Archive for April, 2011

April 28th, 2011

Has Donald Trump Tarnished the Trump Brand Name?

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Is Donald Trump a super-successful businessman who has created a powerful brand around his name? Or is he an egomaniacal boor who has permanently damaged a brand that took decades to create?

Or both?

No matter what your take on Donald Trump, one thing is for sure — his recent antics have done little to help the Trump brand. You could argue that any press is good press, but when journalists are calling Trump a blowhard and a phony, it’s hard to say that that’s a positive spin on a valuable brand name.

Have Donald Trump's recent antics helped or hurt his brand? Let us know what you think in the poll below.

There’s a certain percentage of Americans who will love Donald Trump no matter what. For those people, the Trump brand is untarnished.

There’s another group who see him as an obnoxious boor with a fragile ego. We can assume those people will never be won over by the Trump brand.

But then there’s a third group in the middle. These are the people who can, with the right efforts, be swayed into buying something with the Trump brand name on it.

But if the Trump brand is associated with political sideshows, then who is going to buy into anything with the Trump name on it?

You may be thinking that there’s nothing to be learned from the Trump experience except, perhaps, to stay away from hairspray. But actually, all brands can learn something from his recent political missteps.

Whether you’re selling toothpaste, computers or glitzy hotel rooms, there are three categories of potential customers. Those who will never buy from you, those who will almost always buy from you and those who are on the fence.

Your primary branding efforts should be directed to the middle group — the people who are on the fence. Those are the people who are going to make or break your marketing efforts.

After all, you’re never going to win over the people who strongly dislike your brand. And you’ve already won over the people who strongly like your brand. So you need to focus on the middle third — the people on the fence who can be swayed by the proper PR, branding and marketing efforts.

All other things being equal, it’s safe to say that Trump’s middle third — those who have no opinion or who lean slightly one way or another about Trump — now have a less-than-flattering image of the Trump brand.

The bottom line: In my humble opinion — and I could be wrong about this — it took decades to create and promote the Trump brand, but in a few short weeks, The Trumpster himself has done more to set it back than any other person before him.

What’s your take on the Trump brand? Let us know in the poll below.

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Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine of BKV Digital and Direct Response. Jamie is also the co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media.

CategoryBranding, General Marketing | Comment7 Comments »

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April 27th, 2011

How to Track Inbound Sales Leads Using Marketing Automation Software

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In “ye olde” days of marketing (a few years ago), marketers had limited tools for tracking metrics. They could monitor simple things such as open and click rates for email campaigns, but they didn’t have much visibility beyond that.

With modern technology and tools, such as marketing automation software, marketers have access to actionable marketing analytics that give them visibility into how marketing campaigns are performing and directly affection ROI. Lisa Cramer of LeadLife Solutions contributed a post to the Software Advice site outlining the most important metrics to measure and how marketers can use that data to improve performance and better understand their impact on revenue.

Marketing automation software enables businesses to track and manage leads in new ways there were unthinkable just a few years ago.

In the past, an organization’s view of the sales funnel included only “qualified leads” and “sales.” However, this view omits many important steps in the lead lifecycle. In order to send the best and most highly qualified leads to sales, marketing needs a complete view of the lead lifecycle, tracking lead origin and intent based on area or level of interest. Finally, they need to see what percentage of leads generated turned into closed deals so that they can measure the effectiveness of their efforts.

This seems like a lot of data to track, but new systems and processes make it possible. Let’s say, for example, that a marketer sends out an email campaign that links to a landing page. That landing page is linked to similar pages of interest. Here are some metrics that marketing should be tracking:

  • Clicks and opens (old school, but still important)
  • Most popular links, if there were multiple
  • How many clicks turned into conversions
  • What other pages did visitors navigate to?
  • Time spent on other pages.

The next step depends on your lead management process. Leads need to be scored based on behavior/demographic information so that you can determine if they are “sales ready” or not. Let’s say that your system scores leads automatically. With this next set of metrics, you can gain insight into how well-targeted your email campaign was overall, as well as drill down into individual aspects such as engagement, timing, content, etc.

  • How many leads were considered “sales ready”?
  • How many leads never converted?
  • How many leads were passed to sales and over what period of time?
  • How many “sales ready” leads moved on to become opportunities?
  • How many opportunities became closed deals and what revenue came from each?
  • What was the total amount of revenue attributed to the campaign?

Tracking these metrics helps marketing understand how well they are performing. Why is this important? Because more and more, companies are realizing marketing’s impact on the company’s bottom line. With access to these new systems and metrics, marketing can better track their performance, improve their method and help drive company growth.

