April 26th, 2010
Perhaps the most ambitious campaign of start-ups, Y Combinator is a hybrid venture capital fund and business school that invests in, advises, and literally, feeds 40 or so early-stage businesses a year. Paul Graham, it’s fearless and optimistic leader, supplements his nominally sized investments of under $25,000 with lots of smart advice, technical help, and sense of community. The model has produced 145 companies to date, a few sizable acquisitions, and copycat funds in cities across the country and around the world.
For all the pain of nurturing a start-up, Graham believes that founding a company is the most efficient way to create wealth — for investors, for founders, for society at large. “There’s this classic pattern that has happened over and over again throughout history in which something is made one at a time, very expensively and unreliably by hand, and then someone comes along and figures out how to make large numbers of them cheaply and reliably,” Graham says. “We’re pulling this kind of transformation with venture funding. We’re mass-producing the start-up.”
Graham is something of a folk hero to a generation of ambitious techies, who debate his essays, read his books, and pitch him start-ups by the hundreds. His philosophies are simple: founders should live as cheaply as possible so that they can first become cash-flow positive. Wealth will follow.
Indeed, there’s something exhilarating about Graham’s optimism, especially at a time when so many once-great companies are sitting on the verge of bankruptcy. Graham believes, deeply, that start-ups are the answer to the world’s problems; that they are easy to make if you are determined enough and cheap enough; and that it’s getting a lot easier to start one.
Tags: creating wealth, san diego internet marketing, start up business success, start up fund, venture capital, webitmd start up
Posted in Internet Marketing Fundamentals, Marketing, SEO, Starting Up | No Comments »
April 15th, 2010
Search engine marketing spending is expected to be up 14% to $16.6 billion in North America in 2010. While growth in this marketing channel, which includes paid search, search engine optimization, and other search engine marketing technologies, slowed in 2008 and 2009, it still proved to relatively recession-resistant. As we progress into 2010, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) projects steady growth to return.
In a recent survey, SEMPO found that a majority of marketers planned to shift marketing budgets away from other channels such as direct mail and spend more on paid search and search optimization. Marketers see search optimization as a valuable means for increasing Website traffic and generating leads. In turn, site traffic metrics could measure the success of campaigns, such as conversation rate.
Respondents, however, are concerned about measuring return on investment, effectively optimizing their sites, and choosing the best keywords. Further, markets were also daunted with the challenge of integrating paid search and search optimization with other online and offline marketing strategies.
Tags: conversation rate, conversion optimization consulting, lead generation, paid search, san diego internet marketing, san diego online marketing, search engine optimization spending, SEMPO, seo growth, seo spending
Posted in Internet Marketing News, Marketing, SEO, Starting Up | No Comments »
April 7th, 2010
The new iPad brings with it exciting opportunities for advertisers and publishers to present their content on a larger and more vibrant iPhone-esqe display.
According to comScore, a digital marketing analysis firm, consumers are intending to purchase the iPad over all other e-readers, such as Amazon’s Kindle or Sony’s Reader. This is most likely due to the fact that iPads can do much more than simply display black-and-white text. comScore’s surveyed respondents intend to use the iPad for Web browsing, music, and e-mail over reading books and newspapers.
While many respondents stated that they would probably not purchase apps for the iPad, a majority intended to purchase specially formatted content for it. Current iPhone and iPod touch users were over two times more likely to purchase newspaper and magazine content for the iPad than those without an iPhone or iPod.
“The tablet and e-reader market is developing at a breakneck pace right now, and Apple’s entry into the market is sure to accelerate mainstream consumer adoption,” said Serge Matta, comScore executive vice president, in a statement. “These devices have the potential to be incredibly disruptive to the way consumers currently access digital content.
Tags: apple ipad advertising, comScore, ereader, ipad advertising, ipad content device, ipad marketing
Posted in Internet Marketing News, Mobile Marketing, SEO | No Comments »
April 1st, 2010
Microsoft has settled on the next two spots for its nascent retail effort, with the software giant planning to open outlets in Denver and San Diego.
