When Life Was as Simple as The Products That Surrounded Us

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog, Life Before The Internet! Today, I am discussing as well as showing products, that we all know and love from our pastimes. These were the pre-internet years and I believe it’s always good to remember what some of our most favorite and widely used products that we enjoy started off as. I encourage all of you to take some time and appreciate the simplicity of these items, as they performed tasks and entertained our younger selves. These were times of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, where we did not demand the absolute most out of our products and we were happy to be privileged enough to own and use these items of the past!

Starting off with items everyone loved as kids…Toys!

The 1970’s…

Mattel Electronics Football and Auto Race/ Nerf ball “the worlds first indoor play ball”

The 80’s…

Transformers! The shape-shifting cars that formed into battle-ready robots.

Polly Pocket: The portable playset for girls that feature very small pieces

The 90’s…

Moon shoes! Mini trampolines for your feet!

The skateboard for your fingers!

 

These simple toys kept kids occupied for hours and got kids active as well as creative. These toys are just a small portion of what was available to kids during the pre-internet era.

 

Now let’s take a look at some tech that blew our minds not long ago

Computers from the 1970’s to the 90’s.

1970

 

1980

 

 

1990

 

These devices paved the way for the very complex technology we have today and as technology continues to evolve, our society expects tasks to be done faster and faster. These devices remind us of a time when we were happy to perform simple tasks that did not need to be done by hand and when we did not expect our technology to perform everything that we could possibly need in an instant.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed this little blast from the past and have thought about just how different everyday items such as toys and computers were back then. Remember to appreciate just how much we have today and the years upon years that it took just to create the phone in your pocket!

 

 

Email Marketing=Internet Required

Life before the internet was a much simpler time, a time when marketing tactics were physical print ads and cheesy television commercials. Sadly the commercials stayed and though there are still print advertisement marketing efforts today such as magazines,  a major shift occurred when Email was brought into the world.

Email marketing has become the gold standard for companies attempting to reach users online and this is due to emails having the ability to drive conversions, receive substantial ROI ratios, and help overall business growth. Email is able to provide these benefits simply because of the convenience that customers experience using it. To explain in more detail how email marketing efforts work, I will evaluate two emails based on criteria for effective marketing campaigns.

The image above is from Ticketmaster and what lead me to sign up for this email subscription was my friend group insisting that this site was the best for ticket shopping. I receive around 5 emails a month from Ticketmaster and out of those emails, I usually open 2 just to see if there are any new concerts I would be interested in. That’s 40% of the time that I open Ticketmaster emails, as many of them feature the same bands but in a different order. Every email has the “unsubscribe” option at the top of every email which can be followed to either stop getting emails altogether or to set up a different email option. For this particular email, however, I wanted to see if there was any Saint Patrick’s day special offers or discounts on ticket prices. The CTA that grabbed my attention was the subject of my name, followed by “lucky picks just for you”. This call to action was effective in that the company has a system to input the names of the customers in their emails, which gives a more personal touch. Once I saw this email I clicked on it to find one of my favorite bands; Dave Matthews Band, on the front directly under the Saint Patrick’s Day advertisement. The quality of the ad is very well done as they incorporated the Ticketmaster theme to Saint Patrick’s day by placing emphasis on the “Rock” portion of the word. This email was most likely sent to Ticketmaster’s entire database as Saint Patrick’s day is known for having a good time with others and having a lot of music playing and therefore would not need to be segmented. This email, in the end, accomplished its goal of getting me to click and read the content that was offered.

This is another email that Ticketmaster sent me in the same month of March and it features a special offer for a concert in the Albany area. The header of the email reads “See Little Steven as a VIP” and though I am not aware of the band, I was enticed by the chance to be VIP. This CTA of being a possible VIP got me to open the email and view a special offer being made. What is interesting about this email is that it was segmented to my geographic location of Albany, NY and was giving special offers due to the band being lesser known. This shows Ticketmaster’s efforts in trying to sell tickets at discounted prices in an attempt to fill seats for the concert. The quality of this email is also good and the phrase “special offer” is placed in a larger text to grab my attention. Overall, the email accomplished the goal of my click but even after viewing the special offer, I had no desire to see this band or to continue on to the website to find out more. The next email I would expect to see from Ticketmaster would be a Spring themed email with tickets available to purchase for Summer concerts.

 

How SEO can Improve Businesses That Came Before the Internet

Before the internet, businesses ran strong and found physical ways to advertise to consumers. Businesses that have stood the test of time and are still operating today, might not even have a website and believe they are functioning just fine without one. Though these brick and motor stores may create a steady profit on there own, there are online tools that can help any business increase its awareness to consumers.

Creating a website today is not hard and maintaining the site’s popularity and effectiveness can be done easily by using SEO techniques or Search Engine Optimization. For in this post, I will show you how I used SEO techniques to make my website stand out on the web.

The first step towards making your website awesome is identifying what KeyWords to use. Using Google Keyword Planner, I am able to search for words that relate to the concept of my blog “Life before the internet”. lists of other words relating to my search came up and I could see what words have higher traffic and what the competition of these words are. The keyword “before the internet”, shows its average monthly searches along with it’s suggested bidding price. The important thing to look for when determining which keywords to use is the monthly average search rate. This figure shows that the term “before the internet” has had searches ranging from 100 to 1,000. This is very low when compared to some search terms that bring up numbers in the millions! Choosing keywords that are very broad such as “internet” are going to have very large search rates and will yield better results for increasing a website’s presence on the web. Overall, there are four factors that should be considered when looking for keywords to target. These are Relevance, Traffic, competition, and Current Ranking.