You can read the article in full on the Software Advice blog.

Submitted by Lauren Carlson, CRM Market Analyst, Software Advice

CategoryMarketing Automation Software, Marketing Best Practices, Marketing Techniques, Marketing Tips | CommentNo Comments »

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April 26th, 2011

Online Video Tips: 3 Ways to Use Online Video to Promote Your Business

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Internet video is the fastest growing and the most effective way to promote your business online.  There are several ways in which businesses can use video to market their products and services but here are the three most effective.

Online Video

Online video is one of the best ways to differentiate your brand.

Product Demonstrations – Show your product in action. If it has moving parts then video is ideal for demonstating this. For a great example, check out online sports equipment retailer www.elliptigo.com. According to Bryan Pate, co-president of ElliptiGO, nearly everyone who actually buys a bike from them says that it wasn’t until they saw the online video that they decided to make the purchase.

Customer Testimonials – Real people telling your prospects why they love your company. Why they love your products and your services. This is very effective as potential buyers feel more confident after hearing real customer reviews.

How To Videos – Tell them how to do something. If you are selling paint, tell them how to paint. If you are selling car parts, show them how to install the parts. This provides your customers with added value. For example, the web business Snorkelingonline uses video to teach their customers everything they need to know about using snorkeling gear, how to snorkel, and why to buy their gear from snorkeling online.

Three Tips for Better Video:

  1. Once you figure out what you want to cover in your video, keep it short, clean and articulate. Clean means it keeps it simple. Simple backgrounds without any distractions. No shaky cameras, wild jump cuts or crazy special effects. All of those can distract from the basic message of your video. Good clear quality audio is also crucially important.
  2. It is much better to have several short videos on the site, rather than a 10 to 20 minute long epic. For example, if you are selling aquariums, one video might show how to set up an aquarium, another might show how to keep it clean, while the third shows two or three great aquarium hobbyist accessories – that they can buy from your site of course!
  3. Once you have your video completed, you need to publish it online. Many smaller businesses rely on a free hosting service like YouTube and Dailymotion but they are not designed for business so you should consider using a professional video hosting service. By using a professional video hosting service, you can customize your video player with your company’s look and feel. A pro video hosting service can guarantee smooth and glitch free delivery of high quality video – unlike YouTube. If you want to ensure that nobody “steals” your video, or ensure that your video is not surround by your competitor’s advertisements or unfriendly comments when it plays back, then you need to use a professional video hosting service.

The Bottom Line:

Video is one of the best ways to differentiate your brand from your competitor’s brands. By following the tips outlined in this article, you can ensure your brand will be seen in the best light possible.

 

About the Author: Ian Snead leads vzaar’s marketing strategy and product focus. The founding principle behind vzaar is that online video povides potential buyers with a rich product understanding far beyond what static photos can offer. Founded in 2007, vzaar has its Headquarters in London, United Kingdom. For more information visit http://vzaar.com

CategoryGeneral Marketing | Comment1 Comment »

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April 25th, 2011

What the Changing Landscape of Search Means for You

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Google.  It’s a search engine. It’s an operating system. It’s a verb. It’s a noun. It’s everywhere. And when people consider search engine optimization and paid search, often Google is the only site that comes to mind. However, according to Experian’s Benchmark and Trend Report, even though Google is still the dominant force in search, people have begun changing the way they look for information in 2 ways that will affect marketers in the next few years.

What the Changing Lanscape of Search Means for You

According to Experian, 2010 was the first year that Facebook beat Google in traffic.

First, Google has been steadily losing share to both Bing and Yahoo for 2 years now. Even though Google still is still the biggest player, with an overwhelming  68% of the market, Bing and Yahoo have enough pull in the search engine market to make their platforms  an important consideration when running paid search and SEO programs.

Though the search engines do not disclose how they rank sites, it is apparent that each uses a slightly different method which causes rankings to vary across platforms. It is important to make sure that your site ranks highly for your selected keywords on all three sites and adjust your SEO efforts appropriately if it does not. Similarly, it may be worth looking at running your paid search campaigns across all platforms to ensure the greatest reach possible.

However, more important than shifting share within the search engine market, is the trend away from search engines as a whole. Instead of visiting Google to find information about the brands they’re interested in and to compare products, 17% of adults are going to social media sites such as Facebook to find this information.

