No more ".com"

The domains (those words after the dot like .com) are about to change. There exists a proposal to expand the domains, so maybe by the end of the year there could be hundreds of different words as domains. Coca-Cola could use .pop, Milkyway .chocolate and MTV .music. Any word could be used the only limitation would be the marketer or the company’s budget.

The initial cost estimated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (nonprofit agency that oversees the distribution and policy of domain names) is $185,000 for registration plus an amount from $25,000 to $75,000 in annual fees. But if two brands want the same domain there would be an auction, and the highest bidder will get the domain.

Some Pros of the “new” domains” could be that new brands that don't yet have an online presence could use the domains to distinguish themselves. For example a new fast food restaurant could use .fastfood, and have a competitive advantage. On the other hand, companies with large portfolios of brands (Unilever and Procter & Gamble) will end up paying a lot of money if they buy lots of generic domains.

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In my opinion this could represent confusion for customers, because there will be lots of domains, and it will be more difficult than just using the worldwide famous .com. Is this a real positive advantage?

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Juan Francisco

Google & Universal Alliance?

According to reuters.com; some people that are not allowed to talk about this topic said that Google Inc's YouTube and Universal Music Group are in talks to create a premium online music video service. If they reach a deal, the service could help Google to generate revenue from YouTube.

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A deal could represent a strong link between YouTube and the media industry, which has on occasion ordered the video-sharing site to delete clips of TV shows or music videos uploaded by users without the media companies' permission.

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Universal, the one of the largest music labels in the world, and YouTube, the popular video website, are in talks to create a site to showcase music videos by Universal artists. Maybe, the deal would be broadened out to include videos by artists at the other music labels (Sony Music, EMI Group and Warner Music).

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YouTube would also provide technology and advertising-sales support to help distribute Universal's video content to other Web sites. They are still working on the financial details of how the service would be run.

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The main objective of this site that would carry premium music videos and music-related content is to get higher advertising rates through YouTube. Nowadays, music companies typically get paid a share of any advertising revenue associated with a video on YouTube as well as a per-play payment for every video viewed.

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The talks between YouTube and Universal Music, whose artists include The Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus, started because in December, Warner Music ordered YouTube to pull down all music videos on the site featuring Warner artists, after contract negotiations between the two sides broke down. And they don’t want that this happen again.

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Universal's current licensing deal with YouTube expires at the end of the current month, and a new deal is expected for April. EMI is also in contract renewal talks with YouTube. Sony Music renewed its contract with YouTube last month.

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“YouTube said in a statement, "We are always working with our partners to find creative ways to connect music, musicians, and fans."”

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Juan Francisco

Twitter: Google's nightmare?

Recently, I have read a lot about Twitter, but not about the social networking. Everyone is talking about Twitter’s opportunities in search (http://www.search.twitter.com/), which are quite different from Google searches. Is different = better? Does this represent a problem to Google? Why is this relevant for e-marketing?

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The main difference between Google and Twitter’s searches is that Google looks for documents that have been produced, while Twitter looks for what was said on a given topic. We could describe Twitter search as a real-time search engine and social discovery tool. But what should we search with Twitter instead than with Google? One example could be a recommendation, if we are looking to a good place to eat sushi in Vancouver; it is easier, better and faster to receive a couple of recommendations from Twitter’s user that live in Vancouver than reading the 103,000 Google’s search results.

One implication for the companies is to which search engine they should pay more attention. Because most web site traffic comes from Google, especially if the company appears on the first page of results. But visitors that are referred by Twitter could spend more on the site than visitors from Google because the way Twitter visitors were referred is more customized.

Definitely, Google needs to pay attention to Twitter because they are offering something that they don’t do. At the same time this is a new challenge for marketers due to the fact that now they need to analyze how Twitter search engine could be used on the best way.

Juan Francisco

Pringles wrote on Joahniito's wall..???

Today, as always, I logged into my Facebook account, and the first thing that I saw was... “Changes to the Home page are coming soon”. But what are those changes?

