I also started Tweeting on Twitter.

Twitter, twitter and twitter. It seems now everybody started tweeting. Different people use twitter for different purpose. Twitter ask you a simple question- "What are you doing?" Some people use Twitter to share their personal thoughts, some shares about conferences and places they visited and some shares knowledge about their products to generate revenue (serious game).

If you are already following on twitter, I am sure your home page is flooded with tweets. I joined twitter last week and got more that 1000+ tweets!!

The question arises here about the value we are getting from twitter or the importance of twitter. Well I think we can exploit twitter to get updates and news about new things around us. The kind of tweets you are getting depends upon whom you are following and what you are tweeting.

If you are following people who are in same profession to you, it will give you good learning about your industry. If you are replying to the tweets then it will surely help to create long time relations. The twitter business model is now loved and accepted by everyone, atleast after Dell made $ 1 million just by tweeting!!

Tweeter is a very effective medium to connect and share with your friends, colleagues, relatives and other. It help to inform about what are you doing and whats your plans over weekend and so on.

So now I want to share some simple tips and tools to use your twitter for making friends, informing your manager or as a marketing tool.

• If you have long description beyond 140 characters, then you can use www.140it.com to shrink your tweets.
• If you want to provide some links in twitter, then use www.tinyurl.com to shrink your long URLS.
• Always try to tweet latest things which provide some information and help to your followers.
• Always try to reply reply if you found some helpful information from the people you are following
  
• If you found some business leaders, speakers and professional friends, then connect with them to linkedin or other professional network.

So this time when you login to twitter, try to apply the above tips and keep posting me about new tips and updates about twitter :)


Follow me @ www.twitter.com/umrao81

Google adwords tests new interface

Here is a good news, if u got bored with the old interface of google adwords. Recently Google tested new interface of adwords. This interface may be come soon to your adwords accounts. Here are some screens.

Paid Search Spending

Recently I had read many articles and blogs which were claiming the decrease in paid search spending due to slow down in economy. But I was not convinced with those facts . Paid search is known for its low budget quality which is under advertisers control. I think paid search is the best way to advertise if your want to do reduce your advertising budgets. Recent survey conducted by Juipter research claims that the big advertiser are going to increase their paid search budget.
According to that survey More than eight out of 10 marketers who spent at least $50,000 per month on paid search said they planned to maintain or increase their spending during the next 12 months.












The above table directly states that 55% spenders are planning to increase their advertising budget and 28% are planning to maintain the existing budget. However only 17% respondents are planning to decrease their paid search spending.
The big advertisers are giving emphasis on better paid search campaign management tools.
According to juipter research more than 90% respondents are saying that they are ready to spend 22% more if they have better campaign management tools.

According to emarketer estimates the paid search spending will be double by 2013.



















According to emarketer the total paid search spending will increase to $59,000 as compare to $24,900 in 2008. Here search campaigns will contribute to 40% of total spend. The video ads will also show a good spending. As this ad format attracts adults and gen X.

eventhought there is economy crisis but the paid serah will be the most favourite channel of advertising as this is more focused.

AdWords Conversion Optimizer Criteria changed

Google adwords Conversion optimizer is now available to most of your campaigns. Now one can use adwords conversion optimizer to any campaign with atleast 50 conversions in last 30 days which was earlier 200. By doing so i think now there is chances to see the realibility and result of this conversion optimizer. Now more B to B sites and ecommerce sites will use this tool. As we know the conversion Optimizer uses our conversion tracking data to get more conversion at lower cost.
It achieves this by optimizing your placement in each ad auction to avoid unprofitable clicks and get you as many profitable clicks as possible.

So now if you are looking for more conversion at low cost then try conversion Optimizer even though you have very less(50) conversions.

and do share your experiences of conversion optimizer with me.

Outsourced SEM is better than in-house SEM

This is a highly popular debatable topic in online industry. There are various views about in-house or outsourced SEM.

Today most of big companies are opening there in-house SEM. There views are that why not to train their Web programmers for SEM to do PPC and other online advertising models & practices. On the other hand the SEM companies say that this is not a tom, dick & harry game and there is a need of appropriate knowledge of SEM practices to be given.

They accept that there is need to give technical knowledge of Web programming relating to search engines. In the recent time many big Offline advertising companies approach up with their online advertising firms like Ogilvy opened Neo@ogilvy and percept holdings opened percept Knorigin.

My opinion is:-

I think for a huge web site there is need of some experienced SEM professional to clutch SEM models. As the web site is big that mean there is numbers of campaigns and ad groups in that account which leads of thousands of keywords. Also if there are different campaigns according to geographic location then the number of keywords may increase. Also if there are some seasonal or short term schemes are associated with the website and the web site is big, so it is not possible for an in-house SEM professional to manage.

Apart from this I think the experts of SEM only can comprehend the marketing tools to make SEM easy. They can occasional do competitor analysis, keyword research and other things which are directly or indirectly associated to SEM.

