Category: Advertising
We are a unique breed.
Talk of bounce rates, A/B split testing, conversions, affiliate marketing and page impressions gets us excited (maybe a bit TOO excited).
In our free-time, pulling out a Seth Godin book, re-reading training material from Ryan Deiss, or checking out the latest post on Mashable sounds about as good as it gets.
We are hard-core. Do you have what it takes?
If youre not sure whether youre TRULY an internet marketing superstar, Id encourage you to take this short quiz and see how you do (answers below).
Define the following online marketing acronyms:
CTR ________________________
CPM ________________________
SEO_________________________
PPC_________________________
CPA _________________________
SEM_________________________
B2B__________________________
B2C__________________________
CPL __________________________
CPC __________________________
CPS__________________________
CR___________________________
PPI___________________________
PPS__________________________
KPI__________________________
SERP_________________________
URL__________________________
ASV__________________________
CTR = Click Through Rate. Number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of times the ad was shown. Eg: 100 clicks / 10000 impressions = 1% CTR
CPM = Cost per 1000 Impressions. Cost expressed in dollars of an ad per 1000 impressions or pageviews. Eg: $5.00 CPM = $5.00 for every 1000 impressions.
SEO = Search Engine Optimization. Improving the ranking of a website through the use of organic techniques.
PPC = Pay-per-Click. Method of online advertising where the advertiser pays based on how many click throughs there are to their website.
CPA = Cost per Action. Method of online advertising where the advertiser pays based on how many of a particular action is taken (eg. Subscriptions, leads, sales, etc.)
SEM = Search Engine Marketing. Increasing traffic to a website through the use of organic and paid online advertising.
B2B = Business to Business (marketing). Marketing exclusively to other businesses.
B2C = Business to Consumer (marketing). Marketing exclusively to the consumer.
CPL = Cost per Lead. Amount advertiser pays for each lead generated by ad (registrations, subscriptions, etc.).
CPC = Cost per Click. Amount advertiser pays for each click generated by ad.
CPS = Cost per Sale. Amount advertiser pays for each sale generated by ad.
CR = Conversion Rate. Number of conversions an ad or website gets divided by total number of visits. Eg: 100 sales / 10000 visits = 1% CR
PPI = Pay per Impression. Advertiser pays based for each ad impression.
PPS = Pay per Sale. Advertiser pays for each sale generated through the ad.
KPI = Key Performance Indicator. Way of measuring progress towards specific goals. KPIs are decided on within an organization and then tracked to ensure company is meeting its goals.
SERP = Search Engine Results Page. The list of sites a search engine returns when you request a search.
URL = Uniform Resource Locator. Address of a website on the web.
ASV = Average Subscriber Value. On average, the cash value generated by each email or website subscriber.
So, how did you do? Are you an internet marketing superstar?
Weve even written about some of these acronyms
Facebook Advertising: CPC vs CPM for my Facebook Ads?
10 Tips for an Effective Facebook PPC Campaign
5 SEO Tips for Your Facebook Fan Page
Guild recruiters cannot be shy. Post in recruiting forums, erect a guild Web site, use in game recruiting tools, such as those in EQ2, these activities all promote your guild and you probably should avail yourself of them. However the fastest, cheapest, easiest most effective way to get new members for your guild is to simply ask in a general chat channel.
Before You Hit the Chat Channels You Need to Know…
…what benefit people will receive by joining your guild and at what cost? Do you provide help with grouping? Do you help people level? Are you a PvP guild? If so what kind of PvP guild? If you provide groups for members is joining guild groups required? If you help people level, is helping other members required? If you are an MMORPG PvP guild, does this mean you don’t do content or that you do organized battlegrounds?
Once you know the major benefit of joining your guild, create your message around that. Know the cost however, because you’ll need new members to understand that if you want to retain themmore about that in my next article for PlayerVox.
To construct your message take the big focus on your major benefit and combine it with one of two possible actions you want the interested party to take:
1. PST for membership info. Contact you immediately in (PST for Please Send Tell is fairly universal).
Be prepared to answer questions and potentially talk to multiple people at the same time. I like to either use a text file to cut and paste common answers, or setup macros when available.
