Today, Consumerist caught Delta purchasing the Google ads for “cheap train tickets” to promote their flights and found it both “hilarious” and “misleading.” It’s stupid, but for different reasons than the consumer blog points out.

“We tried these searches a few times and sometimes Delta appears at the top of the main results list, sometimes not. If it doesn't appear on the main results area, it always appears at the top of the right margin under sponsored links (pictured above.) We're not sure whether Delta is responsible for this misdirection or one of their affiliate advertisers, but either way it's misleading to potential ticket buyers... Even though they rhyme, we know for a fact that trains and planes are different, don't try to derail our logic.”

This is a smart ad buy for Delta. They have realized that they aren’t just competing with United and AA; they are competing against all other modes of transportation from point A to B. Nicely done.

Where they do make a major error is in their landing page. Click the ad and you’ll be directed to the Delta home page. That’s not what I was looking for at all, so I’m leaving.

Delta misses a key opportunity to let the landing page convert the user. The searcher wanted train tickets. Acknowledge that and give them a reason to fly instead. Show a fare comparison between select cities; extol the virtues of flying over traveling by train. Marketing could have come up with any number of messages and special offers to make the searcher think twice about booking a train ticket, but they didn’t.

When people are in search mode, they are hunting for specific information. If you don’t at least acknowledge this search, you’re going to fail at converting them to sales.

This happens way too many times with big companies. I know they have a million keywords, but if you aren’t concerned with converting the search you are just throwing money away. Invest the money to build a landing page.

In this case Delta could have built one landing page for all their “train” competitive words. They would have grabbed a greater percentage of the transportation market. Instead they’re wasting money.

In December of 2007 we ran an integrated marketing campaign focused on Consumer Electronics Show exhibitors. The results were phenomenal. In the three days of the show, we had our sales team working non-stop after the campaign led to 40 meetings with potential clients. Here are the details of why we were so successful, and the details that led to our Hermes Creative Award.

The Right Targets

Walker Sands has a long history of successful marketing with innovative technology companies. Last year we had 11 of our clients nominated for the Chicago Innovation Awards and we already had several clients exhibiting at CES. Anyone exhibiting at CES would be a good target for us and so we focused the campaign accordingly.

Post Card Introduction

After we had our list of exhibitors, we launched two postcards sent a week apart from each other. The focus was on PR services to help attract media attention during CES, but since we launched so close to the show our true goal was to set appointments for future projects.

Our headlines focused on getting the media attention needed for a successful show, “Over 4,500 Reporters and 2,000 Bloggers are Covering CES. What Are You Going to Say?” On the reverse side our text promoted two offers, a hard offer and a softer, fall back offer.

Our hard offer prompted readers to call us for a free media consultation to help prepare for the CES. Those who didn’t want to commit to phone conversation with our consultants were presented with a softer offer to visit our CES microsite for additional information and to download our CES Media Readiness Kit.

CES Microsite

Those who didn’t want the consultation were directed to visit our CES prep center at www.walkersands.com/CES. On the site we had an overview of our firm, a list of all our clients that proved our experience, a case study on a client CES debut last year, and a media checklist to help prepare for this year’s CES.

Media Checklist

We took the time to figure out what had worked for us in previous years and designed a CES Media Checklist. The result was a very nice piece that should be helpful to anyone exhibiting at future shows. We had tremendous feedback on this piece as it proved to be useful for many of the people our sales team met with.

Calling Campaign

Once the cards had been sent we closed the loop with phone calls. Sales Generation Systems, a firm we use for calling campaigns, followed up with a large percentage of the U.S. exhibitors, to make sure they had received our earlier communications and attempt to set meetings for our team at the show.

Results

In the end each piece of the campaign served to drive business for Walker Sands. We had direct calls about the free media consultation, visits to the microsite generated additional interest, and the calling campaign revealed good recall amongst recipients and led to the majority of our set appointments at the show.

This is a template for success that we’ve duplicated in varying ways for our clients so it’s nice to be recognized by Hermes for this particular success. I’m proud of the beautiful pieces we designed, but more so for the 40 appointments and the resulting sales generated by the campaign.

How many business cards do you get everyday? New clients, new business, potential partner meetings. I get a lot, and most are soon forgotten. Occasionally one will stick out and I think there's power in that.

The Written By All of Us Blog inspired me to post my favorite business card that I've personally received. Their post pointed toward this great archive of 42 Great Business Card Designs, so I felt the need to share one more.

My card comes from XploreU, a travel startup focused on students scheduled to launch in August. It's based on an airline ticket stub and the moment I got it I made me think of all the great trips I'd been on. For me, holding a ticket stub like this one means going somewhere exciting. I get that small thrill everytime I grab it.

There's nothing overly elaborate about it, but it just works. It's the right size and shape for a standard business card holder so, unlike some of the more out there ideas, it serves the functional purpose of being a business card. Truth be told as XploreU becomes more established, they'll probably want to clean it up a bit, but for now it's simply wonderful. It functions as a business card, it instantly tells you what the company is all about, and for the target market (travelers) it causes excitement just by holding it.

