Internet marketing
Thoughts from the National Sports Forum
02/09/2010 04:00 Filed in: Thoughts
on Internet Marketing
What’s the current state of the sports industry? What
are corporate sponsors saying and doing this year?
What are sports organizations doing to market
themselves as the economy slowly recovers?
To understand these trends, I was fortunate to attend the National Sports Forum, which held its 15th annual gathering in Baltimore last week. Hundreds of sports industry colleagues gathered to discuss these topics and gain insights for the coming year.
Naturally, I tried to absorb all of it in the context of Internet marketing. From my perspective, the quick take-away lessons were:
1. Sponsors and advertisers demand real business results from any marketing program. Actual, measureable results - sales, for example - are the new signs of success in marketing.
2. Social media is the hottest of hot topics. EVERY conversation and panel discussion, for three consecutive says, eventually turned to social media. No matter the subject on the official agenda, these executives and marketers couldn’t help but discuss this aspect of Internet marketing and communication.
Naturally, lesson #1 bodes well for Internet marketing and search engine marketing. It’s impossible not to measure this marketing channel and it’s easy to evaluate the real-world business impact. Fortunately, if the impact of your Internet marketing campaigns isn’t what you hoped for, you can make changes on the fly - something that isn’t always possible in traditional media.
Lesson #2, meanwhile, raises questions for me. Primarily, if social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, etc.) cost money, would marketers be as excited by it? If companies had to pay to tweet, would so many be participating? We’ll have to revisit this one later...
During a presentation about “outrageous” advertising by author and marketer Bill Glazer, I was reminded that most principles of successful advertising are also fundamentals of a good Internet marketing campaign. According to Glazer, your marketing must:
a) cut through the clutter;
b) always have an offer or call-to-action; and...
c) grab someone’s attention in a matter of seconds.
Glazer pointed out that the same holds true for direct marketing as well as display advertising or out-of-home advertising. When designing a web site, landing page or Internet marketing campaign, each of these must be true as well. Even though our society moves faster and faster, and increasingly online, it seems that many fundamentals of communication haven’t changed.
Forum attendees also had a great opportunity to receive and dissect the results of the 2010 National Sports Forum Corporate & Industry Survey, which was conducted and presented by GMR Marketing and the Ohio University Center for Sports Administration. I’m still reviewing my copy of the report and I’ll share my thoughts in this space, next time. Stay tuned!
Thanks for reading,
- Jeremy Davidson
To understand these trends, I was fortunate to attend the National Sports Forum, which held its 15th annual gathering in Baltimore last week. Hundreds of sports industry colleagues gathered to discuss these topics and gain insights for the coming year.
Naturally, I tried to absorb all of it in the context of Internet marketing. From my perspective, the quick take-away lessons were:
1. Sponsors and advertisers demand real business results from any marketing program. Actual, measureable results - sales, for example - are the new signs of success in marketing.
2. Social media is the hottest of hot topics. EVERY conversation and panel discussion, for three consecutive says, eventually turned to social media. No matter the subject on the official agenda, these executives and marketers couldn’t help but discuss this aspect of Internet marketing and communication.
Naturally, lesson #1 bodes well for Internet marketing and search engine marketing. It’s impossible not to measure this marketing channel and it’s easy to evaluate the real-world business impact. Fortunately, if the impact of your Internet marketing campaigns isn’t what you hoped for, you can make changes on the fly - something that isn’t always possible in traditional media.
Lesson #2, meanwhile, raises questions for me. Primarily, if social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, etc.) cost money, would marketers be as excited by it? If companies had to pay to tweet, would so many be participating? We’ll have to revisit this one later...
During a presentation about “outrageous” advertising by author and marketer Bill Glazer, I was reminded that most principles of successful advertising are also fundamentals of a good Internet marketing campaign. According to Glazer, your marketing must:
a) cut through the clutter;
b) always have an offer or call-to-action; and...
c) grab someone’s attention in a matter of seconds.
Glazer pointed out that the same holds true for direct marketing as well as display advertising or out-of-home advertising. When designing a web site, landing page or Internet marketing campaign, each of these must be true as well. Even though our society moves faster and faster, and increasingly online, it seems that many fundamentals of communication haven’t changed.
Forum attendees also had a great opportunity to receive and dissect the results of the 2010 National Sports Forum Corporate & Industry Survey, which was conducted and presented by GMR Marketing and the Ohio University Center for Sports Administration. I’m still reviewing my copy of the report and I’ll share my thoughts in this space, next time. Stay tuned!
Thanks for reading,
- Jeremy Davidson
This web site isn't working
01/29/2010 12:57 Filed in: Web design
| Thoughts
on Internet Marketing
... At least, that’s what I’d been saying to myself
for the first few months of this site’s existence.
