Guest Teacher on Thursday, December 7

We had the same teacher that had previously been our substitute come in to teach us about an interesting topic: Search Engine Marketing. It was a great powerpoint lecture, as we learned a lot about a topic that would help in making and posting our website to the Internet. It is a good quality to have a website really searchable, by including keywords that are relevant to our target users/readers. Following, is some content we learned in the lecture.

Some reasons that Internet users worldwide use search engines are for:

• research
• entertainment
• business
• news
• banking
• dictionary
• comparison shopping
• shopping / purchases

Personally, I use the Internet for every single one of these things! I do more research and go online for entertainment and business news, more so than I shop online. This is probably because I am more used to shopping in physical stores, where I am able to touch and feel products and try on clothes/jewelry. It would be great if the Internet can offer digital dressing rooms that feature models that look EXACTLY like us! The ones offered now are just created based on the average person; however, EVERY body is different; from shapes, to sizes. I find that when I try clothes on virtual models currently offered on websites, I know that is not how the clothes would look on me; from my previous experience of trying on those same clothes in real life. However, with better technology, hopefully one day this can happen. Okay, back to the subject of the class lecture...

Here is a list of site strategies for success (which are very important!) :

1. Establish site objectives
2. Figure out strategic goals
3. Identify an audience and market
4. Know the competition and what they're doing
5. Offer a lot of relevant/useful information
6. Include a lot of creative content. Content should also be up to par with other websites:
1. type, tone, style, architecture, navigation, graphic design, and usability should be crafted so as the website is easy to look at and use.
   
2. Visibility - search engine optimization
   
3. Marketing - site promomotion, branding, testimonials
4. Site maintenance
5. Guarantees
6. Links
7. Privacy statement

I will definitely use the above strategy list in creating my website for class. I have already started it, and though it is not a shopping site, it would be nice to get people to come and visit my website. I learned that in addition to a great looking, informative and usable website, it also has to be VISIBLE to search engines. This is known as search engine optimization. Also, for companies, marketing is very important to promote their website and business.


We also learned of the different players in the search engine industry, and how companies are charged by search engines for ads and how many times they get clicks, or many times a user visits the ad. Google and Yahoo! differ in their paying tactics; however, Yahoo! is beginning to follow in the footsteps of how other bigger companies, such as Google, do things. Terminology such as pay-per-call and pay-per-click, and paid inclusion tell us the way advertisements are paid for by companies. I never knew internet marketing was so closely marketed, in terms of each CLICK costing a few cents. I assume this can add up to a LOT of revenue for search engines.

In addition to learning about the search engine industry and SEM technology, we also learned about portals. Portals are sites that serve as a gateway to additional information. The types of portals are horizontal and vertical. Some examples of portals are ZDnet for tech news (now CNET Newtorks) and business.com for B2B business searches. Others are shopzilla.com, and shopping.com which feature shopping services for comparitive shopping. That is one thing I took away from this class that I'm really glad I found out about- comparative sites! I usually just go to sites for stores I am already familiar with, and review their prices. However, with a site that offers this all at one place, it makes things MUCH easier!

Above is a screen shot of Shopzilla.com, a portal that shows offers from various e-commerce sites to help users in comparitive shopping. The Internet is widely used for comparative shopping, and this shopping tactic has grown in use recently over the years. At the website, you can read reviews, get prices and compare products online. Since it compares most of the best-rated shopping outlets online, you can get your product at the best price.

Some useful information we learned on the topic at hand:

• SEM is based on paid placement.
• Companies bid for key words that are relevant to their site and target market.
• The charges are pay-per-click, with a 50-cent per-click average.
• Yahoo! uses paid inclusion and charges companies to be included in more relevant search results.
• Google AdWords uses a pay-per-click service. Most of their revenue comes from AdWords. Advertisers specify relevant keywords, and when a user searches for that keyword, ads for relevant words are shown as "sponsored links" on the right side of the screen.
  
• Yahoo copies Google, and this is known in the industry as PANAMA.
• In choosing KEYWORDS, we want to discover and use keywords relating to what our business sells, or what our site is about. A good way to do this is to perform searches ourselves using those keywords, and see what sites Google returns. It is good to keep in mind phrases, competition, and conversion and ROI; and grab as many different ways people would look for you in a search engine.
  
