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There were some very strong structural reasons why advertising was hard to obtain for Internet TV stations, and that this was allowing the free-to-view space to be inhabited by the main channels and broadcasters, who could subsidise their Internet TV operations with revenue from the traditional broadcast channel.

Is there a solution to these issues ? Well, if there isn’t one yet, then one can certainly be constructed. Firstly if the tv player software could pull in advertisements from an external source and integrate them smoothly into the schedule stream, and that external source could be an advertising agency or a buying agency, so that the count of the number of times an advertisement played could be independently verified, then that would be a good start.

Secondly, Internet TV station owners could reposition and reframe themselves away from the TV advertising model. What I mean by this is that just because you want TV advertisements, doesn’t mean you buy into the whole TV advertising model and the way TV advertising is bought and sold ie the advertisement is not the whole model.

There is another advertising model that I see as being more appropriate, the press advertising model. Let us suppose for a moment that you are a manufacturer of sealed unit windows, and you have just made a technical break through that means you can produce windows that are lighter, stronger, retain heat better, reflect sunlight better, and more resistant to breaking.

Your market place is the architects, the structural engineers and specifiers, and the construction companies themselves roughly in that order. What you need to do is create an Advertising campaign that generates awareness initially, and follows that up with technical data, and gets some buildings built or refurbished with your windows.

That Press Advertising campaign is going to be based around advertisements in the “trade” press that each key group architects, structural engineers/specifiers, construction companies and builders etc) read because that is the most cost effective route into that audience.

So, as an advertiser, you are “buying” a discrete targeted group purely on the basis of their profession and their role in the total buying process for your product. And that is also what you are selling as a station owner. And that needs to be your pitch to the advertising agency or media buyer (or both), you want video based advertising (and you are happy to be accountable, and you can provide click-throughs to the advertisers web-site) that is relevant to the audience you have on your Internet TV station.

You have an audience that is valuable to specific advertisers. And ideally your monthly viewing audience is larger than that of the relevant trade or specialist press publication. Clearly the tighter and more homogenous your audience, and the tighter and better targeted your programmes, and the more relevant your proposition is, then the more likely you are to get advertising.

And you need to design this into your Internet TV station from the start if you are to have any chance of getting significant levels of advertising revenue. Essentially, you are competing with the trade press, and you can use their advertising rate card to structure yours. So the media buyers and advertising agency planners you would need to talk to are those dealing with Press and/or buying/planning Press campaigns, rather than TV. The third issue I discussed in the previous article was the typical audience size of an Internet TV station, compared with a programme audience on a typical mainstream broadcast TV station -there’s no comparison, your tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousand of viewers per month, against several millions for 1 programme on 1 day !

However, it should be apparent that comparing your audience of several tens of thousands of architects (say) a month against the readership of, say, Construction News, is going to be a much better match, you may even have better figures. There is another possibility I want to raise, which is of a family of Internet TV stations, all broadly targeted at 1 group, in much the same way that traditional press publishing companies have families of journals. Take for example an Internet TV station aimed at Vets, that could be allied with Internet TV stations aimed at dog owners, cat owners, horse owners etc etc.

So while Internet TV may be your communication medium, your business model, I believe, should be closer to that of specialist press publishing. Now, when you go on Joost, Blinx, Babelgum and similar internet video content aggregators, and your content is buried along with thousands of hours of all other sorts of video content aimed at God only knows who, its no surprise that these businesses struggle with advertising revenue, and you aren’t likely to get much.

To find out how this impacts on the business model and the software you need to run an Internet TV station, your audience targeting and Internet TV station concept and proposition, go to http://www.internettvbook.com

When it came to business models and looking for ways of making money to fund your Internet TV station, I strongly suggested you look at the pay 2 view and subscription revenue models.

The reason being that advertising revenue was so hard to get or to obtain in sufficient amounts to fund both production of new video programmes and your video streaming or video download costs.

The consequence of this is that Internet TV or IPTV as some call it is becoming the province of the major channels, who essentially use revenue they obtain from either advertising or subscriptions or in the case of the BBC in the UK, license fees levied with the agreement of the Government, to fund their internet presence.

Why is it so hard to obtain advertising revenue? Well, it is hard not just for Internet TV stations, but also for many small satellite TV channels. The reason is the way that TV advertising is measured, and the structure of the advertising industry.

In the UK TV advertising is measured by BARB, which uses a sample of 5000 households and measures the viewing habits of the occupants, and from that weights the viewing figures up to give the estimated national audience. For a small channel it costs 40,000 a year to be included on the BARB panel.