There are several possible reasons for this. First, may be because many people are already going to Facebook to network, interact with their friends, and share their opinions and would rather stay within the site instead of navigating away to a brand’s website. Second, social sites frequently have comments and recommendations from other users, which, according to eConsultancy, 82% of people take into account before making a purchase.

Regardless of the reason, there are implications when you are setting up your Facebook page. While you should always use social media sites as an engagement tool and to foster community, you also should have the important information about your company and products easily accessible to users.

Make sure that your brand page is easily searchable and identifiable within Facebook by filling out as much information about your company as possible. Also, use the “about” section as well as custom tabs to feature products and promotions and always prominently feature links back to your website so consumers wanting more information can navigate there easily.

Google is one of the most successful companies in the marketplace today, and they are no doubt going to continue to dominate the digital space for years to come. However, it is important to realize how people are diversifying the way that they search for information about your industry, company and products. With the sources of information on the internet continuing to grow it is important to project a consistent and highly visible brand image across all of the platforms that people use to find out about your company.

Posted by Nicole Hall, Account Manager with Mobilize Worldwide. Mobilize Worldwide develops mobile apps, mobile ad campaigns, mobile websites and just about anything else related to mobile marketing for brands interested in growing their sales and revenue using this new and emerging medium.

CategoryDirect Response, Paid Search, SEO, Social Marketing, Social Media | Comment2 Comments »

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April 20th, 2011

How to Measure the Value of a Brand

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Earlier today, I was writing a document on the value of a brand and came across a post on the 60 Second Marketer that does a good job of explaining brand valuation. It’s written by James Gregory, the Founder and CEO of CoreBrand.

I thought I’d share it with you again, since it’s got some good stuff in it.

Here goes:

Many departments within a corporation will argue the need for accountability in marketing, but none steps forward to take ownership of how to account for brand equity.

Theoretically, the CEO is responsible for the value of the corporate brand. Unfortunately, it is a rare CEO who understands how brand equity value is created. CEOs would love to see their company prosper but few understand how to take command or utilize the tools available to make it so.

Is it time to arrive at a consistent formula to calculate the value of a brand? Absolutely.

The CFO properly challenges the high costs of marketing today because there is no standard for accounting for the profitable return on investment for brand building activities. In the world of the CFO, marketing is ONLY seen as an expense without any direct connection to ROI. Thus,  creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

CMOs would be wise to step forward to take command of brand marketing accountability. Many would argue that they have done so, but attempts to date to create a unified set of standards have been anemic. Most attempts to build accountable ROI bridges to the CFO or CEO have been misunderstood or at the least unrequited.

Procurement officers, whose mandate is to dissect every transaction and shave off another percentage point from the already impossibly tight margins of advertising agencies and marketing communications firms, are reluctant to open their view of the total value of a transaction to include the impact of growth (or potential loss) of brand value. To acknowledge that brand building is a two-way street that creates or destroys value with every communication would open an entirely new avenue for evaluating the performance of vendors.

Investor relations, which could help the CEO add billions in market capitalization, is usually focused only on the next earnings release. While they have the attention of the CEO, it is rare to find an IR professional who is willing to suggest that the corporate brand might need tweaking or that corporate clarity is a bit soft. Shouldn’t this department have its finger on the pulse of the corporate brand?

And, why aren’t advertising agencies and public relations firms demanding accountability? They have the most to gain by understanding consistent accountability measures for valuing product and corporate branding. Yet, the agency industry is too frail due to decades-long cost  containment pressures or too afraid of the results to demand accountability.  So, most seem happy just to survive another year.

Most unfortunately, the accounting profession has ignored the undeniable growth of brand value. GAAP standards don’t account for the value of brands until a company is bought or sold, which doesn’t accurately reflect the changing value of the living brand. Brand value fluctuates daily based on the decisions and communications of management and the impact on key constituencies. It can be easily identified, readily measured and valued on an ongoing basis in comparison to its industry or specific competitors. Accountants should embrace this process and shareholders should demand to better understand and to see brand equity reported on financial accounting statements.

Only one association has come forth ready to take on the issue of marketing accountability. The Association of National Advertisers, under the leadership of Bob Liodice, has been pursuing the concept of generally accepted brand valuation principles. The ANA represents the largest advertisers so it is logical and commendable that such an organization lead the discussion.

A group of academics and practitioners have also been in hot pursuit of brand accountability standards. It is aptly called the Marketing Accountability Standards Board, under the leadership of Meg Blair.

I believe the creation of consistent and reliable standards for marketing measurement is the single most important business issue of this decade. If you agree with me that marketing stands to gain tremendously by connecting the brand to accounting standards then you should join with the ANA and MASB and add your voice to the discussion.