• Paid placement accounts for 83% of advertising spendatures online, which means that companies spend 83% of their money on sponsored ads.
  

What's next in SEM?
For the future, search engine marketing is expected to have more contextual search, more local search, more behavioral and personal searches, and more social search. Eventually, search will be used through every technological device offered; however, this is all the future.

Useit.com

Usability Assignment (due Nov. 9)

Useit.com > Participation Inequality

Article: “Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute” (October 9, 2006)

Summary:

This article is about how many people on-line are merely “lurkers,” people who just read or view information on a social network, blog or discussion board, without actually contributing to any interactive online feature. The percentages vary, as to which type of online destination is visited. Very few people are “contributors,” people who actually submit opinions, reviews, or informative data to the site. In general, the numbers are that 90% of internet users are lurkers, 9% contribute a little, and 1% is active users who contribute most of the information read at a site. All this information is on average.

Most people don’t contribute anything to a site, they simply read and observe what other people post. This is known as “participation inequality,” first studied by Will Hill during the 1990’s. These inequities between users as far as their participation to an interactive website goes, results in a biased understanding of the web community. There are strong differences as to why some people actively post a lot of content on a site, while many others (the majority) just lurks around and watches what others are talking about.

With the standard inequity ratio among online web communities being 90-9-1%, blogs have a bad participation inequality reflected in a 95-5-0 rule. With wikipedia.com, the inequities are worse as 99% of people who visit the site are lurkers. Amazon, widely known for its feature for people to post and read reviews, actually only gets reviews from 1% of its visitors to the website!

Problems with inequality, is that the samples represent a skewed portion of actual web users. The numbers account for just a portion of all of the people who are online, all of who are very different in their preferences, tastes, habits, etc. With any site, hearing from the same small percentage of people who actually contribute to the site can add many problems, such as an unrepresentative sample of customer feedback, reviews from a small number of the population (which cannot really be generalized), biased politics, search engine results based on popularity and number of links to the site instead of behavioral tendencies of consumers, and low quality postings which take away from the important information on a site.

Implications of the article:

The article implies that participation inequality is very common in the Internet world; and this is how it will always be. The majority of Internet users are lurkers. The article suggests that participation inequality is not something that can be overcome. There are some ways to come closer to equalizing it, however, such as: making it easier for visitors to contribute such as through a star-rating system instead of actually having to type out a review, making participation a side-effect with little to no effort such as simply clicking on preferences, allow readers the ease of editing a pre-created layout instead of having to make something themselves from scratch, and rewarding contributors, especially those who contribute quality material.

My opinion:

I DO agree with the author, partially because I have experience on both sides of the spectrum. I have visited websites as a “lurker,” reading postings, opinions and reviews left by other visitors. That is my regimen most of the time I am on a site- I think that my input is not really necessary, and therefore do not want to spend the time to write something out, unless it is something I am extremely passionate about. Most of the time, I feel that my input will get drowned out amongst a sea of people doing the same thing – writing on a topic; with many peoples’ opinions/contributions similar to each other, many times repetitive and not worth reading.

I also have a blog and interactive website/personal page, in which I would love to get viewer contributions. Counters tell me that people are visiting the site, but few leave any trace of their doing so, such as a comment or posting of any sort. I assume their actions are so, for the same reasons I do not post on blogs- because I don’t think it is of importance to my doing so, and I don’t want to waste my time. It could also be for their fear of anyone commenting back towards them, and criticizing what they posted. All in all, I do believe the author’s main message that many people simply visit websites and online communities to simply read and observe, without contributing input or opinions of any kind.

Assignment due 11/9: Clickz.com Article

“E-mail Resurges” – Kevin Newcomb (October 20, 2006)

Summary:

The article is basically about how e-mail has evolved since its inception. It’s an extremely valuable tool to marketers, as many marketers are realizing the high value in the use of e-mail to market. Once a “killer app,” e-mail is now universally applicable, and has the ability to bring together a whole company, in terms of integrating functions and helping the transfer of information between departments. It is a way to ease efforts in tying all departments together as a communication channel. People are beginning to realize that e-mail has more value than how it was perceived to have in its early stages.

