INTERNET: Letting Our Fingers Do the Shopping.

Those of you old enough will remember an almost iconic ad campaign for Yellow Pages advertising that summarized the telephone directory's advantages with the promise: "Let your fingers do the walking."

Fast forward to today, and that same slogan is ringing loud and true for online shopping.

Both retail and ISP marketers should take note of these important internet-usage trends, per a recent study by Media-Screen in San Francisco:

• If consumers have a high degree of interest in your industry — and information as well as product are available online — they'll spend literally hours in front of their computers. Marketers who really push the hot buttons of online shoppers include:
• Home and Garden (2.3 hours per average)
• Travel (2.1 hours)
• Beauty (1.3)
• Clothing (1.2)
• Today, a whopping 50% of all purchases are influenced by some online marketing — 76% of all purchases made online, and 35% of those made offline.
• Almost one out of 10 purchasers is now seeking user-generated content — consumer review or ratings sites, blogs, discussion boards, IM, chat rooms, social networking sites — and this sort of word-of-digital-mouth is strongly influencing their decisions.

Bottom line lessons, as we at NOISE see them and would counsel them?

1. If you're in a business that sells online (or can), you better have your website in top order.
2. A website in top order still won't perform without strong Search Engine Optimization (on the front and back ends), and a savvy web- and e-marketing program.
3. Get on the bus and get your marketing involved in the digital buzz world of user-generated content.

SOURCE: NOISE, Marketing Management
BY: John Sprecher

THE AGENCY BIZ: Trendspotting Trendy?

For the past year, plus a half, we your branding prophets at NOISE Inc. have kept our eyes and ears open wide — looking and listening — for great innovations and technology that we can leverage to advance our clients’ missions and business. Innovate or die — right?

It seems as our enlightened effort, brought to you in the form of NOISE Trendspottings, is rather trendsetting. In a recent article in PRWeek, “Trendspotting keeps firms ahead of the pack,” the publication proclaims the importance of these efforts, offering these points.

• While staying on top of trends is vital for a consumer practice, trendspotting should be an agency-wide activity. (check!)
• Editors, bloggers and other influencers should be tapped for their emerging-trend observations. (check!)
• In-house research teams or outside consultancies can be assets in identifying and analyzing trends. (sounds kind of expensive...)

While NOISE doesn’t have a defined in-house research team, we enable each staff member to point out trends and offer insight in their area of expertise from creative to public relations, web development to media buying, account leadership to brand evolution.

At NOISE, each of us is hunting for trends and keeping our fingers on the proverbial pulse. As a differentiator though, we are also working to create and evolve our NOISE philosophies for our work. While it’s important to see what’s going on in the market — it’s even more significant if we are driving trends, pushing the envelope and evolving NOISE, thereby evolving how we create and deliver campaigns, creative design and progressive PR formulas for our partner clients.

When we’re “in the know,” we can keep our clients there too.

We’ll keep our eyes peeled and ears open...and keep you posted.

SOURCE: NOISE, PRWeek
BY: Al Krueger, PR Director

GUT CHECK: How are you making your decisions?

In a recent Fast Company article Rob Walker notes, “Our heroes may crunch the numbers, but we like them to play their hunches.” As well as, “From Captain Kirk to Indiana Jones to Rambo to Tony Soprano to the hero in every Western (movie) ever made, we’re drawn to the character who follows a hunch and wins.”

Interesting. From a guy (me) who has relied on his gut in many circumstances after trudging through data, statistics, spreadsheets and other research, it’s nice to see some recognition for the good ol’ gut.

Considering the sterility of some data and research — there are situations when no matter how great the research or hard you try otherwise, you have to look inside to that special internal compass to point you in the right direction. In the end, statistics and data can only gauge the goings-on of the past — they cannot foretell the future.

Walker also points out that the “most widely celebrated heroes of capitalism are the Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, or Mark Cuban types — the ones who scorn what the focus groups and gurus say and follow their superior instincts.”

With this validation in hand, let’s all take some pride in our instincts. Believe in what you are doing and go for it. Don’t let naysayers hold a brother down. If you believe what you are doing is true — nothing else matters and no one can take that away from you.

In PR, branding, advertising and marketing, the difference between winning and losing can come down to the individual willing to believe in their instincts.

Believe in You.

SOURCE: NOISE, Fast Company
BY: Al Krueger, PR Director

INTERNET: What's Up With Web 2.0 and What You Can Do.

Are you up on Web 2.0? And is your website?

For all the buzz about Web 2.0, the bottom line definition is essentially this: Web 2.0 speaks to the trend of user generated content, such as social networking, review sites, blogs and other devices that involve and encourage user experiences.

While this advice comes from hospitality.net, we at NOISE think these tips on Web 2.0 pretty much apply to most marketers. So as you plan for 2008, consider the importance of your website and web marketing, and ask yourself (or your marketing/branding team) these questions:

1. Do we have a strategy for our online presence? If not, start now to develop goals, strategies, tactics and means of measuring your visitor interaction.
2. How content-rich is our website? Do we pack lots of valuable info into the briefest space? And is it search engine optimized to meet our audiences primary keyword search criteria? The more you load your website with keywords and content that your audience seeks, the higher your SER (search engine rank).
3. Do you have an interactive user blog? If so, do you monitor it? If there are negative comments, do you respond? If the answer is "no" to any of these questions, plan now to change that to "yes.

There are many more strategies and tactics you, your team and your savvy web marketing partner can device and execute, but here's your takeaway: day by day, the world becomes more and more internet driven and dependent; how you hop on the bus now will have a direct impact, positively or negatively, on how you'll fare down the road.

SOURCE: NOISE, hospitality.net
REPORTER: John Sprecher