In the US TV advertising is measured by AC Nielsen, using a sample of 5000 households that have been wired with “people meters” that track what programme is being watched and who is watching them. Again the viewing figures are weighted up from the sample to give an estimated national audience.

So, the information that gets fed back overnight tells Pepsi or Proctor and Gamble that an estimated say, 5 million people watched CSI, and those people were mainly mid-market males aged 35 – 45. So if you are not included on BARB in the UK or on Nielsen in the US, as far as advertisers, advertising agencies, and specialist media buyers are concerned, you don’t exist ! Now, if you are not in the business it may come as a surprise to you to discover that most company’s with advertising budgets don’t “buy” their advertising direct themselves, it is typical for your advertising agency or a specialist media buyer to do the job for them.

Getting into the advertising agencies is bad enough, but when you have to try pitching to a specialist media buying agency that is really hard!! The issue is that media buying agencies have to buy the best advertising campaigns for their clients that they can, and they use BARB and Nielsen ratings as the “currency” for doing so. And then they get audited by specialist media auditors who evaluate their media buying performance. So they need to have rock – solid numbers to PROVE they made the right decision.

The other thing to bear in mind is that these people are used to buying advertisements in programmes with audiences in the millions, and even a large independent internet TV station will have trouble getting anywhere near that.

So when you turn up, assuming you get that far, with your streaming stats (which can be, lets be polite, “massaged”, and are not independently verified , and an audience of, lets say, 10,000 viewers a day, you are most likely to be given 5 minutes and then shown the door !

You also need to consider the true nature of online advertising. Most online advertising is based around Pay Per Click type advertising as per Google Adsense, or banners (with click through tracking) on high traffic websites high traffic equals 1,000,000 individuals a day ! and the advantage of this is that you know directly how many clicks you get, and what your conversion rate is to get a sale, and your cost per sale. Now in my terms this isn’t really advertising, its more like direct marketing, and it certainly doesn’t do much to build a brand as in traditional Television, press, poster and radio advertising, but that is the media buyers frame of reference.
Is there a solution and can you get round these issues. Well, yes, but these aren’t quick fixes and you have to work at them.

To find out how this impacts on the business model and the software you need to run an Internet TV station, your audience targeting and Internet TV station concept and proposition, go to http://www.internettvbook.com

Everybody knows that the moving image is the most powerful communication tool the world has seen, but it’s power to influence, inform, entertain and to sell is growing ever stronger as life moves online.

What giant leaps this communications tool has taken since its advent in the 1890’s. From early ‘Nickelodeon’ theatres, to cinema, through television, to the internet, mobile phones, video games and beyond. How different the world today is to the world that gave birth to stuttering moving images little over a century ago. Then moving images astonished merely by virtue of their mechanical simulation of natural movement.

Once people would cue up, merely to see themselves ‘immortalized’ on camera as in the films of pioneering film-makers like Mitchell and Kenyon. Now anyone with a mobile phone can record simple video and upload it to youtube and ‘immortalise’ their friends ill conceived freestyle dance experiment.

This interactivity is key. Society today is not just fed, and feeding form visual mass communication, but more and more society is part of those images themselves. The ‘virtual’ world is where people, in societies with the infrastructure, choose to live. Gone are the village fetes, church-going, weddings, and funerals which were once the glue that held small communities together. Now these communities are international and the glue that holds them together is also international. Music, photos, and video shared online.

80% of UK homes now have a high-speed broadband connection, not to mention all the public services such as cafes, schools and libraries also offering wi-fi access. The internet has become almost as necessary in the developed world as the electricity on which it depends, without it government and business grinds to a halt. This very ubiquity means that – as books, cinema, TV have been transforming influences on the previous generations the internet – is where people live today.

Some argue that this a a great leap forward, an evolutionary shift. That this interconnected world means a greater understanding of ourselves, and what links us all. A chance to end poverty, end war. Today we have the ability to watch edit and distribute moving images in our pockets and we can all share our image of ourselves. We are all reflections of our greater humanity.

But as an advertiser you know that this kind of sublime power can only be harnessed effectively if used ruthlessly for personal gain.

We exist among a blur of billions of fast moving images. Our brains are trampled by stampede of media messages everyday from every corner. We wade, neck deep through a pungent slurry of advertising ‘choices’. But as the artificial visual environment has become richer, human beings have evolved to ignore the vast majority of the images surrounding them. This is the true evolutionary leap – indifference.

