Atlanta Web Design – DoubleDome Web Technologies

The euro Ford Festiva must be cooler than the US version we remember.

In an aggressive social-media program that goes far beyond what Ford has done in the past — and reaches beyond just the marketing department — the automaker is counting on 100 bloggers to introduce its new Fiesta, which is set to reach U.S. dealers in early 2010. The idea behind Fiesta Movement is to get the model’s target audience to drive and, hopefully, chatter about the car for months to come.

The Fiesta is Ford’s global subcompact vehicle and was designed in Europe, where it’s been on sale since August 2008. The diminutive hatchback (a sedan will be launched here) seeks to provide stylish transportation in a small package with low acquisition cost, high fuel efficiency and cues that appeal to young consumers.

Ford is loaning 100 German-built Fiestas to social-media trendsetters for six months. The 100 “Fiesta agents,” chosen from 4,000 who applied online, will share their experiences behind the wheel, completing monthly, themed missions from travel to social activism; posting videos; and updating their friends and followers on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere. The participants begin training with their Fiestas in late April, and they will begin receiving the cars in the first week of May.

Ad Age recently posted an interesting article on advertising budgets. Interesting read while hearing that many traditional advertising dollars are shifting to on-line marketing initiatives.

Marketers that cut ad spending during downturns between 1985 and 2005 tended to lose more business to private-label brands in the short and long term, according to research from an academic at the University of North Carolina. But companies that kept ad spending level or boosted it, especially in the TV segment, didn’t lose much ground to private-label rivals during those previous recessions, the research found.

Here’s a link to the full article. adage.com/article?article_id=135790

The terms “Integrated Marketing Plan” and Interactive Marketing are getting a bit closer together. With the down-turn in the economy and the fact that many brands are turning to the web to reach their target demographic, is this any surprise? Search Engine Optimization lead the way with 45% of the spending. Display Ads came in second with 33% of the spend.

Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. remain strong, topping $23 billion, according to the 2008 Internet Advertising Revenue Report, released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC). Despite a difficult U.S. economy, interactive advertising?s continued growth, albeit at a slower pace, confirms marketers’ increased recognition of the medium?s value in reaching consumers online where they are spending more and more of their time.

Search remains the main driver of revenue growth according to the report, showing a 19.8% increase over 2007. Digital video, though still a small overall contributor, more than doubled its revenue with an increase to $734 million from $324 million in 2007, demonstrating how both marketers and consumers are embracing this dynamic platform.

As in 2007, retail, financial services, computing and automotive remained the four largest verticals among Internet advertisers in 2008. Consumer packaged goods, an industry vertical historically slow to embrace interactive advertising, notably increased its share of total Internet ad revenues by 60 percent over 2007. The Internet is now the third largest ad-supported medium, marking its increasing significance to marketers and consumers.

Conducted by the New Media Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, the Internet Advertising Revenue Report was launched in 1996 by the IAB, and aggregates data from all companies that report meaningful online advertising revenues. The results are considered the most accurate measurement of interactive advertising revenues with the data compiled directly from information supplied by companies selling advertising on the Internet. The survey includes data concerning online advertising revenues from Web sites, commercial online services, ad networks, free e-mail providers, and all other companies selling online advertising. First and third quarter revenue reports are estimates, with the actual figures being released along with second and fourth quarter data respectively. PwC does not audit the information and provides no opinion or other form of assurance with respect to the information.

Great news for any firm in the web design industry. Even better news for full service interactive marketing firms like DoubleDome.

This trend is has been know for a long time now. It’s great to see that the diversity of the opinions and cultures of the web are ever expanding. This can only mean good things to come for interactive marketing and all web design companies.

Not so long ago, a report on Hispanic Americans’ Internet usage would likely have been focusing on a “digital divide,” with Hispanic and other minorities lagging far behind the general population in online access and activity. The title of a Scarborough Research report released today, “The Power of the Hispanic Consumer Online,” gives a quick hint at how times have changed. The report finds Hispanic Internet users to be “avid downloaders of digital content,” thanks in part to a broadband adoption rate mirroring that of the nation’s overall online population.

Scarborough says 54 percent of Hispanic adults are online, vs. 69 percent of total U.S. adults. (If anything, the gap is likely to be narrower now, as the national data for the report were gathered between February 2007 and March 2008.) Among Hispanics who are online, 68 percent have a broadband connection in their household, as do 71 percent of U.S. Internet users in general.

In Scarborough’s polling, 42 percent of Hispanic Internet users (vs. 35 percent of Internet users in general) reported downloading some sort of digital content in the 30 days before being questioned. And what have they been downloading? As with the total online population, Hispanic Internet users are most likely to be latching onto music. Thirty-two percent of wired Hispanics reported having done so in the previous 30 days, vs. 24 percent of Internet users in general. Seventeen percent of online Hispanics (and 14 percent of all wired respondents) reported downloading something in the catchall “other video” category within that period.

Fewer Hispanic respondents said they’d downloaded audio clips (11 percent), movies (9 percent), TV programs (8 percent), video games (6 percent) or podcasts (3 percent) within that 30-day period. Aside from podcasts, the incidence of downloading in each category was slightly lower among Internet users in general than it was for the study’s Hispanic respondents. Scarborough (a joint venture between Arbitron and AdweekMedia parent The Nielsen Co.) notes that younger Hispanic adults were, as you’d expect, more likely than their elders to have downloaded digital content in the previous 30 days, with 51 percent of the 18-34-year-olds saying they’d done so.

Another section of the report notes that mobile devices are “an important point of Internet entry” for Hispanic adults. Among Hispanic cell-phone subscribers, 55 percent use it for text messaging, 28 percent for picture messaging, 22 percent for instant messaging, 15 percent for downloading video games, 15 percent for e-mail and 11 percent for “other” Internet usage. Here again, the polling finds Hispanic respondents more likely than cell-phone users in general to use the device in these ways.

When it comes to buying online, Scarborough found Hispanic Internet users lagging behind the total online population — but not by much. Sixty-two percent of online Hispanic adults reported having made at least one online purchase in the previous 12 months, vs. 70 percent of Internet users in general. Among those who did make such purchases, the average spent in the previous 12 months was $762 for Hispanic respondents and $861 for Internet users generally.

The report also took a look at some metro areas that have disproportionate numbers of Hispanic adults. Among the findings about these markets: The incidence of broadband access among online Hispanics was particularly high in Miami (76 percent), San Francisco (75 percent) and New York (72 percent). The incidence of past-30-day downloading among Hispanic Internet users was highest in Phoenix (60 percent). The average amount of online spending, among Hispanics who’d made any online purchase in the prior 12 months, was highest in New York (at $883), San Francisco ($879) and Phoenix ($831).

Unless you’ve just invented something that no one else can sell, what you do offline is crucial to the success of your small business website. Here are 5 offline suggestions for getting you website noticed.

1. All marketing materials should proudly display your website’s URL for additional information. This includes business cards, letterhead, envelopes, brochures, flyers, folders and fax coversheets.

2. If you have a phone system that uses an automated attendant, don’t forget to let your customer and prospects know about information located on your website.

3. Issue press releases on your site and to the news wires. This gives prospects and current customer an idea as to how well you’re doing. They are also great content for search engine crawlers.

4. If you write a guest column or a feature article related to your industry, make sure to mention your website with your contact information. Even your email address will have the URL after the @ sign.

5. Promote your website offline on any of your vehicles, billboards, license plate frames, Yellow Page ads, other printed ads, T-shirts, and any schwag you hand out.

Only time will tell, but our guess is that targeted keyword research and effective search engine optimization will become more critical as people learn to search differently over time.

P.S. When interviewed on the radio or television, plan to mention your website URL. Don’t just say, “On my website …” without mentioning the URL.

DoubleDome Web Technologies is an Atlanta web design company that provides a full range of Internet Marketing services including Custom Web Design, E-commerce Design, Mobile Web Design, Flash Design, Search Engine Optimization, Email Marketing Service, Website Support, and Web Hosting. DoubleDome is a single point-of-contact for all Internet marketing services for corporate websites, Ad Agency Outsourcing, Business web design and retail e-commerce across the country. For more information about DoubleDome, please visit their website: www.doubledome.com.