Pre-roll advertising has become so popular that it has attracted many of the largest consumer brands, including Unilever, Coca-Cola, Toyota, Home Depot, and Chevrolet. These companies know that pre-roll advertising is an effective way of displaying a brand message in front of consumers who are online or using mobile devices.

Pre-roll advertising is effective for several reasons. First, the format is similar to the television commercial, a form of advertising that consumers have been exposed to for years. This familiarity makes the ads both readily accepted and expected by consumers. Second, most viewers are willing to watch pre-roll ads because they are generally shorter than traditional television commercials, often running 10 to 30 seconds. Finally, many pre-roll advertisements are becoming interactive, allowing advertisers to incorporate links to product pages, social media sites, coupons, or other special offers.

Pre-roll advertising and other effective online video advertising techniques are growing in popularity and gaining tremendous results. Pre-roll video advertising is VAST 2.0 compliant, meaning that you can place your ad on a greater number of websites ensuring a larger reach, more impressions, and higher CTR’s.

Targeted Marketing Strategies

After aligning with an advertising agency, companies must optimize their website’s structure and content to target the desired demographics. There are hundreds of web analytics tools that can provide companies with information regarding the sites that direct traffic to the company’s site, allowing for simple segmentation and analysis. Premier search engines like Google take it a step further by building databases of websites that collect age, gender, and other information. This information allows companies to develop relevant messages and place advertisements on websites with high visibility. In addition to promotional advantages, targeted marketing gives companies the insight to confidently introduce new and relevant products and services.

Behavioral Marketing Strategies

Tracking consumer activity is a practice that has been used by advertisers long before the indoctrination of search engine marketing methodology. Whatever the environment, advertisers gain an invaluable insight to consumer activity if they are able to correlate their marketing messages to consumer behavior. To accomplish this in the SEM realm, a site owner can use snippets of code or “cookies” to track site visitors after they visit a site. This allows site owners to re-target individuals who didn’t make any purchases with additional discounts and offers. Behavioral marketing also allows website owners to improve their sales funnel. All of these methods lead to more impressions, conversions, and revenue.

1. News: Whether you are promoting a product, yourself or a service, offer visitors unbiased news articles relating to the topic or focal point of your site. Posting the latest news will make your website more relevant. Any site can incorporate news by simply offering information about recent updates in products or services.
2. Personal Touch: Include a personal blog, even if it’s silly. One veterinarian gets daily hits to his website thanks to his pet Chihuahua’s ramblings. The little dog became such a local celebrity that a live video feed was added so visitors could watch “Neno” in real-time.
3. Ask Questions: Let your visitors know you care what they think. End blog updates with a question. Add the occasional opinion poll. These tactics encourage participation and community-mindedness. Site regulars will become acquainted and start to think of your site as their regular meeting place. You might even consider adding a forum or chat room for these regulars once your site gains popularity.
4. Photos & Video: A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. So, if you don’t have time to post a blog entry, update your site with a photo or video that is relevant, funny or inspirational.
5. Special Guests: Going on vacation for a week? Get a guest writer to fill in for you. Sometimes a new outlook is refreshing to visitors. Also, consider interviewing people with ties to your community or subject matter. If you don’t have access to a video camera, simply post the questions and answers in writing.
6. Details: Offering detailed information about your products and/or services will benefit consumers. In your website’s content, try to answer all potential questions a customer may have. Make your company’s information easily accessible in order to prevent potential customers or clients from browsing a competitor’s website with valuable content.
7. Leverage the Expertise of a Display & Digital Advertising Agency: Hiring a Display & Digital Advertising Agency can help your business gain exposure. Services such as search engine optimization can increase your visibility online, while search engine marketing displays ads when people are looking for your type of business, products, and services.

What are your methods for maintaining a website with rich content?

1. Make a Connection

By creating and promoting an alliance with a local or online business that offers products and services that compliment your company, you can create valuable synergy for both businesses. Reciprocal blogging arrangements that highlight the benefits of both companies can attract more business and demonstrate that some things really are better together.

2. Highlight a Product or Service

Adding video entries to your company’s blog in conjunction with optimized text is a great way to diversify your content. You can even create custom channels to highlight various areas of your business and draw attention to your company. Video content can provide a personal touch and a human face for your company to increase customer loyalty and build branding more effectively.

3. Reveal a Secret

Letting your potential customers in on industry secrets can increase interest in your blog, and by extension, your products and services. Most consumers are attracted to secret information. Through disclosure, you can win their loyalty and establish your company as an authoritative source of information in your chosen field.

4. Search the Search Engines

Google, the premier search engine provider, is an excellent avenue to increase traffic to your website. You can use Google Analytics to discover which keywords rank most highly for your particular business or website presence and then write a blog post on those topics. You’ll be practicing proactive SEO and improving your social media savvy at the same time.

