I began my professional working life as a junior copywriter at the local office of a multinational advertising agency. It was great fun and I learned a lot about copywriting. I also, learned, however, about the ‘dark side’ of advertising agencies… and why the pursuit of ‘creativity’ for its own sake usually results in sub-optimal advertising.

Back then, the commercial Internet was only getting started and most advertising agencies focused on producing advertising for the print and broadcast media. Some dabbled in ‘interactive advertising‘ and website design, but for the most part, these burgeoning activities were left to upstart web design shops.

Nowadays, the big agency networks have either integrated, or own separate, web design companies and online advertising is either offered by or through the major advertising agency brands. In any case, online marketing has been elevated to a much higher status by those in the advertising world, and agencies are paying increasingly more attention to the Internet as a medium that is only growing in importance.

All well and good, but there’s a dark side to the traditional advertising agencies embracing online advertising. And that’s bringing their preoccupation with ‘creativity’ to the web.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I value and admire creativity. But what I saw when I was a junior copywriter, and later as a marketing manager for a large consumer goods company, were ad agencies valuing creativity for the sake of creativity, rather than to help build their client’s brand or sell products.

That is not to say that all online ad agencies value creativity over effectiveness (instead of regarding creativity as a means of being effective!) but it’s something to remember when, for example, considering whether or not to work with such a firm.

Tell-tale signs of an agency that is preoccupied with creativity are an emphasis on winning awards and an ignorance of, or negative attitude towards testing and metrics.

Put it this way: if the people wanting to work on your Internet advertising account – including the copywriter, art director and most certainly, the account manager – give you a blank stare when you ask them about their agency’s testing methodology, they are probably not the agency for you!

It’s understandable for some clients to want more ‘brand building’ orientated agencies, and others to want more ‘direct response’ orientated agencies. Different clients will inevitably want different kinds of online advertising campaigns.

But the nature of the Internet is such that many (if not all) responses to any kind of advertising execution can be measured. So whether you’re running a direct response advertisement in order to generate click-throughs and sales… or more of a brand oriented ad measured aimed at generating ad interactions… there’s really no excuse not to measure the effectiveness of a given marketing initiative.

All of which means there’s no place for online advertising agencies that aren’t interested in testing or metrics. Such agencies are operating on the dark side of the business and, unless you’re willing to pay for creativity over effectiveness, not the kinds of marketing company you want to be doing business with…

The benefits of Pay Per Click internet advertising compared with traditional advertising methods is simply this: almost all traditional methods are broadcast methods to people who have shown little interest in buying your product. Think bill board posters, TV ads, radio ads, flyers through doors, magazine ads etc etc. They are all broadcast adverts. Sure there some targeted than others, if you are selling marketing services to businesses, you advertise in a Marketing magazine, but that’s a crude method these days.

Compare that to some searching Google for “how to do online marketing for lawyers”? That’s a person that right at that precise moment in time is interested in learning how to do online marketing for lawyers! If you expect to sell a product or service that can help them, you’d better hope that you’re on the first page of Google. How much is it worth to you to have that user visit your site within 5 seconds of typing that into their search engine? 5p? 10p? 50p?

Sure, you could search engine optimise your website to make sure you have first page rankings for that term, but this takes time and a reasonable investment in cash. This is where Pay Per Click marketing really comes into it’s own, and is under used in my opinion. You could be on the first page of google the same day for that search term for a very small budget. In a week you’d have some indication of how many people are really prepared to search for that term, visit your site, and buy your product. And it could even cost you less than £100 say. This is real time, right on the money, market research for a tiny budget that you simply can’t get any other way.

What’s more, let’s say that you are paying 20p per click, and 500 people click your advert making a total spend of £100. Let’s say your conversion rate is a modest 1%, so you’ve got 5 new orders and more importantly 5 new customers that you can now up sell to. All for £100 spend! How much is your average customer worth to you? It’s attractive isn’t it?