Those two locations will join Scottsdale, Ariz., and Mission Viejo, Calif., as the only places where one can experience the Microsoft Store in person, though Microsoft also has an online version of the store.
The Denver and San Diego stores are expected to open this summer, according to a source, with other outlets likely by fall.
Microsoft’s retail approach takes a lot of cues from Apple, with a heavy focus on presentation, as well as a theater for training and an answer bar where customers can get technical help. There are also some unique-to-Microsoft touches like the tabletop Surface computers, Xbox displays, and a line of flat-screen displays creating a video wall that rings the store.
The company sells PCs from a variety of makers, though the systems come with a “Microsoft Signature” collection of software found only at Microsoft’s online and retail stores.
Info provided by: CNET News
Tags: denver microsoft retail, denver store microsoft, microsoft san diego, microsoft store san diego, san diego microsoft retail, san diego with microsoft
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March 29th, 2010
As Internet Marketers, we pay attention to every opportunity to capitalize on the changes made in the online industry to gain a competitive advantage over our competitors. SEO is undoubtedly always changing as innovations affect how content is discovered, indexed, and sorted in search results. In 2007, major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo have made some of the most significant changes ever by including images, maps, books, video, and news for certain search results.
Every marketer is forced to develop digital asset optimization strategies, while not forgetting about the basic search engine optimization components, for their clients through an integrated approach. Every approach must now include structured data in the form of microformats and rich snippets, as well as feeds and sitemaps, that all play an increasingly important role in uploading content for the Google index. Google says its mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.
Because of this, it is now becoming absolutely essential that companies develop a plethora of digital assets that must include not only links and sitemaps, but a variety of real-time feeds from social media sites, videos, pictures, and blog posts. By developing these assets, marketers can deploy a better more holistic SEO strategy, which realizes the benefit of inclusion and visibility where customers are looking.
Many search marketers already optimize holistically under the premise of, “What can be searched on can be optimized.” Until recently, most companies avoided entering the content marketing business. SEO consultants have typically been left to deal with whatever content they could to optimize and promote for link building.
In essence, the weight given to content optimization versus digital asset optimization should clearly match the opportunities presented by an ever-changing search results page.
As long as there are search engines, there will be some kind of optimization for improving search engine visibility for your clients! What companies need to consider are all the digital assets they have to work with to give both search engines and customers the information they’re looking for in the formats they’ll respond to. Stay competitive and offer what assets you have against your competitors!
Information Provided By: Lee Odden, ClickZ
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: holistic internet marketing, holistic seo, online marketing holistic, Online Marketing San Diego, san diego internet marketing, seo innovations google
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March 23rd, 2010
There is no question that mobile devices are becoming the next trend for marketers to reach their consumers. Marketing via mobile devices allow companies to reach their target markets anywhere and at anytime! There is an estimated 650 million people worldwide who use “smart” phones to access the Internet monthly and a recent study shows just who these users trust with regards to their services.
According to a Tellabs survey conducted by The Nielsen Company, two-thirds of mobile users around the globe are interested in “smart” services that would feed them information based on personal preferences, location, time of day and social setting.
Looking at the graph provided here, mobile users place a significant amount of trust in their mobile carriers in terms of protecting their information and actions on their phones. They also overwhelmingly selected their mobile carriers as the “most appropriate” provider of services for their devices like phone service, Internet accessibility, and applications.
Within the survey, consumers preferred to find their news, media, and entertainment content provided by their mobile carriers, then followed by other web providers, and then a combination of the two.
When it came to shopping services, however, there was a notable difference: Mobile carriers dropped somewhat in importance, and advertisers became a much more prominent source of information.
US marketers have already begun experimenting with exactly this type of smart shopping service. “Geo-fencing” of “Geolocation apps” provide personalized marketing messages to shoppers based on their location or proximity to a marketer’s store. A recent experiment from a store called 1020 Placecast, piloted a ShopAlerts program that was embraced by mobile users:
* 60% said the location-triggered messages were “cool” and “innovative.”
