The team here are very excited with the way the recently launched Website Resources section on NZS.com is building momentum since it was launched last month. Businesses from across New Zealand are getting involved by adding their business details directly to NZS.com including using the extra marketing options for marketing descriptions, search tags and even marketing URL’s like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Anyone adding their business details also receives a “Business Info” button next to their website listing in the normal category results which is proving a valuable addition. For an example, have a look at the Black Sheep Marketing listing further down the page on the Strategic Marketing category. This helps increase clicks through to your website from NZS.com and it only takes a few minutes to complete.

To give you an idea of the information you could have on NZS.com as well you can see what Avatar Web Promotions have entered on the Avatar.co.nz Site Profile.

All you need to do is head along to the Website Resources section on NZS.com, register and follow the instructions.

While you’re there, if you’re interested in a succinct introduction on how New Zealand websites can enhance their performance, usability and visibility, read The First 15 - A Guide To Improving Website Performance.

NZS.com is proud to announce that we have offered $4,000 of online advertising to the winner of the Smart Marketing prize at the Bizzone Business Expo in Auckland later this month.What do you need to do to be in the draw?Just attend to the Bizzone Business Expo, May 27 - 29 and you’ll be able to enter. Make sure you come and see us at Booth 359a!We’re even offering free expo entry tickets (worth $20), just follow this link and register as a Guest of NZS.com.The expo is the largest business to business marketplace held for business owners in New Zealand, and the three-day Auckland show is expected to attract more than 200 exhibitors and 7,500 attendees.The show will bring together every kind of product and service required by a business owner or manager, offering free advice and tips and the latest smart marketing tools to help you run a more effective and profitable business.We look forward to seeing you there!

Everyone’s looking at ways to cut costs at this time of year, especially on necessities like the design and printing of promotional products and materials. Did you know that you can custom design all of your marketing materials and anything for printing NZ online, all by yourself?

Making the expense of a graphic designer unnecessary, custom online design is easy for your business cards, postcards, calendars, promotional giveaways, t-shirts and almost any other marketing products you can think of. Instead of going to a small printer who will laboriously do everything on a small scale, custom online designing and printing means you get the benefits of fully-automated manufacturing: low prices.

Because everything is digital and fully automatic, you can have anything you custom design online printed in small quantities, meaning the big savings don’t just come with the big orders. You can choose from pre-made templates and images, or upload your own easily, and spend as much (or as little) time organising the design of your marketing materials as you like. You’re then just a few clicks away from having the printing process started for you and delivered to your door!

Image from Flickr.

When was the last time you had a look at your strategic marketing plan? It’s commonly known that during periods of economic slowdown, marketing expenses are some of the first to drop off the necessity list.

But with tax cuts on their way next month and petrol prices lowering, New Zealand’s economic situation is perking up and looking brighter, so why not re-invent your marketing strategy ahead of your competition, and nab the rewards first?

E-mail marketing is set to increase by 24% this year, according to the UK-based Email Marketing Platforms Buyer’s Guide. More companies are using e-mail marketing solutions as customer retention tools. This is particularly important in an economy which is renewing its strength - many of your customers and clients may have been reluctant to use your services or buy your product this year, owing to belt-tightening. Now things are looking more relaxed, it’s time to recapture any lost business by reconnecting with them, and reminding them what you can do for them.

Get a little spring cleaning of your marketing strategy by contacting a consultancy who are marketing plan and branding experts, and will inspire breakthrough growth in your business.

Image from Flickr.

Imagine walking into a nightclub or outdoor dance party to hundreds of people dancing to silence… sounds a little crazy, right? Saturday night in Christchurch saw a unique phenomenon hit the South Island for the first time: a silent disco.

There are only a few companies I can think of that regularly produce brilliantly innovative marketing campaigns, so it was only logical that world class (kiwi made) vodka brand 42 Below put on an event like this for free.

Silent discos are a new concept whereby party goers are provided with wireless headphones and can tune into one of several channels streaming music from different DJ’s. The May 17 event saw DJs T Rice (Auckland), Josh Sinclair (Christchurch) and John Manson (Christchurch) pump out their tunes for eager dancers in a basement in the popular bar and nightclub district of SOL Square in Christchurch city.

So while the woman in the red dress was getting her freak on to some hot vocal house, the man with the dreadlocks was grooving to his own drum & bass tune. The silent disco experience was put on by UK Based company SilentArena, who offer their services worldwide and are able to provide in excess of 2500 headphones for clients.

Image from Flickr.

I read an article this morning which declared that owners of digital video recorder (DVR) consoles and hard drive recorders like MySky generally ignore all advertising on TV, but watch more TV that those without said consoles.

Half of DVR owners claim to fast-forward through all advertisements, and it appears that stay-at-home mothers are most acquainted with the fast-forward button - 9 out of 10 surveyed reported to not watch commercials when watching a recorded program on their DVR.

I am actually a recent convert to hard drive recording, having purchased a DVR about a month ago, for two reasons. The first was naturally, so I could record everything I enjoy watching during the week and watch my favourite shows at a convenient time (say, five shows in a row on a Sunday morning?). The second reason was, just like stay-at-home mums, to fast-forward ads. I actually made a point of buying a console with a thirty-second skip button, so I wouldn’t even have to keep an eye on my fast forwarding, I can just press that button eight times (advertisement breaks on New Zealand television are typically 4 minutes in total).