By monitoring my web site analytics, I watched closely as this site failed to generate the interest or contacts I’d initially hoped for. Of course, being a “new kid on the block” was a big reason why my site received limited traffic, but still something was missing.
I was very proud of my site and loved the way it looked and flowed. In the real-world environment, however, the site didn’t fully resonate with my audience. It was a difficult fact to accept, but it’s also the great opportunity that is Internet marketing. A business owner or web site publisher can see, in great detail, how a site is used and viewed by the audience. If you find something that works, dig deeper or run tests to determine why it works - than build on that success! If you see where usage drops off, change or eliminate those pages - and go back to the drawing board.
Unlike traditional print or broadcast media campaigns, which are locked in by deadlines and production requirements, online marketing campaigns can be tweaked and re-tooled in real time, in direct response to your customers’ actions.
This month I’ve unveiled a new look and some new content on SportsTarget.biz. I sincerely hope you enjoy it and find this information useful. But be honest for me... if you aren’t interested in what I’m doing here, click onward and continue looking for what you need. I won’t be offended - I’ll be better informed about the needs and interests of my web site audience.
If you are interested in the topics found here, send me a note and let me know! I look forward to hearing from you, or learning how to improve my site to meet your needs.
Thanks for reading!
- Jeremy Davidson
By monitoring my web site analytics, I watched closely as this site failed to generate the interest or contacts I’d initially hoped for. Of course, being a “new kid on the block” was a big reason why my site received limited traffic, but still something was missing.
I was very proud of my site and loved the way it looked and flowed. In the real-world environment, however, the site didn’t fully resonate with my audience. It was a difficult fact to accept, but it’s also the great opportunity that is Internet marketing. A business owner or web site publisher can see, in great detail, how a site is used and viewed by the audience. If you find something that works, dig deeper or run tests to determine why it works - than build on that success! If you see where usage drops off, change or eliminate those pages - and go back to the drawing board.
Unlike traditional print or broadcast media campaigns, which are locked in by deadlines and production requirements, online marketing campaigns can be tweaked and re-tooled in real time, in direct response to your customers’ actions.
This month I’ve unveiled a new look and some new content on SportsTarget.biz. I sincerely hope you enjoy it and find this information useful. But be honest for me... if you aren’t interested in what I’m doing here, click onward and continue looking for what you need. I won’t be offended - I’ll be better informed about the needs and interests of my web site audience.
If you are interested in the topics found here, send me a note and let me know! I look forward to hearing from you, or learning how to improve my site to meet your needs.
Thanks for reading!
- Jeremy Davidson
Marketing Innovation
10/16/2009 11:05 Filed in: Innovation
On a trip home (to Massachusetts) to visit family, I
ventured into a Stop & Shop supermarket and came
across an innovation that I've been thinking about
ever since.
It has little to do with Internet marketing, or sports marketing, but the thoughts behind it are something all businesses should consider. It's always a challenge to think outside of the proverbial box, but I love seeing it work. There are certain moments in marketing and business when you can't help but think: "That's brilliant. Why hasn't anyone done this sooner?"
Anyway, back to the supermarket...
At the entrance to the store, a modest display held electronic price guns for the store's Scan It system: a checkout system that allows you to scan items as you shop the aisles, and checkout with a single transaction at the self-checkout line. Let me repeat: scan items as you shop the aisles.
From what I can tell, the program works like this:
1. You must be part of the store's loyalty card program to shop this way.
2. Shoppers scan their card at the display, grab a price gun and begin shopping. Customers scan the bar codes on their items as they place them in the basket. This allows the store to total the order, while showing customers the running total of their shopping trip. (and shouldn't we do this more often, when we grocery shop, to manage our household budgets?)
3. Customers enter the self checkout line, scan their loyalty card again and pay for the entire thing without having to re-scan anything.
To me, this is brilliant in several ways...
For starters, it's a great innovation in operations and time management. Instead of handing all of their items three times (once to take them off the shelves, twice to place them on the checkout counter and a third time to place them back into the shopping cart), customers handle the items once before leaving the store.
By utilizing the self-checkout systems, stores reduce staffing costs. So far, customers have saved time and the store has saved money. Not bad, right?
In my humble opinion, the benefits don't end there. This simple checkout system builds trust between Stop & Shop and its customers.
In a recent issue of BusinessWeek magazine, Dov Seidman wrote "We all want loyal customers... but are you willing to meet them halfway?" The title of Seidman's column was "Building Trust in Business by Trusting." Stop & Shop's system accomplishes this. It would be easy to cheat this system and load one's shopping cart without scanning all the items. Stop & Shop has taken this risk and placed a great deal of trust in its customers. This, in turn, should foster a sense of appreciation from customers. That's a very intangible asset to rely on, but my guess is that this strategy will pay off in the long run.
