Hill Library Blog - Sales & Marketing

Where have all the advertising dollars gone?

Fri, 22 May 2009 13:26:00 -0500

The Pew Internet and American Life Project just release a new report about online classified ads websites. Use of these sites—Craigslist is the most prominent example—has increased like crazy since 2005. Pew correlates this surge with the drastic drop in advertising revenue at conventional print sources, like newspapers.

Access the report online or download a pdf version here: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/7--Online-Classifieds.aspx.

For more information about Internet advertising, in general, check out the Internet Advertising Revenue Report from Price Waterhouse Coopers. The report covers overall trends, plus detailed information about different categories, including classified ads.

Social media statistics: Research to determine if 2.0 is right for you

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:28:00 -0500

Social media marketers will tell you that using social media to reach out to customers during times of economic depression offers an excellent return on investment. The overhead is relatively minimal (consisting mostly of time commitment) and the potential value is huge (cultivating a loyal consumer base). But we live in a cynical world, my friends, and everyone has an angle – even people in marketing. (I know!) So if you’re thinking of jumping into social media or ramping up your current efforts, you’ll of course want to do some research into social media on your own. Here are some places to start.

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A bridge between the real and virtual worlds

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:16:00 -0500

There’s a new(ish) advertising tool called quick response codes that has been getting some press recently. They’re basically barcodes that are readable by web-enabled cell phones and point people to particular Web sites. So you could include a quick response code in a paper advertisement, for example, and people who scanned that code into their phone would go directly to your site where they could purchase whatever you’re advertising. The technology is being billed as a bridge between the real and virtual worlds.

Being an expert on neither, I can only recommend the following articles for a quick and informed introduction to how it all might work:

RU Ready 4 QR Codes from Multichannel Merchant

The Scannable World: Mobile Phones as Barcode Scanners from Read Write Web

Mainstream America is Ready for Bar Codes – Converging ‘RealSpace’ and ‘MobileSpace’ from David Harper’s Different Things

To me, when I hear “bridge between real and virtual worlds,” I think Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe. So it’ll probably be a lot like that. But with more commerce. And fewer talking animals.

Advertising Wisely, Whether Budgets Are Up or Down

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:41:00 -0500

Two recent surveys shed conflicting light on advertising expenditures in our slumping economy.

The Association of National Advertisers released the results of a survey at the end of August noting that over half of the respondents see cuts coming to their ad budgets in the next six months. Areas most targeted by these cuts include media and production budgets, travel, and new project acquisition.

Meanwhile, a study from the Kelsey Group finds that the “current economic climate has not diminished the advertising plans of small and medium-sized businesses.” In fact, the study finds that 81% of those businesses surveyed intend to maintain or increase ad spending.

This kind of conflicting data puts advertising agencies in a bit of a pickle. How to plan? How to project? It also leaves small businesspeople at a loss when trying to figure out how much their competition is likely spending on ads. So what is to be done? The way forward may be the safe way. The Center for Media Research, where I found both of these reports and which, as an aside, is an excellent resource for free (registration required) market research, suggests spending advertising budgets “wisely.”

But how? What does that mean? Well, here’s what we at the Hill Library think: To advertise wisely, you should get to know your potential customers through secondary research as much as possible before attempting to reach out to them directly. Advertising wisely also means benchmarking your ad spending against long-term industry averages. And once you’ve done this external research, advertising wisely involves looking at your own interactions with your existing customers. Combining these external and internal views can help you create the targeted, financially responsible advertising plan most likely to reap returns in the most efficient manner.

And here’s how to get started…
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Building a Customer Psychographic Profile

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:20:00 -0500

Here’s a test: When I say “psychographics,” don’t think of Anthony Perkins. Ahh, I always fail, too.

Psychographics, like demographics, can help you research your customers. But where demographic research looks at recognizable and quantifiable characteristics of people (like age, sex, or educational attainment), psychographics are focused on psychological or sociological characteristics. So demographics can show you the median income of people in a particular place, and psychographics can hint at how they feel about spending that income. Psychographic research can also tell you how the things consumers buy fit into an overall consumer lifestyle.

