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Advertising Game Plan: #1 Determine Your Budget
April 26, 2011 | 
Author Previously, we described how you as a business owner need to develop an Advertising Game Plan. We’re going to be taking you through a brief primer on the basic steps necessary to intelligently advertise your business.
Step one is to determine what advertising funds you have available for the coming year. If you are a small business owner, this can be a “what comes first: the chicken or the egg?” scenario. If you don’t have any income, how can you afford to advertise? On the other hand, if you don’t advertise, how can you build any income?
I don’t pretend that the answer is easy. Ideally you should start your new venture off with a war chest that includes a significant portion set aside for advertising. How much is enough you ask? In our opinion, if you are using traditional media in midsize markets (Milwaukee, Hartford, Birmingham, etc.), you need AT LEAST $1000 per month to gain any sort of noticeable impact within your first six months. And that means steady advertising, with a somewhat repetitive program every month. To give you just one example, you could likely negotiate 25 (mostly primetime) sixty-second radio commercials for $1000 in a midsize market. That would be appropriate for a solid 7-10 day sale each month. If you are in Boston or LA or Dallas, ratchet up that budget 3x to 10x as much.
And here’s a common error advertisers make: they run the aforementioned 7-10 day advertising campaign, spend their hard-earned $1000…and no new customers come into the store. The owners panic and shout “Radio (or newspaper, or cable TV or…) doesn’t work!!!” and they turn around and try something completely different the next month, and then something else the next. And none of them work.
One of the secrets of successful advertising is that you initially have to have a cast-iron will. You have to do your research, pick out a good media partner — the city paper, the local TV station, the area billboard company, or? — and HAVE FAITH in your research. Start a campaign, and ride it out for several months without giving up and canceling the program you started. It takes time to develop customers!
Think about it…you just opened Bridget’s Gift Shop. Only 50 friends and family knew about it when you started off. You decided to run 20 cable TV ads. Mary saw 4 of the 20 ads you ran, didn’t catch your name in the first two, missed the address the third time, and finally understood and liked the 4th commercial…but didn’t need what you were selling that week. Your campaign didn’t fail to sell Mary. It just hasn’t had enough time to sell Mary! Keep running ads every month, and if you have a good message, sooner or later Mary is going to need to buy Hallmark Christmas cards and will think “Hey, there’s that new Bridget’s Gift Shop on Maple St. Maybe I can go there and buy some cards.” And voila, the sales pitch she heard from you seven months ago finally lands you her credit card.
The bottom line is this: you need to advertise. It is arguably more important than having X number of good employees. You need to advertise to bring customers in to fuel your business. So sit down with your calculator and try to determine what extra cash you have to build your advertising kitty. We’ll take you through some further Advertising Game Plan steps from which you’ll see more clearly how to spend those dollars, and how much you may need to advertise effectively in your market.
Next step: determining what at least 5 or 6 of your local media cost.
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Advertising: Building A Game Plan
Today we begin a series of posts that are aimed at helping business owners learn more about the right and wrong ways to advertise.
Our iTitans staff has more than 25 years of experience in the media business: selling advertising for radio and TV stations, Outdoor (billboards) and web properties. We’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. The first tip we can give you is that nearly every advertising media can be effective for you, though obviously your expectations from running a TV ad in the Super Bowl differ from having a 1″ x 2″ ad on a placemat at a local diner. The key is to have a Game Plan:
- determine what advertising funds you have available for the coming year.
- determine what at least 5 or 6 of your local media cost.
- determine what Reach and Frequency you will achieve using each of the media, based on a certain budget amount.
- drive your best bargain with the 2 or 3 media outlets that fit your budget best.
- develop a good relationship with the sales rep and the sales manager at your preferred media outlet.
- run your campaign and don’t cancel it too soon.
- repeat the process.
So your first step is to gather your available funds together for an advertising budget. We’ll explain more about that in our next post in the series.
Keyword Density (KD): Revisiting an SEO Myth
By E Garcia
Back in March of 2005 I wrote The Keyword Density of Non Sense article for Mike Grehan’s newsletter. An expanded and improved version was also published at Mi Islita.com. After these articles, many SEOs saw the light.
However, in an attempt at perpetuating KD myths, few SEOs tried to reformulate the alleged importance or usefulness of keyword density by presenting KD as a spam detection filter used by search engines. Good try, but this still is non sense and another SEO myth.
