Closing remarks at this week's Warrillow & Co. "Stealing Share" event geared towards marketing to Canadian small businesses, confirmed that national advertisers are not only trying to reach this market but they are doing it on a local level.
Canadian B2B advertisers plan on increasing their online media budgets in 2008. Email had a planned increase of 54%, paid and organic search was up 47% and spend towards banners was raised b 39%. The big losers of this survey were television and national newspapers which saw decreases of 7% and 8% respectively.
Another area covered by the trends survey was the tactical approach businesses plan to take in 2008. 17% of B2B advertisers will implement blogging strategies and 16% will pursue online discussion board opportunities.
All indications show that national B2B advertisers are planning to increase their use of online media to advertise to small businesses.
I recently blogged about the lack of true business networks. The issue was brought up again this afternoon when John Warrillow commented on the lack of affinity between small business owners. In some cases, the competitive nature of the verticals make it impossible to connect any social dots. We've also noted that small business owners are primarily consumers and that social networks are already working to blur the lines between personal and professional lives.
When it comes to local search for this market, the field is wide open in Canada. Most options are US based (an option made slightly more attractive by the thriving Canadian dollar).
With major national brands like Costco and Best Buy starting to use localized guerrilla-style tactics to gain market share, it's clear that given the opportunity or appropriate platform, they would certainly use a locally focused search to capture this lucrative target.
The question is whether business owners who are already starting to use social networks as their own advertising platform, will be given the right tools within the social environment to source vendors.
Directories and local search engines have their work cut out for them. I have a feeling we'll see some Canadian developments in this area in the near future.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Beef up Affiliate Programs
At the Warrillow & Co. conference today in Toronto, the research company released some interesting findings from their 2007 survey on marketing to Canadian small businesses.
This year’s conference entitled “Stealing Share” is dealing mainly with the topic of challenger businesses that are cropping up to service the Canadian small business sector. John Warrillow’s presentation this morning showed a number of examples of businesses using various media techniques to gain market share. “Small businesses have more choices than ever as a result of Internet and high speed penetration” said Warrillow to describe the highly competitive nature of effectively reaching the 2.3 million small business owners in Canada.
Some of the featured challenger businesses included Costco in the small business supplies area, ING in banking and Vonage in the telecommunications field. Across all challenger businesses, when the small businesses were polled on how they became aware of the new brands, online advertising came a close second (at 22%) to TV (at 26%).
One example that stood out from the rest was the TigerDirect.ca case study. TigerDirect.ca was singled out as a company that was using online affiliate programs effectively to not only heighten brand awareness but also to steal market share. Warrillow’s study showed that the average revenue share for an online affiliate program within the tech sector is between 1 and 2 percent. By contrast, TigerDirect.ca pays double and sometimes triple the industry average.
As a result, the affiliate program attracts a lot of attention, motivates partners to merchandise the links and does wonders for their SEO.
If budgets for affiliate programs could become more flexible in that they include some investment towards brand awareness, the thought of paying double or triple points starts to make a lot of sense.
More tomorrow…
This year’s conference entitled “Stealing Share” is dealing mainly with the topic of challenger businesses that are cropping up to service the Canadian small business sector. John Warrillow’s presentation this morning showed a number of examples of businesses using various media techniques to gain market share. “Small businesses have more choices than ever as a result of Internet and high speed penetration” said Warrillow to describe the highly competitive nature of effectively reaching the 2.3 million small business owners in Canada.
Some of the featured challenger businesses included Costco in the small business supplies area, ING in banking and Vonage in the telecommunications field. Across all challenger businesses, when the small businesses were polled on how they became aware of the new brands, online advertising came a close second (at 22%) to TV (at 26%).
One example that stood out from the rest was the TigerDirect.ca case study. TigerDirect.ca was singled out as a company that was using online affiliate programs effectively to not only heighten brand awareness but also to steal market share. Warrillow’s study showed that the average revenue share for an online affiliate program within the tech sector is between 1 and 2 percent. By contrast, TigerDirect.ca pays double and sometimes triple the industry average.
As a result, the affiliate program attracts a lot of attention, motivates partners to merchandise the links and does wonders for their SEO.
If budgets for affiliate programs could become more flexible in that they include some investment towards brand awareness, the thought of paying double or triple points starts to make a lot of sense.
More tomorrow…
Monday, November 12, 2007
National Channel...Stuck with the Hot Potato
A couple of weeks ago, Idearc blamed the CMR channel for their poor Q3 online sales performance.
The statement came as a shock as the national channel only represents about 15% of their total revenue. Idearc took this line further when it revealed its plans to get around the CMRs all together. Idearc's attraction to the open market has been going on for about 4 years.
