Search Clinic Blog news stories about online marketing

Dr Search of the Search Clinic predicted yesterday's Financial Times lead story that Yahoo and Microsoft are to merge their search engine business.

On my post of Monday, July 20, 2009 Microsoft and Yahoo! deal is getting close
http://www.searchclinic.org/2009/07/microsoft-and-yahoo-deal-is-getting.html

The ongoing saga that is the Microsoft and Yahoo! deal is back on again. And apparently this time it’s a more realistic proposition than ever.

The Financial Times story also reads:

Yahoo ran into a fresh wave of doubts in the financial and technology worlds yesterday as it bowed out of the race to compete with Google.

In a deal that caps more than two years of effort by Microsoft to secure a foothold in Yahoo's search business as a way to challenge Google, Yahoo will hand control of its internet search technology to the software group on terms that fell short of expectations.

Although less drastic than the $48bn (£29bn) acquisition of Yahoo that Microsoft proposed last year, the move would be costly for Microsoft and difficult to implement, but could for the first time make it a credible long-term rival to the search group, according to analysts.

News of the technology alliance brought an abrupt end yesterday to the six-month honeymoon that followed the appointment of outsider Carol Bartz as Yahoo's chief executive. Yahoo shares slumped by 12 per cent as Wall Street expressed doubts about the financial benefits and the long-term impact on the internet media giant.

"The market is disappointed, justifiably," said Larry Haverty, money manger at Gamco, which has 1.6m Yahoo shares. He said Yahoo now resembled a consumer media company such as Time Warner and might not still be independent in five years.

Ms Bartz said that the deal would free Yahoo to focus on its main strengths of media and advertising, while greatly reducing its costs. "If you got the chance to offer the same service at no cost, you'd be crazy as a business leader not to do that," she said in an interview with the Financial Times.

The focus on display advertising and media drew comparisons with AOL, which has struggled to find an effective strategy since the dotcom bust at the beginning of the decade. Ms Bartz has failed to ex-plain how Yahoo will stay com-p-et-itive in the long term, said Allen Weiner, an analyst at Gartner.

Yahoo stockholders were alarmed that it was surrendering its technology position while gaining far less than anticipated annual savings, which had been estimated at as much as $1bn. Ms Bartz, who had earlier promised "boatloads of money" from any deal, said she had given up the idea of an upfront payment in favour of a larger share of future search advertising revenues from Microsoft.

The deal will face intense antitrust scrutiny, since opposition in Washington blocked a proposed Yahoo search deal with Google last year.

Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said the deal was the only way to ensure viable competition in the long term, and said he knew of no other case where a company with as great a share as Google had objected to two smaller companies combining forces.

Several advertisers who had complained about a Yahoo-Google tie-up praised the new partnership, saying it would provide a real alternative to Google. "It is very welcome for our clients as it brings more balance to the search marketplace and may moderate pricing," said Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, the world's largest advertising agency.

The FT article is at:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/990c90c8-7c9f-11de-a7bf-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

Have you ever chatted to a direct marketer (from the old school) about online and search engine marketing? Did you end up hearing the line – “it’s all direct marketing, just in a different medium”.

Whether you believe that or not, the fact of the matter is that many of the old rules of direct marketing very much apply to our new age of marketing.

There’s a myriad of “top rules of direct marketing” lists out there, one of which I stumbled on in my recent meanderings online. While reading it, I couldn’t help but see how these rules applied to PPC advertising. So here it is with a PPC advertising slant on the explanations.

1. Headlines
This is probably the most important piece of text in your direct mail letter or advert. It will grab the reader’s attention and encourage them to read the rest of your copy.

Fail to interest or connect with your reader here and all the hard work you have put into your lovely body copy could be wasted. Don’t just state the name of your product or name of your event. Promote a benefit. Ask an open question. Deliver news.

The same very much applies to the PPC space. You’ve got milliseconds to capture the searchers attention on the Search Engine Results Page – and your headline is key!

2. What’s in it for me?
The letter advert is not about you or your organisation but needs to focus on the benefit to the reader. Starting with your headline and throughout your body copy, you need to state the benefits of your service or product for your reader and not just the features.

The reader will constantly be wondering ‘What’s in it for me?’, and if this is not explicit, they will switch off.

You have even less time and space to explain the “what’s in it for me” in a PPC ad – so you need to “cut to the chase” straight away.

3. Copy length
People are busy. Daily we are inundated with information from emails, direct mail, television, the web – you name it. Don’t make it hard for your readers to understand what you are selling or communicating. Spell it out for them. Write clear, short sentences.

You don’t have sentences in PPC ads. You have characters. So keep it short and on point. Just because you have 70 characters to use in the ad – doesn’t mean you have to use them all. Sometimes less is more!

4. Language
Avoid jargon – it puts people off. Spell out in full any acronyms or abbreviations…

Use plain English. ‘Buy’ instead of ‘purchase’. ‘Before’ instead of ‘prior to.’ ‘Get’ instead of ‘obtain’. Avoid flowery language and get straight to the point, leaving out needless words. Read through your copy and if a word doesn’t add value to your letter, delete it.

Obvious stuff. Write for the lowest common reader. Of course with acronyms, look for a shorter expression or term where possible, because spelling out some acronyms will see you use all your ad space.

5. Tone
Write your letters as you would if you were communicating verbally. Read your letter out loud. Does it sound like something you would say? If not, change it.

You’ll be surprised how evident tone is in 70 characters. If you don’t resonate with the searcher – you’ve lost them.

6. Call to action
What do you want your readers to do? Book onto an event, sign up to your newsletter mailing list or join your membership scheme? Spell it out to your reader, clearly and simply.

It’s a well documented fact for PPC ads that asking for the action generates much better click through rates. So just do it!

7. And finally…
Remember the only aim of your communication is to elicit a response, to drive people to your website or whatever your call to action may be. Measure the return on investment. Does it work? If not, why not? And crucially test, refine, test and keep on testing.

Speaks for itself….test test test. And lets the real response measure your success!

Now go and give your PPC ads the once over. Do they follow these direct marketing 7 rules of thumb? If they’re not – they should!