Future of Publishing is sponsored by VigLink. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to Like Future of Publishing on Facebook!

Future of Publishing is sponsored by VigLink. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to Like Future of Publishing on Facebook!

Highlights

• Redirecting within your domain can increase your conversion rate…
• Which means you make more sales…
• And make more money!

Future of Publishing is sponsored by VigLink. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to Like Future of Publishing on Facebook!

Cost per Acquisition (CPA)

Cost per Acquisition (CPA) is a measure of how much is spent to get a sale (conversion). Take the amount spent on a campaign over a time period and divide it by the number of sales. Ideally this number is less than the average amount purchased. If your CPA is $25, but your products are only sold at $10, you’re losing $15 on every transaction made through that advertising channel.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Remember Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) from yesterday? It could be that your CLV is much more than your cost per acquisition (CPA) and so maybe you’re spending $25 to acquire a customer who will spend $100 or $200 with you eventually.  This certainly changes the equation and shows why it’s important to understand CLV.

Cost per Action (CPA)

CPA can also stand for Cost per Action. If you’re advertising in order to get people to do something that isn’t directly a sale, think in terms of Cost per Action.  For example, let’s say you’re running a Google AdWords campaign in order to increase your newsletter subscribers. Cost per Action in this case would be how much you’re spending for each new subscriber.

CLV is still important in this case, but you’d want to know what the CLV is of your newsletter subscribers.  How many subscribers actually purchase from you, how much do they purchase from you and how long are they customers? Now you can start to understand not only the value of your newsletter subscribers, but also how much you should spend on acquiring new subscribers.

What to Improve

CPA provides more data on what may need to be improved. In Google AdWords if you get caught up in your click through rate (CTR), you may miss whether you’re spending too much for each new customer. If you’re spending money to increase the number of newsletter subscribers, how much are you spending versus the payout of those customers?

How do you use CPA?

(image by Daniel Borman)

WordStream advertises their free keyword tool as fast – and it is that – pretty blazing fast, actually.  Which is nice.  You can get access to a full list of keywords much faster than Google’s keyword tool.  And WordStream will email you the full list – although the value of that goes down quite a bit when you’re talking about large numbers of keywords – who wants to sift through a list of 1,108 keywords?

I’m not so sure I agree with the quality of keywords, however.  For example, I did a search for “internet strategy” and the search returned keywords like “zara internet strategy”, “xenocide 3001 internet strategy game”, “what is home depots internet strategy”, “walmart internet strategy”, “ups and internet strategy”, “tigerdirect newegg internet strategy”, “tigerdirect internet strategy 2007″ (among others).  These were all in the top 15 results, rated based on relative volume.  It’s important to realize how much search volume a particular keyword (or phrase) has, but in order to be efficient and cost-effective, you’re usually looking for good keywords that have relatively few advertiser competition – which is information that Google’s keyword tool provides (along with last month’s local search volume and global search volume).

WordStream’s keyword tool did suggest a list of related keywords, which was nice (Google will also do this), so I tried a search that included the keywords: internet strategy, internet, marketing, advertising, consulting, strategy, trends, strategies, strategic, consultant.  This search came up with some interesting keywords, such as “newbies marketing guide” and “automated advertising services” that I did not see in the Google results.  But, again there were pretty useless keywords in the mix, like “internet explorer”, “football ats trends” in the top 10 results (and the results from 8 to 20 were all about sports trends).  The same search on Google provided more relevant results, but the keywords were mostly all very broad, with lots of competition, so not necessarily very useful either (you can narrow Google’s search or look for negative keywords).

WordStream’s information about the free keyword tool compares it to WordTracker and Keyword Discovery, which it may very well compete against (I’ve used both but it’s been awhile).

Conclusion: I’d suggest using WordStream’s keyword tool for keyword discovery purposes – when you’re looking for keywords you hadn’t already considered.  Then, take those keywords and refine your list using Google’s keyword tool.  Tthe WordStream paid tool may be better than Google’s tools, but I’m still playing with it.  In terms of free tools, you’re going to get more information and higher quality keywords from Google’s keyword tool.

Have you used WordStream’s free keyword tool?  What do you think?

