In Market Advertising
December 17, 2008 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Although Gourmet Ads specifically services advertisers and publishers in America and Australia, we are very much these days a global vertical advertising network. In the past few days we’ve had enquires from Singapore, Vancouver, Auckland, London and San Paolo in Brazil.
One of the advantages of Gourmet Ads for advertisers is the ability to buy advertising in a foreign country where you export to. For example we recently developed an advertising media plan for an Australian winery which exports to over twelve countries. We were able to provide them advertising in every country they export to, allowing them to create brand awareness in multiple markets. The Gourmet Ads system offers the ability to run advertising concurrently with different languages, yet the same branding, messaging and CPM pricing.
So no matter if your in are one market or multiple markets, Gourmet Ads can cost effectively reach your target audience no matter where they are around the globe. If you’d like to receive a digital media plan reaching all the counties you export to, then contact us for more information.
No Budget! Just ROI
December 16, 2008 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Recently a prospective client said they had no budget for online advertising. I immediately thought he was trying to be misleading as this company’s advertisements appear on a number of sites on the internet. So I said to this to the company’s marketing manager that I’d seen there ads on sites on the internet and they said, we have no budget, just ROI. At the time their strategy wasn’t clear to me, but after learning and seeing it action, I now understand it backwards. Since that first conversation, I’ve heard this a number of times after talking with prospective clients and thought its worth sharing with you.
Most professionally run online stores know their conversion rates when a particular audience visits their store, ie a 5% conversion rate means that for every 100 people that visit the site, 5 actually make a purchase. Apart from conversion rates, most ecommerce managers know how many times consumers visit the online store before they purchase, how many pages they’ll look at, where they are located and how much they usually spend. Most of this intelligence can be sourced from various web analytic tools like Google Analytics or Web Trends as well as custom reports and metrics.
So after they know the kind of customer that spends, the challenge is how to find these consumers online, and then drive them to the store. Savvy advertisers will generally run a short trial campaign for say 2 – 4 weeks with a budget of say $5000 to see what kind of audience an advertiser like Gourmet Ads delivers and if they are actually buyers. Some channels drive traffic, but they don’t buy.
Once these savvy advertisers know the conversion rate, they can work out the return on investment (ROI) on the advertising costs. Once they’ve got a return on investment in mind, they’ll book ongoing advertising over multiple months, monitoring the return on investment and not the budget. As long as the sales continue these savvy advertisers purely monitor the sales and renew the advertising. The key here isn’t to get complacent; it’s essential to continually change the advertising message, branding and look and feel of the advertising as well as the deal to ensure that audiences continue to be engaged with the advertising.
Because the quality of the click in vertical advertising networks is much more qualified than horizontal networks, we can continue to drive the same levels of return on investment for advertisers over time. See a recent post titled Vertical Advertising Increases ROI.
If you’d like to learn more about the Gourmet Ads vertical advertising network, request a media kit.
Austrade EMDG
December 15, 2008 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Recently one our Australian Winery clients who uses Gourmet Ads to advertise their Australian wines in America told us about a government grant system called the export market development grant or EMDG. Administered by Austrade (Australian Trade Commission), the EMDG is a grant which supports Australian companies in their marketing activities offshore (or in market).
Every year the selection criteria for the EMDG changes, but principally this is how it works. Australian companies can apply for the grant at the Austrade website after they’ve spent the required amount to qualify for the grant (this year it’s A$10k). Then the amount over and above the threshold, the government will allow you to claim up to 50% of your approved in market spending each year for a period of up to 8 years.
The EMDG grant isnt just for wine companies, its for all Australian companies that are exporting. The benefit for Australian companies is once you’ve been accepted to receive the EMDG you can effectively increase your marketing by 50% giving you greater reach.
