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Stop SOPA Campaign ‘A Triumph of Online Marketing’

Dan Coysh — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:56:30 +0000

Online marketing experts have been left breathless recently by the stunning success of the internet-based campaign against the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) legislation in the US Senate aimed at regulating the internet to prevent the downloading of US intellectual property by overseas websites.

Critics were alarmed at the proposed legislation, warning that it was badly drafted and would lead to government censorship of the internet worldwide and damage online security.

Thus, the Stop SOPA campaign was born, and represented one of the most effective online marketing campaigns of all time, with tech giants such as Google, Reddit and Wikipedia all getting involved in a day of action on 18 January. The search engine censored its own logo, Reddit took itself offline, and Wikipedia blacked out all of its content.

The legislation has since been withdrawn indefinitely, after US legislators were unprepared for the depth of the protests. Here is the key factor that made Stop SOPA such a stunning success:

It had a clear message and a definitive call to action. The campaign drew on the purest aims of any online marketing initiative: make sure the target audience knows what the campaign is about and knows what is required of it. This is as true of campaigns trying to secure new customers as it is of an online protest.

Last Wednesday, all the sites involved made it clear why they disagreed with the proposals and made it possible for users to add their names to the protest, with Google alone managing to gain 4.5 million signatures an online petition alone, and so many emails sent to the Congress that servers fell over and government websites crashed.

When it comes to online marketing campaigns for your company or your website, it will pay to follow the examples of Google, Reddit and Wikipedia, by reaching out to as many potential clients or customers as possible. This can be done by many means, the primary ones being a professionally optimised website, the canny use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and a regularly updated blog. You may not get the tens of millions of responses that the Stop SOPA campaigners managed, but the uplift to your company’s prospects will be noticeable!

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.

Massive Online Spend Predicted for Christmas Day

Dan Coysh — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:46:24 +0000

photo credit: steve p2008

Retail analysts have identified a terrific online marketing opportunity during this year’s Christmas period – a massive internet spending spree by UK consumers over the next 14 days.

Forecasters at IMRG said that Britons are gearing up to spend an incredible £186.4 million online on Christmas Day alone, a 12 per cent increase compared to the same day last year. Consumers will also spend nearly double what they spent in 2010 on Boxing Day, IMRG added, with a predicted haul of £367.8 million.

Part of this is down to a huge online marketing push by many retailers, who have been heavily promoting sales and special offers and letting customers know that pre-Christmas stocks are running out fast in their internet advertising campaigns, making sure that pre-orders and sales come in earlier than the previous year.

The company’s chief marketing and communications officer David Smith said: “Although shopping on Christmas Day might not appear to quite be in the Christmas spirit, it is worth considering that many of these sales could actually be associated with popular gifts people have received, such as downloadable content for MP3 players and Kindles.”

Mr Smith noted that last Christmas Day had already seen a 26 per cent increase in online spending, making the idea of a 12 per cent increase this year even more impressive.

The IMRG report underlines the importance of having an effective online marketing strategy in place that takes into account not only the run-up to Christmas, but the Christmas holidays themselves. At this time, new gifts – especially technology such as media players and computers – often create their own demand for accessories, software, peripherals, DVDs and CDs.

Portable devices such as smartphones and iPads are going to be very popular gift choices this Christmas, only adding to the importance of these mobile devices in the world of online marketing. Recently, search giant Google published research which showed that more mobile devices were being used to make Christmas gift enquiries than ever before, with the technology being used for more than half of all searches for store locations, special offers and last-minute gift ideas, compared to desktops and traditional laptop computers.

Given this growing trend, it is imperative that online marketing professionals make it a priority to emphasise mobile devices in their campaigns, especially those hoping to capitalise on this year’s Christmas season.

Dan Coysh

Online Marketing Needs to Focus More on Mobile Devices

Dan Coysh — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:32:39 +0000

photo credit: Pink Ayla

The ever-increasing importance of mobile devices in online marketing was hammered home this week after a new survey revealed that 33 per cent of smartphone users had ordered a product with their device – and another 26 per cent had ordered a product or service online using a mobile app.

The research, carried out by EPiServer, showed that e-commerce via mobile devices is becoming a key part of UK retail, with online marketing efforts increasingly geared towards such shopping habits. With 59 per cent of British consumers now owning some form of smartphone and 18 per cent owning tablet devices, this is a sensible move.

However, the survey also discovered that some online marketing professionals are not making their sites mobile-friendly enough, with 32 per cent of smartphone users finding websites hard to navigate. Another 35 per cent said that they gave up on sites that were too difficult to find one’s way around.

But only 20 per cent of online marketing workers surveyed said that their site was optimised for mobile devices, and only 18 per cent had a specific mobile app. The good news is that 76 per cent said that they had a mobile strategy in place with 26 per cent due to launch a site optimised for smartphones and tablets in the next year.

Dan Coysh

Company Sites Outstrip Facebook and Twitter for Online Marketing

Dan Coysh — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:57:00 +0000

photo credit: Sean MacEntee

A recent study revealed that the primary online marketing portal for businesses remains their corporate or company website, despite the rise of internet marketing campaigns on social media.

The survey, by tech firm Demandbase and the Focus business network found that only personal referrals and recommendations from satisfied customers trump online marketing initiatives based on company websites when it comes to producing sales. Researchers found that such sites were seven times as effective at generating leads as social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

Furthermore, almost 25 per cent of respondents admitted the most sales leads came from their website, followed by 14 per cent who selected email marketing campaigns. Online advertising came next, and social media scooped only 3 per cent of respondents’ recommendations.

Demandbase chief executive Chris Golec commented: “Despite its increasing influence, it’s important to keep in mind that no business sale is made without the buyer going to the corporate website first.”