Related posts:

• Interview with WordStream founder, Larry Kim
• WordStream Adds Free Keyword Grouper & Keyword Niche Finder to SEO PPC Tools

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Technorati tags: keyword tool, seo, marketing, ppc advertising, business

The People That Count

The site in question says that they have the audience you’re trying to reach.  How do they know?  Do they have registered users?  Do they have job titles for the people who login to their site?  Is the site’s content targeted entirely to your audience?  Ask for some hard numbers.

Content Counts

Even sites that don’t have registered users may effectively target your audience because all the content on the site is geared towards them.  Take a good look at the content on the site and decide if your audience would read it.

Traffic

Obviously it’s the number of people you’re trying to reach that really count, but it’s also a good idea to get a feel for the overall traffic the site gets.  Ask for numbers in terms of pageviews, visits, and unique visits, usually per month.  Don’t forget to ask about anywhere else they send their content, such as RSS feeds and social networks.  You don’t need a site with millions of visits to be effective.  Usually more targeted sites will have less traffic than more general sites.  Traffic in the thousands will probably be fine for your needs (and cost less)

Engagement

How engaged is the audience with the site?  Are there comments and activity on the social networks? Or are people just reading the content and leaving.

Reputation

What is the overall reputation of the site, company and brand?  When you advertise on a site, your brand and reputation will be affected.  Make sure you want your brand associated with the site.

Cost

What is the cost to advertise?  How is it measured?  Is it reasonable for what you’re getting?  What are the average click-through rates on the site (for ads)?  How many impressions or clicks does the site expect you’ll receive?  Is there any guarantee?

Measurement

How will your advertising be measured?  Can you use your own ad serving software?

Types of Ads & Placement

What types of ads and placements does the site offer?  Can you have rich media or animated ads? Do they allow video? What are their ad guidelines?  Can you buy ads on specific pages?

Hopefully this has given you some guidelines to help you make decisions regarding targeted advertising.

What else should be considered?

(photo by viZZZual.com @ FlickrCC)

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Technorati tags: advertising, targeted advertising, business, marketing, internet advertising

Lots of Eyeballs

Facebook has a lot of people spending a great deal of time on their site (I think the average is 10-12 minutes, which is unheard of in the web world).  All those eyeballs are really enticing to companies who want to reach people where they’re spending a lot of time (which used to be tv or radio or print). Google has a lot of visitors too, but most people move on pretty quickly to whatever sites they’re searching for.

In the Hunt

People who are using Google to search for something are clearly looking for something right that moment.  The reason Google’s ads work well is because they’re targeted right at those people with ads that help that process.

Personal Recommendations

We’re social beings who trust those who we know.  We’re much more likely to purchase something that someone we know recommends.  This is the onus behind having ads on Facebook, but they’re still not quite to the point of recommendations.  Sure you can vote ads up and down, but most people don’t bother.  To harness the power of personal recommendations, Facebook needs to figure out how to get people involved in making the advertising and recommendation decisions.

Targeting

There’s some debate as to whether Facebook or Google offers better targeting.  Both offer the ability to target ads based on geographic location and keywords, but Facebook knows who people are and so can do a bit more demographic targeting.  Whether this increased targeting pays off in the long run has yet to be seen.

Ads Ignored

Ads on Facebook always appear in the same place on the page, similar to other websites, which means they are pretty easily ignored.  Visitors to Facebook are there to network and communicate with their family and friends, not to look for new products or services.

Marketing Objective

Based on the above differences, I think where to advertise really depends on your marketing objective.  Facebook seems like it would have better branding opportunities since the audience is on the site for much longer.  Google is reaching people when they’re further down the sales funnel and are actively looking for something, making sales and conversion objectives much more attractive.  Several PR people I’ve spoken to here in Detroit have reported similar findings: while its easier to target on Facebook and you may get higher click-throughs, the conversions are much lower because of where those people are in terms of actually looking for something.

What’s your experience with Google vs. Facebook ads?

(photo by mborowick @ Flickr CC)

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Technorati tags: internet advertising, internet marketing, marketing strategy, marketing, business, strategy, social networks

Security Issues

While it sounds convenient to have a sticker on your mobile device that can interact with devices at a store, there’s usually very little security in current rfid technology.  This means that anyone with the proper device can read the information that’s stored on the rfid chip.  There’s no way for the owner of the mobile phone to turn off the rfid or control what information is on it or who can access it.  There’s also nothing to stop the store that gave you the chip from tracking you in places you may not know about.

