Marketing Study Background Color Vs. Profitability

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Ive had this study on the back burner for ages and finally decided it was time to check it out. Heres the deal Tons of marketing gurus tell you that the best way to sell something is with a sales letter. Im not disputing that (at least not in this study). These gurus then tell you that you should set up a one-page web-site that simulates a piece of white paper against a _____ background. That blank is what has been bothering me for awhile. Heres why

I keep seeing different colors for major marketers. I even see some major marketers switch colors from one site to another. It makes me wonder if they have done any testing. Does the color just not matter? If so, why do so many use dark blue, light blue and black?

Then I consider the major money makers on the net and wonder why only one uses a colored background. Im talking about Yahoo, Google, Ebay and Amazon. They all use a white background surrounding their page that is set in a limited width table in the center of the page. Only MSN.com uses a medium blue background.

It was high time for a study to find out the real answer. I did it in the usual way. I built a list of profitable and unprofitable sites by looking at the duration of ads being placed on Yahoo (Overture) and Google. If an ad had been shown for six months or longer, I placed the target page on a list of profitable sites. If an ad was placed and completely dropped in less that one month, the site was placed on an unprofitable list. The latter list would be less reliable, but the comparison between the two lists would still be statistically valid with a sufficient sample size. The latter list might only represent average sites, but even average sites would be less profitable than the known profitable list.

The results were very mixed. First of all, the white background sites were the vast majority on both lists. You simply cant go wrong with a completely white background. However, it wasnt actually the winner. Here is the breakdown:

Profitable sites with a white background: 85.2%

Unprofitable (or average) sites with a white background: 92.6%

A non-white background actually was more profitable a higher percentage of the time. I then studied the darkness of the background in those minority sites for both profitable and unprofitable sites. Looking at the RGB values, I split the colors into two buckets those that were dark (191 or less average RGB value) and those that were light (192 or higher RGB value). The results were even more clear:

Looking only at non-white backgrounds of profitable sites with dark colors: 92.8%

Looking only at non-white backgrounds of unprofitable sites with light colors: 96.1%

Wow! Thats quite a correlation. Although a vast majority of profitable (and unprofitable) sites have a white background, those that do have a non-white background have a dark background whereas the unprofitable sites were more likely to have a light background both with an extremly high correlation. Thats hard to ignore.

I next had to get the actual answer. What color background had the highest correlation with profitability. Whats the bottom line? The answer was just as clear:

53.3% of the profitable sites with non-white desktop background were black.

Now; I should be very clear about this result. The area under study is NOT the actual web-site text area. We are NOT talking about having white text on a black background. In a vast majority of cases, these sites actually had black text on a white background. The area under study is the theoretical area AROUND the virtual piece of paper. It is the desktop color if you pretend the web-site area is a piece of paper sitting on a virtual desktop. It isnt the color of the piece of paper that is under study. It is the color of the virtual desktop that the piece of paper is virtually laying upon.

So what am I going to do about this result? Ill probably eventually implement it. I dont like it, but the result is very clear. Why dont I like it? Well, take a look at one of my sites:

http://www.Glyphius.com

I use a virtual piece of white paper on a virtual white desktop. I like the fuzzed shadow I use around the edges. That fuzzed shadow wont be possible with a black background. The shadow will simply disappear leaving (in my opinion) a less professional look of a crisp piece of white paper against a black backdrop.

The other reason I dont like it is that it puts me out of the majority of profitable sites in general. It will make future studies more difficult. Instead of simply grabbing profitable sites and comparing them to unprofitable sites, I will need to grab only profitable and unprofitable sites that have a black background. Otherwise other results might not be valid if they come from the majority white background dataset. A good example would be a study of headline color. The most profitable headline color might be different between those sites with a black background and those with a standard white background.

I simply havent decided what to do yet. Will I stick with the safe standard white desktop behind my virtual piece of paper? Or will I go with the black desktop that is less standard, but has a higher correlation with profitability? What will you do?

One result from this study is very clear though. If you do choose a non-white background, it is foolhardy to choose yellow, blue (light or dark), pastel green, or any other color. The correct color for highest profitability is clearly black. The 2nd place color (and the color of the vast majority of sites) is white. All other colors failed miserably in this study.

Effective Uses of Social Media Marketing

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With the correct approach and networking knowledge, social media marketing is a valuable form of advertising for all businesses.

