The Year Print Advertising makes a Come Back

At a recent client meeting, we all agreed around the table that 2011 was the year print advertising was going to make a comeback thanks to the QR Code. Slowly but surely we’re starting to see more and more of these black and white barcode-esque images appearing in flyers, brochures and in print advertising. These tools are fabulous for promoting user interactivity and driving inbound leads through a fun and unique way.

What’s even better is that QR codes are quick and easy to set up, have complete tracking capabilities and can be used for an assortment of campaigns. We’re just brimming with ideas for these codes in 2011, what are yours?

The Future of PPC

Today Search Engine Land has reported from Google’s API Blog that advertisers who use the v2009 API can now use up to 2 dynamic parameters in the ad copy. These ad parameters include numbers such as prices, discount percentages, quantities, etc.

For example, if you run an airline and you want to display the latest prices for a trip from New York to Los Angeles, you can do so using the API. The ad copy can read something like, “Fly from NY to LA for $249, Act Now, Only 3 Seat Left.”

The benefits of such an update are huge and are ultimately too big to ignore. If you’re selling online, show me one other advertising medium in which you can update the ads as quickly as you’re advertising the price and product on your website. By citing real time prices, deals and availbility, your conversions will undoubtedly increase as customers are drawn in by ads with attractive and relevant copy.

Ultimately, it is evident that for real gains, a basic PPC campaign just won’t cut the mustard.

Google’s take on the Travel Industry in 2009, Part 2

During the second part of this series, I will focus more the behaviours of prospective vacation goers. Google’s presentation provides excellent insight into what the important factors are when planning leisure travel and what is nudging them to press the “confirm booking” button this year.

Where are Consumers getting their information from?

Not surprisingly the Internet has become the top go-to place for information for prospective holiday maker. Google drills this stat down further and then asks which genre of sites will you use for summer travel planning?

As we can see the “Internet” here though goes far beyond search with hotel websites being the top resource to use for summer travel planning. Looking at the range of resources which consumers use, we can deduce that it is critical for any travel industry business to successfully engage in the full spectrum of the online product mix  so as to target prospective consumers no matter where they look on the internet. This graph however does give a good indication as to where travel businesses should put the majority of their focus.

The Importance of Search

More customers are turning to search for a variety of travel related information.

As Google notes, consumers expect to use search more this summer than last year across all points of the travel consideration process therefore no matter what your business is, if you’re in the travel industry, you need to maximize your SEO. Indeed, in Google’s research they discovered that 4.8% of all search referrals to travel retail websites resulted in an immediate booking so attention must be paid to effective conversion.

Inside the Consumer Mindset

When asking what the main considerations are for consumers when planning leisure travel this summer naturally, price remains King.

What I find surprising is how unimportant consumers found “Reviews by people like me”. Sites like Trip Advisor are built on a variety of customer reviews and we’re seeing more consumer evaluations in travel sites such as Expedia and Lastminute.com. Still, this lack of importance supports the findings in graph 2 which found that only 18% of consumers surveyed would use independent travel review sites. Just looking at this list, travel businesses should focus on maximizing the areas which they can affect. Clearly, there’s nothing you can do about the weather of a destination, or its social and economic climate. But you sure can offer competitive prices, complimentary extras, consumer friendly cancellation policies and attractive promotions to wet the appetites of your prospective holiday makers. And speaking of promotions…

It seems holiday consumers are happy to plan their vacations in advance and for their prompt planning they would enjoy a discount towards their holiday more so than anything else. Via online marketing we suggest utilizing the valuable results from this graph and promote the deals which your customers want. Offer discounts for advance purchase via Facebook and Twitter, that way you know you’ll have the bookings to see you through the tougher seasons. Send extras deals via targeted email campaigns and offer free nights via your hotel websites – this clearly is what your customers want!

No doubt the web is becoming an increasingly important area to promote travel related industries. These surveys should provide insight into what areas your online marketing campaign should be targeting and what offers are attracting your customers. Our advice, go and make use of these results and be prepared to reap the benefits!

Google’s take on the Travel Industry in 2009, Part 1

I recently attended a really insightful webinar produced by Google. It covered the behaviors of a selection of vacation goers who book their holidays online and how their actions are changing this year in comparison to previous years. There was a lot of useful information for the Las Vegas business owner so here’s the first part of my 2 part summary of some of the key points of the presentation entitled “Google & Compete Present: Travel Shopping for 2009″. In this part I’ll look at the trends of vacation goers this year in comparison to previous years.

Travel Booking Activity is Rebounding

The vast majority of data collected supports a rebound of travel booking activity this year in comparison to last. 40% of upcoming travelers surveyed are planning for more than in 2008. Clearly the harsh economic conditions of last year would affect the pockets of potential vacation goers, but the good news, as Google reports, is that potential travelers are now looking considering a vacation. More specifically, Google’s findings report that only 14% of the consumers surveyed are planning to cut back on their travel this year compared to last.

