A Wider Net

Google announced today that it is allowing anyone to build specialty search engines on Google’s huge online index – for free. All they want in return is the ability to place their text ads within your customized search engine.

The idea is pretty powerful for lots of sites. For instance, a site catering to small business may now implement a customized search engine that will prioritize ‘money’ or ‘cash’ within financial content instead of pages about the music industry. Google claims that the process of setting up one of these tailored engines is only a 10 minute adventure.

Other products exist but seem to offer less flexibility in terms of altering look-and-feel. It appears that Google’s product will allow sites to keep visitors and allow site owners to make money on the advertising.

http://www.google.com/coop/cse/

One of Cramer’s signature sites was featured as an example of atypical navigation on Design Melt Down.

From the article: Creative navigation techniques that don’t make the site more difficult to use can be a difficult challenge. The goal is to enable people to easily work their way through your content, but at the same time it is great to make it something more then that.

The site is for CTAM (Cable and Telecommunications Associations for Marketing).
Thanks to Colin Henson, an amazing Art Director in Interactive, for emailing this along.

Over the last decade, the digital channel has given marketers great reach and flexibility in delivering messages to targeted audiences. But that same ability has increased the complexity of synchronizing relevant and consistent data across the dimensions of brand, channel, campaign, and communication types.

Recent software advances have enabled new levels of cross channel integration that allow real-time targeted messaging via multiple offline channels (call centers, POS, etc) and online channels (banner ads, websites, email, kiosk, etc). Targeted messaging can now be based on multi-dimensional segmentation models that embed behavioral, demographic, geographic and psychographic attributes for micro-targeting messaging strategies. The richness of the data collected is constantly refined with the frequency of the audience’s interaction with the brand.

What does that mean to the brand company? The ability to reach “right place, right time, right people” with the “right message” across a broad spectrum of channels is now a reality.

The greatest value that digital marketing provides to national consumer companies is to help build customer ritual. In the case of most national brands, your goal is to bring customers in the stores for product. The best way to build ritual is to make a positive customer experience—and using digital media as a key component of your media mix is not only cost effective, but it is the best way to create a customer experience short of a visit to a store. Of course, digital marketing encompasses more than the website, including POS, digital signage, email, and more. And digital media is most effective when part of a complete media campaign. Nevertheless, there are specific benefits. While television, radio, and print advertising all have important roles, when a consumer visits a website, they have taken a small but proactive step toward the brand. That minor commitment says they are at least willing to consider being aligned with the brand.

Once at the site, they are not passive viewers, but can interact. They control the amount of time they stay on the site at no cost to themselves. If the experience is positive, entertaining, and has a strong mechanism to make an on-line purchase or visit a store, the return on investment is not only achieved for that visit—but fuels the ongoing ritual. Other specific benefits include:

• Digital media is a remarkably cost-effective way to reach a large, targeted audience.
• Digital media is persistent: It’s an “always on,” omnipresent element that enables secondary and tertiary marketing impressions that create lasting brand awareness.
• Metrics driven: You have the ability to quickly measure, adapt, and correct your path.
• Broadband is highly available. Today, more than 70- percent access exists in US homes—so the on-line experience is getting better.
• It’s a two-way channel. Your customers can reach you, and you can reach them.
• You are able to reach multiple audience and constituents beyond consumers, including franchisees and potential employees.
• Digital marketing allows the brand to speak multiple languages and assimilate to various cultures, cost effectively getting the message to the audiences at the right time and the right place
• Consumers associate themselves with like-minded consumers, and digital media is an easy and growing way for people to link themselves directly with the brand.