The second season of The Guild is over and for all those who loved the song at the end, The Main Drag is giving it away for free! Here’s a direct link courtesy of Felicia Day’s Twitter.

http://www.rplaudio.com/RPLAudio/The_Main_Drag_files/04%20Love%20During%20Wartime.mp3

Enjoy!

Every so often you come accross a website that really meets a need and sparks the mental juices, and the most recent ones I’ve visited that does just that is :

http://www.stanleytang.com/

This is probably one of the most informative sites on internet methods and tips I’ve seen in a while. All his info is free and a visit on his website can easily help you on your road to increased visibility, sales, or just more comments on your blog or replies on your twitter.

Read on to learn more…Stanley sums it up best in his About Page:

My name is Stanley Tang and I’m a 16-year-old entrepreneur, best-selling author and student from Hong Kong. I am not a millionaire yet but I do make a comfortable income online for a teenager through things like information marketing, affiliate marketing and social media.

The fact that Stanley is 16 years old and already “living the dream,” so to speak, is only part of what makes this site so great. Many SEO and internet-entrepreneur type sites are garish and sell their souls for ad-revenue or simply push their products without following one of the first rules of good website ettiqute – add value to the community. All of Stanley’s posts add tremendous value for internet entrepreneurs and enthusiasts alike. He gives very good and sensible advice on SEO tools such as Twitter, tips on writing, and has a way of speaking plainly so that anyone can understand.

In fact, the way that I found Stanley is through Twitter. Definitely follow him and check out his info. He’s a pretty active twitterer so you can bet on getting something useful from him pretty much daily. Give his site a check and subscribe via RSS feed, as I have. We can all learn more from the young Internet Jedi Master together!

Why Quality of course!

Are you sure about that? Really do you know? If you do, then you are a good deal ahead of most major TV ad execs who simply cannot grasp this concept. Traditional advertising versus the greater exposure and cost-effectiveness of the interwebs generally ends in an ugly, sometimes violent, shouting match between overpaid and under-thinking suits that do not want to admit that what they were taught 10-15 years ago is now failing. With the advent of commercial skipping DVR’s, its happening at an alarming rate. Just like the real estate bubble burst, so will traditional mass-market advertising. Lets take a look at the facts, shall we? Read on and I will show you how to do it better…

More after the jump…Quality or Quantity?

Oddly enough, this is a valid question and not quite so easily answered. Many of you (probably 99% or more) have a television and have seen commercials for just about everything you can think of, from shoes to jeans to computers to even sex. Can you remember the last time you were moved to purchase anything off of TV? Most everyone can think of one thing they saw on TV that they wanted to buy, of course.

Why did you want to buy it?

There are several reasons that it could be:

• Price
• Utility
• Need
• Want
• Joe has one
• Need to have a better one than Joe

The list goes on – my point is that every TV commercial is trying to give you this feeling and play on your rationalizations that because the comercial is interesting, funny, charming, outrageous, or seductive, that the product is on par with the entertainment value. What the companies are asking you to do is take their word for it and go spend your hard earned cash because their product will make you:

• Faster
• Stronger
• More beautiful
• More attractive
• Better in bed
• Better at what you do
• Happier in some way

But Tim, that’s true with any product we’ve never tried or heard of. Mathematically it makes sense to hit as many people as possible, doesn’t it?

That is a very valid point, from one point of view. If you look at sales numbers, you generally look at a ratio that is called many different things, but let us call it an Absorption Ratio (AR). Simply stated, an absorption ratio is how often a product is purchased versus how many times it was presented to the customer. AR is traditionally very low, in the 10%-15% range or less for mass-market advertisements. That means for every 100 customers shown an advert, they will see 10-15 purchases as a result. The actual number could be higher or lower, due to natural circumstances. To really know, shoppers would have to be surveyed about every product they purchase at the check-out and that is far too difficult to accomplish. Back to the main point – if you know that you have a 10% AR, and you want to increase your sales by 1000 units per day, then you need to reach out to 10,000 people each day. If you are factoring cost per person, this can get very expensive very quickly. Notice in my article about superbowl advertising, the price per person goes up $30 in 10 years. Even at low numbers, the cost is very high, and ultimately ineffective.

Ok, I get it. Its expensive and times are tough. But what’s the alternative?

Essentially what you want is to increase your AR. If you have a higher AR, then you personally need to show less people. Another aspect is the talkability factor a.k.a. word of mouth. This is where buzzwords like “viral” and “social media” come in. I’m dancing around here hoping you’ve already connected the dots. What I am saying is that your message itself isn’t the most important thing! Who and where the information given is the key, now.

Let me ask you – who would you take advice on what laptop to buy?

• Sales advertising exec and writing staff that creates commercials for a living
• Tech geek who has tested and reviewed all of this year’s best models

No brainer, right? You would think this makes the most sense in the world but the secret is that corporate America has not caught on, yet. They still pump money into TV and high-priced ads when the answer is obvious to everyone else. Podcasting News reported that podcast advertising is seven times more effective than TV or Radio ads. Seven times!

Why do you think this is?