Awareness Issues

I wonder just how much people who are using these rfid devices understand how the company is using their information.  Are they aware of the possible security and privacy risks?  Are the companies devulging any of these possible issues?

Scaling Issues

Even if you like the idea of a rfid chip for a loyalty program, how is it going to work when all the loyalty programs start doing it?  Is your mobile device going to be covered in stickers?  Just think about how many loyalty cards many people carry – watch the next lady with a big purse shuffle through a card deck looking for the proper card.  Will the companies be able to access the information on the other chips?

Transferability Issues

What happens when you get a new mobile device?  Will you be able to transfer the sticker to the new device?  Probably not.  So you’ll have to go through some sort of new sticker transfer process.  What if you have multiple devices?  Depending on how the technology is implemented, there may be issues with controlling who is actually using the loyalty chip.

Less Invasive Technology

It seems like there would be less invasive ways to use mobile technology for loyalty programs.  Many new phones are smartphones – or Internet enabled, which means they’re able to connect to an Internet website.  Many also have the ability to connect to wireless hotspots.  As the price for these devices comes down, more people will have them.  A company could use their wireless network in-store to easily create the same sort of loyalty programs without having the issues presented above in an rfid chip.

What Would You Do?

Is there a company you trust enough to put a rfid chip on your phone?  Are you concerned about your privacy and security of your information?  What do you think?

(photo by grey pumpkin @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: tetherball, loyalty programs, mobile, marketing, mobile advertising, business, reward programs

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Conversions

A conversion is when an action that you’re advertising is actually taken on your website.  So if you’re advertising a product, it’s when someone actually purchases that product.  This is usually tracked by putting a script tag from your PPC ad on your thank you page that happens after a purchase is made. Conversions are the whole reason you’re advertising, so they are very important to track.

Cost Per Conversion

For the number of conversions you get in any time period, how much are you spending on advertising? Taking the total amount spent and dividing it by the number of conversions will give you how much you’re spending per conversion – or cost per conversion.  This metric is extremely important for knowing whether you’re spending too much on your advertising for what you’re getting out of it.  If this number is too high, it’s time to look at optimizing your ads, website and landing pages.  (As an aside, sometimes people will click on an ad and purchase a product much later – days or weeks – this is not tracked with this metric).

Conversion Rate

How many clicks do you have to get before someone purchases from you?  How effective is the path the visitor takes to purchase the product?  The number of conversions divided by the number of ad clicks gives you the conversion rate.

Clicks

How many times people are clicking on your ad- how much interest and traffic it is generating.  If you are using advertising for branding or just for traffic, and are not tracking conversions or sales, this is an important metric.

Cost Per Click

How much each click costs – or how much you’re paying for each person that your ad brings to your website.  Taking the total amount spent and dividing it by the number of clicks will give you this metric.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

How effective your ad is – in message and targeting (keywords, placements, etc.)  Measured by the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of impressions (number of times it is shown).  A low CTR can indicate poor messaging or targeting (keywords, placements, etc.).

(photo by The Ancient Brit @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: pay-per-click advertising, internet advertising, internet marketing, search engine marketing, business, SEM, SEO, PPC, marketing

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From both a business and sanity point of view, it is imperative that you use metrics that will give you the information you need.  For example, if you are trying to measure whether or not your website is giving you leads, the number of hits isn’t the right number.  You need a way to collect leads from your website, or some way to tell if people were there (an offer unique to the website) to measure lead generation from your website.

So before you start pouring over your web and advertising statistics, take a moment to figure out exactly what it is that you’re trying to find out.  Then decide what metric will help you answer that question.  Matching up metrics and goals/questions/objectives will give you much more reliable informaton – saving time and resources and allowing you to focus on efforts that are actually working for your business.

(photo by aussiegall @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: analytics, statistics, internet marketing, metrics, business, marketing

Take a look inside

The first step to good marketing is to take few minutes for some introspection.  Who are you as a company?  What do you do better than anyone else? What is your goal?  By understanding exactly who you are as a company, you’ll be able to develop marketing that accurately depicts your corporate image and works towards your goal.

How do you want to get there?

