Discussions on the Topic of Advertising | Professional Web Services

Online Advertising For Today is a Good Marketing Strategy

December 13, 2007March 6, 2011J. Warholic

Good advertising is a natural extension of marketing.

Marketing and advertising go hand in hand. Doing one without taking into account the other is like eating a steak without a good baked potato. Edgar Watson Howe, an American novelist and a newspaper and magazine editor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries put it this way, “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing but nobody else does.”

When the internet was in its infancy, with only a few million pages of information, getting your message in front of the right audience was much easier, as compared to today. Why the difference? The bottom line is that it mainly has to do with the billions of new webpages online today. In fact, the number of websites going online is very difficult to calculate at any given moment. But, at the midpoint of 2007, the total base of domain name registrations worldwide was 138 million across all of the Top Level Domain Names. This represents a 31 percent increase over the same quarter last year. (VeriSign) Every country has its own top level domains, with over 840 domain name registrars worldwide. Keep in mind, that while the number of Domain Names for all Top Level Domains are able to be counted, this does not accurately reflect the true nature of the actual number of websites online today. With subdomain names being considered as separate websites, the true number of websites online is substantially greater. Many Second Level Domain names have thousands if not millions of subdomains, each having hundreds or thousands of webpages. Take for example, www.blogger.com. The .com represents the top level domain name, and Blogger represents the second-level domain (SLD) names, and the www and all others represent third or higher level domain names and are also known as subdomains. Here are two other examples of subdomains on top of second-level domains. See Advertising.pwebs.net and B2B.SalesAndMarketing.ws both of which are separate websites.

How Are Search Engines a Marketing Force Factor?

So, it really comes back to understanding search engines and how they will display the results for any particular search query. Imagine how many times your particular keywords of your business are used throughout all of the webpages online. Google gives an estimate as to the actual number of pages that have a particular keyword or keywords within the webpages themselves.

As you can see, to display any business online, within the natural search results takes quite a bit of webpage and website optimization to develop the keywords within the site, and the time and Web patience in developing quality links back to the pages of a website. Quality links back to webpages effectively provide a type of authority vote online that the page represents what it is talking about. During this period of time when the website is being optimized for its keywords, there is another way of quickly getting a business found online. This is through online advertising models.

Online advertising for today represents a viable solution to bringing in new customers and leads through the internet. Advertising online also is a great tool for testing and evaluating additional horizontal or vertical markets for any business today. Advertising campaigns can probe the market places quickly and help determine if there really is an additional horizontal or vertical market or markets in which to concentrate your company’s Internet marketing dollars and other forms of marketing efforts upon.

Professional Web Services is a company that has the experience for developing new markets through effective online advertising solutions and internet marketing know-how to bring in new customers via the Net. Contact Professional Web Services today for a free internet marketing evaluation of your business website.

Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Advertising?

November 22, 2007March 2, 2011J. Warholic

Where to place your advertising dollars online…

The following chart is showing where most of the searches are occurring. When deciding where to invest your online advertising dollars, it might look like Google is the only place to invest, however, depending on your particular business, whether technical oriented, business oriented, or consumer oriented; it is probably a wise decision to try some test advertising campaigns in Yahoo and Microsoft also.

In October, Google Sites increased its lead atop the core search ranking with 58.5 percent of U.S. searches, gaining 1.5 share points versus the previous month. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 22.9 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.7 percent), Ask Network (4.7 percent) and Time Warner Network (4.2 percent).

comScore Core Search Report* October 2007 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch 2.0



Core Search Entity	Share of Searches (%)
Core Search Entity	Sep – 07	Oct -07	Point Change Oct-07 vs. Sep-07
Total Core Search	100.0%	100.0%	0.0
Google Sites	57.0%	58.5%	1.5
Yahoo! Sites	23.7%	22.9%	-0.8
Microsoft Sites	10.3%	9.7%	-0.6
Ask Network	4.7%	4.7%	0.0
Time Warner Network	4.3%	4.2%	-0.1

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

In October, Americans conducted 10.5 billion searches at the core search engines, marking a 12-percent increase versus September. More than 6.1 billion core searches were conducted at Google Sites during the month (up 15 percent), while Yahoo! Sites recorded 2.4 billion (up 8 percent). All core search engines posted solid gains in search query volume in October.

