Interactive Marketing Blog tag:www.digicopter.com,2007:/weblog//1 2007-01-12T02:08:39Z Latest trends, gossip, and rants on e-age marketing and communication.... Movable Type 3.2 trends tag:www.digicopter.com,2007:/weblog//1.7 2007-01-12T02:08:32Z 2007-01-12T02:08:39Z QuickPost | System Overview | Movable Type Publishing Platform... admin QuickPost | System Overview | Movable Type Publishing Platform

]]> Blogs more trusted than TV, email ads tag:www.digicopter.com,2006:/weblog//1.6 2006-12-20T14:44:34Z 2006-12-20T10:49:22Z Blogs are becoming a force to be reckoned with as a means of advertising products. Reuters reports that an Ipsos MORI poll finds the Internet journals are a more trusted source of information than TV advertising or e-mail marketing. The... amit srivastava Blogs are becoming a force to be reckoned with as a means of advertising products. Reuters reports that an Ipsos MORI poll finds the Internet journals are a more trusted source of information than TV advertising or e-mail marketing.

The survey found a direct link between blogs, or user-generated content, and people's intentions to buy goods or services. Any company that fails to come up to standard should beware. The blog is replacing word of mouth for endorsing or condemning a product or service. About a third of those Europeans questioned said they had been put off making a purchase after reading negative comments on the Internet from customers or other web-users, while 52% said they had been persuaded to buy after a positive review on a blog.

Get it right, and blogs could be a boost to companies and even save on their advertising and marketing budgets. Blogs are a more trusted source of information (24%) than television advertising (17%) and email marketing (14%), the survey commissioned by Hotwire, a technology public relations consultancy, said. But they still lag behind newspapers (30%). Gareth Deere, head of technology research at Ipsos MORI, said: “We all trust people’s opinion in the real world. Now we’ve proven the same link online, and it’s having a major impact on people's buying behavior. Word of mouth is no longer restricted to close friends and family, it can have the same level of influence upon millions of people across the world.”

]]> How to Make Your Sales Funnel Flow Faster tag:www.digicopter.com,2006:/weblog//1.5 2006-12-19T18:37:42Z 2006-12-19T18:39:13Z Excerpts from an article by Michael J. Webb When your company is well synchronized with market needs, prospects buy and money flows. Unfortunately, few companies can maintain a constant flow. Salespeople churn out demonstrations, samples and proposals. Marketing departments churn... rajendra sekhawat Excerpts from an article by Michael J. Webb
When your company is well synchronized with market needs, prospects buy and money flows. Unfortunately, few companies can maintain a constant flow. Salespeople churn out demonstrations, samples and proposals. Marketing departments churn out newsletters, ad copy and brochures. But not enough prospects close.

What makes the sales funnel flow faster? The key is coordinating your sales and marketing efforts—aligning everyone in your organization according to the questions you ask your prospects at different stages in your relationships with them. These questions form the logical connection between the work of sales and the work of marketing.

The following are three question strategies that you can use to make your sales funnel flow faster, and some examples of how to sales and marketing can work together to move customers through the funnel.

Strategy #1: Problem/Solution
You can't sell the solution, unless you've sold the problem first. If the customer has exactly the problem you can solve, but isn't consciously ready to buy, problem/solution questions can help you show that the fit is right.

Strategy #2: Objectives, Strategies and Issues
The second type of question gets at your prospects' business and departmental objectives. What strategies will they use to achieve those objectives? What issues and challenges do they face? Stepping back to get a broader view, you can scope out people's perspectives (including decision makers'), as well as departmental politics and priorities. You can build relationships, steer clear of time-wasters and start generating a consensus, even before you start "selling."

Strategy #3: Synchronization
Synchronization questions are key to effectiveness. Marketing and selling never work when you ask your prospects to take actions they are not ready for. Synchronization questions make you focus on learning the decision maker's priorities. That person's business life, like yours, is rife with problems. Which ones require attention now, and which can wait? What are the alternatives, the pros and cons? Who else should be involved, and why? How trustworthy is the available information?

]]> New ways of Self-promotion using the web tag:www.digicopter.com,2006:/weblog//1.4 2006-12-19T18:28:17Z 2006-12-19T18:42:02Z While free-to-consumer web services struggle with ways to capitalize on the enormous and costly traffic their properties are generating, a few industrious people are capitalizing on these free services. They are using Web 2.0 services to actively promote themselves and... admin While free-to-consumer web services struggle with ways to capitalize on the enormous and costly traffic their properties are generating, a few industrious people are capitalizing on these free services. They are using Web 2.0 services to actively promote themselves and their own services to gain enormous profit and fame. Here are two such success stories

Christine Dolce a 24-year-old cosmetologist who until a few months ago worked at a makeup counter in a mall has aggressively used MySpace’s free hosting and tools to promote herself and her own commercial website properties and offline businesses. Her MySpace page boasts of nearly one million friends, making her arguably one of the most connected people on the Internet. She now has a manager and a start-up jeans company and has won promotional deals for two mainstream consumer brands!

Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz are the creators and actors in the video clip viral sensation – ‘The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments’ which was posted in ‘Revver’ and garnered over 4 million views. Revver is a website that lets video uploaders earn revenue from advertisements. The massive exposure and viral success of their video clip has reportedly yielded approximately $25,000 in ad revenue share from Revver.

While such stories of successful entrepreneurship are inspiring, they are undoubtedly few and far between. In the vast sea of blogs and vlogs it is difficult to catch the attention of your target group. Are blogging sites emerging as a new medium of advertising? You may ponder on this question in the future.

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