There are many different strategies that may help you achieve your goal.  How do you want your company to be perceived?  What is important to you in terms of image and ethics?  Are there certain strategies that you aren’t comfortable with or that don’t fit your ethics or image?  Setting guidelines for what your company stands for will help you avoid missteps along the way.

What are you offering?

What benefits are you offering to your customers?  Why should they choose your products? What type of relationship are you offering to them?  Customers can be very selfish, especially at the beginning of a relationship, so you need to make sure you are accurately representing your product benefits to them.

Use advertising as one of many tools

Advertising can be a vital tool in your aresenal for reaching your business goal, but keep in mind that there are many steps before you start implementing tactics.  Taking the time to work up to advertising will increase your return on investment by more accurately targeting your customers.

(photo by leeroy09481 @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: advertising, marketing strategy, internet marketing, internet advertising, business, marketing

When you’re designing your landing pages, you need to put yourself into your customer’s shoes.  What information would you need to make a purchase decision?  A landing page needs to have all the information that a customer would need to make a purchase decision – ideally it also lets them make a purchase right there.

If you have a wide range of products, you’ll need to have multiple landing pages which target each one.  The same for multiple target audiences and advertising.  Think of a landing page as a one page print ad – you really need to engage the customer, entice them with your offer, and get them to take action.

It may take a bit of time to get a landing page that you’re happy with.  Make changes and then give them some time to work.  Take a look at your statistics and see what’s working and what’s not.  Good landing pages will be well worth the effort (with a side benefit of a bit of seo juice).

(photo by egmb757lover @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: landing page, seo, advertising, ads, marketing strategy, internet marketing, internet advertising, business, marketing

I’ve seen many clients who have pretty good click-through rates for their ads (especially Google AdWords), but when you take a look at how much they’re paying for a conversion (usually a sale), it often is more than the product is selling for.  Here are some tips to make your advertising more effective:

• Tout benefits to the customer.
• Be clear and to the point.
• Make your brand stand out.
• Don’t be obnoxious – avoid too much movement.
• Ads should lead to an effective landing page.
• Make information needed for purchasing clear and consistent.
• Minimize clicks for whatever action you want people to take.
• Target your ads to places that actually have potential customers.
• Don’t try to trick your customers.
• Be attractive – your ad and landing page (and website) need to look good.

What else makes for effective advertising?  Please share any ideas in the comments below.

(photo by Skywork Media @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: advertising, ads, marketing strategy, internet marketing, internet advertising, business, marketing

Advantages

• Communicate more information – through different types of media (audio, video, interaction). Rich media ads can have video, audio, animation and even small applications or games.
• Collect more information – either by programming in more sophisticated analytics or simply by asking for information.
• More clicks - As annoying as these ads are, they are more likely to be clicked on because they catch people’s attention (please follow IAB guidelines), at least during the first week or so.
• Powerful branding – Even if the ad isn’t clicked on, viewers are still more likely to see and remember the ad than traditional display advertising.

Disadvantages

• May slow down a website – These ads tend to be larger in file size, which takes longer to download. Even with faster Internet connections being more prevalent, you should be aware of your audience and how many are on slower connections. Even with faster Internet connections, an overly large file or many rich media ads can still slow down a website. If your website is too slow, people will just go elsewhere.
• May annoy – Since these ads tend to be more visible to viewers, they also can quickly become more annoying. So stick with the IAB guidelines and place ads for short time periods (no longer than a month) to maximize the effectiveness of the ad.
• More expensive – They are more difficult to create and require a higher skillset. These types of ads are usually more expensive to place on a website as well (because of the larger file size and annoyance factor).
• May be blocked – Although most people have the software installed necessary to view these ads, it is fairly easy to turn off this option in most browsers and in some ad blocking software. However, as more websites use the same technology to increase their interaction and functionality, viewers are less likely to block the ads.

If you are aware of these advantages and disadvantages, you can make an informed decision about purchasing these types of ads (or allowing them to be displayed on your website or blog).

