a leading provider of Opportunity Recovery Services outsourced by leading BtoB marketers.

In “Gauging the Cost of What’s Lost,” nine out of ten survey participants said new customer acquisition is important to business growth. Yet, approximately 44 percent of all respondents are unsatisfied with the way their companies go after new business. Nearly three-quarters of respondents believe they could increase revenue at least 10 percent with better business development practices; 37 percent say they could increase the top line by more than 20 percent.

Also among the survey findings:

--  While 53% of respondents believe the sales and marketing functions
    have a close and collaborative relationship, only 7% feel the two groups
    work together very effectively to harvest business prospects.
--  56% of the respondents don't have a formal process for generating,
    qualifying, certifying and validating new business opportunities.
--  56% of respondents convert less than 10% of their business prospects
    into deals; approximately 30% covert less than 5%.
--  Most respondents are not satisfied with their conversion rates; only
    5% are very satisfied.
--  Nearly half of the respondents say it takes at least six months to
    close a deal.

“New business acquisition and conversion is challenged in today’s commercial enterprise, and the problem is significantly impacting top-line performance,” said Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council and founder of the BPM Forum. “Marketing today is utilizing new digital channels of interaction to gain customer access and response, but current qualification and filtering systems are unable to handle the influx of leads. Companies have to devote much more attention to how they target, capture, qualify, manage and track pipeline opportunities within their organizations.”

“It’s time companies take a hard look at the revenue they’re leaving on the table because they lack the infrastructure, disciplines and budget necessary to effectively monetize new business inquiries and opportunities,” added Larry Dillon, Chief Executive Officer of Wendover Consulting. “Marketing is focused on creating new business leads; sales is focused on closing the most promising of those leads. It’s my belief that a new and separate function is now required to extract unrealized revenue growth from marginalized, overlooked and neglected business opportunities.”

To undertake the research, the CMO Council and the BPM Forum joined forces with BusinessWeek Research Services and Sales and Marketing Strategies & News magazine. As the online survey was conducted, it was accompanied by one-on-one interviews with senior marketing executives at several major companies.

By: Paul J. Bruemmer

Is Search Engine Marketing cost effective enough to increase profits for B2B marketers? You bet, and here’s why. It’s always been conventional wisdom that the fastest and most efficient way to research products and pricing is on the Web. Now Enquiro has documented survey research on the role of search engines in B2B transactions.

As you know, B2B transactions differ from most consumer transactions because these decisions require coordination between a number of different personnel before the final transaction is made. Therefore, the process requires a period of time between researching the product and placing the order. It’s an ongoing rather than snap decision.

“The Role of Search in Business to Business Buying Decisions” is a well-designed study of approximately 1500 participants responding to a 40-question survey that was validated with pre-testing before implementation. You can download the entire report for free, and here are a few highlights:

• When participants were asked to indicate how they would go about making a B2B purchase, 93.2 percent said they would research the purchase online.
  
• When asked if they would use a search engine at some point in this task, 95.5 percent of participants indicated that they would.
  
• When asked where they would start their search for information, 63.9 percent of participants chose a search engine over consumer review sites, e-commerce sites, manufacturer’s sites, and industry portals.
  
• When taking budget into consideration, manufacturer’s sites and industry portals were the chosen starting place as budgets increased. However, 86.9 percent of participants said they would visit a search engine after visiting those sites.

The study is rich with too many details to cover in this article, but following are some important conclusions:

• Search engines play a dominant role in B2B purchases.
  

• Search engines are used in the early or mid research phase in the buying cycle.
  

• Google is favored over other search engines.
  

• Search engine research takes place at least one to two months before the buying decision.
  

• Good balance between organic and paid search is necessary. Organic SEO gets over 70 percent of the clicks.
  

• Position is a factor, with over 60 percent clicking on the top 3 listings.
  

• Most users decide which listing to click on in seconds upon scanning the page.

With all this qualified traffic originating from search engines, it is more important than ever for B2B marketers, wholesalers, and B2B exchanges to ensure their Web sites are correctly optimized for good positioning in search results. There is also great value in SEO/SEM as a user-friendly marketing tool.

The Uniqueness of Search Engine Marketing

Search engine traffic is highly targeted. That’s because potential buyers who find your B2B offerings through search engines are looking for your products and services on their own, so they are predisposed to hear your marketing message. You can’t find a more qualified prospect than that. Here’s what distinguishes search engine marketing from other types of advertising:

1. Non-Intrusive:  Search marketing is a non-intrusive marketing tool. Most advertising, both online and offline, interrupts consumer behavior. If a user goes to a web site for info, up pops an intrusive ad. Reading a newspaper? Ads dominate and force articles to be continued on another page. With search engine marketing, the user is actively seeking your products, services, and information. They are delighted to be driven to your site.

2.      Voluntary: Search marketing is the result of user-originated behavior. Your visitors from search engines and directories have voluntarily clicked on your listing rather than any competitors, thus they are motivated to explore your offerings.