5. Something for Nothing

A blog entry announcing a contest with prizes for the winners can be an effective way to reach potential customers and build excitement for your products or services. Customers can write reviews of your products, participate in a drawing, or simply sign up for your newsletter in order to qualify for these contests and win discounts, promotional materials, or free products from your company.

Blog entries are a valuable way to stay in touch with current and potential customers. By maintaining fresh content on your corporate blog pages, you can ensure that you get your fair share of the social media attention and the business it can provide.

1. Incorporate topical material. Facebook users will be more open to posts that include mentions of current events and news items relevant to their needs.

2. Be brief, but get your point across. Shorter posts are more likely to be read than lengthy articles or advertisements.

3. Take advantage of the improved look to inform potential customers about your plans. The timeline feature can serve as a record of past events and a schedule for future sales and promotions.

4. Partner with other companies to cross-promote. An agency alliance can create synergy and increase the potential customer base for both parties.

5. Provide opportunities for interaction. Facebook is an ideal way to start a dialogue, play a game or simply connect with consumers more easily.

6. Diversify your content. Most online companies have heard this advice before, but with the release of the Facebook timeline, this diversification is more critical than ever before.

7. Get the timing right. The majority of Facebook users are active in the late evening, so scheduling announcements for this time of day is usually preferable as opposed to morning or afternoon posts that may be missed by a younger demographic.

8. Don’t neglect search engine optimization techniques. Smart SEO practices can draw users to your Facebook page even if they aren’t currently logged in to the system.

9. Consider adding a premier search directory or function to your Facebook presence. This can help consumers who locate you on Facebook explore your product lines and learn more about your corporate enterprises.

10. Have fun with it! Humor is a great way to reach potential customers and ensure they come away with a good impression of your company. While a lighthearted approach may not be right for every company, most can benefit from a touch of humor on their Facebook page.

These ten tips can help your company navigate the new Facebook timeline and the social media environment more effectively while benefiting from novel ways to reach customers online.

How is your business planning to adjust to the new timeline?

However, the rise of social media has become a threat to the dominance of Google in the search engine market. In just eight years, Facebook has amassed 800+ million users worldwide, creating a network that is overflowing with valuable information.

It is now becoming apparent that this information could be used to significantly improve search engine results. Instead of using an impersonal algorithm, which was Google’s original method with PageRank, a social search engine could use information about a person’s friends and preferences in order to obtain more relevant answers to queries.

This is the strategy that Microsoft has attempted to employ with its search engine, Bing. Microsoft has decided to use information from Facebook in a variety of ways in order to distinguish Bing from Google. For instance, Bing allows users to link websites about themselves on the search engine results page, which affects the results seen by other users when they search for that person.

Microsoft has had a cozy relationship with Facebook ever since its $240 million investment in the start-up back in 2007, and Google has started to realize that this relationship could be a long-term threat to its success as the premier search engine on the Internet.

In response, Google has developed its own social network, Google+, to compete with the social networking behemoth that is Facebook. The initial Google+ launch received mixed reviews, but recent changes have lead to a positive response. Nearly 100 million users have signed up for the service since its introduction last year. Now, Google is looking to integrate Google+ directly into its search results as it attempts to maintain its monopoly in the search engine market.

By making its search engine more personalized, Google is hoping to negate any advantage that Bing may have with its integration of Facebook. However, Google’s efforts will ultimately depend on its ability to make Google+ a viable alternative to Facebook as a social network.

What do you think of Google’s search engine changes and Google+? Do you find that personalized search results give you more relevant answers to your queries?

Here are a few tips on how to get the most out of your profiles:

Fill out your profiles completely
Filling out a local profile shouldn’t stop with your address, phone and URL. Many local profiles, Google and Yelp included, allow you to add all kinds of information about your business. Whether you want to include payment options or pictures of your business, you should take advantage of every field offered by the local directory. Customers are more likely to click to your site or visit your location if they have all the information they may need right there on your profile.

Monitor your reputation
Now that you’ve claimed your location, you can use this to monitor your online reputation. With local profiles ranking so well, you’ll want to be sure that your business is maintaining a positive reputation online. While one or two negative reviews amongst many good reviews won’t hurt your business, many unaddressed negative reviews could prove to be very detrimental to your business.

Update, Update, Update
Did you just launch a new menu item? Maybe you changed your store hours to cater to a late-night crowd. Either way, these are very important pieces of information. Especially as many people turn to mobile devices for information, you’ll want to make sure you keep the most up-to-date information on your local profile. This way the information is easy for your customers to find, which makes your business more accessible. If you leave your profile unchanged for too long, it won’t look good in the eyes of search engines.

Add a coupon
Want to get an idea about just how much traffic your local profile gets? Add a coupon! As easy as adding pictures, videos and information about your business, you can add coupons to a lot of local profiles. Not only will your client see all the information they need, but they’ll be able to find a coupon without visiting your website! For a lot of people performing mobile searches, a coupon could be the decision maker.