One important thing to know is how Google ranks the sponsored Pay Per Click marketing Adverts. In essence it’s a real time auction. The highest bidder wins. If you bid 20p and someone else bids 25p, they will rank above your. Actually it’s a lot more complicated than that, as if you have a better quality Pay Per Click advertising, it’s possible for you to rank higher than the 25p advert because Google will give boosts to higher performing Pay Per Click Adverts. What this means is that if your advertising professional knows what (s)he’s doing with Pay Per Click bid management, it’s possible to get higher rankings (read more traffic) for less money. So your valuable online website promotion budget goes further and you save money. Conversely, if your online advertising campaign is managed by someone who doesn’t know what they are doing, it will cost you more. Or worse, Google will penalise your campaign by artificially increasing the amount you have to pay for a click, this is called getting a “Google Slap” for being a bad Pay Per Click advertiser.

The Phone Broadcast Club is an affordable, yet necessary business marketing tool for the masses, which will cause any legitimate business to create an unlimited cash flow without wasting valuable time trying to prove or convince prospective clients, because everyone needs leads today; not tomorrow, and for $100 bucks, I don’t think people would think twice.

Reason #2

The Phone Broadcast Club have well over 15 pre-recorded professional voice messages provided with no additional cost associated with them. However, if you prefer, you can call a special number and record your own personal custom message right over your own phone.

Reason #3

The Phone Broadcast Club has lowered its cost from 1.8 cents per minute at a .30 second interval call rate to 1.5 cents per minute at a .06 second interval call rate. This is one of the most affordable broadcasting tools available by far, especially when you compare their closes competitor, the i Buzz Pro Team.

Reason #4

The Phone Broadcast Club has a reverse 2up compensation plan, which allows members to break even from their first sale, and start making profit from their third sale. The second and forth sales, including the people, are passed up to the sponsor, which creates an awesome passive residual cash flow. This is very important for shoppers who are in the phone broadcasting club market.

Bottom line: Operating or starting a business in this economy, the Phone Broadcasting Club is the ideal tool for decreasing your spending while increasing your sales, and while spending more time with your family and friends. If the findings in this Phone Broadcast Club review is to your standards, then you too would agree that these four reasons are awesome.

J V or Joint Venture Marketing

J V or joint venture marketing refers to collaborative marketing efforts. In a J V marketing setup, one or more companies or individual entities pool their marketing resources and launch one marketing campaign.

In a J V or joint venture marketing campaign, there is only one target market. The companies may form the venture on a peer-to-peer basis where each involved entity can contribute equal resources (may be money, skills, infrastructure, technologies, or a combination of these and other marketing resources) so that each company will get equal market exposure. It can also be that one company spearheads the project and the rest of the participating companies contribute their resources according to the J V marketing contract.

In any case, J V marketing is a very practical marketing method. Since resources are pooled and responsibilities are shared, there are lesser costs for each company. Moreover, the venture can reach more people and penetrate the market deeper because of the combined skills and comprehensive range of activities that only several companies acting together can successfully and efficiently accomplish.

J V, Joint Venture Marketing: Illustration

If you own a cosmetics company and your target market is composed of career or professional women aged 23 to 40, you can get together with a credit card company, an office clothing company, and a leather shoes and bags company. Together, you can sit down and discuss how you can reach your target market.

For instance, you can agree to set up a website for career women in this age group. The site can be a career guide cum career forum where your target customers can exchange their views, ask for advice from in-house career experts and from each other, read career tips and articles, watch out for career seminars, and search for jobs.

In this scenario, you can share the costs (including the costs for putting up the site and marketing the site to your target market) of the undertaking equally among yourselves; each company will get equal space in the home page and an individual page in the website. If you wish to become the prominent player and perhaps earn a bit of profit, too, you can put up the website, promote it to the target market, and later on sell advertising space on your website to the companies who may be interested in marketing their products and services to your target audience.

Resist the temptation to have the radio or TV station write your copy for you. Doing so usually results in your ads sounding and looking pretty much like ads for everyone else.

Understand that all media can and do provide help with your ads but they do not have the staff nor the expertise to go in depth on your individual marketing situation.