Dan Coysh

Amazon Leads the Way for Online Marketing Success

Dan Coysh — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:22:50 +0000

photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

The success of online marketing was made even more apparent this week after new research revealed that online-only retail giant Amazon is Britain’s favourite brand among consumers.

Whereas only a few years ago, online marketing of retail sites suffered from the public perception that they were a mere adjunct to traditional retailers. But the European Best Retail Brand report, commissioned by shopping comparison site Kelkoo, found that far from being seen merely as “online operations” of existing stores, online-only businesses were at last being compared directly with their offline rivals. In the survey, Amazon beat Tesco, M&S and Asda when it came to customer satisfaction.

Kelkoo UK manager Mark Haupt commnented: “Consumers are starting to understand that Amazon are in themselves a retailing universe of possible opportunities and offers.”

“You probably don’t see Amazon advertising on TV as prolifically as others but they certainly have mastered the techniques and the ways in which online marketing works well these days.”

Dan Coysh

Dubai Leads the Way on Group Buying in the Middle East

Dan Coysh — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:46:34 +0000

photo credit: ohchristopher.

A growing phenomenon in the wealthy oil states of the Middle East was revealed by the BBC this week – the online marketing trend known as social or group buying.

While group buying is big business in many other parts of the world, thanks to companies such as Groupon offering customers discounts on a wide range of products online, marketing efforts for the phenomenon are hotting up now in states such as Dubai.

Companies involved in group buying funnel customers to retailers in return for part of the revenue gained, and the growing levels of e-commerce in the Middle East are working hand-in-hand with the already high levels of credit card use and a love of retail.

Original Fitness Co is a company which offers “boot camp” exercise classes on Dubai’s beaches, and it owes much of its success to online marketing via group buying.

“Marketing can be expensive, but this is quite a cost effective way of doing it,” managing director Corey Oliver told the BBC.

“And once people try it, we hope they enjoy it and want to come back.”

Dan Coysh

Online Marketing Gets a Boost From Better Site Searches

Dan Coysh — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:41:36 +0000

photo credit: stoneysteiner

Online marketing professionals should take note of recent guidance on how to optimise a business’s on-site search and navigation to drive up sales and increase customer satisfaction – pointing out that there are various ways that retailers can improve this.

Fact-Finder head of UK operations Mathias Duda said that improved search and navigation on websites “can drive sales through personalised merchandising, increase a user’s experience of a brand and help retailers get a better understanding of their customers and how they behave on their website” – adding that too many retailers neglect site optimisation as part of their online marketing strategy.

One major improvement that can be made is changing the search function so that it understands misspellings and synonyms – up to 40 per cent of queries are spelt differently to actual product names, so this would clearly increase sales.

A general point also worth considering is that improved knowledge of what customers are seeking on a site will in turn improve online marketing by improving the efficiency of AdWords and SEO choices.

Dan Coysh

Twitter’s Online Marketing Possibilities Largely Untapped

Dan Coysh — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:52:12 +0000

Virgin Media Business urged retailers and other commercial companies to up their game and focus more online marketing efforts on Twitter.

Research carried out by Virgin found that too many businesses are failing to capitalise on the unique internet advertising potential of micro-blogging sites such as Twitter, and their close relatives – social networks such as Facebook. According to researchers, just 9 per cent of firms used Twitter for online marketing and only a third used social media.
“Since its founding, Twitter has changed the way we shop and engage with brands and, as such, has become a fantastic tool for customer engagement,” Virgin Media Business customer service director Phil Stewart commented.

The Centre for Retail Research director Joshua Bamfield admitted that “it is probably true that the smaller stores have not got on this bandwagon yet,” but added that this “may simply reflect the fact that they’re very busy, they don’t have the skills and they don’t see why they should bother.”

Sales figures seem to show, however, that those who do “bother” will ultimately reap the online marketing rewards.

Dan Coysh

MPs to Look at Privacy Issues Surrounding Online Marketing

Dan Coysh — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:53:03 +0000

photo credit: whatleydude

The UK Parliament is turning its scrutiny on internet advertising, following concerns about personal privacy sparked by the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

MPs want to investigate the data security and privacy issues surrounding online marketing efforts which identify appropriate individuals for advertising via their web surfing habits, such as their searches on Google or their activities on social networking sites like Facebook.

Some 13 MPs are calling for a so-called “internet bill of rights,” giving users more safeguards over their online privacy.

The difficulty for the politicians is that while users would like to see less personal information held by third parties, they also enjoy the benefits that personally tailored online marketing can bring, according to online advertising industry journal Campaignlive.

Online marketing professionals are now likely to lobby MPs, pointing out that internet advertising already gives users the choice of opting out of various kinds of adverts and pay per click initiatives.

Dan Coysh

Online Marketing for Womenswear Can Revive the Sector

Dan Coysh — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:53:50 +0000

photo credit: Cara Photography

Creative online marketing strategies can act as a powerful engine for growth in the women’s clothing sector, according to a new report.

The study by market researchers Mintel said that online clothing retail has mushroomed in the past decade, as high street and boutique sales of womenswear have fallen. Researchers found that nearly half of all mothers in the UK did not like store shopping for clothes, due to a lack of choice and flattering designs.

A significant 43 per cent of all women admitted to disliking trying on clothes instore, and 49 per cent accused retailers of only marketing to young people.

Mintel suggested that innovative online marketing and internet advertising campaigns have the potential to make the online clothing retail industry highly important in reviving the sector.

The company’s senior consumer analyst Michelle Strutton suggested one online marketing approach, saying: “More retailers can drive last-minute clothes purchases online by offering a service that if consumers order a garment via their websites before 9pm they will be guaranteed delivery the next day.”