CaliberPulse

With smartphone usage growing exponentially, it is important to consider developing a mobile site to make accessing your website information easier for smartphone owners. Most often, those who visit a website from a mobile device know exactly what they’re looking for, which gives you the opportunity to simplify your website featuring its most relevant "on the go" (or quick reference) content. Mobile visitors will appreciate the simplicity and ease of navigation of a mobile site.

“Email is the original social media” according to social media scientist, Dan Zarella. Zarella, on behalf of Hubspot, presented findings from an analysis of 9.5 billion Mail Chimp emails, survey responses, and focus group information in a webinar that we participated in last week. We’d like to share the top six takeaways with you. Try using some of this advice on your next email campaign and give us feedback on the results.

It will come as no surprise to those of us paying attention to trends that advertisers are asking more of their audiences than ever before. In previous years, the modus operandi has been for advertisers to show pictures, play music, and try to impress while target consumers relax on the couch. Relax no more, audiences. In 2011 and beyond, advertisers will be putting audiences to work. The new rule of engagement is, in fact, “engagement”. New online ads will require the audience to “click” for the full story or experience that will drive a message home. It is predicted that online ads will, more and more, link an end-user directly to the point of purchase, cutting out any waffling a consumer may feel while considering a buying decision. The engagement revolution is not exclusive to online ads. Print and TV ads are, increasingly, requiring that audiences scan a code to find a hidden message or receive the chance to win some coveted opportunity that only those “in the know” get to access. The end goal of these more complex processes is to create loyalty through participation and to turn that loyalty, ultimately, into sales and evangelism.

In this age of web-enabled Smart phones and other “Smart” devices that are flooding the market, we here at Adworkshop have noticed that the number of “apps” (applications) and mobile sites being downloaded is skyrocketing. As a matter of fact, our advertising agency in upstate New York came across an eMarketer report on a recent survey conducted by Adobe which found that most mobile users prefer to get their content from mobile websites rather than mobile applications. The only categories that showed a higher mobile application download preference were games, music and social media.

I attended the BOLO 2010 conference organized by AgencySide. BOLO’s mission is to help agencies profit with new digital marketing technologies. I was as impressed by the attendees I met - mostly agency principals or management- as by the speakers and sessions that addressed many of the technologies our firm is now recommending to clients. The marketing and advertising industry will experience more change in the next 5 years than it has in the past 50 years. It is imperative to keep ahead of the changes while continuing to follow classic, solid business practices. Below are my top ten takeaways from the conference.

The holiday season brings a wave of ads and promotions. Messages about sales and new products or services to buy as the perfect gift are everywhere. Getting your company’s newest promotion noticed during this time of year can be a challenge but there are tools available to get your product noticed. Yelp’s newest Check-in Offers service is one of those tools. Similar to Foursquare, Yelp is allowing business owners to reward customers who repeatedly check-in to their location. This tool is ideal for retailers and restaurants this time of year. Read Yelp introduces ‘Check-in Offers’ to learn how this tools can be a way to increase your visibility.

Successful retailers have generated business through the practice of “loss leader” sales & promotion (taking the loss on one product to get customer traffic in for upsales). The decisions are not made randomly; these items are selected with purpose and by crunching the numbers to estimate the ROI. That’s exactly how you should look at using the online membership coupon services such as restaurants.com or social promotions sites like groupon.com and livingsocial.com. In an American Express Open Forum Jennifer Van Grove, Associate Editor for Mashable, points out how the pomp and circumstance around Groupon’s success makes it easy to ignore the Posies Cafes of the world. Posies Cafe owner Jessie Burke describes offering a featured Groupon deal as, "the single worst decision I have ever made as a business owner thus far." Burke's primary problem was that after deeply discounting her goods -- $6 for $13 -- and handing over 50 percent of sales to Groupon, she was unable to cover her store's operating costs, including employee payroll.

Are you sliding along the scale between traditional and digital marketing? Perhaps you are among the businesses still using only traditional forms of advertising that have been around for decades, such as outdoor, print, television and radio. Watch any Mad Men episode and you will hear these familiar tactics discussed. Traditional media were used back then, and remain the basis for many organizations’ marketing efforts. But there are many new tools at your disposal to help you reach your audience and garner results. If you haven’t already, start learning about and integrating new digital tactics into your marketing mix. We are not advocating abandoning traditional forms of advertising. Wise marketers are learning how to use all the new tools and including them when assessing what mediums will be used to reach a particular audience or to brand a specific product or service. Balancing the marketing options As with any marketing program, one size does not fit all. Each marketing mix needs to be tailored to the goals and objectives of the client. Don’t feel overwhelmed: You can start in small ways to integrate these new technologies into your marketing. Here are a few examples.

Your phone may replace your scissors when it comes to coupon savings. More than 42 million people in the United States own a smartphone, which means that they have the capability to receive media-rich information from companies and organizations. Some marketers have been wary to send information about their products or services to current and potential customers’ mobile devices, even though smartphone owners are requesting information about their favorite brands.

“There’s a app for that,” the simple, iconic tagline from the iPhone commercials, could apply to your business. An application — or an “app” when speaking Apple-ese — specific to your business or organization could be a valuable addition to your marketing cache. The iPhone app created for the Tucson Festival of Books gave a quick, concise look at the festival events with a flick of the iPhone. The festival, Arizona’s largest literary event held March 13-14, attracted an estimated 70,000-80,000 bibliophiles to the University of Arizona campus to meet and mingle with about 450 authors who spoke and signed books.

Cool post at SlipperyBrick.com! According to the blog, Cyclist Lance Armstrong has returned to the 2009 Tour de France to raise awareness of his Livestrong Campaign. And to cheer him on, Livestrong and Nike teamed up with DeepLocal and StandardRobot to create this robot that paints messages on the Tour de France path. The best part? You can send your own message of encouragement!

America’s increasing dependence on cell phones is creating a new marketing medium for businesses. The Associated Press recently reported that more than one out of every six of households have only cell phones and an additional 13 percent have landlines, but get most of their calls on their mobile. The data was based on a study compiled by the National Health Interview Survey and conducted by the CDC. Stephen Blumberg, senior scientist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an author of the report, said that the nation’s current economic status could increase the number of cell phone holders. "There's clearly a reason to give up a landline phone if budgets are tight," he said in an interview. "Given the current economic environment, I'd not be surprised to see more and more people give up their landline phones for economic reasons." The growing number of people using cell phones exclusively could force companies in all industries to change tactics and communicate differently – eliminating annoying telemarketing and robocalls. In response to changing consumer behavior, The Detroit Free Press is changing their printing and delivery schedule to send more news out through the Web and SMS (text messaging) to reach consumer demand for information on their laptop or cell phone.