Biznology Blog: November 2006

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November 29, 2006

Web 2.0 Marketing

I've thoroughly enjoyed participating in the Web Globalization conference, happening today and tomorrow here in Boston. Several companies with multinational Web sites have presented case studies and many of the same issues seem to crop up. Content management is critical, but even more important is understanding your customers in each country, and developing good relationships with your Web team in every market.

One of the most interesting discussions revolved around how some people consider themselves both marketing and technical—a rarity a few years ago when I started feeling that way about myself. My opinion is that the influence of direct marketing on the Web is making marketers more analytical, and the Web is making technical people more customer-oriented, both of which bring marketers and technologists together.

I'm slated to give a presentation on how the Web is changing marketing, so click that link to get the slides.

Posted by mikemoran at 1:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 20, 2006

Free Classifieds, Denmark-style

You've all heard of Craig's List, which allows most classified ads to be run for free, and is 25% owned by eBay. And you know about Google Base, a beta offering from Google that some have termed an "eBay killer," because it allows sellers to post items for free. Now comes a new version of classified ads from Denmark, coming from a surprising source—a leading Danish newspaper publisher. And it's free, too.

FindAlt (Danish for "find everything") debuted today, a completely free online service for classified ads that already offers almost one million products and plans to double that number "within days" according to Carsten Rysgaard, Market Director at Berlingske Digital, the online arm of Denmark's largest media company. The smallest items all the way up to used cars and even homes are for sale already.

I met Carsten in Denmark last week as the company readied for launch. He explained what a big step it is for a media company to consider cannibalizing its lucrative classified business for a free model. In print newspapers charge for each ad posted, so how can they give it away on line?

Carsten explained that all revenue will come from advertising that is shown alongside the classified listing itself. So, for example, it's free to post an item for sale, but if multiple vendors post the same item, they might want to show advertising to entice buyers to purchase from them rather than a competitor. "This will only work if more than one seller wants to offer the same item," Carsten told me, but it seems to me that situation will happen frequently enough that there is a good business here. The advertising system is not available today, but is promised in a few weeks.

As with shopping search sites, vendors can use an XML feed to upload their entire product catalog. Most shopping search sites charge to add products and all (except Froogle) charge a per-click fee when products are viewed or a per-action fee when products are purchased. If FindAlt adds the kind of faceted searching capability seen in shopping search engines, that would create a formidable competitor to Kelkoo and others within Denmark.

For those of us who expect to find innovation in all the usual places, it's nice to see Denmark showing other newspapers around the world one response to the Internet. With 90% of Danes using the Internet (over 60% with broadband), this seems like a good place to find the new newspaper model.

Posted by mikemoran at 11:44 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

November 16, 2006

Search Marketing in Denmark

I spent a great day in Copenhagen today at the Search Marketing Strategies conference from the Danish e-Business Association (FDIH). A slate of excellent speakers, headed by Andreas Weigend (former Chief Scientist at Amazon), and Phillip Schindler (Director at Google).

I gave two different presentations to the 200 attendees, Search Marketing Growth and Search Marketing Master Class, There were a few knowing smiles in the audience when I told them that the direct marketers have the edge over brand marketers on the Web.

But I had the most fun sharing the panel session with Andreas and Phillip. Several questions centered around how large companies can make the changes required for Internet marketing, and each of us gave similar advice. I told them, of course, to Do It Wrong Quickly, but Andreas and Phillip provided similar advice on taking a guess and fixing it later (Andreas called it "launch and learn), which was great. Andreas commented to me privately that it's great to see what people agree on—we all were preaching the same approach and explaining how Amazon, Google, and IBM have succeeded with it.

Posted by mikemoran at 9:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 8, 2006

The New Internet Marketing

Last night, I had the pleasure of speaking to the New Jersey Chapter of the American Marketing Association. It was great to visit with people who are confronting the changes in marketing brought by the Internet and working out the impact in their businesses. I fielded lots of good questions on how to get started, especially with small businesses.

The answer is to start small. You don't need to redesign your whole Web site—in fact, I would advise against it. Instead, make sure you have your site tagged for metrics with Google Analytics or a similar metrics tool. You need to know how many people are coming to your site and whether they are doing what your site is designed to do (such as buy something, fill out a contact form, call you on the phone). You want to drive people to the goal of your Web site.

Then, you need to change something. One person I talked to last night said her site's home page was a mess. They have people coming to the site who want to submit their resumes, and other people who want to hire them, but the home page doesn't clearly tell each group what to do. So, she should just change the home page so there are two big buttons that say, "I want a job" and "I want to hire someone" and link those to the right pages for each.

Will that fix the rest of her Web site? No. But it's a start. Make that one change and see whether more people click through rather than abandoning. See of a few more resumes trickle in. See if a few more employers hire someone.

This is not rocket surgery. Figure out one thing you are doing wrong and make it just a little bit better. Check your metrics to make sure you really did make it better. And then do another one tomorrow. Or next week. Or whenever you can. If you pay attention to what your customers tell you and change what you are doing, it's amazing how smart you'll look. Do it wrong quickly, then fix it.

You can check out my complete deck of slides on the The New Internet Marketing.

Posted by mikemoran at 8:12 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 1, 2006

Still Time to Sign Up

If you live in the New York or northern New Jersey area, there's still time to sign up for two events next week. On November 7, I'll be speaking at a dinner given by the American Marketing Association in Bridgewater, New Jersey, on the subject of The New Internet Marketing. Learn how blogs, wikis, podcasts, and more can jump-start your Internet marketing efforts. Non-members are welcome.

The very next evening, November 8, I'll be teaching an inexpensive search marketing course for the Learning Annex in New York City, called Search Engine Secrets.

I'd love to meet you, so come out if you are in the area.

Posted by mikemoran at 11:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What's Multivariate Testing?

Multivariate testing was the talk of this month's Emetrics Summit in Washington. Everywhere I looked, people were singing its praises. And before the conference ended, Google announced a tool you can use to do simple multivariate testing for free. So if you don't know what multivariate testing is, you need to check out this month's Biznology newsletter.

Posted by mikemoran at 11:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack