A loyal customer base is key to building a successful startup.
If there is one mantra you should adopt now and plan for in your business, it should be that repeat business equals profit.
The reality of business is that it costs anywhere from six to eight times as much to generate a new customer as it does to sell to an existing customer. And profits only start to accrue from new customers after a second, third or even fourth purchase.
So how can you plan for repeat business in your startup?
First, you must determine upfront the cost of "buying" a new customer for your business. What do I mean by "buying" a customer?
Exactly that.
Instead of guessing how much to spend on sales and marketing, determine how much you are willing to spend to "buy" a customer. This will give you a more concrete way to create your budgets for marketing, customer appreciation strategies and referral programs.
So how do you determine the acquisition cost of getting a customer?
Say your $1,000 ad generates 100 phone calls. For each call or lead, you're paying $10 to drive people to your business. If 20 of those leads turn into buyers, you're paying $50 to capture each sale.
Let's also say you can plan for each customer to spend $500 with you, with $100 of that profit. How often would you continue to invest $50 into marketing? If you wanted to profit continually, you'd invest those dollars over and over again.
Knowing how much it costs to buy a customer also allows you to plan for and master the numbers around the lifetime value of your customer.
Years ago, I owned a dog food business. My average customer would spend $800 a year on their dogs, and the average dog lived about 10 years. I presumed a customer would stay with me half that time, meaning the lifetime value of my dog food customer would be $4,000.
Imagine if I created a repeat business program that both produced and rewarded referrals. If a single customer could be incentivized to buy on a monthly basis and was also prompted to refer two new customers to me, that would make a single customer worth $12,000.
What if those new referrals sent more referrals? How much value is that initial contact worth now? More importantly, what would I be willing to do to keep that single customer?
This long-term view of customer value is essential. Only when you realize a customer's lifetime value do you see the importance of developing great relationships with your customers. The goal of all that effort is, of course, to build a loyal base of raving fans–the ultimate key to building repeat and referral business.
So what should your repeat business plan look like?
Here are five key action points:
- Be diligent with your database. This is extremely important. In fact, the biggest asset for most companies long-term is their customer database. So plan for it, protect it, add to it and communicate with it at every opportunity.
- Make your communication personal and personable. Whether it's a letter, a brochure, a frequent buyer's card or an e-mail, make your communication to your database reflect the culture and personality of your business. Make everything represent the core principles of your company vision and mission.
- Make it easy for your customers to buy and keep buying. Lower the barriers to purchasing from you. A great way to test this is to pretend you are a customer trying to buy from your own company at least once a month. What, as a customer, would you change? Another way to lower buying barriers is to simply ask your best customers how you can make doing business with you easier.
- Decide what you can promise your customers. Make sure it is something you can deliver consistently each and every time. The basic rule is to "under-promise and over-deliver."
- Test and measure everything. From your ads to your numbers to your loyalty programs, make sure the numbers work at every level. Because whenever your marketing ROI fails to deliver, you can tweak or change your programs.
In the end, people buy from people they like and stay with companies they perceive care about them and stay connected with them. People are also willing to pay more for good service–when it's the service they desire.
Having all of these components driving your repeat business will allow you to develop a great competitive advantage for your company, and it's the foundation for referrals and word-of-mouth advertising, and that form of advertising continues to be the least expensive (and most effective) marketing you or anyone can "buy."
by admin - April 29, 2010
By Gordon Green – Social Media Expert
Action of the day: Exceed your customers expectations with ACTION!
1. Know your customers
Create forms on your web site for customer to let you know what their needs and preferences are when signing up for your newsletter. Link a computerized database to this information so you can retrieve it whenever you need it. This information helps you keep in touch with and serve your customers.
2. Inform your customers
Say you own a wine store and you just received a shipment of Cabernet Sauvignon. Go through your files to see who buys Cabernet Sauvignon and send them an email about it. Reference the fact that they’ve bought this from you in the past, then offer to hold some for them for a few days. Since you’re loyal to them, they’ll be loyal to you.
