Adotas

Where media buyers start online

Featured Author

Al Berrios
Contributing Editor
Management Strategies
Al Berrios is Managing Director of al berrios & company inc., a hybrid management consulting firm he launched in 2000 to advise leaders on the impact of human behavior on their strategies and on how to change their organizations to address the behavior. Mr. Berrios also serves as the inexhaustible Editor of the Consumer Strategies Report, the highly-acclaimed al berrios & co. management publication. Contact Al at al@alberrios.com.

More articles by Al Berrios





Features

Authenticate Your Marketing: How to Imbed Substantial Text Ads within Content

Written on
Oct 2, 2006 
Author
Al Berrios  |
Share
Authenticate Your Marketing: How to Imbed Substantial Text Ads within Content

For instance, in our analysis, an average of about 100 copy messages were released weekly for the entire 11-week period, with as many as 250 during critical periods. However, the response was not consistent, with substantial dips during seemingly “all-clear” dates, dates which coincided with our client’s program premieres.

Upon further inspection, holidays alone didn’t account for this loss of response. Neither did negative consumer interest, since all our data reveals that the important three — network, genre, and show — were all generally well-received among our target audience. By this careful investigating of campaign duration, our client is now armed with the necessary scheduling information to experience a steadily increasing return on their future marketing investment.

Length of copy within content
Ironically, the most effective copy was the longest, story-like, explanatory copy or any copy that presented a relevant point of argument, particularly within static communities such as boards, blogs, and forums. Even searches that present search results or text ads in “snippets” longer than 2 or 3 sentences (but shorter than 6-7 sentences) will receive strong response. (Shorter “snippets”, like Google’s text ads, work because they still leave a searcher curious enough about the answer to their query to click on it. The more detailed the “preview”, the less curious, and the fewer clickthroughs, we believe.)

Source of content
It’s important to note that every copy message was imbedded in user-generated content areas, which, despite long-held standards regarding the source of content, are perceived by their users with a degree of reliability equal to that of the most prestigious news-outlets. (Wiki’s are successful for a reason, you know.) Thus, when any user of the community embeds a text ad into an user-generated content environment, it will be perceived as legit info, even if it’s simultaneously perceived as spam.

For example, while interacting with a very niche and rabidly interested audience, our copy was perceived to come directly from the official administrator of this community. Eventually, the administrator received an official press release and posted it in a prominent section of the community, clarifying his involvement in the message to his audience, and continuing to build momentum sparked by the original copy.

It is our opinion that a user with approximately 30 to 60 days worth of interaction with a community is perceived as a reliable source, reliable inasmuch as their interactions with the community are actually based on knowledge of the topics being discussed within the community. Passion about the topic, although useful in order to maintain an individual user’s interest within the community, is not a pre-requisite to participate. (There’s another loophole here; can you guess?)

Demos of target audience
It goes without saying that copy tone and where it’s placed matters. There really is no secret here except that the person who you empower with your information should be of the same audience you’re attempting to target or at least familiar with their thinking.

_______
Footnote
(1) Berrios, Al, “A New (Shorter) Perspective on Charismatic Brands and How They Influence Audiences”, March 2006, http://www.alberrios.com/c/0306media.html

(2) Berrios, Al, “Everyone’s a Punk Rocker – Examining the Effects of a Sustained Promotions vs. Short, Focused Promotions”, October 2004, http://www.alberrios.com/c/101904marketing.html





Reader Comments.

This is interesting. I’d like to see a bit more about the product and the extent of user involvement. As Al mentioned, consideration of the target is very important. As an extension of that, an understanding of the product and desired action is also very important. To that point, the ‘…the most effective copy was the longest…’ may not be appropriate for all products or services and the corresponding desired action. Is there more info on the impact of these other factors on the effectiveness of the campaign?

Posted by Steve Haar | 10:49 am on October 2, 2006.

Sorry I did not understand a word of this article.
Please post in simple English.
Thanks.

Posted by Sunil Shibad | 2:24 pm on October 3, 2006.

Leave a Comment

Add a comment

Pages: « previous page 1 2

No Tags
Article Sponsor

More Features


  • Once Facebook goes public, what's the most important thing it'll need to do in order to live up the expectations of its real value?

    View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...

Latest News

News Archive

Spotlight

Sponsormob Leads the Way Into RTB for MobileADOTAS – For more than half a decade, Berlin-based tech firm Sponsormob has remained relevant in an industry characterized by [...] more...

Adotas Partnership