First, the home page will have general news and filters to allow you to choose the information, friend lists, and applications that you want to see. You will also be able to share the content on the home page with your friends. The Facebook pages (the ones for brands) will be like a “normal” profile and instead of being apart; they will be mixed with the human friends’ profiles on the social graphs.

And what are the implications for marketers? Now, the brands won’t be restricted to only use “pages”, now they will have the same opportunities that Facebook users have, control profile, communication and publishing posts on people’s home pages!!! Are brands prepared for that "power"?

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All of these changes by Facebook are designed to put more information into the home page. But I think that it is really different to be able to see that your high school friend has tagged you on a photo than reading that Pepsi has a new image. I just hope not to have my homepage full of ads on March 11, when these changes will have started, because seriously I would “unfriend” all the brands if they annoy me.

I'll add an image that I found today and i liked it.

Juan Francisco

I’m a Skittles’ Fan!!!

Today I decided to become a Skittles’ fan! The reason... I logged into my Facebook account this morning and I saw that 6 of my friends had just become Skittles’ “fans”, I remembered all the cool colors of the candies & the nice package and I became a fan too. But, sincerely I have just bought them like tree times in all my life. Right now, Skittles’ Facebook account has 586,132+ fans. Even though they can’t translate fans = sales, it could give them an idea if people are coming to the site and choosing to engage at a deeper level.

Skittles’ website is trying to link different social-media sites in a menu that floats on any of the social networks. Depending on the customer’s behavior, the home page could be the brand’s Twitter or Facebook site, the video games are on Flickr, and the video media is Skittles’ Youtube page. This is a risk that the company is taking because they can’t control the customers’ actions or comments, on the other hand they can participate on the conversations and “talk” directly to the customers.

The brand can measure if the site’s style is working or not by the number of facebook “friends” or the comments on walls and Youtube videos. I think Skittles has applied one of the e-marketing principles “take advantage of others resources” creating a platform that includes the most successful social networks in one website. I should highlight that they did this with a minimal budget spent.

Bringing social tools into Skittles’ website was right, but the brand needs to offer something else after the social media experience to really translate the online succes on sales at the point of purchase. I have to go; I need to grab some skittles…

Juan Francisco

And the winner is... Social Media

I am not a big fan of The Academy Awards, but I can’t deny that movies’ fans and advertisers pay a lot of attention to them. Why talking about this on an e-marketing blog? …As I mentioned on a previous post, marketing is everywhere!

Nielsen information shows that the movie with largest adspend on the United States was “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. Advertising is an important factor for selling theater tickets, but nowadays social media offers “free” word of mouth that can be as effective as the traditional advertising. New Media Strategies and Bloggasm showed that during Oscar’s night the film with the most mentions on Twitter and Blogs was the Best Picture winner, “Slumdog Millionaire”.

Twitter Mentions:

1. Slumdog Millionaire: 6,369
2. Milk: 3,617
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: 1,110
4. The Reader: 814
5. Frost/Nixon: 543

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Blog Mentions:

1. Slumdog Millionaire: 28,909
2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: 20,939
3. Milk: 20,676
4. The Reader: 16,123
5. Frost/Nixon: 8,341

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We can notice that advertising is still important, but marketers need to pay attention to e-marketing channels because the communication that they provide can come directly from the final customer. Today’s challenge is to design a strong marketing plan that mixes offline and online channels effectively.

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Juan Francisco

"If You Seek Britney"

TV, Radio, Magazines, Newspapers, Billboards, Websites, Google, Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs … Britney Spears is everywhere!

Her new album, new single, and new world tour need promotion. She and her staff have wisely used offline and online channels to advertise them. Let’s talk about her online campaign to see how her staff applies the basic e-marketing concepts.

Listening is to monitor your customers’ conversations between themselves. Is to listen to their needs and wants from a trustable source of information. There are lots of websites and forums dedicated to the pop star on the web. Spears’s staff follows the most important webs to know and “listen” the customers, what do they want and what do they expect. They have updated surveys that could be useful for choosing the tour “set list” or the next single.