3. Help your customers
Write a monthly, quarterly or even semi-annual newsletter and post it to your web site to keep customers or clients informed about issues that might relate to them. Changes in the tax code, computer-software compatibility problems, whatever. Give people information they can use and they will think of you as a resource.
4. Surprise your customers
Send your best customers a gift Certificate in the off-season or a useful premium with your name on it. Since they haven’t asked for this and haven’t “earned it” through some points program, they are surprised and delighted.
5. Delight your customers
Send a friendly email to wish them a happy birthday or happy holidays with a nice card personalized to them.
6. Thank your customers
“Please” and “Thank you” may be the most powerful words in the English language. Use them in email. A sincere thank-you letter following up
a purchase is always appreciated. Say, “Please let me know if there’s anything else we can do for you,” and customers may take you up on
your offer.
7. Reward your customers
Call it a “Membership Card,” take some personal information before you give it out, and use email to take the rewards program to a higher
level. Maybe send members of the program a card on their birthday, with an offer of a discount or free gift. The card becomes a symbol of a
more personal relationship. How to delight your customers. There was a time when a woman could walk into a store and be greeted with “Good
morning, Mrs. Jones. Those jelly beans that Junior likes came in this morning. Should I pack some up for you?”
8. Free Advertising
Ask your members to share success stories, helpful tips or valuable information that you can then add to your web site with a link back to their
business.
by admin - April 27, 2010
When it comes to Twitter and brands, consumers who are also Twitter users have plenty to say on the subject. We’ve interviewed a few folks, analyzed a couple of streams, and come up with ten common, recurring requests and complaints from users who’ve engaged with brands on Twitter.
As it turns out, the rules they expect brands to follow are distinct from the code they expect “normal” users to follow.
Check out these dicta and caveats, and let us know your experiences and best practices in the comments.
1. Don’t Be a Showoff
Give Twitter users your features and benefits. Let them know about special deals. Don’t post links to your latest press release, promote articles written by your CEO or make extravagant claims. A good rule of thumb to determine whether a tweet is user-friendly or brand vanity is to ask yourself, “If I didn’t work here, would I care about this?” If you’re not sure, ask a brutally honest friend who doesn’t work at your company.
2. Don’t Use Poor Grammar or Spelling
If your replying 2 a user make sure ur social media intern doesnt do it like this LOL!
Seriously, grammar Nazis abound on the web. Write words out in their entirety, don’t use confusing abbreviations or too many of them, make sure punctuation is pristine and try to keep “lolspeak” and emoticons to a minimum.
3. Don’t Get Too Personal
You might be a real person hiding behind your brand’s Twitter account, but depending on the size and nature of the company, this isn’t likely the best place to share your favorite band’s latest track, or compliment a user’s hairdo. Keep your conversations warm but professional; it’s what users expect from a brand ambassador, and anything else comes off as creepy.
4. Don’t Auto-Tweet
It’s OK to set up tweets to roll out while you’re away from your desk, but think long and hard before you automate an entire feed to stream into your Twitter account. Users can smell a bot from miles away, and the point of Twitter is to be personally engaging more than blatantly promotional. Also, this might go without saying for the tech-savvy marketers among us, but don’t automatically DM new followers; it’s seen as spam. And never DM someone your account doesn’t also follow.
5. Don’t Leave Air in the Conversation
If you’re carrying on a series of @replies, don’t wait a day or two between messages. This isn’t the Pony Express; users will want a reply within a few hours. If you wait longer, they may have already forgotten what you were talking about. And be sure to use standard reply mechanisms so the Twitter web interface and other applications will thread the conversation, in case either party needs to reference a previous comment.
6. Don’t Overtweet
If you’re using Twitter as a 24/7, one-way broadcast system, you’re not having a conversation — you might be just “shouting” at your followers. While some brands have successfully maintained one-way, broadcast-only, no-@reply accounts, many opt to engage directly with their followers. Whichever method you choose, make sure you’re not tweeting too often and flooding your followers’ timelines.
7. Do Shout Out to Users Who Mention You
Especially if that mention is favorable, don’t be shy about tweeting thanks, tips or promotions to someone who’s shown your brand some Twitter love. Most of the time, users are surprised and delighted to find a name brand in their stream of replies. Exercise caution, however, when engaging with users who’ve made negative comments. Those conversations can go very well, or they can backfire. Always remain empathetic but professional.
8. Do Monitor Keywords and Competitors
If someone expresses issues with a competitor or poses a general question about your vertical, you should be all over it within a few hours. It’s a great opportunity to win new fans, convert seekers into customers and develop a reputation as a knowledgeable and responsive resource in your industry. Just make sure you keep off-brand replies to a non-creepy modicum.
9. Do Make an Informative Profile
Use your company or brand logo as your avatar, and state the purpose of the account clearly in your description. Your profile’s main link should direct Twitter followers to the most informative, engaging and user-friendly part of your website.
10. Do Fish Where the Fish Are
Let’s be honest: Not every brand needs to be on Twitter. Every brand should be monitoring Twitter — and we’ve written a lot about social media monitoring tools for brands on Mashable — but not every company’s customers are going to be on this site or be open to being contacted this way. If your brand has an older demographic, or if your product is of a more sensitive nature, you might want to be a silent observer of this ecosystem rather than an active participant.
by admin - April 22, 2010
To print out a document, you rely on your local operating system, which must have a driver installed for the printer you intend to use. Most of the time, it’s not an issue; at home, you probably have one printer and all of your PCs have the required drivers.
Things get a bit more complicated when you want to print something from a mobile device, like an iPad, or from a laptop based on Google’s Chrome OS, which relies entirely on web apps and services. This is why Google is working on Google Cloud Print, a service that enables “any application (web, desktop, or mobile) on any device to print to any printer.”
Google Cloud Print is still in the early days of development, but Google made the code and documentation public as part of the Chromium and Chromium OS projects. The documentation reveals how Google plans to solve some of the issues it will inevitably face, such as making Cloud Print work with legacy printers.
“The ideal experience is for your printer to have native support for connecting to cloud print services. Under this model, the printer has no need for a PC connection of any kind or for a print driver. The printer is simply registered with one or more cloud print services and awaits print jobs. Cloud-aware printers don’t exist yet, but one of our main goals in publishing this information at an early stage is to begin engaging industry leaders and the community in developing cloud-aware printers and the necessary open protocols for these printers to communicate with cloud print services.
“We want users to be able to print to legacy printers via Google Cloud Print. This is accomplished through the use of a proxy, a small piece of software that sits on a PC where the printer is installed. The proxy takes care of registering the printer with Google Cloud Print and awaiting print jobs from the service. When a job arrives, it submits the print job to the printer using the PC operating system’s native print stack and sends job status back to the printer.”
There are obviously some obstacles ahead, but it’s an amazing idea. If print jobs are handled in the cloud you won’t need drivers, and most of the problems users have with printing from devices like smartphones and tablets will be solved.
by admin - April 13, 2010
In every recessionary economic period, there are winners and losers. Those of us still in business seem to have it good as 2010 pushes on – Very good! And why is that? Well the answer for many of us is strategic marketing plans.
The notion that some businesses will benefit from a recession isn’t new – and that’sexactly why it’s worth revisiting. Keen C-suite executives and savvy marketing pros will face the current economic crisis head on: with one cautious eye on historical lessons and theother on opportunities that abound in a changing, newly emerging marketing environment.
Today, it takes steely nerve to resist the pressure to cut marketing spending at all costs.But solid historical evidence proves that companies that reduce marketing spending in arecession enter the post-recession future far weaker. Conversely, historical data also showsthat companies that continue or increase marketing and advertising spending during arecession come out the back end with stronger brands and increased market share.