How good is the ROI? How effective is search engine marketing and optimization for B2B? What are the key-points to consider regarding a B2B search engine optimization and marketing plan? Please join me next month for Part 2 when we examine the answers to these questions.

Paul Bruemmer is founder of trademarkSEO. His distinguished career in Internet marketing began with the inception of the Internet. A renowned author, educator and Internet visionary, Paul pioneered the concept of search engine positioning before “search engine optimization” was part of the lexicon. His company provided search submission services to over 10,000 websites, including many of the most prominent names in American business.

Philip Kaplan is a well-known entrepreneur. He has gained popularity with his F***edCompany.com web site where he was writing about dot com failures.

Now, he is AdBrite CEO, contextual ad network, one of the main competitors for Google AdSense.

In this interview you can find info about AdBrite, his views on current trends in online advertising, how to get VC funding, how to make successful companies etc.

Dejan Bizinger: Please describe your service AdBrite?

Philip Kaplan: AdBrite is “The Internet’s Ad Marketplace”. We connect thousands of
webmasters to thousands of advertisers. We sell, host, and service advertisers on our publisher’s behalf.

DB: Why should people use AdBrite and not Google AdSense, for example? Google AdSense is a great system for showing Google’s ads and getting paid for clicks.

PK: AdBrite allows the publisher to accumulate and manage *their own* advertisers. AdBrite allows the publisher to define his products, layout, pricing and terms.

Many publishers use AdBrite and Google AdSense for two separate revenue streams.

DB: What do you think about the current online advertising industry and how do you see it in years that come?

PK: The online advertising industry is just getting started. Only a small percentage of overall advertising spending is online, even though most of our advertisers target demographics spend more time online than watching TV or reading paper. It seems online ad spending should outgrow traditional ad spending in the years to come.

DB: You are a young man but you already have several successful web sites and services. What are the most important steps in order to create successful and profitable web sites?

PK: I always try to do as much as I can with as little as possible. I also think solid technical and programming knowledge is key to my work thus far.

DB: You’ve already raised 4 million dollars from leading venture capital company Sequoia Capital. How easy is to get a VC these days?

PK: My guess is if you have a good business idea, a proven track record of success, and have earned the trust of other people in the business, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Making the decision to pursue outside investment was the hardest part for me.

DB: How did you get an idea to make your popular news rumour and commentary web site about struggling dot com companies called F***ed Company?

PK: Like many people, I was astonished by the hype and spending of dot-com
companies and create a site to chronicle the downfall.

DB: Why many dot com companies failed?

PK: There are roughly 25,000 unique companies listed on F**kedcompany.com.

DB: One of your services Mobog is a popular moblog site. What do you think about moblogs and blogging in general?

PK: Back in the olden days, we used to call blogs “websites”. I think
websites are great.

Now, just in time for the Web 2.0 conference, which gets under way Tuesday at San Francisco’s Sheraton Palace Hotel, we bring you The Chronicle’s list of… the Top 10 Lies of Web 2.0. (We had a little help but, hey, Web 2.0 is all about sharing, isn’t it?)

The truth will set you free

1. We learned our lesson last time. And we’re going to cash out before this bubble pops.

2. This is not a bubble. Hot parties, overheated PR pitches, and five or six dozen social networking sites are just healthy indicators of a new boom.

3. It’s all about community and sharing. But we told our venture capitalists that our exit strategy will make them rich. (Corollary: But you have to know someone to get into our conference/party.)

4. Online advertising will pay for everything. As if click fraud is any kind of a threat.

5. These sites are so easy, my mother could use them. And they’re so geeky, she has no interest in even trying.

6. The analysts are trustworthy now. Like the one who said MySpace will be worth $15 billion in a few years — or was that the one who said Amazon was worth $400 a share? Whoops, I’m mixing my bubbles.

7. There’s no glut of social networks — young people are always up for trying something new. And we’re happy to share in the 17 percent of them who aren’t glued to MySpace.

8. Our site is still in Beta. And it won’t be out of Beta until we figure out how to make money from it, or sell it to Google, whichever comes first. (Paraphrased from Ivor Tossell’s piece in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper.)

9. We’re different from all those other sites. But we have a silly name, open APIs, some flashy Ajax technology, and other features just like the rest of them. (Thanks again to Tossell.)

10. We look forward to working with our new partners at Google. Take the money, hand over the keys and step aside. Larry and Sergey are driving your bus now.

Are you interested who spent the most on online advertising in January, 2006? Well, here it is. This list was made by ClickZ and TNS Media Intelliegence.

Top 10 Internet advertisers (I saw it first on Croatian Futuria blog).

Position Advertiser Media Value ($ 000) Sector
1 Vonage 31,707 Tech
2 Classmates.com 17,840 Misc
3 Netflix.com 17,497 Ent
4 Ameritrade Brokerage 8,397 Fin
5 Circuit City 7,033 Ret
6 Monster.com 6,886 Class
7 E*Trade Financial 6,783 Fin
8 Sharebuilder.com 6,531 Fin
9 LowerMyBills.com 6,499 Fin
10 University of Phoenix Online 6,292 Edu

For the complete Top 50 list visit ClickZ.