James Gregory is the Founder and CEO of CoreBrand. He can be contacted at jgregory@corebrand.com.

CategoryBranding | Comment1 Comment »

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April 19th, 2011

Social Media Glossary of Terms

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Not long ago, we posted a list of the top social media terms marketers should know. It was one of our more popular posts, so I thought I’d share it with you again.

Are there any important terms we’re missing? If so, add them to the comments section below.

Enjoy!

App – An application that performs a specific task on your smart phone or your computer. The term “app” was popularized by Steve Jobs and Apple.

Alerts – Daily email notifications (usually sent by Google Alerts) that let you know when a keyword or keyword phrase that you’ve selected is mentioned on the web. Perfect for people trying to stay abreast of certain topics or online brand mentions.

BKV Digital and Direct Response – A marketing communications firm that sponsors the 60 Second Marketer. BKV’s clients include AT&T, John Deere, The Home Depot, Daimler, Equifax and the American Red Cross.

Blog – A tool used by content-providers around the globe to connect with readers. The most popular blogging platforms include WordPress, Typepad and Google’s Blogger.

Chat – One-to-one communication through a text-based chat application commonly referred to as instant messaging.

Compete – A web-based application that allows people to compare and contrast statistics for different websites over time. Totally worth checking out.

Delicious – A free online bookmarking service owned by Yahoo! When someone tags an article, video or blog post with a Delicious bookmark, it’s the equivalent of getting a “vote.”

Digg – This platform is similar to Delicious in that people vote for articles, videos and blog posts. If your content gets enough Diggs, it’s promoted to the front page for millions of visitors to see.

Disqus – A comment system and moderation tool for your website or blog. This service lets you add social web integration to any site on any platform.

Drupal – Interested in starting a blog? Then Drupal may be for you. More intuitive than WordPress and more robust than Blogger.

Facebook – A social network that connects people with friends, family and business associates. Facebook is the largest social network in the world with more than 500 million users.

Flickr – A social network that allows users to store photos online and then share them with others through profiles, groups, sets and other methods.

Foursquare — Foursquare is a mobile check-in service that allows regular customers to get points every time they visit their favorite restaurant, bar, coffee shop or whatever. The more points you get, the more likely you’ll be the recipient of special offers from that establishment.

Google Documents – Web-based office applications that include tools for word processing, presentations and spreadsheet analysis. All documents are stored and edited online and allow multiple people to collaborate on a document in real-time.

Gowalla- A social network where friends share their locations and connect with others in proximity to each other.

HootSuite – HootSuite allows you to manage multiple Twitter profiles, pre-schedule tweets and view metrics.

Joomla — An alternative to WordPress, Drupal or Blogger. This blogging platform is used by gazillions, although WordPress is used by gazillions upon gazillions.

Like – Instead of writing a comment for a message or a status update, a Facebook user can click the “Like” button as a quick way to show approval and share the message.

LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site that is mainly used for professional networking.

MySpace – MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006 and was overtaken internationally by its main competitor, Facebook, in April 2008.

Opera – Opera is an open-source web browser. While not as popular as Firefox, Opera is used as the default browser on some gaming systems and mobile devices.

Pandora – Pandora is a social online radio station that allows users to create stations based on their favorite artists and types of music.

Posterous — This is a very easy tool to create blogs for your family, your business associates or just about any other constituents. Worth checking out.

Qik – Qik is an online video streaming service that gives users the ability to stream video live from their mobile phones to the web.

Quantcast – Quantcast provides website traffic and demographics for websites.

Reddit – Reddit is similar to Digg and Delicious. It is a social news site that is built upon a community of users who share and comment on stories.

Search Engine Optimization – The process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines via unpaid or organic search traffic.

SlideShare – An online social network for sharing presentations and documents. Users can favorite and embed presentations as well as share them on other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

Skype – Skype is a free program that allows for text, audio and video chats between users.

Social Media – Media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly-accessible and scalable publishing techniques.

Social Media Monitoring – The process of monitoring and responding to mentions related to a business that occur in social media.

StumbleUpon – A platform that’s similar to Digg, Delicious and Reddit. When you rate a website that you like using StumbleUpon, you automatically share it with like-minded people around the globe.

Tag Cloud – A tag cloud is a visual depiction of user-generated tags, or simply the word content of a site, typically used to describe the content of web sites.

Technorati – A popular blog search engine that also provides categories and authority rankings for blogs.

TweetDeck – An application that connects users with contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more.