There are 3 Main Types of Ads:

• Rich Media: The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has defined these as “advertisements with which users can interact” and can include video, sound, animation. Ads which just animate but don’t have any interaction are just display ads (see below). Ads should follow IAB guidelines to maximize impact without being overly annoying (which has the opposite effect from what you want). There are many types of rich media ads, including:
  • peel-back
  • floating
  • expanding
  • transitional (interstitial, introstitial, exterstitial)
  • video
  • popup/popunder
• Display Ads: These ads combine text, images, and animation (but are not interactive – those are rich media – see above) to convey a message. Display ads mostly differ in sizes (see IAB for Ad Size Guidelines). Here are some of the most popular sizes:
  • leaderboard (728 x 90 pixels)
  • skyscraper (120 x 600 pixels or 160 x 600 pixels for wide skyscraper)
  • banner (468 x 60 pixels)
  • half-page (300 x 600 pixels)
  • square button (or tile) (125 x 125 pixels)
  • medium rectangle (300 x 250 pixels)
• Text Ads: Text ads are typically just that, text. These ads typically are cheaper, but have the added bonus of usually being searchable by search engines and are less-ignored by readers than some other types of ads. Some of the more common types of text ads:
  • link ads
  • contextual ads
  • search engine marketing ads (pay per click – ex. Google Adwords)
  • online directories

Jonathan, you’re quoted as saying, “For years we’ve been saying that companies can deploy AdJuggler’s technology to receive all the features provided by the three largest vendors but at a more attractive price.” (from About AdJuggler).  How do you continue to stay competitive in an industry that’s dominated by DoubleClick (now owned by Google) who can also leverage price?

Jonathan: One of the great things about an industry thats dominated by large players is that they leave a lot of folk by the wayside for one reason or another.  Our focus as a company is to lower the barriers to entry in the online ad serving market as well as providing boutique level of service and support whenever and wherever possible.  One of the interesting things about Doubleclick is that they don’t actually leverage price.  They still have high CPM’s and high monthly minimum.  Their focus is really on the top tier of the marketplace and not really on the small to mid sized publishers, which is a space that we really shine.

When we talk about lowering the barriers to entry there are a couple of places that we do that.  The first is focusing on the ease of use of the platform, the second is with service and support.  When we sat down to launch the AdJuggler 6 platform, we spent months gathering feedback from our customers and traffickers and really concentrated on trying to refine the workflow of the product.  One of the key design ideas was to reduce the number of clicks and particular action took and to reduce the number of steps that any task took.  At the end of the day, our customers really want to focus on their business which is their site and their content, and we like to focus on letting them spend less time working with an ad server and leaving them more time for their core business.

When we talk about boutique levels of service and support, that is core to our company, our staff and our business model.  We have 24/7 support via phone and email, and those are folks in our facility who are trained and responsible for supporting our products.  The first part of taking care of customers is getting them well trained on the product so that they are successful right out of the gate, and our standard contracts contain 4+ hours of training.  Most folks don’t need it, but hey if they do, its there for them.  The second part is taking care of them once they are in production.  This means answering their emails in a timely fashion and being there for them if they want to call and talk to someone about how to do something.  Its our policy that email requests be addressed within hours of hitting our systems and our support team actively monitors open tickets to make sure people get taken care of.

The quote above was from the press release about AdJuggler becoming a member of the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), and submitting AdJuggler 6 to be IAB certified.  Besides being more competitive, are there any other reasons AdJuggler joined the IAB?  I imagine having a voice in IAB standards would be very useful to product development.

Jonathan: In theory yes, but in terms of share of voice we would have little if any impact there.  I think the standards are pretty well fleshed out at this point, and for us joining the IAB was really about commitment to our customers and our industry.

Speaking of competition, what are the challenges AdJuggler faces when working with third-party tags?  How well do they work as far as tracking and serving?  Have you run into any limitations?

Jonathan: The biggest challenge for us I think is the lack of transparency out there in the marketplace.  There are some ad servers out there who dont have click tracking variables and that makes it difficult for people to traffic or track their tags.  If there is a standard I would like to see the IAB chime in on it would be click tracking and the inclusion of variables or API style standards for ad servers to be able to better communicate with each other to help reduce discrepancies.

Many advertisers are very concerned about click fraud.  How does AdJuggler mitigate the effect of click fraud on the stats for advertisers?  Is click fraud as big of a problem as advertisers fear?  What should advertisers worry about in terms of click fraud?

Jonathan: Our customers are primarily publisher and networks, so I cant directly speak for the needs of the advertiser community.  That being said, I think click fraud is going to be an issue for the display (as opposed to search) side of things here shortly which is why we are in the process of integrating Click Forensics solution into AdJuggler now.  This is one of those places it really made sense for us to work with an industry leader to provide better tools to our user base.

