E-Marketing Associates

Mobile Marketing: Is Your Business Ready to Tap into Tablets?

Jacquelynn Mendez by
on September 30th, 2011

The announcement of Amazon’s Kindle Fire has taken over headlines everywhere, and with the news of its highly anticipated release, tablet adoption rate is now expected to grow exponentially over the next year. Keeping this in mind, it’s time for your business to tap into tablets to capture the attention of this growing audience.

Since the release of the first major tablet, people have been fascinated by this revolutionary hybrid of mobile and computing, so much so that trusted news source eMarketer predicts that 24 million U.S. consumers will own one by the end of this year. And with the announcement of the Kindle Fire, there’s no doubt that sales will reach this number. To further affirm the tablet’s predicted longevity, Google AdWords now offer analysts the ability to targets this devise separately, making it the latest player in today’s growing media mix. So as this craze continues, it’s time for businesses to start thinking of tablets as a distinct “third device” and devise performance marketing strategies to engage tech savvy users.

Tablet App Attack
In today’s fast paced world, tablets have become a convenient tool for reading, researching and making purchases anytime or anywhere. According to ComScore, around 3% of the nearly $150 billion US consumers spent online last year came via mobile devices, with tablets becoming a large majority of this number. So as on-the-go individuals spend more time on these handy devices, tablet friendly websites and apps are becoming more effective in digital marketing. But before diving into this new sprouting sphere, it’s important to research the opportunities available for your brand, based on your target, objectives and budget.

One of the most popular marketing tactics used on tablets today are innovative apps. Even in the hotel industry, which is usually slow to adopt new technology, the first hotel iPad app hit the market in late December 2010. This is only 9 months after the iPad came out. Banking on this devices growing popularity, InterContinental Hotel and Resorts released the “Concierge inside Guide” tablet application to help users interact with the brand and its 120 destinations. By formatting the app specifically for a tablet, the organization was able to add a more immersive and interactive experience than what is found on smartphone screens, offering its users exclusive videos tours, shopping sites and insider tips. So although this is typically the more expensive route, it often gives your brand more creative freedom and the opportunity to really grab the attention of your desired audience.

Is Tablet Marketing Right For Your Business?
With so many marketing options available, from apps to ads, deciding which mix works best for your business will take some research. The tablet mobile web is a separate, yet equally important platform that should be covered within an integrated digital strategy. Made with larger screens, more memory and higher resolution, tablets are very different than smartphones and are often used for other purposes, which is why it’s important to create new material specifically for this innovative devise. After all, if smartphone usage is indicative of tablet adoption, I think it’s safe to assume this is one craze that is here to stay.

Categories: Blog,Google,Hotel Internet Marketing,Hotels & Resorts,Internet Marketing,Photo & Video — Tags: , , , , ;

The LinkedIn Lowdown: PPC Ads for Small Businesses

Jacquelynn Mendez by
on September 27th, 2011

With over 120 million registered users, LinkedIn has quickly become the go to social network for business professionals. Sharing everything from past experiences to leadership positions, a wide variety of businessmen use this dynamic platform to effectively find jobs, hire personnel and make connections. Yet so many people are still highly unaware of the features available on this network to help effectively generate leads. Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn garners a specialized set of user information, giving businesses the opportunity to target and connect with a specific group of members through business profiles, instant updates and, most importantly, display advertisements. That being said, it’s time to find out what sets these PPC ads apart from the rest.

A Brief Overview
Since its 2003 inception, LinkedIn has stood out from other social networks through its collection of users’ professional rather than lifestyle data. Due to this differentiation, this website’s PPC platform allows businesses to target its audience through work related criteria that typically can’t be found on other networks, including job function, industry and company size. This creates a huge opportunity for B2B businesses that can’t target its desired audience through personal-use networks like Facebook, and with a convenient self-serve option, users can create ad budgets, bids, timing and offers themselves, making everything easy to execute. But be aware that if you’ve managed PPC ads in the past, you will immediately notice that LinkedIn’s recommended bids are higher than other networks, and from what I’ve heard, this is largely due to its highly relevant targeting options.

To get into detail, LinkedIn calculates a quality score much like Google, using an ad’s click-through-rate (CTR) and bid amount to ultimately determine the cost-per-click and number of impressions. In other words, the better your ad performs, the less it will cost. Now if you’re wondering where these ads are located, the picture below shows possible ad placements, which can appear anywhere from a profile page to a user’s inbox. Additionally, LinkedIn provides all advertisers with a special “Ad Campaigns” dashboard to easily analyze the performance of their marketing efforts. After all, PPC ads require a lot of monitoring, tweaking and testing.

Are LinkedIn Ads Worth the Cost?
When determining which platforms to use for your PPC campaigns, it’s important to take a close look at your product/offer and target market. Networks like Facebook and LinkedIn store different kinds of information about its users so determining the best targeting criteria before executing any campaign will help you yield higher results. This means that LinkedIn ads could be worth the cost if this is the network that holds the targeting criteria you need to reach your desired audience. On the other hand, most PPC managers can tell you that oftentimes your best bet is to test several networks before determining your star players, and now that you know that LinkedIn is a contender, you may think twice about which social network works best for your business.