Tweetup – A Tweetup is an organized or impromptu gathering of people who use Twitter.

Twitter – Twitter is a platform that allows users to share 140-character-long messages publicly. User can “follow” each other as a way of subscribing to each others’ messages. Additionally, users can use the @username command to direct a message towards another Twitter user.

Twitter Search – Twitter Search is a search engine operated by Twitter to search for Twitter messages and users in real-time.

TypePad – TypePad is a free and paid blogging platform similar to Blogger. It allows users to host and publish their own blogs.

Video Blog – A blog that produces regular video content often around the same theme on a daily or weekly basis.

Viddler – Viddler is a popular video sharing site similar to YouTube and Vimeo in which users can upload videos to be hosted online and shared and watched by others.

Vimeo – Vimeo is a popular video sharing service in which users can upload videos to be hosted online and shared and watched by others. Vimeo user videos are often more artistic and the service does not allow commercial video content.

Viral Marketing – Viral marketing refers to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes.

Webinar – A webinar is used to conduct live meetings, training, or presentations via the Internet.

Widget – A widget is an element of a graphical user interface that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or text box.

Wiki – A wiki is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser, allowing for collaboration between users.

WordPress – WordPress is a content management system and contains blog publishing tools that allow users to host and publish blogs.

Yelp – A website that provides users with a platform to review, rate and discuss local businesses. Over 31 million people access Yelp’s website each month, putting it in the top 150 U.S. Internet websites.

YouTube – If you have to look up what YouTube is, you shouldn’t be reading this social media glossary. We don’t mean to be rude, but that’s just a fact.

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine of BKV Digital and Direct Response. Jamie is also the co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media.

CategorySocial Marketing, Social Media | Comment1 Comment »

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April 12th, 2011

Is Social Couponing Right for Your Company?

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In the recent economic slump, everyone has been cutting back. Even the most affluent populations have been hunting down bargains and looking to get luxury items for less. This, in combination with the current obsession with social networking and sharing, has made social buying sites like Groupon and Living Social one of the biggest trends of the year.

Sites like Groupon have enjoyed much success by allowing consumers to buy deeply discounted coupons for 50-90% off of the retail price. One of Groupon’s most successful deals to date was a $50 credit to the Gap which sold to consumers for only $25. As consumers are encouraged the share the deal with their friends, the coupon garnered an amazing 400,000 users, crashing the Groupon site.

Each day there is a new deal posted on the site, featuring everything from local restaurants and shops to national chains. The site’s 18 million subscribers are happy to be receiving steeply discounted goods and the benefits are obvious for businesses as well. The coupons drive significant traffic to the stores and because the deals are local, even small businesses can participate without great media waste.

Is Social Couponing Right for Your Company
Sites like Groupon have exploded in the past year with traffic up 70% from 2009

Many companies have been very happy with the results, with Groupon reporting that 97% of businesses ask to be featured again.

However, there are some downfalls to the business model. The Washington Post recently ran a story about a small Portland café who has suffered extreme losses from the surge of business that they received following their appearance on the site. The coupon drove traffic that the small business couldn’t handle and the proceeds from the sale of the coupon, which they split 50-50 with Groupon, couldn’t cover the cost of the discount.

So how can you tell if running a promotion on a social couponing site is right for your business? One of the first things you should ask yourself is what demographic you are targeting. According to Experian, even though the 18-34 age range are the most active on social networking sites, they are the least likely to use social buying sites. Conversely, 55+ internet users are the most likely to use the sites with 38% of Groupon’s users falling into this demo. Therefore, a social couponing campaign may be more appropriate for you if you are seeking to reach a more mature audience as opposed if you are targeting the younger generation.

Another consideration is whether your business will be able to handle the traffic. Not only is it important to consider whether the discounts will be too steep for company to handle financially, but you must also consider whether you can service an increased number of customers well. The draw of running a coupon is that it will induce trial of your brand and hopefully bring you new repeat business. If you are unable to meet customers’ expectations when they try your brand due to too much traffic, they will not become repeat customers and the value of the campaign is lost.

If you do decide that social couponing sites are a good fit for your business, ensure that you have all of the necessary staff and resources available to handle increased traffic for the entire 3 months that the coupons are redeemable and put a cap on the number of coupons available if necessary.

There are many considerations that go into deciding if one of these campaigns is right for your company, but it is important to realize that running a social coupon is not free. The exposure and increased traffic may offset the cost of the promotion, but if not, you can still use these sites—just stay on the consumer end!

