Good News For Webmasters

[peter_d]

Usually the first casualty in an economic downturn is advertising spend. However, as the economy slumps, ad spend is dropping in traditional media, yet the online spend remains steady.

Perhaps it's just better value.

http://searchengineland.com/070921-100735.php

The big research company says that for the first half of 2007, ad spending slipped 0.5% versus the same time period for 2006. Not surprisingly, the Internet led the way--again--as the most improved category, up 23.6% versus a year ago.

On the losing end were some long-suffering print categories: Local newspapers were down 8%; national newspapers fell 5.9%; business-to-business magazines were off 5.7%; local magazines tumbled 5.2%; and local Sunday supplements gave away 4.7%.

There are other forces at work, too (i.e print facing a new, more efficient competitor), but hopefully the overall trend continues.

[John Scott]

I gotta say, the Internet is the best spend. Spending money on traditional media seems like an exercise is stupidity after using the Internet.

[Red Dog]

Lol John... That was a fun comment, but I have to disagree. It really depends on what you spend your money offline. There are still channels which are even more effective than many online campaigns. For example printed newsletters have a higher conversion rate than emai newsletters. The only difference is that they are not free. But even online, if you want a serious campaign, you have to pay for a good newsletter design, then pay a specialized company to do your mailing...

[John Scott]

For example printed newsletters have a higher conversion rate than emai newsletters.

Why would you use email newsletters? Who would compare that to anything?

What offline advertising method is more effective than highly targeted Adwords campaign for extremely specific keywords, sending prequalified traffic to a focused landing page?

[Red Dog]

Well, there are enough companies that use email newsletters, making our mail boxes breathe heavily under the load of spam.
But companies like Yves Rocher use traditional printed materials more effectively than emails to sell their products. And the way they do it works better than AdWords, because this is how their target audience wants them to do it. This is what the users expect. the samples in the mailbox, a special printed coupon, a colourful catalogue to read at lunch....

Let's face it, there are industries where the Internet has not so much strength. Who would go online to buy bread from one of the village bakeries?
Instead, if a printed promotion lands in the mailbox, we'd probably pay attention to it.
Trust me, I am 100% into online advertising. It's just that we cannot actually advertise everything online.

[John Scott]

Email is dead as a marketing tactic, IMO. Even when you do get the email opened, they will hate you for adding to their spam.

[bobchrist]

Traditional media still bring some significant results especially if it is used for local market. I don't rely on that survey results since the result will differ country to country and by demography, just a sample result is not authentic, how you can compare the traditional media consumption of specific region with "internet"- which is world wide?

[John Scott]

I think it depends heavily on the topic. I advertised locally and the results were crap.

[bobchrist]

Originally Posted by John Scott

Email is dead as a marketing tactic, IMO. Even when you do get the email opened, they will hate you for adding to their spam.

A subscription based email still work nice, it is the best marketing tactic and most of people are using it so email is not dead.. it is taking new shape.

[Red Dog]

I know email marketing is dead. He he! What were you advertising locally? And how? Usually I get good results on the local market....

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by bobchrist

A subscription based email still work nice, it is the best marketing tactic and most of people are using it so email is not dead.. it is taking new shape.

People do not subscribe to SPAM. I have like one subscription, and I never read any ads in it. I know there are ads in the newsletter, but I couldn't even name one because I block them out for spite.

[bobchrist]

Originally Posted by John Scott

People do not subscribe to SPAM. I have like one subscription, and I never read any ads in it. I know there are ads in the newsletter, but I couldn't even name one because I block them out for spite.

That depends on the purpose of newsletter which is meant for making aware the subscribers for latest news, event, new product launching, offer, contest etc, but if someone misuse it, the entire system and method should not be blamed. For example I subscribe to godaddy newsletter and I always get some useful information from them like the slashed prices, discount on bulk purchase, new coupon code for discount etc, I never thought to unsubscribe it as it is valuable for me. I often get reminder mail from many forums with latest thread entry and with request to have a look on their forums and to be active, I never mind it and most of the time I find myself commenting there.

[Forsh]

Originally Posted by John Scott

I gotta say, the Internet is the best spend. Spending money on traditional media seems like an exercise is stupidity after using the Internet.

Tell that to my boss. In fact tell that to the entire organization I work for, they don't listen to me.

[Forsh]

I was going to expand my response, but my time for editing has expired so I will just post it as a supplement...

I guess it all depends on your particular situation when figuring out your marketing mix. For us, being so far away from our "future demographic" due to the amount of turnover in the military, we usually can not resort to traditional media--and if we did it would be costly. However, how much would it cost for us to advertise on the web to reach our audience? Not much compared to getting something designed, printed, and distributed.

The web works in some situations, probably not all but most for "getting the word out".

[marthrock]

Originally Posted by John Scott

Email is dead as a marketing tactic, IMO. Even when you do get the email opened, they will hate you for adding to their spam.

I think we need to make a distinction. I don't think Opt-in email is dead. But Email as a blind untargeted correspondence, i.e SPAM and it's cousins, is deader than dead. Out of curiosity, does anyone have an idea on what the open, click through and conversion rate is on SPAM?

Well I did a little digging and according to marketingexperts.com it looks like the conversion rate for SPAM is 0.0036% This was through a 3 month study that they did, but I'm sure thats probably pretty close to the national average.

One caveat though is that EVEN with optin email, the response rate et al. could still be realtively low compared to other forms of marketing. One thing to consider is, the timing of sending out your targeted optin email. We have had successful email campaigns when it came on the heels of a recent product purchase. Thus the recepient sees the subject line and the sender, which are both still fresh, and they open.

Out of all phases of internet marketing though, email marketing would be the least of my efforts, because historically, the results are the poorest.

[John Scott]

conversion rate for SPAM is 0.0036%

That's higher than I would have expected.

[coolguy27]

Yes, Email nowadays has a spam folder. They filter emails and place it in spam folder... Which the email users are having a bulk of spam mails... They just delete it.. No time to read it....