1. People listening to the podcasts are already interested in the subject matter, and more likely to purchase items based on a recommendation from someone who’s opinion they respect.
2. Item and service reviews are a feature on the shows. They are presented in an entertaining way that consumers can identify with.

There are other reasons, of course but I believe these to the be the primary drivers behind their success. This sort of “niche” marketing has been around for ages just like mass-marketing, however the venues have not been nearly as visible. You’ve probably heard something about the internet creating a level playing field for businesses. This is very much the truth because of the open nature of the internet.

So to put this question to bed, quality in advertising is much more productive and profitable. Remember, you’re not shooting for as many faces as possible with your ads, you’re shooting for the right faces, regardless of number. If you show the right ones, they will do your work for you.

Today is, of course, Superbowl Sunday. Heralded by many as the best day of the year for sports and by others to be the best day for advertising. Going off of numbers from an article on MSNBC.com (Advertising’s Big Game)in 1987, a 30-Second ad in that legendary Giants victory over the Broncos cost $600,00. The viewership was an estimated 87,190,000. If we do the math, each viewer cost the ad companies 14.5 cents. Seems like a small price to pay, right? I mean, 87 million people saw the ad! Fast forward to 2006 – approximately 77,900,000 people tuned in to watch the Steelers trounce the Seahawks. A 30-second ad cost companies a whopping $2.5 million dollars… lets to the math again: 77,900,000/2,500,000 = $31.16 per person. Lets say that again – Companies paid $31.16 for every person who watched their commercial. If you watched this game, for every 30 seconds of commercial you saw, a company paid $31.16.

That’s all well and good, Tim – but was it worth it? Read on to find out…

Well let’s see – on a personal level, did any of the comercials warrant more than a chuckle or an ooh or ahh from the amount of cleavage and wet female body parts(I’m looking at you, GoDaddy)? Did you actually conciously  increase your consumption of products advertised? On a subconcious level, you may have, but only because when you were at the store and you looked at  a product it made you remember that commercial that made you laugh so hard. But if a comparable, cheaper prodcut was nearby those chances are very slim. Studies have shown that in the past 6-7 years it has gotten harder to companies to account for TV marketing success. Its almost unmeasurable, as other things in the world are happening and to attribute a spike in sales to a comercial would mean that the world existed in a vaccum. What I’m trying to get accross here is that its almost impossible to say why certain trends happen at any given time.

Lets take another route – do you judge the quality of a product based on its effective marketing? Of course not, that’s a silly question. It does stand to reason, however, that if a company has a lot of money to spend on marketing, it certainly must spend at least as much on the quality of their product, right? Sadly, this is not a guarantee however much it should be.

Well how do you judge the quality of a product or service? Here’s a couple common avenues:

1. Trial and Error – You take a shot on a product you know nothing about and either have a good or bad experience. This is many times costly and does not happen unless people are unhappy with their current product.
2. Word of Mouth – Someone else close to you who somewhat knows your interests and buying habits has tried it based on trial and error or another recommendation and has had success with it.

Which of these do you think is more common for you? What about for others? What if you could have recommendations from people whose opinions you respect or agree with that are also interested in the same things that you are? Sound too good to be true? Until a few years ago I would have agreed with you. Information originally reported by PodcastingNews.com states that,

New data from Podtrac and TNS suggests that podcasts may be a much more powerful advertising platform than television.

The companies studied podcast advertising from February 2006 to March 2008 across multiple product categories and ad types. Unaided awareness for podcast ads was 68%, compared with 21% for streaming video and 10% for television.

““The studies showed a 73% increase in likelihood to use or buy an advertised product,” said Velvet Beard, vice president at Podtrac. “The studies showed that 69% of audience members have a more favorable view of in-show advertisers.”

What this geek-speak means is that more and more  people are finding niche outlets that appeal directly to their interests. These online entertainment shows, or “Podcasts,” do the trial and error bit because its something they enjoy, or have a way to get demos or pre-release items from manufactuers before they hit the market at little or no cost to them. You don’t have to slough through a four-hour radio show to get it either. Most podcasts run between 10 -30 minutes for video and 30-90 minutes for audio. The fact that they can be downloaded and listened to at your leisure makes them the ultimate on-demand entertainment service.

Oh, and did I mention that 99% of them are free?

So, is advertising on the superbowl worth it? Personally I don’t think so. Its a great way for companies to increase brand recognition but gone are the days where pushing your product out in front of millions of viewers means you are going to increase your product sales by that high a margin. I believe the companies should reinvest their money into their employee’s forgotten 401k, insurance, and reinvigorate pension plans. When most companies are cutting budgets and laying off people by the thousands, its time to put money where it will do the most good.

I’ll be writing an article on the idea of quality of advertising is much more important than the quality of advertising, but I want to point out that its much more important to get your product in front of people who already enjoy that type of thing. If you have a tech product, putting it in front of people who don’t understand or enjoy tech is a waste of time and money. I’ll leave you all with that thought for now. If you’re curious about what I’m talking about, boot up iTunes and look up some podcasts that interest you and immediately you’ll see what I’m talking about.