Has your business used LinkedIn ads to generate leads? If so, how was the experience and what kind of results did you receive?

Categories: Blog,Internet Marketing,PPC,Social Media,Social Media Marketing — Tags: , , , ;

Why Facebook’s New “View Shares” Link Will Benefit Businesses

Jacquelynn Mendez by
on September 23rd, 2011

With its latest debut of new features and functions promptly underway, Facebook has quickly earned its spot as this week’s trending topic. And although most personal page users are in an uproar over the dramatic makeover, there is one new feature that should leave business page administrators smiling.

Early last week, as part of its major redesign rollout, Facebook launched a “View Shares” link that appears near the comment section of stories posted by friends and Pages. As seen in the picture below, when a user clicks this link, a window pops-up that shows a list of those who have reposted the story along with any feedback they may have given. This, in turn, lets other users see which posts are most popular with thier network, giving them an instant overview of reviews/ratings. I should also note that although it would be great to see what everyone has to say, the information shown will only be from those who share publicly and Facebook friends.

At first, the advantages of this new feature may seem minimal, but after thinking about all the businesses that are still struggling to find ways to validate their social media efforts, it should be easy to see that “View Shares” can be a valuable new addition to the social sphere.

How “View Shares” Benefits Businesses
Although users have always had the option to share a story, this is the first time that numerical data related to those posts will appear right on users’ newsfeeds, giving everyone an instant glimpse into its popularity. By adding this social recommendation element to posts, popular stories will now have more prominence on the newsfeed, further enticing users to read, click or repost the story themselves. In addition, “View Shares” is particularly great for businesses that have been struggling to gather data related to post activity, especially considering that “volume of shares” is not included on Facebook Insights. But even with all these benefits in mind, this feature will rely heavily on whether or not users even want to share businesses’ content in the first place. Without shares, there is no data to gather or analyze.

So even though the general public may not be happy with all of Facebook’s newest changes, most SMBs can probably agree that the “View Share” link is definitely a notable improvement. After all, this feature gives businesses the chance to show off when users are organically sharing their posts without having any extended costs involved (as with sponsored stories), but I guess that is what social media is all about, right?

Categories: Blog,Facebook,Internet Marketing,Social Media,Social Media Marketing — Tags: , , , , ;

Twitter’s Co founder Has Big Plans for Small Businesses

David Sotelo by
on September 21st, 2011

We all know of Twitter or have at least heard of it but you may not know that Twitter’s Co founder Jack Dorsey started up a company aimed to help small business find a simple way to take credit card payments. The company is called Square and the idea is simple, attach a tiny reader into your iPhone, Smartphone or iPad that reads the credit card info as the user slides it through and payment is taken. There are many small merchants that still do not take credit card payments or do not like the various fees associated with using them. The service actually has been in testing since fall 2010 and has processed over $66 million in transactions since in the first quarter of 2011.

This should be interesting since there is a lot of incentive to use the service. The credit card reader and the app are both free and deposits are made to the merchants within 24 hours. There is a 2.75% fee for each transaction and 3.5% transaction fee is a credit card is not used and you enter the numbers in manually. All the major credit cards are accepted including Visa, Master Card and American Express and to add the convenience of having the receipt emailed to the customer or having it sent via text to their phone. PayPal is available but not everyone has PayPal and consumers trust and know credit cards. There are no credit card numbers to write down or worrying about sending the receipt to the customer.

Square suggest that you will be able to discover a wealth of information about your customers buying habits such as what sells more, what’s the average price of your product and what’s the busiest day of the week to name a few. Offline merchants still account for 94% of commerce so the demand is there. Square wants to make it as simple as possible for merchants and the consumers so whether you’re a dog walker, food truck or you just want more convenience Square could be a good fit for your business.

Categories: Blog — Tags: , , , , , ;

Business Owners Get Ready for Twitters New Web Analytics Tool

David Sotelo by
on September 14th, 2011

Twitter has been growing at a blistering pace and as it continues to thrive and become more integrated into our lives. Just recently Twitter achieved the 100 million active user mark and has a total of 200 million registered users. With all these users the opportunity for businesses is big but that also brings the need for better measurement tools to see what’s working and what’s not. Twitter has been making a push to appeal to businesses with their promoted tweets and ability to use it as help desk and customer service platform. Google analytics fairly recently introduced a new feature that allows you to track social interactions on your site including Twitter, Facebook, and Google + but Twitter just announced Twitter Web Analytics which looks like it may really provide some in depth and powerful data.

