Category Archives: Advertising

This is my place to talk about advertising that actually works

Walgreens using “Most Liked” as a buying signal

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 It only makes sense for Walgreens to start using “Most Liked” as a buying lubricant (see image below). It is easier to build trust in a product if it is “Most Liked”.

Retail stores should take their online reviews and likes and display them in-store. I constantly find myself looking at Amazon reviews when I’m inside a Walgreens or Best Buy. I actually end up buying a more expensive product after reading reviews (convincing myself to buy the 5-star more expensive model).

Bringing the online world doesn’t have to be that complicated. It can be as simple as posting a sign up right next to the product.

What do you think of displaying Facebook “Most Like” stickers in retail stores? Let me know in the comments below.

SEO Growth Hack: Piggy-Back For Fast Rankings

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This guest post is by Pete Kennedy – SEO and Adwords Coach at Main Street ROI. Pete has personally taught me everything I know about up-selling, SEO, conversion funnels and Sales Copy. I invited him to GMA to teach my readers about growing with SEO.

The Myth

You’ve probably been led to believe that it takes months to get a first-page Google ranking, but this simply isn’t true. In this post, I’m going to share a simple SEO tactic to get first-page rankings in as little as 1 week.

When most people think about SEO, they typically only think about getting their own website to rank in Google. But when you publish content on high-authority websites, you can get ranked in Google much faster.

What is a high-authority website?

A really big website that gets a lot of traffic. Like YouTube, Facebook, and Scribd.

Here’s why leveraging high-authority websites works:

It takes a lot of time and effort to build up your website’s reputation (attracting links, etc). But when you publish content on a high-authority website, you piggy-back on that site’s reputation.

Follow These 2 Simple Steps

Step 1. Identify your target keywords

You’ll have the best luck if you target 3-5 word “long-tail” keyword phrases, so you face less competition for the top spots in Google. Use Google’s keyword tool to identify these phrases. You can also use this “piggy-back” strategy to dominate the first page for your personal name or company name keywords.

Step 2. Publish content on high-authority sites

It’s really easy. All you have to do is include your keyword early in the title of your content, and you’ll often start ranking in Google in a matter of days. Here’s a list of high-authority websites where you can publish content:

Video websites

Press release websites

Social networking sites

Doc sites 

In addition, you can publish guest posts on high-authority blogs, get interviewed on internet radio shows (e.g. blogtalkradio.com), and the list goes on and on…

Example #1: Google Adwords Checklist

We wanted to get ranked for the long-tail keyword Google AdWords Checklist. So, we created a post on our blog, and we also created a YouTube video. As you can see below, the YouTube video ranks #1 in Google, and our blog post ranks #2:

The video started ranking on the first page of Google in a matter of days.

Example #2: Main Street ROI Brand Reputation

We’re also using this “piggy-back” technique to establish our brand reputation. When you Google our company name, Main Street ROI, our content fills up the entire first page of Google’s results.

I recommend you create branded pages on authority websites ASAP, so dominate the first page of results when prospects, customers, partners, and journalists are checking you out in Google.

I’m assuming you provide top-quality products and services and you have a solid reputation. But as you grow you’ll probably have some disgruntled (or outright crazy) customers. And you’ll probably get some complaints and bad reviews online at some point or another. It’s almost inevitable. And that’s why it’s never too early to start establishing and protecting your brand reputation.

This “piggyback” tactic is the sort of thing that reputation management companies charges hundreds and thousands of dollars for, but you can easily do it yourself for free.

Days not Months

The bottom line: Stop buying into the belief that you have to wait months to get ranked in Google. Go publish content on high-authority websites and you can crack the first page in a matter of days.

Pete Kennedy is co-founder of Main Street ROI. Want more free SEO tips?  Download Main Street ROI’s Ultimate SEO Checklist. You’ll get 86 expert tips to boost your Google rankings. Get it here: http://www.mainstreetroi.com/ultimate-seo-checklist/

Rishi’s note: if you want to learn more about SEO. I highly recommend Pete’s SEO checklist. There are a ton of people that claim to know SEO but have no clue. Pete is the real deal. I have worked with him closely and highly endorse his products.

