Business Insider, Chart of the Day

Apple’s Market Cap Closing In On Microsoft’s (MSFT, AAPL)

Remember when Apple was on death’s door and needed an investment from Microsoft to survive? Well, a lot’s changed since then.  In May 2000, Apple’s market capitalization was $17 billion. Today it’s $182 billion. Meanwhile, Microsoft was around $356 billion in May 2000. Today it’s around $261 billion.

Jay Yarow and Kamelia Angelova

Cost per click for paid search is on the rise forcing companies to spend more on their Search Engine Marketing. With Google’s monopoly on search growing, expect average rates to continue to rise.

Using superficial metrics, such as click through rates and cost per click to inform your Search Marketing decisions can reduce campaign effectiveness.  Often you can increase your performance by focusing on deeper revenue-impacting measurements, such as profit per order, cost per unique customer and activity measurements such as time spent on site or click path.

To make the most out of your Ad spend, consider these best practices:

1. Organize your Ad spend into campaigns, identify the main purpose of your campaign

•    eCommerce – to sell products or services online
•    Lead Gen – to generate leads
•    Drive Ad Revenue – in an effort to sell ad space
•    Online Service – to reduce call centre calls and support customers online

2. Select and track important metrics that matter

•    Click through rate and cost per click are important measures, but conversion is the most important metric to optimize search campaigns
•    Measure overall revenue, leads and CPA (cost per acquisition)
•    Measure cost per customer (or sale), return on ad spend, and profit per customer (or order)

3.  Reinforce your message consistently from the keywords or phrase to your landing page

•    Broad keywords should take visitors to general landing pages – perfect for casting a big net
•    Exact keywords should take visitors to a specific landing page – expect less traffic, but higher conversion

4.  Create multiple version of landing pages – validate your strategies with facts

•    Create different version of the landing page; make sure there’s a noticeable difference or you won’t know what to fix
•    The headline in your Text Ad should match the headline on your landing page and call to action
•    Clearly state your call to action — what do you want the potential customer to do?
•    Briefly explain the benefits and value proposition of your product or service

5. Have an effective keyword organization strategy

•    Don’t manage key words and phrases manually using using Excel – you’re limiting your ability to effectively scale search marketing campaigns

•    Resource properly – give yourself and your team enough time to manage, organize and execute – Search Engine Marketing takes time

Good luck and let me know how it goes!

The game-changing news is that Apple has done away with copy protection technology known as digital-rights management or DRM. “DRM-free” means music can be copied an unlimited number of times, to any device. It remains to be seen if this change in business model drives net new paying customers to iTunes (or those previously known as the pirates).

Well, ongoing research is demonstrating that brands that ignor iPhone application strategy for their products are, and will be,  leaving money on the table. In market research terms, iPhone users have now become their own “segment”.

Not only is the device a ‘game changer’ changing the way human beings percieve content, the iPhone is now its own marketplace. The App Store, controlled by Apple enables anyone to either distribute their own iPhone application for free, or collect fees for each download. Whilst Apple takes 30% of the sales revenues, the 70% revenue to the developer is appealing and previously unheard of in the mobile applications business.

If it’s time for your company to start thinking about your mobile application strategy, check this out. The Amazing iPhone is a free report developed by Kinsey Netmedia, a UK social media and mobile consultancy. It’s full of useful insight for iPhone developers and business owners. Most of the info is obvious for those living in the iPhone and mobile world for some time. Get it here.

“The reports starts off with an overview of the iPhone and the opportunities available on the App Store. A lot of it will be apparent to anyone who’s been in the iPhone world for a while, but it could make a great report to pass on to your bosses, clients, investors, or other people who need to get up to speed fast. It also goes into how mobile development was before the iPhone and contrasts it to the newer techniques.” As reviewed by TechCrunch

The Social Media conversation is powered by Web 2.0 which is now effectively more popular than porn, it’s clear it’s not a fad.

