What happened to 2008

Eh? I have been fairly busy in all of 2008 and the start of the year but back to now with the great news that we have a great new Ecommerce Web Design & Digital Agency called Channel 6 Multimedia www.ch-6.co.uk.

Some of our designs this year are great and will be added to the new Channel 6 website which will be launching very soon!

Channel 6 will be a one stop shop for Web design and Internet Marketing with Com.Motion eventually becoming part of Channel 6.

More posts to follow.

Ten Secrets for Pay Per Click Success

Have you been frustrated by the performance of your pay per click campaigns? Here are ten tips to consider to get real results – cutting down unnecessary costs and still reaching your target audience.

1. Consider ALL popular search engines. Yes, Google is by far the most popular in the UK but because of this it is the most competitive. Yahoo and MSN still have their share of UK internet users and are less competitive. Give these a try too.
2. Consider regional advertising rather than national for Google. If you have a product that will appeal to specific regions of the country or if you have a very limited budget then select only one town or county. Your cost per click will be much lower.
3. Include the relevant keywords in your ads. Make sure your ads closely match what the searcher is looking for by creating targeted ad groups. Yes, Google looks at the amount you are willing to pay for top placement, but it also looks at quality. An advertiser can pay less and still get to the top position just because their ad more closely matches what the searcher is looking for.
4. Analyse. Analyse. Closely monitor pay per click campaigns using the free reporting tools available within Google Adsense, MSN, and Yahoo. Also consider an analytics package such as Google Analytics so that you can track which campaigns are generating sales.
5. Choose keywords carefully. Consider choosing the less competitive keyword phrases that really describe your product. There are plenty of free keyword tools out there so take advantage of them.
6. Use appropriate landing pages, rather than the home page. You want to give the potential customer the product or service they want immediately, rather than make them search around your website.
7. Use the advanced tools provided by Google including phrase match, exact match, and negative keywords to eliminate unnecessary clicks. There are excellent online tutorials available if you are unfamiliar with these tools.
8. Have a unique selling point? Display it in your listing to ensure that you stand out over your competitors. Give your customers a reason to click on your ad instead of the others. However, be careful about lying or making grandiose statements, as customers won’t buy if you make promises you can’t keep.
9. Tweak. Tweak. Tweak. Analyse your reports and try some the following:
   1. change the ads that aren’t performing
   2. Remove keywords that are generating traffic, but not sales.
   3. Try a few new keywords.
   4. Ensure that you keep a record of any changes and their impact
10. Focus your campaign. If you have hundreds of products concentrate your pay per click marketing on just a few products rather than adopting a blanket approach. A small campaign is much easier to manage at the start.

Increase Sales Through MySpace?

Want to tap into the myspace community and create your own company page? This social marketing site should certainly be considered as part of the Internet Marketing mix for companies wishing to build relationships with young consumers. However, winning friends in this community can be difficult especially for traditional companies that may be thought of as “uncool” by the young myspace crowd.

Musicians, artists, and celebrities all gather huge numbers of friends on myspace, as their talents can easily be showcased using the website, but how does a more traditional, less sexy company get in on the action?

There are certain types of companies that seem to be a more natural fit in the myspace community. Trendy brands like Redbull, or Mini appeal to the young myspace community and are likely to win friends. Popular nightclubs, shops, and restaurants would all easily have success. Charities have lots of young supporters who will be happy to provide their backing through myspace.

The key to success on myspace is to write good content. This content should be creative, unusual – off the wall – anything to get people talking about your company.

This content should provide either (a) some information that the myspace community would find useful or (b) just simply entertain them by providing unusual videos or animated games for example. Offering friends on myspace some sort of discount or promotion is another way of getting noticed.

Companies that currently use informative and entertaining content to win friends on myspace include:

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Apple – the company created 3 separate Myspace pages to market the IPOD Nano range – green, blue, and pink. Apple has been using social networking effectively to market itself on other sites, including Facebook, where the company offered 10 million free itunes samplers to friends on the site.
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Wendy’s – the American fast food chain created a character called “Smart” for the Myspace community. Smart is a 28 year old male from New York who is “square”. He likes all things square and “has no hair”. Smart has 67055 friends on Myspace. Check out http://www.myspace.com/wendysquare
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Proctor and Gamble – the company tries to be more subtle about promoting their “Secret Body Spray” by focusing their myspace page on pop star, Rihanna and peppering the text with references to the “Secret Body Spray” tour. Rihanna mentions her favourite scent of body spray – Vanilla and also promotes their full range of scents from Peach Shimmer to Tropical Radiance. Secret body spray has over 31,000 friends in the Myspace community.

Objections have been voiced by consumer groups because it is difficult to tell the difference between a genuine member and a marketer. Fooling potential customers may win you friends in the short term, but consumers value honesty and it is best for companies to come clean about who they are and what they are promoting.

Creating a simple ugly page with basic company information on myspace won’t do your company any favours. If you are willing to put in some time and effort however myspace offers a tremendous marketing opportunity that your company can’t ignore.

Myspace is not right for everyone – especially businesses that sell to the B2B market. For the business to business market you may want to consider other social marketing sites where the focus is more on business relationships. For example www.linkedin.com is a popular medium for business networks amongst others.