E-mail is beginning to be seen as the “digital backbone” for marketers. It can be used for communication amongst the inner circle of marketers, as well as used to mass communicate to a large number of people through an e-mail list. This is great for PR announcements, news blasts, etc. Issues regarding e-mail are the effective design of the e-mail body, user experience in one’s viewing an e-mail, e-mail list growth and effectiveness in sending e-mail, deliverability and measurement standards of sending e-mail, building a commitment to e-mail of c-suite execs, and exploring integrations with other industry groups as well as exploring partnerships with them through e-mail. These issues are currently being explored and expanded upon.

There are interests in the use of the benefits of e-mail by major corporations, as well as niche companies. A company’s reputation can be perceived through their e-mails, by means of quality and e-mail delivery. People are more likely to filter away e-mails of unknown or disliked brands, and more likely to give some attention to those e-mails from companies with good reputations. It is important for a company not to release too much e-mail, for that can pose as an annoyance to the e-mail list recipients.

E-mail’s biggest roadblock is still, and always has been, spam. People are becoming more selective with e-mails, and their tolerance for spam can likely rub off onto other efforts of marketing from companies that they would potentially be interested in, which puts those companies at a harder position. However, it is still widely accepted that e-mail is becoming stronger in value as a marketing tool, as the e-mail and Internet become more comfortable to use for users and consumers.

My thoughts on this subject:

The reason I chose to write on this piece is because I agree with the author in that it is a very important marketing tool. I have had experience in the entertainment field, in which requires a lot of mass marketing of new media releases through e-mail. E-mail is convenient to use and a more efficient use of the company’s resources. It is a cheap way to get the message out to millions of e-mail list subscribers; with the only thing invested really is time to design the layout of the e-mail.

It's link to e-commerce:

This article does tie in to e-commerce, in that marketing is a part of the sales process. With almost all marketing e-mails, there is a link that directs the recipient to the company website. It is there that he or she has the ability to purchase a product or service, or become more informed of something of interest. E-mails allow a company to grab a target consumer’s attention towards a product they might be interested in, and from there, help them towards the site where the company can deliver to the consumer a better shopping experience. It is in that way that e-mail is very important to e-commerce.



Above: An e-mail I received from Sephora.com. It's design and layout was exceptional, and provided an online version of the Sephora store experience, including an array of many featured beauty products. There was an option to visit the site, leading the e-mail recipient towards possibly making an online purchase. Incentives to online purchases were offered, such as three free samples in addition to any online order made on Sephora.com.

With the e-mail service I use, Gmail (google mail service), there is an area to the right of each e-mail viewed that shows sponsored links. The links usually are related to the subject or content matter of the e-mail. For instance, the e-mail above from Sephora.com generated a number of beauty and health-related links such as a link to buy Philosophy brand products at drugstore.com, as well as one for American Beauty Cosmetics.

Guest Teachers on 10/26/06

The guest teachers that came in to teach us a lesson on Internet Marketing were really informative. They seemed to have a lot of experience in the computer and internet business, across a number of avenues. They went over key aspects of marketing in general, and later focused on direct marketing. They mentioned all of the ways that the internet is used in helping companies to directly sell or market their products and services. I learned of many useful websites as well. Two key things that I learned from the lecture that stood out are in regards to list databases, and the website Local.com, whose headquarters are situated in Orange County.

Local.com

The guy who worked for local.com explained to us that it was an “I.Y.P.” or internet yellow page service. It is an interactive services, that even offers user reviews and maps in addition to contact and location information of local businesses in any area. With local.com, one may search for local businesses, products and services. They have the option to do a business search, a people search, or a job search.

The most popular and the leader in regards to service-directory websites, is Super Pages. Superpages.com is a mixture of the yellow and white pages online, and the premier destination for those who want to locate a U.S. business, maps and driving directions, coupons, and order phone books. It is also a place for businesses to advertise and promote their business, as ad space can also be bought from this high-trafficked website.

