When you think of public utilities, you think of things such as water, electricity, and telecommunications, right? Well, what if search were added to that list? How would you feel about that? We talk about that today plus I reference an interview from Kevin Ryan on WebProNews.
There’s no question of Facebook’s position at the top of the social networking space, and one thing that makes the site so powerful is that when it comes to social networking, a user’s friends must be users too. But among some teens, Facebook may be losing its stickiness. See study here >
The untapped potential of local online advertising just got tapped. Online ad network Chitika today revealed their newest property, LAX Local Advertising Exchange, which takes the fast-growing power of local advertising and applies it to the proven power of the ad exchange. One of Chitika’s cornerstone partners, online local pioneer Yellowbook, is among the first to take advantage of the opportunities presented by LAX. PR Release and Lax.Chitika.com.
The next time you’re standing in the coffee aisle at the grocery store and pick up one particular brand of joe over another, ask yourself why. The answer might be rooted in behavioral economics 101. view more.
Each year a trillion dollars is spent on communicating to and persuading the human brain, yet few understand how the brain really works—what’s attractive to it, how it decides what it likes and doesn’t like, and how it chooses to buy or not buy the infinite variety of products and services presented to it every day. Neuromarketing research is revealing a myriad of fascinating insights that help improve the effectiveness of every aspect of clients’ brands, products, packaging, in-store marketing, advertising, and entertainment content. view more.
We put together a few more articles on social media…
When tracking your success of any social media marketing one key element is to set your goals first. For each organization or company there will be separated goals and reasons for engaging within social media. This channel has matured to the point where there are a couple of core success points for engaging. Some items that are important to measure for success are direct sales from social media, prospects and leads, mentions and conversation, and sentiment.
What are some of the best social media tools out on the market? What tools should you be using to distribute your messages and communication to your target market?
People are already talking about your products or e-commerce website. These conversations used to happen over dinner, at work, or over a cup of coffee. While this is still happening something has replaced the water cooler—social media. It’s also been said that social media is the new Monday. Many people would make sure that they see the just released movie so they can talk about it with co-workers on Monday—now social media plays this role. With one key difference it’s always on and it’s happening instantaneously.
Case studies are great and I wanted to put together a round up of some of the best case studies I have seen in marketing and social media. So here we go…
TechChrunch put together 6 great new business case studies. From The Creme Brulee Man, Luxury Hotels, Korean Kitchen, a Dentist, and Levis there is tons to be learned here.
While on LinkedIn recently I saw a question about increasing sales on an ecommerce website. I wanted to share my response as I think it is one of the keys to figuring out how to sell more online.
Here is the question:
We have a website that sells art prints, sculpture and photography, but have only sold one piece. Any ideas? We already had a company help with keywords, still only one sale…
Now most of the responses fell into the technical realm. From traffic, process, stats, SEO, to order processing. I believe you have to take a step back and look at things such as positioning and niche target market.
Here is my response:
All these comments are good but most are on the technical side, I’ve found most Ecom issues have to do with positioning and reaching the target market–not traffic.
First step would be to find one niche that you can dominate in. Create unique positioning for that product line and focus on reaching the core influencers within that niche.
Let’s say you pick sculpture… take a look as a consumer of these items and see what they see. Search with the SE’s, real time search engines (like SocialMention.com), and social media.
Once you have a deep understanding of this then focus like a laser on reaching this core audience in a unique and engaging way. Might be via social media, might be with forums, targeted ad buys, or increased search engine optimization. The key is focus and positioning.
Position your product line in a completely different and engaging way compared to the competition. Introduce personality and uniqueness.
Nielsen released some great stats on the Baby Boomer generation. 78 million is no small number and the spending power of this group is huge. If you haven’t created a vertical marketing strategy for this demo we highly suggest you do. Here is a great excerpt from the report that you can find here:
Born between the years 1946-1964, the oldest of the Boomers are beginning to retire. But today’s middle aged and older consumers are different than their predecessors. The conventional wisdom that they spend little, resist technology and are slow to adopt new products needs to be re-assessed. Boomers are an affluent group who adopt technology with enthusiasm (think about the number of parents or grandparents who regularly send e-mails or upload photos to Facebook and other sites). They have also shown a willingness to try new brands and products.
