The Fifth Annual Marketing Sherpa Wisdom from the Field 2007 is out and boy what a surprise was in store!

Well, first things first.

The Marketing Sherpa Wisdom from the Field is a yearly publication in which 110 marketers around the world share the lessons they learnt from their field experiences. It can be anything email marketing, website marketing etc.

Out of hundreds of the entries Marketing Sherpa chooses the 110 best real-life marketing campaigns and lessons learnt from the experiences.

I had entered the nominations in December 2006 without any real hope of getting selected. When there were hundreds of marketers, across the globe, with brilliant marketing campaigns I had really thought I stood a small chance of being selected in the report and be actually featured in the report among 110 Best.

To my pleasant surprise not only was my entry selected but it is featured at #67 and the #1 among website marketing category.

I had saved what I submitted for the report to post in on this blog sometime in January as the first post of 2007. That’s a really good marketing lesson I learnt which I would love to share with my readers.

Now you can find the same post in nothing less than a Marketing Sherpa annual report among 110 best. Unfortunately I cannot upload the file for some reason. So you’d have to go download it at http://wisdom.marketingsherpa.com

It’s a FREE report so just go and download it. You won’t regret the time spent. I share this report as this contains not only my tip but also 109 tips from other marketing minds which I’m sure will help you in your marketing endeavors.

Still if you’d like to read my report first it’s at spot #67 at Page #35. Happy Marketing!

Some of the big brand names need a serious wake up call. Especially those that are blissfully asleep over the “no-need” to spend on internet marketing for their corporate website.

“No need for that yo, we’re popular offline, we’ll be automatically popular online.”

Unless you are a Google or Microsoft Corporation please do not harbour such thoughts. The perspective is you think you are popular online, please type in your own company name in Google and check where you stand.

Recently released Marketing Sherpa Search Marketing Benchmark Guide puts it very sweetly: It’s not enough to appear on the first page but the target should be right on top. Most searchers seldom scroll down even in Google result page (me: and never move beyond the third result page).

No one would have put it in better words!

The issue here is while most of the big brand names do appear near top rankings for their industry-specific keywords; the fact is most of them are turning a blind eye towards search marketing. And hence not appearing for keywords pertaining to an industry they are dominating offline!

A real life incident happened today: my beloved got an amazing job opportunity with a US based retailer. Desiring to gather more info about the retailer I typed in the NAME of the firm. To my surprise I did not get any such links in the result page. What’s more, I could not find it even on the third page. This is with only the COMPANY NAME as the keyword!!

After all this you’d not want to know the retailer’s recent dreams, no you dont. Ok, here goes: they wish to sell their products on the web. They Wish!

This is not just about NOT getting traffic or not appearing in the search results. This is about the oh-so-very-important trust and credibilty factor in any mode of marketing. I would not want my beloved to work in a company that does not even appear on Google search results for it’s own name!

So you see how important keyword positioning is — not only in terms of increasing traffic but also in terms of collecting trust and credibility. Traffic can just get people into your site. It’s the trust and credibilty of your site (and hence you company) that matters when your visitor decides to turn herself into your customer.

Wake up, Big boys!!

The Marketing Sherpa Search Marketing Benchmark Guide for 2007 paints a healthy picture for search marketing professionals and agencies.

The Guide points out that in 2006 the percentage of organic search marketing fell by 2% from 2005 from 12% to 10%. However, it is not that organic search spend has been reduced, on the contrary it increased by $0.05 billion.

The cause of this drop after couple of years of high accounts to a rise in paid search which crossed the $7 billion mark this year. It went from $6.2 billion to $7.9 billion in just one year. A whopping $1.7 billion rise in a period which organic search revenues rising just $0.05 billion.

This is good news for search marketers — both organic and paid. However, at the moment paid search marketers are basking in better times than organic search marketers. 2007 will be a good year to keep watch on search marketing warfield – especially the revenues.

Follow this link to look over the free 19-page extract of the Marketing Sherpa Guide: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?ident=29710

I have been away for quite a long time but while I’m away, I’m not wasting my time also. I’m learning new things about internet marketing and writing articles to help the readers more… stay tuned!

It is no longer a secret that Internet helps support as well as enhance your marketing and brand building activities. However, having a strong offline brand does not mean you’ll have an equally strong online brand. Yet the dynamics of internet are such that it’s imperative to have a strong online presence on the net. Studies indicate that several high-profile firms are waking up to this trend.

Online advertising is booming because advertisers see new ways internet can fit their strategies. Dozens of start ups desire to make a splash in online commerce; their business plans practically force them to buy Internet ads. Online world is accommodating advertisers in ways that print and broadcast media would find impossible.

Forrester concludes that online advertising seems to work best when combined with conventional media such as print and television: the same research found that combinations of print and television advertising lifted awareness to 9 percent, but combinations of print, television and online raised awareness to 14 percent.

Forrester has found that online advertising increased people’s spontaneous recall of brands to about 4 percent, considerably higher than with either print or television alone.