Posted by Nicole Hall, Account Manager with Mobilize Worldwide. Mobilize Worldwide develops mobile apps, mobile ad campaigns, mobile websites and just about anything else related to mobile marketing for brands interested in growing their sales and revenue using this new and emerging medium.

CategoryDirect Response, General Marketing, Social Couponing, Social Marketing | Comment3 Comments »

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April 8th, 2011

The 5 Deadly Sins of Web Design

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Most consumers who encounter a truly awful website will click away to competitor’s site in a matter of milliseconds. But not Vincent Flanders.  On the contrary, he has dedicated a whole book and website to Web Pages That Suck.

5 deadly sins of web design

It's not pretty when you violate the 5 deadly sins of web design

While the title sounds slightly cruel, the site serves a good purpose. By checking out sites that completely miss the mark, you can make sure you never make the same conversion-killing mistakes that these poor people made.

There are a lot of errors than contribute to a poor website experience, but what follows are the five deadly sins of web design:

  1. Over Promotion: Typically, customers visit your site for one of these basic reasons: They need to find information, they need to make a purchase, they need to join a community or they need to be entertained. And as such, your site should be dedicated to meeting at least one of those needs, not just promoting your company.
  2. Lack of Focus: People should be able to tell what your company does within 5 seconds of visiting your site. If users can’t easily figure out what your company does, and consequently, what value you can bring to them, they will immediately click away. Irrelevant graphics and fluffy copy will just confuse your customer and slash your conversion rate.
  3. Too Little Contrast: People need to be able to read what you write. Don’t make it hard on people to read your copy by making it light gray on a white background, or even worse, hot pink on lime green. If users have to strain to read your info, they’ll just choose to read it somewhere else.
  4. Getting In Your Own Way: Make it easy for your visitor to take action. This seems obvious, but  distracting graphics, needless splash pages and registrations often do just that. If a consumer visits your site with the goal in mind to make a purchase, let them do it without throwing up roadblocks and distractions.
  5. Putting All Your Eggs In One Basket: Your website is undoubtedly an important marketing tool in your overall strategy, but you need to be realistic about how much a website can achieve. You cannot expect a website to replace all other forms of media and trying to design a website that does so is a recipe for disaster.

There are a lot of ways for websites to go awry, but keeping a customer focus and using a little common sense will help you avoid many of the common pitfalls… and ensure that you are not deemed a Web Page that Sucks.

Posted by Nicole Hall, Account Manager with Mobilize Worldwide. Mobilize Worldwide develops mobile apps, mobile ad campaigns, mobile websites and just about anything else related to mobile marketing for brands interested in growing their sales and revenue using this new and emerging medium.

CategoryDesign, Website Design | CommentNo Comments »

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April 6th, 2011

The 5-5-5 Things to Know About Mobile Applications

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For the past several years now, the need for, the design of, and votes for and against, mobile applications have been the subject of a litany of editorial pieces. With the luxury of some hindsight and personal experiences, we now feel comfortable offering up own take on how businesses should approach mobile applications.

The recommendations that we offer up here are  a synthesis between no less than a dozen different articles and interviews and the expert opinions of those at the 60 Second Marketer. We recommend reading this guide side by side with our best practices for mobile websites as there are a lot of similarities, yet stark contrasts between the two. These two mobile media types must be treated as very separate entities and designed, implemented and measured with that sentiment in mind.

Mobile media goes global

Mobile websites, mobile apps and tablet computing are changing the world. Are you and your business ready to leverage these opportunities?

5 Reasons Why Your Business Would Need a Mobile Application

We thought that a very good place to start when it comes to mobile applications is to provide some structure around deciding on whether or not your business actually needs a mobile application. Keep in mind that mobile applications are not cheap. Having a third party build you a mobile app can cost your business anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000 and if you are going to develop the app in-house, don’t forget the internal costs (read: billable hours) and resources that are needed for such a project.

If you answer yes to the majority of the questions below, your business should consider using a mobile application in its mobile marketing mix.

  1. Does your customer base use smartphones? Or can you identify a core group of engaged customers who use smartphones? Market penetration of smartphones is still low and projected to reach around 40% by the year 2015.
  2. Are you trying to build brand loyalty or awareness? An environment where a customer is only engaging with your brand via a mobile application is great way to increase your brand equity.
  3. Is your customer base predominantly men between the ages of 18 and 44? Research from eMarketer shows that the smartphone users who are more likely to download mobile applications fall into these two demographic groups. This does not mean that women or people younger than 18 or older than 44 do not download mobile apps, just that they are slightly less likely to do so than the first group.
  4. Would your mobile marketing tactics benefit from the use of the native features (GPS, camera, Java) of a mobile device? Store locators, bar code scanners or extensive lists of product inventory are best incorporated into mobile apps as opposed to mobile websites.
  5. Do your customers like to use coupons, shop for in-store specials or are they members of a loyalty program? These are some of the popular functions for mobile apps that retail customers find the most useful.