Now, there are many areas on the webpage where keywords can be placed to better your search engine rating. These areas are the URL, Title Tag, Header Tag, Content, alt text, anchor text. Of these, one of the most important is the URL. Placing keywords that are relevant and match the topic of your site is a major necessity for success. When looking at my blog, I have keywords that directly relate to the topic of the blog. If the URL does not match the topic and or theme of a website, users can become confused and back out of your website. This action of users back-clicking has a negative impact on your site’s overall ranking.

The Title and Header tags are also weighted heavily by search engines when determining ranking. Title tags should have the target keyword within it and only have around 67 characters to display. My blog post title tag has the exact keywords that explain what the site is about. Since my website has a specific topic, keywords that I use will be almost identical to the topics and content I want to publish. If you are someone with a business without a website or do not know how to make your website better in the eyes of search engines, it can be difficult finding a starting point. Luckily, there are many resources on the web for improving your sites rankings and information on bettering your sites SEO practices can be found at this website.

To finalize, take note of what the underlying goal of your website is or what you want it to be and revolve certain keywords around this goal and this will boil down the perfect keywords needed.

The content discussed in this blog post is for my Digital Marketing class instructed by Professor Pepe. Find out what his website is like here.

The Classic Way Of Listening To Music…Vinyl Records.

Long before the age of Itunes, Spotify, Sirius XM Radio, and even CD’s…there was vinyl! Vinyl records dominated the classic era of music and released a true sound like no other. For the many out there that love vinyl today, it is no doubt a challenge to find good record shops. However, in today’s world, we have the use of the internet at our disposal and that means my friends, classic sounding vinyl records are at anyone’s doorstep in less than a week…anywhere in the world. A website that sells a wide variety of vinyl records is soundstagedirect.com.

When typing in “websites that sell vinyl” into my search engine, SoundStageDirect.com was the first website to be featured on the list of hundreds of other websites. This is already a good sign that this website must have high-traffic due to it being the first site for users to see. Upon entering the site, there are multiple icons and tabs that catch the eye. The certified dealer for vinyl players icon stands out right as you enter the page and immediately gives off a sense that this website is credible. Once users are on the site, they can browse through many options like “Vinyl records”, “Trade-ins”, and “New Arrivals”. Near the top right-hand corner of the page, one can see the search bar with helpful guides that tell the visitor what they might be wanting to search for. Overal, the content of the page is formatted very well and is very clearly laid out as to what visitors may be interested in viewing. The bottom of the page has an organized summary of every option as advertised at the top of the page with additional indicators that the site has been verified as safe for the user to shop and save transactions on the site.

So now that the opening page has my attention, how does it get me to convert?!?  Well from being on the site only a few minutes I already know : (1) what SoundStageDirect is offering me due to the clearly laid out platform, (2) why I should pick them because the site looks and feels very professional with the added verification for security, (3) I know what the website wants me to do next on every tab that I click. All of these options I saw without even having to scroll down on the page!

Now to look at how Sound Stage Direct designed its webpage to maximize revenue. When taking a glance at the tab “Vinyl Records”, I notice a drop-down menu that shows most popular bought records as well as various genres of other music for segmentation purposes. This allows me to add items I already like to my cart and the site has other means of getting me to purchase more. One of the largest images at the top of the webpage is the advertisements for products, discount codes, and featured albums that are selling hot. The website does a good job at making these ads flow dynamically both at the top and bottom by having them change every few seconds and a new ad appears. So as I am browsing for more content, I get subtle hints that there are discounts on product X and sales on Y.

Overall SoundStageDirect.com had my attention and willingness to purchase which are two aspects that aren’t easy for websites to do well. The content that I have discussed today is related to topics that I am learning in my Digital Marketing class taught by the worlds biggest and best Vikings fan, Professor Pepe! For those interested in his blog you can access it below.

Professor Pepe’s Blog

 

No Internet?!? Now What?

Hello all and welcome to my blog “Life before the internet”! On this blog, I will be discussing topics that relate to what individuals did for fun back before there was any internet around as well as how our society has changed with the internet. I will focus on fun and unique things and activities that people of all ages did before the internet and many of these may have even been forgotten! I am open to all opinions and what you the visitor has to say to say. I encourage those of all ages to enjoy this website and share what you have to say.  I will be posting ideas for rainy days, days off, or any day for those who may want to live a day without the internet. So for anyone who enjoys what goes on here on “Life before the internet”, please feel free to reply with your thoughts and share what you have to say as well!

So here is a little insight as to why I started this blog page. I for one love the internet and all the cool things that we can do with it today. However, not long ago I began to see a change in my friends’ behavior when we would hang out and also in everyday life seeing people glued to their phones. I’m a 90’s kid and growing up, sure my family had internet access but even then it wasn’t as big as it is today. So with all the free time I had, I would spend it hanging with friends, riding bikes, playing with legos, and of all things get bored sometimes! There’s nothing wrong with a little boredom sometimes and I believe it’s soon to be a thing of the past! Think about it, with all the devices we have today, there is hardly a time where someone can NOT have something to do or look at.  So I wanted to create a blog site where I would share stories on what people did for fun before the internet and furthermore how we as a society have changed with the internet.

I will post frequently and I will do my best to create content that gets people to think about the change the internet has had on our lives and how there is so much we can do without it to enjoy life to its fullest!