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e_Marketing Blog New AV Electronics Blog We just created a new blog called Audio Video Electronics featuring videos and articles about audio video equipment. 8 Reasons Why You Need A Blog Basic list of reasons to have a blog...My recent promotions for AutoBlog have created a fair number of questions about the value of having your own blog for doing things like marketing products and communicating with customers. The answer is "Yes". Creating and maintaining a blog is a good way to increase your online presence, make more people aware of your products and services, express opinions and share information, as well as being a good way to get feedback from customers and prospects. Here are some of the reasons why you should have a blog, perhaps even before you have a regular static website. 1. You can do just about everything with a (Wordpress*) blog that you can do with a static website. 2. Setting up a blog is much easier than creating a website. Yes, it is true there is some basic programming involved. But if you get a professional "blog setter-upper" to do it for you it will cost much less than building a decent looking website. 3. Design is very flexible. There are hundreds of free "themes" that determine how it will look. And as long as you don't modify the theme too much you can switch themes on the fly in about 15 seconds for a completely new look. 4. Blogs are generally more search engine friendly because typical blog structure forces you to create content that is optimized the way the search engines like it. 5. The search engines (usually) crawl blogs more often than static websites, because blogs change more often. As new content is introduced with new product announcements or new information, those changes will get picked up more quickly by the search engines. 6. Blogs are perfect for publishing "news and views". This means you can add new content more often, and you can cover a wider range of topics than might be covered in a normal static website. 7. Blogs are interactive which makes them great for getting reader opinion, comment, and questions. If you want to interact with your customers and prospects a blog is a good way to do it. 8. Blogs can be integrated with social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, Squidoo, Hub Pages, Twitter, and many others. This is usually done by simply loading in the RSS feed that the blog automatically creates. I'm sure there are many other reasons why you should have a blog if you're involve in online business or communication. Leave a comment with your suggestions... (*Yes, I know, this is not a Wordpress blog. It is powered by b2Evolution. That's because I've had it for a couple of years, it works, gets a bit of traffic, and it would be too much hassle to change it over. There's not much doubt that Wordpress is a more versatile and certainly more popular platform, and the one I recommend to clients.) Watching Widgeteers About a month ago The Widgeteers advertising network went live. The deal sounded so good I became a paying member almost on the spot. It works like this: members load ad blocks on their sites. Ads look similar to Google Adwords. When someone visits a page that has an ad block on it, that visit is recorded as a view. In return for showing other people's ads you get to run your own ads on other peoples' sites. In other words, you can get "free" advertising, just by putting a few ad blocks on your websites. Even though this kind of advertising gets a notoriously bad click thru rate, the paid option seemed like a no-brainer: 5000 views per month for an entire year for something like $150. Obviously quite a few others thought so too, because the network went down after a couple of days, presumably because of an overworked server. The initial problems were overcome by changing to a different server, and since then I've been keeping my eye on the performance of the ad network. Unfortunately I can't say I've seen a lot of traffic from the Wiedgeteers ads, but I'm hoping things change for the better next month as problems continue to get worked out and new advertisers jump on board. If nothing else, the free Widgeteers option is worth checking out... |
TradeShow-Display-Experts.com - where you can find low cost trade show displays, popup displays, retractable displays, banner stands, and beautiful, long-lasting trade show graphics. A Basic Advertising Design IdeaMar 31, 2006 - Linknet Business News A Basic Advertising Design Idea Mar 31, 2006 - Linknet Business - by Rick HendershotHere is a basic advertising design idea. I call it the "Photo ID Design Model" and it is a very useful device if you create advertising for your company or organization. It is one of the easiest and most effective ways to create a striking ad, banner or poster. And it will almost always give you a result that gets noticed. == Full Color Brochure Printing - Order brochure printing online == Think about a "photo id" for a minute. Its most dominant feature is the photograph. The other elements on the card "support" the photo -- the person's name, address, or ID number. These things are not necessarily less important than the photo. But the photo is clearly the main element. It is what the photo id is "about", and that is clearly reflected in the graphic design of the card. == Forex and Futures Trades - 100% Rebate Offer == If you are not used to thinking of graphic design as related to function, this may seem like an overstatement -- "Hey, it's just a card with a picture on it." But think about it for a minute. A photo id has the specific job of identifying a person. That makes the photo the most important element on the card. So it stands to reason that the photo should be given the most attention. When you apply the photo id model to a print ad, poster, billboard, banner design, or even a TV ad the result is usually pretty straightforward. You assume the dominant element in the piece will be the image -- the photograph. And you also assume the photograph will be the main "identifier" — the thing that defines the look and even the content or theme of the piece. For instance, you find a photo of a cool looking guy wearing sun glasses. And that image fits the message you are trying to convey in your ad. Serious advertising designers may object that this turns the usual communication process upside down. They might say, "You should always start with your selling message, and find elements that illustrate that message." For instance, if you want to sell "pet care" products, you should begin with the theme you want to communicate, and then find elements that illustrate that theme. Say your theme is something like "Our pet care products make happy pets." This theme would then suggest various ideas for photographs and headlines. Of course this is nice in theory, but in actual fact, advertising is rarely that straightforward. In reality what usually happens is that you start out with a fairly specific idea ("Our pet care products make happy pets.") As you try to develop it you realize it doesn't quite work or you can't find the photograph you had in mind. Then as you're leafing through the pile of available "pet care" photos you see one that evokes an interesting response. So you modify your original concept to fit the available photograph. In other words, the photograph has become the "organizing theme" for the ad. If you still think this distorts or perverts the communication process, think about all those cleavage pictures on the front of women's magazines. The cover designer knows that cleavage sells magazines. So the photo is the starting point. The rest follows. Elements of the Photo ID Model Of course there are no rules about what elements your banner or poster should include, but generally they should be as follows: 1. Product photo or photo collage 2. Main Headline 3. Product Description or sales pitch 4. Company Identifier (Logo, address, etc.) Anything more than this will tend to make it overly busy. This is especially the case with posters, billboards and banners which are usually meant to be viewed from a distance. You should not try to convey detail. Just your primary selling message, and perhaps an overall image. Creativity is always important An important way in which a "photo id" is different from an advertisement is that it lacks the creative mission we normally associate with ads. We don't expect ads to be just a picture of the product, or the store front, or of the company president. We expect them to be persuasive -- to "sell" the product or idea -- and we normally assume that takes some creativity. In fact, one of the problems with the photo id model is that we may end using it as an uninspiring formula for cranking out ads. We may slip into the habit of relying on the format -- dominant photo, major headline, sales pitch, company identifier -- and just assume it is unnecessary to use our imagination. We may think it is not necessary to create an interesting headline, for example, or look for a striking and memorable photo. In other words we settle for the ordinary rather than coming up with something creative. We settle for a boring description of the product rather than an imaginative statement of what it can do for me, what problem it can solve, or how much money I am going to save if I buy it. As a general rule, in advertising creativity is almost always better than the lack of it. Of course, this is difficult to prove. And even worse, many people claim they have no creativity in them, so they think this excuses them from trying a little harder to come up with an interesting headline idea or slogan. But even if you are "creatively challenged" you should still try just a little harder. Because in advertising it really comes down to this: "Do you want your ad, your poster, your billboard, or your banner to be effective or not?" Article source: Trade Show Tips
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