tips on how to use new Google Adwords interface

Have you seen the new interface for Google’s Adwords? Google gives lots of goods tips on how to use Adwords in six easy-to-follow videos.

And if you haven’t used Adwords at all, here’s an introduction to the basics.

nz tourism social media campaign finds success

In December, we told you about a marketing drive from Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) to get personal video messages from visitors to New Zealand recorded for them and then posted to social media sites to be played by the tourists’ friends and family back home.

It’s been a successful campaign – the 100,000th viewing on YouTube of the videos was recorded recently. TNZ says more than 1300 videos have been made and uploaded by travellers since its travelling recording studio began touring the country in December.

The campaign, which ends this month, was also chosen by Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper as one of “10 most ingenious travel offers” that the travel industry has devised to get bookings.

Tourism New Zealand chief executive George Hickton is happy. He says the initiative has proven its worth as a cost-effective way to capture the value of personal recommendations.

The videos can be seen here.

changing the way people find your business online

Two new developments in online search and advertising could mean big changes in the way people find your business online:

• Google is introducing technology that tracks people’s use of their favourite websites to understand their individual tastes and then package ads falling under the same areas of interest.
• And, a new search engine – WolframAlpha, that goes live in May – can reportedly, understand written questions and then compute the answer to it, as opposed to current search engines that simply look for text that matches the text in your search request.

online advertising shows strength of online business

While traditional advertising revenues plummet, online advertising is holding up well, showing – I think – the strength of online business and shopping, the online environment’s ability to pull customers even in difficult times and, so, the need to keep your e-business humming!

The New Zealand Herald reported that interactive (online) advertising wound up 2008 with revenue up 43 per cent compared with 2007.

The result increases online’s big lead on outdoor advertising. And it takes it within striking distance of its ambitions to pass magazine advertising revenue later this year.

The Herald reported that advertising revenue from search and directories was the biggest growth area increasing 75 per cent from $34.1 million to $59.71 million. Display advertising grew from $42 million to $58.1 million.

And new figures from the Advertising Standards Authority show online has increased its share of advertising revenue from 5.8 per cent to 8 per cent.

video killed the radio star

The growth of online video is huge and New Zealand is starting to see its own online video stars appear. Their success gives good pointers to the way online video should work in a social media setting.

Find out more here about how people have made their mark on YouTube and see if there any tips you can use to boost your social media presence.

online video marketing ideas

Just continuing the video marketing thing again: here’s an amusingly good post highlighting different types of marketing videos. (Yes, they are from big corporate campaigns but they’re good to watch and full of usable marketing patterns and ideas.)

And here are six methods for using video in your marketing.

Here’s some projections for growth in United States online video advertising and some projections for shrinkage in TV advertising.

online marketers favour video in 2009

Video will be one of the most prominent online marketing tools this year, says a new survey.

The United States survey did come from PermissionTV, an online video company! (… and they did, for some reason, leave email off their survey), but we agree that video is becoming more and more prevalent as a marketing tool online, and we like the fact that you do not have to use expensive production values to make an effective online video.

Find out more about the survey here and find out about trends in online video marketing here.

organic vs inorganic website growth – go green!

Organic website growth basically means your growth in visitor numbers has been achieved largely for free, and largely through word-of-mouth (one of the key aims of social media marketing). Inorganic growth refers mainly to advertising to pull customers to your website.

It’s not hard to see which one might be preferable.

Having people come to your site because they feel compelled to rather than because they have been persuaded to by (often expensive) advertising can only be a good thing.

Not knocking advertising, though, and it should be considered at least, especially when you are starting a business and looking to alert people to your presence. It’s just that if people tell other people who tell other people that your website is a goodie and worthwhile visiting, the brand value is immense.

Here’s a good real life comparison of two New Zealand online businesses – one of which (online bike store Torpedo7) has become hugely successful largely through organic means and one (Ferrit – owned by Telecom) which puts heavy resources into inorganic growth.

UPDATE: Telecom announced today (12/01/09) that the three-year-old Ferrit site is to close. I hope it was not this post that caused its demise!

how to effectively market online using video

Here’s a knowledgeable article about how to effectively use video on your website to market your products and services.

NZ tourism’s online marketing push

A marketing drive from Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) will see personal messages from visitors to New Zealand recorded for them and then posted to social media sites to be played by the tourists’ friends and family back home.

It’s a plan to capture global attention for the country using social media strategies.

TNZ has a fully-equipped mobile recording studio inside a van to enable tourists to “rave” on camera about their New Zealand experience, add their own photos and video footage  and then post the messages online to influential social media sites such as Facebook.

TNZ plans to capture around 3000 video diary clips over the next four months in a tour around New Zealand.

The clips will be published immediately into unpaid media channels, including a YouTube ‘Have Your Say’ channel which is then fed on to Tourism New Zealand’s consumer website – www.newzealand.com. Visitors will also be able to post video directly onto their Facebook profile pages. The clips will also be used in future advertising campaigns.

“If every clip is viewed by 10 friends and family back home, and if 3000 clips are filmed that’s 30,000 messages about New Zealand sent to our key markets  a very cost-effective form of marketing,” says TNZ boss George Hickton.

I reckon that if the messages can be kept authentic, the videos do not reek of corporate marketing or shine too much with ad-man polish and the advertising use of the messages does not overwhelm the ‘real’ nature of the messages, this plan could get good results.

It’s something we’ll follow with interest as a real-life case study. There’s more information about the initiative here.