But then the question arrives: "Which marketing strategy(ies) will work for my business in this new economy?"
Enter Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and Social Networking…
Historically, Search Engine Optimization, Social Networking and Social Media Marketing were considered separate activities and separate programs. As of now they are actually becoming more related and more components of one comprehensive Online Marketing Campaign.
As best and as briefly I can explain it, now is working like this. Search Engines make their money be selling ad space. They have traditionally managed this revenue by selling ads on their search engine pages. Over the last one or two years as the social platforms have skyrocketed in popularity and in usage by consumers, search engines are now selling ads on the contextual social networks.
This brings about a severe shift in the way marketing dollars are leveraged moving forward. So I ask you this:
How have you implemented your Strategic Marketing Plan for 2010 and beyond?
Apr 06, 2010 -
When I first blogged about ten ways to use LinkedIn, the site had 8.5 million total users worldwide. I’m told that now there are over twelve million small-business people on LinkedIn, which is roughly 20 percent of its total user base.
Many of these small-business people are using the site in ways you’d commonly imagine: finding leads, growing their business globally, or finding the right vendors. My buddies at LinkedIn recently provided me a list of ten additional ways small businesses can use LinkedIn:
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Acquire new customers through online recommendations and word of mouth. Satisfied customers are the best source of new customers. Increase your word of mouth referrals by asking your happy clients to write you a recommendation, which will be published on your LinkedIn profile and will be broadcast to their entire LinkedIn network.
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Keep in touch with people who care most about your business. Sites like LinkedIn help keep your business alive in the minds of the people who care most about your business. LinkedIn is effective for two reasons: the business intent of LinkedIn users and fewer status updates, which mean you stay on top of mind. Tip: You can also increase the impact of your status updates by syncing your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.
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Find the right vendors to outsource services you’re not an expert on. Think of the number of times you’ve asked your colleagues if they knew of a great web designer or photographer. LinkedIn makes it easy for you to find and vet vendors through the network of your peers. Additionally, you can also trade services with your vendor connections on LinkedIn; sort of a mutual referral system.
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Build your industry network—online and in person. Search LinkedIn’s Groups directory to find industry associations and networks to take part in. For example, if you’re in the event planning or wedding industry, there are over 530 groups. In addition, LinkedIn also surfaces popular events in your industry calling out local events that your connections are attending. Imagine being able to find only industry events that your prospective clients are attending.
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Get answers to tough business questions with a little help from your real friends. Small business owners deal with challenging questions on a slew of topics each day. LinkedIn Answers and Groups let you find answers to those vexing questions quickly by tapping into the wisdom of your network (LinkedIn tells me there are over 200 different categories on Answers including one dedicated just to small business and over 2000 groups on small business related topics). Wondering whether your recent office purchase is tax deductible? Check out hundreds of questions on related topics here.
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Win new business by answering questions in your area of expertise. Use the many forums on LinkedIn to share the knowledge you’ve gained in your area of expertise. This is a great opportunity to win new business or at least find prospective clients to pitch your business to. Prospective customers will find your answers when they use LinkedIn’s advanced Answers search. And don’t forget, what goes around comes around. Don’t forget, this is a great way to soft pitch your skills and expertise.
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Raise funding. You can use LinkedIn to find mentors or potential investors for your startup because there are over three million startup professionals and over 12M small business professionals on LinkedIn and it’s always good to stay in touch with folks who’ve been there, done that and willing to mentor you. Once you’re connected, your participation on LinkedIn (answers, status updates or group conversations) may even cause them to consider investing in your small business.
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Network with peers in your industry for repeat business referrals. LinkedIn Groups is a powerful medium to find peers in your respective industries to network with and to find complimentary businesses to share referrals with. For example, mortgage brokers can find real estate agents to partner with on relevant groups and as most small businesses know, these partners are your best source of referrals that can turn into repeat business. With over 2000 groups dedicated to small business topics, you’re sure to find a relevant group to network.
