Measuring Display Ads Like Its 1999?

Look over a magazine or farm paper of only two or three years past and the advertising copy appears crude.  What was then considered snappy is now worn and old like a garment.  Three years from now will the same be true of this year’s copy?

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Copy is constantly improving.  The cry always for something newer and better.  The obvious question arises, “What will be the style of advertising one hundred years from now?  When we present writers of copy, encased in an advertised coffin are resting in an advertised mausoleum, what will the newer generation do?

“Will they have something better than anything now dreamed of?  Or, is there a limit to improvement and will advertising, moving in cycles like apparel fashions, swing back to some plan that is now considered superannuated?  Will the coming century usher a renaissance?”

This topic is admittedly impractical but it is irresistibly fascinating.  The writer has dreamed a little on the subject.

Judging from the present trend of advertising thought, one is inclined to think that the dominant note of 21st century advertising will be accurate forecasting of results.  Psychology will become a more necessary factor in the qualifications of the advertising man.  He will learn to read the human mind almost unerringly and when he inserts an advertisement, he will know almost down to the last inquiry just what results it will bring.

By the time 2012 rolls round the public will doubtless be better educated on art and good taste so that many of the present outre layouts which, violating all canons of art, scream to high heaven, will be eliminated.  The public already recognizes the good and true in advertising.  By 2012 it will also recognize the beautiful.

Media?  This is hard to answer, even fancifully.  It may be that the present tendency toward consolidation on the part of some of the national magazines means that in the future there will be fewer magazines and they supremely good.  Experiments have already been made in Germany looking toward printing by electricity, without ink, and there is no doubt but that the next hundred years will see many improvements in printing and engraving.

If airships become practical many advertisers will doubtless distribute advertising literature by the simple method of throwing it overboard as the airship passes over a populous district.  Professional advertising men know from bitter experience that indiscriminate distribution is wasteful but there will always be some who will insist on this method.

None can foresee the advertising methods of a century hence.  It may be that telepathy will be so developed that the advertiser by a feat of thought transferrence can convey his selling talk to the minds of his prospects.

Then again, some mighty cataclysm may wipe out our civilization as a mother wipes the lips of her child.  We may go back to the days of barter.  We may even be back to the days of cave men when no advertising is needed, when the rule is “Let him take who may and let him keep who can.”

Who knows?

Author: Paul Lessing
Lessing Advertising Agency
Des Moines, Iowa
January, 1912

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I wasn’t intending to go to the Field of Dreams movie site. I was on my way to Milwaukee heading east on Highway 20 and the sign for Dyersville caught me off guard. The stop would delay the journey, but how can you not stop at the Field of Dreams? I mean, it’s the freaking Field of Dreams!

Now if you haven’t seen the movie Field of Dreams stop reading.  What planet are you from? Go watch it, right now. Seriously, it’s that good. Ok, so you don’t have time to watch it? Watch this trailer because it will give you the general idea.

You know, the creepy voice that says, “If you build it, he will come.”

The “you” is you or your marketing department.
The “it” is your Web site.
The “he” is your traffic.

Remember in the movie, everyone thought Kevin Costner’s character, “Ray Kinsella” was crazy for building a baseball field over his precious fertile Iowa farm land? He waited all winter. He stared out the window looking at that field he built. Nothing but a big empty baseball field that no one used. This was Ray’s shot. His chance to do something meaningful with his life. Up to this point in the movie, he had failed.

Do you feel the same way about your Web site? No one plays on your site. No one visits. They do, but there’s nothing happening there, and they leave. They leave as quickly as possible. You spent a fortune on that thing, didn’t you? It was supposed to be this magical lead generation machine. It was supposed to change everything for the sales and marketing departments. Your company was going to go to next level. But it failed.

Back to the movie. After a few months, a baseball player finally shows up on Ray’s field. A ghost. Shoeless Joe Jackson. He brought other ghosts with him, like Smokey Joe Wood. And Mel Ott. And Paul Lessing. And Gil Hodges! But Ray Kinsella knew there was more when the voice came back, saying:

“Go the Distance.”

In Ray’s case, going the distance meant taking a road trip to discover what he was missing in his life. He found it, but it took a lot of hard work. He had to take James Earl Jones to a baseball game, travel back in time, pick up a hitchhiker, risk losing his farm to that dude from 30 Something and support his wife and daughter. But he went the distance.