* 79% claimed to be more likely to visit a store.
* 65% made a purchase.
* 73% were likely to use the service again.
As technology continues to become more innovative and creative, we will soon be living in a world where you cannot escape the annoyances of advertising. Soon enough, we will have ads sent to our phones in correspondence to our physical location and time of day! This is very exciting yet horrifying but I am excited to see what the latest technological advances can do for companies that can benefit consumers.
Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: andriod marketing, blackberry marketing san diego, iphone marketing apps, Mobile Marketing, online marketing mobile, pda marketing, san diego internet marketing, san diego online marketing, smart phone marketing, web marketing mobile phones
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March 15th, 2010
The one thing that makes social media marketing so attractive lies in four words: word-of-mouth marketing. This is one of the most effective and credible forms of marketing a product or service and is the reason why so many companies feel the need to have a presence on many social networking sites. However, these social media users prefer a different type of interaction to help them inspire or prompt an online search…
According to a recent survey, conducted by BIGresearch for the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association (RAMA), they found that in-person, face-to-face communication was a social media users’ top reason to start an online search for a specific product or service.
The study revealed that social media users were even more influenced by face-to-face word-of-mouth than an average adult’ opinion found online.
This preference of face-to-face communication held across all age groups within the survey, and the only difference among any age group was that 18- to 34-year-olds were more likely to search online because of something they had seen on cable television, which was a smaller force among older users.
The study also demonstrated that online communities, such as MySpace and Facebook, influenced less than one-quarter of social media users to search for a product or service which is still a notable percentage. When it came to gender differences, men were marginally more likely than women to report such an influence from a social networking site and age had an even larger effect. Among the 18-to-34 group, nearly three in 10 searched because of social networks, compared with less than 20% of 35- to 54-year-olds and 15.3% of those 55 and older.
More than 71% of the respondents communicated about a service, product or brand in person after an online search, compared with only 21.6% who spread the word via sites such as MySpace or Facebook. Not all digital communication was shunned, however; about one-half used e-mail to tell others what they had found.
Social media users are particularly attractive to marketers because they are more likely to both look for and give purchase advice than the general population. Word-of-moth marketing continues to be one of the most valuable marketing tools available to companies so they should be focusing a lot, but not all of, of time in the online arena, especially in social media.
Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: facebook marketing, medical internet marketing, medical online marketing, online search marketing, san diego internet marketing, san diego online marketing, social media marketing
Posted in Behavioral Marketing, Internet Marketing Fundamentals, Internet Marketing News, SEO | No Comments »
March 8th, 2010
The state of the economy in 2009 forced changes to the local ad market. This has caused BIA/Kelsey, a large media strategies group, to lower expectations for local advertising spending, pushing the recovery curve out one year further than previously forecast.
Last year, according to the firm’s “Annual US Local Media Forecast,” US local ad spending reached $130.2 billion, or 55.3% of the total. That was lower than what BIA/Kelsey projected in February 2009 forecasting $141.3 billion and a significant drop from the $156.3 billion spend on local advertising in 2008.
BIA/Kelsey believes that the total local advertising spending will continue to stagnate through 2011, while 2012 will bring more “meaningful recovery” to the ad market.
Some important points to be noted within this study suggest that:
• Buys Online will continue to get a larger share of the local ad spending pie with increases from 12% in 2009 to a projected 14% in 2010.
• By 2014, BIA/Kelsey expects one-quarter of all local advertising spending to be online!
• In January, Barclays Capital also reported 2009 local ad spending down significantly from the year before, by about 22%. Barclays similarly expects a flat local ad market through 2011.