Reasons for why in-house SEM is ineffective:-

• The SEM is not an easy game. Google ad words and Yahoo panama is not so simple. There is a need of daily check ups to the campaigns. Also there is a need to find out the performing keywords and optimization accordingly. Here in-house marketers don’t have time to give full dedication to the online campaigns.
• A trained professional can easily manage the monthly budget and can prevents overspend in the last of month. He put daily budget accordingly to spend the money same as monthly budget.
• The most important thing here is tracking and analysis. The proper analysis is done with proper reporting. In-house marketer lakes in proper reporting. An expert SEM professional can do reporting and do the analysis accordingly. He also put his comments and recommendations to improve the campaigns to achieve the target.
• The Google ad words and yahoo panama having online advertising policies. The in-house marketers are unable to know the exact policies, which may create a problem for the website or Google can ban certain issues which may affect leads.

The SEM expert is well aware of Policies as he may be a Google advertising professional (GAP) or a yahoo ambassador. So if there is

• The last but not the least thing is that the in-house SEM have no direct support from Google, yahoo(Overture), MSN and other search engines, whereas in case of SEM agencies have a direct support from these search engines.

So the above are my views. It is clear that I support Outsourced (Agency) SEM, but still I am confused somewhat, so waiting for your comments and your opinion on the same.

Your comments????????

Need Leads? Be creative

According to a recent survey now companies are spending much on online media. consumers today spend nearly half of their spare time on the internet. As this number continues to rise, consumer brand marketers have more opportunities than ever to reach their target audiences online.
So now marketers need to be sure they are reaching out to consumers with effective messages and great creative that catches and keeps their attention. The disadvantage of this media is that you have very less time to express your product and show your creativity. So, when creating any type of online media -- including polls, emails, landing pages and banners -- it's critical that your copy, messaging, graphics and call-to-action are not only clear and concise from a messaging standpoint, but also visually enticing.
The following steps may be helpful to generate good leads.

1. Strategy: It's easy to jump right into the creative design, but you need to analyze and brainstorm first. Before getting started, ask yourself these questions:

• What am I trying to accomplish?
• Who am I trying to target?
• What am I trying to get my target audience to do?

2. Message: Your messaging needs to be concise and easy for the consumer to understand. It's important that the call-to-action is clear with no room for confusion. If consumers don't understand what is being asked of them, they are likely not to click through.

3. Graphics: Use dynamic imagery that is relevant to the offer. Always use:

• Your brand and logo.
• Product shot.
• Image that relates to the product or offer. For example, if the media is a poll asking consumers to weigh in on their favorite movies, the relevant image might be a box of movie theatre popcorn.
• Shots of people are also very effective.

4. Content: Don't overwhelm consumers with too much copy, color or graphics. Only incorporate the necessities since you only have a few seconds to convince consumers to click through and provide their valuable contact data.

5. Make it interactive: Whenever possible, make your online media interactive for the consumer. This will help grab and keep their attention. Here's one way to make your online media more compelling and active for your audience:

Include rich media video or flash demonstrations, commercials or promotions -- complete with audio -- to your registration forms, emails, et cetera. This enables marketers to deliver interactive branding messages at precisely the moment they are collecting valuable consumer contact data and product preferences.

6. Keep it simple: When designing any online media, while it needs to be dynamic in design, be sure to keep it simple, consistent and attractive to your target audience. Always remember to:

• Keep use of fonts to a minimum.
• Stay consistent with color throughout your design.
• Make sure copy, messaging, call-to-action and images all relate to each other.

For more on Search engine Marketing and Generating leads visit:-

http://www.1-hit.com/

http://www.searchland.com/

http://www.imediaconnection.com/

http://www.alootechie.com/

Know your clients USPs
Knowing everything concerning your client is an excellent strategy. The USPs of a client is vital. In today competitive world, if you are dealing in certain product, then there are chances that someone else is also dealing in same thing. So before setting up the clients account the first thing is to know the USPs. I.e. unique selling proposition. The special offers, free shipping, discounted price, free trial, buy one get one free offers etc are several winning USPs of your client. at this point, one thing which to be concerned is that counterfeit and unnecessary promises can throw you out so be aware of all possible USPs which is offered in website. Search out each and every page of website because the offers also are product specific.
Today the world has changed mightily. It’s Permission Marketing time. The prospective purchaser is in control. If people don’t know about your company or website, then you’ve somehow got to stand out from the crowd. It’s Pull Marketing that you’ve got to practice. Technically Unique Selling Proposition is hardly the right term. No one is going to wait around to hear a proposition from someone they’ve never heard of. Indeed some people now use USP to mean Unique Selling Point, and that’s perhaps a better working definition now.
Whether it is Unique Selling Proposition or Unique Selling Point, the essence of the USP is still correct. It’s got to be something that is attractive to that potential purchaser and is in a sense unique. They won’t be able to get the same thing from anyone else and it’s got to be transmitted almost in the blink of an eye before they click away to one of the many other potential suppliers.
So before starting any campaign please have a gentle look at client website and note down every single advantage of website.