5 Best Practices for Designing Your Mobile Application

If you have made it this far we will assume you have passed the litmus test above of whether or not you need a mobile application, or like us, you are a perpetual student of marketing and curious to learn how to design a mobile application that will be effective and fit seamlessly into your integrated marketing efforts.

Before we dive into best practices, and to keep our 5-5-5 symmetry intact, the most important thing to remember when developing a mobile application is – what does your audience want or value the most? Before you contract with any app developers or go down this path on your own, it would be in your best interest to partake in some due diligence and figure out this out.

Unfortunately we can’t answer this for you here. If we could, there is a more than likely chance we would be sitting on our own private island somewhere far away from a computer screen. But enough about us, here are the five things to keep in mind when designing a mobile app.

  1. The functionality of your mobile application needs to be simple. Someone should be able to look at the home screen of your app and need no further instruction as to how to use it or have any questions as to its  purpose. Another survey from eMarketer indicates that smartphone owners expect a company’s mobile app to be easier to use and function better than its mobile website.
  2. The content of your mobile application should be updated on a regular basis. This will help to keep your customers interested in using your app and positively engaged with your brand.
  3. Going hand in hand with #2 – The content and features of your mobile app must give your audience something they can’t get anywhere else. Even if its one additional feature as compared to your mobile website, something must be unique about your app. Again, this will help keep people using your mobile app and thinking about your company.
  4. Consider linking the functionality of your mobile app with a desired real world action. Allow your customers to use the app to check in to your loyalty program. Let app users find the closest store to them that has their size in stock. Use your mobile app to encourage visits to your store with special mobile-only coupons.
  5. Track as much as you can. This one probably sounds like a broken record coming from us, but it can’t be overlooked. Some metrics to consider for your mobile application are – frequency of use, minutes per use, revenue for m-commerce applications or the number of unique downloads of your app. Also, some carriers are starting to incorporate demographic information into mobile app tracking, so stay tuned for this in the near future.

5 More Ideas on Mobile Applications

In an effort to keep things succinct this week, we would like to leave you with the following parting thoughts about mobile applications in general.

  1. There is a ton of clutter out there when it comes to getting your application recognized and downloaded, either in app stores or just in general. You will need to put in some effort into publicizing your mobile application so that its ranking within app stores can improve and help sustain itself. Consider promoting your app through other mediums like directly on your website, via SMS marketing or even in emails to your customers.
  2. If you are planning to distribute your application via one of the app stores, remember that there is an approval process associated with each that can extend the actual launch of your application by a couple of weeks or even a couple of months. Build this into your timeline.
  3. When it comes to picking a price point for your application, consider if generating revenue from the sale of the application is your goal or is it something else like driving people to your store. If it is the latter instead of the former, consider making your application free to download so you can get it into as many smartphones as possible.
  4. The amount of people that download your application will be limited to the operating system you develop it for. If you have the budget, developing an application for the Android and iPhone OS is the way to go, followed by RIM.
  5. Tablets are not smartphones. The types of programs being downloaded for the iPad and the like are not the same as those being downloaded to smartphones. The make up of tablet applications being downloaded include many more utilities for productivity and content consumption and much fewer games in comparison. If you are thinking your smartphone app will do just as well on a tablet, think again.

Posted by Matt Luber, Mobile Media Manager at the 60 Second Marketer and MBA candidate at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School

 

 

 

 

CategoryMobile Applications, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Media, Mobile Website Best Practices, Mobile Website Design | CommentNo Comments »

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April 6th, 2011

How Poor Website Usability Affects Your Bottom Line

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$44 billion. It’s a lot of money. It’s how much was spent on the 2008 Olympics. It’s how much it would cost to buy 26 NASA Spacecrafts. And it’s how much revenue is lost by online retailers every year due to website transactional issues.

How Website Usability Affects Your Bottom Line

This little symbol could cause you a LOT of problems

It’s a well-established fact that online consumers are fickle—so it should come as no shock to you that if consumer encounters a problem on your site, they are unlikely to spend much time trying to identify and correct the problem. In a survey by Harris Interactive, 31% of people who encountered a problem tried only once to fix the problem, and another 31% abandoned the transaction altogether. Worst of all, 27% of customers went to a competitor’s website as a result of the problem, and were unlikely to return to the original retailer’s website for future purchases.