2. URL. Save yourself a lot of typing by sending people to a special recruiting page setup in advance. Lazy people won’t take the time to go look however, so if you are zerg recruiting, don’t use this method. Using a Web page is ideal if there is a lot of information for potential members to consider.
* Present your guild as active and up-to-date. Do NOT send potentials to your inactive guild forums or glommed together site for info. Instead create a special page just for potential new recruits.
* Get the easiest URL possible. Example: “s1.guildcafe.com” is the domain name I use for the Section One guild.
* Always use the http:// so that people understand it is a web site you want them to look at.
Recruiting Message Samples
Helper PvE guild:
Learn the ropes and level fast with XYZ guild. PST for membership info.
Guild with funny people:
Laugh your way to level 50 with XYZ guild. Casual players welcome. PST for membership info.
Guild with serious PvErs:
XYZ guild seeks pro-PvE members. Do dungeons right with us. Ventrilo required. PST for membership info.
End game looters:
The PvE veterans of XYZ raid guild LFM for teamwork and achieving long term goals. http://www.blahblah.com
Adult social guild:
Like to play and chat? Join the lively world of XYZ guild on Ventrilo. http://www.blahblah.com Not kid friendly.
Crafting guild:
Attention crafters: Join with other crafters in XYZ guild to build an economic powerhouse and rule the server. PST for more info.
Player-killing guild:
Join for the Rep. Stay for the people who’d rather fight than switch. RPK all the way. PST for membership info.
Advertise, but don’t spam
Some old fashioned net-etiquette should be employed while advertising in chat channels:
* Use appropriate channels. Find out what channels are acceptable for guild recruiting. It’s different in every game. For instance, in Guild Wars, one uses the all channel. In some MMORPGs the regional chat channels are acceptable. Some games have special recruiting channels.
* Keep it short and sweet. Don’t attempt to explain every membership detail in your message. Things scroll away fast and people don’t have time to deal with long textheck, they don’t even read quest descriptions most of the time! More on this later.
* Don’t spam. The reason you repeat your message is to give busy people another chance to read it as well present yourself to new people who haven’t seen it. It is not to bore and aggravate people with your endless droning of e-garbage.
o How often you repeat your message is game dependent. In games like WoW, EQ2 and Vanguard, the number of new people coming into and going out of a channel is small, so repeat sparingly. Observe how frequently others repeat and repeat less than they do. If you get complaints, reduce your frequency even more. Being perceived as spam will get you on people’s ignore-list.
o In Guild Wars where people hop in and out of districts constantly, your best bet is to move around from place to place, repeat your message once per district then move on, repeating your cycle every five minutes or so.
* Change it up. Vary your message from time to time, test new messages, be clever, entertain. Boring messages equates to a boring guild.
Advertise eloquently…
…or at least avoid looking stupid:
* DON’T USE ALL CAPS.
* Do not load up your message with **l337** symbols and other #$%^& crap. Your potential recruits don’t have time or desire to decipher, so just use plain English.
* Stay away from over-used terms so ubiquitous that they are now meaningless. Ever seen anyone advertising for unfriendly, immature and inactive members? Almost all guilds are friendly, mature and active, so don’t use up precious space talking about it.
* Use goood speeling. You may not care about every day chat spelling and grammar, but nothing makes you look more like a stupid n00b than spamming the same error over and over. Check it first then store it in a macro or text file.
People want to join guilds that are active. They like to be able to login and find things are happening. One of the best things to do recruiting-wise is put together PUGs, then pitch guild membership to the better players.
You can take this idea a step further by organizing server events and advertising them in spam. Depending on how much creativity the game supports you can do a lot. Character weddings, PvP king of the hill events, PvP tournaments, PvE and PvP raids, crafting fairs, scavenger hunts, races and costume contests are all popular.
Worst Guild Recruiting Spam Ever
XYZ GUILD RECUTING friendly active players. All levels, races, classses and ages. Mature PvE and PvP. Have hall and cape. –
This is a pretty typical zerg guild spamhard to read, packed full of errors and easy to ignore. It attempts to attract people by sounding friendly, but undermines itself by trying to be all things to all peoplewhich equates to nothing for nobody. If you want to offer zillions of players a temporary spot in your revolving door clan, use this ad. (The have hall and cape is a Guild Wars thing. Since every guild has those, it amazes me that people even mention it. If they advertised a guild hall with all perks or silver cape that would be different.)