Deadlines always trump creativity in any medium you choose. When you run a radio ad, you are speaking to a captive audience. The listener has to change the station or turn down the volume in order to tune your ad out.

Speak to the radio listeners directly. If you do, they may listen. If you do not, you and your ad will be toast.

Start with an engaging headline . . . a strong opening that tells the listener what you are going to tell them. Then tell them. Complete your ad by telling them what you have already told them!

Lastly, urge listeners to take some kind of action: buy your product or service; call for an appointment; send for a free report, etc.

Just as in print choose a single theme in broadcast ads. Never use bullet points from print ads. Spoken words or phrases that are disjointed rarely make it to the brain of the listener.

Avoid empty words and puffery. Writing radio commercials is a VISUAL exercise. People actually SEE words. It actually takes longer to say something and have it heard than it does to write it and have it read.

The average 30 second radio spot should be no more than 70 words (130 for 60 seconds). Those words should include your name or the name of your business no less than three times.

There are two types of radio stations: 1) background music stations that are listened to somewhat passively and 2) foreground stations like talk radio that require listeners to pay attention.

Match your ad with the format of the station. Generation Y and business execs do not respond to the same voices or vocabulary.

Just as in print, repetition in radio is crucial to your success. If your budget is tight, consider running your radio spots in the same time slot every day for one week.

Drop out a week and come back in for another seven days later on. This strategy will help your break through the clutter. Just as in print, radio has its own clutter.

At the risk of stating the obvious, TV is a visual medium. Some say (correctly) that the medium is the message. Visuals are critical when you use TV . . . more important than actual words.

Television ads sell primarily by stirring up emotions. Viewers rarely remember details of your TV ad, but they do remember how your ad made them feel. It is your the job of your TV ad to make viewers feel motivated.

Get to the point . . . quickly. You have two to three seconds to get the TV viewer’s attention. That means you need the visual equivalent of a strong headline.

A strong headline is a necessity for any kind of ad–print or broadcast. Blow the headline and you blow the ad. No headline, no chance. Weak headline, little chance.

If your TV opening is strong, you then have no more than five seconds to engage with the viewer to get across what your ad is about.

Miss this window and viewers will tune out or zap your ad with their clicker. Benefit copy in TV ads (what is in it for the viewer) need to be visual. SHOW and Tell is the name of the TV ad game.

Show your benefits and show your logo. Get them both up on the screen. Don’t forget to show your address and phone number.

Use a voice over to recite these vitals as they are being shown. Always monitor results. Someone saying they saw or heard your ad does not comprise results.

Old style advertising that entertains, but does not sell, is rarely cost-effective. Saying something clever and hoping people remember just does not cut it anymore. Results are the name of the ad game for small businesses no matter the medium.

Becoming an online advertising consultant can be rewarding work. If you enjoy business, advertising, and the online it may be a career direction you may want to take. All you need to do is take stock of your knowledge and skill, educate yourself, and be ready help all levels of customers. If you believe you are more suited to one aspect, then you can always go the way of the niche consulting role. How you choose to function in your online advertising consultant role is really up to you.

Typically, an affiliate program is open to anyone who wishes to join. The merchant will provide links, which include a tracking unique code, to the members of the affiliate program. The members will then place their links all over the online using any combination of the online advertising techniques listed above. As you can see, neither would survive without the other.

A little more reading and researching of internet advertising issues will prepare you for a job as a reliable internet advertising consultant. Read more on how to become an internet advertising consultant from articles on how to become an internet advertising consultant you can easily find internet.

Many people forget that they can get more information about any subject matter, be it internet marketing course information or any other on any of the major search engines like Google.com. If you need more information about internet marketing course, go to Google and be more informed about it.

Online advertising is one of the fastest and easiest ways of promoting your business. With your online connection, you can build and promote your website. In online advertising, creative and technical aspects of the online is needed like design, development, sales and advertising.

The main advantage of online advertising is the availability of required information and that’s what everybody is looking for. Every customer now uses online to browse through different products online, and they always have choice to buy any products which seems to be good and valuable.

