Al3ny Advertising & Marketing Blog

You might have heard that banner advertising is dead. Nothing could be further from the truth! If you can find a

banner exchange that gives you a decent ratio you can begin branding of your site, and branding may be the one thing

you MUST do to get and keep business.

Banner ads and banner exchanges are great tools for branding your site. Even better, most banner ads can be shown for free through banner swaps. It isn’t necessary to purchase ads to have a successful branding campaign.

You must however, remember the most important part about using banners for branding –The Brand! Never create a banner, button, or other graphic to submit to any exchange be it banner ads, reciprocal links, etc., that does not have your name, logo, or tag line (Slogan) on it.

Try to get two of the three on it if you can, and always have a call to action on the banner; such as, “Click Here!”, “Sign up today!”, or “Limited Time!” to get the viewer to click on the link and visit your site.

Whether they purchase or not is not important – well, not the main thing — getting your brand (Site, name, product, etc.) in front of the potential customer is the goal for a first time viewer of your banner.

The whole idea behind branding is getting your name or face out there over and over again so people who are surfing see you everywhere they go!

Are you more likely to purchase a product from someone you have never heard of or someone you know has been around a long time because you remember their name, logo or tag line? “Surely they must be legit, or I would not see them advertised everywhere!” is what you want people to think whenever they see your ad or are at your site and getting ready to make a purchase.

The biggest mistake people make is expecting a huge click through rate on a banner the very first time it is put out there and then quitting when that does not happen. Don’t think of banner ads as a one-time thing. People rarely click on a banner the first, second or even third time they see it.

Think of a banner ad as your big golden arches. The first time you see it you ask, “What is it?”

The second time you see it, you remember, “Oh yes that’s that hamburger place.”

And maybe the third time you see it you say, “Hey, I think I will try one of those hamburgers!”

Hopefully, by the third, fourth or fifth time someone sees your name or logo on a banner ad they will “Try your burger” too!

Here are some resources to give you a head start in branding yourself using banner advertising:

Banner Exchanges: This list updated 4/16/05

The main one I recommend is BannersGoMLM. (http://www.bannersgomlm.com)

They give you a 1 to 1 ratio and you can earn banner exposures based on the credits earned by people who sign up through you.

Some others you can try out are:

BannerSwap (http://www.bannerswap.com)

Offers a 1:2 ratio and supports following banner dimensions: 468×60; 500×350; 160×600; 88×31; 468×60 Flash Banners

Exchange-it (http://www.exchange-it.com) Offers a 2:1 ratio; 468×60 banners

WorldBE ( http://www.worldbe.com)

Offers the top 50% performing members an exchange ratio of 1:1. The next-best performing 25% of members receive a 4:3 exchange ratio while the last 25% receive a 2:1 exchange ratio.

123Banners: (http://www.123banners.com) Offers a 2:1 ratio; 468×60 banners

Link Buddies: (http://linkbuddies.com) Established in 1997!

Click Through Ratio* Exchange Rate Top 1% of all LinkBuddies Members 1:1 Top 10% of all LinkBuddies Members 4:3 Top 25% of all LinkBuddies Members 3:2 Top 75% of all LinkBuddies Members 2:1 Top 90% of all LinkBuddies Members 5:2 Bottom 10% of all LinkBuddies Members 10:1

All LinkBuddies member needs to achieve 100 impressions within two weeks to be eligible for sliding exchange rates.

Provides you an easy-to-use three step wizard to create up to ten banners. 468×60 banners

Online Banner Creation Sites:

Free:

Here are some places you can create banners (and buttons and other linked graphics) “on the fly” so to speak. The ones I have listed here are free, there are tons more that have annual fees. Some of the ones below also offer a “for fee” version. Be sure to read all of their rules for using their services and finished banners – usually called “Terms of Service”.

Creative Connectivity: (http://www.crecon.com/banners.html)

The original one I have used for years until I got the nifty little software program from Xara.

Banner Creator: http://www.bannercreator.nu/ main page the banner generator is here: http://www.bannercreator.nu/banner-maker.html

Banner Forge http://bannerforge.com All the standard sizes plus a 120×240 vertical size.

Fee:

These sites charge an annual or per banner fee, but you usually get a larger choice of graphics and a better customization service. Some are do-it-yourself and others are professional services that have graphic artists create your banner for you.

