Can Hulu Sustain Free Ad-Supported Content?

admin    Web Marketing     AdSupported, Content, Free, Hulu, Sustain

Although Hulu has seen great acceptance, popularity and even ad rates—commanding as much as 10% of the online video ad market—it still may not be enough for its creators to call it a success. Hulu may be under more ad pressure than almost any other video site (yes, even YouTube), as Ad Age reports:

Hulu is the No. 2 video site on sheer volume of video views behind YouTube, yet no one is yet making much money from its model: not its network backers, other content partners and least of all Hulu itself, which has a hard time paying for its bandwidth bills.

Its network backers are increasingly calling for the service to go to a premium, subscription-based model. “If you look at the business,” said one network exec, “it’s just not economically feasible to give away programming at low rates.” But advertisers want to use the popular content site to test nonskippable ads and other new formats—something subscribers would hardly appreciate.

Hulu, however, isn’t saying much about its finances. Ad Age does the math:

Hulu won’t comment on its economics, but if you consider that it’s selling video ads and companion banners together in the $40 CPM range, and it appears to be about 50% sold out, when 70% is paid back to networks, Hulu is netting pennies per viewer per hour, about what it costs to deliver video of that quality.

One caveat, however, is that a significant amount of Hulu inventory is sold by the networks, which can buy back inventory to sell to advertisers. Hulu gets 30% of that CPM without any of the costs. Also, Hulu has ad deals with many TV networks on different terms.

It looked like Hulu might have the money and the viewers to seriously upset the cable apple cart—but that may not be the case.

Due to new deals, even network makes up to 50% of its revenue off subscriptions—so even on TV, ad-supported TV just isn’t cutting it anymore. Will Hulu cave to its cable content providers and build a pay wall—and if so, will the site be able to survive on that revenue?

View full post on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim

Yahoo ID Hanging in There (Is Facebook Facing a Dive?)

admin    Web Marketing     Dive, Facebook, Facing, Hanging, There, Yahoo

Data portability has been a big buzzword for the last couple years. Just about everybody has gotten in on the act, from MySpace to Facebook to Google. Even Yahoo has a universal login option.

An new data from commenting platform Echo suggests that the Yahoo ID is doing pretty well for itself (despite launching almost a year after the others). Echo allows commenters to post from a number of profiles, including Facebook, Google and Twitter—and Yahoo ID is the most popular choice:

Over a third of their logins use Yahoo IDs. Facebook sees a quarter and Google a little less. One in ten use Twitter and one in 14 use Open ID.

Facebook may face an automatic increase—or decrease—soon, however. Friday, Facebook announced a new initiative to automatically share your information with pre-approved sites participating in Facebook Connect. Usually, you have to login to Facebook Connect on a participating site in order to comment using your Facebook profile.

The new system makes Facebook Connect opt-out instead of opt-in—if you’re signed in to Facebook and browse to one of the pre-approved sites, they may get your information even if you don’t choose to comment. At the same time, Facebook says they’re working on finer privacy controls so you can limit the data shared with these sites.

What do you think? Will Facebook Connect see an automatic boost from this, followed by a serious drop once people figure it out? Does Yahoo have a chance with Yahoo ID?

View full post on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim

SatMAX Corporation Signs a Letter of Intent to Grant Exclusive Domestic Marketing Rights for SatMAX(R) to AvStar … (Marketwire)

Tracy Norman    Twitter Marketing     Agreement, announced-today, corporation, exclusive-domestic, granting-three-year, Industry, industry-marketing, leading-global, loi, marketing-rights, satellite-communications, satm

HOUSTON, TX–(Marketwire – March 29, 2010) – SatMAX Corporation ( PINKSHEETS : SATM ), a leading global provider of wireless, non-line of sight, satellite communications equipment, announced today it has signed a letter of intent (“LOI”) to execute a new U. S.