The Art of Negotiating an Online Media Buy

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Rishi’s Note: I invited Jana Fung the marketing manager behind MixRank to talk about the art of negotiating a media buy. This is the perfect guide to go through after you have discovered a site that is sending you high converting traffic.

About Jana and MixRank: Jana Fung is the Marketing Manager of MixRank. MixRank is a competitive intelligence tool for display advertising.  You can learn more about scaling your display campaigns by downloading MixRank’s free eBook “Scale Campaigns with Profitable Placements.”

So you’re running a display campaign through an ad network (for example Google’s Display Network or BuySellAds.com).  You have found an amazing site is sending you really valuable converting traffic.  You’re already targeting the placement and increasing the bid to dominate on impression share through your ad network traffic… but you want more. So you ask yourself:

Is there any other way to optimize this campaign further?

The answer: Yes!

Direct media buys are a great way to get impressions at a bulk discounted rate, rather than paying per click or impressions through an ad network. Publishers will want to work with you as well, because they will reap the full payment for the ads, not having to pay commissions to an ad network. However, you should be wary that the publishers listed pricing isn’t always guaranteed superior, as it’s the price the publisher wants, but is not necessarily in line with demand.  Marketers can and should negotiate for the best pricing that’ll suit business goals.

Step 1: Evaluate the pricing options

Visit the “Contact Us” or “Advertisers” page on the site of interest to obtain their ad prices. Publishers can list prices by cost per thousand impressions (CPM) or at a monthly flat rate fee.

If the site only has CPM pricing, you can proceed to step 2.  If the site has both types of pricing (or just monthly flat rates), you’ll need to dive deeper and ask for more data regarding how many unique visitors and page views the site gets per month.  If the ratio of visitors to page views is low, CPM may not be a good option as your impressions may all be shown to the same visitor.  However, this all depends on what your ad copy is and how much you’re willing to spend on a customer.

Evaluate both pricing models and determine which would be better for your business based on the amount of impressions you believe you’ll get in a month versus how much you’d pay for the same amount of impressions via CPM.

Step 2: Analyze your campaign’s performance metrics

Figure out how much your current (CPM) is on this site.  Obviously, you’d want to get a lower rate with a direct media buy.  If you’re doing a monthly flat rate, ask how many impressions they can guarantee at that price and measure that against what you’re already currently paying. Is it higher or lower?

If you’ve never advertised on this site before, figure out the customer lifetime value (CLV) for your business to determine how much you’d be willing to pay for a customer (CPA).  From there, you’ll need to ask for the publisher’s average click-through rate and have your landing page’s conversion rate handy.  With CTR and conversion rate, estimate how many new customers you would get from this media buy.  Is it in line with your ideal CPA?

Step 3: Negotiate like a pro

Now that you have all of your bargaining chips, you’ll need to point to the publisher why their listed price is too high.  Even if their price is lower than what you’re currently paying, they really don’t need to know that. You still can and should negotiate! Here are some things you should put into play when negotiating:

For advertisers who have displayed ads on this site:

  1. If their price is too high, simply state what you’re currently paying and that you’d want a discount for buying in bulk.
  2. Always ask for a discount for a long-term commitment. Since you already know this placement performs well for you, a longer commitment should get you some additional savings
  3. Find out if you could get specific ad units for your ads.  This may not result in monetary savings but could get your ad above the fold for every impression!
  4. Ask for an additional discount if you pay in full upfront (rather than month to month).
  5. Get some add-ons! Ask if they could include an email newsletter feature for the first month as a test. If it performs well, you’d be willing to pay for more newsletter ads.

For advertisers who haven’t done any ads on this site:

  1. Point to reasons why you think the cost is too high – maybe their CTR is poor, or their unique visitors to page view ratio is too low.
  2. Try to do a test or trial with them at a discounted rate.
  3. Ask about remnant inventory and if you could buy that at a discounted rate

Whenever you negotiate, don’t give up all your data at once.  You’ll want to see what their response is to each point before you move onto the next.  This gives you more chips for bargaining and allows you to get the best rate and reach possible.

If you liked this blog post, you can get even more tips with MixRank’s FREE EBOOK called “Scale Campaigns with Profitable Placements.” Claim your free ebook here.