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Convince potential customers of your expertise by sharing unique blog content. Small businesses smart enough to create unique content on their expertise (either with a blog or twitter account) should link to it from their LinkedIn profiles. Or take it one step further by promoting featured blog content to LinkedIn members on the site (for e.g. with small text ads). You can specify exactly who will see your ads—Executives or VPs—and include a link to your profile so they know who’s behind this content.
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Keep your friends close and your competition closer. Over 150,000 companies have a company profile on LinkedIn, the “public profile” for companies. These pages surface key stats on companies; recent hires as well movers and shakers. Not only do company profiles give you unique insight into your competition, they also give you an opportunity to stumble upon potential hires by browsing through company pages.
I hope this helps you take LinkedIn beyond the usual uses and makes your small business even more successful.
This list will be very useful for bloggers,web designers and graphic designers to promote their articles and their services. The usage license is described for some icon packs here.If you need more information about the icons usage you can get from their source page.
To promote your blog or articles in social media world you need a creative and unique icons and i am sure you will find your most favorite and suitable icons here to include them in your blog or website.
1. WHITE MAGIK – A Free Social Icon Pack
A clean set of icons from chethstudios.Re-distribution not allowed! White Magik is perfect for white minimalistic sites and can be used with image hover for excellent looks!. It includes 45 icons in .PNG format.
2. Elegant social media Icon Pack
Just another contribution from chethstudios. An elegant design icons. Well you’re free to use in your blog. But Please DON’T re-distribute.
3.3D Social media icons
This 3D Social Media Icon Pack comes with 20 icons which include your favorite social media websites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter and lot more from dawghouse design studio.Get the license details of usage from source.
4.Vintage post stamp icons
The set comes with 23 icons of your favorite social media sites, all in 200 x 200px and in transparent PNG formats. These icons would surely be a perfect fit for your vintage or grunge themed web designs!
5.Glowing social niche icons
Neat icon set.License usage :Creative Common license BY-ND
6.Social icons sticker set
Pretty nice icons. It’s a sticker type social icons.Available in .PNG, EPS and Ai format. Free for any use.
7.Social icons vector set
Consists of 16 popular social media icons, available in both vector and PNG (64×64 pixels) format. Free for any use.
8.Social icons pack by Sylwia Besz
Clear design icons.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
9.Social media icons pack from Blogperfume
Designed as a circular style. Available in 3 sizes (128*128, 64*64, 32*32).Please feel free to use Social Media Icons Pack on both personal and commercial projects. These icons are designed by Eli a south Australia web designer. They provided these icons in two parts.
10.Woven fabric social media icon set
This set contains 26 icons of your most favorite social media sites such as Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Facebook and lot more! These icons would be perfect for websites or blogs that uses textures or a grungy theme.
11.Social icons made of wood
Wood theme icons from webtoolkit4.me .The set consists of 11 icons in PNG format (64 x 64). It’s free for both personal and commercial projects.
12.Icon texto web 2.0 inside icon pack
Download this free Windows Vista icon pack for your Website or Application. 32 icons in .PNG format.It’s free! These icons are released under CC License Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0
13.Amazing 3d social icons
A brand new set that consists of 20 3D icons in PNG format (64×64 & 128×128pixels). It’s really an awesome icons.
14.Hand drawn social icons
Very cool and creative set of drawn, sketched social icons! Have fun with this one! Hope you enjoy them.
15.Worn out soda cans-social-icon-pack
The Worn-Out Soda Cans Social Media Icon Pack is free to use for both your personal and commercial projects.The icon pack once again features icons of our favorite social media sites in 200×200, transparent PNG formats.
16.Social media icons by plechi
Free vector social media icons.This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Designed by plechi.