But the facts Nielsen releases are even more surprising…
Dominate 1,023 out of 1,083 consumer packaged goods categories
Watch the most video: 9:34 hours per day
Comprise 1/3 of all TV viewers, online users, social media users and Twitter users
Time shift TV more than 18-24s (2:32 vs. 1:32)
Are significantly more likely to own a DVD player
More likely to have broadband Internet access at home
With insights like this it is hard to ignore this market. The next step is to understand how your product or service can resonate with this demographic. With some effort Boomers can offer an opportunity for people who know how to connect with them.
MailerMailer.com released a report with a sample size for the data used to create this report is over 900 million email messages. This is a subset of the messages sent through MailerMailer between January 1 and December 31, 2009.
But I thought email was dead…
No email isn’t dead. It’s alive and well. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email continues to deliver the highest return on investment (ROI) of any other marketing channel, at $43.62 for each dollar spent in 2009. This figure is more than twice the ROI from Internet search advertising, which came in second at $21.85 per dollar spent.
Forrester Research recently reported that spending on email marketing in the United States is expected to expand to $2 billion by 2014; this is an annual compound growth rate of nearly 11%.
A MarketingSherpa survey found that email is one of only two tactics where more marketers increased budgets than decreased budgets in 2009. The other was social media.
More from the report:
Best Days to Send – Email messages sent on Sunday have the best chance of being opened and clicked on.
Open Rates – The overall unique open rate stands at 11.2%, which is a 10% decline from last year at this time.
Open Rates by Industry – The agricultural and telecommunications sectors are generating the highest open rates (25% or more), while the mining industry is showing open rates of less than 5%.
Open Rates by List Size – Smaller lists (fewer than 499 email addresses) garnered higher open rates than medium sized lists (17.8%) or large (more than 1,000 email addresses) lists (14.3%).
Subject Lines – Once again, email messages with subject lines of 35 characters or less outperformed emails with longer subject lines, generating open rates 52% higher and click rates 69% higher, on average
Business is increasingly moving to social media. This allows business of any size to engage directly with their target market and done correctly can create a lasting relationship. We wanted to highlight a story from TechCrunch and it’s overview of six business case studies.
Out Take
It’s great to see case studies like this popup. One of the things we like to do with case studies is to tear them apart and find one thing that we can take an employee in our own business. Years ago when I started reading business books I made a practice to write down key ideas that go beyond that—find ways that I could implement these ideas in my business professional life. We suggest you do the same thing with the six case studies.
Google Seller Ratings
Google introduced seller ratings to its growing lot of ad extensions last month. In addition to titles, prices, and thumbnail images, a searcher now gets treated to a 1 to 5 scale indicating past customers’ satisfaction with a particular merchant. A great roundup from Paul Burani on this move.
Our Take
As with all things Google you know this went through a series of testing. As Facebook steamrolls towards 500 Million members and super high engagement Google house to take notice. The next step for Facebook could be merging social media and shopping. We already know that one of the biggest reasons why people choose to follow companies and Brands within social media is for special deals in special offers.
Is it that far of the leap to think that this could be used as a direct channel for sales. Now we know social media is not for selling but if it was inherent within the experience this could be a game changer. All we have to do is look towards games like Farmvillle to see how social media has changed a dynamic. Social networks have virtually made some of the biggest names in the casual gaming world. Why couldn’t this be done for E-commerce?
Today we talk with Jeff Foster from WebBizIdeas.com. Jeff gives some great tips and advice on your opportunity within Bing, Yahoo, and Foursquare. Some items we talk about are…
Is Bing local worthwhile?
Does Bing have a webmaster tools like Google?
What about content and Bing?
What is up with the merger between Bing and Yahoo?
What does it mean for the future of search?
What are your opportunities with Foursquare?
Once again if you have any feedback or questions you can feel free to email Jeff directly.