Here are some graphs to show details concerning the ad market in 2010:
Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: ad buys 2009, ad buys online, ad spending for 2009, increase in online ad buys, increase in online advertising, internet marketing spending, online advertising statistics, online marketing spending
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March 3rd, 2010
Due to the current state of the economy, many companies are now turning to more affordable methods of advertising their services as well as making sales. Small businesses have turned to social media and internet advertising because it is a cheaper alternative to traditional marketing methods. According to “The State of Small Business Report” from Network Solutions and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland School of Business, the use of social media by small businesses has significantly increased to 24%, from 12% the year before.
The report also mentioned the most popular reasons for engaging in social media use. The leading answer was to provide their company a presence online for both their workers and their consumers, where the second most common answer was to update their statuses regarding the company and their products/services.
Here is a graph that shows the rest of the motives for using social media for small businesses:
It was also found that many businesses feel that social media use was not fulfilling their expectations; rather, social media’s capabilities for staying engaged with consumers and collaborating with other businesses were more in line with businesses’ expectations.
Also according to the report regarding small business and their social media use:
• Most small businesses say they are just breaking even with their current usage of social media, but a solid one-fifth find it profitable already.
• Nearly one-half believe it will make them money in the next 12 months, and another 39% think they will break even on it.
• Just 9% think social marketing will continue to be a losing proposition.
• Overall, 58% of respondents felt social media lived up to their expectations.
• One-half felt it took up more time than they realized, but only 6% claimed negative comments on social media had hurt their business.
A final statement was added about the report from Janet Wagner, director of the Center for Excellence in Service, who made a comment about how social media was letting small businesses become more competitive with larger competitors, “Social media levels the playing field for small businesses by helping them deliver customer service time spent on Twitter, Facebook and blogs is an investment in making it easier for small businesses to compete.”
Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: cheaper marketing methods, down economy marketing, online marketingt cheaper, san diego internet marketing, small business in down economy, small business marketing, small business marketing plans, small business online marketing
Posted in Social Media Networking | No Comments »
February 24th, 2010
San Diego State University’s Entrepreneurial Management Center presented an interactive seminar called “Social Media for Business” yesterday afternoon. This interactive seminar/workshop enabled the SDSU student population and all others interested in attending to discuss the opportunities for all businesses in social media with experts in social media, online marketing, the media and business.
The seminar was developed to show the importance of social media upon the marketing and branding of businesses everywhere.
Experts in the field running the seminar included:
• Kevin Popovic, founder of Ideahaus®, author of Satellite Marketing: Using Social Media to Sell
• Rodney Rumford, co-founder of TweetPhoto, founder of Gravity Summi
• Steve Kousky, technology correspondent, San Diego 6 TV
• Dexter Bustarde, senior web analyst, Digitaria
Each panelist had some great things to say about social media and its importance in the marketing arena for businesses of all shapes and sizes. These panelists also offered great examples of success stories using social media as well as those that were disasters. For example, they said if you wanted to see some successful social media campaigns currently being utilized, many of them said to check out the following companies: The Red Cross, Best Buy, Dell, Kodak, Cisco, The Susan G. Komen Foundation, Invisible Children, Intuit, and Intel.
There were many tips that they provided for those in attendance including:
• Identifying your target markets: demographics, psychographics, etc.
• Developing a strategy that pertains to your communications objectives and target market
• Developing Satellites: Integrating all forms of marketing to reach your “Prospects”
• Deploying those Satellites: Putting your integrated marketing plans into effect
• Measure and Mend: Measure your results and track your progress to learn from your mistakes and successes
• Take advantage of the free tools our there that are available
• Use social media to interact one-on-one with your consumers and help to improve your product/services by fixing what your consumers are telling you about what’s wrong
Overall, it was a successful seminar that gave a lot of good advice to those interested in social media for their current or prospective businesses!
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: san diego internet marketing, san diego state marketing, san diego state university, san diego state university social media, SDSU Entrepreneurial Management Center, SDSU Social Media for Businesses, Social Media for Business, Social Media Seminar SDSU, Social Media tips, social media utilization, webitmd at san diego state university, webitmd sdsu
Posted in Social Media Networking | No Comments »
February 23rd, 2010
There is no doubt that social media utilization has become the most popular and highly adopted form of emerging media within today’s marketing strategies. Every company that has a presence online has been frantically trying to increase their company’s exposure by following outrageous numbers of users of Twitter, bombarding fan pages on Facebook, and are seeking the newest markets within other social media networks.
