What’s Working in Marketing

Since the late 1990’s, research has shown that Internet users are “functionally blind” to ads on a web page. In 2005, Burke, Hornof, Nilsen, and Gorman concluded, Eye tracking data reveal people rarely look directly at banners. A post hoc memory test confirms low banner recall and, surprisingly, that animated banners are more difficult to [...]

It’s always interesting to watch marketing organizations and ad agencies scramble to apply the practices they preach to clients on their own businesses. –> Find a customer problem, provide a unique way to solve it, develop differentiated messaging, and spread the word. The big challenge in the 21st Century is that we have to figure [...]

Shari had an interesting series of discussions with her Clark and WPI students this week. The topic was marketing on Facebook. While about half the students (these are Gen Y / Millennials) have “friended” a company, most had never moved on to further interaction. One student friended Skittles because she likes their kooky status updates…very [...]

Last week I gave a pre-conference webinar for the 7th Annual ISA Marketing & Sales Summit. The topic: What’s Hot in Search Marketing? This is a continuation of my annual updates about what’s going on behind the scenes on the search engines and how that affects your rankings, for PPC and natural search. For those [...]

Idk what’s going on this week, but it’s only Tuesday and I’ve gotten more than the usual number of questions that fall under the heading of “Really Bad Marketing Advice.” To the credit of my friends and clients who’ve been asking, they knew something was fishy. So they got a second opinion from, well, me. [...]

Google’s algorithm is the one to watch when it comes to search engine rankings. But did you know this year’s major update, called Panda, turned a lot of rankings on their heads? Companies that had ranked well suddenly fell off the list. Find out more in this year’s ISA Marketing & Sales Summit 2011 SEO [...]

Your buyers’ time is extremely valuable. In a recent survey of automation end-users, we found that buying teams are getting bigger. In fact, 4-5 people are now influencing the short list and purchase decisions, on average. And your customers are keenly aware of the challenges this presents as they want to reduce the buying cycle [...]

Search is a cornerstone of the Internet economy and an essential part of the daily lives of many social and business users. According to a new study from McKinsey & Company, The Impact of Internet Technologies: Search, in 2010, the average US Internet user performed about 1,500 searches. That’s 4+ searches a day. Over the [...]

The Internet is a great theatre for confrontation. Doesn’t matter the size of the company — upstart or behemoth — there is plenty of room for wars. With all the eyeballs out there, even though they may not pay a big subscription fee for your service, they engage enough with pay per click ads that [...]

Every year for the ISA Marketing & Sales Summit, I give an annual update on what’s happening in the world of search engine marketing.  I always find it interesting how much things change from year to year. This year social media is having an impact on search engine marketing, adding a new “real time” element to [...]