When I’m looking for smart and interesting conversation about advertising and marketing, I usually find it on the AdRants forum at Soflow. Recently, I found myself wondering: What sort of hands-on experience do marketing professionals in general have with online marketing in particular? What online tactics do marketers feel work, and what tactics suck beans? So I threw something together quickly on SurveyMonkey. Sixty professionals responded. The results, sporting a margin of error of plus or minus 100%, were as follows:

You’ve been professionally involved in marketing / advertising for how many years?
Mean: 10.3 / Median: 9.5 / Mode: 10
(Six respondents clocked more than 25 years each. Those are some serious hash marks.)

You’ve been professionally involved in online marketing for how many years?
Mean: 5.3 / Median: 4.5 / Mode: 0, 1, and 2 (tie)
(Two respondents claimed more than 10 years each. Maybe they cut their teeth online selling sell Prodigy subscriptions.)

What online marketing tactics have you personally set up and implemented? (Do not choose tactics that you’ve had others implement for you.)
72.9% Email Marketing (text)
68.8% Email Marketing (html)
58.3% Banner Ads
52.1% Search Engine Keyword Ads
50.0% Email Newsletter Ads
45.8% SEO Techniques
39.6% Affiliate Marketing
35.4% Online Sweepstakes
33.3% Third-Party Email Lists
33.3% Viral Campaigns
33.3% Blog Writing
29.2% Ad Network Campaigns
27.1% Optimized Press Releases
27.1% Online Coupons
22.9% Rich Media Ads
22.9% Search Engine Banner Ads
12.5% Blog Ads
(Lots of hands-on experience. That’s a good thing. No surprise that email marketing leads the pack. A little surprising that only 1 in 3 folks blog, though, given that Technorati counts nearly 13 million blogs out there; for all the blog hype, those other 2 in 3 should think about getting their hands dirty in this area, if only to see what the fuss is about.)

If you had limited resources for online marketing, where would you focus those resources? (Respondents were asked to choose only three.)
53.2% Search Engine Keyword Ads
34.0% SEO Techniques
29.8% Email Marketing (html)
25.5% Viral Campaigns
21.3% Affiliate Marketing
21.3% Blog Writing
17.0% Optimized Press Releases
14.9% Blog Ads
10.6% Email Marketing (text)
8.5% Rich Media Ads
8.5% Third-Party Email Lists
6.4% Email Newsletter Ads
6.4% Ad Network Campaigns
6.4% Banner Ads
4.3% Search Engine Banner Ads
4.3% Online Coupons
4.3% Online Sweepstakes
(Keyword ads are tops, of course. Duh. Interesting that SEO came in second.)

If you had unlimited resources for online marketing, which three tactics would you still avoid? (Respondents were asked to choose only three.)
44.7% Banner Ads
38.3% Online Sweepstakes
34.0% Third Party Email Lists
23.4% Search Engine Banner Ads
21.3% Blog Ads
21.3% Optimized Press Releases
17.0% Viral Campaigns
14.9% Email Newsletter Ads
12.8% Blog Writing
10.6% Affiliate Marketing
10.6% Email Marketing (text)
10.6% Search Engine Keyword Ads
10.6% Ad Network Campaigns
10.6% Online Coupons
6.4% Rich Media Ads
2.1% SEO Techniques
2.1% Email Marketing (html)
(Not exactly a 180-degree view of the previous question; maybe 175 degrees. Interesting that not many would steer clear of rich media, given its greater expense and Marketing Sherpa’s “Email Marketing Metrics Guide 2005” characterization as delivering disappointing results.)

This post is already far longer than I ever intended any individual LOHAD post to ever be, so I’ll save the qualitative wisdom for tomorrow: 14 respondents adding their open-ended $.02 worth.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 10th, 2005 at 12:01 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff.