Marketing Advice for Ask.com

It is time for Ask.com to drop their “algorithm” marketing campaigns. Frankly, it was a bad idea from the beginning, but not for the obvious reasons.

Are the Ask. com ads offensive? Yes, possibly. Using the Unabomber and Jesus is an ad campaign was probably not the smartest idea. Now they have a new ad that is, well for lack of a better word, just creepy.

However, the mass marketing approach is a terrible idea. In this case, it would not have mattered what the message was.

So what would I do?

Steps to Increase Ask.com’s market share.

• Stop trying to be Google. It is too late. Google is Google, so Ask.com can not be Google. You can not go back and change the past. Currently, you have nothing to offer that they do not have already. Why would searchers come to Ask.com?

 

• The hard truth: The public does not care about accurate results.
  According to Ask.com’s CEO Jim Lanzone … “it is important to highlight the uniqueness of our algorithm, which takes a different approach to ranking than our competitors. The Ask.com algorithm’s relevance methodology goes beyond the popularity focus of Google, Yahoo and MSN’s, and is the only one to break the Web down into topic clusters and determine community-based relevance in real time.” We don’t care. 

  Even Google, although they may not admit it, does not consider the accuracy of search results as important as other features. Speed, simplicity, and clean results are still higher priorities for Google. (By “clean results” I mean formatted nicely, with a distinct separation from paid and unpaid.)

• Do not market to everyone. Mass marketing does not work.
  For Ask.com to gain market share, only a small group of users are needed. That would be you and me. The people that read search engine marketing blogs and attend search engine marketing conferences. If we began using Ask.com, then word will spread quickly. However, Ask.com has not given us a reason to use their product nor have they attempted. 

  Solution: They can offer all attendees to a search engine conference: Free Advertising for a Month. No catches, no sign-ups, no commitments. If they believe in the product, then it should not be a problem. If the trial period is successful and advertisers are happy, then word will spread quickly to that mass market that they are trying so hard to reach.

  Ask.com can let search engine marketers do the marketing for them. If we have success, then we will report on it. We will blog on it. We will discuss it in message boards. We will encourage our family and friends to use it. We will spread the word. We will reach the mass market that Ask.com is trying so hard to reach now, but we will be successful. Of course, that’s assuming the product is worth using.

Tags: Ask, Video