Be sure to read all of their rules for using their services and finished banners – usually called “Terms of Service”.

http://www.quickbanner.com Nice looking banners of all sizes. Flash and other advanced banners starting at $14.95.

You can still get some .GIF banners (468×60) and buttons (88×33) for free.

Cool Banners: (http://coolbanners.com): Fees range from $50 for smaller button-type banners to $300 dollars for interactive html banners.

Strategic Solutions: (http://www.ss-banners.com/ ) Standard size banners (486×60) as static, html, animated or flash. Prices range from $75 – $300 plus a “rush fee” of $200 for 24 hour turnaround.

Where to Place Your Banners:

You know where to start, now you have to decide where to put those banners you are swapping. It is better to link to a sub page than your homepage so target the offers on your banners (Not leaving off your logo or name though!) to specific pages on your site.

Do you offer a newsletter? Great! Put that information on a banner and link it to your sign up page.

Do you sell software? Put that on a banner and link it to your software description/ order page. And so on until you have people coming in from all over.

If you have created your site correctly with links to all the other pages easily accessible on every page, then visitors will find your other content even though they did not come in from the “front door”.

NOTE: Don’t forget to put a sign up form on every page for your newsletter and a link for swapping links or classified ads. If you do not know how to do this or don’t have a newsletter or swap links page set up find the tutorials you need to set them up at http://treefreepublishing.com/articles/.

Once you have your banners out there, don’t slack off! Go back to the exchanges you joined and see how the banners are doing. If you have one that is doing nothing and it has been up for awhile (giving it a chance to be seen several times by surfers) pull it and put up another one instead.

Try animated against non-animated, bright colors against flashy fonts, etc., until you find that perfect set of three or four banners that work well for you consistently.

Once you have your select banners, rotate them amongst the different exchange services. A banner that isn’t new on Banner Exchange A can be swapped to banner Exchange B and start out new again!

After that, move it to Banner Exchange C, until you rotate it back to where you started- and guess what? Enough time has passed that you can use it in Banner Exchange A again and it is fresh all over again.

Ok, now that you are all ready to brand yourself- get out there and start submitting your banner!

Company image is a big deal. Thousands of small businesses have not looked twice at how the public perceives their company, yet big companies spend millions of dollars per year on public relations. Customers mean sales, the better your image, the more trust that is created, the more sales are made. Focusing on your PR can be much more beneficial than just the short term publicity.

Small businesses have to do pretty much everything themselves, from marketing, to putting through sales, leaving most business owners thinking, that they do not have the knowledge or the time to deal with their own public relations(PR). But PR is more than fundraisers and charity spots. PR deals with advertising; focuses on promotion, marketing and following up clients. Small business owners are already working on their own public image without knowing it, and usually following the lines of big business, use one of two areas vital areas of marketing, branding or direct marketing.

So what is right for you, branding or direct marketing? If you have ever listened to your local radio, you will almost always hear direct marketing, with hundreds of businesses telling you to come in and buy their product right now. Very few use branding. Branding is advertising your brand or product without a call to action or sales talk; you will often see this with new products launched by large corporations. Branding together with distribution is a very popular tactic in industries such as the beverage industry. A client’s trust means a lot, but you will not get it by telling them what do to all the time. Many small businesses never become large businesses because all the advertising produced is direct marketing to their targeted audience.

Of course, in special cases, it is appropriate to use direct marketing without any branding, for example, selling and e-book or a program online. Using a single page sales letter in this case is completely appropriate, because branding would not significantly influence sales. That is, unless you wrote another e-book, or another program. Then branding may be appropriate.

Corporations and big companies use branding to launch new products and subsidiary companies. You will often see new products advertisements on TV, without them telling you where to get them, how much they are or sometimes even what they are. This is a great example of branding, the approach is creating trust around the businesses name, logo and if applicable, slogan.

We come back to the question, what is right for your business? Branding is for companies or businesses that are just starting out and what to create awareness of their service. Direct marketing will create sales. Depending on your marketing and promotion strategy (pay per click strategy for online businesses) you may choose either one. If creating sales, then gives you the money for branding, you might want to try that, but if you have got a little bit of capital, branding first will create trust for your direct marketing campaign, making more sales than without branding. The marketing strategy you choose will determine what the best is for your company.