17.Jeans-social-media-icon-pack
Great work and unique idea the designer.Free for personal and commercial use.the credit goes to nishad.
18.vector-social-media-icons
This free set includes 50 icons of the most popular social media networks on the internet. The icons are designed in 32px and 16px vector format. With the vector format. Now this icon pack is updated recently.This icon set is released under is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
19.Minimum-icon-set
This minimum social media icon set.includes deviantart, delicious, flickr, Gmail, twitter.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
20.Grunge peeling stickers social media icons
This Icon Pack is chuck full of 20 Grunge Peeling Social Media Stickers, This Free Icon Pack is for use in your personal and commercial projects, and can be used without attribution. It may not be redistributed.
21.Iconshock’s free social icon pack
Smooth edge icons and a classy look.It’s a freebie from Iconshock.
22.Wooden badges icon pack
The icon pack contains web and social media icons such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Twitter and several others!.This icon pack is free to use for both your personal and commercial projects but may not be sold or redistributed in any way.
22.Icon pack with PSD
A full set of icons ready for use with mac and pc. Attached with PSD.
23.Social grunge icons
Grunge effect in social icons made in a elegant way.available in PNG format.Designed By: tydlinka
24.Networking and Bookmarking icon set
There are a total of 36 icons with 9 different Social Media – Networking & Bookmarking sites.Of course this pack is going to be regularly updated and reorganized .License/Usage : Free for personal and Commercial work
25.Icons made with the type tool and helvetica
Helvetica social Icons that are 99% made with the type tool in Photoshop.
Everything is made with the type tool in Photoshop and variations of the Helvetica font.There aren’t really any typographical icons around the web like this icons.Free to download and use.
26.Social web button sets
There are 20 social web buttons in two sizes and two colors. Download is free.
27.Old bottle crowns icon set
The icon set consists of 20 very unique and never before created bottle crown icons such as Digg, Stumble Upon, Twitter, Delicious, Technorati and a whole lot more.These icons are free to use for both your personal and commercial projects but may not be redistributed or sold in any way.
28.Gummy-social-icon-set
29.Social trucks icon set
Social Truck Icon set consists of 10 social network icons; These cute icons are designed by Andrea Austoni . Andrea is an Italian freelance designer currently living in Krakow, Poland. He specializes in icon design and illustration.these icons are absolutely free and you are allowed to use them in personal or commercial project. Just don’t redistribute
30.32 Pixel Social Media Icons
Free for personal and commercial use.Cute design.
31.Web 2.0 Gift Icons by IconsPedia
This icon pack contains 14 icons, including popular social bookmarking services and our favourite browser Firefox etc… The icons are available in PNG, ICO and ICNS format. They are free to use for both personal and commercial projects, including websites, templates & software. You are not allowed to sell or redistribute the icons anywhere else.
A Big treat from webtreat
In this below lists you are going to view a massive contribution of webtreats.mysitemyway.com in social media icons.They have done a great work in social media icons! and these are high quality designs.
32.Glowing Neon Social Networking Icons
108 free high-resolution Glowing Neon Social Networking Icons. 2,000 more icons of this style will soon be released on ETC format.
33.Crystal clear bubble icons
It’s an updated set of icons including Drupal,Deviant art icons etc… They are free to download and use. 154 icons available.
34.Blue Chrome Rain icons
2000 more icons are available in this style in webtreats.
35.Orange grunge stickers
Wonderful orange social media icons in grunge style with some pop out effect.
36.Black paint splatter icons
No attribution necessary for these icon packs.Splatter effect in social media icons it’s a creative and unique concept from the designers.
37.Red and white pearl icons
38.Glossy black glass icons
20 web icons in .png format made with these styles, and a layered psd of the image below, which has editable text should you want to use this as a text effect.
39.Blue Jelly Social Media Icons
40.In-focus simple white icons
This matching set is designed to be put in the sidebar of your theme so you can link to your social media profiles.There are 10 more color variations for icon set is available.
