IC-Academy across Canada

Do you want to improve your business’ sales or visibility online? Do you want to learn the tricks the experts use to leverage the internet and stay ahead of the competition? If your internet marketing strategy needs a boost, then IC-Academy is the  ticket.

 IC-Academy is IC-Agency’s business training unit: a two day hands-on workshop that was designed to help small and medium businesses get instant results. IC-Academy’s inaugural course, “How to Profit from Google AdWords”, can help anyone go from a novice to getting leads online within hours. IC-Academy also shows participants how to use other tools, such as Web Analytics, to stay a step ahead of their competitors.

We are very pleased to announce that IC-Academy will soon be expanding its reach to several major centers across Canada. If you want to learn more about how to register for IC-Academy, visit the website today!

When a threat becomes an opportunity…

The last article of the WorldWatchWeb section of Europa Star magazine focuses on a new phenomenon: “Marketing by Consumers”. Millions of messages discussing – without restraint – brands and their products are posted every day by consumers on various blogs and forums.

 “According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, consumers are giving more and more credence to the opinions expressed by their peers, while paying less and less attention to the messages coming from brands’ marketing departments. Under these conditions, any criticism directed towards a particular company on the Internet is a potential time bomb.” writes Vincent Brelle of IC-Agency.

A threat perhaps, but also an opportunity. Discover how in this article!

Google improves its Flash Site Indexing

This summer, Google announced a new algorithm which facilitates the indexing of the Flash animation format within its search engine. This improvement will allow the indexing of many sites developed in Flash, that were, up until now, not visible to Google.

What does this new algorithm bring to the table? Will it really improve indexing of Flash sites? IC-Agency has peeled back some of the layers of this new optimization to bring you the details.

1. Indexing of text from Flash files

The Google algorithm is now able to index text content found in Flash animations (SWF files), which will also allow:

• association of the text contained in an SWF file with certain searches
• the use of text found in SWF files to create snippets (descriptive text found under Google’s search results)

Google uses the example of the site Deep Impact:

Preview of the site in the search results before the improvement to the algorithm:

Preview of the site in the search results after the improvement to the algorithm:

2. Link Analysis within Flash files

The second feature that was announced is a URL finder. In its blog, Google tells us that its engine “crawls” the pages of a website the same way a user would. The engine then finds, follows and remembers any URLs that are within the Flash file. With this method, Google is now able to index web pages that were previously invisible.

3. The Limits and Inconveniences of Flash Page Indexing

At this time, only text content will be taken into account by these new features. Therefore, a Flash site made entirely of images will not be taken into account by Google. For this reason, if a Flash site contains nothing but images, it will not be indexed.

On the other hand, Google is able to follow links and associate text content with the pages it visits in the search results. However, if the site does not contain a URL per page, Googlebot will associate one URL for several content pages. Google will then display in its search results a single URL for several content pages found by their robot. The internet user will not necessarily land on the expected page. These sites then suffer from a lack of internal and external links, essential factors to consider when optimizing to obtain a good page rank.

Finally, there are a few obstacles when indexing certain Flash pages:

1. Googlebot cannot execute certain types of Javascript. Consequently, if the page loads a Flash file via Javascript, Google will not be able to index it.
2. Google is unable to associate multiple resources that load with a single SWF file. In other words, if the Flash file simultaneously loads other HTML or XHTML files for example, they will be indexed separately, not as part of the original SWF file.
3. Googlebot does not recognize Hebrew or Arab at this time. SWF files in these languages will not be indexed.

In conclusion, the change to the algorithm is certainly an improvement for the indexing of Flash pages, but it does not guarantee a good page rank. A site with HTML pages remains the most efficient way to earn a good page rank.

Travel Trade Workshop 2008

From October 28 to the 31, the Travel Trade Workshop will be held in Montreux, Switzerland.

This annual gathering of Swiss Tourism professionals presents an opportunity for many industry players to meet and finalize various contracts. In addition, the Travel Trade Workshop is also an educational platform for all people interested in travel.

For this educational workshop, IC-Agency will present a conference discussing the trends and perspectives of online tourism: “Online Tourism: All Aboard”

If you feel the urge to plan your next vacation, learn more about online tourism and perhaps daydream a little, do not hesitate registering for this workshop.

E-Advertising Retrospective

The Journal du Net and DDB Paris are proposing a superb retrospective on internet marketing. Here is a summary of the important milestones that have marked online marketing over the last 15 years:

Rumor has it that the first banner ad was shown in the United States in 1993, but this campaign remains to be found. The official pioneer would therefore be American Telephone & Telegraph, who, in 1994, launched its first banner ad in what would become a standard format: 468x60 pixels.

Between 1994 and 1995, these banners showed an impressive increase in click rate, going from 10% to 40%. Popular websites quickly took notice of the important commercial opportunity and in 1995; the first ad-space was integrated in the Yahoo! Portal.

