Advertising and Marketing

Living in a world of ever more sophisticated technologies one can’t help to notice some changes in the way people goes about everyday life. Today, everything in the entertainment world revolves around active content. The days of adverts being forced down on consumers is slowly but surly changing to viewers choice. Here is why.

PVR or Personal Video Recorders, The Internet - live steaming and websites and mobile device will force the marketers of today to rethink strategies. PVR recorders allow the viewer to record his favorite program in advance and then watch it 10min later; allowing him to forward through TV adverts and only watch programming of interest. Marketers are forced to make adds that actually entertains, otherwise they are ignored. Life is to fast tracked to wait 5min for all the add breaks to pass and then only continue with normal programing.

A quick calculation and one can quickly see why viewers will do this. An averaged episode of Grey’s Anatomy is 30min. Add all the add breaks in between (in South Africa) and one can add another 20min to the program aired, totaling a staggering 50 minutes.

My feel is that the world of marketing should change to in-show marketing. If and where someone is drinking a Pepsi, make it visible to the viewer. Make adds that viewers actually want to see. Video clips must be posted on websites so that they can be POD casted and distributed from user to user. The means of market exposure is much less in terms of consumers being reached, but the add will capture the imagination of the user, if it is good, which will drive more effective marketing.

Website marketing should be taken more seriously. Markers must stop wasting money on adverts that will be fast-forwarded and ignored. Advertise creatively! For more info visit: www.placid.za.net

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Tags: ideas, market direction, Marketing, marketing methods, POD Cast, PVR

If you are planning to exhibit at an upcoming exhibition or event, then there are many ways in which you can further promote your business and stand, in addition to having the stand at an exhibition. You can in effect, achieve far more than just having your stand present at an exhibition. Several ideas are discussed below.

Promote your presence at the exhibition
There is usually an official website designed for most exhibitions, at least for exhibitions which take place at most of the major venues, These websites also very often have a page dedicated to a list of exhibitors and sometimes the exhibitors name is linked to their own website. If exhibiting at an event, check that your company is listed and if possible, try to get your website name linked to your website

Promote your website at the exhibition
When at the exhibition itself, promote your website so that people will check your services and products in the future. You can use your business cards, literature or writing on the stand itself, to promote your business. The sales campaign need not end as the exhibition finishes. As people get home and hand their children the free balloons they were handed (with your logo and website address on) your website address might float around a persons home for days. Giving out free pens, with your website address written on the outside of the pen, is another inexpensive yet effective tool. The literature you hand out an event can also be used to get your website address out into the public domain.

Get listed on the venue websites
Many of the top exhibition venues sometimes have a dedicated page listing suppliers of exhibition stand equipment and services. The NEC International exhibition centre in Birmingham, UK’s, website for example, has an ‘Exhibition Suppliers Directory’ and the site has very high visitor numbers. Fees are sometimes charged to advertise on such a site, but this expense can be relatively low compared to other media and is thus worth considering.

Using your own website
You can also use your own website to promote and highlight your intention to exhibit at an event. By using your own website, you can communicate with potential customers to let them now of your presence at certain events. An even more effective and direct way to communicate with people is via E-newsletters. By having a simple database and an opt-in area on your website, you will then have the ability to target people directly.

Portable, pop-up, modular and custom-made exhibition stands

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Tags: advertising, business, exhibit, exhibition, internet, Marketing, NEC, olympia, promote, stands, tool

These five indispensable tools will help you to compile, respond to, maintain, track and otherwise gain control of your marketing efforts online. All of them are even available for free or at a very minimal cost. While you might be able to function for an initial period without some of these, ultimately you’ll need them all if you’re going to grow an online business. The “fabulous five” essential online tools include:

1. An E-mail account

The first essential tool is an e-mail account capable of handling large quantities of mail, large attachments and file sizes. Most free e-mail accounts aren’t really suitable and many sites and group lists don’t accept them. Google has by-invitation-only e-mail accounts that house a stunning two gigabytes of storage. (gmail.google.com/) Hotmail now offers 250 megabytes of free e-mail storage which in itself isn’t too shabby either. There are so many others that just typing in “free e-mail” into a search engine will yield scores of sites including those from Netscape, Yahoo, Hotmail, Google, and Lycos among others.