So what messages stand out from the visual clamour? How do companies and organizations communicate their messages in this highly competitive market? How do we take such a massive market and reduce it into our own little patch of grass?

The answer lies in knowing, and ‘respecting’ your audience – and knowing where they spend their time. Where is their life? People are socialising, working, consuming online. If you know where they are ‘living’ – what websites do they visit? What things interest them (ie – what do they type into google or youtube?). If you offer your audience something they actually want to see, where they want it, then you will be rewarded – with trust.

The Internet is now the perfect medium for relaying video messages to audiences, instantly and worldwide. This is not the ‘junk mail’ trick of knowing somebody’s name and printing it on a form letter. This requires a genuinely sophisticated approach – you really need to know this audience and they need to trust you. You need to give them what they want. In return they will trust your messages.

The pros of ‘taming’ these niche audiences are obvious, because rather than feeling as if your company is annoyingly pestering consumers with a service that they do not wish to receive, you are given the gift of targeting a specific market that is actually interested, plus your intended audience is working on their own schedule, looking for what they want, when they want it.

Once you have crawled inside your audience there are unlimited ways for your influence to grow, like a benign tumour. Encourage them to sign up to updates, so they’ll opt-in to receive more ‘cool stuff’. Before long they’ll be swilling down advertising disguised with a tiny amount of highly targeted entertainment.

And don’t forget your own employees. Where do they live? Are they your friends? If they are going to check their facebook account every 4 minutes at work then you should be present there too. There is no reason that your executive broadcasts, training, customer testimonials and conference and exhibition videos shouldn’t be transformed into something new, exciting and visually stimulating by involving your staff, and the new technology they love.

This world is changing and it is important to consider now the world of tomorrow and how companies and customers will transform with the pace. Trade fairs and conferences are slowly losing their grip as the speed with which we pedal through life becomes more rapid. It is becoming more and more evident that corporations are going to have to evolve to stay in the game, as more and more smart companies join up and lay their own innovative cards on the table.

The big players all know that and are pulling no punches. Craig Fister CEO of Videocorp PLC, advisor to many major brands, in an interview with New Hard Times magazine gives his take on the situation:

“Before the internet we only had access to people’s eyes and ears via their living rooms. That was enough for us to suck out their souls, and we did that.”

“Then came the internet and social networks. Now the internet is like a needle that lets us get inside our consumers, into their bloodstream. Now we can move around inside them and look for that soul-less void we left and put up our billboards, right there.”

“Billboards saying ‘We can make it alright again. Buy more of our stuff, it is environmentally friendly now, and you can buy it with one click.’ It is brilliant – it is branding on the inside. I can sell anything to anyone now- just let me make friends with them on Facebook first.”

Maria Fuchs-Alcox is a puppet actress, singer, film-maker and shameless hagiographer. She is currently working as a presenter and reviewer for http://www.wiredvideo.net – video production in London, UK.

In our world of ever-changing technology, we are constantly bombarded by names like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and TIVO. Our nation is one of consistently evolving electronics and in the rush to move forward, some get left behind. One such trailing entity is the advertising industry. The increasing inclusion of TIVO and DVR’s in American households is causing some consternation among marketing executives. Companies like Ace Marketing & Promotions may have the solution to the advertising industry’s current conundrum.

One problem companies have is the inability to continue advertising their products or services through traditional means, such as television and radio. Digital recording devices allow home consumers to skip past commercials, which, as you can imagine, creates a problem for those who advertise through those same commercials. A similar issue took root with radio several years ago as more and more stations were made available. Now, listeners only have to press a button to move on to another station, sans advertisement.

Technology companies like Ace Marketing & Promotions (AMKT), a Valley Stream, New York publicly traded company has developed amazing systems that can answer some of these rising concerns. For example, the Blue Bite proximity marketing system utilizes Bluetooth and wireless technology to market directly to consumer’s phones, laptops, and PDAs. The system works with over 950 mobile devices, from virtually every manufacturer, which guarantees the largest possible audience. It supports all of the most popular models, including the Apple iPhone, the Blackberry Pearl, and the Palm Treo.

Systems like Blue Bite allows information to be sent whether it be images, video, and audio, directly to a consumer’s electronic device that comes within the range of the broadcasting unit. Because it is transmitted via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and not over a wireless telephone network, it is completely free to the consumer. These types of marketing systems are FCC compliant and not considered spam advertising. They will simply receive a text, video, or audio message with the client’s advertisement or marketing offer.