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The Most Important Question(s) on the Internet

February 26, 2007March 11, 2011J. Warholic

20/20 Business Glasses — Get 20/20 Marketing Vision

Are potential new customers seeing your website online or finding your global or local business with the search engines? Are you getting sales leads and customers from the Internet? Do you want more customers now?

By: Jim Warholic

Learn how Internet marketing and online advertising with Google, Yahoo!, and Bing Search (formerly named Microsoft MSN Search) engines can drive new customers to your online doorstep and even deliver them to the inside of your store, where they can shop and buy the products or services your business provides. Take the next step with Professional Web Services today.

In the competitive business world we live in, a business must be proactive with 20/20 business vision when it comes to marketing their company online. Any business that is selling products or services to other businesses in the case of B2B, or selling to consumers in the case of B2C would not dream of going without hiring some good sales people. Many times these businesses will be paying top dollar to get the best sales person they can. But, some businesses will neglect what I would consider the most important salesman for their company, their corporate website.

Presidents And CEOs

The buck stops here, with the president and CEO of a company. I am going straight to the top on this one. These are the people that are the ultimate decision makers. They provide the guiding force and direction for a company. While a president and CEO does not have to be a marketing genius, they do have to understand the marketing basics, at a fundamental level, for the health and well being of an organization. In essence a good president and CEO knows the importance of hiring the right people for the job. They know that good marketing is key for business success.

Many of the presidents and CEOs know hiring good people is key to corporate growth, but have not really grasped the importance of the Internet search engines, Internet marketing, and online advertising. They themselves use the Internet on a regular basis for searching all sorts of things but there is a disconnect between the searches they personally do and other people searching for what their business does. Small business company owners seem to be especially guilty of this Internet shortsightedness. Simply put, they are not seeing 20/20 business vision, and sadly they don’t even recognize their poor business vision and the need for good business glasses. They have the misplaced idea that a website is just something you are forced to have in business, instead of wrapping their arms around it, promoting it, and realizing that the website is, or should be, one of their most important assets a company can have. This business mentality is not strictly limited to small businesses. Corporate America has a certain segment group that is just as guilty as their small business counterparts. They have gotten fat and happy doing business the old way and have not adapted to the changes taking place online.

Embracing Internet Marketing

Grasping the potential the Internet has for your business is absolutely paramount to focusing a fair amount of your marketing and advertising dollars online. A salesman can not be available 24×7 but the website can operate round-the-clock, and be accessible to customers that are looking for those frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the products or services your company provides. In addition, detailed information can be available to your customers at their browsing finger tips. Information such as application notes, drawings, manuals, material properties, and type specifications can be made available to customers.

The website is so powerful that it can do most of the work of all your sales force combined. This allows your sales force more time to concentrate on closing sales and building better customer relations. The fact of the matter is the website can help support the structure of the company and provide excellent tools for the sales department to use. Simply having the information at both the customer’s and your sales department’s fingertips will make everyone’s job much easier and will result in more sales. Email’s written can then be linked back to the specific information being requested. Customers will come to rely on your company’s website as being a good source of information. This helps promote your brand and keeps the customer’s focus on you, instead of the competition.

B2B, Business-to-business customers are becoming much more demanding in what they want from a source provider. They demand the information now. If you don’t provide that information, it is just a matter of time before they go somewhere else. Maybe you have worked hard to build up customer relationships in your business. But in today’s business climate, where the weather changes quickly, and customers are likely to get blown off course quickly by the competition, it is imperative to set aside a marketing and advertising budget and focus this toward providing a solid online presence.

Forget the smoke and mirrors approach with the website design. You must have substance, and that substance involves work, time, effort, and a fair amount of financial investment. To be sure, the website is really only the starting point from an Internet marketing perspective. The website must be promoted in the form of quality link building, continued website development in the form of new content and regular site maintenance updates, along with regular detailed evaluations and analysis. With billions of pages online, not to mention the online directories with sometimes hundreds of competitors lined up and down the pages there has to be marketing focus with ongoing keyword development and targeting of new market segments to really standout online.