In terms of what people should worry about in terms of click fraud:
The more subtle fraud attempts.  Blatant click farming is pretty easy to detect after the fact, what you have to watch out for is very slow methodical fraud which can be harder to detect, thats why we are working With Click Forensics.

AdJuggler offers full API access, as well as customization services.  How are your customers taking advantage of these services?

Jonathan: The two biggest areas we are seeing folks use the API are back-end integrations and custom portals.  On the integration side we have a number of folks who have plugged into either their billing or trafficking systems.  This allows them to keep using the systems they already know and use and to have ad serving as a modular component.  Next up are custom portals, we have had several customers do them for themselves and we have done a fair number to order.  Customized portals are a great way for a network to really provide value for their publishers, it allows them to customize the experience to their publishers needs, or to provide that full level of integration with the site or other specialized technologies they may be using.  On the publisher side its a great way to extend their services to advertisers (and increase revenues) by provide self service advertising tools.

Behavioral targeting has been a hot topic in Internet marketing circles as a way to reach customers throughout the buying process (and sales funnel).  For example, a visitor to Cars.com may be interested in buying a car in the future and their behavior on the site may give clues as to which cars they are interested in.  Advertisements targeted to those interests may be more effective for the advertiser.  AdJuggler offers targeting based on cookies, keywords, geo-targeting, etc.  How do these meet these goals of behavioral targeting?  Are there other targeting methods planned for future versions?

Jonathan: Most behavioral targeting is being done via cookies, and we have a couple of customers who have built their own targeting engines doing just that.  One of the great things about cookie targeting as a technology is its flexibility.  It allows for behavioral and retargeting as well as multi condition display rules.  (show x banner if they have seen y or z, but not w).  In terms of targeting types we tend to like to provide raw technologies and help companies apply them in case specific solutions.  That being said a simple retargeting module is in the planning stages, and we have a very deluxe header/referrer targeting module that is available on a custom basis.

What does the future hold for AdJuggler?  Do you have any plans for future versions you can share with us?

Jonathan: More tools to simplify life really.  I mentioned the Click Forensics integration which should be formally announced later this month.  For the fall-winter season we are looking at another general product release that contains refinements as well as improved support for both XML based ad tags as well as support for XML feed advertising (receiving feeds from 3rd parties).  Additionally we will be releasing a network centric version of AdJuggler with built in customizable portals for their advertisers and publishers.

Related Article: Web Ads – AdJuggler

Technorati Tags: AdJuggler, thruport, advertising, ads, display ads, online advertising

• Visual – A brand usually has a visual representation in terms of a logo or graphic that is easily recognizable.  Brands can also be identified by a spokesperson or icon (for example, the energizer bunny). Sometimes there are also visual representations that have been created by customers instead of the company.
• Auditory – Many brands have a signature theme song or jingle (think rhapsody in blue for united airlines, or the Intel chimes) which can bring to mind the company when heard outside of advertisements.
• Verbal – Through marketing, sales, and customer service, a company creates verbal impressions of what the company stands for in various situations.
• Emotional – Brands evoke an emotional response in customers (hopefully good emotions), which are influenced by their interactions with the brand (advertising, purchasing, customer service, other customers, etc.).
• Communal – With the ease of communication available on the Internet, customers can easily share opinions, feelings, and experiences about your brand with or without your influence.
• Instinctive – Closely tied with emotional and communal influences, customers have instinctual feelings and opinions about your brand even before they’ve interacted with your company, formed through advertising and information from other customers.
• Evolutionary – Brands are constantly evolving through interaction and shared experiences of customers, non-customers and companies.  A company can try to influence the evolution, but is no longer in complete control of the brand.
• Descriptive -  By combining the various interactions with a brand, an overall impression of what the company stands for is shared among customers and non-customers. A brand is descriptive of what a company, product, and/or service stands for, in terms of all the elements above (visual, auditory, verbal, emotional, etc.).

What else does a brand mean? What does your brand mean to you?  What do other brands mean?  Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Related Posts:

• How to Get Your Brand Noticed
• Branding is Branding, Offline or Online

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Technorati Tags: brand, branding, online branding, branding strategy, online branding strategy, internet marketing, internet business strategy