Ask these folks about any proof of these claims to see if they can provide one. If you read between lines what they are trying to do is to keep their KD tools relevant and alive. They just want to insists in dumb ideas and theories they nurtured around keyword density. A “saving face” effort can be recognized by the many twists involved.
This simply reinforces my notion that these folks either don’t get it or don’t have a background on IR.
I’m working on a paper on local term weigths, called Understanding Local Weights. It is clear from the several models examined that some scales can be used as math red flags for detecting spam. Here is a sneak preview:
Let Lij be the local weight of term i in doc j. We can defined Lij in many different ways and as a function of fij, wherein fij is the ocurrence (frequency) of term i in doc j.
Two candidate scales to think about are FREQ and LOGA.
FREQ Scale
If term i is in doc j, then Lij = fij; else, Lij = 0.
This is the most common model SEOs know about, wherein local weights are given as raw frequencies. KD lovers simply divide an fij value by total # of words and call that KD.
This primitive way of defining local weights (as Lij = fij) is used in the old IR literature and in few simplistic models. For instance, early LSI papers used local weight-only scores. These are the same papers often misquoted by SEOs. The fact is that we normally use Lij=fij to teach students basic things. Then, they can move on and learn about other local weighting schemes and improved LSI models.
FREQ has several drawbacks and limitations. For example, it assumes that a term repeated x times weighs x times more, which we know is not necessarily true.
So, if doc1 repeats the term “crap” once and doc2 repeats this term ten times then
L(crap, doc1) = f = 1
L(crap, doc2) = f = 10
which assumes that crap is ten times more important in doc 2 than in doc 1 or that doc2 is ten times more pertinent to crap than doc1.
LOGA Scale
If term i is in doc j, then Lij = 1 + log fij; else, Lij = 0.
This model is a bit better than FREQ. It is a logarithm augmented scale at a given base. A base 2 or base 10 scale is often used. Other base values are possible.
If I use base 10 logarithms in the example, then
L(crap, doc1) = 1 + log(1) = 1 + 0 = 1
L(crap, doc2) = 1 + log(10) = 1 + 1 = 2
The term weight just doubles. Term repetitions don’t increment drastically local weights. Now if I want to make a third document, doc3, three times more heavier in “crap” than in doc1,
L(crap, doc3) = 1 + log(100) = 1 + 2 = 3
So, I would need to repeat the term 100 times. That’s a lot of crap!
More likely, valid keywords repeated 100, 1000, etc in a single web page for sure will raise a spam red flag. Thus LOGA can work as both a weighting scheme and an obvious spam detector.
No doubt that both FREQ and LOGA have some drawbacks and that there are better local scoring models (log normalized, squared, local entropy, etc). All these models are designed to address specific extreme cases. Still KD is not nearly around in any of these models.
How do I know if Google or Yahoo is using LOGA or other published local weight models? I don’t know so I am not going to speculate.
I am sure about one thing: How natural would be repeating a term 100 or 1000 times in a single web page? Exactly.
So, if I use LOGA at base 10 in my own experimental search engine I would be inclined to tag as spam any doc with Lij around 3. I would probably use a maximum upper bound around Lij = 2 or less.
There are better local term weight scales. Wait for my article and learn why.
On and on, next time you hear or read about the virtues of KD, get a gas mask or think about… toilet paper.
The severe impact of using Black Hat SEO techniques
An online entrepreneur would like his website to be the first name in the result that search engines throw up for relevant topics. At times, you must have come across a certain Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) that guarantees a place of your website in the top 10 results. This is exactly what you want, but exactly something you musn’t buy!
No company on earth can assure you a forefront place in the search engines. There exists no SEO tools that can make your site attain overnight popularity, but what exists are merely some tricks, which some SEO firms use to make some quick bucks. However, their ‘work’ will do your site anything but good. Assume that this works and your site is right on the top of the search results, and stays for quite a period of time. But eventually the search engines come across these tricks and will impose a penalty. That’s what a black hat SEO is – fooling the search engines. For the benefit of one’s own business, one should shy away from such SEO firms and avoid the following things:
Overstuffing pages with keywords:
Cramming the pages of your website with the main keywords and offering little more then a page of ‘tags’ will get search engines to drop you in a heartbeat.
Invisible/ Hidden Text:
This is almost the same as cramming the key words. Invisible text is considered a serious no-no by the search engines and can be extremely harmful for your website, so why use it in the first place?
