Yahoo! To Push Pay Services

Adopts Traditional Marketing Techniques in Bid to Boost Revenue

[agerhart]

Yahoo! has stepped up its direct-marketing tactics to push a growing stable of premium pay services.

E-mail, banner ads, guerilla marketing and a recently launched marketing-preferences page are signs the Internet company is increasingly adopting the strategies of traditional marketers.

Yahoo! plans to test direct-mail offers. It matches consumers with pay services that may interest them by researching the places they spend the most time on the network and how they interact with the network -- whether it's in finance, news or games -- and then targets appropriate communications to them.
Full article [adage.com]

[JamesR]

Customer backlash is a real concern as Yahoo! customers get pelted with more and more offers.

but how much will people take? alot I think, until something better comes along. consumers have come to get used to these kinds of things...look at what M$ has gotten away with? I think consumer tolerance and lack of a better popular alternative is what allows Yahoo to push the limits.

"We have no plans to do telemarketing, but you can never say never,"

that would be the straw that breaks the camel's back. If one thing american's hate, it is telemarketing. throw banners at us, spam our email boxes, but stay the heck away from our telephones you slimy money grubbers!

[markd]

On the surface, I actually find this more acceptable as it 'extends' their products and services, rather than dump on their core 'search' service.

Whilst I am sure this will come in due course, I hope with the last grain of optimism, that Yahoo are looking at all of the bad feeling (and small uptake) of the Looksmart fiasco.

[AlbinoRhyno]

Not to mention elimination of formerly free services. First Geocities, which didn't affect me, now POP email. This ticked me off. I overlooked the autoswitch of privacy preferences, but I sure won't pay a company $33+ per year for an email address. I could go to a domain registrar, register a domain for $9/year, and get a better username. This makes me get rid of my last remnant of Yahoo! Less than a year ago, I used Yahoo! for searching, maps, email, and occasional IM. Now I won't use any of it. What a customer service / marketing blunder.

[AlbinoRhyno]

There is nothing I hate more than telemarketing. Even if it is a company I do business with (credit card company with some new feature, business I bought something from, etc.) It has gotten to the point where I turn off the ringer, and bought a cell phone (not the only reason I bought the cell). Anyone that I would want to call me calls the cell, and I can ignore the landline.

For spam, I'm like, "Ugh. Oh well, just hit delete." For telemarketing, it's "You jack---! Leave me be!"

[Stickymaster]

What is wrong with a company trying to earn extra revenue?

I don't mind the e-mail marketing and all that but if they phoned me I would be seriously p'd off!

Can yahoo go on like this, it's advertising model is faltering and it is looking to generate revenue at every turn.

I think Yahoo, like most sites needs a solid, tangible product to sell.

What is it a search engine/directory?

A portal?

A service provider (e-mail/web pages)?

Does it know what it is?

Maybe that's the problem, maybe it needs to scale down and concentrate on one thing, it's search and directory.

I can honestly see Yahoo slipping down the pecking order soon.

Cheers,

Stickymaster.