41.Glossy waxed wood icons
42.Retro Grunge Stripes Social Media Icons
A classy look and these icons meet international standars.Retro Grunge Stripes Social Media Icons.
43.Crumpled paper social icons
A creative look for social media icons by this way.It’s suitable anything like grunge or crumpled themes.
44.Glassy space social icons
Just another beautiful glassy style icons.
45.Grunge-warning-stripes
46.Vibrant pattern icons
This vibrant pattern icons social media logos set includes the most popular social bookmarking and networking icons (Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and Yahoo logos etc…
47.Twitter icons
Free set of unique twitter graphics.There really is no limit to what you can do with this brilliant set, lovingly designed by Pasquale D’Silva.The set includes 40 Files in total, all in transparent .png format.
48.Twitter icons by sibusinho
Really a cute twitter icon for your blogs or websites.Also only noncommercial use is allowed.
49.Twitter icons promo set
This breaks down to roughly 1,800 icons added to each existing set and 20 brand new sets! Here’s a little twitter promo pack with 53 twitter icons, one from each set!.
50.RSS cheese icon style
The set contains 4 high resolution RSS icons that come in four sizes: 512×512, 256×256, 128×128 and 64×64. Icons are completely free and can be used without any restrictions in any type of project including commercial projects.
The end of 2009 showed a record high in online ad spending – $6.3 billion for Q4. This is the largest amount ever spent on online advertising in a single quarter, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).
Despite general economic distress, several areas related to the technology sector are picking up the pace again. We told you yesterday that venture capital, which funds much of the tech startup world, is witnessing a surge of interest and investment.
There was a slight decline in online ad spending between 2008 and 2009, the report reveals [PDF]. Advertisers spent $22.7 billion online in 2009 — 3.4% less than they spent in 2008. However, the economy was still strong enough in the beginning of 2008 to skew numbers for an otherwise economically depressed year. Also, Q4 2009 numbers represent a 2.6% increase from Q4 2008 and a robust 14% growth from ad spending in Q3 2009.
In general, advertisers are showing love for web ad spends. Compared to traditional broadcast and print media, 17% of ad budgets were allocated to the web — up from 8% in 2008. This is a number that has been on the rise for the past several years, proving that the Internet is a more significant part of ad budgets — and marketing and PR plans — than ever before.
Search is the most traditional element of online advertising, and this sector claims 47% of online ad dollars. Display ads grew by 8% over the year, but one sector of display advertising outperformed the rest: Digital video advertising, where ad spending increased by almost 39% between 2008 and 2009.
As consumers spend more and more time on sites like YouTube, Facebook and the like — twice as much time as they spend watching TV, studies show — advertisers and brands are paying attention to the old marketing adage, “Fish where the fish are.”
Staff at the Federal Trade Commission are poised to recommend that the U.S. government challenge Google’s acquisition of mobile ad network AdMob for antitrust reasons, according to multiple reports.
Yesterday a report from the Wall Street Journal indicated that the FTC has assembled a litigation team that could be utilized in any lawsuit filed against Google. Now a new report from Reuters suggests that the FTC will indeed make a recommendation to block the Google AdMob acquisition.
Google announced the $750 million purchase of AdMob in early November — nearly five months ago. Since then, it has sat in regulatory purgatory as the FTC mulls whether the deal will result in an over-consolidation of advertising power. All the while, Apple’s been making the most of the AdMob acquisition downtime, launching its iAd platform tomorrow.
If the FTC’s staff does recommend that the government pursue litigation against Google, it would still require approval from the commission’s higher-ups (the commissioners and the Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition especially). Regardless, it would at the very least delay the Google-AdMob deal for many more months.
Apple’s recent entry into the ad space could make all of the difference in whether the Google-AdMob deal is blocked or not. Google is very likely to point towards Apple’s iAd platform as a sign that the market will remain competitive, even after the acquisition. Whether regulators will agree is a question that only time will answer.