Adidas + Yohji Yamamoto, Intel Inside + Compaq Personal Computer, D&G + Motorola, British Airways and Citibank, Adidas + McCartney, Mercedes and Swatch, Bacardi and Coca Cola, Danone and Quick, GOME and Motorola, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and American Express…these are only few among the most famous examples of co-branding we have seen emerging in the latest years.

Is co-branding a new phenomenon? Not really. There are classic examples of this sort of branding strategy adopted by detergents and white goods brand as well as by oil brands and car manufacturers starting in the early nineteen sixties.

Until the eighties, however, since the value of a company had just been measured on the bases of its revenues and tangible assets, not many companies had really paid attention to any sort of branding strategy, not to mention co-branding strategy. It is only in the last thirty years that companies have understood that the real value of a business resides in the minds of its consumers: in the brand.

But how can co-branding enhance this value? Why do brands invest in interlocking their identities to create co-branded products?

Co-branding, as it has been defined by Tom Blackett and Bob Boad in their book (Co-Branding: the Science of Alliance, St Martin’s Press, 1999) is:

“…used to encompass a wide range of marketing activities involving the use of two (and sometimes more) brands. Thus co-branding could be considered to include sponsorships, where Marlboro lends its name to Ferrari or accountants Ernst and Young support the Monet exhibition.”

The ultimate objective of any co-branded strategy would be to combine the strengths of involved parties to increase respective brands value.

In order to be successful, the co-branding effort needs to be directed to:

1. Increase brands distinctiveness by capitalizing on the values embedded in the cooperating brands.

Product and services life cycle shorten by the day, and distinctive products and services features and innovations are easily copied among brands in the same industry. This is a reality of today’s business that co-branded products can withstand to. By merging values and identities of brands originally engaged in different industries, co-branded products and services can gain consumer choices, loyalty and ultimately make the brand unique and distinctive.

In this category Labbrand includes:

Loyalty programs co-branding, where the involved parties share the cost of customer loyalty programs or other CRM marketing programs to deliver extra benefits and eventually strengthen the relationship among consumers and the two brands

British Airways and Citibank, for instance, co-branded a credit card allowing the owner to automatically become a member of the British Airways Executive Club.

Trade marketing co-branding, where the involved parties cooperate in designing co-branded products made specifically for a certain distributor or facility. Danone provides a good example in this sense as it has produced a special yogurt for Quick, the European fast food chain.

By increasing their distinctiveness, involved brands get to occupy a unique place in consumers minds and eventually gain customer loyalty by providing them with merged benefits.

2. Deliver consumers greater value by creating highly relevant products or services:

Due to the increasing amount of choices available and in order to cut through all other offerings brands have to custom design added value products and services to meet variable individual needs.

As brands research and uncover these specific customers’ needs, they also find that a single brand may not be able to meet the demands of such profoundly segmented market.

In this category Labbrand includes:

Usage extension co-branding. Bacardi and Coca Cola, for instance have co-branded Bacardi Mixers range to demonstrate and spur other ways to consume the two brands.

Multiple sponsors co-branding, where more than two companies unify their effort to form a strategic alliance and create a specific co-branded technologically enhanced product.

Market niche co-branding.

Take for instance the cooperation between Adidas and Stella McCartney. This brought about a women-oriented, stylish and casual sport design collection: Adidas by Stella McCartney. This co-branded line manages to satisfy the demand of female buyers looking for sportswear that blends functionality and style while being able to deliver “products that both perform and look great”1

Moreover, having a high end designer create a sport range for women translated into practical benefits for both the collaborating parties: new consumers, willing to pay a premium to get the “special” sportswear, and buzz advertising around a range of products that was, back in 2004, the first ever sportswear collection signed by a high-end designer.

Look also at Smart car: a joint creation of Mercedes and Swatch designed especially for young consumers of big metropolis. In this case signatures of cooperating brands do not even appear on the car but in fact this is the result of each company’s specific expertise.

3. Increase the esteem consumers have toward participating brands

As consumers became ever more environmental and social aware it becomes essential for brands to create new touch points and build images consistent to the brand promise in consumer’s mind while aligning participating brand values.

