Online Marketing Trends

Search Stats

2008-09-02T17:34:00.000-07:00

Hitwise, a leading online competitive intelligence service, just released April 2008 results for US searches among search engine providers.

While it shouldn't come as a surprise, Google led the way with 67.90% of all US searches for the month of April. Yahoo! Search accounted for 20.28%, MSN Search accounted for 6.26% and Ask.com accounted for 4.17%.

What is more interesting, perhaps, is the year-over-year trend. Google's share increase from 65.26% in April 2007 represents a 4% increase in volume, coming at the expense of both Yahoo! and MSN. Ask.com was the only other major search engine to increase market share during the same period.

Do you have a limited budget for Search Engine Marketing? The smart money says Google is the place to spend it.

Online Marketing - Boom, Don't Bust!

2008-08-28T17:34:00.000-07:00

Since 1914, the San Antonio Manufacturers Association (SAMA) has been protecting and promoting the interests of its members in the San Antonio area.

Mercury Direct had the opportunity to share our thoughts about online marketing best practices to the SAMA Sales & Marketing Special Interest Group recently. The range of topics included website design, email marketing, blogging, social networks and a review of two manufacturing case studies.

Questions from the group focused on email marketing best practices and website design. Most members of the group had familiarity with all of the topics, allowing for an informed conversation throughout the meeting.

To learn more about SAMA, CLICK HERE.

Email Rental: Is It In Your Acquisition Toolkit?

2008-08-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

I attended an Email Service Provider (ESP) seminar today and a small business owner asked if it was possible to rent and use email address lists the way businesses currently rent mailing lists. The speaker answered "not using our application."

And it's true - most ESPs won't allow you to deliver 3rd party email lists using their software. Their email policies imply that it is akin to spamming.

Well, it's not spamming - it's legal and it's ethical, as long as you follow some basic rules.

Many individuals will allow their email address to be shared with 3rd parties. Sometimes they do it to collect rewards points, other times it is because they are interested in everything related to a particular subject.

When selecting a vendor for your 3rd party email addresses, you need to confirm that their list was gathered using "confirmed opt-in" or "double-opt in" methods. You should look at the website(s) the list was compiled from to ensure that it reflects your target audience. There are other things to evaluate, but it's not a difficult process.

Once you have selected a list, how can you distribute it if your ESP won't let you use their software? It's easy - most legitimate email list providers won't let you use an outside email service - they create the email with you and send it on your behalf.

The real question isn't whether you should rent 3rd party emails. As a marketer, your responsibility is to test email list rental against other customer acquisition alternatives to determine which approach provides you the most favorable ROI.

Permission-based Mail?

2008-08-14T17:32:00.000-07:00

With the establishment of the national Do Not Call registry in 2003, consumers were given a mechanism to opt-out of telemarketing sales pitches. This legislation was followed quickly by the CAN-SPAM Act (requiring email opt-out mechanisms) and more recent Do Not Email registries in Utah and Michigan.

Is the same fate in store for direct mail? As of March 2008, 11 states were considering Do Not Mail registries to stem the tide of unsolicted consumer direct mail. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) expects more to come.

In an effort to preempt Do Not Mail legislation, the DMA launched a Commitment to Consumer Choice (CCC) initiative, giving consumers more "choice over the types and volume of mail they receive."

What does the future hold? Here's what we think...

expect some sort of legislation

unsolicited direct mail is wasteful - an easy target in today's environmentally-conscious world
what's good enough for phone and email will be good enough for mail

legislation will drive innovative new forms of customer acquisition

marketers adopting permission-based communications, regardless of delivery channel, will come out ahead...

We will know soon enough.

Personalized Marketing - Alive & Well

2008-08-07T17:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Reader,
Okay - bad salutation. But personalized marketing communications remain a powerful tool for marketers today. The CMO Council recently reported the following personalization techniques among marketers:

66.1% send personalized emails and letters

43.5% utilize database marketing to leverage personal profiles

40.1% personalize email promotions based on timing of sign-up and regular intervals thereafter

31.6 % print using variable data

30.5% print personalized on-demand collateral

Given the ease and low cost of electronic personalization, how could anyone ignore this powerful communication tactic?

Social Networks - Deja Vu

2008-07-31T17:30:00.000-07:00

Clarence Darrow, John Scopes’ attorney in “The Monkey Trials” once wrote, “History repeats itself. That’s one of the things wrong with history.” And it seems social networks are providing a déjà vu.

If you surfed the 'net in the early ’90s, you probably used AOL, Prodigy or CompuServe: subscription-based services providing email, storefronts, chatrooms and discussion boards. While these services established order for users, they discouraged connectivity across communities and to the broader Internet. Ultimately, the openness of the Internet rendered these “walled” portals obsolete.

Today, social networks like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn feel a lot like those bygone communities. Transferring contact information, preferences and content between sites is difficult. Contacts have to be in the same network to communicate. The Internet shouldn’t be this hard!

Turns out that email may be the solution. The email titans - Yahoo, Google, AOL and Microsoft - have discovered that the email infrastructure - address books, inboxes and calendars - may be the best social network around. When you consider that your inbox holds the who, what, where, when and why of your communication habits, it becomes the foundation of a robust social network.

So don’t be surprised at the coming battles over your inbox. Microsoft lawyers recently began sending cease-and-desist letters to start-up companies that allowed you to import your Hotmail contacts to their application. Of course, the issue was dismissed if those sites made Microsoft Messenger their exclusive instant messaging client. With over 300 million Hotmail accounts under its control, Microsoft is making a statement - we control your address book.

Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn can’t maintain their lofty market valuations without the significant page views that their closed systems perpetuate. So time will tell - can these new social networks maintain their exclusive domains, or will history again repeat itself?

Email ROI Tops the Charts...Again

2008-07-24T17:28:00.000-07:00

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) released its annual evaluation of direct marketing channel performance and once again, Commercial Email topped the ROI chart in 2007.

ROI per Dollar of DM Advertising in 2007
Commercial Email $48.56
Internet Marketing (non-Email) $20.67
Direct Response Newspaper $16.99
Direct Mail (non-Catalog) $15.57
Insert Media $11.65
Direct Response Magazine $10.21
Direct Response Radio $8.64
Telemarketing $8.61
Direct Mail (Catalog) $7.22
Other $7.04
DRTV $6.87
Source: DMA - 2007

"When you combine the measurement capability of email with its low deployment costs, it's a fantastic medium for marketers to communicate with their customers, build relationships and deliver profitable sales results" says Nino Tarantino, CEO of Mercury Direct.

The DMA states that marketers spent $500 Million on email in 2007, driving over $23 Billion in sales. As more marketers become aware of the power of email to drive sales and build long-term relationships, there will be continuous growth in commercial email usage.