We see advertising everywhere, created with professionalism, flair and class. Looking closely at the ads we see dollar signs which imply that this must cost big dollars. That may be money you can’t afford to spend. You hesitate to spend this money only to throw it away without a guarantee of return from your investment.

Before you begin to take that leap into the unknown, I have a few ideas that might make it a little easier.

If you know what you want to achieve from your advertising, then you are already way ahead in the process. If you think of advertising as one element of the broad field of marketing, you’ll find it less confusing.

There are many forms and avenues to choose from. Some are:

• posting in forums using your signature link
• business cards
• gathering an email file of your previous customers
• having home parties
• magazines
• newspapers
• directories
• online search engines ad
• having your own web site and exchanging linking banners
• TV and radio spots
• billboards
• fliers
• direct mail
• magnetic car signs and bumper stickers.

There is a saying… “If you don’t build it, they won’t come.” If you don’t advertise, they may not find you.

Blogs, or Web logs, is one of the online services used by millions of online individuals today either for personal or business use. They use it to share ideas, personal experiences, or even tips and tricks in random topics.

According to Wikipedia, it is a website were entries are written in chronological order and displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Blogs are independent, Web-based journals containing opinion about anything and everything.It is a personal diary that you write to everyday- except that it is on a website.However, blogs are often misperceived by people who don’t read them.

A blog can also be a very powerful marketing tool for your business, and some people actually earn an income just from blogging alone.

Often a question asked is “How a blog can benefit my business?”

• Develop relationship with customers
• Sell the product
• Build your brand and differentiate your company
• Affordable and speedy marketing tool
• Improved search engine optimization
• Increased traffic to your website

It not only helps to market the brand and increase customer interaction but blog also acts as a promotional tool for your website.

The challenge for marketers is to make sense of voices out there and to incorporate their ideas into our own.

Marketers have a good reason for jumping into the blog world using three steps:

• monitoring what people are saying about your company and products
• begin to leave comments on the blogs that are important for your industry and company
• finally, begin to shape those conversations by creating and writing your own blog

Organizations use blogs to understand their reputation and monitor them to find out what people are saying about them.

McDonald’s, one of the most recognized brands in the world has jumped into blogging by launching Open for Discussion a blog that focuses on social responsibility at the company.

In the end I would conclude by saying that starting the blog is easy but what is important is turning your blog into a strategic tool that drives traffic and sales to your online business.

Famous blogging sites

One of the latest technologies these days ” Bluetooth” is being used by companies to attract customers.

“Bluetooth Technology allows devices such as mobile phones, computers, personal digital assistants to communicate without wire as soon as they come into range.”

Bluetooth marketing is the process of transmitting promotional content through this bluetooth wireless technology to potential customers. To transmit bluetooth messages a bluetooth transmitting product is required.

This technology is being used by marketers to send  huge range of digital content, including plain text, images, audio, video, vouchers and games. Bluetooth technology is currently being used in predominantly three marketing situations :

• Point of Sale Promotions

When fitted in shop windows people walking past with bluetooth enabled phones will receive the promotional message from the store. This may be a special promotion and is often enough to encourage the recipient to enter the store.

• Billboard Advertising

Through fitting billboard posters with bluetooth transmission devices you can interact with people within the vicinity of your poster. For example, to support your billboard campaign you could send a branded game via bluetooth to peoples’ phones. This helps to overcome one of the major disadvantages of billboard advertising – the absence of a strong call to action.

• Field Promotions

Portable units can be carried by promotional staff, automatically sending bluetooth messages to anyone within the vicinity of the staff. This is particularly effective when combined with leafleting.

Innovative businesses have been using bluetooth based mobile advertising for free brand awareness, lead generation, outwit competition, improve customer service and free & effective advertising.

The real potential in bluetooth marketing lies in its low cost. Unlike SMS marketing it costs nothing to send a bluetooth message.

Bluetooth marketing companies earn their money through placing bluetooth marketing devices in prime locations, such as retail stores, and selling advertising space on them. However, companies also rent out the devices, especially the portable ones.

Like every coin has two sides, bluetooth marketing too has its disadvantages :

• Bluetooth marketing is only effective if the target audience can actually receive these messages. Some people are yet to upgrade to bluetooth-enabled phones, whilst others have switched the bluetooth capability in their phones.

• Recipients can be confused about the message, in particular why it has been sent. Consequently it can be quickly dismissed as spam, or worse, worry recipients into thinking that it’s a virus.

• There is also a concern that as the bluepod marketing industry grows consumers will become inundated with promotional messages, reducing the effectiveness of messages and resulting in many people turning off their phone’s bluetooth capability.

