Vioxx recall battle in cyber-space

Yesterday we had discussed the success story of the Vioxx recall blog. We were very delighted to report that based on pure hard work and high-quality content development, we were able to get premium ranking in organic search results on Yahoo.

But it looks like a lot of crooks out there do not like this. Sometimes when we go to Yahoo to check how we are doing, the search results can be different even in the course of a day. The reason is that crooks are trying to manipulate results by using tricks. Several websites pop up on page one and when you click on them you end up on just one website that is apparently owned by two law firms: Waters and Kraus, LLC and The Peterson Firm. We would not expect a law firm to engage in such dirty tricks unless someone is doing it without their knowledge.

In any case, this is our advice to those of you who want to get higher ranking in organic search results:

1. It is much better to develop good content than to use dirty tricks. We did not spend a million dollars to create Vioxx recall blog. You will be better off paying someone to write good content for you than paying a spammer to play tricks with the search engine's computers.
2. High-quality content creates long-term competitive advantage that is sustainable. When you play tricks, all a search engine company has to do is to tweak one line of code and all your investment has been wasted and you have to start all over again.
3. While you may be able to get some value out of a dishonest business process, long term value can only be created by using the highest standards of business ethics. You want people to come back to your website and you want them to recommend you to others. That will not happen if you tricked them in the first place.

Related article: How to create value in business?

Blog success story

Just last week we were discussing in the ebusiness blog how content is being leveraged for lead generation by the law firms. It was around that time that we ourselves decided to jump into a new area for us: commentary on a very hot topic as it was developing. Or in other words, we decided to create content on the Vioxx recall controversy.

We have addressed the issue of what was the right format for discussing Vioxx recall (Related article: Website or blog?) and in the case of Vioxx, since things were happening in real time, there was no better way than to launch a blog.

The success has been remarkable. Of course, we worked extremely hard to keep up with the developments and tried to bring news and analysis in a way that it makes sense to a victim of Vioxx. Vioxx recall blog has already reached very high in organic search results in Yahoo and MSN and we are working hard to get a good ranking in Google.

What did we learn from developing content related to Vioxx?

1. Move fast when you see an opportunity. Vioxx was recalled at the end of September and we did not launch a blog till November 15th. We, however, did write two articles on our website immediately. We just did not realize immediately that it will be so huge that a blog will be needed. What we should have done was to launch a blog immediately and if it turned out to be a story smaller than we initially anticipated, we could have just abandoned the whole thing or cut back on resource allocation.
2. Newspapers do a great job at reporting news but for someone who has suffered a stroke or is otherwise a victim, news is important but not everything. They need guidance on what to do next, what does a development mean to them, and how to make sense of all that is happening around them.

Recommended link: Vioxx recall blog launched by MYNIPPON

Leverage content for lead generation

The role of content goes beyond pushing e-business in the traditional sense. Yes, rich content is an excellent vehicle to increase your ebusiness review but many businesses that are not in the retail business are also leveraging content for lead generation or for small e-business sales.

In this article we will discuss how law firms are leveraging content to attract new clients. As everyone knows most people first hit Google or Yahoo or any of the other search engines when they have a question. This is even more true for immigration related issues where the person may not even be present in the United States but is interested in immigrating to the US. So it is encouraging to see that law firms of Alan Heckler and Sheela Murthy maintain websites that are updated almost daily. They also answer questions in chats or through an instant messenger or email (generally for free). Of course, they have bulletin boards that are used by potential clients to talk about their cases and ask related questions. The attorneys are there to answer more technical questions while the other members of the board share their experiences with immigration.

Our research shows that this is a great way to build rapport and increase brand awareness. Many of these people then sign up the attorney to work on their case. Many law firms also offer an option to schedule consultation with an attorney.

It is interesting to see how businesses in different sectors are leveraging content for lead generation.

Recommended article: Content management tools to simplify nanopublishing

Content focus for pushing ebusiness

A key question before a publisher that derives bulk of its income from pushing ebusiness is to determine the focus of the content for highest ROI. Of course, mesothelioma and Vioxx would be great places to start, but these are niche opportunities. There are not just enough individuals seeking such information.

