Yes its been a while since we wrote on our blog! Tut Tut! But moving offices and other exciting changes had us running around like wild creatures for a few weeks. Things are settling into a manageable pace again so hopefully some more chatter from the Traffic Branders is on the cards.
I have also put some writing efforts into a new travel industry blog which has been consuming my words :). Online Travel Focus is a great new blog focussed on information and challenges facing the South African tourism industry’s online presence. It has some very informative topics and articles and provides a great resource for the web savvy travel industry experts to keep abreast with developments in the field.
Online Travel Focus is run by Paul Hobden who recently returned to South Africa after many years in the UK. Paul was also instrumental in hosting the successful Online Travel Summit last month. His focus on research and disseminating information for the wealth of local online travel companies promises to fill a much needed gap and I am sure that his expertise will add great value to our existing knowledge pool.
aaaarrrgghhh! Maybe you could get away with it if you had some direct satellite link to the bandwidth Gods…but please flashy people - have you never tried to surf the net in South Africa and had to wait 5 minutes for a site to open because it’s all flash-based? I beg you to do some more research in your chosen field. No-one’s denying that flash elements on a website look great and are super useful and there are some brilliantly designed flash websites that actually work and load quickly. You good developers are exempt from my rant! It’s the old school flash sites that show you the loading bar percentage process that are my particular gripe. It’s a fact. Our bandwidth speed and consistency in South Africa is a problem. A site that takes ages to load because of shoddy development work…well you can certainly count me out and tab me up with your other frustrated potential clients.
Of course there are several companies who have finally caught on to the worldwide trend of transferring a large percentage of marketing dollars to online channels. But as a whole I would say that there is still a severe lack of comprehensive understanding of the opportunities that online marketing and specifically PPC can offer South African companies.
I was pretty shocked yesterday when I spoke to the marketing director of one of the biggest car rental companies in South Africa when she said that she already has “an online strategy because she has a web designer”. EEK! Dangerous territory for a travel related company. Especially when the web is the preferred channel for 50% of UK users searching for financial and travel items. [Source: Equi-Media, February 2006] and that an industry study revealed that nearly 75% of travel buyers used search engines before making a purchase. [DoubleClick / Performics / comScore, “Search Before the Purchase”, March 2005].
Whether your travel company is an online operator or not it stands to reason that an effective online marketing strategy is vital to your survival.
I also spoke with someone who has an inside interest in one of the major food and beverage retailers in South Africa who was also at his wits end trying to convince the big marketing honchos of the need for and the effectiveness of search marketing.
It is amazing to me that anyone in marketing has no interest or understanding of online marketing channels. Even if they are over 50 and have to get their children to set-up their online banking profiles…one would think that on a professional level they would hire a young online marketing professional who could source and manage relevant agencies to establish their brand’s online profile.
These two incidents revealed to me just how much revenue and indeed national and international exposure big corporates in SA are missing out on.
It is my opinion that the South African companies who are already operating in the online space or who are considering including it in their marketing mix in the next year are going to have a massive advantage over their competitors who are too intimidated by online marketing to even consider its worth. These ostriches who bury their heads do not realise that online advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry already in the US and that every day they shy away from the leap to online is lost revenue and lost branding opportunities.
There has never been a more targeted channel that provides such massive opportunity for feedback on consumer preferences and purchasing habits. Wakey wakey Marketing head honchos!
It’s hard to believe that the second biggest search engine (admittedly a distant second!) can make such a fundamental error in their Pay Per Click (PPC) ad copy. “Pay Per Chick” is certainly a new take on paid search! What is particularly embarrassing is that this really unfortunate typo appears on their competition’s website and further drives home the point that Google gets the superiority prize again and again.
I have actually emailed them to try and alleviate this embarrassing show of words but that was 2 days ago and the Ad still appears. I am assuming that this is an affiliate ad which brings up further points about whether brand management is at all possible if you open up your brand to PPC affiliate marketers.
Regardless of who is responsible for the writing of this Ad, as a pedantic editor (if you find spelling mistakes or errors on our website, please email us!) and writer I find it quite appalling that this kind of error occurs. It does, however, highlight one of my favourite pet subjects in the PPC arena. Most agencies will “wow” you with all sorts of statistics and metrics and numbers of clicks, impressions and conversions. Where most agencies fall short of a good paid search campaign, is their lack of attention to good Ad copy.
After all the geek-speak and lingo is thrown at you, its no wonder that clients of PPC agencies forget to discuss the core brand message that they aim to portray online. Good Ad copy that clearly states the sales or service offering and has a clear brand message is admittedly a challenge when we are reduced to 3 lines of 25, 35 and 35 characters. But it is entirely possible. Only when the agency works closely with the client to develop this message can the PPC industry truly claim to be advertisers. Just because we are using the Internet as a medium does not mean we can forget about the basic rules of advertising, marketing and brand identity.
Sorry Yahoo! this is not a great reflection on your marketing team or your affiliate marketers.
OK I know its cheesy but we couldn’t help it! Jan is after all a Google expert so when faced with the choice of which fun cake to make to celebrate his birthday it simply had to be a Google cake.
The office was happy with the extreme chocolate and caramel centre and the lindt chocolate coating…no lunch was needed!
Take a look 
What would a marketing company be without a Blog?
One of the challenges of being at the forefront of the world’s fastest growing media industry is that you are expected to stay abreast with the wealth of knowledge and information that is spun around on the Internet about the Internet. This mass of information pertaining to emerging trends, online demographics, changing algorithms and a plethora of new and evolved ways of marketing and advertising online is phenomenal. What really interests me though is the way that the Internet has managed to create a certain comradery and sharing of information amongst competitors. Perhaps this is owed to the fact that with any new industry, sharing of information is essential to the overall lasting success of the emerging fledgling.
Hence we return back to my title…viva la Blog! Forums and Blog’s have become an essential part of any online marketer’s world (and of course across other social and business sectors as well) in terms of discussing trends and pointing each other to good resources. With the emergence of social media I did wonder if their lifespan would be jeopardised. However, it seems that in the total Internet “network of networks” there is a place for all of our offline world to find its place online and Blogs although part of the online furniture by now do, in my opinion, offer personality to your company and play an integral part in creating online communities of shared interest and information.
So there you have it. Traffic Brand has added one more to the Blog World! May it be informative, friendly and quirky…a little like us!