I have already benefited from local.com, as I have found some local businesses and products that I am interested in, after having done a search using the website. I did a product search for “music” in the location “Long Beach, CA” and found many different record stores, music schools, and music businesses such as the music business registry. It was a very useful tool to help me find the businesses that are of most interest to me, as I am looking for someone who offers piano lessons locally, as well as great record shops.

http://www.local.com

http://www.superpages.com

Lists Developed for Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is that such as telephone marketing and direct mail like catalogs, envelope mailers, self-mailers and shared mail. We learned about addressable media, such as those personally addressed (ex.- Dear Samantha, check out this special offer we think you would like.), and mass media, which is just one standardized mail out format.

I thought it was awesome how companies can make their own lists, as far as who they want to send their mail to, or who they want to call. There are websites that offer services for a fee, to segment the customer or business information in their databases, and give you the ideal set of recipients for the direct marketing. This way, promotional tools or messages can be tailored to address the correct market segment. For example, a local 24 hour fitness can buy a list of contact information of people who shop at a near-by Trader Joes health food specialty store, or they can buy a list of people who attend the local Bally’s gym.

www.experian.com

It is amazing how a company can select the people or businesses they want to market to, and all the information is available. People at these list database companies are paid good money to constantly maintain the lists, so they are always trustworthy and useful. I plan on using the two services, an iyp and a list database service such as the ones we had learned about in class, in future business endeavors.

Assignment #2 - Consumer Product Reviews

Consumer Product reviews (a form of "community" at e-commerce sites)

1. I searched for a pair of shoes that would suit my tastes, style and need (I needed a nice pair of open-toed shoes that were not too casual, but not too fancy). While browsing, I narrowed down my search to “Women’s casual shoes, flat, medium width.” With that in mind, I found Steve Madden’s “Cutsie” ( SKU #7260878). After searching amongst the flats offered by the Steve Madden brand, that one caught my eye because of the beautiful image of the shoe in green leather.
2. From reading the reviews, I found that a 70-80% of those who bought the product gave good reviews. Although there were only 12 reviews, they gave positive feedback, and good recommendations in purchasing the shoe (to order it a half-size smaller because it runs a little big), which would make me feel more secure in dealing with sizes and making shoe purchases over the internet, as I have little experience with online shopping. There was one long negative review that I read, in which the claims that the dissatisfied customer made were totally different than the majority opinion.
3. Reading the reviews would make me more inclined to buy the shoe if I had originally been interested in the first place, and if it had good reviews. However, if it received mostly negative reviews that would certainly turn me off. It is easier to turn down buying a product on the internet because of the fact that you don’t get to see if up close, touch it, inspect it, etc… than it is at a store, in which you can actually try on the shoe and see if you like it or not.
4. There certainly is an advantage to consumers of reading the reviews at Zappos.com. People there usually give honest reviews, and would not lie because it does not pose as a benefit or threat to anyone but the maker. It would only be in the case that someone truly despises the brand, and wants them to do bad and not make a sale, that they would give negative reviews for the sole fact of harming their business. Therefore, I conclude that it would be safe to trust the reviews online, which are very helpful in deciding on making purchases in the online world. People are very skeptical and careful with online purchasing, as they are taking a risk (the internet is an insecure environment, information can be stolen) and would have to be truly sure that they want a product, especially if it is a big investment, to purchase online. Reviews help to ensure one’s decision to purchase a product online or not to.
5. The advantage of zappos.com of offering reviews, is that if people are truly satisfied with the service and information they received from the site, they hopefully will be happy enough to come back and use the site again. I don’t think that negative shoe reviews would hurt zappos.com, because it is the customer’s opinion for one thing, and another thing is that other consumers have a right to know the performance and quality of something they are buying on the internet. I think that advertising negative comments along with positive comments will give the consumer a better idea of shoe feedback, which is something the public can appreciate. They would associate the great service and commitment to honesty with zappos.com.
6. I would recommend that a site like kencole.com, which sells only its own brand of shoes NOT to offer recommendations. I feel that if it is one brand of shoe, negative comments CAN hurt that brand, if people choose to generalize performance of one model of shoe to the rest of the shoes offered by that brand. I notice that brands have similarities among their products. With zappos.com, it is okay to offer reviews because of the wide variety of shoes displayed on the website, and the design of the website is for function and not image quality. Looking at kencole.com, which is Kenneth Cole’s online store, putting up user reviews would ruin the clean and professional look of the website, taking away from it’s designer look and feel.
7. I certainly look at recommendations from other consumers at Internet sites before I make a purchase. I do so for textbooks, as it is very important for me to get quality textbooks, for cheaper than what they sell at the bookstore. The biggest reason I check reviews for people who sell new and used textbooks online is to see about quickness of shipping! If the seller got good reviews from people who received their purchase rapidly, I am more likely to buy my book from that seller. Timing is usually the biggest key in my buying textbooks for school, because I don’t want to be behind in my classes. I also check reviews for auction sites like ebay, to be aware of the type of person I am buying from- I like to know if they are trustworthy, and if they can deliver the product with quality and speed.
8. My general recommendation as to whether or not a site should include product reviews is if it is a warehouse-style site, like zappos.com, then they should definitely include reviews because of the high volume of people that visit the site, and because of the large variety of shoes offered. If the site is meant to be more functional than it is visually appealing, then I feel that putting up reviews would be somewhat tacky, and not look as professional.