One of the most obvious cases is of good ol’ Google. The way they have built a brand over the internet is mind-blowing. From coming up with new products like Desktop Search and Google Earth to spreading brand loyalty and brand recall mostly by the power of offering web search as a free service to countless website, Google has occupied people’s minds. No surprises when Google won the brandchannel.com most recalled brands in 2005, beating favorites like Apple and Nokia. 

Who said online brands cannot be as strong as offline ones. If anyone says that just mention this: Google just beat the offline biggies!

3 reasons why you should not ignore online merchandising or, simply put, ecommerce.

•  Web merchants responding to a June 2005 survey sponsored by the online trade publication Internet Retailer confirmed that the nature of the US internet population will be instrumental in driving growth in online shopping.
• The availability of time-saving, convenient services (a well-recognized benefit of online shopping) was selected by 38.2 percent of respondents as the key reason sales will grow.
•  Greater acceptance and familiarity with the internet by adults (33.6 percent) and the maturation and increased buying power of today’s web-savvy teens and young adults (25.2 percent).

It is no secret that internet population is growing and the global village is already born. Communities who have limited or no access to your products offline is also growing. To meet this demand, it’s advisable to take your business online.

But keep in mind you can never anticipate instant branding on the net. There are established brands as well as establishing ones who are constantly digging into the ecommerce dollar pie. It does not matter if you have an established offline brand but if you wish to replicate it on the web it will take time.

First, go get yourself a good looking website with advanced functions to make buying a smooth experience for your customers. Technology matters a lot for your customers; they observe closely your technological superiority before buying anything from you. Do not be left behind and DON’T be stingy in shelling those dollars.

It’s worth it!

Don’t replicate your offline brand on the web end-to-end. Differentiate your offline division from your online division IN THE MINDS OF YOUR PROSPECTS! This can be done with subtle differences that strike a chord in your customer’s minds.

Now promote this site viciously! Don’t rely only on the web to build a web brand name. Advertise offline also. But concentrate most of your energies online.

It’s a challenging task to make your site such a powerful brand name that your customers stop relying on Googles and yahoos and type your name directly to find you. But it’s not at all impossible. To beat the search engines you need to be on the search engine first — every time someone types some keywords related to your business.

If you have any queries mail me at svnkallianpur@gmail.com

It’s all about knowing the demand and supply on the web and tools help us do just this and much more.

Keyword Research is very crucial
Internet marketing is all about knowing what to hit and when to hit. You must know what people want, what they are looking for and what the demand and supply ratio is.

This helps in choosing keywords to optimize your key pages on. There are many tools that can help you do this. Wordtracker is the best web tool on the paid side of the tools. With Wordtracker you have definite advantages.

• At one shot, you can know what people are looking for on the search engines so you can incorporate this research in to your marketing strategies.
• You can know what keywords people are using so you can optimize your pages for these keywords.
• You can see what the supply is for a particular demand i.e. how many sites you will be competing for rankings for a particular keyword.
• You can also see which keyword has high demand and less supply of sites so you can tap into this market and be a leader in this segment.
• Helps you to a great extent to get relevant traffic to your website and this matters most.

Free tools are available on the net if you don’t want to spend money right now. Good Keywords is a fantastic tool in this respect.

The web is no longer a medium but a world in itself. More and more people are depending on search engines to find what they want. Your website adds to your overall branding strategy. Even though people might not be looking for your site they’ll still expect you to be there in top rankings for keywords related to your industry. And tools like Wordtracker can help you achieve this.

Has this happened to you at least once: Everyday you open Google and type a particular keyword and hit the search button. Many a times the results will be the same almost everyday. But once in a while one site might appear on rank 1 or rank 2 or page 1 or page 2.

Sounds familiar?

This is In Turn Net Marketing. You are marketing in turns on the net.

You website takes turns to be on number 1 or 2. We all know that in internet marketing being on first rank in the results is very imporatnt. People scan results rank wise and if your competitor’s site is ranking above your’s and his title and description are good enough then you stand to lose a lot.

When it’s your turn to rank above your competitor’s site in search results then it’s your turn to convert the visitor. What causes this In-turn-net marketing?

There are lot’s of factors involved in this. You cannot be assured of a permanent rank.1 for a particular keyword. That also means your competitor also does not have a guanrantee of a permanent rank 1. So rejoice. Net is an equiliser of great sorts.

What’s crucial in Internet Marketing?
Content and SEO are very important in Internet Marketing and Promotions. The rest of the factors are related to either one of them. The job can be divided into 3 parts: 

• Rank your site on very top for the keywords that your potential customers are using to find site like yours
• Once in top position, make the visitor click your site URL over other search result URLs and
• Once she is inside your site make her perform the desired action. Desired action maybe anything depending on the goal of your website – subscribe to something, buy your products, give you a call etc.

These 3 form the main pillars of internet marketing. And search engines are a major part in your internet marketing mix. But only search engines are not your tools to get business and build a brand. There are lots of options you can use to acheive this goal. Browse my space to find more info on Internet marketing.

The author is an internet marketing professional with 3 years industry experience. Currently working as a internet marketing copywriter, I have experience in web copywriting, SEO, Web PR, and related Internet Marketing stuff. All the articles you’ll see here are my own creations from my daily increasing industry experience.