XYZ guild looking for members. 50 gold paid on joining.
Why not just say, attention leeches, come get 50gp then leave me for another guild If you are this desperate for members, consider calling it quits and joining an established guild.
UberAwesome guild looking for members. Raiding right now, come get your endgame loot!
This ad isn’t much better than the previous one. It’s just another opportunity for people to leech off your generosity. Inviting people to join your raids is a good way to impress people, but it’s best to keep those opportunities and your recruiting separate.
Conclusion
Don’t be shy! Speak up and use chat to let people know that you’re out there. Be wise with your messages, don’t abuse it, and you’ll be rewarded with plenty of interest.
The projective techniques are used to overcome the barriers of rationality, logicality and politeness, which often play an important role in case of direct questioning. In direct questioning people often tend to give politically correct answers that are considered right by many. Also they try not to hurt the researcher and thus avoid negative answers. In case of projective techniques, an indirect approach is adopted. Instead of asking questions, the respondents are subjected to different test. These include the associations test, sentence completion test and thematic appreciation test.
Association tests attempts to get an immediate response to a stimulus such to get an immediate responses to a stimulus such as a word or picture by asking the respondent to say the first thing that comes to his mind. Sentence completion tests are an extension of the association test. Here the respondents are given incomplete test use pictures, which are shown to respondents. They are asked to tell stories about the pictures. These descriptions and interpretations are analyzed to find out about their attitudes.
In depth interviewing the respondent is first put at ease by the researcher while he tries to build up a rapport with the respondents. Then the respondents are asked leading or probing questions to bring out his underlying subconscious reaction to the brand or organization advertised. The questions are never structures and the interview is always conducted in a free and cordial manner. The flexibility and freeness brings out many facts. Which usually are hidden beneath the conscious mind of the respondent? Depth interviewing needs to be conducted by highly skilled and trained psychologists to be able to fully explore the attitude of respondents.
One often face the problem of artificiality a while conducting pre-testing. This problem is easily overcome during post-testing. Post-tests attempt to measure the actual effect of real advertisements in real situations. This is a more practical approach to measure the effectiveness of car mat advertisements. Different types are conducted as part of post-testing advertisements.
Whatever the purpose of a car mat advertisement, its first task is to be seen, read, or heard. Every advertisement uses some means or other to get attention and hold it. Here comes the first big hurdle recognition. This is simply a matter of identifying an advertisement that one has seen before. Recognition is a necessary condition for effective advertising. If advertisements cannot pass this hurdle, it will probably not be effective. Recognition tests are usually used for print ads.
While many types of recognition have been designed for the car mats advertisements. The starch recognitions test sends newspaper or magazine to respondents and then sends interviews to conduct the tests. Starch tests usually finds out the recognition rates of various elements of the ads like the visual or illustration, headline, logo, body copy, color, size, shape etc.
As humans, our strongest emotional responses – both positive and negative – come from visual cues. That’s precisely why the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” has more than a ring of truth to it. When you’re flipping through a magazine or surfing the Web, the photos are what make you stop and look. Today, the images that are most effective in capturing the attention of readers and web visitors alike can be summed up in three words: ocean, water, life.
Imagery is Everything
Those who are in the business of advertising or web design understand that developing a wonderful product or a website full of useful information is important, but it’s only one component of success. Choosing the proper imagery to communicate to the potential customer or visitor can result in resounding success, while selecting the wrong images can be disastrous in terms of sales and web “stickiness.”
Carefully selected images can help to establish and reinforce brand awareness, can help to target niche markets, and can help to build customer loyalty. Today, lifestyle photography is the primary means of conveying consumer messages -so much so that product photography is often a small element of a print advertising campaign or a web design.
Lifestyle Photography Conveys Concepts
The primary purpose of lifestyle photography is to convey concepts. For example, a photograph of waves lapping on the beach can convey relaxation, freedom, luxury, and promise. Photography of crashing waves can communicate agitation, strength, and persistence. Images of still water with stormy skies can convey turbulence, doubt, conflict, and confusion. A hand reaching out of the water can relay a message of hope or of hopelessness. Photography that depicts surfing can communicate youthful exuberance or a hip, active lifestyle.