In that context, a study by PWC and IAB comes to the help of nano-publishers and content managers. The study has identified how the online advertising dollars were spent in the second quarter of 2004. This is what the split looks like:

Consumer 49%
Computing 18%
Financial Services 17%
Media 10%
Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare 5%

Messages from the study

• This study is in line with our experience. Consumer products generate highest number of searches and produce the bulk of the traffic on the Internet. In the eCreativa network, we have three business-related properties: iProceed, ebusiness blog, and iProceed blog and they produce far less traffic than our consumer oriented websites and blogs: MYNIPPON, Lindisima, LuvCube, and half-a-dozen blogs (Lindisima blog, LuvCube blog, MYNIPPON blog, MYNIPPON update blog, Consultant blog, and Mujer Cristiana blog).
• Consumers are more concerned about simple things like how to take out blackheads rather than how to live a spiritual life.
• There is some synergy between financial services and consumers and we are using a creative way to capitalize on that. We have launched a lifestyle channel, so that we can create content for consumers on how to pick the right financial services (e.g. how to avoid bankruptcy?)
• Eventually you will have to pick the focus of your content based on your audience but there are several ways in which you can make extensions into adjacent territories without alienating your core customer base. We like how the Food TV channel has started to talk about kitchen makeovers.

Offshore growth potential of online advertising

We are very excited to be documenting the success of MYNIPPON and its sister website in the eCreativa network of online media. We were even more encouraged by our trip to AdTech 2004 which made us better understand the strong growth forecast for ebusiness, online advertising, and nanopublishing.

In this article, let us address some of the issues related to maturing of the US online advertising market in the not-so-far future. As everyone knows the online advertising has exploded in 2003 and 2004. In the second quarter of 2004, online ad spending soared 43% and no one believes that this rate will continue. But guess what we heard at AdTech 2004: How much is your traffic is from the US? Fortunately for MYNIPPON, LuvCube, eCreativa, and iProceed, out traffic from the United States is in the neighborhood of 80-90%. On the other hand, for Lindisima, that number is less than 50% which we are trying to improve by developing an English version of the website through Lindisima: Latinas on the Internet.

So where do you position yourself? Well, the current reality is that the money is here and now. So it makes perfect sense to Americanize your website as much as you can and try to draw as much traffic as possible to maximize your revenue potential. But remember that when everyone does that you are fighting for the same visitors and that can be difficult. So don't give up on non-US visitors who will bring the next wave of surge in ad spending, particularly from the English-speaking (or some level of understanding of English) world. UK, Australia, India, Singapore, New Zealand, Caribbean, and other smaller countries with reasonably large English-speaking populations like Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Panama, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Dubai, South Africa, etc. are very attractive markets to target.

And what is the company that will help you maximize your footprint on the Net? Google, of course. That is the only company strongly positioned to capitalize on the explosion in ad spending on a global basis. So while still relatively small, the income that we generate from our non-US visitors is nice to have and we will try to make sure that as these markets enter the world of everyday e-business, we are there to capitalize on it.

Strong forecast for ebusiness and nanopublishing

That is the message we received from attending the AdTech 2004 conference in New York City. After attending a dozen or so very depressing Internet-related shows during last three years, we finally ended up at a show that was packed to capacity. You couldn't walk. You could feel the energy of the boom years.

Here are some key messages for ebusiness companies:

1. Online advertising now offers many options for you to reach out to potential customers and acquire them. The two that we think are most effective are search marketing and contextual advertising.
2. Google is king. There are other programs being offered but you absolutely must advertise on Google. The reach that Google offers is incredible.
3. If you are wasting your dollars on television and print advertising or even more naive enough to send direct mail, it is time that you reviewed your channel strategy and reallocated your ad budget. Online advertising has a much higher ROI, particularly if you embrace performance-based advertising.

Messages for online nano-publishers

1. You couldn't be in a better business. If you have the traffic and the real estate on the Internet, just keep doing what you are doing and prepare for retirement.
2. Keep track of the trends in the world of advertising and reposition your blog or website accordingly.
3. While websites will be around for a while (there are features that cannot be provided on a blog), the future is in blogs. The good news is that millions of businesses are clueless and still don't get it. So here is an opportunity for you to increase your footprint on the Web before others move in. Remember that it is easy to create content for a blog and it will be like a tsunami when the blog wave comes, but till then keep blogging. Two years later, you will be sitting in a world where the advertisers will be begging you to mention their product in your blog (if you like it, of course, and they pay for it).
4. Never forget your customer. Or as they say, "Do no evil." So forget spamming (by the way, the days of email marketing are numbered any way), or creating content for spiders only, or using any deceptive business practices. If you want to create value for yourself and your advertisers, do only the right thing.

