One of the principles we base our direct marketing programs on is continuity. This is especially important in the online world where each interaction is a millisecond apart as potential customers click through creative > landing page/site > order process > confirmation email communications. Continuity refers to all elements of the creative through the acquisition and early retention process. For example, through testing we know that the connection between the text in a paid search ad needs to be reflected in the headline in the landing page - this continuity confirms that you are on the correct page to “pay off” the text that you clicked on. It is important to take this message as well as the colors, images, design that you’ve introduced on the landing page and carry through the order process.

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After I posted the blog about “Web site best practices,” I felt I should also focus on another aspect of Web site layout that is very important. The color selection!

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Outsell, Inc. recently released a report based on a survey of 1,000 U.S. advertisers stating that online advertising as a whole will grow 17.9% in 2007 with Internet search advertising driving the engine with a 39% growth rate. According to Outsell, Inc. advertising on TV and Radio will decline 3.5% while print media will grow 2.7%.

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The Marketing Sherpa just released a report that highlights an issue that I have been focused on since the launch of Brand Digital almost 4 years ago (wow!). Small Businesses are getting squeezed out of the internet as a communication vehicle due to the fact that things are getting more complex not easier. The report is titled Special Report: State of the Search Marketing Agency Industry 2006 and focuses on search which is the primary driver for small business marketing dollars online. SEM agencies are requiring minimum monthly spend of $3,000 or more (in service fees) and of the 62 agencies interviewed - only 1 actually goes after the economy-value part of the market (small businesses). The focus is on mid-sized and larger firms that can support larger service fees.

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I just had an interesting demo of Blackfoot, Inc.’s Analytix reporting system. This tool is the brainchild of Martin Wesley who used to be lead sales guy at AtlasDMT (technology side of Avenue A). Martin has spent a good bit of time in the ad serving and technology arena trying to solve peoples problems and the decision basically came down to this: Build one large system that can manage all channels or create a reporting system that can link the best of breed systems together with backend data to give the marketer a unified view of the customer over their lifetime. Analytix is not CRM as it doesn’t spit out emails, but does centralize the data from all of your customer data systems - including acquisition, retention, customer service, offline, etc. Very cool, very powerful - check it out at www.blackfootinc.com

Atlas just released a study highlighting the need to think about times of days for conversions. Their study shows lunchtime and evenings as the best time for buying online and points out that it that the time could be worth up to 35% more in CPM. Interesting piece that you can see here http://www.atlassolutions.com/news/releases/20050914.

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