Excerpt from:
SatMAX Corporation Signs a Letter of Intent to Grant Exclusive Domestic Marketing Rights for SatMAX(R) to AvStar … (Marketwire)

The Charge of the Paywall Brigade?

admin    Web Marketing     Brigade, Charge, Paywall

I watched the movie “The Blind Side” this weekend. Being a sports fan I was interested in it but being a human being I was touched by it. I recommend anyone take a few minutes away from things being offered as entertainment these days and watch this one.

Why am I telling you this? Because there is a part of the movie that relates to the famous poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (don’t worry, this won’t be a spoiler for the movie at all). I never paid close attention to the poem until yesterday but the second verse reads

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

What I didn’t know is that this group was sent into battle because of a mistake made by someone else. Despite the mistake they carried out their orders to the end.

Ah yes, the Internet marketing angle. The parallel I am drawing here is that one of the most vocal leaders of instituting paywalls for online newspaper content, Rupert Murdoch, is leading his own charge that many think is a mistake. His News Corp. holdings in the UK, The Times and The Sunday Times will be putting their paywalls up starting in June and many wonder if this will be the beginning of the end or a much needed proof of concept. Mr. Murdoch has been the most vocal proponent of paywalls but there has been very little action until now. It looks like he is about to put his money where his mouth is.

In a way, I respect his charge forward into what many see as a losing battle. Who in this day and age will pay extra for content from one source that will be found elsewhere for free? Many competitors of News Corp. are more than happy to watch this experiment play out on a bigger stage and will be ready to comment whether News Corp. proves its point or essentially falls on its sword.

The Wall Street Journal reports

“At a defining moment for journalism, this is a crucial step towards making the business of news an economically exciting proposition,” said Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, the U.K. newspapers division of News Corp., which publishes the Times and Sunday Times. Their readers will pay 2 pounds a week (about $150 a year) or 1 pound a day, starting in June.

News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch is one of the most vocal champions of paid Web sites, and has pledged that all the company’s news outlets will adopt some kind of reader fee system. The Times and Sunday Times are the first News Corp. outlets to make the transition.

Apparently, the higher ups are not fooling themselves either. In fact, they may just be cleaning house a bit

It’s unclear how many readers will agree to pay the fees, and advertisers may demand lower rates from the papers or spend money elsewhere as Web traffic declines. In a recent internal memo, Ms. Brooks said Web users will drop “dramatically” and that the remaining readers will be “those who are more committed to and engaged with our titles.”

So maybe their plan is to provide advertisers with actual real readers who will be best suited for specific products and offerings? Maybe this will just be a way to find where the true strength of the readership of these offerings are?

The next question though is will there be enough readers left and will this mean there will need to be new payment methods for ads? Rather than “cost per thousand” rates the new ads may be sold at the “cost for the one thousand readers left” rate?

June will certainly be interesting when this all unfolds. Is Rupert Murdoch leading his own “Charge of the Light Brigade” into the valley of advertising death or will he come out the other side victorious? Your thoughts?

View full post on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim

MysticalCharm.com Shows Continued Success Due to Online Marketing Strategies (PRWeb via Yahoo! News)

Bret Parker    Twitter Marketing     both-niches, continued-its, from-essential, its-emphasis, its-third, monthly-promotions, mystical, rose-due, the-online

Currently in its third quarter of existence, the online company MysticalCharm.com continued its successful growth.

