Webvertising
"In a world of abundance, the only factor becoming scarce is human attention"
Kevin Kelly "New Rules for the New Economy", Wired september 1997
The Internet is a highly competitive environment. Communication is permanently
under fire of competing multimedia excitements. Attention has become an ever
more scarce resource. Reaching the target audience is by no means self-evident.
the need for competitive advantage
To survive in this digital jungle, competitive advantage is crucial. A
well-developed, engaging website, geared towards the needs of your audience,
is an important first step. But a decisive second step is often ignored:
attracting the target audience to your website.
the competition
The Web contains a vast amount of information. Several hundreds of millions
of webpages are served by hundreds of thousands of webservers. The rate of
growth is phenomenal. Most of the largest search engines already have indexes
that approach one hundred million webpages. This means that your website will
have millions of competitors in the struggle for the scarce attention of your
target audience. The key question: how to survive the battle
for attention?
the web is a pull medium
One important thing to note is that the web is a so-called pull medium.
Information on webpages is not actively and directly delivered to the audience,
but only sent upon request. Before information can be requested, users
will either have to know your website, or they have to be able to find it.
basic promotion
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CASE: ERCOMER
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ERCOMER is a specialised research institute on migration and ethnic
relations. We made an elaborate Internet promotion strategy for them based on
a virtual community of professionals in their field. One of the
building blocks was the virtual library on migration and ethnic relations,
a central forum for information and communication. A close relationshop
with many users has been built through use of simple push media.
The results were impressive: over a million visitors in just over a year.
Currently, the website receives about 5000 visitors per day, many of them
regular visitors. More than 1500 other sites have included a link to
the ERCOMER website.
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Luckily, the Internet presents numerous unique opportunities for attracting
attention. A first step is to make sure that your website is properly listed
in all important search engines and relevant directories. This involves careful
keywording of webpages, adding page descriptions for search engine
result screens, regular page submissions to relevant engines and directories,
getting listed on related sites, contacting news and discussion groups, etc.
This website promotion is extremely important, and should be taken extremely serious.
ALCAZAR Global Networking has a lot of experience in this field, as can be seen from
the ERCOMER case. We can help your organisation too!
targeted webvertising
Webvertising, or advertising on the Internet has some great advantages. One
of the most important is close targeting. Advertisements can be
delivered only to people who are interested in your products or services.
Consider the advertising opportunities offered at some search engines. Try
entering the word "car" in one of the major search engines. In the search
results screen, it will include a banner advertisement of a major car brand. This
banner will take the user immediately to the website of the car manufacturer.
Entering the words "new car" will lead to the website of a car dealer.
You buy advertising space at major search engines, and deliver your banners
to closely targeted users. If you are a marketeer for a high-end car brand
for example, you could target your advertisements only at people who enter
a query with the words car, mercedes®, volvo®, or bmw®.
Using these sophisticated techniques you can deliver your marketing communication
messages to the right users and exactly at the moment when their need for
new products or services arises.
accurate measuring
One of the other great advantages of webvertising is the possibility
for accurate measuring. Not only the number of times an advertisement
has been displayed (often called impressions) can be measured, but also the
number of times that an interested user has clicked on the banner (click-thru's).
The click-thru ratio (CTR) gives an impression of the effectiveness of
banner advertisements to attract users to the target website.
banners
Banners are the Internet's equivalent of advertisements in print media.
Traditional advertisers have long been sceptical of the effectiveness of
banner advertising. More recently, however, the unique potential of is
gradually being recognized. The question is no longer "do banners
work?", but "which banners work, and why?".
simple static banners
The static banner was the first type of advertisment on the Internet. It
is most similar to a traditional print advertisment.
static banner for Vromans Gallery
Advantages are that
are easy made, quickly loaded, and accepted on every website. As for the
disadvantages, they might run the risk of looking dull and old-fashioned.
Static banners might attract little attention in a time of flashy multimedia
fireworks.
animated banners
Animated banners are banners with action. These banners contain moving
elements: flashing lights, dancing girls, changing colors, etc. Animated
banners are very popular nowadays.
animated banner for ALCAZAR Global Networking
The multiple frames of animated banners allow for more
information to be communicated. Effectiveness studies also show that these
banners produce considerably higher click through rates. On one
of the largest advertising sites, Ziff Davis' ZD Net, animated banners
have 15 to 40 percent higher CTR's than static banners.
interactive Banners
The hottest way of advertising is the interactive banner. This type of
banner invites the user to do something more than just clicking on it.
The interaction can be as simple as entering information or making a choice,
or it can be as sophisticated as playing a complete online game withing the
banner.
appearingly interactive banner joking ALCAZAR's director
Engaging the user is an obvious strength of interactive banners. But there are
also some disadvantages: it can take longer to load, and the user might
be gone by the time the banner is ready to display. In addition, these
type of banners usually require multimedia helper applications like
ShockWave® or Java-enabled browsers. Part of your audience might
therefore not be able to display such banners at all.
Advertise on the Internet with us!
Over the last few years, ALCAZAR
Global Networking has gained extensive experience with Internet promotion
and webvertising. We can deliver a comprehensive internet promotion
strategy, based on thorough analysis. Answering questions like: who
are your target groups? what to tell them? where do they hang out?
how can we attract their attention? how to engage them?
If you want to advertise on the Internet, don't hesitate to contact us.
More information is available in a free printed brochure. Ask for it now!
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