Talking is to stimulate conversations between customers and participate on them giving subtle messages. Britney’s official website (britneyspears.com) has a blog. On this blog, Britney’s staff members post news and messages, and they can receive feedback with the followers’ comments. By providing a space for communication they are “talking” directly with the customers and this is helpful to “engage” them. In addition, she has facebook and twitter accounts to “talk” with her “friends”. Actually, on the website they have a “friend Britney” banner where all the links to add her to your social network.

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Energizing is about promoting your product/service with your enthusiastic customers’ help. Britney’s site is using energizing too; it has an application for buying tickets for the tour that can be added to Social Network’s accounts. They added a “grab it” tag to it. With these they are encouraging her fans to place it on their sites, so other fans can see it. Using energizing they want to increase the sales and advertising for free.

Customization/individualization is when your product or service satisfies individual needs, and costumers feel important because they perceive it as unique. Britney’s online store sells calendars and customers can personalize them, choosing size, color, and other features to fit each customers likes.

Interactivity is used with some online contests that the website has. Some examples are” wallpaper design contest”, or “create a history for a Britney’s video”. This interaction increases the website traffic and the fans enthusiasm to talk about Britney, this causes word of mouth.

With this example, we can notice that applying most of the e-marketing concepts at the same is possible, if Britney can, you can!

Juan Francisco

My Mom????!!!

Surfing on a friend’s facebook profile I found a post from his aunt and I was really surprised (I suppose he was even more surprised!), I started to think on what I would do if my mom had a facebook account, and according to statistics this could be possible!

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An independent Facebook blog published that 45% of the Facebook’s users on US are ages 26 and older, and nearly 25% are over age 34. In fact, the fastest-growing demographic group on Facebook is women ages 55 and older.

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The only difference is that older people uses FB with less frequency, although 5% of users ages 50 and older logged in 30 or more times per month, the majority signed on only from one to four times per month.

But is time to start thinking… are these target customers on Facebook’s goals? Or are they a new problem that facebook needs to face?

Juan Francisco

5 tips for Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is the "in" thing today, so here we have five practical tips for applying it!!

· Offer desirable products or services that spread your message: You can do things like enable visitors to e-mail greeting/post cards from your website or offer free downloads (screensavers, wallpapers, games, etc.) that carry your marketing message. These activities are not very expensive and they can help to increase the your brand’s website traffic.

· Encourage word of mouth recommendations: this advertising is one of the bests because it is almost free. Brands can encourage people to share the message with friends and/or promote the website by making easy to email the webpage, or adding a “tell a friend” tag. Remember that viruses only spread when they are easy to transmit.

· Take advantage of others’ resources: Brands can place text or graphic links on others websites by “affiliate programs”.

· Use existing communication networks: Brands can place their message on existing communications between people to multiply the dispersion.

· Create “popular media”: Companies can place “funny” stuff on the red like videos promoting their brand, or creative websites that will catch people’s attention and cause that the WoM expands its dispersion.

To take advantage of “viral marketing” it is necessary to develop an effective strategy that exploits common motivations and behaviors and is easy to transmit.

Juan Francisco

Marketing Today

I liked this video because it easily explains how complex is marketing today due to the web 2.0 (:

Youtube vs TV

Youtube TV?

Today I was watching a Mexican soup opera on youtube, it was great because I didn’t have to see any commercial and I was able to pause it. Later, I started wondering about how many people was doing the same, some questions started to appear in my mind; Is youtube the “new television”?, How many people has started to watch more online videos than TV?, What will happen with advertising on TV programs? …

I started to search information and a survey made by Nielsen showed that people of all ages said they spent much more time watching traditional TV than online videos. A young group (18 to 24 years old) was the group that accepted to watch more online videos. According to LiveRail 2008 survey, the 53% of young adults social network users spend more time watching online video than TV.

Even though that the percentage of the population that watches more online video than traditional TV isn’t big enough to “destroy” the TV, marketers should be aware of this and pay attention to the media that their prospects use to see their favorite shows. If their target market are young adults, maybe they should start to give more money to online advertising when they allocate their budgets. While they start to do something, people like me keep watching “tv” without receiving any advertising (:

Juan Francisco

Social Media

Social media is a world wide phenomenon. If we want to use it for marketing we need to understand it. This video explains in an easy way the power of social media. Today any individual with internet access can express and share his opinions and thoughts to the world. Marketers need to be able to deal with this, not only handle it; they need to take advantage of it!

