Even in a downward spiraling economy, opportunities for ROI enhancement abound. One aspect to examine is how much you are paying for online demand generation. If your competitors have ceased operations or have merged with other competitors, having less competition for desired ad space and keywords could save a substantial amount of ad spend.

Consider the financial services and mortgage industries. Both have seen a rapid consolidation of companies this year. As a result, the number of aggregate players bidding on the same popular keyword is declining. With less competition in the market from all sides, the cost per click advertisers pay will start trending downward.

We are already beginning to see that occurring in financial search terms cost per click.

There is also opportunity for advertisers who were not previously able to compete for the most expensive placements. With overall costs coming down, it’s time to revaluate placement costs and the effect they have on campaign ROI. It may be time to move from a lower cost placement up to a premiere-level placement.

Alternatively, if you work at one of the companies that gets swallowed up by a competitor, now is the time to stop competing in ad buys with your new employer. Searching for the term “mortgage” on Google reveals paid results from Countrywide Mortgage and Bank of America. Since Bank of America acquired Countrywide Mortgage earlier this year, is there any reason why the two are driving up the cost of advertising on Google by competing with each other?

It’s easy to fret about the financial headlines of the day. You shouldn’t. Shrewd digital marketers will identify, seize and optimize the opportunities of the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjiXevb11Rk

It’s often said content is king. It’s easy to see how it reached its throne. From Doyle Dane and VW to Got Milk? to BBDO’s Voyeur, memorable advertising has always relied on a thought-provoking or standout creative concept, rooted in content. In most instances, the content was set in stone, approved by clients and brought to life by focusing on production values. An advertiser’s budget built the brand.

Will this always be the case?  Should advertising be as polished as possible?

In an insightful video, which you can view above (tip of the cap to influxinsights), Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in NYU's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program, muses on how audiences engage with web communications. He argues that the traditional marketing/promotions model, which continues to shape the way that both interactive marketers and agencies produce work, is essentially about production values — the bigger, the better. He goes on (and I paraphrase): If a website looks too polished, if it screams, “I’m an advert”, people won’t touch it.

This same principle should be applied to web content — and all advertising copy for that matter. If content is too slick, the audience will go out of its way to avoid your message. Looser, more conversational content not only welcomes people into the conversation, it encourages audience participation. And yet even interactive copywriters continue to follow the traditional media modus operandi. We develop content for a singular objective, polish the copy, set it in stone and launch the project. Most content has a finite lifetime — the length of the media buy or a financial quarter. Then the next project comes along. And we start over.

Why?

In the interactive realm, we have virtually limitless opportunities to reach our audiences with websites, social-networking forums and other new forms of communication. Our conversations never have to stop. Neither does our content. It should be living — updated frequently to keep up with how people take in information.

Copywriters should become self-reliant and familiarize themselves with technologies that help their content go from conceptualization to the public sphere in less time. The online world is a neverending focus group that writers can use to take risks, try new ideas and hone in on the right message.

That way the best content, the best idea, has a chance to evolve into something more. And audience conversations can reach new heights.

Many companies out there worry about adopting the latest and greatest technology for their online experience. This is a legitimate concern, given that we all want as many people as possible to view our content without having to download the latest and greatest plug-in. Drop-off rates increase relative to the number of roadblocks that we put up between their current browser configuration and the configuration we require of them.

The good thing is, some plug-ins already have an extremely high penetration rate due to the adoption of these technologies by web developers. One plug-in in particular has enhanced everyone’s web experience, from Amazon to YouTube: Flash Player 9.

The release of Flash 9 as part of Adobe Creative Suite (CS) 3 back in 2007 introduced the development community to ActionScript (AS) 3, a more intuitive and structured programming language. Unfortunately, most of us developers still had to support legacy AS2 Flash files, mainly because:

•    Many businesses have legacy Flash applications that need to be maintained
•    These legacy Flash applications require older plug-ins

In short, most businesses would much rather stick with legacy technology than build a new AS3 application requiring a brand new plug-in. This is understandable, up to a point in time — specifically, the point when we see that a significant amount of the online population has adopted a Flash player that can play Flash files built with AS3.

Guess what? We’ve reached that point. As of June 2008, the US, Europe, and other emerging markets have all reached more than a 95% penetration rate for the Flash Player 9 plug-in. Still, the question remains, why bother upgrading your Flash applications?

As many of us know, technology changes on a daily basis, and plenty of breakthroughs end up being flashes in the pan, so to speak. The same goes for Flash developers and the tools we use to build attractive and engaging websites. However, AS3 was a game-changer, allowing us to develop our applications in a smarter way with cleaner separation of logic and content.

See the difference for yourself. Click on the thumbnails above to see the AS3's superiority. (comparison courtesy of Noventaynueve.com).

At Springbox, we have Flash developers who adopted  AS3 early on and already have a library of reusable code, from video players to complex data loaders. This library gives us a better foothold when building various parts of a Flash application, and in turn can save our clients time and money. With the added time and a solid code base, we can produce richer, more interactive — and more intelligent — websites.

Those aren’t the only benefits, either. We all want video on our website, and Adobe didn’t skimp on the improvements in this area. You can now go full screen with your video, and use other formats such as MOV and MP4. Improved speed is another huge factor. According to Adobe, AS3 code executes up to 10 times faster than AS2 code. How can you argue with that?

Flash has come a long way, and I’m sure it still has a long way to go. As a fellow developer, if you aren’t on board already with AS3, you need to be. It’s time to step out of the dark ages of Flash website development. Player 10 was released last month, so it won’t be long before this plug-in is the gold standard.