The businesses that standout on the Internet, and standout first online with the search engines for their specific industries’ keywords, will be in a position to capture those early sales leads and new customers.

As the owner, president, or CEO of your organization, you can do only so much yourself. Start today, set aside an Internet marketing and online advertising budget to promote your business on the Internet.

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Impressive Google Online Advertising

June 28, 2006March 4, 2011J. Warholic

Well, I must say that I am impressed with some of the new interactive ads that Google has been serving to their AdSense providers.

For those that are not familiar with the AdSense program, Google has a affiliate program whereby a content publisher can serve ads on their content websites. These ads come from the Google AdWords program in which advertisers can create both text and graphic ads to be displayed in the search results as well as on content providers’ websites.

Some of the new cool features of the new ads is the built in interactivity in the form of buttons or highlighted areas for different items of interest. Other extremely cool ads are in the form of video. See Web 2.0 Advertising. Yes I know, there have been moving ads on the Internet for a long time, but typically those old ads were very annoying in both sight and sound. What Google has done is control those annoying features by strictly regulating what ads are approved. Additionally many of the video ads have a control bar for playing the ad if you want.

How this plays out for the customer conversions is still being studied, but I would venture to say that there might be a higher conversion with this type of advertising. As is on the Television where people can click away from an ad, the Web visitor now has more control over what they are willing to take a look at, as opposed to what they are forced to watch. As these types of ads become more plentiful, Web Surfers will be much more likely to extend a measure of trust to both the advertiser and the website publisher.

Ultimately these ads bring a high degree of value to everyone. Publishers, Advertisers, Servers, and Web Surfers all profit.

If you would like profit from a website that is search engine friendly and can be found online visit Professional Web Services to learn how our Internet Marketing Services can help your B2B or B2C business today. Get more information about Online Advertising Strategies and Web Branding Solutions.

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Web 2.0 Advertising Means More Sales for Your Business

April 25, 2006March 23, 2011J. Warholic

The Internet is all about interactivity

Interactivity can take many online forms in marketing a business through a website, click through emails, call to action items, enticements, free offers, games, challenges, and other various forms of algorithm learning and software items built into the web site.

Now with the new 2.0 Web that is upon us, advertising can have more interactivity built into the ads themselves. Defining Web 2.0 is rather difficult because the Web is in a constant state of change. New technologies and software are continually being developed and deployed throughout the Internet. Software applications such as Google Calendar and the online Writely company (now Google Docs) that came up with a powerful online word processing application that can save documents in Microsoft Word format are starting to change the Internet landscape.

Advertising is also becoming much more interactive especially as online streaming audio and video are becoming more and more popular for both the advertiser and the viewer. Google has recently started experimenting with video advertising through their AdWords campaigns. The advertisers have created the ads in such a way, that the ads do not irritate a person viewing them. Actually to fully view the Ad, a play button is placed at the bottom of the ad itself. By including this type of interactivity built into the advertisement a viewer can make a choice to view it fully or not. Other forms of the interactive advertisements are simply when a button is clicked more information can be displayed.

Now, a further refinement of the selling or buying process can take place with an advertisement that draws the reader/viewer into the next step along the path of completing a sale. Remember, the better you can communicate your message, and understand your target customers’ needs, the more likely you are to fill those needs and complete a sale. With an interactive advertisement, a company can now share more information than would be typically shared with a single static ad. This really makes it a very powerful tool for communicating to prospects.

I suspect as readers and viewers become much more accustomed to these new Web 2.0 Ads they will gravitate toward more interaction with the online ads, and thus the advertiser will have higher, and more qualified click through rates. This will likely be good for both the Internet Surfer as well as the Internet Advertiser. The Surfer will certainly be more trusting of a company if they can find out more information along the pathway from prospect to customer.

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Advertising On The Internet With Style

January 22, 2006April 8, 2011J. Warholic

New Style of Interactive Online Advertising

In the advertising world much of a message is lost in the delivery. Other times an advertisement is so unique that it can really give a “that is cool” aspect on the message delivery. This can be a message that will stay in the mind of the viewer for quite a long time. Through the right advertisement message, the brand can stand out no matter what.

Take for example Nike, and their branded message, “Just Do It”. That simple statement is their branded image, that when seen or said, reminds me of Nike.