DocuSign’s Simple Messaging

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I love looking at billboard advertisements because you can only say 5 words. The entire company comes down to one simple messaging statement. I’ve been seeing DocuSign ads everywhere and I have to say their messaging is awesome.

DocuSign Ad on the BART 

“Close Deals Faster”

They could have said “Easy Document Signature Technology” or even “Sign Documents on your iPad while on the Go”. But instead the focused on the maximum benefit they can provide their customers – simply closing deals faster. Who doesn’t want to get more deals closed?

Overall Docusign is starting to become one of my favorite companies. They have figured out where their customers live… on Salesforce!

DocuSign is the highest rated app on Salesforce!

They have 500 reviews and using my super estimation guide (where each review equates to 100 paying customers and average company pays $200/mo) they are making $10M/mo from their Salesforce integration alone.

DocuSign is a pretty brilliant product + marketing driven company. They integrate with companies where their customers are and they focus on the maximum benefit their customer gives them.

Sex on the Facebook Sign Up Form

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Each pixel on Facebook.com is highly tested to maximize sign ups. It is interesting to see the word “Sex” used so subtly, even though you didn’t notice your subconscious did.

The word “Sex” is extremely powerful,  it gets people excited. One big reason a lot of students sign up for Facebook is to see what their crush (slang for romantic interest) is doing.  So seeing the word “Sex” has to help peak their interest to sign up for Facebook.

Google Plus and most sign up forms I’ve seen around the web use “Gender” instead of “Sex” (see screen shots below).

Do you think Facebook is using Sex to their advantage? I’d love to know in the comments.

How Coinstar gets away with not charging a transaction fee

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I first heard about Coinstar 6 years ago in a TV advertisement and immediately thought it was the dumbest idea ever. See, I was living in Illinois at the time and you could easily just go to any bank teller and convert your coins into cash for free. Coinstar charges a 10% fee – so why would I pay someone to give me $9 for $10? I hope you see my dilemma here.

Then I moved to California. Over the last 2 years I’ve acquired a lot of coins and decided to go to my nearby bank and turn my pot of coins into CASH! Unfortunately, California banks simply gave me some coin wrappers and wanted me to do all the coin counting by hand. I knew I had at least *200 pennies and had no patience to do the counting. I decided to swallow my pride and go to a nearby Safeway grocery store and use Coinstar.

After I deposited my cash I was pleased that I didn’t have to give up 10% of my money – I could simply get a giftcard instead.

They had a ton of options. Pretty much a giftcard from any of the top brands.

This is a brilliant way to avoid no fees. I bet Coinstar actually makes more than 10% off the brands that provide gift cards. Retailers love gift cards because they are high-margin and low-maintenance.

I wonder if Coinstar’s innovative approach to eliminating fees are something ATM machines should adopt to also have No Fees. I’d really love to know what you think about this in the comments below.

Side Note: Coinstar made $2 Billion in revenue last year. Their business model is simple and brilliant, “Give me $10 and I will give you $9 back”. This business model reminds me of a story  about how the founder of Reliance (the most profitable company in India) made some cash in the early days.

The Yemeni Rial Coin had high content of pure silver around 1948. Young Dhirubhai (the founder of Reliance) perceived high demand for ‘rial’ in London Stock Exchange and purchased them in bulk and melted the coins in silver and sold it to bullion traders in London. Though it was stopped in 3 months, D.A. made a few lakhs of Rupees in this transaction.

What Coinstar and Dhirubhai Ambani are doing is really the heart of any good business model, turn money into more money.

*PS I had 432 pennies and got the Starbucks gift card.

Hulu is Inventing the Future of TV Ads

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It’s pretty interesting how Hulu prompts the user to pick their TV Ad preferences. They give you the option of picking between three ads to watch (see above image).

Hulu.com has a major advantage here. They can provide in depth Analytics on what type of commericals viewers want to see. They can study which one people like to pick and which one they actually see. They can also tie this data into what types of shows you watch, your gender, etc. if you are logged in. This is pretty incredible for two main reasons:

1) Test Bed: Companies can now see which commercials perform better with real time data.