We generally beat demographic data into the ground here on the blog (and must drive a good portion of the total traffic to the American FactFinder, if only out of sheer repetitiveness), so today we’ll just focus on resources to find psychographic information.

If you’d like to create a more focused marketing or business plan by learning more about potential customers’ buying patterns, consumer preferences, personal interests, and lifestyles, read on.

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Google's Knol: Diversifying your online presence

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:09:00 -0500

You may have heard of Google’s new product Knol, which is being billed as a competitor to Wikipedia. It has been around for some time in a closed beta, but this week was opened to the public. One would basically use Knol in the same way one would Wikipedia – by creating and editing entries on just about any topic under the sun – but Knol gives more ownership of the entry to the initial creator than does Wikipedia.

So when I created an entry on business research yesterday (Business Research: What it is, and where to find it), I also created an account that gives the Hill Library’s information as the content creator. Will this give the Library any additional authority in the eyes of people looking for business research online? Who knows.

Could your business use Knol to display specific industry knowledge? Absolutely. Especially for niche operations, this seems like a great way to spread content across the Web. There’s even been some speculation that Google will display Knol results above Wikipedia results in its search engine. That seems like a dastardly practice, but is something to keep in mind.

For another (better than ours) example of a small business-focused Knol, check out The Size of the Small Business Market, by Anita Campbell of SmallBizTrends.com.

Drop us a line if you write a Knol yourself, and help us out with ours by leaving comments and suggestions on the site.

Reaching Hispanic consumers online, knowledgeably

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:18:00 -0500

By 2050, the Hispanic population in the U.S. will grow by 188 percent, according to the Census Bureau. That’s a total of 102.6 million people, or 24.4 percent of the projected 2050 population. Clearly, that’s a big piece of the American consumer pie, and an intriguing prospective customer base for many businesses. But the Hispanic consumer is not a completely unified being. There are first-generation families, and third-generation families. There are consumers from Mexico, Central America, and South America. A blanket approach to reaching out to this group of people as though they were all the same is probably a less than ideal strategy. So how can your business reach this growing group of consumers knowledgeably?

Well, we’ve got some ideas. Follow along as we look at where Hispanic-origin consumers are located in the U.S., what they spend their money on, and how to best reach out to them via the Internet.

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Researching iPhone Users

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:45:00 -0500

If you’ve been anywhere near the Internet in the last couple of days you know the new iPhone is on sale today. There’s already lots of excitement around the new apps available, along with lots of disappointment about technical difficulties. One dedicated tech guy has even been lovingly streaming his first 24 hours with the device.

Clearly iPhone users are a tad more geeked-out than your average consumer; anecdotal evidence abounds to back this up. But what can we learn using concrete data about the people who’ve purchased and are using iPhones? Today we’ll walk through just some of the available statistics on iPhone usage. If you’re a marketer, you might use this info to help your clients move into the rapidly expanding mobile space. If you’re a small businessperson, you might use this info to more knowledgeably “go it alone” into mobile advertising. And if you’re anybody with a Web site, you might take some of this to heart to get your site found on the mobile web – before it gets too crowded.

Follow along as we look at iPhone users: Who they are, what they do, and how to reach them.

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How to turn Census data into business knowledge

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:51:00 -0500

Any astute reader of this blog will know all too well how much we appreciate the U.S. Census Bureau. As a counter of just about every American resident and keeper of data on just about every U.S. industry, the Census Bureau is an indispensible source for business research. Take, for example, the American FactFinder. You can use this tool to find detailed statistics about the people in any U.S. place. It’s authoritative, it’s comprehensive, and it’s free.

While it’s great to know that x% of the people in your community share x characteristic, the implications of that for your business can be less than clear. It’s a gap we try to help people span here at the library all the time: I’ve got all these great statistics, now how can I use them to further my business?

It’s a problem of turning data into knowledge.

We try to help folks with this on an individual level, but a great recent article in AdAge magazine can help in general, as well. The article, titled The Changing Face of the U.S. Consumer, looks at trends in the U.S. population (with data mined from the Census Bureau) and provides strategies to turn them to your business’s advantage. It’s a great example of how to turn data into knowledge, and a highly recommended read.