When SuperPages.com migrated from a fixed price directory product to a pay-per-click model, the national channel was last on its mind. To be fair, all the self-procurement tools they were working on over the years were more geared towards the 85% revenue weight of their local channel.
The CMRs' role has been changing dramatically over the past 5 years. Its strengths were historically rooted in driving efficiencies to a super-complex paper wrought business. Its priority was to provide a sales channel to the yellow pages publishers who would provide them with exclusive re-selling rights.
Today, with the evolution of the yellow pages businesses and the increasing migration to the digital channel, CMRs are pushing themselves to become thought leaders in the “directional” space. It’s simple really. To keep the clients, you need to provide value. The value these days is in providing objective media planning services and flawless execution.
Apparently, objectivity doesn’t sit well with publishers. With the acute awareness of the competitors streaming in, they don’t take kindly to the CMRs’ new attitude (questioning “the Matrix”).
Idearc isn’t the only publisher or media property to experience this frustration. I’ve had a number of conversations in Canada and the US about how agencies in general are a cog in the wheel to the publishers. The publishers feel they are doing three times the work to sell their products to an agency (never mind the end client).
Like it or not, clients hire agencies to protect them from the onslaught of media opportunities. The local landscape has many and whether they are self-procured or not, national advertisers will need some objectivity from someone.
I remember this problem in the mid-90’s when thousands of .com’s where being launched. All of them were convinced that they could do a better job selling through to the client. In some cases it was true. In many cases however, I spent long nights getting my clients out of bad contracts that they had done independently.
Results speak for themselves. The national channel will invest and re-invest in products that drive returns. They’re getting better at quantifying these returns and eventually, they’ll get more demanding.
It would be prudent to focus on the product’s ability to bring buyers to the sellers. Integrity wins business.
The statement came as a shock as the national channel only represents about 15% of their total revenue. Idearc took this line further when it revealed its plans to get around the CMRs all together. Idearc's attraction to the open market has been going on for about 4 years.
When SuperPages.com migrated from a fixed price directory product to a pay-per-click model, the national channel was last on its mind. To be fair, all the self-procurement tools they were working on over the years were more geared towards the 85% revenue weight of their local channel.
The CMRs' role has been changing dramatically over the past 5 years. Its strengths were historically rooted in driving efficiencies to a super-complex paper wrought business. Its priority was to provide a sales channel to the yellow pages publishers who would provide them with exclusive re-selling rights.
Today, with the evolution of the yellow pages businesses and the increasing migration to the digital channel, CMRs are pushing themselves to become thought leaders in the “directional” space. It’s simple really. To keep the clients, you need to provide value. The value these days is in providing objective media planning services and flawless execution.
Apparently, objectivity doesn’t sit well with publishers. With the acute awareness of the competitors streaming in, they don’t take kindly to the CMRs’ new attitude (questioning “the Matrix”).
Idearc isn’t the only publisher or media property to experience this frustration. I’ve had a number of conversations in Canada and the US about how agencies in general are a cog in the wheel to the publishers. The publishers feel they are doing three times the work to sell their products to an agency (never mind the end client).
Like it or not, clients hire agencies to protect them from the onslaught of media opportunities. The local landscape has many and whether they are self-procured or not, national advertisers will need some objectivity from someone.
I remember this problem in the mid-90’s when thousands of .com’s where being launched. All of them were convinced that they could do a better job selling through to the client. In some cases it was true. In many cases however, I spent long nights getting my clients out of bad contracts that they had done independently.
Results speak for themselves. The national channel will invest and re-invest in products that drive returns. They’re getting better at quantifying these returns and eventually, they’ll get more demanding.
It would be prudent to focus on the product’s ability to bring buyers to the sellers. Integrity wins business.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Losing Face...The Parents Show up to the Party
So the switch has been flicked and ads are appearing on Facebook now. In Canada, Air Canada is among the first to use the platform.
I love the 23/6 parody on this that Greg Sterling posted on his blog. While the image is over the top, the first ads on the interface stick out like spam and really dilute the user experience. Placing the ads in the middle of the news feeds forces users to sort through unsolicited information.
With their self-procurement service, the advertisers and their creative will have limited quality control. I did notice however, that they were hiring Account Executives to handle their larger advertising accounts. With time, I hope they manage to balance the type of messaging that appears on the site with the users' expectations.
I would also hope that Facebook will apply some sort of capping on the amount of ads sold. Fortune 500s are notorious for being uncool online. Often it's like the nerdy parents showing up to the party - a buzz killer.
Here's some hope and a prayer that media planners will lead their clients to doing the right thing. Consumers are easier than ever to bore, annoy and ultimately lose.
Be clever, be genuine, and god's sake be brief!
As for the many unfiltered advertisers that may stumble upon this monkey paw, I hope for Facebook's sake that someone will be watching user behaviours closely for any changes in session patterns.
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