They can use advertising on Hulu as a test bed before rolling out ads on TV. (Currently the demographics of viewers on Hulu and regular TV are different but the gap will narrow over the next 10 years)

2) Grow Sales: Companies can see which ads convert into sales or brand engagement.

Did you know that Paid Search Advertising is almost as big as TV Advertising? Paid Search Advertising will will easily surpass TV Advertising over the next few years. The reason why is due to the fact that people can track and see if advertising actually works. Once a company can see that advertising is working it is easy to rationalize putting every dime you have into it.

So how can Hulu invent the future of TV Ads?

Just like how Google and Facebook customize your experience based on things you have clicked on. Hulu can tailor your experience on what ads you see. If they know you like sci-fi TV shows they can shows ads of other sci-fi TV shows you would like. Once they convert you into someone watching more TV shows they can start learning about your interests and showing you ads based on things you said you like. A simple question like the image above is really all they need to ask you. Before you know it Hulu will be able to show you what you need to buy before you know it!

Hulu is sitting on a major gold mine (just like Google)

1. They can get you watching more TV (by learning more about you)

2. They can get brands to pay a premium to learn what ads work… and when they do charge more for it

Do you think Hulu is the future of TV? Do you think Netflix should try a free approach with their new streaming only plan and inject ads like Hulu? Please let me know in the comments.

Subscriptions vs. Advertising – “Reddit Gold” Success

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reddit gold

Exactly one year ago Reddit launched a subscription revenue stream called “Reddit Gold”. You can pay $3.99/mo for extra features and a special trophy next to your username.

Some Background

Reddit is a thriving community site where users can vote up (and vote down) news articles, images, and videos. The homepage consists of the top links found around the web that is changing constantly based on users votes.

Reddit was struggling a year ago

They were one of the biggest sites on the internet (top 500) and they weren’t able to keep their site up – they needed cash for servers and engineering talent badly!

Reddit Gold was Born

Instead of blasting their users with take-over advertisements they charged their community money (a la Reddit Gold) for extra perks on the site! This turned out to be a major success by bringing in much needed cash.

Here is a great quote from one of the Reddit team members:

Today we know that the reddit gold program turned out to be a huge success. We used the cash infusion to buy a raft of new servers, which (by great, dumb luck) came online just in time for the Digg implosion. The new capacity allowed us to ride this tidal wave instead of getting crushed by it. – Raldi

Checkout their explanation of why you should subscribe to Reddit Gold:

What do I get for joining?
We plan to continually add features over time. Right now we’re offering:

  • A trophy on your userpage
  • The ability to turn off sidebar ads, sponsored links, both, or neither
  • The option of seeing twice as many comments at once without having to click “load more comments”
  • New comment highlighting: see what’s been posted since the last time you visited a thread
  • Friends with Benefits™ — you can add notes to your friends to help you keep track of them all
  • Access to a super-secret members-only community that may or may not exist
  • A thank-you note

Notice how it’s nothing fancy just a few extra feature additions.

Proof: Don’t Be Afraid to Charge

If your users love your site, a very small fraction of them will pay you and it might turn out to be much more significant than your advertising revenue.

What do you think of this move? Do you know of any community based sites that should launch a subscription option? Please let me know in the comments below.

The $10k Kitchen Computer that never sold (not even a single unit!)

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Neiman Marcus launched The Kitchen Computer in 1969. This was a time when personal computing was still a far-fetched vision. The Kitchen Computer helped you create the perfect menu for any dinner. The total cost was $10,000 and you needed to enter in the recipes manually in binary (1’s and 0’s).

Unsurprisingly, Neiman Marcus didn’t sell a single Kitchen Computer. $10,000 could buy you a house at that time and who wanted to enter in binary code by hand?

The 1969 [Neiman Marcus] Christmas Catalog featured the Kitchen Computer. For $10,600 you got the computer, a cookbook, an apron, and a two-week programming course.

Despite the lack of sales this was a smashing success for Neiman Marcus! It was talked about in magazines and brought up in many many conversations. Neiman Marcus knew this going in. Their goal was to be known as a cutting edge brand and this showed it. This was a product invented purely for marketing and nothing else.

Do you know any products that were launched purely for branding? Let me know in the comments.