For those of you that visit this site often, you know I dabble in many areas of marketing. Mainly, because that is what I do on a daily basis. I have the opportunity to work on just about all aspects of marketing. Never is my broad interest in marketing more evident then by what pops into my email box every morning.

It’s not easy to find the time to browse the web looking for the current trends and stories. I’m a big fan of letting someone else do that and email those stories to me in their daily newsletter. Here are a couple that I read on a daily basis:

• Search Engine Land’s Daily SearchCap: This is the one email that I really look forward to opening everyday. I emailed Danny Sullivan today and thanked him for his work on it. They put alot of work into this and it shows. It’s packed with all things search engine marketing/optimization and social media. They not only cover their own stories, but also link out to tons of other bloggers with relevant news. Well worth the daily read!

• iMedia Connection: iMedia packs their daily newsletter with very good content from all over the marketing world. You’ll find anything from branding to blogging. I always get caught up in a least a couple of the articles.

• BtoB Daily News Alert: I like this one for the industry news it provides. You’ll find alot of press release-type information from companies in the marketing world. A pretty easy way to stay on top of the movers and shakers in the industry.

I’ll stop there for this round. That should give you plenty of quality marketing information on a daily basis. I’ll cover weekly newsletters in a follow-up post.

Are there any that you recommend?

A week or so ago I wrote a post about my curiosity towards video advertising. The post sparked some interest among Lonely Marketer readers and generated more than a few good conversations over email. One thing that became clear was that many of us who have not taken the leap into video advertising had some questions about the direction of the medium. Shortly after that I came across a great article that outlined our hesitancy and also offered some practical advice for those of us interested in exploring the option of placing video in banner ad placements.In the article Michael Shehan spells out exactly what I was getting at in my original post:

The core issue that keeps advertisers from sponsoring video content is simply the lack of technology, creative and industry standards, with integration standards being the greatest barrier to adoption. It’s important to note that this is not integrating banners or search listings on a page. This is about delivering real-time video ads into a video player.

Michael, who believes that the whole video advertising medium is moving at a snails pace, goes many steps further than I did and spells out what you should be hearing or discussing when working on implementing video advertising:

You’ll know you’re in good hands if the following questions are part of the discussion:

• Is the video in a FLV or WMV format? Is the video being streamed or progressively downloaded?
• What size companion banner will be served with the video ad? What is the acceptable duration of the video ad?
• How do you enforce session capping and frequency capping? At what point is it acceptable to charge the advertiser for a valid impression?
• How do you stream a video ad from one network while streaming the premium content from another network all in the same video player?
• How can an advertiser use its current ad-tracking or ad-serving vendor?
• What campaign targeting parameters are available to the advertiser: context, regional, behavioral, demographic, keyword, et cetera?

If you’re considering video advertising, I suggest reading the article in full – it’s packed with great information. I definitely bookmarked it and will refer back when the discussion gets a little more serious around our office.

I’ll admit it – I’m a sucker (no pun intended – read on) for a good thank you. My wife recently purchased a gift for a friend’s child from Wild Planet – a site with tons of small toys for boys and girls. The gift arrived on time, nicely packaged, and including a small bag with a business card and two “Thank You” suckers tucked inside. My quick attempt at photography didn’t come out too well, but you get the idea:

The backside of the business card contained a thank you note for choosing Wild Planet as well as a coupon for your next purchase.

What a simple way to say Thank You and to stay on the mind of the consumer for future purchases. Nice job, Wild Planet!

What do you think of Thank You communications? Do they have impact or do you ignore them?

I have a thought for Google, but I’ll start with a recap. In case you missed the announcement, Google has once again hit the nail on the head with another quality tool for small businesses. They announced their new Hosted Site Search for Small Businesses tool. From their announcement:

…a simple and inexpensive way for small businesses to add Google search to their websites. In three simple steps, businesses can sign up online for the hosted service, and in less than 10 minutes customers and visitors are able to search their site using the power of Google’s search technology, for more relevant results.

