Category: Advanced Digital Marketing

Last week, I explained that videos and email marketing messages go together like chocolate and peanut butter. Click-through rates for marketing emails increase two or three times with the inclusion of video! This is in part because increasingly larger numbers of consumers (we’re talking trillions!) want to spend time watching online video, and also because it’s becoming easier for them to watch videos sent via email.

Today, I’ll offer some tips on how marketers can create videos that consumers will want to receive via email and watch online. I’ll aso explain explain how marketers can analyze the results of their video email marketing campaigns with mobileStorm’s technology.

Because some companies might not have tried their hand at creating videos, here are some things we at mobileStorm learned while making our online commercials and comedy shows.

• Online video is not the same as a feature-length movie or network TV show. Its purpose is to quickly pique interest in a brand. Thus, it should start off with a “bang” and not be much longer than a few minutes.
• Links should either lead to a video posted on a site like YouTube or MySpace, or else should lead to specially-designed landing pages. Never use embedded video in email!
• Providing your video in the smallest file size possible, but still retaining a satisfactory image quality, is part of best practices for all Internet video. Flash compression is often the best comproise of file size and quality, making it ideal for online media.

Once you’ve deployed a video email marketing campaign, you need to determine how well it did. Read the rest of this entry »

mobileStorm’s six messaging types for marketers are all conducive to our stance that multi-channel campaigns are best. We’ve also long suggested that marketers be multi-channel within a single message–for example, by including video in an email marketing message, which engages the recipient and also makes the message viral.

We’re so forward-thinking that it’s only been recently that the rest of the marketing industry has caught up, and realized that–like chocolate and peanut butter–video and email can be combined into one message to really entice consumers. Two great tastes taste great together, indeed!

• According to analyst David Daniels at Forrester Research, putting a video link within an email, such as a clickable screen shot, “can increase click-through rates by two to three times.”
• Mr. Daniels also notes in his recent report that between July 2008 and July 2009, 17 percent of marketing executives surveyed planned to use video in email. Marketers are getting competitive with video email!
• Meanwhile, Nielsen Online reported that in April of this year, 119 billion unique viewers watched 7 trillion total streams during the month; total streams were up 24 percent from a year ago, while streams-per-viewer are up 27 percent and time-per-viewer is up 58 percent. Consumers love watching online video!
• Technological advances make viewing video in an email more seamless for the consumer. For example, Gmail Labs now has a feature that allows users to turn on previews of YouTube videos. Once consumers set this on their accounts, they’re able to watch YouTube videos from inside the email message. As word spreads, marketers will reach increasingly more Gmail users with video emails!

So savvy marketers will want to beat the competition before it beats them. This requires them to: (1) post videos where they can easily be found, and (2) incorporate video into their email marketing messages. This may be easier said than done, but with mobileStorm’s technology and expertise, it’ll still be relatively easy. Read the rest of this entry »

(The following comes from Forrest Knighton, Senior Account and Support Manager, mobileStorm Inc.)

Leading the pack in multi-modal messaging platforms for small to medium-sized businesses, mobileStorm announces a highly unique plan to bring wireless messaging to every household in the United States, using a controversial but highly effective method of data transfer.

Going against conventional electronic means of sending messages, mobileStorm will do what one analyst considers “a brilliant yet risky move in a highly competitive and volatile marketplace”: Using winged creatures commonly called “birds,” mobileStorm will start offering a seventh messaging type which allows select clients to attach hand-written messages to a ‘bird’ via a small papyrus scroll.

These birds—specifically, carrier pigeons—have the ability to cross vast distances in short periods of time, with no loss of data, no server errors, no bounce backs, and no unsolicited messaging, said mobileStorm CEO and founder Jared Reitzin. Dubbed MobileStork 2.2, the service allows messages of up to three pages in length to be fastened on the legs of the birds, using the company’s proprietary leg taping system called Leg Attached Messaging Envelope—also known as LAME.

“We believe that people around the globe will quickly adopt this LAME technology, as it requires very little in the way of additional hardware or systems integration,” said Mr. Reitzin. “All you really need is a five-pound bag of birdseed, and you don’t need to know HTML to get one of those.”

Mr. Reitzin began experimenting with birds after he observed one carrying a large and expensive koi fish from his backyard pond. His early attempts failed, however, because of his initial use of the hummingbird as the primary message carrier.

“Now that we’ve just about perfected MobileStork, and have flight plans logged in nearly every major American city, we realize that we have the potential to possibly knock Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon right out of the wireless marketplace,” Mr. Reitzin said.

-Forrest Knighton, Senior Account and Support Manager, mobileStorm Inc.

Some marketers have only recently realized the importance of email. Others think it’s old hat. But true forward-thinkers are already taking their campaigns to the next level.