In the current technology-heavy era, social media marketing has morphed into an important outlet for businesses of all kinds. While some use social networks to spread word of a company, others see it as an important way to interact with customers. Social media outlets allow for something completely new and effective: interactive advertising.

Facebook has become one of the most popular channels of social media marketing. Musicians use the website to promote new albums and present music videos. Movies Facebook pages display release dates and post trailers. Stores and shopping malls post the latest sales and merchandise.

The most successful businesses receive heavy interaction with users “liking” pages and posts, as well as commenting on walls. More Cupcakes, for example, takes a unique approach to enhancing user interaction through social media marketing. To engage customers, More, a gourmet cupcake shop, posts weekly photos of different flavors of cupcakes. Fans of the More page then tag themselves in the picture and those who tag themselves, up to 50 per photograph, receive the cupcake free when they visit the Chicago shop. This marketing approach, not only brings traffic to Mores Facebook page, but it also drives customers into the store itself.

Another trendy outlet of social media marketing has become Twitter over the past few years. The current fast-paced society values short, concise information, which is what Twitter offers to its users. Businesses must communicate a message in 140 characters or less. Although it can be difficult to remain direct and to the point, clients and customers are able to make it through the end of short tweets before a phone ring or new email creates a distraction.

JetBlue Airways knows that, when it comes to social media marketing, the most important people to clients are themselves. This knowledge is what makes the company successful in the Twitter world. JetBlue tweets about the airlines latest deals and discounts, something that will benefit all of its flying followers. The business, which currently has over 1.6 million followers, also posts a variety of travel tips to help users deal with stressful airports and flights. In addition to tweeting useful information, JetBlue excels in customer interaction by frequently responding to other Twitter users.

Aimed at individuals more than large corporations, LinkedIn also offers networking through social media marketing. The site resembles an interactive phonebook, providing the opportunity to reconnect with old colleagues and get in touch with new connections in the users industries. LinkedIn works well for those who wish to display personal websites and resumes as well as recommending other clients and employees.

Myspace, a form of social media marketing that was replaced by Facebook years ago, is starting to make a comeback. The websites new look makes it more user-friendly and visually appealing than it once was. The outlet has now taken on the entertainment industry, focusing mostly on music, movies, TV and celebrities. Myspaces roller coaster of success and failure shows how important it is for businesses to keep up to date with the most current forms of social media marketing, an industry thats constantly changing.

Internet Marketing People Buy From People They Trust And Like

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You have seen the latest movie trailer of the Green Hornet on TV but you have mixed feelings about whether you would go to watch the movie in the cinema.

You find the acting too cheesy and the special effects too far-fetched. Are you going to spend your hard-earned twenty bucks to watch a movie that you might not like?

Probably not, but what if your brothers or sisters or you office colleague said that they have a wonderful time watching the attics of these actors and you would probably have changed your mind and go to queue for the tickets.

Lessons learnt here: it is not that you do not have the trust of these movie studios’ promotional ads in to getting you to see the movie, but you would rather hear it from your trusted friends’ review about the movie. The word of your friends does help to change your mind and made a decision. You have trusted him and everything he said holds weights. In other words you have related to him and you like him.

So, you see that when you write your sales copy, you do not have to use those powerful words or those sneaky words or have to use all the tricks by embedding those commands and phrases.

You do not need to be a snake-oil salesman to do magic for you. All you need to do is to get people to relate to you. You have to make friends with people, and make them feel like they trust you and like you.

So you have to start identifying what your market you want to be in. Get to know who will be your customer, get a visual image of what is it that they want and that would save you all the heart-ache later on whether you are selling the right product to the right people after all.

Definitely you will not get wrong if you know what your customers is taking about and what they want.

The common mistakes make by copy writers is that they are fast in putting on their sales man cap as soon as people are placed in front of them.

You know, people do not like to relate or feel comfortable to sales people. So do not put up a barrier so early in your relationship with your prospects.

If you would talk to your prospects like you are talking to your friends, they would disarm any barrier and eventually they will buy from you.

It is a matter of how you would talk to a friend, like how you would communicate when you are with them talking in a restaurant.

Knowing them and talking to them is like you have identified your market correctly. It is important to be friends to them in your copy.

People trust you before they like you, and they must like you before they start to buy from you.