Now, what’s this mean for your Web site? It means you need to GO THE DISTANCE. Simply building a baseball field and having some dead ball players show up wasn’t enough for Ray Kinsella.  Building a Web site and getting some site visits that never materialize shouldn’t be enough for you either.

How do you go the Distance? You have to work hard on your Web site just like Ray Kinsella worked to get what he needed. Luckily, you don’t need to leave the state or pick up a hitchhiker. Here are six things you should do:

1. Nurture your Web site. That thing is more important than any single piece of marketing you send out. Don’t believe me? What’s the first thing you do when you hear about a company you know nothing about? You Google it.  Do at least one thing a week to update your Web site. Doing so will increase your search engine rankings. When you do that, Google hears: “Hey, someone cares about this Web site. Let’s rank them higher.” I’m not kidding.

2. Update your Web site. Add new things to your site. News, white papers. Sorry to hear you’re limited by your ability to make frequent changes. I don’t care!  Get a new tech guy who obeys commands or can build you a Web site with a content management system someone who only knows Microsoft Word can update. Being held at the mercy of the IT department is so 2000 and AOL. No more excuses.

3. Have conversations online. Start them yourself, or join conversations already happening. Blog, tweet, put videos on YouTube, get on Facebook and work your butt off to drive traffic to your site by providing the type of content your customer and prospects find valuable. If you don’t know what they find valuable, you don’t know your customer. Notice I didn’t call it “social media” because that term is shuned by your boss who doesn’t understand what it means. Social media is a mechanism/medium/vehicle/platform for getting your message to people. It shouldn’t be called “media” anyway because I typically have to pay for media. Social Media is free, and, like the Social Media Guru says, “It’s social media baby, you do it yourself.”

4. Search Engine Optimization. SEO doesn’t have to be about page titles and meta data. Save that for the wonk who makes it painful to update your Web site. (Don’t skim this post, go read number two again). Do a search on Google for “Iowa Social Media” – check the first two results. That cost the Lessing-Flynn squat.

5. Multipurpose your content. You know that tired newsletter you send out every month? There’s content in there, right? It may not look as tired if your shortened the five paragraph article, summarized it in two paragraphs and served it up like it was fresh as a blog post. Oh yeah, if they want to read more, link from your blog to your Web site and give them all five paragraphs.

6. Video is king. Why do I say that? Time on site. Time spent with your brand. Would you rather watch a three minute video and feel all warm and fuzzy or read a blog post that’s too long (like this one). Do you have any videos? Post them. Where? Anywhere you can. YouTube, your blog, Facebook, then tweet about them like it’s going out of style. These videos don’t need to look like some HD Pepsi ad either. Have you seen the stuff that passes as good marketing on YouTube? Today, quality in the content’s message is more important than how sexy it looks when produced. Our creative directors just cringed. Sorry guys.

I could go on, but those are the basics.

The Web site you built doesn’t have a cornfield with magical traffic pouring onto it. While there are best Web practices and good SEO tactics (and bad SEO tactics) there are simply things us non-code writing folks can do. We just have to commit to doing them. We have to go the distance.

Author: Josh Fleming
www.lessingflynn.com

I tried to get a Moonlight Graham reference in here but failed. If anyone has one, let’s have it in the comments section!

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Bloggers looking for site traffic know that tagging their posts can increase traffic and SEO significantly. We’re no different, but the real fun is in the domains names we find visiting LessingFlynn.com. These domains reveal a variety of interesting people and companies visiting our Web site.

When we look at our own Web site analytics we learn who some of these people and companies are. Well, at least where they sit. We have a good idea as to why they are here, others, well, we have to leave that up to our imagination. Here’s the real point though:

It’s one thing to have access to analytics. The key is to actually do something with that information.

For example, we learned that there are either:

A. A ton of ad agencies trolling our site for new business leads, OR
B. A ton of unhappy people at Des Moines ad agencies looking for work eleswhere, like, well, here.

This information led us to developing the following new page on our Web site.

Whether you are trolling for new business or a new job, we’re happy you stopped by.

Author: Josh Fleming
www.lessingflynn.com
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