Tell people what to search for

Is your Web site full of great content that nobody knows to search for?  Are your products getting great reviews that aren’t being seen by your potential customers?  How do you get this great information in front of your readers and potential customers?  The answer may be easier than you think.  If people aren’t searching for what you want them to - just tell them what to search for.  Seriously.

Fujitsu Print Ad - Search Box Close up

Fujitsu did it, and did it quite well in a recent print ad for one of their scanners. The ad could have given quotes from several reviews, but then we may have suspected them of only listing the good ones (I know I always suspect that of advertisers).  They could have listed dozens of tech specs or told us why the marketing department thinks we will love it.  All of the things that appear in ordinary print ads.

Don’t be Ordinary

Fujitsu didn’t do any of the “ordinary” things because they knew there is already a wealth of great content on the Web.  What they needed was a way for us - their potential customers - to find it.

The top section of the ad (shown at right) was a very large call to action “Search this:” and then in a generic looking search box was the exact phrase they wanted us to search for: “fujitsu scansnap scanner s300 reviews.”

As I started typing the phrase into the Google search box an interesting thing happened.  It guessed what I was going to type, exactly!  That tells me that lots and lots of people had already done that exact same search.

When the search page loads, as expected there are hundreds of links to product reviews.  Not surprisingly, there are Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads for the scanners as well - both by Fujitsu and several others.

Is the campaign a success?  Only the numbers can tell us the final result, but I think they are off to a fantastic start.

What do you think?

DISCLAIMER:  If you are looking for a made-from-scratch cake recipe, move along.  Sorry.

This was a special chocolaty cake for my Fiancée, Sherry.  As usual I found a recipe I thought looked good and fiddled with it some to make it my own.  Everyone agreed it was quite moist and tasty. Even the kids who usually offer some form of suggestion on improvement cleaned the plates in record time. more…

A while back I wrote that email marketers need to do their homework about to who and when they are sending messages.  To say I am shocked that these companies did not read my article and immediately change their processes would be…an exaggeration.  If they paid any attention to the world of e-marketing they would have already done the research and I wouldn’t be ranting (again).

Now I’ve decided to name names.  Hopefully they have the sense to at least have a “Google alert” set up and will read this.  If you are one of THEM, congratulations for getting here.  The messages listed below were all received within one week, Sunday midnight to Sunday midnight and arrived outside of regular business hours (CST). more…

Communications can be a challenge

You’ve heard it a 1,000 times over, you must advertise to keep your business afloat.  For many businesses though, effective communication with consumers is one of their biggest challenges.  You must try to think like your customer, put yourself in their shoes. That’s not always an easy task.  Often advertisers are so caught up in the copy, the design, the music and the ‘call to action,’ that they forget to consider the surroundings and circumstances under which the ad will be seen consumers often end up seeing advertising which probably cost more money to create that it brings in.  Not all mistakes are so big that they jump out at you, little ones happen too - but they can damage your image just as easily.  Whether you are a do-it-yourselfer or a big agency it can be easy to over-look mistakes when you are so closely involved in a project.    Larger advertisers may have the time, money and resources to do A/B testing or focus groups.  It’s my opinion though, that because humans like to make others happy the people being watched and/or tested will inherently try to figure out what the tester wants and give it to them.  Testing, if possible, is an important and useful tool - just use the data you acquire carefully.  Lastly, I strongly urge you to have someone without a vested interest in your advertisement, and who has never seen any version of it, look at it to make sure that it gives the intended message and does not make you look like a jack-ass.  I hate to tie this back to lawyers, but much of what they quote is based on what a “reasonable person” would do.  Put your ads to the same test - what would a reasonable person see, think and feel when they experience your ad?  I offer a few samples I think should have a “reasonable person” test. more…

A few weeks ago I wrote an article asking “What Twitter Name Should Jack Use?” I wanted your help in deciding whether or not to change my Twitter name from @web_guy to @JackLeblond.  While the concensus was by far in favor of the change, there were a few folks with a valid reasoning to leave it alone.

I decided to follow the majority of advice, switched over a few days later and never looked back.

Today while attending the eMarketing seminar at InnoTech Austin, my decision was proven to be the right one - multiple times.

I was fortunate enough to actually meet several people from my tweet stream, and a few more that follow people that follow me.  The spark of recognition when I introduced my self was obvious.  I have no doubt in my mind that had I stayed with @web_guy on twitter, those people I met today would have had no clue who I was.  Yes, we may have figured it out eventually, but that immediate recognition helped to jump start conversations because we already (sort of) knew each other.