Just imagine going to a concert and your favorite band or artist tells you how much they appreciate you, their fan, and that you will be receiving something special from them on your mobile phone. Seconds later, you receive a message describing how to download a free wallpaper or song from your favorite band. Maybe you’re walking down the street in New York’s Time Square and you notice a billboard for a new television show. Seconds later, your cell phone receives a message letting you know that there is a free 15-second preview of that show available to watch on your mobile device. The direct marketing potential is seemingly limitless.

The system that Ace Marketing & Promotions has already completed successful marketing campaigns for several major entities, such as the Canada Tourism Commission, BBC, CW, and Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Shows and movies have included The Bourne Conspiracy, Gossip Girl, Life is Wild, and Robin Hood.

One of the greatest things about this technology is that the world has only begun to see the potential of it. The number of possible venues would seem to be limitless. Shopping malls, movie theatres, airports, museums, subways, and sporting events are just a few of the target locations that are perfectly poised to fully utilize the capabilities of this type of marketing system.

Rodney Marvel is the Director of Operations for e-media Direct, a full-service investor relations firm located in Winter Park, FL. He has worked with about 100 publicly-traded companies on various projects.

http://e-mediareport.com/site/

http://e-mediadirect.com

An email marketing program will boost your sales and bring your costume jewelry business to greater profit levels and higher business achievements. Whether you are selling costume jewelry in a store, in the market, in your home, at the beach or in a kiosk at the mall, email marketing program will allow you to stay in contact with people interested in your products and, therefore, be the engine that drives your repeat business. The key is gathering a contact list of interested parties and then putting together an email marketing program campaign.

It’s quite easy to do, as email marketing program is set up to create professional campaigns that take minutes to put together. It’s simply a matter of uploading images of your products into your account and cutting and pasting your written content into the given text fields. This will allow you to send out promotional campaigns to customers that you have labeled “preferred”; or to send out a newsletter detailing which malls you have opened up in, or when and where your next sale is going to take place.

Here are a few tricks to think about when setting up your email marketing program to create a campaign: Do not put too many pictures of your products without also balancing those images with text content. Also, try not to use too much bolding, italics, and capital lettering in the body or subject line of your email. Symbols like dollar signs or exclamation points in your subject line should also be avoided. All these techniques, typically used to attract attention, also end up attracting spam filters. If you overuse them, your email will not go into your readers’ inbox, but rather into their spam or junk mail folders.

When you are ready, click a button to schedule your email marketing program campaign, and it will automatically go out to the people on your list at the date and time you choose.

Now that your Email marketing program campaign is finished and has arrived in your customers’ inbox, you will be able to track which of your clients were interested in your marketing campaign. One of the wonderful things about an email marketing program is that it can track ‘clicks’, and ‘opens.’ This gives you a percentage breakdown and analysis of which of your customers are opening and clicking on the promotions you have in your email. Also, by adding a ‘forward to friend’ button, you will be able increase your mailing list, and have a greater chance to have more customers.

Email marketing program will bring your costume jewelry enterprise to new heights, and perhaps even expand your business into franchising. By helping you design a campaign that shows off your beautiful work, Email Marketing program will bring you loyal customers and repeat business, which will help you reach your business goals. Email marketing program is a must for any small business.

Robert Burko is president of EliteEmail.com, the complete email marketing program trusted by small business owners everywhere. Try feature packed email marketing today with a no-risk free trial by visiting: http://www.eliteemail.com

Email marketing can revitalize your marketing/advertizing, especially in tough economic times. As a realtor you are in the business of making sure that your listings get noticed, and attract buyers at first contact. With a properly designed email marketing campaign, you will sell more homes and therefore make more money, and that is the bottom line.

Email marketing are far less expensive than the traditional paper and print ads, produces materials that look just as professional (if not more), and can track the results of your campaigns, giving you a better idea of the needs of your subscriber base. Because of how easy it is to design an email marketing campaign, it makes sense to have email marketing as part of your marketing strategy.

Within minutes you can upload images of the properties you have listed and cut and paste content into the appropriate sections. The better email marketing will have hundreds of templates for you to choose from in neatly organized categories, so that it will be easy to find whatever it is that suits your marketing needs.

Email marketing is especially important as economic times begin to falter. Because of how little it costs to access and how minimally time consuming it is to set up email marketing, it is a great alternative to more expensive print ads. So as the typical realtor’s budget begins to shrink, email marketing are a great way to continue to get your name and listings out there to potential clients and other real estate agents.