Why mention it? Because it's this type of thinking that improves service, sales and customer satisfaction. This little Internet marketing venture doesn't have a "self-checkout" line, but rest assured, I'll be thinking of ways to improve our services by thinking from clients' perspectives, utilizing technology and respecting our clients' time and money.
Thanks for reading.
- Jeremy
It has little to do with Internet marketing, or sports marketing, but the thoughts behind it are something all businesses should consider. It's always a challenge to think outside of the proverbial box, but I love seeing it work. There are certain moments in marketing and business when you can't help but think: "That's brilliant. Why hasn't anyone done this sooner?"
Anyway, back to the supermarket...
At the entrance to the store, a modest display held electronic price guns for the store's Scan It system: a checkout system that allows you to scan items as you shop the aisles, and checkout with a single transaction at the self-checkout line. Let me repeat: scan items as you shop the aisles.
From what I can tell, the program works like this:
1. You must be part of the store's loyalty card program to shop this way.
2. Shoppers scan their card at the display, grab a price gun and begin shopping. Customers scan the bar codes on their items as they place them in the basket. This allows the store to total the order, while showing customers the running total of their shopping trip. (and shouldn't we do this more often, when we grocery shop, to manage our household budgets?)
3. Customers enter the self checkout line, scan their loyalty card again and pay for the entire thing without having to re-scan anything.
To me, this is brilliant in several ways...
For starters, it's a great innovation in operations and time management. Instead of handing all of their items three times (once to take them off the shelves, twice to place them on the checkout counter and a third time to place them back into the shopping cart), customers handle the items once before leaving the store.
By utilizing the self-checkout systems, stores reduce staffing costs. So far, customers have saved time and the store has saved money. Not bad, right?
In my humble opinion, the benefits don't end there. This simple checkout system builds trust between Stop & Shop and its customers.
In a recent issue of BusinessWeek magazine, Dov Seidman wrote "We all want loyal customers... but are you willing to meet them halfway?" The title of Seidman's column was "Building Trust in Business by Trusting." Stop & Shop's system accomplishes this. It would be easy to cheat this system and load one's shopping cart without scanning all the items. Stop & Shop has taken this risk and placed a great deal of trust in its customers. This, in turn, should foster a sense of appreciation from customers. That's a very intangible asset to rely on, but my guess is that this strategy will pay off in the long run.
Why mention it? Because it's this type of thinking that improves service, sales and customer satisfaction. This little Internet marketing venture doesn't have a "self-checkout" line, but rest assured, I'll be thinking of ways to improve our services by thinking from clients' perspectives, utilizing technology and respecting our clients' time and money.
Thanks for reading.
- Jeremy
What's it worth?
08/05/2009 04:39 Filed in: Thoughts
on Internet Marketing
The beauty of Internet marketing is the ability to
measure everything about your campaigns. Marketers
can see real-time data showing the costs for each web
site visitor, lead or sale.
But flip this equation around: what is the value of your web site or e-mail database? If Internet marketing can tell you how much it costs to gain each web site visitor or e-mail subscriber, are you receiving a good value for your Internet marketing efforts?
For example, let's say a minor league baseball team conducts a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign to acquire more subscribers to its e-mail newsletter. Those fans can certainly be considered good season ticket sales leads. Let's suppose the team's PPC campaign results in an average cost-per-click (CPC) of $0.95 and they received 750 web site visitors as a result. Of those 750 web site visitors, 50 signed up for the e-mail newsletter. The team's cost-per-conversion is $14.25 ($712.50 campaign cost / 50 conversions = $14.25 per conversion).
So the team paid $14.25 for each e-mail newsletter subscriber. Is the average e-mail subscriber worth $14.25? Are individual web site visitors worth $0.95 each? How to tell?
Fan surveys would go a long way to answer this question. If the team asked its e-mail subscribers if they planned to purchase a season ticket package, they could determine a reasonable estimate of the average subscriber's value. Let's say our hypothetical team conducted such a survey and found 15% of their subscribers planned to purchase season tickets. Let's suppose that the team's total e-mail database includes 600 fans and season tickets cost $500. (Totally hypothetical numbers here, folks!)
In our example, the average e-mail subscriber has a potential value to the team of $75 ($45,000 in potential season ticket revenue / 600 subscribers = $75 value per subscriber). And the team spent $14.25 to acquire each new subscriber. In this case, the team's Internet marketing campaign could be considered a success!
The same exercise could be conducted for single-game sales, or based on web site visitors instead of e-mail subscribers. Knowing this information should make any marketing campaign more successful. Do you know these numbers for your organization's web site or e-mail list? Something to think about, perhaps...
Thanks for reading and good luck with your marketing efforts!