Finding Unique, Captivating Images
If you use these types of ocean, water, and life images in your advertising campaigns or web design work, you know how frustrating it can be to find the right photography to communicate your key concepts. Most, if not all, major stock photography companies have either a limited number of images, or images that are dated. When you’re looking for unique images that evoke the proper emotional tone, it often pays to patronize smaller stock photography companies, particularly those that specialize in ocean, water, and life images. The images that will allow you to stand apart from your competition may very well come from a company that is steeped in the surf and water lifestyle.
Besides offering unique stock images, the right stock photography company should be able to offer you exclusive rights, should you so desire, should track the use of all photos, and should consider commission ideas. In other words, if you need a certain type of ocean, water, or life image, the company should consider shooting the image for you and then adding it to their stock catalog.
With ocean, water, and life photography quickly becoming the most common images used in advertising and web design, it’s important to find a stock photography company that can deliver the unique images that will give you the edge and set you apart from your competitors.
Understanding Roll up Banners Information
Roll up banners are becoming very lucrative in promoting like in trade shows, retails, road shows, trade shows and many other corporation areas. Roll up banners are especially useful because of their overall flexibility.
These display stands are retractable and self-contained with a cartridge which is incorporated in a bounded base. The installation and assembling of this pull out is very unfussy by just pulling it from the base and joining it to an overhead bar. It has a protective layer that ensures that the graphics are clear and well protected. There is a container that is used to move it easily from one place to another.
These display stands are produced in a range of sizes that potential customers can choose from. They range from a width of 800mm to 2400mm to ensure that there is enough room for clear and bold artwork. When you place the display stands in a congested places, it would be appropriate to go for the super-tall ones with about 4metres in height. This is specially ideal in outdoor places where public will see it from a far distance.
Roller display stands are great in retail commerce to get the message across of marketing various products. This is the best marketing tactic when it comes to limited offers since it is possible to change the banner and use another item for advertising. This means that the pop up display remains and just the text and graphics are changed making it very economical. The roll up banners are able to stand firmly in sand or water without being swayed away when outside. This is because they come as UV resistant and even waterproof. These banners are very flexible and easy to use both indoors and outdoors.
These banners are sometimes used in conferences and presentations to help send important messages. The banner is large and thus the message is very clear to the audience. Companies choose the size depending on budget and also the quality of message being displayed. The graphics are very diverse thus one can choose the ones that really help make an impact. The graphics can either be small or large with small or large messages. Many professional offices use banners to keep employees at toes with the brand, mission and goals of the company. This ensures that a company is fully organized and professionally improves the surroundings.
You can easily find pull up banners cheaply from the internet through genuine websites like displays4media. Many manufactures specializes in these banners of all types. You can even contact any manufacturer and get your own customized banner to suit your needs.
Assembling Roller banners
Roll up banners are also called the pull up banners and this name comes about due to the pop up technology that is used in setting up your advertisement. The banner booths are usually considered the most inexpensive and most voted stands, compared to any other stands. You will enjoy many advantages when you use these banners for your exhibition stands and one of the main advantages that many people love is the lightweight nature of these banners.
Roller banners are very light; therefore, this makes it easy for you to remove them around without having to bare any kind of transportation costs. They also come along with the latest spring mechanism technology, which gives you the chance to fold and then assemble it all in very little time. Therefore, if you have to trek to different places and market your goods or services, then know that the banners will be just the thing for you.
Their quick assembling and portability makes them just right for you to move around even in very far places. The roll up banners is also one of the most affordable types of displays, which gives you the chance to get them in large portions. This will mean that you can also use them in different events as long as they have different posters on them. A wall mounted roll up banner usually comes along with a hook, which gives you the chance to show it using the hook inside your store or any indoor business.
The beauty about this is that you will have the chance to use it different kinds of places that include shopping malls, restaurants, hospitals, stores, and many other platforms. You will also have the benefit of combining roll up banners with other types of displays that include the pop up banners, which will give you an upper hand in events like in house exhibitions and trade show fairs. This will make your stand the most attractive due to the combination of these banners and other types of displays.