IMKTG REPORT July 30 2001

opportunities monday, july 30th, 2001

hello again, you will notice i use the
term "brand" a lot. brand is another
word for logo, & managing your logo or
"branding" will be an important under-
lying message in all these newsletters
b/c w/o it, your consumers won't spend
on your logo online. the Internet Ad
Bureau, DoubleClick, MSFT, & CNet have
even conducted joint research, released
2 weeks ago, proving how effective in-
ternet ads' ability to increase brand
awareness, tagline/message association,
purchase intent & brand favorability
can be when done right. "A great brand
is a promise, a compact with a customer
about quality, reliability, innovation,
and even community. And while the con-
cept of brand is intangible, brand equi-
ty is far from it." - Stephen B. Shepard,
Editor-in-Chief, BusinessWeek.

contents:
1. COMMUNITY: a decreasing internet population?,
2. MEDIA: ad blocking, pop unders, no more clickthrus,
3. PROFITS: the keys to making money online,
4. HUMOR: a really funny tid bit on a competitor,
5. IDEAS: & ideas i have for new businesses.

enjoy this issue.

********* al berrios community *********

COMMUNITY: you can give away gold bars
from your site, but if the experience
was bad, users will not come back.
it's a fact of marketing, it's a FACT
OF LIFE, experience matters, but time
& again, businesses offer experiences
to suit the needs of making money, not
the user. now they're saying that the
number of people going online is de-
creasing. BULLSH!T. the problem w/these
metrics is that they're not accounting
for the people that are becoming more
loyal to their favorite brands online,
spending more time & money with them.

bottom line: listen to your users, not
investors. set up message boards and
read them. send out emails and react
to feedback. do surveys, ask questions,
hire a professional. just listen,
got-dammit! the pay off is in overall
lower customer retention costs. even
forbes finally picked this up in an
article in this week's issue "The
Question Is the Answer" detailing how
just by listening to users, companies
have been able to introduce new or
improved products that they didn't even
realize were important to their customers.
and whenever you hear a report about
a slowdown in internet usage, just re-
member that radio listenership, cable &
network tv viewership, & even mag reader-
ship are all down. the reason for this is
the internet.

read more:
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/12032.html
pick up the latest issue of BusinessWeek.

top
********* al berrios media *********

MEDIA: there is a serious commitment
by special groups online to block our
ads with technology. and these new pop
unders aren't helping, b/c so many ppl
find them annoying. and the cherry on
top - publishers don't want to report
clickthru rates b/c they feel that it
doesn't accurately represent their
inventory's effectiveness, forcing them
to not charge as much as they'd
like for their inventory. oy vey.
the ad blocking technology will probably
never catch on, but to hedge the risk,
many publishers are trying to create
some sort of subscriber relationship
w/their customers. pop unders are new,
and b/c they help increase traffic,
some advertisers find it attractive,
however, since you never know where
you pick one up, they're drawing a lot
of negative publicity from publisher's
audience, damaging their relationship,
& not contributing to sales. & you can
thank CBSMarketWatch, w/their .03%
clickthru rate, for not wanting to re-
port this metric. by reporting other
effects of their ad inventory, (remem-
ber that branding report i mentioned
earlier), they can charge more money
for the same buttons and banners.

bottom line: i encourage all of you
to seriously think about how to
integrate a subscription program
into your web presence. no hurry,
but keep it on a post-it somewhere
on your desk. although pop unders
can attract additional revenue from
your inventory, if you've noticed,
the only sites offering it in their
inventories are big time publishers
with millions of loyal monthly visi-
tors that can stand the annoyance
because they love the content. and
i'm a supporter of the irrelevance
of clickthru rates, however, not
everyone is as opened minded. buyers
need to account for ROI. my suggest-
ion, offer it only if they request it.

top
********* al berrios profits *********

PROFITS: "[AOL] added 17.9 million
new subscribers, bringing its overall
base to 135 million customers";
"Subscriptions contributed $4.1
billion of the quarter's revenues
for the period." nuff said.

bottom line: it's all about getting
people to subscribe to your sh!t.
(excuse my french.) that and giving
users experiences they enjoy with
brands they trust. stop shoving all
sorts of crap down their throats.
& that's why AOL will rule the world.

top
********* al berrios humor *********

HUMOR: from tuesday, july 17th, daily
newsletter from thestandard.com:

"Poached Razorfish: Internet con-
sultancy Razorfish launched its
first e-newsletter to clients on
Monday, but the firm could have
benefitted from some third-party
consulting. All unsubscribe requests
were inadvertently sent to everyone
on the e-mail list, and subsequent
complaint letters were also sent to
the full list. Razorfish, a company
troubled by poor earnings reports &
a dismal stock price, apologized &
terminated its e-newsletter endeavor."

bottom line: these guys charge millions
to tell you what to do online. I don't
& i know what i'm doing. i feel bad for
their clients. if you know of any, give
'em my number.

top
********* al berrios idea *********

PROBLEM: as reported by wednesday's
nytimes.com, due to the cut in biz
travel, travelers are actually con-
cerned about losing their elite
status with airline's frequent flyer
programs. and did you know that ever
since napster got into legal issues,
they've gone from getting 5% of ALL
internet traffic to their site to only
1%? although kids are willing to pay
for music, they also admitted that they
wouldn't pay much for older music,
since it's out of style w/in a few weeks.
the constant radio and video playing
just makes it lose value. seriously,
if i hear "Bootilicious" by Destiny's
Child just ONE more time... UGH!

IDEA: perhaps a mile-auctioning
site to let travelers determine for
themselves what travel status is worth
to them? perhaps an industry sanct-
ioned music autioning site, too? why
does ebay work? b/c consumers, not
companies, decide what goods are worth
to them. that's the real future of
ecommerce.

top
********* al berrios iMarketing *********

Disclaimer: The recommendations, commentary and opinions published herein are based on public information sometimes referenced via hyperlinks. Any similarities or likeness to any ideas or commentary from any other sources not referenced is purely coincidental. al berrios & co. cannot control any results occurring from advice obtained from this publication nor any opinion(s) conveyed by any reader of this publication.

(c) 2001-2005. All Rights Reserved. al berrios & company, inc. Published by al berrios & co. This Report may not be reproduced or redistributed in any form without written permission from al berrios & co., subject to penalty.

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