Online Travel Bookers in March at an all time high

I found this stat really interesting. A lot of economists and analysts aren’t putting their necks out and predicting the start of the upturn, but the signs are out there that things are improving and I think this is one of the many indicators. Google’s online travel bookers graph below shows that March 2009 had the highest amount of online travel bookers compared to any month in 2007 and 2008. Clearly now the view is that people do have an amount of disposable income to put towards a vacation.

Consumers are likely to do more this summer

Google’s results show that online travel bookers are pretty likely to book and do more than last summer. Taking guided tours and renting cars see the highest growth but overall this data looks very promising for all tourism related industries.

Consumers are willing to re-visit destinations this summer

Google’s survey reports that half of travelers surveyed are looking to revisit destinations they have already visited. I think this stat really does hit home the fact that it’s imperative to give incredible customer service and good financial incentives to insure that loyal travelers want to return back for a fabulous experience. Only 30% of those surveyed wanted to visit a destination they had not been to. With a substantial amount of tourists under its belt, this is great new for Las Vegas. At Nyx Marketing, we would encourage businesses to make the most of this finding by collecting guests data (email, facebook and twitter addresses) to ensure that a company can effectively build customer loyalty by offering them targeted incentives for revisits.

Where 2009′s vacation goers will be heading

65% of those surveyed will be traveling to other US states this summer according to Google. Only 11% will be visiting other countries, which suggests that many travelers will looking for holidays close to home this year. For the tourism based business this has huge implications for any search efforts. If 65% of travelers will be visiting other states, then I would strongly advise targeting any PPC efforts to the states which show most interest in Vegas and in your industry. Looking at Google Insights we can see the majority of interest in Las Vegas tourism related searches (vegas hotels, hotel las vegas) comes from nearby states such as Arizona, Utah and California while, unsurprisingly, searches for Las Vegas flights seem to come from states slightly further afield namely Hawaii, Montana and Wyoming.

Knowing the behaviors and locations of your potential consumers is crucial in your online marketing efforts. In the next part of this blog, we will focus on what sites consumers use to start their travel planning, what factors are important to travelers and also ask how long travelers spend researching online before they booked their trip.

The Domino Effect

I’m sure you’ve heard the news about the Domino’s Pizza YouTube video. How many links were you sent about it? I know I was sent a few, through Facebook and through Twitter. It’s a sign of the times and a testiment to the power of social media how quickly the video was spread and how fast the damage was made to the company’s reputation.

As noted by Patrick Vogt in his Forbes article , within a few days of posting their video, the unsavory antics of the Domino’s Pizza employees received more than a million YouTube hits from global sources. It took Domino’s 48 hours to respond to the video. They didn’t issue a formal press release but responded by opening a Twitter account after the incident and posting a YouTube apology. Various estimates were made as to the cost of this debacle to Dominos’ reputation. A national study conducted by HCD Research using its Media Curves Web site found that 65% of respondents who would previously visit or order Domino’s Pizza were less likely to do so after viewing the offensive video.

Overall, you really get a sense that Domino’s response was too little, too late. Clearly their ear was so far from the ground that they were floating on a balloon of their own reputation, a bubble which has been heavily deflated by this recent set back.

I find it interesting how Domino’s main competitor Pizza Hut has attempted to learn the social media errors of its nemesis by publicly advertising for a Twittern to look after their Twitter account for the summer. Although some have argued that perhaps Facebook would be a more appropriate medium for Pizza Hut, the point is, they’re getting their presence out there and marketing themselves in a positive light and progressively learning about social media.

So what are the lessons we can learn?

Monitor what is being said, blogged and filmed about your company as it happens, and not when it’s too late

One thing you can do right now is set up a Google Alert for your company’s name. These handy alerts which can be read in an email or an RSS feed are sent one your topic of choice is detected by Google. This is a fast way to begin your social media monitoring.

Be Proactive, not Reactive

As was mentioned before, Domino’s response was too little too late. Why didn’t they have a social media body out there? Don’t make the same mistake Domino’s did and start to create an effective social media campaign suited for your business. It doesn’t have to be anything hugely elaborate, but make sure it has a clear objective and is managed properly.

Know where your audience is

As talked about in her article, Liana Evans makes some great points about how to use the appropriate social medium to target your audience. By doing this you could save yourself a lot of time and resources.

Social Media is a high speed train travelling at a substantial pace… are you on board?

Back to PPC Basics

A Pay Per Click campaign utilisied across the 3 main serch engines; Google, Yahoo! and MSN is fundamental when it comes to generating targeted traffic to your website.

So what are we talking about here? Well Pay Per Click (or PPC or Paid Search) is a type of internet advertising which allows you to display a small three-line advert when someone searches on a relevant keyword. The user searches “discount office furniture” for example and your advert relating to discounted office furniture can appear in the top positions, or down the right hand side (see below). At this point there is no charge for this, the only cost from the search engine comes when the searcher clicks your advert and comes through to your website, which can range from just a few cents to several dollars.

