Ads That Work Are Targeted. Period.

A new study has confirmed what many people who work in interactive marketing have known for some time, that the technology the Internet affords online marketers needs to be used in targeting ads if any campaign wants to be successful.

A new Digiday/AudienceScience report is clear in that online advertisers who target their campaigns are increasing the amount of money they spend in the media because of amplified results. Stuart Colman, Managing Director, Europe, AudienceScience notes the results are being noticed by online marketers and points to the fact that approximately 84% of agencies surveyed use some kind of targeting and are seeing the beneficial results as a result.

The numbers are further evidence as the report also states over 70% of those polled have decided to increase their digital online advertising presence and also reported they will include targeted marketing as part of the overall package. One of the more important points to consider here is these numbers by themselves are impressive but they also represent an increase over the amount of money spent on online advertising last year by a number of marketers who have decided to target specific audiences.

Adding to the case, a recent PwC online survey showed an increase of 27% in growth for this kind of display advertising and Colman added to the proof these numbers supply by saying more and more advertising executives and marketers are seeing this kind of interactive marketing campaign is the most efficient and productive way to reach a targeted niche market or audience.

He also said there was a direct correlation between the money being spent on online campaigns that had this kind of targeting involved because it was clear to more and more people in the industry that the return on investment was larger with the targeting involved.

Consumers Still Walking Away From Shopping Carts?

Although there have been recent and continuous advancements in website design for the last five years and by all accounts consumers are more and more comfortable with the online shopping experience, they still continue to walk away in droves from what’s often the final aspect of the purchase matrix—the shopping cart.

Marketers have been trying to fix the problem for as long as consumers have been having problems with this electronic closer. Efforts by those charged with getting that final trigger pulled have included tweaking the buttons by changing the color and size and even down-scaling the amount of data required from consumers. All to little or no avail.

Now there’s a new focus that says these marketers might be looking in the wrong places. A recent report at GetElastic.com found the real reasons people were unwilling to use the shopping cart had little to do with the process. In fact the research showed that:

• Almost half at 44% said the reason they wouldn’t commit had nothing to do with the cart at all but rather the simple fact that handling and shipping costs were too high.
• Another 27% wanted to make price comparisons.

Although there were a few other reasons that were included in the research, the trend is something all internet based business needs to be aware of and that’s simply the old adage about competition driving price is magnified a thousand times over when consumers can shop on the Internet and through cyberspace with the greatest of ease. No matter what your goods or services are, you need to be sure you’ve priced the product in a competitive manner with technology in mind. If you don’t, all the technology, alluring buttons and simplified processes won’t be able to help you close the deal. 

Facebook To Add CPV To Social Media Marketing Options

There's an old say..."Where there’s a will, there’s a way".  That certainly seems to be case for social media market options, especially when you take a look at the latest offering from Facebook which will include a new cost per view (CPV) option with its advertising features.

For quite some time now, people who have been tinkering with the metrics associated with Internet marketing have been trying to find a way to gauge how effective any of these social media marketing options actually are. Of course with technology racing at light speed, being able to find the right combination is often just beyond the grasp of any marketing professionals or small business owners.

Still, ingenuity being what it is, the industry moves closer and closer to being able to quantify how effective social media in general and Facebook in particularly, is as an interactive marketing vehicle. The latest move by the social media giant is in effect pay-per-view for advertising and although it will give an indication of whether any ad has been seen or not, there are still questions as to how effective this latest technique actually is.

Michael Kelley, CMO with AdGenesis is at least one professional who thinks the new move by Facebook is a step in the right direction but one that falls short. Recently he said this new attempt at marketing analytics would be much more effective if it asked consumers specifically about their likes and dislikes pertaining to certain products and/or advertising campaigns.

It seems even the social media giant might be forgetting one of the basic tenets that gave it its success in the first place - anything to do with social media needs to have an interactive format to be successful.  And of course that would include any kind of social media marketing they attempt.