Make sure you checkout the Austrade website for selection criteria, visit www.austrade.gov.au/exportgrants/
Advertising Online Competitions
December 11, 2008 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
One way of engaging with your brand is with online competitions or giveaways, especially if your product is a high value, sought after product like a cooking appliance or chef’s knife. When ever there is the chance to win a $1000 blender or wine fridge, you can often get some very useful information from respondents. Have consumer intelligence can be a very powerful asset. Consumers are burned out from so many spam emails and they don’t sign up for email lists with reckless abandon like they once did. You have to show significant value if you want their details and everybody loves the chance to win free stuff.
If people are signing up to win your product, there’s a good chance they’re interested in it and that they would make good prospects for future customers. Getting these people on your mailing list helps you create your own super-targeted audience to advertise to. Once the competition ends you will have a nice list to market to.
So once you’ve set up your competition, how do you get people to see it and enter the competition? Gourmet Ads can position your online competition next to recipes right where your target audience lives. Food news stories and even short cooking videos attract your target market and are a great place for your contest to be advertised. Gourmet Ads provides companies running online competitions a platform to target respondents such as females between 27 -55 years old who love to cook - see Our Audience.
These days if you aren’t hitting your target market with your advertising you are basically throwing money into the wind and hoping it lands somewhere useful. It takes a carefully planned strategy to find your customers, introduce yourself, brand yourself and make the sale. Advertising an online competition next to recipe ads and food news is the perfect way to reach your target market and build your list.
If you online competition isn’t on target and you’d like to give it a boost, contact us and we’ll quickly develop a Digital Media Plan to start driving entries.
Geo Targeting Advertising
December 9, 2008 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
No matter if you are an international, national or local business, when advertising online it’s important to book a campaign that specifically targets your audience. One such way is by using geo targeting as part of your online advertising campaign.
Geo targeting uses the IP address of the visitor to determine their actual location and then serves a relevant advertisement by locality. ie, so if you are from San Francisco, you’ll see an advertisement relevant to San Francisco, California or the USA depending on the campaign and advertiser.
Every campaign that Gourmet Ads runs, uses some sort of geo targeting to ensure that visitors are served not only a specific ad, but a geographically correct advertisement. For us, geo targeting is really the second level of targeting, because Gourmet Ads is a vertical advertising network, meaning we run relevant advertising in a relevant vertical.
We allow clients to choose geo targeting by the country; state; city; suburb; postcode or the area code you want to focus on (as well as out other campaign targeting options available). This ensures that your advertisement is only being viewed by the people who are most likely to become customers and maximizes advertising effectiveness, providing a higher return on your investment. Geo targeting can make all the difference in the world to your budget.
Unlike Gourmet Ads, many large well know recipe websites have the ability to undertake geo targeting but choose not to. I’ve even heard of some publishers demanding an extra 10% to invoke geo targeting for campaigns. This means if an advertiser doesn’t choose to have geo targeting (to save the 10%) as part of their campaign their advertising dollars are being wasted on the wrong audience. So advertising relevant to San Francisco would be served right around the world to non-relevant audiences like in India, the UK or Australia. A simple waste of money if your products are not available in these locations.
So if you’d like to preserve your advertising budget and only run advertising to relevant audiences, contact us for a media kit and we’ll develop a digital media plan that targets your audience to increase sales and profit margins.
Wine Tourism Advertising
December 5, 2008 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
People travel for a variety of reasons that usually involves seeking a specific experience such as relaxation, discovering history, experiencing a new culture or to enjoy different foods and wines. In fact, many people travel specifically to experience and learn about wine in its “native environment”. Some people discover wine tourism accidentally, as a part of their vacation to an area that specializes in wine and others travel specifically to learn about and enjoy wine. In either case, there is a viable market that wine and grape growers associations, travel agencies and even an entire wine region acting as a co-op can tap into with the right advertising campaign.
Typically, wine tourism consists of traveling to a particular wine region in search of a variety of experiences including dining with fine wines, visiting vineyards and wine cellars for tours and education and of course, wine tastings. Wine tourism tends to attract a higher quality of clientele that are not likely to be impacted by a down economy which makes them an excellent market to advertise to right now. Travel agencies, wine region co-ops and growers’ associations can all benefit from increased wine tourism advertising.