What a great marketing tool for a website – especially one without the big budget for their own site search technology. Here’s what’s included:

* Site search hosted by Google, eliminating the need to install and maintain their own technology
* Power and reliability of Google’s infrastructure
* Relevant results and sub-second query response times characteristic of Google.com
* Ability to easily set up, purchase, and manage results online
* Full customization of search results available through an XML API
* Reporting features that give insight into visitor behaviors
* Options for email and phone support available through the Google Enterprise group
* Choice about whether to include ads or not

Needless to say, this is a pretty good deal. Plus the cost is very affordable – Custom Search Business Edition starts at $100 a year for searching up to 5,000 pages, and extends to $500/year for up to 50,000 pages.

Now, my idea (I’ll preface this by saying, there could be something like this built in that I haven’t read about yet).

There is an option to not include Google ads which I would obviously choose. But, why not build in a Google Adwords-type utility where I can place cross-selling content on search terms used by my site visitors? Not necessarily an ad, but a section on the search results page where I can place content on searched keywords.

For instance, if I sell plasma TV’s on my website and the user searches for “Panasonic 1080p”, why not allow me to place reference text saying “You may also be interested in our selection of speakers and mounting hardware” with a link to each? So, basically, I’m saying whenever “Panasonic 1080p” is used as a search term on my site, display my text about the speakers and mounting hardware.

This would increase the relevance of the site search for the user while allowing me to cross-sell products or services.

What do you think?

Before you dig in to start another week, here are some posts and related articles from last week. If you get a minute, I think they’re worth a read.

• How to SEO Your Site in Less Than 60 Minutes: Matt McGee has a very informative post outlining his steps to putting together an SEO snapshot. This is not only good to put into practice yourself, but if you’re considering hiring an SEO firm, keep this list handy and make sure they address his points.

• Top ten tips for writing PR articles: Catriona Pollard has put together a must-read list of questions to consider when putting together PR articles.

• B2B Marketers Beware: More of Your Customers Use RSS, Blogs and Social Networks Than You Think: Small Business Hub has a quick post outlining some interesting percentages describing BtoB customers. You may be surprised what you find.

• Harnessing Social Media – Web 2.0 Grows Up – Free Internet Traffic: Marketing Experiments has an interesting article comparing social media optimization with pay-per-click advertising and how both relate to driving traffic.

• Building a Large Audience For Your StumbleUpon Account: For those of you interested in using more of social media sites like StumbleUpon in your marketing, here is a good post about making the most of your effort.

That should give you some quick reading as you head into the week ahead. If you see articles you think I should feature, please let me know! I’m always looking for good information to share.

I opened my BtoB Daily News Alert newsletter and caught the headline, “Genalytics offers on-demand targeting for b-to-b“. Here’s what I saw in the newsletter:

Genalytics offers on-demand targeting for b-to-b
Andover, Mass.—Genalytics announced Tuesday it has launched On-Demand Targeting for b-to-b campaigns. The product is designed to enable marketers to leverage automated predictive modeling techniques, profiling and list scoring to identify prospective business customers.

I’m instantly interested. But, no link to more information? So, I head to Google and search on Genalytics. I’m sure once I get to their site, I’ll be hit with more information that will make me pick up the phone and call. I get to their site….and….nothing. I can’t find anything. The latest news is on the left, but nothing in June talking about BtoB tools. Is the information there and I’m missing it?

I could be missing the obvious…maybe someone from Genalytics will chime in and show me what I missed or maybe BtoB Daily News ran the wrong information. Nonetheless, this is a problem I see often with alot of news releases. People create buzz and don’t back it up on their site.
If you’re going to pump news out to the marketplace, expect interest. Here’s what I like to see as a buyer of online marketing and related tools when I see news:

• Show the news on your site so I know I’m at the right place
• Show me you’re serious about your news by expanding on the release with more information pertaining to the subject. I want to believe you’re an industry expert
• Provide a case study or tutorial showing your new product or service in action
• Finally, show me how to get more information. Typically, this means some sort of contact form.

Obviously, this type of news is going to strike my interest as a BtoB marketer. Genalytics could be a great company – my intention is not to show them in a bad light. They just happen to have an example of something I don’t understand…not backing up public news with information on your site.

Do you have any other tips and tricks for press releases and providing information to interested prospects?