Tag Archives: marketing

Taking care of business

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I’m probably not going to be around much lately, but I am alive and I do have bullets!

  • I have an appointment on Thursday with an advisor at Southern. Andrea in the Academic Advising Center really helped me out. She helped me get reactivated and helped get my $200 tuition deposit transferred to the Fall 2009 semester (long story). She rocks and I love her! If it weren’t for her, I’d probably still be lost somewhere in the SCSU time warp.
  • My graduation party was on Saturday. I have pictures that I need to post. I also need to post pictures of my tattoo, because Sarcastica pointed out that I said I would and never did. (Although, I did post pictures of it right after it got done over at Scars Can Speak!) The point of this particular bullet? Remind me to post said grad party pictures. Because if you don’t, it’ll be another year before you see them. :D
  • Speaking of Letters of Love, I am working on creating a plan for the project. This last year has been amazing, but I’ve kinda just been winging it. I need a solid plan and some long-term goals. I picked up some books at the library today.
  • I also picked up books on how to write a business plan, since my aunt and I are (pretty much fully?) partnered in her business and we need to write one. This is one thing that neither of us know how to do, so I went to the library to edumacate myself. I hadn’t been to the library since 2003, so I had to renew and replace my card, as well as pay a small late fee for a few books from 2003. I felt really good walking out of there with five books. Next time I’m definitely getting some fiction!
  • My mom gave me a dragon tree in my Easter basket. (Yes, my mom still makes me an Easter basket. Jealous?) I planted the seeds and put them in the terrarium, not expecting anything to actually sprout. But:
    (Baby) dragon tree!

    (Baby) dragon tree!

    I took this picture about a week ago. It’s almost grown out of the little pot right now! Actually, I think I need to remove the lid now and transfer it soon after.

  • I scheduled an appointment with a new doctor who is not a specialist of anything for Wednesday. I’m hoping that her fresh eyes and my list of shit wrong with me will get me somewhere.
  • In the midst of all this craziness, I’ve been pretty much ignoring my email. If you’re waiting for a reply, I will be catching up tomorrow. I apologize for the delay, but right now I can only do so much.
  • Other than that, I’m exhausted and I’ll have to come back to this when I have more time and am not so tired!

How to Boost Your Advertising Sales

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1280x600 Numbers ad, MySpace.com, 03/18/2009 Not too long ago, I noticed that MySpace was using a new ad banner size. Their entire background was devoted to the costumer’s product, for an entire day. There was also usually some kind of accompanying 960×250 banner underneath the header. I loved this form of advertising from the start. I thought it was really creative and interesting. So naturally, I forgot about it.

1280x800 Resistance: Retribution ad, IGN.com, 03/18/2009 Then, I was at Mike’s one day and he was showing me something or other at IGN.com. IGN started off as a little website that people uploaded video game walkthroughs to in .txt files, and now they write review and walkthroughs of all the hottest new games. I was surprised and excited to see that IGN too was using a similar advertising format.

Both sites are now sought-after ad spots. Let’s face it: whether you love or hate them, each site has a very large user base.

While MySpace uses only their home login page for these background ads, IGN uses the ads on every page. If there is no advertiser for that size on a given day, MySpace will use the 960×250 banner spot beneath the header on their login page, while IGN just reverts to their red logo background and regular ad spots.

A recent ad featured on MySpace was for the new Nicholas Cage movie, Numbers. At the bottom of the home login page, on the left hand side, was a smaller 620×50 banner.

620x50 Numbers ad, MySpace.com, 03/18/2009 MySpace and IGN aren’t the only websites using this new ad size. I have seen a handful of other sites using their backgrounds as ad space, and I think that more sites should snag this new idea while they can.

Why? Let’s face it, ads are tough. Users hate them and customers want the best ad spot possible. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t about Customer X or Y complaining that they aren’t the only one, or that their ad isn’t in the current hot spot. Companies have a hard time pleasing everyone and making money at the same time. I’ve seen all sorts of different methods that work, but get old very quickly: the page curl, the 1025×230 dropdown, the 300×250, and many others. Customers want ad space that gets in users’ faces, and users want ads that are helpful but also easily averted.

The full background, 1280×600, ad size solves all of these problems. It gets your attention, but it’s also part of the normal site; there’s nothing popping up, down, left, or right at you. If you’re interested in the product, you can click on one of the nearby banners (which are usually part of the entire ad in general). If you’re not interested, you can just move on.

Customers can purchase a whole day of being the best ad on the site, and online companies can make a nice profit because these ads are so great.

Of course, just like anything else on the web, this solution isn’t going to last forever. So get your background ad on and make some money!

Call the papers; I'll admit I was wrong!

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I’ve been hustling like crazy trying to get a certain website’s redesign finished. I’ve also been doing some soul searching and trying to figure out what I want in life.

To cut right to the chase: I miss school. I thought I wouldn’t and that I didn’t need it. I thought I was just using it as a safety net. The truth is, I was really enjoying college. Yes, it was a total pain in the ass trying to get everything together for Southern. Yes, I got completely shafted for financial aid, and $1100 seemed like a high price for just one class. But I could have done it. I gave up way too easily.

Every time I talked to one of my friends in school, all I could think of was, “I should be there.” Every time I thought of how easily I had given up, I wanted to kick myself. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much I want this. I realized that in order to further my career, I need that BA. I don’t want to be another kid with an AA trying to make it out there. It’s not to say that it isn’t possible, but it would definitely be a lot harder. Further more, I realized that with the way the economy is right now, finding a full-time job is going to be nearly impossible. I found lots of freelance job listings but I don’t want to rely on freelance jobs to pay my bills.

In short, I am a total jackass and I admit it.

I love college and I love learning. My education is very, very important to me, and I want to at least get this BA. I will be going back either this summer or in the fall, and I will be majoring in English and minoring in Marketing; I’m starting to see that I have some marketing inclinations that can definitely be honed into killer skills.

Now if only I could figure everything else out this easily.

Social media is about caring, not popularity

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It’s starting to aggravate me that I’m getting irrelevant messages and friend requests on a particular MySpace account that I run. Mainly, these requests are coming from bands. Now, I’m all for checking out new music, but the account is very obviously not a personal account. A message or friend request saying, “I’m really interested in what you’re doing,” or something to that effect would be much more welcome than, “Listen to our music! We didn’t even read your profile so we obviously don’t care about who you are or what you do, but you should support us anyway!”

In this day and age, social media is about branding and caring. If you’re going to use social media as a marketing tool, you should use it the correct way. Look at the profiles of your potential clients, consumers, or fans. Decide what they need and how you should approach them. If you send me messages trying to get me to comment on your page without even checking out mine to see if I’m going to like what you’re trying to sell me, I’m going to see right through what you’re doing and I’m not even going to bother. Even worse, if my account is for a jewelry business and you’re telling me to check out your oh-so-awesome hardware site, kthxbai, I’m not even going to bother with you.

We have to learn how to use the tools we have in front of us to target our audience, our niche. Stop sending automated messages and comments telling me — and others — how cool you are or that we should check you out. Pay attention to your audience first. Find out what they need, and if they will be interested in whatever you have to offer. Do not send messages that look as if you just cut and paste from a saved document without even bothering to see if the recipient is going to be interested.

Learn how to care, or get out of the sandbox.