2. An auto-responder

Initially, you also may be able to self-respond to the incoming messages to your e-mail account, but eventually, if your marketing campaign is working, you won’t be able to manage all your inquiry traffic without assistance. That’s where the auto-responder will come in handy. It will acknowledge incoming mails as they arrive with your pre-determined message, saving you, your business and your sanity. There are numerous good ones available at no cost online. Here are some for starters:

http://www.freeautobot.com/ allows to follow-up on e-mails. The program is free with no ads

Another free auto-responder is downloadable at: http://www.macurious.com/free/

A tutorial on auto-responders and auto-reply e-mail services as well as free software downloads is provided at: http://www.creatingonline.com/site_promotion/auto_responders.htm

A free autobot is available at: http://www.talewins.com/FREEbot.htm

http://www.webmasterfree.com/software/E-MailTools/E-mailNotification/free_auto_responder.html is yet another good free auto-responder downloadable from the web.

3. A List server

Another essential tool for managing your soon-to-come throngs of incoming inquiries, requests and orders is your list server. As you build your opt - in e-mail list of contacts you’ll need a way of sending messages to all of them at once. Announcements, promotions and special notices along with your normal touch-base e-mails will need to be sent out in a reliable manner. Maintaining customer contact is a marketing essential. Without some form of contact management database, you’ll be swimming “upstream against the flow” in the management of your past, present and potential clients. It’s all too easy to be overwhelmed. Later you may opt to install a contact management database like ACT! or Goldmine, but while you’re growing your online network a list server will do nicely. Have a look at these:

An overview of the principal list servers and their features as well as providing the download access pages for them is at:
http://www.serverwatch.com/tutorials/article.php/10825_1355051_1

http://www.lsoft.com/download/default.asp?item=overview

http://www.lyris.com/products/listmanager/

http://server.com/communityapps/maillistapp/ allows users to create their own internet newsletters in plain text or HTML, create mailing lists, RSS syndication feeds and is *free* to use.

4. A PDF compiler

If your products and services include distribution of e-booklets, e-reports, e-books or other online info-products, you’ll need to put many of them into pdf format. This format helps protect your documents from copying and other pilferage and is an accepted industry standard for online document and e-book distribution. Free pdf compiler software, with tutorials, is available online at these sites:

http://www.ebooks-made-easy.com/ebooksoftware.htm

http://www.virtual-ebooks.com/compilers.htm

http://www.hsinlin.com/software/pdf.html

5. A website

Although it’s quite possible to market services and products online without the associated costs, programming and hassles of a website, ultimately it is an essential tool that is highly effective in showcasing your wares, whatever they may be. Aspects of getting and maintaining a website are too numerous to be addressed here. Information on free website hosting, templates and site management is only a few mouse clicks away. Free website hit counters, website templates and even no-cost hosting services for a website are at: http://members.freewebs.com/.

Here are more for comparison:

Free web hits counter
http://www.statcounter.com/free_hit_counter.html

Free web hits counter http://freelogs.com/

Free website templates http://freesitetemplates.com/

Free website templates http://www.freewebtemplates.com/

Free web site hosting and utilities are available from: http://www.bravenet.com/

Using these tools for building, maintaining, marketing and promoting online commerce at any level will be indispensable in marketing your products and services on the internet. This short list is certainly not to be considered all-inclusive. Whether you opt for these or other free or paid versions, you can use these five essential tools to boost your online presence and build your customer base. Hey, shouldn’t you be getting busy?

Larry M. Lynch is a writer and photographer specializing in business, travel, food and education-related writing in South America. His work has appeared in Transitions Abroad, South American Explorer, Escape From America, Mexico News and Brazil magazines in print and online. As an expert author he can ghost-write original articles for your articles marketing campaign and content for your website, newsletter, blog or e-zine. His fees are $98 for 10 articles or $24 for 2 articles of 500 to 800 words each. Please e-mail him now with details of the website, newsletter or blog you’d like promoted and how many articles or content insertions you’d like at: pentagon_elsb@hotmail.com

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Tags: free, internet marketing, internet tools, online essentials, tools