Assignment #1 -- Why blog?

3) Based on reviewing the various articles given, I have formed my thoughts of blogging and business. I feel that blogging is a great way to get opinions across, leak new ideas or information, and create a buzz on a certain topic or product. There are many different reasons on why blogging would be great. However, I feel that although it can help a business, it may hinder it. A blog formed by a business to promote, discuss or inform of certain elements of their business would be, most of the time, a positive thing. There is also a bad side to blogging – posting negative or ill information, views, or false stories on the company by an outside source, angered worker, dissatisfied customer, etc. may give the business a bad image, and may influence minds of others who were not originally loyal to the business. Internet chatter travels very quickly, and “online word-of-mouth” is quick to damage or help a person or business.

A list of some possible uses for blogs are as follows:
-de facto news
-marketing blogs
-blogs as learning tools
-blogs for discussion
-helpful question-and answer blogs
-corporate blogs
-fictional blogs
-news / press release blogs
-entertainment blogs (for music/film production companies to create buzz)


Side note: Marketers of a business can use blogging to reach out to the general public and let them know of a new product or service being offered. It is a good way to create a buzz, and have it travel worldwide! I have actually used this method myself, to promote and advertise new music, when I worked for various entertainment companies.

4) Blogs should definitely not look or feel like traditional marketing and advertising. A lot of times, ads are unwanted, and disliked. The average person comes into contact with thousands of advertisements a day, unknowingly. For instance, if one were to hear a jingle on a radio and pay no attention to it, the next time that jingle comes on and that person is able to sing the words along in his or her head, he or she may become uneasy and frightened as to how they knew that jingle when they can’t admit to ever consciously hearing it. The same goes for print ads and commercials. We view countless ads that contain sexual themes, references to drug usage, etc. Many of us would rather not come across these things, like for instance, parents. Parents would not want their young children to be exposed to commercials advertising adult products.

Summed up, some advertisements and marketing are unwanted. That should not be one’s feelings toward a blog. Most of the time, a blog is like a journal entry, or article. Many times it is someone’s opinion. We involuntarily encounter many ads per day. It is unlikely that we would choose to go to a site just to view commercials, why would we check out a blog just to be exposed to advertising such as commercials or still ads?

5) I don’t feel that blogs are a fad, I feel that it is something fairly new, that is growing in popularity. Many major corporations have found that is a great way to communicate, and have received many benefits from blogging. I feel that they will continue to have an impact for marketing, if promoted and used correctly. If the general public accepts a company’s blog as interesting and not-threatening like unwanted advertisements, then that company can use it sparingly as a means of advertising products, while still giving consumers the information they would like on the company and whatever else they have interest in. Blogs should always be interesting and informative to keep people coming back to read them.

6) I would love to see the marketing department start a blog. It would be great to read about big things going on in the corporate world, as well as in local small businesses. Some other great things the blog could feature are listings of internships or jobs for marketing majors in the southern California area, or weekly tips on getting marketing jobs, or ways to market better. That would be very useful to students and alumni alike.