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MarketingCharts reports on a survey conducted by Anderson Analytics of the top marketing trends for 2008.

“Web and green marketing are hot; Boomers are still the most important demo, though women, Gen X and Y, and Hispanics are catching up; and marketing basics are more important than ever, according to (pdf) a new survey of marketing executives conducted by Anderson Analytics.

The first annual survey of Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG), a nearly 1,700-member organization of marketers at a VP-level or higher, sought to identify the top marketing trends in 2008.

The survey focused on top marketing concepts, buzzwords, global areas of opportunity, targeted customer demographics, as well as the books that marketers look to for inspiration and growth opportunity.”

"“Green Marketing” (32%) was another important emerging concept - and it was identified as the trendiest marketing buzzword." Wow, Green Marketing really did emerge in a big way.

"When asked about the most important customer demographics, senior marketing executives rank Baby Boomers highest, with 88% ranking them as either very important or somewhat important." I don't know if I agree with this, I think the most important target demographic is from 14-27.

"However, Gen X (86%), Hispanics (86%), Women (85%) and Gen Y (84%) are catching up to Boomers as customer targets." This hispanic demo is the one to really watch for in the coming years.

If you’re wondering what or how Google will continue to come out with new marketing channels for advertisers, MOBILE is the target at the moment.

Now, from what I’ve read and understand from a short press release from Google, it is basically Google Maps for mobile.

“With Google's new My Location technology, users who don't have GPS-enabled mobile phones will now be able to take advantage of the added speed and convenience afforded by location information. The My Location technology also complements GPS-enabled devices, as it delivers a location estimate faster than GPS, provides coverage inside buildings (where GPS signals can be unreliable), and doesn't drain phone batteries as quickly as GPS. Whether users are trying to locate a restaurant in an unfamiliar neighborhood, get directions to the nearest hotel while traveling, or just find a place to grab some coffee while shopping for the holidays, Google Maps for mobile with My Location can help them get what they need quickly and easily.”

So, why does Google spend all this money on technology for a GPS system? Google can care less about a GPS system, but with the amount of people that will download this free tool to their cell phone, the opportunity to make money of the advertising is incredible! Google doesn’t do or create anything without advertising in mind. Watch Google earth keep coming out with different versions and you’ll see ads there at some point, unless they really keep that one application for what it really is, which is just plain awesome.

The Google GPS can have a great impact on local advertisers for the obvious. It’s by far one of the best forms of local marketing…you have someone on their mobile while they are out trying to find something and BAM, they can find you right away while being near you.

So far, it’s just starting so its early to tell how it’ll play out with advertisers but it seems promising.

The Nintendo DS has a new enemy and it’s called the R4 chip. So, what the hell is a R4 chip?

UK Times Online reports, “The R4 looks like a simple piece of plastic. It is just a couple of centimeters square, a few millimeters thick and unbelievably easy to use…Made in China, available for sale over the internet and now doing a roaring trade on the streets of Tokyo, the R4 has emerged as perhaps the ultimate video game piracy tool.

Costing a little more than £20, the device is a virtually unlimited passport to illegally downloaded software titles for the Nintendo DS – the handheld games console that has taken Japan, and much of the world, by storm.”

Here is the kicker which is very odd, Amazon is actually selling this product…YES…Amazon.com. You can find the R4 chip HERE. You can actually purchase this for $59.99 and I suggest you do so soon.

The holiday season is here and your site should be ready to sell, sell, sell! So, what can you do to optimize your site for the holiday season? A few things can change the aspect of your site for the buyer if this is your first holiday season online.

1) Design: Make it KNOWN on your home page and landing pages your company is aware the buyer is looking for deals and of course, it’s the holiday season. Take a look at BestBuy.com, JCPenny.com, and Sears.com. You can find holiday jargon all over the place. This is done through text and images.

2) Sales: Put your top 3-4 products displaying on your home page with sale images or even if they aren’t on sale, say they are! You should also have these 3-4 product items along side other landing pages/product pages.

3) Shipping Discounts: Keep in mind people are purchasing many products online so not only is the product costing money, but so is the shipping. All the big companies are offering free shipping or a deep discount on the shipping, try to do the same. If they spend over a certain amount, comp the shipping.

4) Share Links: How can you turn 1 visitor into 2 from that 1 visit? Below every product (and this doesn’t only apply for the holidays,) place a ‘send to friend’ link. You’d be surprised how many people may not purchase your product but maybe send it to a friend who may be interested in what you have or at least they want their friend to check it out.

5) Gift Wrapping: Make some extra money on your product by offering gift wrapping. You can either charge for this option or do it for free which the buyer would probably appreciate it more of course.

6) E-Mail Collection: This holiday shopping season maybe the most traffic you will get in a month’s worth. If you’re not collecting your customers email or even potential customer email address, it’s time you do. Set-up a email box where visitors can enter their email to receive newsletters, sales, etc. It’s never too late to start a list.

7) Customer Reviews/Testimonials: This works! Visitors want to gain trust with your company and your products. Write product reviews with testimonials. If you don’t have testimonials, get them quick! Any one of your friends or family count as testimonials.

DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS? Comment Below.

Cyber Monday is here and the reports are already starting to come in.

CNNMoney reports, “By 2 p.m. ET, more than 300 retailing Web sites tracked by Internet monitoring firm Akamai were drawing 4.6 million visitors per minute - a three-year record for most traffic in a single day to retail Web sites.
Akamai said that its Net Usage Index - which monitors North American visitors to sites such as jcpenney.com, Bestbuy.com and Circuitcity.com - said traffic was up more than 80 percent compared to a normal Monday.”

It’s reported that online spend today will surpass $700 million in sales which will be a new record. Sears.com actually went down on Black Friday which surprisingly to me, a lot of people reported on that. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), 72 million consumers plan to shop online from home or at work on one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. That's up from 61 million shoppers last year.

Are you capitalizing on Cyber Monday? How? If you aren’t, it’s definitely an indication the holiday shopping season will be a good one. If you have an e-commerce site, see what big sites such as bestbuy.com and sears.com, etc are doing and how they are getting the attention of the holiday shopper. A more detailed post to come on that…

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Friday morning, I posted a podcast titled, “Video Opportunity for Publishers & Advertisers.” Soon after, I was browsing the web just checking out some stuff and stumbled upon Swicki. Video is in and if you can monetize it, you should! In the podcast I talked about Adsense video units, which is basically an embedded YouTube video in your site or blog with an ad on top and at the bottom which I think can give you good CTRs.

So, Swicki is pretty cool. You can check it out on my blog at the left (it usually shows mini video clips but now it is showing a tag cloud.) Here is why I think this could work to monetize your visitors from video. It’s something new so users will be curious to click through. It’s a video widget which you set-up keyword tags and will show related videos (pretty cool videos you may even find interesting.) It scours Google video for related videos and takes the visitor to a site with all the videos in one place.

So how do you monetize this? While setting up your Swicki page, you can customize the ads section choosing what platform of ads to show (adsense, etc) and allows you to enter your code.