Mobile Apps Revenue: The New Goldrush

If you’ve been watching the incredible rise of all things mobile then it will be no surprise that the wave of flexibility for the kinds of mobile devices available to consumers has been closely mirrored by a cloud burst of the applications that make them useful and interesting to the average Dick and Jane.

One of the problems during the beginning phases of the mobile world was finding some kind of metric to prove the worth to interactive marketing executives. With the latest numbers that have been released, it appears finding a way to judge the validity of getting a part of these mobile applications has been rendered moot. IHS Screen Digest is forecasting app stores will see a phenomenal rise in revenues this year (77% to be exact) and that totals a whopping $3.8 billion.

That’s a good business forecast for the big players like Apple and RIM but what does it mean to the interactive marketing players who might be hoping to leverage some of that action for themselves? Get involved in the variety of news ways to get your goods and services exposed to a rapidly expanding field. There are a few techniques that work wonders.

For example, getting your own application to market is a great way to sell any goods and services provided you can marry what you’re selling to the vehicle. If you can invest in that kind of avenue, having a few contests and giveaways helps with the initial launch. If you doubt the validity of this new way of looking at things or are just a little wary of the initial cash outlay consider this:

Research forecasts that by 2014, the revenues that spring from mobile apps will be $8.3 billion. Remember, these aren’t just generating sales in their own right—they’re also an excellent way to point prospects to the goods or services you’re selling.    

Data Rights Are Becoming a Larger Part of the Social Media Marketing Landscape

Any company interested in the possibility of social media marketing (and they should be) also needs to be aware of all the offshoots that go along with this latest innovation in marketing. It’s always a good idea to stay on top of all the happening trends and how the big players like Facebook and Twitter are changing the landscape with new developments, but it’s also necessary to keep an eye on any emerging privacy issues that crop up to prevent any damage to your brand.  Get caught in the middle of one of the privacy scandals that crop up now and again and your product could wind up looking complicit and guilty by association.

Keep in mind that as more and more data gets stored in the Cloud these are issues that will be front and center. There are a few developments that need to be looked at so interested marketers stay on top of all the current developments, if only to make sure they know which way the prevailing winds are blowing. 

Consider this:

• Senators John Kerry and John McCain introduced a commercial bill of rights that would allow the FTC to have a hand in how the information that is the lifeblood of the Web and e-business is gathered. Some say they sense a socialist breeze trying to gain headway here.
• More recently, a New York Times article sides with the consumer and by proxy business saying that the bill doesn’t give consumers enough control. The writer, Richard Thaler, points to a British solution called ‘mydata’ whereby business needs to supply consumers with a version of any data collected electronically on them.

 What do you think?  Does the relationship between business and consumers in the world of social media and advertising need government interference?

Everyone wants to be liked. That’s what social media marketing is all about!

One of the things that throws businesses a little when they’re looking at all of the splendid things that social media marketing can do for them is the lingo. There’s a fair amount of it whether you’ve started with Facebook or even Twitter as your marketing tool of choice, but you’ll need to get a handle on some fairly simple terms so you can make the most of any campaign that you set out on. Remember, for instance, that when a firm is getting a number of ‘likes’ on their Facebook page, that term is actually a metric that people are using to determine what works and what doesn’t and not just a fanciful way of showing approval.

Take the results from a new poll from Effie Worldwide and Mashable. The numbers that were derived here show that smart businesses are striving to get more fans to ‘like’ them and the companies that are looking for that accolade might be of a higher caliber than you might have expected. The poll finds 87% of executives in companies like Bank of America and Colgate-Palmolive said social media was "important" or "very important" in their quest to get to their adverting goals for the year.

Another interesting statistic was the 70% that said they planned to pump up their social media planning budget by 10% in 2011. These are the folks that understand the need to keep on top of all the latest technology as well. Even though 35% said they planned to target Facebook users in 2011, this same bunch was well aware of the uses of mobile technology. To that end 80% said they planned an iPad ad campaign or even getting an application designed that was specific to their firm.  

 

Interactive Marketing Is Now Mainstream: Are You On Board?

