Here is a website that caught my attention today:

www.theweathernetwork.com – Bud Light Lime

What a great ad. It is a flash based ad that starts with a generic “Weather Forcast: Vancouver, BC” which is where I am based out of, and then warps into a lime in the place of the sun:

After this change it shows a happy party in the sun with Bud Light Lime. Great timing (May long weekend) and great localization and weather coordination (it is supposed to be sunny on the weekend.

Here is a look at the full ad which includes background branding:

Have you seen any good website ads?

Background:

Facebook is now fighting for the #1 spot against Google, and people are spending much more time on Facebook than Google.com itself, so it makes it an intelligent spot to place your ads. What makes Facebook so ideal is that it opens up a new realm of segmentation that not even Google can compete with. Never before have advertisers (read you) been able to speak to a very narrow and targeted market segment.

One marketer wrote:

Furthermore, their (Facebook’s) segmentation abilities are amazing; not only can you target based on age, location, and gender, but you target consumers based on religion, and relationship status. Even more amazing is their ability to create search parameters within users profile to advertise (e.g. “target anyone who lists Tool as their favorite band and Watership Down as their favorite book”). If you choose a larger campaign, you create a plethora of ultra-targeted ads in a sort of micro-segmentation.

As you can see you are able to zero in on your particular customer.

What does that mean?

Know yourself and your customer. Period.

For this example we will take a travel company / product that would benefit greatly from having a segmented product ad, and we will then go through the steps needed to make the campaign live.

Test Product:

Twilight Tours – This was inspired by Dazzled By Twilight

Here is what their product is: “Take a tour of actual Twilight locations in Forks and experience it for yourself!” They offer 3 different $39 daily tours.

So book fans are able to relive the locations as written in the Twilight series of books and as seen in the Twilight movies.

The demographics are a little interesting for Twilight fans, one would assume correctly that the main group of readers are young female teens, however there is an audience in the older age range as well.

Lisa Marks from the Guardian states “According to a survey of 5000 by movie ticket website Fandango, 95% of the respondents were female and 42% of them were 25 or older.”

Being as this tour is in Forks, Washington you have to consider how far people would be willing to travel to take the tour in order to really understand the scope.

So lets look at how an ad for this tour would play out in Facebook:

Step 1:

Click on “Advertising” at the bottom of the page

Step 2:

Click on “Create an ad”

Step 3:

In the “Design your ad” block you need to put in your destination URL (the web page that people will land on when they click the ad) I would recommend that you put them on a page where they can find more information about the product and have the ability to book directly, or able to find out more information. If you are comfortable with Google analytics, I would recommend adding campaign tags to your ads to ensure that you are tracking all of the leads that are coming in from Facebook.

The “Title” box is limited to 25 characters, so be sure that you capture attention quickly. For this ad we could use something along the lines of  “Twilight Tour -  Live It”

The body text needs also to be short, but intrigue the viewer to click on the ad. I used some of their copy: “Take a tour of actual Twilight locations in Forks and experience it for yourself! Exclusive Guided Twilight Tours from $39 USD. ”

The image upload box is important, if you can have an image that is 130px wide and 80px high to fill out the area completely. If not, it will scale the image for you.

Step 4:

Targeting. This is where it really gets interesting. For this ad, we will target our core demographic in the surrounding states as they will be the ones that are most likely to make the trip.

For country we will put  the United states, and segment it by state/province.

Then enter Washinton, California, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada.

For age we put “13 – 40″

For sex we will put “woman”

We can leave the “interested in” and “relationship” options alone.

Language we put in “English (all)”

This gives us an estimated reach of 7.4 million people, but we can do better than that.

Step 5:

For likes and Interests we can add as many criteria as we like to filter our target audience. As they all should have a love for the twilight series, we will enter that as the main interest. We can also add similar interests such as “eclipse”, “new Moon”, “Breaking Dawn”, “twilight series” and our good friend “Stephenie Meyer”.

We can leave education and work out.

“Connections on Facebook” is for targeting people in the pages, groups, or events that “You” own. So if I had a Twilight Fan Club group, I would be sure to add them to the list.

This gives us a target market of nearly 650 thousand people. Which sounds pretty good.

Step 6:

Here is the tricky bit of the ad, the Campaigns and Pricing.

If you are new to Facebook Ads, then you will want to “Create a new campaign”. Campaigns allow you to group multiple ads together for a variety of different segments. For this campaign, you will only have 1 ad. Name it something relevant, but don’t worry, it won’t be displayed to the public. I chose “Twilight Tour” as the campaign name.

The daily budget needs to be determined on your marketing budget. Keep in mind that this is a very captive audience and that these are the exact people that you want to reach out to, so spend enough to make an impact. I put $100 dollars as a general amount, but keep in mind that you need to work within your budget.

The schedule should be set up for a specific date range, this will prevent you from racking up a huge bill when your tours are not being offered. For this example I chose May 31st till August 31st.

It is almost always best to pay for clicks as opposed to impressions. A click ensures that the consumer read the ad and that they are interested in the product. Facebook recommends a “Max Bid” amount, which is dictated by the demographics that you have selected. If your bid is too low, your ad will not be shown to anyone. It makes sense to have the amount in the suggested bid range, which for this ad is $0.75. This should give me about 140 clicks per day.