How Poor Design Affects Your Bottom Line: Considering the average online shopper makes 24 online transactions a year, totaling $1,200, losing a customer to a competitor due to website complications can have a far greater financial impact than just the initial lost sale.

Unfortunately, customers using mobile sites aren’t much more forgiving. Even though it’s an emerging medium, consumers expect mobile sites to load on their phones quickly and function flawlessly. And according to a recent ExactTarget study, 60% of people’s expectations have fallen short.

The most common problem with mobile sites is slow load times, with 73% of reporting this complaint, but site crashes, formatting difficulties and the site functioning unexpectedly, were each experienced by nearly half of the respondents.

How Bad Design Impacts a Mobile Site: While the loss of mobile commerce sales isn’t as much of a concern for retailers as it is not nearly as widespread as e-commerce, these functionality issues can affect their bottom line in other ways.

18% of respondents said that they would be less likely to visit the company’s regular website on a computer, which may affect online sales and a whopping 23% said that they would be less likely to purchase from the company in any channel if they encountered a poor user experience on their mobile site. In addition to the loss of sales, poor usability leads to damaged brand perception, with 19% commenting that they would have a more negative impression of the company overall.

The immediate loss of sales and long-term brand damage that poorly functioning websites and mobile sites can cause have significant financial implications for all companies and brands. Of course some problems cannot be avoided, but ensuring that your site follows basic usability guidelines and you have an optimized version for mobile are simple steps you can take to avoid losing customers.

Posted by Nicole Hall, Account Manager with Mobilize Worldwide. Mobilize Worldwide develops mobile apps, mobile ad campaigns, mobile websites and just about anything else related to mobile marketing for brands interested in growing their sales and revenue using this new and emerging medium.

CategoryMobile Marketing, Mobile Website Best Practices, Online Reputation Management | CommentNo Comments »

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April 4th, 2011

Email Marketing Tips: Using Confirmation Emails for Repeat Purchases

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In direct marketing, our end goal is always to make the sale. This can sometimes be a long process involving everything from developing eye-catching creative, crafting enticing offers, and targeting a viable group of consumers.  So once your gorgeous, alluring message goes out to all the right prospects and one visits your site, whips his credit card from his pocket and makes the purchase, your job is done, right?

Well, don’t head out to happy hour yet. While a purchase is often the goal, transactions can also be the starting point from which to build relationships with your consumers and increase repeat purchase.How to Generate Repeat Business with Confirmation Emails

One way to foster such a relationship is with well executed confirmation emails. Purchase follow up emails enjoy much higher open rates than ordinary email blasts due to the fact that customers know they often contain valuable information, such as shipping information or confirmation numbers.

By bundling this expected information with notes of gratitude or a call to action to return to your site, you can utilize these high open rates to grow return customers.

Use these 5 best practices from MediaPost Publications to get the most out of your post-purchase communication:

  1. Keep the subject line simple: Confirmation emails get higher open rates, so make sure your customer knows it’s a confirmation email. Simple subject lines like “Shipment Notification 10397456” or “Confirmation Number W7656” quickly alert your consumer that the email has information pertinent to their recent purchase.
  2. Have a consistent, branded design: This email serves as another brand touchpoint, and as such, should showcase many of the design elements that your site does. A well-designed email shows thoughtfulness as well as reinforces your brand in your customers’ eyes.
  3. Customize your promotions: What your consumer recently purchased should drive what products you promote in your confirmation emails. If a consumer bought men’s tennis shoes, promoting a new gym bag will probably get you further than featuring a pair of high heels.
  4. Follow the 80/20 Rule: 80% of your content should be transactional and 20% promotional. Ensure that the focus of your email is providing transactional information to your customer and thanking them for their business, not promoting your brand.
  5. Ask them to opt in for further communications: Since you can’t pack everything into one follow-up email, ask customers to opt in to receive future updates, newsletters and deals from your company.

Follow these simple rules can and you can transform the end –goal of your marketing campaign into the beginning of a profitable customer relationship.

Posted by Nicole Hall, Account Manager with Mobilize Worldwide. Mobilize Worldwide develops mobile apps, mobile ad campaigns, mobile websites and just about anything else related to mobile marketing for brands interested in growing their sales and revenue using this new and emerging medium.

CategoryDirect Marketing, Email marketing | CommentNo Comments »

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