Thus, the online marketing sector exploded, weighing in as a $267 million a year industry by 1996 (from $37 million in 1995). However, with the arrival of much more intrusive formats, such as interstitials, in 1997 and the overall trivialization of online marketing, banner ad click rates plummeted to 1%, then to 0.5% in 1998. Online marketing needed to be rethought.

Google, with its launch in 1998, quickly brought forth a new form of internet advertising: sponsored links.  The success of sponsored links has helped shape Google into the industry leader we know today.

With the re-purchase of Broadcast.com by Yahoo!, and the launches of Windows Media Player 6 by Microsoft and QuickTime 4.0 by Apple, 1999 would become the year we see the debut of video. Advertisers immediately wanted to integrate videos into their campaigns, but low-speed connections were a large hurdle to overcome.

The arrival of high-speed internet in 2000 allowed for the development of more complex, media-rich banners.  These innovations were very much anticipated since, despite the advent of skyscraper and rectangular (300x250) ads that year, the click rate dropped to 0.1%.

In 2001, the internet bubble burst, and the revenues from online advertising suffered. On top of this, pop-ups and pop-unders invaded nearly one third of web sites, which hurt internet users’ experiences considerably as well as the reputation of the medium in general. 2002 and 2003 paid dearly for this. In the U.S. alone, the advertising industry announced, for the first time, a 16% decrease in revenues from the previous year.

After a difficult period, the online advertising industry reached a new stage in its life cycle in 2004 with the arrival of intermediaries (registrars, ad servers…). 2005 saw the apparition of a new catalyst: the internet user. Once passive, internet users now have the power to easily control the rise or fall of a brand in a matter of minutes through blogs, message boards or other user generated content. Therefore, brands are being much more prudent, opting for more ethics and transparency and less intrusive communication.

2005 is also the year of high-speed democratization. The creation of YouTube brings with it the explosion of rich media, creativity and viral marketing.

The internet penetration rate surpasses 50% in industrialized countries in 2006, which results in it becoming an essential step in a consumer’s buying process.

In 2007, advertisers utilize a mix of e-marketing strategies: anonymous viral video teasers, mini-sites generally accompanied by contests and banner ads for a second time, all of which is tied together by a Google AdWords campaign. Everything is tracked, measured and analyzed thanks to accurate statistical tools which are used to maximize the return on investment over the course of a campaign.

Optimization leads to personalization and behavioral advertising, which is many advertisers’ dream. Luckily, Holistis was created for that ;)

GREM elects a new president

This summer, Yves-Alain Schwaar, consulting director at the heart of IC-Agency, has been elected as the president of the GREM (Groupement Romand des Etudes de Marché).  This network of French-speaking Swiss marketing specialists has among its goals to:

• Allow its members to follow recent marketing trends
• Offer prospective views on the markets
• Share real life experiences (case studies, testimonials) in order to stimulate the  quality, audacity and performances of French-speaking  Swiss enterprises
• Encourage interaction and reinforce dialog between the many agents in the marketing field (marketing departments, advertising and sales, research institutions, agencies, media, universities, etc.)
• Allow professionals to share their expertise an develop relations amongst each other

Within this framework, the GREM organizes approximately 10 conferences and visits to enterprises per year.

The next event will be a luncheon on Wednesday, September 17 where Mr.  Rémy Oudghiri, Director of the Department of Trends and Prospectives for Ipsos Marketing in Paris, will attend to discuss the theme The New Faces of the Consumer Society. Details and registration can be found here.

Congratulations to Yves-Alain!

IC-Agency presents IC-Academy in Fredericton

SUBJECT: IC-Academy: A proven method to instantly increasing business for your company
WHAT: A free breakfast conference         
WHEN: Thursday, August 21, 2008
TIME: 8:00 a.m. to 8:45 a.m.
WHERE: Crowne Plaza, Fredericton, New Brusnwick, Canada
SPEAKER: Mr. Flavio Quaranta, Managing Partner: IC-Agency Canada

IC-Agency is an Internet Marketing Consultancy firm that has partnered with large internationally renowned brands such as Nestlé, Rolex and Dior, in providing expertise to successfully support their on-line marketing strategies.

As Google’s only certified AdWords qualified company in Atlantic Canada, IC-Agency has created a unique service offering that allows small and middle sized businesses to profit using the internet as a marketing tool, by offering a one-of-a-kind 2-day workshop with a Live Ad Campaign launch. This highly personalized approach has proven effective in as little as one hour.

When Robert Beaudet of Caroflex Inc., based in Beresford, NB, attended IC-Academy in May, he had no idea that he would get 4 qualified leads in less than one week after spending less than 60 dollars on Google. Thanks to IC-Academy, Caroflex has expanded beyond its traditional Maritimes based customers to the entire Continent, and has also started to ship to South Africa!

Do not miss this rare opportunity to learn how IC-Academy will give your business a competitive presence on the internet. Contact Jacques Guitard, to confirm your attendance to this special conference by calling 506 546 8292, or at [email protected]