The result is that Apple has a head start on Google.
A slew of online applications are attempting to eliminate the headache of scheduling meetings. And, unlike their proprietary older brothers, such as Outlook and iCal, these new entrants into the scheduling market are completely web-based, compatible with Google Calendar, and best of all, don’t require your invitees to install software or register on their site.
After giving all of these a test-drive, I have not found one service I would use exclusively — each one seems to have some attractive features. Here is the run down of the four applications that just might make the logistics of scheduling a little easier.
1. Doodle
Doodle is a pleasantly light, quick-and-dirty scheduler with the most intuitive interface of the four services I reviewed.
Step 1: Name the meeting. Step 2: Propose up to five possible times for said meeting. And… that’s it. Invitees are given a link to a spreadsheet-like interface where they check each one of their availability times. Everyone’s availability is neatly delineated with bright green and red squares on a calendar, and there’s a clear tally of the number of people available per time. The admin scheduler picks a time and e-mails it to the invitees. Done! In all, it takes only a few minutes, and neither the scheduler nor the invitees have to register on Doodle.
Notable Features: Like all of the services we sampled, Doodle integrates with Google Calendar(
) and popular desktop schedulers. It also has an iPhone app (for $2.99). Additionally, Doodle has a cool option to canvass attendees on options for a meeting, like what type of cuisine they’d prefer.
2. Tungle
Tungle is more feature-rich, and is designed for those of us who have so many meetings that it’s difficult to remember all the factors and people being considered. Scheduling is a 3-step process:
1) Name the meeting and give it a duration; 2) Invite participants (with e-mail addresses); and 3) Propose a time. Unlike Doodle, Tungle has a graphical calendar interface where the mouse pointer can be scrolled over large swaths of days and times. Invitees receive an e-mail which links to a similar graphical interface that denotes other users’ activities. The final meeting time is e-mailed to all participants.
Notable Features: Tungle has a brand new feature (exclusively launched with this post) that allows groups of registered individuals to see their overlapping availability. Simply type in something like tungle.me/greg,josh,wolverine, and my, my editor’s, and my comic book hero’s availability is displayed. Tungle, too, has an iPhone app, which is available for free.
3. ScheduleOnce
ScheduleOnce’s graphical user interface and scheduler is very similar to Tungle’s, and requires about the same amount of time to schedule a meeting. As far as I could tell, schedulers will need to send the link via e-mail, and this could make it more difficult to keep track of invitees. Additionally, unlike Tungle, meeting times are selected on a horizontal time line. This seems more intuitive if the meeting time being considered is only for a single day, but more confusing if multiple days are up in the air.
Notable Features: ScheduleOnce has an integrated plugin for Google Calendar and Gmail, which places a box (in Gmail) right above the chat window that displays upcoming meetings. It can also find group availability like Tungle.
4. TimeBridge
TimeBridge has a similar graphical user interface to Tungle and ScheduleOnce, but there is a limit to five proposed times (at least in the free version). Time Bridge, like ScheduleOnce, allows invitees to show their preference for a favorite meeting time by selecting “Best” from a list of “Yes,” “No,” and “Best.”
It should be noted that TimeBridge is more than just a scheduler. It offers phone conferencing, online meetings, and to-do lists. Additionally, TimeBridge was by far the most aggressive advertiser. I was offered a coupon for free coffee (twice) and got multiple pop-ups to try new features and sign up for premium membership.
Notable Features: Instead of the scheduler playing king, TimeBridge allows invitees to propose meeting times, which might be the most convenient way to corral a busy team in some cases. TimeBridge also has a free iPhone app.
Conclusion
First, for those concerned with privacy, each one of the online applications is subject to OAuth protocol, which masks sensitive information from service providers.
Second, I would recommend trying out each service. Below is a comparison chart of features, but each app has its own unique interface, and it’s ultimately up to you to decide which one works best for your team.