(via ResourceShelf)

Search for Web Sites by Visitor Characteristics

Fri, 16 May 2008 17:22:00 -0500

If you’ve ever been to Quantcast.com, you know the site gives traffic statistics and site user demographics for specific Web sites. A search on jjhill.org shows that our home page is pretty heavily visited by women between the ages of 45 and 54. It also says that a huge percent of visitors have a graduate degree and make between 0 and $30,000 per year. That’s right: librarians. Quantcast also notes that the ethnicity of jjhill.org visitors is off the charts for "Other."

Admittedly, this seems a bit shady. Still, I can’t help but pass along a recent beta addition to Quantcast that lets you build a list of Web sites that attract particular types of visitors. If you’re buying ads online, use this tool to identify targeted sites. If you’re researching a target audience, use the tool to learn more about where that audience spends their attention online.

From quantcast.com, just click the Advanced Search button and sign up for a free account. While I wouldn’t base a business plan solely on Quantcast’s data, it’s an interesting way to while away a Friday afternoon.

(Source: Read Write Web)

Top seven ways the Simmons database can help you research customers, products, and brands

Fri, 09 May 2008 17:47:00 -0500

We were very excited to recently receive and install a new version of the Simmons Choices (III) database here at the library. And by “excited,” I of course mean “terrified” – because of all the complicated business databases out there, Simmons is the most complicated. But after poking around in it a bit, it turns out that Simmons is actually more parts awesome than terrifying (although there is some “intimidating” in the mix). You’ll see why it’s so neat in just a minute, but first, some background.

The Simmons Choices III database contains consumer product and brand usage data. You can use it to find characteristics of the people who consume particular types of products, or to find brand market share, state-specific customer research, and statistics on market potential. The database covers all sorts of products and consumer types, and works by combining these characteristics to find what the market looks like where they intersect. So, for example, you can use Simmons to find out how many 18-24 year-olds (characteristic #1) prefer Budweiser (characteristic #2). Data comes from a survey of several thousand people.

The top seven ways Simmons can help you do business research:
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Emerging Minorities and Technology

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:05:00 -0500

Felipe Korzenny is a giant in multicultural marketing, and a good friend of the Hill Library. His research team at Florida State University recently came out with an in-depth report (Multicultural Marketing Equation: Online Technology Ownership) on how five different cultural groups use technology and technology devices. Some findings from the report:

Emerging minorities are innovative with technology use and highly willing to branch out into using new technologies.
English-speaking Hispanics are the group most likely to have a blog. Almost 20% currently have a blog and an additional 10% plan to have one within the year.
Hispanic Spanish-speakers have Web sites (35% of respondents) and create podcasts (15% of respondents) more than any other group. The study draws a connection between these technologies and a culture that places a high value on connectedness.
Non-Hispanic Whites lag behind in numerous areas, including having or planning to have a personal blog or Web site, and ownership of cell phones, MP3 players, and DVD burners.

As Dr. Korzenny concludes:

“Marketers should take notice of the tremendous swell of ownership in the ranks of emerging minorities. It is clear that as levels of acculturation and income increase among emerging minority groups, they stand out as current and potential leading edge technology purchasers. However, there are cultural differences among each of these minority groups that merit close attention. Marketers need to understand these differences as they relate to new technologies, select groups which have the highest interest in the various innovations, and create campaigns which are culturally appropriate.”

How Apple can help your business expand

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:12:00 -0500

Talk about researching your customers! A recent survey of iPhone users delves deep into the demographic and technologic characteristics of this group of consumers. If you’re researching mobile communications, use this report to learn more about how people use the iPhone, the “most publicized new mobile device in recent memory.”

Find out why people use the iPhone (reading, but not writing, email is #1)
Find out who owns an iPhone (over half of users are under 30)
Find difficulties owners face (displaying Web pages is #1 drawback)

In addition to offering statistics like these, the report highlights several areas of success that can be directly applied to your small business strategy in general.

First, partner up. AT&T (the iPhone's exclusive carrier) has garnered a huge windfall, estimated at $2 billion in revenue per year, directly related to the iPhone’s success. Can you offer your services to, or through, an industry partner? Are there organizations out there whose customers would benefit from your services? Contact them.