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MysticalCharm.com Shows Continued Success Due to Online Marketing Strategies (PRWeb via Yahoo! News)

Was Twitter’s Success Hard to Predict in 2006? Apparently, No [VIDEO] (Mashable)

Ivory Morhuld    Twitter Marketing     answers, its-infancy, People, social-networking, the-answers, the-people, the-service, Twitter

In September 2006, when Twitter was still in its infancy (and MySpace reigned the social networking space), 747 Media conducted a feasibility study for Twitter, describing what the service is about to 20-somethings and asking them what they thought. You can see the answers in the video below, and they’re quite amazing

Go here to see the original:
Was Twitter’s Success Hard to Predict in 2006? Apparently, No [VIDEO] (Mashable)

Get More Twitter Followers And You’ll Be Sitting Pretty (OfficialWire)

Asif Iqbal    Twitter Marketing     Business, celebrity, our-every, the-know, Twitter, update-virtual, your-business

We love to get our celebrity gossip fill, stay in contact with friends and family and update virtual strangers on our every move. But for business owners in the know, Twitter is a valuable marketing tool, tool. Twitter can bring your business to the next level if you know how to work it.

Read more here:
Get More Twitter Followers And You’ll Be Sitting Pretty (OfficialWire)

Social Media Marketing Is The New Way To Play The Game (OfficialWire)

Nick Yorchak    Social Media Marketing, Twitter Marketing     figure-out, figure-out-how, Form, get-out, media-marketing, playing-catch, promotion-work, Social Media Marketing, solid-social, soon-start

Without a solid social media marketing plan in place, you’ll soon start to realize you’ll always be playing catch up. Don’t do that to yourself; get out there and figure out how to make this form of promotion work for you.

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Social Media Marketing Is The New Way To Play The Game (OfficialWire)

Give Your Business Some Oomph With Social Media Marketing (OfficialWire)

Wai Khean Wong    Social Media Marketing, Twitter Marketing     from-reaching, major-downside, meaningful-boost, Profits, Promotion, Social Media Marketing, social-media, their-full, their-profits

Generally, businesses will see a meaningful boost in their profits as a result of social media marketing efforts. Despite this, however, there’s a major downside to this promotion method that has kept many marketers from reaching their full potential.

Link:
Give Your Business Some Oomph With Social Media Marketing (OfficialWire)

Surprise! Internal B2B Email Lists Are Far More Effective Than Third-Party Lists

admin    Twitter Marketing     Effective, Email, Internal, Lists, More, Surprise, Than, ThirdParty

Imagine this: Your company is making a big push to generate leads in Q2. Your CEO is making this a top priority, doubling your lead-gen budget. This is important, so you focus on the tried-and-true: email.

You begin with a campaign to your modest internal list, then you plunk down $15k for a big send from a vendor with a highly targeted, high-quality list.

Then … well, then, nothing.

Your small in-house email campaign chugs along, reaching its goals, but the big rented list ends up getting about 75% of what you expected. Bummer. Serious bummer.

Sound familiar?

For many marketers, it should. According to Marketing Sherpa’s 2010 B2B handbook, marketers find solo email sends to proprietary lists far more effective than emails sent to third-party lists (you can download a free chapter of the report here).

Effectiveness of Email Marketing Techniques 

As the chart above shows, more than 7x as many people surveyed by MarketingSherpa find in-house lists more effective than third-party lists.

Why are in-house lists more effective?

It’s simple: Subscribers to your in-house list have a relationship with your company; people subscribed to third-party lists do not.

Although marketers typically talk about relationships in the frothy context of social media, they are just as important in the context of email.

When you’re sending to an in-house list, you’re communicating with a group of people that was attracted to your site and your content. You’re using the email to nurture that initial attraction.

When you’re sending to a third-party list, the story is different. You’re emailing a group of people that have some demographic quality that interests you, but that don’t have any context for your content, or your business. That makes it much harder to create a relationship of value.

So what’s the takeaway for smart marketers?

Focus your email effort on nurturing and building your own lists. Create content that attracts new people to your site, use calls to action and landing pages to add them to your list, then nurture those relationships via email.

If your organic list growth falls short of your goals, experiment with paid media, but avoid renting lists as much as possible. Instead, invest in paid campaigns that will drive people back to your site and build your own list.

What do you think? Do you get a better return from paid or in-house lists? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments.

Free Download: Marketing Sherpa’s 2010 B2B Handbook

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View full post on HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog