Technology Marketing by Tatum MarketingJust another WordPress weblog

A landing page is a web page where visitors are sent to complete or continue action as part of the marketing process. For example, a pay per click advertisement promoting a free report contains a link to a web page where the visitor can download the report – usually in exchange for contact information. It is so-named because it is where visitors “land” after clicking on the link.

To be successful, a landing page must be intimately tied to the ad or listing that precedes it. The information contained on the landing page must be relevant to the words that drove the visitor to click on the link.

Sometimes visitors are sent to a collection of pages – called a micro site. The first page of the micro site is the landing page.

Technorati Tags: landing page, web site

Technically, a conversion rate is the percentage of prospects who take the action you want them to take. To get this rate, divide the number of people who did what you wanted them to do by the total number who were exposed to your message.

For example, the objective of a certain online ad campaign is to drive prospects to a website to download a special report. One thousand people click on the ad and 200 actually download the report. The conversion rate is 20%.

A business technology marketing process will likely have many conversion points each offering an opportunity to improve the efficiency with which the process converts traffic or leads to sales or sales opportunities.

Technorati Tags: conversion rate, technology marketing

Many thanks to Dave J at the B2Blog for calling our attention to the American Marketing Association’s new definition of marketing. Here it is. (Sit for this one).

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for our customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

No offense to anyone personally at the AMA, but jeez. This is the kind of stuff that makes it so hard for non-marketing people – technical, sales and operations types for example – to take us seriously.

Here’s how we view marketing at Tatum Marketing:

“Products/Services X Traffic/Leads X Conversion = Revenue.”

It’s that simple – and that complex. All marketing people should be able to see their contributions somewhere within that formula. So should many non-marketing people as well.

Anyone disagree?

Technorati Tags: marketing, technology marketing

It’s been a while since anyone asked me the difference between sales and marketing – a question I used to be asked with some regularity. Does that mean we all finally agree on the difference? Maybe.

A recent post on the Emergence Marketing blog shows a graphic depicting the difference among marketing, advertising, PR, and branding. Yes, it cynical; but I think it’s funny. And it reminded me of a similar “joke” that circulated several years ago. I’ve used this on several occasions to successfully – if not terribly accurately — explain how marketing differs from sales and numerous other forms of customer interaction.

I’m reproducing it here for those who share my sense of humor. I apologize in advance to anyone whom I might inadvertently offend. Also, I wish I could remember where I got this so I could credit the author, but I’m afraid that information is long lost.

Explaining Marketing

People often ask for an explanation of Marketing.
Perhaps the following analogies will help clear things up.

You see a handsome guy at a party. You go up to him and say, “I’m fantastic in bed.”
That’s Direct Marketing.

You’re at a party with a bunch of friends and see a handsome guy. One of your friends goes up to him and, pointing at you, says, “She’s fantastic in bed.”
That’s Advertising.

You see a handsome guy at a party. You go up to him and get his telephone number.
The next day you call and say, “Hi, I’m fantastic in bed.”
That’s Telemarketing.

You’re at a party and see a handsome guy. You get up and straighten your dress.
You walk up to him and pour him a drink. You say “May I?” and reach up to straighten his tie, brushing your breast lightly against his arm, and then say, “By the way, I’m fantastic in bed.”
That’s Public Relations.

You’re at a party and see a handsome guy. He walks up to you and says, “I hear you’re fantastic in bed.”
That’s Brand Recognition.

You’re at a party and see a handsome guy. You talk him into going home with your friend.
That’s a Sales Rep.

Your friend can’t satisfy him so he calls you.
That’s Tech Support.

You’re on your way to a party when you realize that there could be handsome men in all these houses you’re passing. So you climb onto the roof of one situated toward the center and shout at the top of your lungs, “I’m fantastic in bed!”
That’s Spam.

Second in a series of high level looks at online marketing; and second in a series of definitions.

Pay Per Click (also called PPC) is an advertising model that allows you to pay to be listed by a search engine. Marketers bid on key words and their ads are displayed when those key words are searched for. The order of the listing varies from search engine to search engine, but it generally ranges from simply the bid amount (high to low) to a far more complex combination of the bid amount, the relevance of the ad, and the advertiser’s past success in getting a high click-through percentage. As an advertiser, you pay only when someone clicks on your ad.

At the time of this writing (Oct 2007), three search engines – Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN AdCenter – command the vast majority of PPC advertising dollars, but there are many other smaller search engines and websites that offer Pay Per Click advertising.

PPC is a form of Search Engine Marketing (SEM).