In Response to Jackie's Blog Regarding Content Marketing

I'm glad you brought this up because I think that an important part of online marketing is understanding in what stage of the buying process a potential customer is.

What companies now want to do is reach customers when they are ready to make a purchase but in my opinion that's extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Google offers ways in which businesses can try to reach customers when they are ready to buy a product. They have made agreements with several businesses and created a network that advertisers can analyze on the internet to see whether or not their should spend money advertising their product on certain websites. Sounds complicated but I'll try to explain.

For example, if a business sells bicycle clothing, they can choose to advertise on websites that are all about bicycle accessories or even forums that people use to discuss cycling, etc... this way, instead of spending money on advertising to a global audience, they can advertise to a very specific and small group of people that is much more likely to be ready to buy their product.

Here's the Google Display Network

The statistics are quite amazing... Just the other day I searched for statistical data about The Knot which is a website that provides resources primarily to women who are engaged. They have a very expensive and prestigious vendor program that costs a lot of money if you want to advertise with them. Just our of curiosity I looked to see what their audience's interests were and none of them are photography services so now I know that as a wedding photographer, if I ever wanted to invest advertising money at the Knot, I would be wasting my time.

Are there any other tools provided by Google that are powerful for marketing? How could else could you use Google's Display Network to improve your marketing plan?

Abstract Marketing

One of the photography blogs I subscribe to for tips and inspiration recently interviewed a celebrity photographer who has implemented an incredibly unique form of marketing for his business. This photographer's name is Kareem Black and he calls it "Abstract Marketing"

Here's a video interview where he explains his way of marketing his photography:

His product is flexible enough that he has the ability to use this kind of marketing. However, I think that other products might not allow this kind of creativity because it would not reflect the brand.

This was his method of abstract marketing. Can anyone else think of any other ways that a company can use abstract marketing to create "buzz" about a product?