Internet Marketing Interactivity

Internet marketing is about interactivity. Many times this interactivity is designed to bring a reader to take the next step. For example, when a Web advertisement is created with the intention of taking a person to a landing page with additional information, this is only one step in the conversion process.

PPC Conversion Pathways

The conversion process has many small steps along the pathway to having a interested party become a active prospect, and then into a paying customer. They may need to become better informed prior to ever contacting the company. This could extend out several website visits and/or months of time.

If the subject matter is quite involved, then there might actually be a need to educate the prospects on the various aspects of the business before they are to even consider calling or emailing you. A website can be an excellent way of doing this. But, many times a website is a very static environment. Static in the sense that the information just sits there with little interactivity taking place with the reader. A website needs to have a certain degree of marketing creativity to really spur the conversion process on toward filling the need of the customer, even if the customer does not now understand their need.

I have read some great information on the Internet ever since I had my first Apple Power PC 6100 computer in the mid 90s. Today, there are some excellent stories online, but some are quite static in their nature. The simple hyperlinks are missing. The writer knows all about the subject matter, but assumes the reader does too. The research for the story could have been built right into the writing with simple hyperlinks to other pages with relevant information, in which the reader would be able to find out more about a particular subject.

In the online advertising world, the same static message often applies on the landing page (page transported to when clicked). There is no interactivity built into the web page. The reader is often times left hanging and saying to themselves that was interesting but I did not understand what all the words meant. The advertiser assumed that a reader would automatically know what the details are. This sometimes can be a wrong assumption.

Most advertisements online have been designed with a static delivery system. For example when an advertisement message is shown, by either the words displayed or the graphic image on a website, only one of two courses of action can take place. Either, a reader can move their mouse over the Ad and click, OR not. Up until recently, those were the only two choices.

Different Advertising Strategy

I believe that a new and different type of advertisement strategy could offer much more interactivity then previously thought. Instead of two choices: One to click, Two to not; we could have far more choices in a single Ad through a new type of menu system built right into the ad itself. For example, a single graphic ad could have different areas that are hyperlinks for taking a reader to unique content pages for each specific category.

Let’s say that Best Buy, one of the largest consumer electronics retailers, is running a special on televisions, and at the same time also has sales discounts on a certain line of laptop computers. By building in a menu area on the graphic image, with several different categories the reader could be transported directly to that specific landing page from one single advertisement. This would have the unique benefit of taking out at least one extra step out of the conversion process. Because, when a reader clicks on an ad for a multitude of products, they then have to weed their way through the forest to get to the page they were most interested in, in the first place. Sure, Best Buy could make up lots of different ads for each specific targeted market, but with hundreds or thousands of consumer products why not take them there with a menu system now.

OK, so maybe my strategic advertising and marketing plan is way out there, but just imagine the sales possibilities.

Professional Web Services, Inc., Online Advertising Strategies, Internet Marketing Services, Web Branding Solutions To Provide More Sales For Your Business.

Oh, by-the-way, if you have not gotten the hint to explore the advertisement message in this posting, I suggest you run your mouse over and see and click the International advertising flags interactivity in store…

Internet Marketing and Advertising Matrix | Web 2.0

January 14, 2006March 23, 2011J. Warholic

Web 2.0 Marketing 2.0 Advertising 2.0?

Getting a handle on these terms is like pulling teeth. Web 2.0 seems to be some futuristic idea which seems to be evolving from the Web 1.0 structure. On the other hand, Web 2.0 seems to be occurring now on the Internet as it now is.

I have been reading for awhile now about this future of the Net. The following is from the Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia.

The term “Web 2.0″ refers to what some people see as a second phase of development of the World Wide Web, including its architecture and its applications. As used by its proponents, the phrase refers to one or more of the following:
the transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming a computing platform serving web applications to end users
a social phenomenon referring to an approach to creating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and “the market as a conversation”
a more organized and categorized content, with a far more developed deeplinking web architecture.
a shift in economic value of the web, up past a trillion dollars surpassing that of the dot com boom of the late 1990s.
However, a consensus on its exact meaning has not yet been reached.
Many recently developed concepts and technologies are seen as contributing to Web 2.0, including weblogs, linklogs, podcasts, RSS feeds and other forms of many to many publishing; social software, web APIs, web standards, online web services, Ajax, and others.