For those that are still catching up or, worse yet, marketers who still think that old methods of preaching and hard selling prospects into submission is still the way to go, there’s news. Your ways are obsolete. To get the attention of almost any demographic worth having today, interactive marketing is the way to go. And make no mistake, there’s an emerging ground swell of marketing professionals that understand the new order and are watching it solidify into the mainstream.

Need proof? Then how about the most recent awards that were handed out at the

The Dallas Fort Worth Interactive Marketing Association (DFWIMA)’s 11th annual Excellence in Interactive Marketing Awards (EIMA) April 20^th? This is an industry that has picked up enough steam to have an accredited awards ceremony. The proof here is in the pudding as they say and although it’s possible and even likely that you didn’t know of the awards although you’re involved with or even work in marketing or business yourself, there’s considerably less chance that you wouldn’t recognize the campaign that cleaned up this year.

The Go RVing promotion is one of the most recognized and successful efforts that interactive marketing has produced. There still seems to be some confusion over what interactive marketing is and what it isn’t, and although the interactive version does make use of the internet, there’s a separation here from what’s generally considered online marketing.

The idea isn’t so hard really. Interactive marketing is really all about engaging the customer and getting their input and utilizing it at the same time. Essentially, it’s all about helping the people who build your company to have a say.

Take the words of one expert in the field. John McDougall, Acknowledged Social Media Expert, has recently been quoted as saying that Interactive marketing will grow to $61 billion by 2012. It’s the new mainstream and one you can’t afford to miss.

Solid Marketing Analytics Getting Closer For Social Media

Everyone in the marketing game understands the potential inherent with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, but those same pundits are the first to say that the number of ‘likes’ a company or brand gets might be interesting and encouraging, but far from what’s generally defined as solid marketing analytics. The potential has never been questioned. There’s just always been a need for a way to measure results.

Still, as social media marketing moves forward so too do those intrepid souls who are looking for ways to illustrate a way to understand more about how these potential customers are actually thinking. A new index called social standing promises to give marketers a better picture of whether the online sentiment about any particular brand is bad or good.

A real time score is assigned here by compiling the number of times a brand is mentioned on Twitter and blogs. The higher the score the better the sentiment. Perhaps that doesn’t sound too convincing one way or the other, but the categories that have been compiled by social media measurement firm Trendrr will also contain any comments that are left about the products available.

PC World's Robert Strohmeyer puts the whole new venture into perspective by saying that knowing what people are saying online about your goods and services must necessarily be as valuable as spewing forth countless ads and slogans and hoping for the best.

There does seem to be one downfall in an otherwise interesting picture and that’s the fact that Facebook or any other social media platforms like Digg have not been mentioned as part of the new matrix. Still the new system is flexible and promises to have daily weekly or even monthly data that can be used to develop a tweak in the direction that any brand is taking.

Cloud Based Video Production: Looking Ahead

The Cloud is a relatively new concept but like a lot of other innovations that affect businesses on the web, it’s quickly becoming one that serious entrepreneurs can’t afford to do without. Recent articles have pointed to the fact that everyone from Amazon.com to HP are staking their claim to some corner of the Cloud and any size business on the web needs to pay attention to the possibilities here when it comes to avenues like content.

It seemed at first the Cloud might become only a concern for programmers and other high enders who were only considering how to migrate large data centers to this latest innovation, but now it’s becoming apparent that SME’s should be looking as well, specifically at what the Cloud can do for video production.

Nowhere was this more apparent than at this years NAB2011 conference where concerns about 3D and 4K imaging nearly took a backseat to the new technologies available on the Cloud to experts in the fields of traditional and new video developing. Technically speaking, Interplay Central was one of the developments that created quite a buzz at the conference since it frees software from the PC altogether.

What that means to the company that is looking at video for the first time or looking to work the Cloud for an already existing video format is harnessing what can basically become over time unlimited resources to work within video content. It is this communal aspect of the Cloud coupled with the obvious security of having what amounts to in many ways an external hard drive that is shared that should pique the interest of SME’s and motivate them to follow in the footsteps of the larger firms as they develop their content strategies for video and all other kinds of content.