But flip this equation around: what is the value of your web site or e-mail database? If Internet marketing can tell you how much it costs to gain each web site visitor or e-mail subscriber, are you receiving a good value for your Internet marketing efforts?
For example, let's say a minor league baseball team conducts a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign to acquire more subscribers to its e-mail newsletter. Those fans can certainly be considered good season ticket sales leads. Let's suppose the team's PPC campaign results in an average cost-per-click (CPC) of $0.95 and they received 750 web site visitors as a result. Of those 750 web site visitors, 50 signed up for the e-mail newsletter. The team's cost-per-conversion is $14.25 ($712.50 campaign cost / 50 conversions = $14.25 per conversion).
So the team paid $14.25 for each e-mail newsletter subscriber. Is the average e-mail subscriber worth $14.25? Are individual web site visitors worth $0.95 each? How to tell?
Fan surveys would go a long way to answer this question. If the team asked its e-mail subscribers if they planned to purchase a season ticket package, they could determine a reasonable estimate of the average subscriber's value. Let's say our hypothetical team conducted such a survey and found 15% of their subscribers planned to purchase season tickets. Let's suppose that the team's total e-mail database includes 600 fans and season tickets cost $500. (Totally hypothetical numbers here, folks!)
In our example, the average e-mail subscriber has a potential value to the team of $75 ($45,000 in potential season ticket revenue / 600 subscribers = $75 value per subscriber). And the team spent $14.25 to acquire each new subscriber. In this case, the team's Internet marketing campaign could be considered a success!
The same exercise could be conducted for single-game sales, or based on web site visitors instead of e-mail subscribers. Knowing this information should make any marketing campaign more successful. Do you know these numbers for your organization's web site or e-mail list? Something to think about, perhaps...
Thanks for reading and good luck with your marketing efforts!
Read This First
07/21/2009 02:37 Filed in: Thoughts
on Internet Marketing
Since it's the only blog entry so far, I guess there
isn't much of a choice. But you're here, so I'll
assume you have some interest in Internet marketing
for your business. First and foremost, thanks for
visiting to see what we have to offer!
Internet marketing can include MANY things. The options and new technologies can be overwhelming, and so is the amount of data that comes with it. For example, if you're advertising your business through search engine marketing, you can test and tweak your keywords, ad copy, landing pages, messaging, offers, web site copy, contact forms, site design, colors, graphics, images, navigation and more - to see what your customers respond to. And you can break down the results of these campaigns into detailed reports showing every possible angle. Adding social media to your marketing mix creates another layer of results to be analyzed.
I can't honestly say I was always a "numbers guy," but I'm a huge believer in doing business efficiently. Today's technology allows everyone a chance to be more efficient. You can figure out how to spend less to acquire new customers, by taking time to study how they became your customers. I believe that Internet marketing is the best way of doing this, with detailed tracking available at nearly every level of the sales process.
As you read this, I hope you are considering what brought you here. What is your organization trying to accomplish? More merchandise sales? More season ticket sales leads? Better, more qualified season ticket sales leads? More participants for your marathon, triathlon or tournament? The data available from an Internet marketing campaign may answer the questions that other advertising missed.
I could go on all day. We're new here, and ready to grow with you. We'd love to share more thoughts and ideas (seriously, I could go on all day. You've been warned!). Please do get in touch or download our list of Internet marketing ideas for sports businesses. They'll be more later and I wish you the best of luck with your marketing efforts!
Thanks for reading.
- Jeremy
Internet marketing can include MANY things. The options and new technologies can be overwhelming, and so is the amount of data that comes with it. For example, if you're advertising your business through search engine marketing, you can test and tweak your keywords, ad copy, landing pages, messaging, offers, web site copy, contact forms, site design, colors, graphics, images, navigation and more - to see what your customers respond to. And you can break down the results of these campaigns into detailed reports showing every possible angle. Adding social media to your marketing mix creates another layer of results to be analyzed.
I can't honestly say I was always a "numbers guy," but I'm a huge believer in doing business efficiently. Today's technology allows everyone a chance to be more efficient. You can figure out how to spend less to acquire new customers, by taking time to study how they became your customers. I believe that Internet marketing is the best way of doing this, with detailed tracking available at nearly every level of the sales process.
As you read this, I hope you are considering what brought you here. What is your organization trying to accomplish? More merchandise sales? More season ticket sales leads? Better, more qualified season ticket sales leads? More participants for your marathon, triathlon or tournament? The data available from an Internet marketing campaign may answer the questions that other advertising missed.
I could go on all day. We're new here, and ready to grow with you. We'd love to share more thoughts and ideas (seriously, I could go on all day. You've been warned!). Please do get in touch or download our list of Internet marketing ideas for sports businesses. They'll be more later and I wish you the best of luck with your marketing efforts!
Thanks for reading.
- Jeremy