Often, a question asked is how companies use bluetooth technology? Let’s ask Denny for the answer…….

The homepage displays a live Twitter feed,  showing any tweets with the word “skittles” in them and similarly, a “Videos” option displays YouTube and a “Pictures” option shows Flickr . Need to know what flavors and colors Skittles offers? The Wikipedia report is there. Need to know about Skittles’ fans? Facebook page is on display….Things will be constantly changing and rotating, simply providing a whole new look at Skittles through the social media world.

The move has created a major buzz for the brand online and sent “Skittles” to the top of Twitter’s list of most discussed topics. Tweets have been flowing in continously of a racy, profane or off-putting nature. Other people have posted on completely unrelated topics, usually peddling some website or brand, followed by the term “#skittles” so it shows up in the tweet stream.

“It is a very bold campaign in the sense that they are letting consumers speak on behalf of the brand,” says Chad Stoller, executive director of emerging platforms at Organic, a digital-marketing firm owned by Omnicom Group, whose digital-ad shop Agency.com created the site.

The Skittles site requires users to enter their date of birth, as it doesn’t advertise to users under the age of 12. Do you think this strategy to target older audiences will prove to be successful?

Will it change the way we look at skittles?

Viral is today’s electronic equivalent of old-fashioned word of mouth. It  is a marketing strategy that creates an online  idea or message that spreads the message across the web like a virus with little time, maximum effect and no extra cost  to the advertiser.

As mentioned by Seth Godin, there are two kinds of Viral Marketing : The original classic sort in which the marketing is the product and which a self-amplifying cycle occurs. For example Hotmail or YouTube and the second one is  a marketing campaign that spreads but isn’t the product itself.

One of the amazing example is of the Cadbury Advert which attracted millions of views thanks to the web that came in the form of a gorilla playing the drums for Cadbury’s.

This is just classic…

“All viral means … is that you’ve created a message that people want to share. It’s proof that your message is resonating,” says Gregg Spiridellis, who co-founded animation and design studio JibJab with his brother. “If people want to pass it along, that’s what brand marketing is all about.”

In summer 2006, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz on their eepybird website made a video of an extreme experiment to answer the question  : “What happens when you combine 200 litres of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints?”. It caused a fantastic viral phenomenon. Millions of people have viewed this video…..which gave an exposure to the company at no extra cost.

One of the most exciting and powerful ways to reach your audience is when others tell your story for you….that’s what Viral marketing does.

Next time you have an explosive news, you know what to do

Go  Viral

After going through the presentation I gained some valuable information and I hope it would be useful for you as well….

Photo sharing is the publishing or transfer of a user’s digital photos online, thus enabling the user to share them with others (whether publicly or privately). This functionality is provided through both websites and applications that facilitate the upload and display of images.

It  is not confined to the web and personal computers but is also possible from portable devices such as cameraphones, using applications that can automatically transfer photos as you take them, to photo sharing sites and photoblogs, either directly or via MMS.

Potential uses of Photo Sharing for Marketing purposes :

• Photo Sharing Websites offer the possibility to share and spread your company values, events, products and services through photos or logos. Whether they are funny, serious or controversial, it doesn’t even matter.

• Sharing Websites also makes it easy to have others reuse your content and spread it through their own blogs, websites and social networking pages.

• It can reach a huge audience for minimal investment and make an emotional connection with the viewers.

• It can be used by companies as a tool to create brand image.

The web is not a TV, it is the closest thing to the physical world. It has brought changes to marketing and has opened tremendous opportunities for companies to reach potential customers and convert them into actual customers. Social Media Marketing is different from advertising because people can talk back. The power has gone away from the marketer.

In a webcentric world of the long tail, facebook, youtube, flickr, blogs etc organizations are communicating directly with their customers.  Instead of, spending huge amounts on TV commercials which would not bring in any money companies should understand the buyer and his/her needs and think about a message for the niche audiences. Today some of the most successful internet businesses rely on the  theory of Long Tail to reach customers and satisfy demands for products not found in stores.

Social media represents low-cost tools that are  internet or mobile based like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube which give marketers voice and a way to communicate with their peers,  customers and potential customers. It personalizes the “brand” and helps to spread the message in a relaxed and conversational way.  This  not only creates repeat-buyers, but customer loyalty.

From headhunters that find job applicants to new businesses that want to introduce a new product as well as already established Fortune 500 companies that want to strengthen their brand are using social media. The fact is that social media is so diversified that it can be used in whatever way best suits the interest and the needs of  the business.

Not only small companies but, also big companies like BMW, Apple, Mc Donalds, Coke, etc  are using social media to market their products and strengthen their brand image.