Now is a good time to review your ad to ensure that it is appropriate, and then “Place Order”.

Tracking

From here on in you will see an increase in traffic on your site that will be sure to be ideal clients. I didn’t run this ad through as it would have charged my card, but I encourage you to experiment with Facebook ads, and see how you can make it work for your travel business.

This same segmentation can be applied to travel agency’s products, night clubs, cruise companies, and any more. Let me know if you need help setting up a Facebook ad campaign, I am always available as a consultant.

Further Reading:

http://subliminalpixels.com/facebook/how-to-set-up-and-track-facebook-ads/

I have this silly philosophy that you should always be learning. The problem is, I am interested in EVERYTHING!! This can be difficult as if you take a little bit from everything you are a jack of all trades, and a master of none’. While being well rounded has its advantages, it is becoming increasingingly obvious that you need to have some depth in a select few areas in your life.

Over the past few months I have been trying to narrow the time I spend on ‘general interest’ activities, and focus more on things that I find interesting, but will also have some value if learned in a greater depth. With the end goal of running my own Internet company (development, design, service, etc) I have determined to build my development skills and have enrolled at UBC’s continuing education courses. The course I am currently working on is PHP development.

Now:

This stuff is tough! I am fairly familliar with php technology and have worked on several platforms that use PHP, however when it comes to developing PHP programs from scratch, I am a newb at best.

What I hope to get out of this course is the fundamentals of PHP and MySQL database integration as they form the vase majority of Internet based businesses today. At the very least, I will be more effective at customizing WordPress templates.

After two courses I am already feeling that this is going to be tough, but I have made some steps forward. I have installed an Apache server on my PC for a test environment, I have integrated PHP with my Apache server, and I have already made some basic programs. These programs are pretty simplistic, but will form the basis of an online shopping cart (also good to know for online business).

Future:

This challenge is quite enjoyable and makes me use a different part of my brain. I can’t wait to add PHP to my Internet technology toolbelt as it will take me one step closer to starting my own Online business.

There are 5 main components to this campaign.

1)   Microsite

1. Customized Microsites are created for 165 participating agencies with personalized contact information. These sites do not have an agency locator. They also contain the quiz that can be used for their clients to diagnose their travel condition.
2. The microsite has a “generic version” that contains the quiz as well as an agency locator. This is for generic leads that are not currently driven by an agency.
3. The quiz helps to segment any new leads that come to the site by offering a “Vacation Therapy” diagnosis. Once the consumer takes the quiz, they are able to link through to the specific travel therapy offers that relate to their demographic / lifestyle. The Quiz is not as strong as I would like it, however it is functional and maintains an agencies branding.

2)   Direct To Consumer Emails

1. There are 9 unique mailers that are segmented based on the clients demographics and lifestyle type.
2. The 9 different emails were sent to each corresponding cohort type with a direct link to a specialized product page that has products that match the type of consumer that they are.
3. Emails all lead to the Agency customized microsite diagnoses page that corresponds with the segmentation

3)   Direct Mail Pieces

1. These are personalized mailers that have a call to action that is either phone or a URL that links to that specific agency’s quiz page. I didn’t participate in this print piece.

4)   Clientsite Banners

1. Each of the 165 participating members feature an 180w x 300h banner that links to their travel agency website.
2. The banner will link to that specific agency’s main quiz page.
3. Members without client sites are able to download a banner  and connect it with their unique Vacation Therapy microsite.

5)   Facebook Advertising

1. This is  segmented advertising at its best. It is based on demographics and lifestyle segmentation and has 9 different ads that correspond with the 9 different diagnoses types.
2. This will drive traffic to the generic diagnoses pages that relate to each ad and will create leads for our 165 participating travel agencies.
3. The agency locator will play an important role in connecting these leads with member agencies and will need to be prominently featured.

This is one of the more complex campaigns that I have managed, and I am excited to see how it progresses.

Let me know what you think!

I have come to terms with the fact that I don’t have alot of money right now, and I think I could use some more to live a more comfortable lifestyle. Although a communist sympathiser (and existentialist), Albert Camus has a great quote on the subject “It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.”

I agree.

I am sure that I am not alone in the pursuit of happiness through financial gain, however I would like to clarify that it is not the material items that truly make one happy, but the opportunities that money can open up for oneself and their loved ones. and it does seem that our culture is saturated with materiality.

With short job prospects, it is becoming increasingly apparent that in order to make a substantial amount of money, you need multiple revenue streams, and investing is a risky, but viable revenue stream.

Now:

I know nothing about investing, and have just setup an RBC Online Direcet Investing account and linked it to a Tax Free savings account. This way any revenues I generate on this account are tax free, plus I can put about $5,000 in per year (my goal). I have determined to set aside a fair chunk of money each month to invest in mutual funds and stocks. I have yet to make my first purchase, but will keep a catalog of my progress in this blog.

Future:

I am doing some reading on investing to get myself up to speed on the beginners guide to online investing, this is a heavily saturated area for scammers, and advertising that says they have the secret to easy money, but as we all know, nothing in life that is worth while is easy or cheap.

Here are some links that I am reading to help me get started on investing, let me know if you have any other links that you have used to learn and get started with investing:

101 things to know about stocks
The 50 best ways to grow your money: Invest like a pro

A beginners guide to investing