Mobile Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

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With the increasing advent of new technologies and business apps, customers are turning to these novel ways with a fast rate to find products and services. When you decide to expand your online venture, considering mobile marketing is beneficial. There are numerous winning mobile marketing tactics, which will let your customers find you easily while on the move.

The rates at which customers continue to show preference for mobile shopping make it important for business owners to take note. Consumers use Smartphones more often to buy or get product info. Given the wide berth of new technologies emerging by the day, there are several aspects below that need to be streamlined to help your company reap the benefits from mobile marketing.

Assess Your Inclination for Mobile Marketing

Just like any other business aspect, taking the plunge into mobile marketing needs to be planned. You will need to assess your readiness to and capacity to embrace this concept. It is unwise to join the bandwagon if you cannot deliver a satisfying mobile shopping experience for your target market. Decide your needs and goals first for the mobile campaign, and think about the desired outcome from the onset.

Launch a Mobile-Friendly Adaptation

With online marketing being termed as effective, there is need to ensure that you have the capacity to meet the demands of mobile customers. If you are not able to optimize your website for their needs and use patterns, they will probably use another site which offers them satisfaction. Remember to incorporate flexibility, since the mobile app world is ever-changing. For a website that includes a colorful and engaging interface, customers will keep coming. For success to be achieved page load times on mobile devices should be efficient: mobile shoppers are impatient. Dont forget text message provisions to enhance interactivity in real time.

Use Responsive Page Design

Modern mobile marketing requires fast response. This means that the design of the actual device and screen should be adaptive to each search. If the mobile interface experience delivers responsively, you will be able to create and design content, which will be compatible for all users regardless of their devices. Such innovative designs are not only time and cost effective, but they also allow venture owners to get through to customers without creating additional apps or mobile marketing platforms.

Keep Simple and Easy to Navigate

As said, mobile shoppers are demanding. You will need to incorporate simplicity in your messaging. Simple but strong calls to action should be part of the easy to maneuver interface. Remember to keep the mobile apps in question functional, and easy to use. Customers who wait for long load times on the mobile device will begin to look for other options. You must have active, user-friendly calls to action.

Embrace Text Message Marketing

Mobile shoppers can be engaged using valuable text messages. However, for a text to make the intended impact, it must be worthy and laden with valuable info. If it can offer suspense and special promises, the customer will be curious enough to make a conversion. Text messages with limited offers are likely to be effective. Consider having an exclusive edge on the text, such that the customer is not only getting quality product offers, but also helpful information to boot. The frequency of text message is one critical factor to be considered. If you bug your target audience with text round the clock, it may end up disastrously, since customers could perceive it as spam.

Video Marketing Distrubution Making Yourself Known

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According to Canadian social media statistics, word of mouth in present time spreads news faster than mass media. And mass media did not slack; word of mouth is just in hyper speed because of social networking and video sharing sites. In the Age of Information, when instant gratification is the trend and more people surf the web than watch TV, the best way to send and receive information on the internet is through video sharing.

Successful video advertising can raise your business levels higher than your competition. Video marketing online does not need to be too complicated; it is todays best medium because it is the most cost-effective and it has the most returns.

Remember, though, that your viewers attention spans are fit only for varying rates of short bursts of information; posting a documentary-length video advertisement may not be a good idea. Also, the shorter your video is, the faster it can be downloaded and passed around. With short content, you have to be precise and straightforward so as not to confuse your viewers.

Your video does not to be a high-quality production. You just have to make sure that it keeps people watching long enough to get the message across. It doesnt even need to be actual footage; you can make videos from Powerpoint presentations and the like. Used not only on the internet, a Toronto TV commercial for a companys social responsibility campaign can use a presentation-like format and get the message across straightforwardly.

It helps a lot if you tag your videos with the best keywords that relate to your business. Many of the commercials Vancouver companies produce are uploaded on the web as well and they get more visibility from there because the tags are usually very specific. Your videos incidental traffic depends heavily on the tags that you put, so strategize your tagging.

Finally, you do not have to be in just one video site. Google loves video content because it owns both Google video and Youtube. You will rank higher in search engine results, almost immediately, when you post in multiple sites because Google lists the same video multiple times when it is posted to different video sharing and social networking sites. I guess it is true that even the highest-rating Toronto TV commercial will never, at any point, get as much attention as your average online video advertisement.