Another important reason is that internet advertising and internet advertising is often cheaper that most print or broadcast advertising alternatives, and sometimes it’s even free. Many forms of internet advertising also offer long-term benefits that make the initial expense even more cost effective. Some internet advertising campaigns can work weeks, months or years longer than the initial effort.

Many people that searched for internet marketing course also searched online for small business internet marketing promotion, Pay per click help, and even internet marketing budget.

Web sites have the same shelf-life as print and broadcast advertising commercials. Very seldom do you see the same ad run longer than several months? You’ll see the same product, but the packaging changes because times change, issues change, public consciousness changes, and the way people research and judge businesses or buy items changes. If businesses are not updating their materials or message, they are shortchanging themselves and will eventually be overtaken by smarter, more aggressive competitors.

The new competitive edge is to redesign and update your Web site in order to stay relevant to potential customers.

And these customers are no longer down the street or across town. They’re worldwide and they’re creating a large pool of wealth for businesses that take their Web site seriously and do what’s necessary to connect with people. The Internet has erased state and country borders and has created a global economy that gets more technically savvy each day.

When potential customers surf the Internet, the first impression they get from your Web site is its design. Much like a storefront, it’s either attractive and professional, or it’s shoddy and questionable. A powerful Web site design creates a sense of trust and respect between you and your on-line visitors. The site explains its purpose clearly and quickly, and why a visitor should spend time browsing it. The client has to be able to say with little doubt, “This is a place where I can do business.”

Search Engine Optimization

The growth of the World Wide Web continues at a phenomenal pace. And that explosion is quickly changing the way people shop for items or information. The World Wide Web has truly made us one economy, one world.

Whether it’s a product, service, issue or cause that you want customers and potential customers to know about, you’ll need to rank high in major search engine results or become a victim of “search fatigue” because you’re buried on page 8 or 18, where most people never tread.

It is paramount that your Web company specialize in Search Engine Optimization so your business is listed on the first or second page of a search. This tactic ensures more eyeballs see your site than your competitors. “Eyes on screens” is the name of the game when it comes attracting new customers. Your Web company also must be dedicated to studying the major search engines to stay in tune with new algorithms and search methods that deliver top rankings.

Experience

Almost anyone can build a Web site these days, so your best bet is to find an experienced company that has built hundreds of successful sites — someone who’s seen it all and has the knowledge to prove it. They should have a good understanding of Web marketing, e-commerce applications, data management, and e-mail marketing.

A broad background in Web design could include: computer companies, medical groups, trade industries, financial management firms, E-commerce businesses, auto retailers, software companies, real estate companies, architectural firms, engineering companies, military contractors and many other businesses. Experience like this ensures your Web company understands the world of business, the economy and buyer’s habits. It provides a great competitive edge over the business using a run-of-the-mill Web designer.

For the small business owner, broadcast advertising can be costly in terms of total dollars spent, but the cost to reach each prospective customer is often lower than other methods of advertising. It can also be somewhat intimidating to decipher jargon such as CPP, CPM, ratings points, and dayparts. For the purpose of simplicity, I always ask all media reps to provide a CPM, or cost per thousand (more on this later), so I can easily compare advertising costs across all advertising media.

I’ll outline the pros and cons of buying broadcast media, as well as explain some of the terminology commonly used by media salespeople.

Pros

The ability to reach large numbers of people at a time, while targeting who you want to reach by advertising in specific programs. For example, advertising beer during the Super Bowl. Also, having your own television or radio ad often creates a perception of credibility.

Cons

Can be expensive, especially when adding in the cost of producing your commercial. In the case of TV, it is difficult to make immediate changes to your ad.

Terminology

CPM – Cost Per Thousand

Refers to how much it costs to reach a thousand people in a given area or “market”. Cost per thousand is not affected by the size of the market.

CPP – Cost Per Point

The cost to reach one rating “point”, which represents a percentage of TV viewers or radio listeners in a market. The value of a rating point is affected by the size of the market, e.g., 1% of the viewing audience in Los Angeles is greater than that of Providence, Rhode Island.

Reach – The number of unduplicated households or people exposed to an ad.