In this category Labbrand includes:

Image reinforcement co-branding. A very good example to explain this form of co-branding can be seen in companies getting involved with NGOs to direct a percentage of their revenue toward a worthy cause. P&G and the National Association for Blinds, Starbucks and the African Wildlife foundation are just a few examples of companies cooperating with charities and fundraising organizations to align their brand values in consumers mind.

Co-branded in the luxury industry, Motorola mobile phone designed by D&G merges the image of the Italian luxurious brand with the high quality technological brand promise of the American mobile phone manufacturer.

Complementary brands co-branding, refers to brands in the same or complementary industries that cooperate to strengthen respective brand images in consumers’ mind. Credit cards such as Visa and Mastercard are a perfect example of complementary alliances as they merge the customer service skills of payment services franchisers with the image of reliability of banks.

Danone and Motta, both in the food industry, co-branded a yogurt ice-cream called Yolka that successfully satisfied the desires of healthy conscious gourmand and avoided direct competition to their respective brand portfolio.

Global co-branding, consisting mainly in alliances among MNCs and local players. Typically, the local player will provide an already established distribution network and local brand image while the MNC will bring technical know-how and international brand attachment.

For example, in 2004 Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and American Express Co. co-branded a credit card issued by the bank and bearing the American Express logo designed to sustain the nation’s effort to build a national credit-card system.

4. Increase the knowledge consumers have toward cooperating brands through the merger of each other’s strength in the respective domains.

In this category Labbrand includes:

Ingredient co-branding,whose appellation refers to the fact that a material,adding value ingredient is created by the cooperation of the two involved brands. This greatly increases the ultimate products value for co

nsumers, and consequently the brand value in consumers’ minds.

Intel and Compaq Personal Computer, for instance, represent a perfect example of synergy in this sense as the value created in their cooperation is great and without it the ultimate value of the product will be tremendously diminished. .

Coopetition, as this has been defined by Brandenburger and Nalebuff in their homonym book (1996, Co-Opetition : A Revolution Mindset That Combines Competition and Cooperation), which dictates that in order to dominate the market companies may need to cooperate with and compete against the same company.

Examples in coopetion are found in the co-branded city cars Toyota Aygo, Peugeot 107, and Citroen C1 by Peugeot and Citroen launched in direct competition to the Ford Ka, the Volkswagen Lupo and the Mercedes/Swatch Smart

The direction co-branding takes should not be considered unambiguous but rather as a comprehensive value creation process that might combine one or all of the four co-brand equity enhancement process aforementioned.

Very often the value pursued by each party may be different from one other, and the benefits that are likely to be achieved by the parties are usually in more than one field.

Adidas and the Japanese designer brand Yamamoto, for instance, have successfully created Adidas Y3 by matching very different goals. In this cooperation Adidas benefits in brand image from the “coolness” of Yamamoto and steps into the style arena while Yamamoto benefits from the size and network of Adidas to increase brand awareness.

That being said, crossover branding cannot represent an easy made strategy for every brand. Such kind of cooperation needs careful coordination among the parties involved and attentive care in realization. In fact over 90% of co-branding ventures fail.

Co-branding must, indeed, create equal value for both cooperating brands. No cooperation based on an unequal relationship has proved to be successful.

Moreover, no co-branding strategy can be feasible if the brands involved do not share core values and brand belief with each other.

Interlocking two brands identities can indeed be tricky as you need to look at your brand message and make sure that its perception will not be diluted in consumers’ minds.

Otherwise, the brands original consumer can be lost and disputes may arise between the partners.

Co-branding needs careful coordination, attentive communication among parties and detailed performing analysis. This complicates day to day operations and can cause one or both brands to under perform and fail to meet each others standards.

Respective brand goals and objectives being brought to the cooperation should clearly coincide with each others ultimate partnership strategies.

With the increased sophistication of today’s consumers it becomes vital for brands to understand their audiences’ needs and desires as consumers decide, in fact, the life or death of a brand. Consumers in the 21st century have become increasingly aware of the quality of the products and services they seek and now search for added value in these items.

Crossover branding, if rightly conceived and managed, can provide an attractive 1+1>2 formulas which creates added value for both participating brands and consumers.

1.Bill Sweeney, Project Leader and Head of Apparel at Adidas Sport Performance Division.