Second, use adjacent markets. More than half of people who own iPhones also own iPods, and another 25% use Mac computers. If you develop a new product or service, the first group of people you should target is your existing customers.

Things are looking up for Apple. A recent survey finds that 40% of college students plan to buy a Mac. Undoubtedly this will translate into increased sales of iPods, iPhones, and whatever other products the company comes up with, as well as increased revenue for Apple’s partners. Following Apple’s lead might not be a bad idea for the direction of your business.

(Source: Read Write Web)

Five questions with Rohit Bhargava on his book "Personality Not Included"

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:28:00 -0500

Your best friend’s personality is central to how much you like them, how much you look forward to interacting with them, and how you relate to them. We can all agree with that. But cultivating a positive business personality can make your company more attractive, more likeable, and more relatable to your customers, too. According to Rohit Bhargava’s new book “Personality Not Included,”

“Personality is the key element behind your brand and what it stands for, and the story that your products tell to your customers. Every element of your business, from your interactions with your customers to the packaging of your product is an element of your brand personality, and these are the elements that inspire delight or indifference among your customers.”

Mr. Bhargava is the head of the interactive marketing department at Ogilvy Public Relations, a frequent industry speaker, and excellent blogger (Influential Marketing Blog). In support of his book release, Mr. Bhargava put out an open invitation to anyone in the blogosphere to ask him five questions about business personality. Here is our interview:

Can you define business personality?
I defined business personality in the book as "the unique, authentic and talkable soul of your brand that people can get passionate about."

Could you offer suggestions of something unusual that a small businessperson could do on their Web site to assert their business personality?
Definitely. One big thing is language. Let's face it, the writing on most small business sites (and large business sites too) just plain sucks. It's total marketingspeak and does little to demonstrate what a brand stands for or even describe it well. A small business website with a good description of what they do with personality would stand out.

What are the two most relevant 2.0 technologies small businesses can use to grow their business or define their personality online?
The first is video. It might not fit your 2.0 technology standard, but I figured I would mention it anyway as relatively few small business sites are using it, but there really is nothing like using video to bring your brand to life in moving pictures, so to speak. The second relevant web2.0 technology is tagging. Using the right tagging for content (and submitting it to the right sites too) can help a small business to also stand out and also improve their google ranking at the same time.

How much time should a (time-strapped) small businessperson spend on online marketing activities per week?
This is a tough one to answer because it really depends on your business. If you are running a roofing business, the majority of your work might come through word of mouth referrals and you may be better off creating a really great brochure or calling card that people can give to one another. Of course, you could do this online too, but it really depends on your audience and business. In this day and age, though, I don't think any small business can afford to ignore the Internet as a channel - so I would say no less than an hour a week.

What is the most important thing to know about your new book?
That it's worth buying! No, seriously, the most important thing is that it is a very unique book in its approach because my main intention in writing it was for it to be USEFUL. To do that, I have lots of stories, I share lots of lists and I have a two part structure where the first part is the theory and the second part is all action guides to help you put the ideas of the book into action. Hopefully it delivers on the charge to be useful, but you'll have to let me know that!

You can find a listing of all the other interview questions and answers on Mr. Bhargava’s blog, along with a free copy of the introduction to “Personality Not Included.” Thanks for your time and thoughtful answers, Rohit!

How do your customers use the Internet?

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:11:00 -0500

Forrester research, provider of ungodly-expensive market research reports, recently unveiled a free social technology profile tool. If you know the age, location, and sex of your target customer, you can use this tool to figure out how that customer probably uses social technologies. Profiles are broken down into the following six headings:

Creators – Write blogs or publish video or music online
Critics – Post reviews or comments on blogs and edit wikis
Collectors – Use RSS feeds and tag online content
Joiners – Get involved in social network sites like MySpace or Facebook
Spectators – Read blogs or listen to podcasts
Inactives – Hate and fear the “Interweb”

If you can figure out how your best customers use the Internet, it’s a short step to figuring out how to better serve those existing customers, or how to best reach out to new ones.