Denver Flash Programming

Some people may wonder with the recent announcement by Steve Jobs, Apple, that the ThinkPad would not support Flash – that this is a dying technology. Flash had its early roots from a company called Marcromedia before Adobe bought them out. Does anyone remember Macromedia Director — or before that Macromind Director and Authorware? Flash was originally called Future Splash Animator when it was bought by Macromedia in 1996. The key here is 1996. We are talking old technology. Sure there have been a lot of changes over the year, especially when the technology matured with the ability to play videos very well. It is estimated that two out of every three videos that plays on the web now is a Flash file. It won’t happen overnight, but you can start to see that new development programs are starting to look at other solutions. The exciting point of all of this is — what replaces Flash. There are rumblings out there — but we shall soon see. It won’t change overnight and there will be some alternative choices — we just have to see what matures in the marketplace. Microsoft’s Silverlight is a contender — but it isn’t user friendly for designers. I expect future versions will start to move that way. Either way, look at major trade shows like the NAB or CES, to lead the way. It may be a small company tucked in the corner with the right technology — just ready to be bought. That is how Macromedia acquired Future Wave Software — the makers of Future Splash Animator — now known as Flash. It was bought in 1996 and Adobe bought Macromedia in 2005. It is one fish being gobbled by a bigger fish …. and another …

Denver Social Media Marketing – Facebook to add a Conversion Tracking Tool

Facebook plans to add a conversion tracking tool to its advertising products. The new platform allows marketers to track clicks through conversion. The tracking tool is being tested by a “handful” of Facebook advertisers and doesn’t have a launch date, but it is believed it should become available sometime before the end of March 2010.

Reports will provide a list of tracked conversions and the impressions and the clicks that led to each. As more dollars are pushed into social media, marketers feel increased pressure to demonstrate ROI.

Most companies who use social media look at determining value by brand valuation and not generating direct revenue. They don’t look at social media as the sales channel, but rather building brand recognition through fans. This new tool may change that in the future.

Denver Pay-Per-Click Management

How do you measure Pay-Per-Click?

When customers start up any internet marketing campaign they are always looking for Return on Investment (ROI). ROI is often an elusive item for traditional advertising (radio, tv, magazines, newspapers and billboards) and is often measured in impressions per thousand.  Internet marketing in contrast to traditional can not only measure impressions but also clicks, what pages were viewed, for how long, etc.

The breakdown that occurs many times in measuring online Pay-Per-Click campaigns  is more of a breakdown of the implementation of the call to action. Sure if you are selling a widget — you can do a pay pal or credit card purchase and immediately track results. But what if you are selling basement remodeling or kitchen remodeling services?  These services by their very nature are consultative sales. People will often initiate a phone call or an email to initiate the dialogue process once they have found you online. In this regard, one should consider the following to track where these web leads initiated.

1. Create a unique phone number for people to call

2. Create a unique phone extension for people to call

3. Create a unique email address for people to send email to

4. Set up your client management system to track the leads from your web sources

5. If you run different internet marketing campaigns you can develop different landing pages with different information to measure effectiveness.

For more information, check out Denver Internet Marketing.

Thoughts on Online Marketing

Online marketing, which is rapidly replacing traditional marketing methods, is something that is learned through use and rarely through a college education. Yes, there are programs in your colleges and universities which teach you about marketing objectives, web design, flash animation, etc — but I have yet to run into a graduate who has a grasp of pay-per-click versus organic search engine marketing. Also do they know what tools to use to develop search engine keywords or tracking the performance of your web site with the search engines.

I have taught several interns over the years and every single one of them were rapidly employed upon graduation — based upon their hands on knowledge of online marketing. Most of them did not have any formal design or programming experience and were lacking in rudimentary HTML skills.

If someone knows of a formal online marketing training program in use at a university, college or trade school now — please let me know.