This dramatic spend shift, has certainly been a major component of the closure of 1 in 2 newspapers in the USA over the last 12 months, as advertisers realise they can deliver results (enquiries, sales and branding) at a fraction of the cost online, vs. the tradtional media channels they have been using.

For local business these kind of statistics should be re-enforcing marketing planning into online media. Viewing the detail shows the key areas of growth are search (effectively Google in New Zealand), directories – increasingly new local offers (see NZS.com and Hotfrog.co.nz here) and vertical directories (good local examples menumania.co.nz for restaurants and equinetrader.co.nz for the horse market).

Online Video is clearly identified as a growth driver through businesses advertising with video online and ensuring their listings in directories and in search engines are re-enforced with video to both stand out and increase conversions.

Unsuprising that search, directories and video are fundamentally changing local advertising behaviour. The old channels did work, they were just expensive and media companies ran obsene proft margins for these, well done to them. They have not adapted fast enough and now small businesses can reach their market more effectively, efficiently and affordably.

If you are small business that is not or is considering changing your marketing mix, drop us a line, we’ll add some distinct value to ensure you get more bang for your hard-earner buck.

YouTube has launched a home page redesign which brings search more to the fore. Not surprising given it is the second biggest search engine on the web, after parent company Google. However I suspect the redesign is more about the launch of YouTube AdSense.  

An evolutionary change reducing clutter and putting focus on search. YouTube  ran an astoundingly large multivariate experiment with over 1,024 versions on the US-English homepage. Utilizing Google Website Optimizer, they made small changes to three key sections on the homepage with the goal of increasing the number of people who signed up for an account. They claim the results were impressive: the new page performed 15.7% better than the original, resulting in thousands more sign-ups and personalized views to the homepage every day.

The push on search and the imminent launch of YouTube adsense, further prioritises the need for companies to ensure their content/message is not only on video sharing sites like YouTube but that their online video is also correctly tagged and optimized. We have achieved good results for our clients in this area, and this change further prioritises our focus on YouTube marketing.

Check out the YouTube blog on their multivariate experiment.

Below is a good example of some our customers videos at http://www.silverlinemedia.tv optimised to appear on top of long tail searches on bing. We have certainly seen Bing take a 15% share of video search referrals vs Google for our customers, and this is producing enough return for our customers to invest more time and energy into dominating for Bing. 

  At Silverlinemedia.tv we disitribute our clients contents across the 12 major video sharing sites and several video search engines as well as the definite Google and emerging Bing. Optimising (video seo) and positioning online video (keyword/phrase targeting) is critical and for small businesses can ensure that their content is top of and/or dominating  search engines for targeted terms.  

Drop us a line on your Bing SEO Video success.

Emarketeer

In August, before the full impact of the economic slowdown and its impact on the technology sector was apparent, eMarketer had predicted online ad spending would grow by 14.5 percent in 2009.

No suprises. Display has a terrific role to play in brand enagement as well as ROI and now with broadband, consumer video habits and a plethora of agency and SME video solutions and ideas the advertiser can really engage their audience with video advertising and content via the PC and increasingly through the take-up of the ‘new’ devices. Our view a targeted engaging piece of video vs. dead trees and mass broadcast. Let battle commence.