Value of blogs in direct marketing

Since ebusiness is increasingly a part of any direct marketer, we skim through a paper publication DM News that is like the journal of the direct marketing industry. We would not recommend that you spend much time reading it since there are hardly any valuable articles. One article recently caught our attention, not because it was great but because it could cause a lot of damage to a direct marketer's business if it were to follow the advice provided in the article.

Robert W. Bly, the author of the article, writes in an article "Can blogging help market your product?" that "..most blogs seem to be private, idiosyncratic musings of an individual, without censure or editing of any kind...I have yet to find a single marketer who says that a business blog has gotten him a positive return on investment" We are just wondering if Bly lives under a stone.

Bly has even more errors in article since he has not spent enough time researching the world of blogging prior to writing an article. Also he has relied on the opinion of only two other individuals to make several sweeping conclusions.

So what do we think about blogs?

• Blogs are an emerging technology and like any other technology that is evolving literally in real time, people can have a difference of opinion about their potential. However, just because someone has not met a company that makes money from blogging, it does not mean that they do not exist. eCreativa Network (that now has 10 online media properties including blogs) makes money from blogging and lots of it. In fact, our blogs produce a higher ROI than websites and newsletters. It is just that most blogs/websites are still privately held companies (eCreativa included) and they do not need to publish their revenues and profitability numbers anywhere or go disclose it to an 'expert'.
• It is also not fair to say that blogs are personal diaries. Those days are long gone and to say this is to provide information that is already old. A blog today is another tool for publishing high-quality content for people who want to use something that is more user-friendly than a website.
• Bly further argues that "...there is already too much content", and therefore, there is no need for any more content. The reality is that there is not enough content on the Internet yet that will answer all the questions that a planet of 6 billion people have. Just ask any average person who has tried to do research on any topic whatsoever. So very often, you don't find even simple answers. Blogs are doing a great service by providing content that is not colored by the marketing message of a company. It is raw information that touches you in a way that a company's marketing baloney never does.
• Bly provides another wrong piece of information to the readers of DM News. He says that "...the reader has to go out and proactively look for it (blog)." He has probably never heard of a blog reader. Most surfers today read blogs in a reader (many are free to download) or simply add it to their My Yahoo page. In fact our analysis shows that as SPAM explodes, email as a marketing channel will simply die since a reader is giving too much power to someone else by subscribing to an email newsletter. People, and Americans in particular, do not like the idea of some company determining what they should read. A blog gives power back to the people. If they like an article in a blog they can click on it to go read it. If not, no action needed (no need to hit the delete button).

We sincerely hope that direct marketers will rely on more up-to-date, fair, and balanced information before they develop their online marketing strategy. There is plenty of information on the web and many experts have made convincing cases why businesses should integrate blogs in their marketing initiatives.

Recommended article: More business bloggers wanted

Should you use an email list?

That is a question a lot of readers have asked us. Does MYNIPPON and its network of websites use email marketing?

The answer is yes and no. When MYNIPPON was first launched in 1999 (the good old days when people actually sent us messages asking us to tell them when a new article appeared), we started a fan club and would send out a email newsletter about once a week. It was helpful since it brought back the visitors, strengthened brand image, and emails were often forwarded to friends (creating a more positive image about us - after all a referral from someone you know is more powerful).

Some time in 2001, our email list was too large (over 25,000 members) but at the same time there were problems with the email list. Many members who had initially opted in to receive emails did not like any email communication since SPAM was becoming a big nuisance. Spammers were also using our email address to send out spam and that made many email list members block our address. Many members requested that we delete their email address from our database.

Our conclusion: email as a marketing channel was dead. We are aware that some companies still maintain email lists (our sister website Lindisima: Latina on the Internet still maintains an email list of over 15,000 members who love our newsletter sent out every two weeks) but our analysis has shown that it is better to use the MYNIPPON blog to communicate with our fans.

Should you use an email list?

• Absolutely, but be careful about who you are buying the list from. Emails still generate higher conversion rates than most banner/text ads.
• If you have your own email list, make sure that you use it carefully. (Related articles: Email marketing strategy and Best practices in email marketing and how to incorporate it in your overall marketing program)
• Develop a Plan B while you are doing this since we do not expect that email marketing will last too long.