Frequency – The number of times a household or person is exposed to an ad.

Daypart – A programming time period, such as television primetime (8-10pm).

Obviously, I’ve just touched on the basics of buying television and/or radio advertising. I plan to address specific advertising topics for the small business owner in future articles.

The best broadcasting schools now recognize that a broad skill set is needed if a graduate is to be adequately prepared for the job market. Training includes writing and editing skills as well as vocal interpretation and delivery. Students learn the basics of the broadcasting business. They also learn about the technology that radio announcers use on a daily basis, and how to troubleshoot problems with electronics. Today’s radio broadcasting schools must allow individual students to tailor a program to their interests, and must turn out a well-rounded graduate.

Colleges with broadcasting programs are competitive – this is because the job market is competitive and those who seriously want to get into the profession know that they will have difficulty breaking in if they don’t have qualifications from one of the best broadcasting schools. Gone are the days when radio stations hired untrained people just because they seemed to have a natural flair or talent: stations need skilled technicians, operators and announcers, and they look to radio broadcasting schools to provide the talent they need to get high ratings.

Although the job market is competitive for graduates of the best broadcasting schools, it is also expanding, particularly for broadcast and sound engineering technicians and radio operators. While employment opportunities for announcers may decline slightly in the next decade, the jobs available to various types of broadcasting technicians are expected to increase through 2014, making this a good career path for those who are willing to seek out colleges with broadcasting programs and put in the necessary effort.

Salaries earned by graduates of radio broadcasting schools vary by experience and job description. A radio show host in the United States earns an average of $40,000 yearly with the highest paying employment being found in the larger cities. Sound engineering technicians with qualifications from the best broadcasting schools can expect to be making as much as $50,000 annually after ten years. Pay for this group is highest in company jobs or private practice.

Contact colleges with broadcasting programs for the most up to date information on education choices and job markets. Statistics given here are from PayScale Inc. and U.S. Department of Labor.

The average radio show lasts between 3-4 hours everyday. That’s about 20 hours of original material that radio hosts and producers are tasked with producing. You try talking for 20 hours a week and see how well you do. That is why radio shows actively pursue guests for their programs. You need free radio publicity and free radio advertising, they need free guests to fill their broadcast schedule. It’s a win-win.

So why is it that so many people you talk to are finding it difficult to get booked on radio talk shows? Why do so many experts have difficulty getting free radio publicity? Simple, because they aren’t thinking like radio hosts. When making your pitch remember these three simple rules:

1) Radio Hosts Don’t Care About YOUR Product, They Care About THEIR Product.

And their product is their radio show. It is their job to produce the best, most entertaining program that they can each and everyday. They don’t really care about your new book, or your latest invention, or your killer blog, or your new song. All they care about is their audience. That means YOU should care about their audience too. Know who the target demo is. Know what interests them and target your segment around them. If you can entertain the audience, then you are making the host’s job easier and you will be asked back again and again.

2) Be Interactive.


Radio Talk Shows are interactive. That’s why the host is constantly giving out the studio phone number. As a guest on a radio talk show you need to be interactive as well. The host may not have questions for you but his audience probably will. Be prepared to take calls on your topic. In fact, encourage the host to take calls. Have answers prepared – Good answers. Also, people like to play games. Can you drum up a quick quiz and give away some free prizes? Is there a self-test that the audience can do at home or in their car? Can you make your segment fun with a personality quiz related to your topic? The more you can involve the audience, the more they will trust you. The more they trust you, the more likely they are to buy your stuff.

3) The More You Sell, The Less You Will Sell.

You aren’t doing an infomercial. This isn’t a paid advertisement. You have been invited on a program to entertain and inform the audience. You can’t do that by selling your own product. Think about a radio appearance as a game of show and tell. Only this time, you only show. Leave the telling to the host. Show the people that you are an expert on your subject. Show them that you have the answers to their questions. Show them that you can help them with their problems. Then, let the host tell them where they can contact you for more information. If you sound like a commercial the audience will do what they always do when they hear a commercial…change the station!