AS3 is here to stay, and will only get better. We want our clients to have the best bang for their buck when it comes to Flash. Coding applications using AS3, targeting Flash Player 9, enables us to deliver exactly that. 

What are consumers looking for in an in-store interactive experience? Should it be different from shopping online?  How can we make it easier for sales associates to know how to sell our clients’ products?  

Recently, we addressed those questions — and others — when LG asked us to leverage the online assets we built for their Steam Laundry microsite and turn them into a robust, in-store kiosk experience.

For LG, taking the Steam Laundry experience from the computer screen to the sales floor was a natural way to differentiate its brand from the competition and provide more value to customers. Other marketers and retailers like Olay and Kmart have seen positive results when they placed online applications in stores. It makes sense: More consumers are shopping online and like to be in control of their shopping experience. Kiosks put the customer in control.

Our kiosk had many diverse audiences to serve. For consumers, it needed to be easily accessible and educate them on the features and benefits of LG front-load washers and dryers. Many customers start their product search online, so we needed to complement the online experience while enhancing LG’s brand message.

From the initial information architecture stage of the project, we knew we had to find a way to put users in control of their experience based on where they are in their decision path. This entailed creating user flow paths and content for a wide range of customers — some ready to make a purchase today to others who might not actively be looking but could be interested in upgrading their current laundry appliances.

To reach customers just beginning their search, we created a 5-question quiz that would filter the consumer’s responses and provide recommendations on models that are right for their individual household needs (think silent salesperson).   

For those closer to making a purchase — those who want an easy way to compare models and find product specifications — we created a tool to help consumers narrow product results by selecting filters that were of interest to them. With just a few screen touches, customers could compare products and find exactly what they were looking for. I know when I enter a big-box store, I just want to quickly find what I’m looking for and get out of there as soon as possible. The tool we developed does just that by letting the customer control the action.

To increase brand awareness and educate customers about LG’s laundry innovations, we created an information path where customers could watch videos, use tools to learn about exclusive LG technologies and learn about the advantages of LG Steam Laundry. LG is a relatively new brand in the States, and many people are unaware of the stylish range of home appliances they manufacture. The content we developed will help position LG as a top-of-mind manufacturer of laundry appliances.

For customers, there’s nothing more frustrating than an ill-informed sales staff, so we wanted to equip sales associates with the information they need to be passionate advocates of LG products. To do so, we created tailored retailer sections that highlight the benefits of shopping at a particular store, as well as an area for sales associates that includes a full video library of product highlights and a filter tool to help associates help consumers find the right model and then quickly identify the model and/or SKU number.

Even though we’ve finished the kiosk build, a project like this is never completely done. We’ve built in tracking to help us better understand how the kiosk is being used, and we plan to do some usability studies to help us optimize the experience in the future.

You’re going to see more kiosks and interactive point-of-purchase displays as marketers look for new venues (you can’t go to an airport without seeing Best Buy vending machines). As technology roots itself deeper into retail experiences and changes the way people shop, marketers and agencies alike need to adopt new strategies to adapt online content to enhance the in-store brand experiences.

Finding your audience is one thing. Connecting with them on their terms is a different game altogether. Interactive marketers know that there's a massive, active user community on social networks, but finding out how to engage with them has been an uphill battle. Thankfully, at least one social network is helping to give marketers an in.

Facebook is currently the fastest growing social network in the world, and it’s easy to see why — the site offers users high interactivity and broad access to their friends' daily lives. It fosters a very tactile sense of community. Facebook also protects that community experience with rules for advertisers. These rules ensure that ads blend seamlessly with user news feeds. They also disallow tactics like the "fake" closing of windows or mousetrapping, and prohibit excessive capitalization and unnecessary punctuation.

Facebook has essentially forbidden marketers from using hard-sell tactics. In doing so, they're helping conventional interactive marketers understand the relationship between user and social network. The social networking experience is a personal one, populated by friends and soon-to-be friends, and customized to reflect individual likes and wants. Social networking users know when they're being marketed to, and resent invasions of their personal networks.

Facebook and MySpace have both cornered the market on Generation Y — a coveted marketing demographic. With a yearly spend of $172 billion, Gen Y has the potential to bring home real winnings for retail companies. Unfortunately for traditional marketers, users don't typically see social networks as part of their buy path. According to Jupiter Research Advertising Analyst Emily Riley, Gen Y may use social networks to discuss, critique or even champion products — but they do this to build product awareness, rather than make buy decisions.  

Marketing on social networks should be seen less as a selling game and more as a period of cultivating brand loyalty. Facebook and MySpace give brands the chance to build rapport with a powerful consumer class. Smart marketers use these networks to play up the fun aspects of their brands. They create custom apps, offering music and video downloads and hosting contests. They launch pages for brand mascots, such as H&R Block's Truman Greene or Dos Equis' Most Interesting Man in the World. And though brand identity is front and center, the products signified by those brands take a back seat to style, friendliness and yes, community.

Springbox has explored similar issues of style and social involvement with Dell, whose experiential and Dell Lounge marketing efforts are fodder for unique Facebook and MySpace experiences. "Unique" is key here; to truly capture social networking audiences, Dell's Facebook and MySpace pages must offer perks not available to non-users. Moreover, they must give special value to interaction with the Dell brand, giving brand evangelists something to be proud of and letting brand explorers understand its feel.

With 91% of large brands expected to increase their social marketing ad spend in the next 12 months, marketers are under the gun to connect with users. Lots of brands will be talking to the social networking audience; their success will depend on whether they choose to engage with users.