Relevancy is key for search engines – this is their main aim, therefore they want to display adverts which are relevant to the person’s search, and they reward this financially. Google in particular can read the text on the page you send the visitor to (the Landing Page) and if it’s a close match to the keywords used in the search your Quality Score will increase. This is one of the factors that determine where your ad will appear in the search listings, so it’s not just about bidding the highest bid, your content needs to match your ad too.

Optimising your PPC campaign to get better value can be done in a number of ways but it does need constant attention which is why most companies use an experienced digital agency. One factor to monitor is the Click Through Rate (CTR) of your campaign and keywords. For example, if your ad is shown 100 times and three people come to your site you have a CTR of 3%. Ideally you’re looking at a range of 1.5% to 3% is and this demonstrates that the text in your adverts is appealing enough to attract searchers to click the ad.

As in traditional advertising, the copy used in your advert is critical, and if the exact words used in the search appear in your advert they are put in bold which draws the eye, and again increases the click through rate. High CTR will boost your quality score and increase your Return on Investment (ROI).

I mentioned landing pages earlier, the importance of relevant text to improve your quality score, well it goes further when you start thinking about relevancy. Your aim must be to minimise the number of clicks the visitor has to make to get to the desired information – and you know what that info is, as they’ve told you in the search keywords used! Using tracking software such as Google Analytics, you can monitor the conversion rate of how many people go on to enquire from a certain keyword.

Overall, PPC is fabulous for getting quick exposure. A campaign can be set up within seconds and providing relevant traffic from first page results. Although Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the best long term investment, for efficient exposure and campaigns which require immediate promotion, PPC is the way to go.

Time to up the ante on your digital marketing efforts

As we sail through the murky waters of the present economic downturn, it has never been more imperative than now to maximise results from your marketing efforts. But you already know this, heck, it’s a no brainer - times are hard, to survive businesses need to implement better strategies and come out of the recession fighting. Now, more than ever these better strategies have to must include digital.

Promoting business, both online and offline has changed and there is no reason not to fully optimise your site, promote it full and engage in the growing trend that is social media. Digital marketing, in particular social media is a two way discussion and it is imperative you are on both sides.

Here is why you need to start putting more eggs into the digi-basket:

Effective Monitoring

Thanks to tracking and anlysing tools such as Google Anlytics you can track with detailed reports not only the efforts of your marketing campaigns, but the trends and habits of your visitors. With this information you can see what campaign is working for you and what isn’t quickly and before you’ve wasted thousands of dollars implementing and executing it.

I think the prehistoric adage of “I know half my advertising dollars are wasted – I just don’t know which half!” is just not acceptable and, thanks to the revolution of digital marketing, it no longer has to be the case.

Your Competitors Are

Despite eMarketer’s recent report on Online Ad Spend Forecasting, their CEO concluded,

“It is true that the growth rate for interactive has slowed over the past 12 months, but marketers are continuing to migrate a greater percentage of their precious ad dollars toward the digital channel.”

Undeniably your competitors are one of these marketers so can you afford not to compete with them in the digital frontier? I think not.

Target your market directly

You can easily target your campaigns to your desired demographics. As Google’s technology improves, so will their capabilities to target ads to interests and behaviour. For now it suffices that you can target your ads to those searching for a particular key word. This is unique compared to traditional marketing as here you have prospects coming to you looking for information, products and answers. With most traditional media such as TV and print, you are screaming your message to them and quite often, not effectively.

In addition, you can target your customers according to location which is incredible for small businesses looking to boost revenue. To develop this futher why not use this geo targeting in your Pay-per-Click campaign to customise landing pages depending on where your customers click from? People love personalization  so why not exploit this and make your prospects feel loved?

Ultimately as with all marketing efforts, it’s about the quality of your efforts and how you allocate resources. Essentially, I urge you to make sure that you work smarter and not harder and employ online marketing initiatives relevant to you, your business and your available resources. I’ll be showing you how to do this in the weeks to come so be sure to check back for more hints and tips.

New Blog on the Block

A big warm welcome to the Nyx Marketing blog. Here you’ll find the latest news on digital marketing, hints, tips and tricks to improve the success of your online efforts. I’m here to talk about what’s really going to make a difference to your sales and conversions and what’s not, the techniques that are going to get people talking and the ones which are going to get people snoozing.

Now I’m sure some of you might be thinking, “oh geez, another techno blog with long boring posts, here we go again”. Not so dear reader. I’m here to take a lighter approach to this serious subject, to seperate the wheat from the chaff and to bring you the key information which is going to benefit you and your business the most. We here at Nyx want to take the pain out of filtering through the huge onslaught of information surrounding digital marketing giving you only what you need to know and what is relevant to you, the Las Vegan business person.

Liking the sound of this? Great, why not grab a cup o’joe, sit back and let us do the work. Happy reading!