After Microsoft announced Bing a few months ago, it began increasing market share. However, its string of increases halted in September. Microsoft now has its work cut out for it to get more share.

One of Microsoft’s biggest challenges will be what turns out to be one of Google’s smartest moves – the Google search toolbar. More and more people today don’t bother going to Google’s home page to begin their searches. Rather, they just type their search request into the Google search toolbar from whatever page they are on. Virtually nobody who searches this way is interested in going back to the old procedure of jumping to an explicit search page – it’s wasted navigation. So, the share of the market who uses the toolbar is not even in play for Microsoft to win over. Unless Microsoft comes up with a strategy to address these people, they will be fighting an increasingly difficult war.

Domus, Inc. is a full service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more information.

Everyone knows the value of split-testing (A-B testing), and just about anyone who uses Google AdWords split-tests their paid search ads. But if split-testing is so useful, why do so few people split-test landing pages? Obviously, there is more work (and hence money) involved in designing two landing pages than there is in writing two paid search ads. However, the value of achieving a higher click-through rate from a landing page is arguably more important than at any other previous stage in the sales cycle. People who have reached a landing page have self-qualified their interest.

I just finished doing a small test in Google. I randomly selected about a dozen different search phrases off the top of my head – some that I knew would bring up large corporations and some that I thought would return smaller companies. For each search, I then clicked on each of the top 5 paid search ads, 10 times each. If a company was doing true split testing, the landing page would randomly redirect me sometimes to one page and sometimes to another. Split-tested landing pages usually have code like the following in them:

<?php
if (rand(0, 1) == 0)
  {
  header(“Location: http://www.MySite.com/SplitTest_1″);
  }
else
  {
  header(“Location: http://www.MySite.com/SplitTest_2″);
  }
?>

However, in 100% of my admittedly small sampling, I found no evidence of split-testing. Interestingly, two of the search terms I tested were “split testing landing pages” and “a-b testing landing pages”. Even the companies who placed paid search ads for those terms didn’t bother split-testing their landing pages.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the state-of-the-art in landing page design has reached its pinnacle of effectiveness such that marketers no longer need to split test their designs. Kudos to them! I don’t know how I missed that conference! Now where can I find that whitepaper to tell me how to design landing pages with perfect effectiveness each time so I don’t have to split-test either?

Domus is a Philadelphia-based marketing communications agency that effectively combines classic marketing principles with modern execution techniques. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more information.

As everyone knows, social media is an absolute must for any marketer today. It’s more important than measured media advertising, traditional customer service, and just about every classic marketing technique.

Everyone also knows that Starbucks is a case study example of how to do social media well. It has almost 200,000 Twitter followers, nearly 1.5 million Facebook fans, and a large, active blog. It regularly tweets, posts, and comments.

Except year-over-years same-store sales at Starbucks continue to decline. They’ve declined each quarter this year, even as their social media program has shined. On the other hand, social media wannabes like McDonald’s have continued to see sales increases based principally on good classic advertising and other marketing techniques.

The point here is not that social media marketing does not work; rather, the point is that it is just a tool in a company’s marketing bag, not an end in and of itself. Starbucks sells the experience of hand-made premium coffee at its many coffee houses. Just because they get a lot of people communicating with them online does not necessarily sell more coffee. (And, in fact, it hasn’t.)

Domus is a Philadelphia-based marketing communications agency. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more information.

Microsoft’s Silverlight platform has been gaining ground as a rich internet platform. The installed base of Silverlight has been consistently growing, reaching over 30% of computers this summer. Moreover, Microsoft recently released version 3.0, which adds many new features for developers and media providers. For example, Silverlight 3 (and Microsoft’s Media Services 3.0) supports streaming video in high definition (1080p). And in 2010, Microsoft will enhance digital rights management (DRM) capabilities, making it easy for content providers to distribute their media digitally. Moreover, Microsoft is pushing Silverlight along many other fronts. It is now supported on the Xbox and on a number of Nokia phones. It will also be supported on all Windows 7.0 mobile phones (2010).

Silverlight is fast becoming a great cross-platform development platform. And Microsoft is making it easier for legions of individuals and small businesses to develop Silverlight applications by giving away development tools under its WebSpark program.

The next 18 months should prove very interesting in the number and type of applications being developed and delivered using Silverlight. The possibilities available to marketers should be just as interesting.

Domus, Inc. is a marketing communications company based in Philadelphia, with a development network that includes expertise in a number of areas, including Silverlight. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

Social Media consultants regularly point out that the metrics used for traditional or online advertising campaigns don’t apply to social media because they don’t take into account the more “social” component of “social media”. Metrics like “conversations started”, “comments generated”, etc. are often more appropriate even if they don’t directly correlate (at least in the short run) to sales. However, the same holds true for “measured media” (whether traditional or online). Just because certain metrics are available does not mean that they are effective metrics.

The purpose of display advertising is not always to induce people to action (e.g., to make a purchase). Rather, it is often just to implant or reinforce a brand position in people’s minds so that WHEN they are inclined to make a purchase, your brand is foremost (positively) in their mind. Therefore, there is not an immediate, direct relationship between metrics such as impressions and short-term results such as new leads or sales. The effect might happen at various future points in time. Moreover, they might seem to be correlated to other events or programs, but actually still be affected by the longer term display advertising campaign.

Consider Unilever. Unlike some of its other large consumer packaged goods rivals, Unilever did not cut back on its traditional advertising budget over the last couple of years; in fact, they increased their spending. As a result, they’ve seen sales and market share increases.

Also consider a recent ComScore study. In the online world, it found that only 16% of web users click on online ads (and that number has been dropping every year). Moreover, half of those users (8% of the total web users) account for 85% of all clicks. So, how valuable is display advertising when the metrics clearly show that most people ignore them? Well, digging deeper into the study, it turns out that when companies run both display advertising and paid search campaigns, although the number of people who click on the display ads is small, the number of people who later on search for the brand increases. In fact, not only is paid search more effective, but consumers who were exposed to both paid search and online ads were twice as likely to buy from a retailer’s online site. The result of the two tactics together was greater than the sum of each tactic individually.

So how does one effectively measure online and traditional “measured media”? Ultimately, tests have to be run over long periods of time, because the effects of advertising are long term. But in the meantime, marketers should understand that there is an inherent long-term value to display advertising if it properly communicates an effective brand message, regardless of whether or not it can be measured in the short run.

Domus, Inc. has its roots in strong, classic marketing principles. Combining that with a pulse on the changing technological and social environment, we consistently deliver effective results for our clients. For more information on a dynamic marketing communications agency, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

Advisory Councils consist of customers from varying levels of engagement and experts in specific fields. They are important to the success of any company because of the opinions, advice and insight they provide on current and future issues.  They offer outside perspectives on product positioning, strategies and other business decisions to help guide the company towards success. Capitalizing on their first-hand experiences with a product or brand can only benefit the organization and add legitimacy to your claims.

Advisory Councils are also powerful sales tools and they use the internet as their main messaging vehicle. They gather other consumer opinions from blogs and social media sites to compile as feedback, in addition to disseminating brand/product messaging to drive awareness and ultimately increase sales.

For organizations such as State Lotteries, an Advisory Council would serve to be invaluable. The Council would be built from retailer owners and active lottery players who would provide insight and feedback right from the horse’s mouth. Utilizing this insider information will help Lotteries better understand the retailer lifecycle and how to best fulfill partner needs. They can also offer suggestions for upcoming promotions and new game concepts, serving as the lotteries personal focus groups to improve customer satisfaction.

Domus, Inc. is a Philadelphia-based marketing communications consulting company. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more.