It's hard to do something creative like this for a typical business to business consulting company, but if you have a unique angle to play, I say go for it.

I've spent far too many words gushing about a simple business card. Find additional inspiration at this business card gallery here.

Back in my CRM days I used to read over and over that it's five times easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new one. Yet, rarely do I see anyone taking advantage of that fact. Most up selling and cross selling happens purely by chance as a client asks, "Oh, you guys offer that too?"

We're just as bad as everyone else, though hopefully we can change that. I intend to take some of the advice Yuwanda Black provides in a great post on how to pitch existing clients for new business.

"I recently snagged more work from one client by finding out that he had a lot of blogging work he needed done. These weren’t for any of his clients, but for his own sites. But, he just didn’t have time to do them and meet client deadlines as well (a lot of internet entrepreneur have this problem, including yours truly).

"Only by talking to him and getting a better understanding of his business, his workload, how his day flowed was I able to get this work – which is ongoing."

It's particularly useful for those of us in the creative services field, but there's no reason anyone else can't use this advice as well. If you have additional products or services to offer, how do you promote them to existing customers? Or have you fallen into the, "Oh, you do that too?" trap as well?

(From Freelance Switch via LifeHacker)

Last month I wondered aloud about the amount of trust we place in online friends and reviews.

"Every day people base purchasing decisions on what people on the internet are saying, and most times it's someone they've never met. In the last month I've made major travel decisions based on TripAdvisor, what books to read based on Amazon reviews, and what restaurant to eat at based on MetroMix. I read the reviews and essentially put my decisions in the hands of strangers."

So do we trust anonymous online people more than we trust our real friends and family? I still don't have the answer, but this was a good start. Share the Dialogue in last month's Marketing Management had an interesting paragraph on women searching for information on health care.

"When it comes to looking for advice regarding health information, women are more likely to look to the internet than friends or family. Sixty percent of them rely on the Internet for such information, according to the results of a study released in January by Reston, Va.-based comScore Inc. When they're not turning to consulting physicians, 85% of women using the Internet have researched women's health issues online, the study finds."

By no means is this a definitive answer, but I think it indicates a trend that we'll see proved more and more: If it hasn't happened already it will soon. The majority of people will place more trust in online strangers than in their trusted friends and family.

(From Marketing Management)

Every day on the train ride home I read as much as I can. Blog posts, marketing articles, magazines, books, the RedEye… I’m a knowledge junkie and I try and cram as much stuff in my head as I possibly can. Unfortunately by the time I take the train back the next morning, most of what I learned is gone.

For those who want to remember, Wired recently covered Piotr Wozniak, inventor of SuperMemo, an application that prompts you to relearn information at selected intervals so you’ll never forget. Here’s how it works:

SuperMemo is a program that keeps track of discrete bits of information you've learned and want to retain. For example, say you're studying Spanish. Your chance of recalling a given word when you need it declines over time according to a predictable pattern. SuperMemo tracks this so-called forgetting curve and reminds you to rehearse your knowledge when your chance of recalling it has dropped to, say, 90 percent. When you first learn a new vocabulary word, your chance of recalling it will drop quickly. But after SuperMemo reminds you of the word, the rate of forgetting levels out. The program tracks this new decline and waits longer to quiz you the next time.

Really the information we learn is never really forgotten, a tantalizing fact that’s backed up by Robert Bjork, chair of UCLA's psychology department.

Once we drop the excuse that memorization is pointless, we're left with an interesting mystery. Much of the information does remain in our memory, though we cannot recall it. "To this day," Bjork says, "most people think about forgetting as decay, that memories are like footprints in the sand that gradually fade away. But that has been disproved by a lot of research. The memory appears to be gone because you can't recall it, but we can prove that it's still there. For instance, you can still recognize a 'forgotten' item in a group. Yes, without continued use, things become inaccessible. But they are not gone."

Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? is a fascinating piece that explores how memory works and Wozniak’s obsession with retaining every piece of knowledge he learns.

It seems to be still too early for everyday use, but that’s owed more to the laziness of humans and our unlikelyhood of sitting down everyday and commiting to the process. But the article offers tantalizing prospects that an everyday person, if they wanted badly enough, could truly retain all the knowledge they wanted. This will be at the forefront of my mind the next time I have a vague recollection of a journalist to pitch for a new client or a marketing tactic that I read about two months ago that would be perfect now.

(Want to Remember Everything You’ll Ever Learn? from Wired.com)

I just received an exciting letter acknowledging Walker Sands as the winner of a Gold Hermes Award for Integrated Marketing. The award comes for a full integrated marketing program we launched earlier this year to promote our services at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES).

Admittedly this isn’t as prestigious as a Silver Anvil or an Effie, but I’m still very excited. This is the first award I’ve received for a campaign that I have designed and executed. I’m very honored to be recognized.