What does this mean for television advertising and its future? I can truly say that I am pretty much unaffected by small screen advertising, because I rarely even see it… but if television shows are funded solely on advertiser commercials, am I contributing to the jeopardisation of quality television on New Zealand screens?

Image from Flickr.

Traditional advertising is still an extravagant expense for many businesses in New Zealand. It can cost thousands of dollars to get a page in a printed magazine, tens of thousands for billboards and even over 100K to buy television spots.

Often, most real world advertisements just want people to visit the virtual presence of a product or service via a website, which requires providing a URL in an ad. We often run into URLs in the offline world: on billstickers, business cards, on the side of cars. For someone to actually remember and write down a URL in order to type it into their web browser, they will probably have a strong interest in the product or service already, meaning they are perhaps consumers that do not need to be ’sold to’ as heavily as the general public.

One crucial thing that advertisers often forget about is the power of links. A major part of web traffic is users clicking links, whether they have a genuine interest in them or not. It costs a user nothing, and is effortless to connect them with a destination instantly. If we think about the concept of the web, it is a source of connectivity between people and information, whereby it is a global network that makes anything obtainable by a single click. This is done largely by links.

As users of the New Zealand web space, your first experience with linking your current website may very well have been on NZS.com, as we provide a link to your website - and in exchange you can provide a reciprocal link back to us. To thank you for doing this, we make your link stand out in bold amongst other links, which are in a standard, less visible font.

It is one thing to move your cursor a few centimetres to click on a button, it is quite something else to see a URL in the outside world and remember it for the next time an internet browser is handy. Getting your website link available in various places the online world is a sure-fire way to increase awareness of your business or organisation, and stay up to speed with the advertising game.

Image from Flickr.

If you were in any doubt as to the importance of branding and identity online, search statistics clearly show that brands matter in online marketing.

The best brands all have one thing in common: they become synonymous in customers’ minds with a particular product or service. Some of the most successful brands today have built their reputation online - and enjoyed flow-on success in the offline market. On the other hand, businesses established in the offline market have had to adapt to the increasing dominance of Internet marketing over other forms of media - achieving varying degrees of success.

According to Hitwise search data, some of the most competitive search terms are brand focused - that is, they’re specific rather than generic. Take the New Zealand fashion industry. The top ten fashion searches over the last six months were:

1. pumpkin patch
2. supre
3. glassons
4. just jeans
5. country road
6. lv*
7. billabong
8. bendon
9. cotton on
10. jeans west

* Louis Vuitton

And Kiwis looking for insurance in NZ are similarly brand focused (save for one generic term):

1. state insurance
2. acc
3. travel insurance
4. southern cross
5. ami
6. ami insurance
7. aa insurance
8. nzi
9. tower insurance
10. amp

Whether you’re thinking clothing brands, beer brands, bike brands, car brands or chocolate brands, never underestimate the strength of brand value online. If you need a hand working out your online branding strategy, get corporate identity services from the professionals.

Image from Flickr.

More than 85% of the world’s Internet users surveyed have purchased something online, according to The Nielsen Company’s Global Online Survey of Internet shopping habits, conducted in October and November 2007. The research company said that more than half of Internet users had made a least one purchase online within the past month.

With an estimated 3.2 million New Zealanders being Internet users, this means that 64% make a purchase online at least once a month - a number that’s high by anyone standards. Research clearly shows that most New Zealanders feel very secure about making a purchase online.

So, what are Internet users buying online? Well, according to Nielsen, the top 5 are:

1. Books (41%)
2. Clothing, accessories and shoes (34%)
3. DVDs, videos and games (24%)
4. Airline tickets (24%)
5. Consumer electronics (23%)

With just over 2 million of New Zealand’s Internet users making a purchase online at least once a month, online shopping is becoming a major player in the retail market.

If you have an e-commerce store, particularly if you’re selling books and clothing then, given current trends, you really need to market your site to take advantage of the boom in online shopping.

NZS.com can help you by providing targeted traffic to your site. For more information, see our online advertising options.

After confirmation that advertising on the Internet is a fast-growing phenomenon in New Zealand, a study from IAB New Zealand shows that Kiwis are putting most of their online marketing dollars into classified and display advertising.

Global search marketing trends
Internationally, search engine advertising and getting your website to the top of major search engines - such as Google - is the number one priority. Global statistics show search engine marketing has the majority share in online advertising:

Australia - 46%
United Kingdom - 57%
United States - 41%

Search advertising in New Zealand
Here - where the online marketplace is smaller and advertisers less Internet-focused - search marketing accounts for only 25% of our online advertising dollars. In contrast, classified ads and display advertising gobble up 44% and 31% of our online advertising spend.

Why the discrepancy?
The most likely cause is a lack of awareness in the field of Internet advertising, in both New Zealand’s business and advertising sectors. As an online market, New Zealand is still in the early stages of development when compared to other nations, but this doesn’t necessarily equal a weakness. From a ‘glass half full’ perspective, it means there is still a huge amount of opportunity for search marketing and optimisation in New Zealand. And interestingly, the cost of search advertising in the local market is about half that of international markets.

Stay tuned, as the fledgling New Zealand search market takes off…