A business blogger at the Sydney Morning Herald points out a particular email discussion that happened at the Adtech conference held in Sydney this week, regarding “trigger-based” messages. Trigger-based email is sent according to a consumer’s particular behavior or preferences. For example, in an emailed company newsletter, there might be a link about a particular product. When the reader clicks on that link, this then triggers another email sent to the customer, offering a special sales offer regarding that product. Such links don’t have to be about a company’s product; a consumer’s birthday or purchasing preferences are other types of triggers.

Trigger-based messages, then, ensure that a brand remains engaged with and relevant to consumers by giving them important updates. The Herald blog points to HSBC Bank in Australia, which used trigger-based email marketing “to keep consumers engaged and informed” during their loan application process. This was done because many loan applicants shop around with several banks, and HSBC did not want them to go elsewhere for their loans. The upshot? HSBC Bank saw an approximately 65 percent improvement in acceptance of home loans.

Think of trigger-based email as the master’s degree after getting a bachelor degree in email marketing: The rules of email marketing best practices must foremost be understood and used. The customer must be the one to subscribe to get email messages, and the company must explain what to expect in these messages–as well as how often to expect them. As always, relevance is the key–if you start sending messages of the type that were not expected, the consumer might ignore your email and/or cancel the subscription.

Of course, trigger-based messaging can only work if the marketer really knows the customer. So it’s important to use an email-sending platform that will gather certain information, both demographic and “psychographic,” into a user-friendly database. Once such a database is compiled, the marketer can start creating triggers based on consumers’ preferences and personal profiles. (And maybe this database creation can be accelerated by using a product-click triggered email campaign first.)

Clearly, marketers who aren’t yet in email had better get cracking. Their competitors have already mastered the basics!

Today’s smartphones are affordable for almost anyone these days, as competing handset makers strive to make devices that offer better-than-ever Web-browsing experiences on cell phones.

What if you suddenly need to look up a local business? With a smartphone, no matter where you are you can get online and start searching for it. Many technologies already offer to search locally; they can even show where you are “right now” on an interactive map, and then show the businesses around you that fit into the category you are researching.

How great would it be if a customer enters your office or store, and says he just found you on the web via his mobile phone while driving around? This possibility ought to encourage you to market your site locally on the web.

Start going this road before everyone else, because soon it’s going to be really busy. People are going to search the Internet with their mobile devices more frequently, especially for something local. Before long, it might be too late for you to get in on the action.

In order to start marketing locally for cell phones, here is a list of major resources to help you work with the top three mobile search engines:

http://mobile.yahoo.com/go: This includes local listings arranged by distance and ratings, pulled out from the Yahoo Local database.

http://www.google.com/mobile/: Google’s local solution for mobile devices, which offers local search results for particular device models.

http://www.livesearchmobile.com/: Live Search Mobile by Microsoft provides click-to-call listings of local businesses.

Shavkat Karimov, Internet Marketing Manager, mobileStorm
“Every problem comes with a solution”

Recently I tried to look up breaking news in the Tampa Bay area, my old stomping ground. I searched for the moniker of one newspaper, then another. Each time, I got offered the same, generically-named site. Instead of leveraging their unique strengths–the way I remember, one allegedly focused on the “good writing” of hard news while the other allegedly had better entertainment coverage–these publications share a website that brands no one. More critically, I doubt the site results in many conversions. What’s the point of having an online presence if you’re neither branding nor seeing decent ROI?

I bring this up because the decline of newspapers marches on. Never mind my optimism while writing a previous post showing ways that papers can boost business with digital messaging campaigns. It might be naiive to think publishers can grasp these simple truths while their heads reel from bad news heaped upon more. We’ve got eMarketer saying that U.S. newspaper ad revenue declined 16.4 percent to $37.9 billion in 2008 and will drop to $28.4 billion by 2012. And according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, newspapers were the top news source for only 35 percent of those surveyed in 2008, as opposed to 45 percent in 2007; meanwhile the Internet became tops for 40 percent of respondents in 2008, from 13 percent in 2007.

I still believe that what I posted earlier rings true. Especially after reading a recent Time magazine piece about the need to generate revenue from content, which ultimately will be the only way papers will survive. Time tried to figure out just how publishers can get consumers to pay for content when they’re used to free news online. As I said in that earlier post, it boils down to offering consumers something valuable and unique that they can’t get anywhere else.

Having a branded website is a good start. Consider that the top 10 newspaper web sites saw a combined 16 percent year-to-year growth of unique visitors in December, according to Nielsen Online. Most notable was the Los Angeles Times’ 73 percent growth and the Daily News Online Edition’s 99 percent growth. My advice to smaller local papers: Let the big national/international sites grab the majority of readers looking for free online content! Instead, promote the fact that you offer unique, valuable information that denizens of your city can’t get anywhere else.