According to eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson, the future of social media and its benefits are not only ever-changing but will play an entirely different role for companies who utilize them.
“Advertising—which some might say has already failed as a business model for social media companies—will not be the primary revenue driver,” said Ms. Williamson.
The better business model, other than utilizing social media, will lie in the mastery of analytics tools to track their conversion rates of visitors coming to websites. The use for social media in the future will not be for advertising specifically but rather for a plethora of other reasons including:
• Should be integrated within all marketing efforts
• Should be available for consumers to find out more information about your company, products, or services
And more importantly should be used for:
• Brand Monitoring
Social media will soon be the best way for companies to track and begin to understand the “why” of consumer chatter about them and their products/service as well as the “who”, “what”, and “when” of their customer base.
This statement was offered by Ravit Lichtenberg, founder and chief strategist, Ustrategy.com, in response to brand monitoring:
“Naturally occurring conversations will be utilized in product innovation and design, and companies will create incentives for people’s attention and engagement while repurposing and analyzing content and engagement in new ways that will deliver valuable input.”
In essence, social media and its use for companies will be ever-changing. However, the future use of social media will lie in helping companies get information about their consumers and hearing what they have to say about specific products or services to help them improve customer relationships.
Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: changing role of social media, changing social media, future of social media, new trends in social media, san diego social media, social media advertising, social media marketing san diego, social media networking utilization, social media uses, webitmd social media
Posted in Social Media Networking | No Comments »
February 19th, 2010
A study from AOL found that Hispanic Web users are more likely to be more trustworthy in the information they find online. The Hispanic population is a relatively younger market on the internet but their numbers are growing.
The study concluded that nearly three-quarters of Hispanic Web users had confidence in product rating sites, for example, compared with 28% who put more stock in the opinions of their friends. Many of the other results of the study are provided in the graph below:
This study also showed that Hispanics were:
• More likely to turn to the Web in almost every phase of the purchase decision (from learning process to brand awareness to final purchase decision)
• More likely to be online via mobile technologies
• Less likely to use email or talk over the phone or in person
• More likely to share deals or information with friends from online sources
Here is a graph that demonstrates the Hispanics use of communication:
Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: hispanic population online study, hispanic trends online, hispanics and the internet, hispanics turn to the web, increase in hispanic internet use, online information for hispanics, online marketing for hispanics, study of hispanic internet users
Posted in Behavioral Marketing | No Comments »
February 17th, 2010
Social media networking has now become a necessary tool for any companies marketing efforts. Rather than answering the question: Do we need social media?, companies are now asking themselves: How and where should we be using it?
It is common for companies to create social media accounts across all networks they are familiar with without an initial game plan. Instead of doing this, companies should be conducting research to find out what networks hit their target markets the best which in turn, will give them higher returns on their investments and ability to benefit their consumers within social media. A strategy needs to be developed rather than just putting your company on every social media network known to the marketers!
A strategy for social media is also necessary because users of these networking sites are assuming each company with a social media presence are savvy enough to not only effectively communicate, but are strategically seeking to improve their branding and marketing strategies over their main competitors.
Most companies limit their social media use to aid in their marketing and communications efforts. However, many companies have unique plans to use these social channels for their sales, customer service, and IT services! This will give those companies an edge over their competitors and can offer them very valuable information regarding customer feedback.
After all, according to Paul Verna of eMarketer, “A Facebook promotion is only as good as the information that it feeds back to the sales, CRM, marketing or senior management executives who can turn it into a business gain.”
Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: customer feedback in social media, latest socila media strategies, new ways to use social media, social media benefits, social media strategy, strategies for social media, trends in social media
Posted in Social Media Networking | No Comments »