According to an emarketer's report, the social networking audience is growing rapidly. It is expected that by 2013 more than one-half of Internet users will be regular social network users. But not only the amount of consumers is growing; the degree of their involvement is increasing too. To take advantage of these trends, Social Networks need to work in an effective advertising model.

Facebook, Myspace and Twitter are popular social networks where companies and celebrities (music, politics, sports...) are creating and using their accounts for free marketing. Starbucks, Lindsay Lohann, and Cristiano Ronaldo are just few examples of "successful” social media users. So, if you don’t have a Facebook account, what are you waiting for? Just see if the social media network, your profile ,and the image that you want to show to the world match (:

Juan Francisco

Global Top Sites

A website is fundamental for the implementation of e-marketing, so it is really important to choose the right site to advertise our product or service. Alexa.com presents us the Global Top sites on the web. Google.com is the first place of the countdown, this could be due to the effectiveness of ther search engine and search options. The second position is the popular Yahoo.com and the third place is for Youtube.com. Other relevant sites on the top 10 are the social networks Myspace and Facebook. Marketers should pay attention to the website's rank to make the best decision for online advertising.

According to alexa.com today's global top 10 sites are these:

1. Google.com
2. Yahoo.com
3. Youtube.com
4. Live.com
5. Facebook.com
6. Msn.com
7. Wikipedia.org
8. Blogger.com
9. MySpace.com
10. Yahoo.co.jp




Juan Francisco

e-mexico??

As we know, México is a developing country… is it prepared for the E-marketing? It seems it is!

E-marketer just presented a report of Mexico’s online situation, and the results were really surprising for me because nearly one-quarter of the population were online in 2008 and it is expected to increase in the next years. In fact in 2007 Mexico was number 10 in the world for internet users. Here is the most relevant data.

• Blog Readers: 88% of the internet users
• Blog Writers: 60%
• Social Networking Site Users: 73%
• Growth in e-commerce sales (2008): 70%
• Advertising Spent Online (2007): 2%.

These facts are proof that the internet situation in Mexico is good, and it seems that it'll keep growing in the next years, so mexican marketers need to pay attetion to this trend while they develop their marketing campaigns.

Juan Francisco

source:http://totalaccess.emarketer.com/Reports/Viewer.aspxN=0&Nr=P_ID:2000531

What is Emarketing?

To start defining e-marketing, it is really necessary to clarify the meaning of “Marketing”. So let’s do it…

When I chose to study Marketing everyone asked me: “What’s that?” and I used to answer: “It’s to create Ads, commercials, apply surveys, stuff like that” I didn’t have a clear idea, so I wasn’t able to give the “right” answer.

The first definition that I read was the one given by the American Marketing Association, that tell us that Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. We have different concepts from different sources, and almost all of them focus on satisfying the client necessities and in adding value to the perception that they have of the product/service.

I kept looking for a definition that described Marketing until I found one that says: “Marketing is everything, and everything is marketing.” I think that this one is the best because if we look around us we can find marketing everywhere; our world is full of brands, slogans, logos, ads, promotions, and all.

Today’s world is connected with the internet, so it became necessary the development of emarketing. Emarketing is a translation of all the traditional marketing tools into a digital language. The main difference between emarketing and traditional marketing is that once that you’re online, your business is automatically inside the worldwide web, this means that you need to be prepared for the different markets. It seems a simple definition, but there are many issues which are part of it.

I’ll try to write about the latest and most important advances on Emarketing to be prepared for the “Emarketing World”.

Juan Francisco

Welcome to E-marketiing

E.marketiing is a blog about marketing and technological trends.

In this blog I'll try to post information and articles about the new trends on e marketing. I hope this blog can provide interesting and applicable data for everyone.

Welcome to the E.marketiing Time!




Juan Francisco