To determine which email marketing work best for you, the best method of identifying the top-ranked email marketing are by using search engines such as Google or Yahoo.

Here are a few tricks to think about when setting up your email marketing to create a campaign: Do not use too much bolding, italics, and capital lettering in the main body portion or the subject line of your email. Also, try not to put too many pictures of your products without also balancing those images with text content to support the images. Symbols like exclamation points or dollar signs in your subject line should also be avoided. All these techniques, commonly used to attract attention, also end up attracting spam filters. If you overuse them, your email will not go into your subscribers’ inbox, but rather into their spam or junk mail box.

When you are ready, click a button to schedule your email marketing campaign, and it will automatically go out to the people on your list at the date and time you selected.

Now that your email marketing campaign is finished and has arrived in your customers’ inbox, you will be able to track which of your clients were interested in your marketing campaign. One of the great things about an email marketing program is that it can track ‘clicks’, and ‘opens.’ This gives you a percentage breakdown and analysis of which of your customers are opening and clicking on the promotions you have in your email. Also, by adding a ‘forward to friend’ button, you will be able increase your mailing list, and have a greater chance to have more customers.

Email marketing is an advanced and cost effective method of staying on top during economic duress. Designing a professional template is the solution to selling more homes and having your name reach all those interested in your listings at a cost effective price. Flip this market up side with email marketing solutions.

Robert Burko is the President of EliteEmail.com, the complete email marketing solution for small and medium sized businesses. For more information visit: http://www.eliteemail.com. EliteEmail.com is proudly part of the EliteAnswers.com (http://www.eliteanswers.com) family.

An email marketing program will bring your community to you in greater numbers! As an owner and operator of a local tailor shop it is important to stay ahead of the local competition. This will help increase numbers in sales because staying ahead of your competition means having a larger share of the local market. An email marketing program will help bring that greater share into your store for repeat business, or make interested parties shopping around, into your loyal customer base. As the world gets more technically savvy, so do the customers. Appealing to their comforts through email marketing program will make them feel valued and create a loyal customer base as you progress forward in your business enterprise.

The most effective method for starting your email marketing program contact list manifests from a three step equation: promotions + In-store sign ups + online sign ups= an opt-in list for successful email marketing.

Create a promotional discount that you can live with. You might want to call a preferred customer discount for older customers or new customer discount for the fresher faces. The 10-20% discount offered, or the buy one get one free deal, will be sent to them via email once they have signed up or given their email address.

A similar promotion can be offered online, through a web sign up box. The top-ranked email marketing program will provide you free of charge – included as part of their free trial – a web sign up box. This is a function that is easily added to your website by your webmaster which will allow people interested in the discount to sing-up for them via email. It is directly linked to your account with the email marketing program provider.

One you have your list, you need to start building your email marketing program campaign.

Within minutes you can upload images of the suits, dresses, and other pieces you have created, and cut and paste content into the appropriate sections. The better email marketing program will have hundreds of templates for you to choose from in neatly organized categories so it will be easy to find whatever it is that suits your marketing needs.

Here are a few hints to mull over when setting up your email marketing program campaign: avoid using too much bolding, italics, and capital lettering in the main body portion or the subject line of your email. Also, try not to put too many images of your work without also balancing those pictures with textual content to support the images. And, symbols like exclamation points or dollar signs in your subject line should also be avoided. All these techniques, frequently in used to attract people’s attention, also end up attracting spam filters. If you overuse them, your email will not go into people’s inbox, but rather into their spam or junk folder.

Keep in mind that you will be able to track which of your clients were interested in your marketing campaign. One of the great things about email marketing program is that it can track ‘clicks’, and ‘opens.’ This gives you a percentage breakdown and analysis of which of your customers are opening and clicking on the promotions you have in your email. Also, by adding a ‘forward to friend’ button, you will be able increase your mailing list, and have a greater chance to have more customers.

Because of how cost effective email marketing is (as low as $10 to send out to 1000 people) email marketing is indispensible for your tailor shop. An email marketing program will help you get a larger piece of the piece of the pie because you are appealing to a new generation, in a method that suits their desires. Not only that you are also offering them preferred client discounts. Now your tailor shop will be in the minds and hearts of your customers. Being in their hearts and minds means you that you will have more to spend on whatever is in your heart and mind. Email marketing program will dress you for success!

Robert Burko is president of EliteEmail.com, the complete email marketing program trusted by tailors everywhere. Try the feature packed email marketing package today with a no-risk free trial by visiting: http://www.eliteemail.com