The Evolution of Marketing

By Tom Asacker

I've just read that PepsiCo is evolving away from traditional mass market advertising towards an approach that connects with its audience in a direct and more meaningful way (WARC News).

According to Frank Cooper III, chief consumer engagement officer for PepsiCo's US beverage arm, "We want to become a catalyst in the culture rather than act like a big brand announcing something."

This is big, big news. It may be a sign that the ship of big brands has finally become aware of the changing environment and is beginning to turn.

In Better than Rational: Evolutionary Psychology and the Invisible Hand, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby explain that "form follows function: the properties of an evolved mechanism reflect the structure of the task it evolved to solve." So what is the structure of today's marketing task?

Yesterday's marketplace was a much simpler environment. People were easy to find, easy to reach and easy to persuade. The marketer's task was simply to make people "aware" of their new and improved offering. And they did just that, primarily through mega spending on mass media advertising. But the marketplace has evolved. And it appears that it has changed faster than most marketers have changed.

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Source: http://www.acleareye.com

The #1 Habit of Effective Online Business Owners

By Chris Garrett

• What would you say is the main habit that is common to all successful online business owners?
• Is there one thing that if you just applied it would make a massive difference to your own progress?

As an inquisitive student of internet marketing I talk to a lot of people involved in the online business world, friends, gurus, mentors. I'm also a big fan of business biographies and checking out interviews with the experts. In investigating these folks' strategies, something comes up again and again. The more you look for it, the more it shows up clear as day.

It doesn't matter who they are, what they do, how they made their profits, or even how they spent them … one approach is fundamental every single time.

From the outside though we get the wrong impression. People try to replicate their success and miss this vital factor, which hampers any progress they would ever make, or worse sets them up for massive failure.

What is this crucial thing?

All the successful online business people I know or have observed have all grown powerful business relationships and networks.

Who you know really is as important as what you know.

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Source: http://www.chrisg.com

Do Websites Still Work for a Brand?

By William Arruda

There was Web 1.0, then Web 2.0 and now we even see Web 3.0 as web interactions transform and become even more interactive.

So, in all of this – does a website still make sense?

Website Content I've been a strong proponent of a blogsite (a blog with the comments turned off so it will act like a website). And, I've supported it because of the growing discomfort between website design and getting pertinent, timely and interactive material out there with ease. We know that this is so as we see so many promotions for "do it yourself" type sites really messaging that you have control of the site.

So, does your brand still need a website?

At the just of the conversation, you can see that websites are just one of many touch-points for a brand. They are not the "be all, end all" for a brand. In fact, nothing in branding is.

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Source: http://www.thepersonalbrandingblog.com

Poor Website Design a Deal Breaker for Small Business Customers

By Marketing VOX

Small businesses are notoriously stingy in their use of online ad and marketing technologies - oftentimes for the very practical reason that they have limited resources to invest. One area where they shouldn't hold back, however, is in their ultimate landing page: their website.

A recent survey showed how quickly visitors judge a site's creditability based on its design, writes Brooke Howell, SmartBrief's small-business editor, in a blog post. According to comments made by Tiffany Jonas, president of Aio Design, during a presentation at the National Association of Women Business Owners' 2010 Women's Business Conference, 75% of web users admit to making such judgments, with some researchers finding that 50 milliseconds is the average amount of time render a decision about the visual design.

Tips she offers for sites to look legitimate and customer-friendly include shying away from pay-for-click ads as well as unprofessional or clichéd images. It is also important to have a site that is intuitive to navigate as well as easy-to-find privacy policies and general corporate information.

Brand Appeal

On the other hand, sites should weigh any decisions to change design carefully - assuming the changes are not fixes to obvious errors or bad design. Users are notoriously resistant to change, especially if a site has become familiar. Just ask Facebook, which routinely has dealt with user complaints over its changes. A more recent example is Google' short-lived introduction of screen-sized photos on its front page. It was unclear whether this was an experiment, or a 24-hour initiative - but Google was bombarded with complaints from users when it sprung the giant photos on them without warning.

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Source: http://www.marketingvox.com