Social Media is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. Brands that understand the importance of an intimate conversation with their customers stand to benefit with runaway growth.

Online communities are important and it’s even more important that brands engage with their customers in the way their customers want to engage with them.

Tibs.com is part of the Twitter ecosystem and is currently tracking businesses on Twitter. Twibs indexes the 4, 500 + business (and growing) on Twitter who are engaging in a conversation with their customers.

The discussions that customers have about a brand are of critical importance and it is in those conversations that a brand is elevated or tarnished. These ideas run contrary to traditional lifestyle marketing. Mike Trap of Scaleable Intimacy suggests the power of the dialogue demonstrates that brands are not composed of the people who buy their product, but that people are composed of the brands they use.

If you’re already in the twitter-sphere or starting your journey, consider adding me to your follows here: http://twitter.com/marinamann

According to Chris Anderson, the idea of “feeconomics” is not a new one; making money by giving something away has been going on for some time. Chris Anderson is one of my favorite speakers. I had the exalt and the pain of following Anderson at an Infopresse conference last year. At the time, he was on his book tour for The Long Tail based on his 2004 articulation of how technology enabled infinite shelf space and make niche markets viable. His article shook up business thinking in a lot media & entertainment boardrooms.

In January 2008, Anderson wrote the thought provoking article Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business. In it, he explains that the new model of “free” is not based on a cross-subsidy or the shifting of say a “free” mobile phone in exchange for a 3-year contract. But because the cost of products is falling so fast, brands can offer “free” for free and charge for stuff that costs them money. “Once a marketing gimmick, free has emerged as a full-fledged economy.”

Has Anderson picked up on an idea or are we all monkey typing on our laptop keyboards? Years ago, when Adam Neate was starting out as a software developer come artist, he left about 6,000 paintings on cardboard on the streets of London. Today his paintings sell for tens of thousands of dollars but as I write this, Neate and his band of friends and collaborators are leaving 10,000 of his paintings in all 32 of London’s boroughs. Free culture, free art, free internet – a world wide Web.

The proposed partnership deal, first announced in June 2008, would have allowed Yahoo to display ads from Google and then take a portion of the revenue.  Google’s current share of the online ad market is estimated to be as high as 70 percent, with Yahoo controlling 20 percent and Microsoft controlling between 8 percent and 10 percent.  If a deal between Google and Yahoo were to go through, Google would have ended up controlling 90 percent of the search advertising market – a prospect that scared many marketers and advertisers.  The outcome would have invariably meant, higher prices, and worse: Yahoo inventory at Google prices!  Moreover, because Google’s search results generate higher revenue than Yahoo, the latter was planning to exit search marketing all together and essentially outsource it’s advertising to Google. If only the U.S. Department of Justice was as diligent at regulating financial services…

Read more about the saga on CNET: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10082800-93.html

To register a business or residential, wireless, fax, or VoIP telephone number on the National Do Not Call List (DNCL), you must call the National DNCL Service Line at 1-866-580-3625 from the number you wish to remove.

Will Telemarketers move to a more customer-centric Online Marketing Strategy?
You could argue that this legislation demonstrates Canadian customers (both business-to-business and business-to-consumer) have government support in demanding corporations become more customer centric. It’s great news for customers and, of course, great news for Online Marketers aimed at achieving profitable acquisition and retention of customers.

We can expect a strong infusion in Online Marketing in 4th quarter of this year as organizations (and their Marketing agencies) have no choice but to move a big portion of their telemarketing spend online. Good-bye mass faxes and automated calling systems. Hello mass emailing, online positioning and online advertising strategies.  The infusion of cash into Canadian online Marketing will hopefully result in innovation in digital Marketing. Cross your fingers the $$ won’t go into traditional online marketing and end up banners no one clicks on or worse, SPAM.

If you need a quick refresh of customer centric approaches to e-Marketing, check out David Chaffey summary of the Top 10 e-Marketing strategies to consider .