“There were over 4,000 entries from throughout the United States and several other countries in the Hermes Creative Awards 2008 competition. Entries came from corporate marketing and communication departments, advertising agencies, PR firms, design shops, production companies and freelancers.

"Hermes Creative Awards is administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (www.amcpros.com). The international organization consists of several thousand marketing, communication, advertising, public relations, media production and free-lance professionals. AMCP oversees awards and recognition programs, provides judges and rewards outstanding achievement and service to the profession."

Thanks AMCP for recognizing our hard work! I’ll try and put out a post later this week or over the weekend that covers what we did and why it was so successful.

My good friend Dan Thorne, a copywriter at a large ad agency, passed this along saying, “It’ll waste two hours of your life, but you’ll never regret it.”

So you’ve been warned.

It’s hard to choose, but I have say the below “Happy Fun Ball” may be my personal favorite with “Robot Insurance” coming in a close second.

Check out the full list at Nerve.com.

Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

#13 Happy Fun Ball

(50 Greatest Commercials of All Time from Nerve.com)

I've tried to resist but am succumbing to the the phenomenon that is Twitter. I don't know if there is real value in microblogging but I'm joining in an attempt to explore this new medium. For the past year I've looked at it as a waste of time and another pointless distraction, but smarter people than me have convinced me not to judge before participating. That advice makes sense.

You can follow my updates here: http://twitter.com/michaelsantoro.

I'm planning on using this as a holder for all the articles I don't get to blog about. In truth I probably read 3-4 articles a day that I think are blog worthy, but because I have time constraints and a wife that would actually like to talk to me, they don't get posted. Since I don't feel a need to comment on them, this should be an outlet for those, plus other pieces that I feel are interesting.

Hopefully in a few months I'll have something to report. Whether I find it's another time-wasting online fad, like I think it is, or I drink the Kool-Aid and declare it world changing, I'll let you know.

In the meantime I found these blog entries to be fairly useful when diving into this new world:

Newbie's Guide to Twitter (Webware)

Guide to Twitter as a Tool for Marketing and PR (Online Marketing Blog)

Top 10 Twitter Hacks (Strategic Public Relations)

200+ Internet Marketing Gurus on Twitter (Marketing Pilgrim)

I have always known that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an ongoing process, but I never had a great explanation for why. Last week a conversation with our head of web services, John Fairley reealed alot. Call it my epiphany on ongoing SEO.

Constantly Evolving Search Algorithm

Last week, Google VP, Udi Manber mentioned that Google adjusted its search algorithm 450 times in 2007. As John pointed out, that’s more than once every day, each tweak in the algorithm creating a positive or negative consequence for where you appear in the search rankings.

For a website where organic web leads are the lifeblood of business, a small change to the algorithm can push your indexed pages lower and decrease the traffic to your site. Regular monitoring of your site traffic and then responding quickly to changing organic search referrals is critical for your business.

I asked John how big of a deal these tweaks could possibly be. The answer is that it depends. Each tweak affects search differently. A change that impacts your site negatively affects other sites positively. And some tweaks that have huge impact in your industry may not concern other businesses.

Local Search Example

John gave a great example pointing on of the big stories of 2007, Google using maps in local search. You may have noticed this recently in your own searches when you do a search for a service with a local city such as Chicago. Below is my search for “Chicago accountant.”

Now for a large corporation you may not be too concerned about local search and appearing on the map, but for any local service like an accountant, electrician, restaurant, etc… those searches can make or break your business.

Search Engine Roundtable reported in December about a Flower Shop in Denver that was being devastated by a lack of inclusion in these results.

“A story that emerges at the SEO Refugee Forums speaks volumes about the power of Google Maps in the natural/universal search results. A florist company in Denver is currently ranking #1 for their key terms in the natural organic listings. They have also invested over $100,000 in Google AdWords over three years.

“The problem is that now that Google Universal search includes maps in the results, they're not showing up on the listings for whatever reason. Instead, the competition is. They claim that it has "shut down their business overnight." The owner is desperate and is trying every possible angle:

“ ‘We are now less than 1 week from Christmas, our busiest time of year, and critical weakness in the ‘algorithm’ for maps has bankrupted my company. .... PLEASE HELP us. I realize we are nothing to you, but my family is losing everything.’” 

This flower shop still isn’t in the map results for "Denver Flowers".

Cracking the Google Code

Even scarier is that of those 450 tweaks made to the algorithm, none are publicly released. Even the fact that Manber said that 450 tweaks were made was a huge deal for SEO people.

The only way to figure out how to adjust accordingly is to constantly monitor and, when a change is noticed, pounce on that opportunity. Trolling search forums like this one, reveal that for, local search, proximity to the city center, user ratings, and specific keywords make up all the difference. But you have to proactively seek out experts and then test your site accordingly.

In short, adjustments to the algorithm are being made and if you assume that you can set your site and walk away, you are asking for trouble. Certainly a proactive marketer can make himself aware of the changing environment, but to consistently maximize results you need experts. It’s conversations like these that make me glad we have guys like John on staff.