Doorway pages:
These are the non-existent or the fake pages which are designed for specific words or phrases which are viewed mainly by the search engines rather than the visitors. The entire logic behind the building of a Search Engine Optimizer is to enhance the experience of the user, and getting web pages that no living person can ever view will surely not be viewed well. Many main search engines like Google, etc. have severe policies to combat doorway pages.
Link Farms:
Many popular search engines are against artificial linking like link stuffing and link farms, etc. So linking farms will do nothing but get your site banned from the database of the search engine.
It can be concluded that whatever the search engines view as being spam or junk, is banned by them. Most of the techniques are bound to get you result in the short-term, but in the long-run, a ban or a flag is all that you will get. Moreover, using a black hat SEO also raises serious doubts on the credibility of your website and business that you’re pursuing online.
So rather than opting for a SEO, its better to get your site fixed by page optimization. And while doing it, it’s better not to keep in mind the search engines. The main priority should be the benefit of your end-customers. If you’re being loyal to them, the net result will automatically follow and instead of gaining popularity by immoral means, you’ll gain it even without these SEO, and the search engines respect that!
Is Your Ezine Being Zapped?
by Michael Southon
About a year ago I wrote an article titled ‘Winning The War On Sp^m’. Unfortunately, the war on sp^m is not being won at all.
In fact, the problem is now so serious that sp^am is shaping up to be the greatest threat to online marketing.
The threat comes not from sp^mmers themselves, but from the filters that are being used to block them.
These filters are hitting hard at the very core of ecommerce - Ezine Publishing.
Anti-sp^m filters operate at two levels: (i) client-side programs that reside on individual computers and (ii) server-side programs that ISPs are using to block incoming sp^m.
The problem is that the filters are now so sensitive they are blocking even the most innocent of Newsletters.
For example, if your Newsletter contains the words ‘remove’, ’unsubscribe’ or ‘click here’ it will trigger anti-sp^m filters in many of the programs that are now being used by ISPs.
The result?
Your Ezine is zapped, deleted – and a large percentage of your subscribers will think you have stopped publishing your Newsletter.
What can you do about it?
Here are some tips to avoid sp^m filters:
(1) Post your Newsletter online and then email your subscribers to tell them that the latest issue is now available online.
(2) In your Newsletter carefully avoid (both in the subject line and the body text) all words that are likely to trigger anti-sp^m filters. Use the free service listed at the end of this article – it will flag any words in your Newsletter that trigger anti-sp^m filters.
(3) Instead of saying ‘to unsubscribe’ (which is a phrase commonly found in sp^m), say ‘If you no longer wish to receive…’ or ‘If you wish to leave this mailing list…’ or ’To take yourself off this list…’
(4) If there are trigger words that you simply cannot avoid, you can disguise them using carets (^) or other symbols. The ‘F’ word would become fr^e and the ‘U’ word would become
uns^bscribe.
(5) Include the word ‘Newsletter’ in the subject line of your email – this will help the filters identify your email as non-sp^m.
(6) Avoid whole words in upper case. In many Newsletters the headers are capitalized – this will trigger the filters.
(7) If your Newsletter contains ads, scrutinize them carefully - ezine ads, by definition, contain words frequently used by sp^mmers.
Here is a fr^e service that will help you avoid sp^m filters. Before you mail out your Newsletter, just send a copy of it to the email address below with TEST in the subject line:
mailto:spamcheck@sitesell.net
Within a few seconds you’ll receive a report that analyses your Newsletter and gives you a score (0 to 5=no problems 12-16=over the limit for most ISPs).
If you write articles, it’s worth submitting them to this test as well, together with your Resource Box (I just sent this article to Sp^mCheck and got a score of 4.6).
Sp^mCheck is operated by Sp^mAssassin, a filter that is widely used by ISPs – so this is a good test of whether your Newsletter will get through to your subscribers.
About the Author
Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3 years. He has shown hundreds of web masters how to use this simple technique to get massive free publicity and dramatically increase traffic and sales. To find out more, please visit: http://www.ezine-writer.com.
Are people able to find their way around your website?
While working on a client’s website today, we pulled out an old “must have” book, Don’t Make Me Think! by Steve Krug. The title says it all: the people that visit your site want to feel comfortable when they arrive.
Let us quote Krug:
“…as far as is humanly possible, when I look at a Web page it should be self-evident. Obvious. Self-explanatory… I should be able to “get it” — what it is and how to use it — without expending any effort thinking about it.”