Online advertising is one of the best ways to attract new business for wine tourism, especially in ads that cater to this type of clientele on gourmet food sites. People who are interested in fine foods and wines are those most likely to engage in wine tourism and these are the people who read gourmet food articles. This type of online advertising has a high rate of success because of its ability to be highly targeted and because it is usually viewed for a longer period of time. Online advertising costs much less than advertising on TV or radio and the success of the ad campaign is much more measurable.
Nearly every wine region unites to form a co-op to promote their own wine region and the grape variety they are known for. This offers potential wine tourists with a unique experience on each wine tour they take. They might visit McLaren Vale, South Australia for a beautiful view of the ocean and a fine glass of Shiraz or travel to Napa Valley, CA for a premium Chardonnay or Merlot. Then there is always a visit to Oregon for a delightfully complex pinot noir or to the Loire Valley in France for the finest champagne in the world.
Wine tourism is on the rise and now is the perfect opportunity to tap into this high quality market with the right online advertising campaign. There are wine tourists just waiting for the right invitation to tempt their palate and other travelers who would become wine tourists if only they knew about the enriching experience that awaits them. Remember that these wine tourists could be local, domestic or international. What better way is there for travel agents and wine tour operators to reach such a highly targeted market than with online advertising?
Your Advertising Budget for 2009
December 3, 2008 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
The 2009 Media Planning season has begun and for many food, wine, and beer companies, 2009 will see many investing in online advertising for the first time in an effort to use their budget dollars more frugally due to tough economic times. This is a positive move to be making and the right time to be making it, but many companies are still unsure exactly how much of their advertising budget should be allocated to online advertising and where it should this money be spent?
The greatest challenge for any company’s advertising budget is to spend as little money as possible while developing brand awareness and driving sales either online or offline. Advertising agency’s who predominantly buy TV and radio will show them all the numbers regarding demographics. These are the percentages of people from each age category and gender that will be watching and/or listening to their advertisement. But, in the real world we know that people often change the channel when the commercial is on, so you never know how many people in your target audience see your ad. This is precisely why it makes sense for food, wine and beer companies to start allocating a larger portion of their advertising budget to online advertising.
Online advertising is far more targeted than TV or radio and people can’t change the channel because the online advertising is integrated into a page they are viewing. A consumer may be reading a recipe that they will be making for a dinner party that evening and the ad right next to it may be for an ingredient they will need for that recipe or the perfect wine to pair with their meal.
A benefit about spending more of your advertising budget for online advertising is that the ads get noticed, but don’t offend. Consumers feel better about seeing an ad that blends in with a page they are reading and isn’t interrupting their experience. They are aware of the online advertising while they are reading the article or watching a video that demonstrates a cooking technique, but they can choose when to read it more fully. Companies who sponsor interesting content can be seen as innovative.
The really bright side for these food, wine and beer companies is the cost of online advertising is much more affordable and when you consider the cost per viewer that may actually purchase the product as opposed to radio or TV advertising, the difference is astronomical. Strictly from a financial expenditure to net gain perspective, the more of a company’s advertising budget gets allocated to online advertising, the better.
Realistically, online businesses should be spending the majority of their advertising budget for online advertising. On the other hand, FMCG and retailers may want to consider putting at least 20-30% of their advertising budget into online advertising as a first step in 2009, then more in 2010.
If you would like to find out how online advertising can benefit your company, then download our media kit or contact us for more information.
2009 Media Planning
November 18, 2008 by Benjamin Christie · 1 Comment
For many food and wine companies 2009 media planning is well underway and the trend we’re already seeing is increased online budgets across the board. Many of the companies we deal directly with in the food, wine, beer, tourism and kitchen appliance industries are all looking at online as a cost effective channel to achieve growth in this economic downturn.
It seems that this increased online trend is rather consistent around the globe, especially in both our major markets of the USA and Australia. We believe the increased activity with 2009 media planning is because many companies are reducing their outdoor, print, TV and radio campaigns and are finally shifting over to online.