Once you’ve got the visitors, though, you must engage them. There are many ways to do so, and the same methods can be used on both the paper’s website and print editions.

One idea: Advertise a short code and ask readers to text in a keyword (such as the paper’s name or city) in order to sign up for promotional messages. Or, more importantly, to sign up for premium content. Indeed, a publication could make use of a premium SMS service and generate revenue from readers who are willing to pay for an exclusive interview, or a first preview of a major news feature. They might especially be willing to subscribe if some of these messages included coupons. (After all, coupons are why lots of people take only the Sunday edition of their local paper.)

To the uninformed, I’ll admit, texting still has the aura of “young”; despite older generations’ increasing adoption, SMS marketing might not appeal to those whose readership is above a certain age. Email subscriptions offering the same type of content would also be beneficial, and might be more palatable to old-school publishers (and their readers) who aren’t digitally savvy. In this case, there should be a subscription form on the paper’s website, and a link to that form from the home page.

Digital messaging offers both branding and a firm way to measure ROI. That’s something newspapers these days need to strategize and survive. By adding premium content, newspapers offer consumers information that they want, that holds unique value, and is delivered the way that’s most convenient for them to be reached. Oh, and they’ll generate revenue too.

Google and IBM recently unveiled an initiative allowing the Google Health site to connect to and stream data from medical devices like heart rate monitors and blood-sugar meters–updating information into Google’s online records in real-time. The program is seen as a precursor to digitized health care in the United States, a major goal of the Obama administration.

As patients get used to their information being instantly uploaded into a digital record, they’ll be more at ease regarding privacy. After all, according to Forbes, IBM has completed similar health care projects with the Mayo Clinic and the national health care systems in Denmark and Canada. However, privacy and access to health information have already been proven to go hand-in-hand…thanks in part to text messaging.

In South London back in 2007, the UK Primary Care network used SMS as a way to contact their patients with notices like surgery times and other general health information. In the 18 months from when the program was implemented, the result was a 28 percent reduction in missed surgeries–something that can cost a health care group substantial money on a yearly basis.

As the idea of small devices–like the aforementioned heart monitors and blood meters–sending health information becomes more commonplace, and as more people hear about successful text-messaging initiatives in health care, so too will consumers start demanding to receive information in the fastest, most convenient way possible. That is, via digital messaging like SMS or email.

And now is the time for health care companies to implement texting or email programs. After all, $19 billion of the $787 billion fiscal stimulus package will be used to build a national digitized health record system. Digital messaging is clearly an integral part of such a system.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm
“I’d rather you text me.”

My previous blog post introduced a new series about local search marketing. Today we’ll dig right in!

Let’s start with your business name. Does it say where you are located? If you operate nationwide or worldwide, it’s not important, but what if your location is valuable for your business? Which name would help you more: “Angel’s Flowers” or “Burbank Angel’s Flowers”? If it doesn’t harm your style and image, try to make it easy for anyone to understand your location right from your name.

If you are unsure of what keywords are most used to find your business, utilize keyword research tools and find a handful of terms that best describe you company’s goods or services.

Obviously, add your location and contact information wherever possible on your website. A footer area would work well for including your business address and phone number.

Also, add your business information to all the major search engines; general, niche and local directories; maps; classifieds; and local portals. (Later I will give a list of all these websites with their descriptions.) Now, for some secrets on using these sites as part of your local marketing campaign.

First, don’t just submit your website—keep it current and constantly update your information if possible. Moreover, in the title (and description and keywords) include your local and vertical (industry) keywords in order to be found quickly by prospects.

Most yellow pages and local directories list sites and businesses in alphabetical order. In this instance, there is no need for heavy SEO: Just change your title to something that starts with a letter that comes earlier in the alphabet, and you’ll have a priority over other sites. It is even better to start with a number, since these usually come earlier than letters in listings’ order.

It might also make sense to pay for priority placement (a.k.a. featured listing) on these sites in order to gain more traffic and leads.

Try to get a separate directory listing for each of the closest cities in your area where you could provide your services. Sometimes you will not qualify for separate listings for certain cities, so it might make sense to have different titles and different phone numbers and addresses for each such listing. You can even use P.O. box numbers as a solution. I also suggest that you create a different website for each location and optimize it locally. If your services are global, creating separate entities would help as well, while you can use a single toll-free phone number for all your units.

Next is more of an “offline” strategy, but it does have one online marketing advantage…. Remember the No. 1 real estate principle of “location, location, location.” It’s vital for your local business. If nobody can find your office or shop, no matter how hard you market it, your efforts might not pay off. So make sure you are located closer to busy areas of town, even if it’s expensive to do so. As for an Internet marketing advantage: On online maps, your listing will be more visible and will have more chances to be clicked on.

Current local directories use a system of ratings in order to provide more value for searchers. These user ratings are vital for your business. There is a way to lightly influence the rankings. First, you can ask your relatives, friends, and even colleagues to write some positive feedback for your entry. You can ask your clients to leave some comments on the local sites as well. Also, you need to respond to anyone with negative comments and try to resolve the issues raised there. This will show that you care.

You can also offer discounts and coupons within your listing(s)—perhaps ones that consumers can get via text-message (SMS) or email. This will attract them to your item rather than someone else’s, especially in this economy.

We will continue with more local marketing strategies in upcoming posts. Stay tuned!

Shavkat Karimov, Internet Marketing Manager, mobileStorm
“Every problem comes with a solution”
Business Web Directory

It was pretty much the worst case scenario realized for retailers last month. Retail sales declined 2.7 percent in the all-important month of December, drawing to a close the worst holiday season since 1969. With consumer confidence still at record lows, how can a typical retailer hope to survive such dire circumstances? While there are no easy answers to address this multitude of problems, it’s time for retailers, especially those in the SMB space, to embrace digital marketing to help survive and possibly even thrive in the current economic conditions.

As I noted in my previous article, digital marketing should be top of mind for anyone in the SMB sector, and this is especially true for retailers, both online and “brick and mortar.” Here are a few reasons why:

It’s Affordable-Unlike other more traditional marketing channels, digital vehicles like email and SMS should be within the budget of even the smallest of retailers.

It’s Trackable-Lower revenues and disappointing sales mean it’s time to re-focus on maximizing ROI, and digital marketing in its very nature is designed to be trackable. Whether you just want to see how many people respond to a specific offer, or you need more sophisticated conversion tracking, you can monitor, in real time, the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts.

It’s Attainable-Gone are the days where only larger companies could effective deploy and manage digital marketing strategies. This is especially true for mobile marketing, in which SMB retailers can use applications like our mobileStorm SMS platform to quickly and easily launch highly effective campaigns, such as mobile coupons.

It’s Adaptable–Being stuck with an ineffective marketing campaign can be a serious blow to a retailer, both in terms of lost revenue or even your reputation. Changing course in the traditional media outlets can be cost both time and money. In the digital realm, however, such corrections can be done with minimal effort and expense.

It’s Personable–Most forms of mass communication are geared towards the mass market, meaning that the same message is applied across a wide section of potential consumers. Digital marketing allows you to take an inverse approach, giving you the flexibility to customize your offer to a much smaller (and arguably more effective) niche audience.

It’s Inevitable–Whether or you are currently engaged in digital marketing, the fact is that eventually you’ll have no choice but to use it. Your competitors will be, or already are, doing so.

What has your experience been like using digital marketing as a retailer? If you haven’t started, what is holding you back from doing so? We’d love to hear your thoughts either way.

Until next time,

Steve Chipman
“Analog thoughts in a digital world”

The Mobile Marketing Association has extensive plans to boost itself–and the mobile marketing space–for the coming year, with a new leader, a soon-to-be home base in New York, and work on creation of updated best practices for U.S. marketers.

Mike Wehrs last week was named MMA’s new president and CEO. The former vice president of Nuance Communications, which is known mostly for its voice-recognition technology, seems to have hit the ground running. Reports indicate that he wants the organization to offer its members concrete ways that they can meet strategic goals. This includes the move to New York, home of Madison Avenue, making it easier for the MMA to interact with marketers and advertisers. It also includes educational initiatives, since as Mr. Wehrs said, “Right now it’s very difficult to put together a mobile campaign… there are lots of things an advertiser has to know just to do a text message campaign.”

(Note: We at mobileStorm understand this, and like the MMA hope to help mobile marketing newbies with the whitepapers titled SMS Or Die and Digital Marketing Best Practices For Geniuses, and with the webinar titled Making Money With Mobile Coupons.)

As far as growth, Mr. Wehrs noted the evolution of mobile marketing in new industries. Besides interest from consultant and content companies, he said, “Mobile banking is another example where we are seeing some of the banks coming to us and asking what can be done for their set of applications. Financial institutions in general are mobilizing.”

Meanwhile at the MMA’s Best Practices Forum, a diverse group of mobile industry professionals gathered to suggest what should be included in the organization’s upcoming set of best practices for the United States. The MMA releases updated best practices every June and December.

One of the biggest developments discussed at the forum was the CTIA’s plan to start monitoring every short code campaign, to check for compliance with both the MMA’s best practices and with individual carriers’ requirements.

Marketing experts also talked about creating not just standards, but also punishments regarding compliance with CBP and carrier requirements. They also noted that privacy standards will be more important than ever: As revenue from mobile campaigns increases, so will scrutiny into marketers’ behavior.

Sounds like the MMA is thinking ahead, not just for 2009, but beyond.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm

“I’d rather you text me”