For instance, if you want to give folks the opportunity to get in touch with you, make it obvious — put a big “Contact Us” or “Email” button, or your phone number big and bold on your homepage. Don’t make your visitor hunt for it, click on one page, then another, and then have the poor soul pull out a magnifying glass to find what she needs in a tiny font at the bottom somewhere. Remember, as important as you think you are, there are literally thousands of websites in your business category. If you frustrate your visitors, they’ll bolt for a more accommodating web destination.
Another point to remember is to keep your navigation simple. The internet has a certain rhythm to it. People click, click, click on sites and every time they do, they look to the left expecting to see a navigational menu. If it’s not there, they’ll look under the header. If it’s not in either of those places, people sweat and have to start thinking — and what’s the title of Krug’s book? That’s right, Don’t Make Me Think!
There are exceptions to the last point. If you have a really, REALLY cool-looking site, you can get away with hiding your menu items behind splotches of artwork scattered all over the place (like an Easter egg hunt). Our company’s first site was like that, and someday we’ll likely bring its core back from the dead as a new and improved template for a lucky client. In that rare instance, the site’s identity is both informational AND vastly entertaining. But in most cases, keep it simple.
These web development “golden rules” remains the same no matter if you are in Worcester MA, Providence RI, Montreal or Mumbai.If you’d like to learn more of Steve Krug’s thoughts, visit sensible.com
Google grabs 66.4% of web searches in May
As iTitans continues to focus on providing the best possible search engine optimization for our clients, it’s crucial to note that Google continues to be the dominant search engine choice among web surfers. According to comScore, Google had 66.4% of web searches during May, with Yahoo at 16.6% and Microsoft’s Bing at 10.8%. With Google hoarding two-thirds of search engine traffic, iTitans suggests a continued SEO focus on Google. Yahoo and Bing cannot be ignored — after all, they have most of the remaining one-third traffic. But a company’s search engine optimization strategy has to zero in on Google first, with secondary efforts pointed toward its two main competitors.
Those two competitors, as has been reported for months, will be joining forces sometime in late 2010 or early 2011 as they attempt to take down the Google behemoth. At that time, Bing will be powering Yahoo’s backend search, with Yahoo’s American publishers and advertisers on Microsoft’s AdCenter structure as well.
For more explanation of the May rankings, please visit eWeek.com
So how does Google work?
Click on the excellent graphic! Courtesy of ppcblog.com , it shows in very detailed fashion how Goggle works its magic. If you’re a web designer, or own a company website, this is a great research piece to save to your hard drive.
The key to successful search engine optimization is understanding how Google looks at your site in comparison to your competitors’ sites. Did you know, for instance, that roughly 80% of your site’s Google ranking is determined by the number and quality of backlinks you have? Also, do you know what the “soft spots” in your competition’s approach are (i.e. what in-demand keywords are they not targeting)?
There’s a method to Google’s madness. Learn more about it, apply an effective long-term seo campaign, and you’re on your way to boosting your site’s traffic and profitability.
75% of us research online before shopping in stores; more…
The internet has forever changed our shopping habits. In the old days, people would flock to the mall and do their product research there: they’d see an item on the shelf, pick it up, read the label, and learn what the item (promised it) could do.
Those days are increasingly over…
Deloitte commissioned a survey of 1052 consumers in early May about their thoughts on the economy, their spending habits, and usage of mobile and web platforms to enhance their shopping experiences. A few points jumped out at us.
The survey found that 33% of consumers are shopping more online than they did a year ago. Even more significant to us is that 75% of shoppers now research online to check out store, product and pricing information before or during their in-store shopping.
Additionally, “half of consumers say that an online product review has influenced their decision to buy a product (51 percent) – or to not buy a product (50 percent).”
To read more about the survey, including how shoppers use social networks and mobile platforms, visit Deloitte.com
“got milk?” advergames promote healthy habits
got milk? is at it again! You know got milk? best from their famous “milk moustache” print campaign that has been going on for years. Well if you want to add a little fun to your day, you should definitely check out the got milk? advergames on their website.
The homepage and games feature top-notch creative. There are six amusing colored characters who each star in an advergame. The games promote healthy habits. For instance, in the “Muscles Game”, it’s your job to supply horses Slav, Igor and Sergie with chocolate milk as they sweat through a workout at the gym. Each advergame has links to health tips and studies.
The California Milk Processor Board created the got milk? campaign in the early ’90s, and it spread nationally in the following years. Their efforts here show the power of advergames to educate the public about the importance of a healthy diet, exercise and lifestyle.