So how can we help your 2009 Media Planning? Gourmet Ads can help you or your advertising agency develop your 12 month plan to target your audience online throughout the year. By booking media in advance (either 6 month or 12 months) allows us to offers significant discounts on CPM rates, increasing your return on investment.
If you have a Request for Proposal (RFP) or just want to learn more about Gourmet Ads, then simply request a media kit and one of our sales team will be in touch.
Vertical Advertising Increases ROI
November 13, 2008 by Benjamin Christie · 1 Comment
Times are tough, economically speaking, and most people are being more aware of their spending habits. Everyone wants to make the most of their money and advertisers are no exception. Advertisers want and need to get the highest ROI (Return on Investment) possible for every ad they purchase. The latest statistics suggest that the best way for advertisers to increase their ROI is through vertical advertising online. Gourmet Ads is a vertical advertising network for food, wine and beer. Its all we do!
Vertical advertising is actually the internet advertising world’s name for the most highly targeted and effective advertising you can get. When using a vertical advertising network to market a product its all about relevancy; such as wine is advertised specifically on websites about wine. A food product, such as low-fat cooking spray would be advertised on a page that specializes in low-fat cooking or even just food in general. Overall Vertical advertising provides a highly qualified click.
Every advertiser knows that with traditional forms of advertising you basically throw your ads out in front of a large group of people and hope that a certain percentage of them are in your target market. But, with vertical advertising all of your advertising dollars are being focused directly on your target market. Vertical advertising provides significant ROI because only people who might be interested in your product see your advertising.
With consumers tightening their belts and decreasing their spending, it is more important now than ever to get a good ROI and create a strong brand image with consumers. Advertisers need their product to be at the forefront of the consumer’s mind every time they make a purchase in order to survive the tough economic times ahead. Historically it has been the companies that understood targeted advertising and the importance of branding that not only survived, but thrived during the worst economic times. In this day and age, vertical advertising is the best way to get a good ROI and increase brand awareness.
To find out more about how vertical advertising can work for your product? Contact us today for information on developing your vertical advertising campaign.
Marketing Culinary Tourism
November 9, 2008 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
According to the International Culinary Tourism Association, culinary tourism is defined as “the pursuit of unique and memorable eating and drinking experiences”. What this means is there is a particular audience of people (learn about our food audience) who are willing to travel the world in order to sample and experience authentic international cuisines.
Then there is another audience of people who want to create authentic international recipes at home for a virtual culinary tourism experience. In either event, tourism organizations (including national, state and regional tourism boards) as well and culinary associations and tour operators can benefit from targeted vertical advertising on food related websites. Fine cuisine and travel go hand and hand and a targeted marketing campaign can help drive that point home to these potential gourmet travelers.
Culinary tourism is considered a subculture of cultural tourism and certainly food is a major component of any culture. This trend in culinary tourism can be used to encourage travelers to visit other states or even foreign countries on a quest for the best food experience in the world. If a person wants the best steak they may travel to Texas, the best barbeque in Louisiana and no visit to New York city would be complete without sampling a piece of New York style pizza. Overseas, a trip to Singapore wouldn’t be complete without sampling Singapore chilli crab, butter chicken in India, chicken stay in Malaysia, peking duck in China, sushi in Japan, quesadilla in Mexico, Maori cooked hangi in New Zealand and the best pasta would require a trip to Italy, of course. The list is endless when it comes to culinary tourism.
Targeted ads on food websites can help make the tastes and smells of international foods so real to viewers that they can hardly wait to get their flight booked and their bags packed. Culinary tourism brings to mind the taste of a freshly baked croissant served at a sidewalk café in France first thing in the morning with a cup of café au lait. Think of any trip you have ever taken and a food memory is sure to come to mind.
The Gourmet Ads network of food and wine sites offers national, state and regional tourism boards as well as tour operators the ability to target our audience of food and wine enthusiasts. We provide the ability to position your messaging which will encourage travelers to visit and experience your destination.
Contact us for a digital media plan to promote and marketing your destination.