In fact it seems to be some sort of matrix idea in the minds of the proponents in which the Internet becomes much more interactive in it’s nature than the current online structure.

Others have written complete articles of what they envision Web 2.0 to represent.

What Is Web 2.0
Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software by Tim O’Reilly
09/30/2005
…
The concept of “Web 2.0″ began with a conference brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O’Reilly VP, noted that far from having “crashed”, the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What’s more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as “Web 2.0″ might make sense? We agreed that it did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born.
…

My gut reaction to all of this is that having a name stamped on a period of time like this will be like trying to place a classification on an entity where someone will ask, was that Web 1.0 or 2.0 architecture? And what about the evolution to the next level that is still to come? Will we have Web 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, etc etc?

Ok, If that is Web 2.0, What is Marketing and Advertising 2.0?

It seems to me that both of these terms reflect the interactivity and feedback mechanisms built into various types of analytics and forms of social networking through email, forums, comments, reviews, subject blogging, webcasts, podcasts, RSS feeds, news reports, affiliate referrals, and the entirety of the Internet as we know it.

See the following posts to have a better understanding of both of these terms.

As the Internet Matrix continues toward the next level we will see business take more notice of what it can do for them. Businesses that have not grasped hold of how a brand can be developed online or how their business brand image can be tarnished through the social networking (marketing and advertising 2.0) by the interactive online world will be shocked. The companies that strive toward excellence in customer service and operate with ethical responsibilities will continue to see gains in their brand acceptance and improve their market reach. In many ways, these companies that grab hold of the New Internet Matrix, will become like fine wines, that get better and better with age.

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Business Marketing And Advertising Internet Empowered

October 23, 2005March 5, 2011J. Warholic

The Internet Is An Empowering Media Form For Customers And Businesses Alike

Take a look at how the Internet is providing a form of online customer service feedback that can both be good and bad for your business depending on the customer service you provide.

Consumer Experiences

Years ago, before the Great Expansive Web Landscape >> before the Mozilla and Internet Explorer and high-speed internet came along, a dissatisfied customer would maybe complain to management or write a letter to the President of the company about poor customer services or false advertising. Now, that has all changed. Customers that become dissatisfied are fighting back.

To be a reporter does not require going to four years at a university or getting hired by the local newspaper. No, anyone that has a beef about something is free to report it online through a free blog service. Make no mistake about this though, falsely reporting news and information can hold serious consequences for individuals online. See: Internet Ethics

With that said, people can and do document information related to businesses online all the time. In fact blogging has changed the face of how the large media giants respond to news stories. Many times the networks are slow, very slow at jumping on a breaking story and it is the blogging community that is the first to share the story online. With technology, through the form of automatic news feeds from every single blog, the story can be picked up by thousands of individuals that then turn and share more information online. Once the chronicled account is published, search engines catalog the information making it a matter of historical public record for all times sake.

Businesses, from local, national, and international companies need to be more aware of the new technology that is creating the Internet landscape Where There Is No Place To Hide

In an article written by Chuck Mckay, from his Fishing For Customers website the following is quoted:

What happens when your ads brag about your customer service, and customer dreads going on hold with your automated call center?
What happens when your customer finally understands that your “money back guarantee” is actually pro-rated for the number of weeks that she owned your product?
What happens when your angry customer makes the evening news carrying a placard which declares you to be a crook?
Where do you hide when there’s no place to hide?

From the customer service standpoint it makes sense to follow good B2B, B2C, and C2C ethical guidelines. Fraud and other different unethical activities will become exposed. It might not happen overnight but with poor customer service, fraudulent activities, advertising scams, and even copyright infringement there certainly is no place to hide online.

Empower your Business for Marketing And Advertising

Blogs are not just for individuals. In fact blogs are being used more and more for businesses everyday. I just received an email update from Google about how their AdWords blog is becoming more of a newsletter in their thinking than just some place to post thoughts and updates. Click link to read more on this perspective.