When you. Have active local profiles, not only are they likely to rank better, but you can expect a higher percentage of clicks coming from these profiles. Also, since you’ve provided so much information already, you’re likely to see a Lowe. Bounce rate from traffic coming through local profiles. And, of course, you will always get business directly from these listings from people who never even visits your website.

How have you found success using local profiles? Do you have any local SEO strategies that you’d like to share?

By implementing a consistent search engine optimization campaign you can make sure your website is appearing organically within the search results whenever your future customers are searching for you online. Additionally, hitting your busy season with an aggressive pay-per-click marketing campaign will allow you to see your business hit new heights.

Consistent Search Engine Optimization
Building an optimized website is just the beginning for any SEO campaign. Staying consistent with an SEO campaign requires monitoring your analytics, continued link building efforts, blogging and more. Keeping updated, fresh content while organically building your back link index will help you continue to rise in the search results and see an increase in traffic. Having high rankings when traffic volumes peak allows you to drive that traffic directly to your website.

Hard-hitting PPC
When your busy season rolls around, bumping up your PPC budget can help you in a number of ways. First, you’ll be able to build brand awareness by the increased number of impressions your ads will have. Second, by increasing your budget, you’ll have a better edge on your competition for paid traffic. Lastly, you make more money!

Increased Conversions
When it comes to increasing conversions, this is when it’s beneficial to have a synergized search strategy. An in depth look at both the website’s analytics and the adwords analytics, the search team can see areas of your site where conversions could be improved. More conversions means more customers and more customers means a healthier bottom line.

So while you’re mapping out your black Friday route and adding to your Christmas lists, make sure you take some time to think about what you’re doing to take advantage of this coming holiday season for your own business.

There is an inevitable increase in the amount of people using smart phones and some of these phones enable you to download free applications (iPhone). We all love Angry Birds and apps that do random crazy things for free, so we download them and keep them sitting in our phones until we have nothing to do or have no source of entertainment.

What’s not doing so hot: advertising that comes directly with the app. Ads that come before the game can be played are immediately disregarded because, let’s be honest, we all just want to get to the game. The ad only creates a sort of annoyance and invasion of privacy that we have to deal with.

This placement of ads is inefficient and typically as successful as they could be. It’s a common pet peeve, rather. The phone is our own “place.” We see advertisements everywhere, but our phone is our privacy, unless we’re going online.

In-game advertising is also not working very well. These ads usually unnoticed because, well, it’s common sense: our attention is 100% on the game.  In terms of the trend of mobile advertising, a more acceptable type of ad is mobile coupons, or any form of getting deals on certain products that we want.

It has been predicted that the Internet will have 5 billion users in 2020.

Everything is becoming more online, more virtual, and more sophisticated in technology.  Less print, more digital.  This generation is up and going, always moving at a fast pace; the people growing up in this time have acquired a taste for social media and have developed skills for it.

What I’ve found is that ads linked to social media sites and trendy companies/sites tend to stick. Facebook allows ad agencies to use your information from your profile; this way, the swanky ads on the side of your Facebook page let you check out products similar to your interests, as well as your friends’. They’ve caught my eye several times and I’ve voluntarily clicked on these ads to get more information. It’s the fact that they’ve analyzed our likings and set alike products aside to show us that makes the ad that more appealing to us. Content will always matter.

Pop-ups are annoying and closed without a second glance. Sure, we notice them, but they’re too up-in-our faces. We see them, but don’t look at them. Ads that come up before Youtube or Hulu videos are sometimes bothersome, but it’s something we as consumers have to deal with. Our wanting to watch the video or movie dominates our reluctance with the ad that comes before it, so we take the ad in as well.

Spending is going up, way up.  The agency and marketer execs are saying that in order to maintain their high level of successes in their campaigns, the cost of spending is going to increase.  With this raise comes optimism, though.  They are also confident that with this raise in ad dollars and spending comes more planned out and efficient campaigns.  So more money gets you better numbers and more hits, that’s how it should be right?

What’s interesting is that the execs are saying that the majority of the spending will go towards their ‘old-school’ media.  Television and cable will have their spending increased, so will newspapers and magazines, the oldest of the ‘old-school’ media.  At least someone is trying to save them.

On the bright side, digital marketing isn’t due for price change anytime soon.  The confidence in digital media is still high.  Execs believe that these types of media will still be the leader in advertising and marketing initiatives, online strategies included.  Although they aren’t planning on rising digital spending, they aren’t planning on lowering them either.  Because the confidence in the successes of digital media, the prices will stay consistent.

Is this their way of pushing more people to digital marketing?  With digital media comes more traceable clicks and conversations, easier to track and measure ROI and a much bigger target audience.  In a word: easier.

Everyday millions of people use mobile phones, computers and Internet to find what they need.   With these measurable statistics readily accessible to these digital media initiatives, why not use them?  Besides, who wants to wait for a hard copy survey to come back via snail mail when, with one click of a button, you can see just who is looking at you and what they are looking for?