An innovative use for banner ads

May 26, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 11 Comments
Filed under: Advertising, Attracting Visitors, Marketing, Promote Yourself 

Over the years, I’ve shown many thousands of banner ads on a variety of sites, including traffic exchanges.

Now, I know some of you aren’t fans of traffic exchanges and even I don’t use them as much as I used to.

When I first started marketing online, I could depend on good banners getting a pretty good click-through rate, on the order of 1% or so. That has changed over the years and now the click-through rate I’m seeing is much lower than that, even for well-designed banners.

I still use them now and then, but not to the extent I did a few years ago. In fact, I’ve pretty much given up on them until this morning.

What changed?

I was reading an article by Seth Godin that he posted on his blog a couple of days ago: On becoming a household name

Part of what he said in that blog post jumped right out and grabbed me…

Being a familiar name takes you miles closer to closing a sale. People like to buy from companies they’ve heard of.

It turns out that this is an overlooked benefit of banner ads….

On some level, I’ve felt that it was unfair to me – the affiliate – to use some banner ads, because they promoted the merchant and didn’t really help me make the sale.

When I read what Seth wrote, I realized that this may have been the purpose of the banner in the first place – to build name recognition for the merchant while I paid for the advertising.

So, how can we turn that around? How can we use banner and other graphic ads to build our own brand and name recognition?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about that for a new site I’ll be unveiling soon and I can see several ways that good graphics shown on similar sites can help build awareness of my new site and hopefully bring more visitors.

Even if I never get a single click-through from those graphics, they may do their work well if they help build name awareness of the brand.

It’s not a complicated concept, just one that I hadn’t thought of since I was so focused on getting clicks that lead to sales.

Have you ever thought of banner ads from this perspective?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Lynn Terry blogs about the FTC and Social Media Marketing

May 20, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 24 Comments
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Social Networking 

For the first time in several weeks, I fired up my newsreader and started catching up on what my friends have been blogging about recently.

One of the first things that caught my eye was Lynn Terry’s post, FTC to Regulate Social Media Marketing.

She did a good job linking to information about this, so I won’t repeat what she said. Click the link, above, to read her post; it will open in a new window.

I think it’s about time that the FTC started to crack down on deceptive advertising and claims, and the new emphasis on “atypical results” is a good thing, too.

Although I can’t show you specific statistics to back up what I’m about to say, it’s common knowledge that over 90% of affiliate marketers never earn anything, or at least earn very little.

Yet, there are people and websites out there that claim that it’s the easiest thing in the world to join a few affiliate programs, set up a blog, and start earning thousands of dollars.

This claim is simply not true.

Yes, there are a few people who earn thousands of dollars every month through affiliate marketing, but they are the exceptions – they are the people who enjoy “atypical results.”

Perhaps it was a matter of timing. Maybe they got in at the right time.

Maybe they had more experience in marketing and advertising than most of us.

Who knows why they were successful.

Online marketing is still not as easy as some would paint it.

So, I’m hoping that the FTC does crack down on all the hype and scams that are floating around.

On the other hand, it worries me a bit that they may go too far.

Some of us try very hard to have a good knowledge of what we recommend. I am a satisfied customer of the products and services I recommend the most, but I can’t be 100% sure that I haven’t said something, somewhere, sometime, that may come back to bite me.

What about you?

Have you ever taken someone else’s word about a product and recommended it with little or no personal experience?

I don’t think you want to open yourself up to all the problems that will arise when the FTC cracks down on blogs and social networking sites.

I am far from getting rich, and my affiliate marketing income has dropped dramatically since last September, but I’m in this for the long haul and look forward to the months ahead when my revenue will rise, again.

I feel that I’ve been ethical and honest about the things I promote, but I look back and see that some things I liked a few years ago no longer look as good as they did then.

Does this mean that I have to find all my websites and everything I’ve ever published and see if they need to be modified and/or deleted?

I really don’t know.

Lynn’s post has given me something to seriously think about now that I’m getting back to work.

What do you think?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Starting to feel human again

May 20, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 8 Comments
Filed under: Blogging 

For the first time in about a month, I’m feeling better.

This has been the worst spring allergy season I’ve experienced in years. I don’t really know why. Maybe it was just the combined effects of the allergies and the other things I’ve been going through.

This morning, I woke up (late) and realized I could think clearly, again. For the last several weeks, most of what I’ve managed to do was manage my essential email, watch some TV, and take naps.

I don’t know about you, but I find it exceedingly difficult to be creative and to write well when my head hurts and my mind feels like it’s smothered in cobwebs.

So, I’m back and I’m ready to get back to work.

Act on your dream!

JD

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