Inside AdWords
…
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? That, just maybe, a blog might prove to be an effective newsletter for your customers as well?
Imagine it: A place where you could easily tell your customers what’s new and interesting about your business, and where you could even show them photos of your latest collection of high fashion widgets from Paris. Perhaps you’d also like to get some useful feedback from your customers? Yep, you can do that too.
…

Executive Platform

This type of e-business marketing and advertising works. Customers have been sharing with me the good feedback that they are receiving from this type of executive Internet marketing and branding approach. Many times people are blocking the pictures and images that are embedded in emails, especially in an unethical age with email spam and malicious spyware viruses, but are likely to click on a link to a website to view more information. Information can be posted online for future use. Imagine being able to write a sales and marketing pitch or create an Ad for use in a Pay-Per-Click advertising campaign with a link to a posting targeted to exactly what it is that your company is advertising.

The Internet is still a baby

The interconnectivity and alliances between businesses both vertically and horizontally as well as the mix of Individuals into the broad spectrum of things online will continue to create new opportunities for new businesses, market expansion of existing companies, and the opportunities for private individuals to make a difference, shake up the world, and breath a measure of fresh air to the World Wide Web.

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Building Pay-Per-Click PPC Ads

August 19, 2005March 11, 2011J. Warholic

The Google Adsense program is a great way to earn some extra dollars for your website.

Sometimes for various reasons the normal pay-per-click, PPC ads are not available from the server and what will be displayed is a Public Service ad (PSA).

Consider replacing these ads with your own advertisements. Sure you can get other feeds to substitute the Adsense feed, but in the long run you may not be maximizing the website for the best sales tool available to your business.

By crafting your own advertising you can actually be building up a number of advertisements for future PPC AdWords campaigns to run for your company. This way you can get an actual feel of how the ad will look on similar sites.

Some business folks may have an aversion to displaying advertisements on their web site to begin with. The argument is that if someone has come to your B2B or B2C site why in the world would you want to send them away. While this argument certainly has validity from a quick look, another argument could be made. With competition blocking filtering and displaying ads that are related but not directly in competition with your business you are actually providing a service for your Clients and Customers and who are much more likely to return in the future. Additionally, if your product or service is strong then you will get the cream of the crop staying with you.

Many times the normal PPC advertising feed will not display the standard advertisements because there simply is not enough content in the pages for the algorithm to figure what is the best ads fit. Other times, there might not be enough advertisers that are bidding on the keywords in the page. But no matter what the reason take the time to generate some advertisements for your own business. It will pay sales dividends in the end.

For help with Advertising online and Internet marketing visit us at Professional Web Services, with solutions for your business today.

Internet Marketing Media Advertising vs Other Advertising

March 23, 2005March 31, 2011ProWebs

The Remarkable Internet and Your Marketing Strategies

The New Web World
By: Jim Warholic

Our world is changing at a remarkable rate. Things are moving at light speed when it comes to information and how consumers and businesses obtain information. The key to this is the Internet and it is expanding on an exponential marketing curve. The Internet is a prime target for B2b and B2c advertisers to understand and place their marketing and advertising investment dollars in the best place possible.

We have a new generation of people growing up in which the Internet has a deep penetration. Here are some amazing U.S. facts that go back a number of years: 83.4% of males, 75.2% females 18-24 have Internet access. These figures do not drop below the 50% marks until the 55-64 age group for females. This group has males at 52% and females at 46% net access. The 65+ age group has a drop precipitously.

Here is an interesting study? in which a national survey was conducted for 1,235 respondents. The age groups represented the following numbers: 410 18-24 years, 411 25-34 years, and 414 35-54 years. 50-50 ratio male to female. The Socio-economic status consisted of middle – 55%, high 14%, and low 31%. There were a number of questions doing comparisons to the different media types.

The types of media presented were Internet, TV, books, radio, newspapers, videos/DVDs, videos/computer games, and magazines. The Internet generally out ranked any other form of media as a preferred choice for the respondents. The Internet (NOT email, IM, chat) and TV were the most frequently used media. Additionally, the Internet usage is growing as a percentage of time spent for the respondents, with 47% stating they spend more time online now then they did a year before. The highest age group was the 18-24 years at 52%. The next closest media was watching videos/DVDs in which 24% stated they spend more time now. Watching TV ranked only at 17% of increased time spent compared to a year ago.

Some of the attitudes were: 74% use the Internet for entertainment, 73% stated it helps them keep up with topics they are interested in, 73% felt it was an important part of their day, 65% thought it provided useful info about products and services, 50% thought it was an important way to relax. TV ranked high for entertainment and relaxation at 86% and 65% respectively. The Internet and TV were considered the two highest sources for news at 41% each with TV edging out the Internet for trusted news, 45% to 43%.

The attitudes across all age groups were very similar except in the area of newspapers. The 35-54 years group trusted news in newspapers only at 35% while the 18-24 years group trust was at 50%. The interesting thing was that reading a newspaper was an important part of the day at 38% for the older age group (35-54) while the younger group (18-24) was only at 17%. This goes to show while the younger group trusts the news in newspapers they simply do not read it. Magazines showed the least differences by age. Only 10% thought it was an important part of their day and only 6% thought it was the most important source of news.

When comparing the Internet media to other forms of offline media in head-to-head comparison the findings are very high. 76% found online information better about products compared to finding it in magazines. 72% finding information about music online was better compared to magazines. Looking at photos was at 50% about the same as a magazine. 56% thought that reading a story online was about the same as reading a story in a newspaper. These findings were true for all age groups.

The Internet predominates the market place for information and fun. The question was asked which medium would you use first if you wanted to… find information on a product, computers or other technology products, hobbies and interests, favorite music/recording artists, PC/video games info, latest stock quotes or financial information, entertainment information (movies, concerts, TV, events), and have fun. Product information was at the top of the list at an amazing 96% would go to the Internet first. All other categories was on average around 85% would go online first to obtain the info. All other forms of media for information could not even get close to that combined. Fun ranked at 59% while TV was second at 30%. Newspapers, magazines, and radio ranked a distant third, fourth, and fifth.

As you can see the Internet is a prime source for spending your advertising dollars and obtaining the highest return on investment. Internet marketing needs to occur on a number of fronts. A key to this is for businesses to leverage their online presence with a website that provides quality information. Information is king. The number of pages being placed on the web is growing at an astounding rate. What is going to set one website apart from the thousands of others with-in a certain market place?

For more information on the overall B2B and B2C Internet marketing picture take a look at the information on our Web site. Our marketing and advertising resources page has comparisons and helpful eBusiness links. For an excellent overview of what is involved in the whole realm of Internet marketing, with an understanding of what business is facing in the online market place today, explore our site.

Let Professional Web Services show you what we can do for your business today. Contact Professional Web Services now to leverage over 80 years of well seasoned, combined knowledge and experience available to you in the founding members of our web support team. Ask for your free Internet marketing consultation or ask any questions, leave comments, or need help with your website or online advertising campaigns. Contact Profession Web Services for: Internet marketing, online advertising, web branding, and for more information on marketing of B2B and B2C industries.

Source (may be out of print): http://www.online-publishers.org/pdf/opa_generational_study_sep04.pdf

Get started today with online advertising.

For an excellent ROI potential, consider using Google AdWords advertising to increase your business or consumer sales. It’s fairly easy to start right in without spending a lot of money to begin with. The neat thing about it is you can adjust it to your own advertising spending budget, set the daily spending limits, turn it off on a temporary basis, and can target global, nationwide, and “target your local ads by state, city, or even neighborhood wide web” or content related networks such as this site. There is even an option to display the ad in a variety of languages.

If you want to get a little more creative, a graphic ad can be displayed as well, on content sites.

My suggestion, is before spending any money on books or information help guides; is take the time to read a little bit from the Google Adwords link. All the information you need is right there. Google has free tools to track conversions plus videos are provided to really make it simple.

Every business should consider using this advertising outlet to reach new customers. Be aware, it is important to consider a few other items when spending online advertising dollars. If you want a higher return on investment, considerations for having quality website landing pages can not be over stressed; which will result in better customer conversions. Professional Web Services can help prepare your website for to increase your customer conversions. Also, if you do need help with the online advertising campaigns, we can manage an Ad campaign or multiple campaigns for you and make sure your advertising dollars are properly invested in the right keyword terms and markets for your business.