The Achilles heel of social media since its early arrival has been the lack or insufficient measurement of social media data. This data is so important because the data can then be used to provide a more accurate return on investment which for a business is one of the primary reasons they want to use social media. Twitter web analytics is going to help website owners understand how much traffic they receive from Twitter and how effective their integrations are. According to Twitter there new product will have three key benefits:

  • Understand how much your website content is being shared across the Twitter network
  • See the amount of traffic Twitter sends to your site
  • Measure the effectiveness of your Tweet Button integration

Business owners be patient, the web analytics tool will be rolled out to a small pilot group this week and will be made available to all website owners in the following weeks. With a recent shopper intelligence study showing that Twitter influences more purchases than Facebook, I am looking forward to see how well this works.

Categories: Blog,Twitter — Tags: , ;

A Short Guide to Twitter Success for SMBs (100m Active Users Later)

Jacquelynn Mendez by
on September 13th, 2011

With over 100 million active users, Twitter remains one of today’s most popular social networking channels, yet so many businesses are still not taking advantage of its potential media value. If this sounds like you, there are a few helpful tips to help your small business effectively reach social success.

Over five years after its inception, Twitter is still growing at an extraordinary rate, making it a valuable resource for businesses of every size. Through contests, news and Q&A, this platform’s unique messaging capabilities offer SMBs a chance to connect with a distinctive group of users who aren’t necessarily found on other popular channels. This in turn creates an opportunity for marketers to learn about their audience, maximize their awareness and increase their social reach. So for those who have yet to join the conversation, it’s time to listen, create and connect… 140 characters at a time.

Listen to your Audience
As with any social media platform, it’s important to first listen to the conversation taking place about your business, and with nearly 230 million tweets sent a day, there is definitely plenty to find on Twitter. Luckily, keywords and hashtags make it easy to sort through the magnitude of messages. Although as a small businesses you will likely yield limited results on your name, you can easily uncover insightful information about your customers by searching for conversations related to your industry, competitors or products. It’s what you find while looking outside of the box that will really surprise you.

Create Content Worth Sharing
Whether it is the latest industry news or useful data, users look to Twitter for information that can’t be found anywhere else. Take a tip from Gary Vaynerchuk. Before becoming a social sensation, Vaynerchuk used to find wine related questions being asked through Twitter and simply answered them to help build awareness for his wine shop. No shameless plug necessary. This strategy worked because he gave people what they wanted, useful information. Posting interesting, relevant tweets is particularly important today with the integration of social and search. Now that re-tweets and replies have the potential of moving your content to the top of Google page results, it’s essential to create content worth sharing.

Connect with Users
Social media marketing is about making connections and establishing an influential presence, so be sure to cultivate the relationships that you have with the Twitter followers that value your brand, message and news the most. After all, these are the individuals who are most likely to share your content, increasing both your reach and appeal. Of course, upholding these relationships will take some work. Try to keep your followers involved in the conversation through consistent interaction, informative posts and maybe a little incentive. In other words, those once a week tweets just won’t cut it anymore!

Categories: Blog,Internet Marketing,Social Media,Social Media Marketing,Twitter — Tags: , , , ;

Is Your Business Profile on Google Places Up to Par?

David Sotelo by
on September 7th, 2011

Google is very committed on increasing their online presence well beyond search engines. They have recently introduced Google + and +1 which is their answer to Facebook the site and also their like button. Google Places was released almost a year and half ago with the intent to help people find real world places and better connect. Yelp has been the major player in this field for quite some time but Google Places has and continues to make a push to make Places the choice for businesses. Most businesses know how important online reviews are; many times they can make or break a purchase especially if it’s a new customer. I want to give you a run down on how to optimize your Google Places page so that when someone finds your site your business is selling itself.

The first step to take is to enter all your basic company info such as name, street address, city, state, main phone, email address, website address and description of your business. The description is important because it gives your potential new customers a snapshot of your services and gives you an opportunity to sell your company in a few short sentences. You will get an option to let viewers know if your business provides services, such as delivery or home repair to locations in certain areas. Hours of operation are next and this is where you let everyone know what days of the week you are open and what hours. There is a section for payment options where you can specify what payment options you accept. The photo section allows for up to 10 images and video section allows for up to 5 videos. These 2 sections play an important role when trying to separate you from the competition. If you have video and pictures it will greatly enhance your company presence and sell your products and service much more effectively.

Once you finish entering all your company info and multi-media you submit you then validate your listing through either a phone call or postcard. Google is integrating their products more and more throughout the web and places is starting to show up in the search engines more and more so make sure you strengthen your digital presence. Whether your business is a restaurant or dog grooming enhancing your online business presence is becoming more important than ever.

Categories: Blog — Tags: , , ;

QR Codes: Effective Marketing Tool or Just another Gimmick?

Jacquelynn Mendez by
on September 6th, 2011

From bus stops to bottles, QR codes have quickly edged their way into today’s existing media mix. But now that they’re popping up everywhere, skeptics aren’t so sure about the effectiveness of these innovative tags. Is there truly enough interest in QR codes to help further brand engagement or is it just another gimmick that will come and go?

Initially used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturer stores, a Quick Response (QR) code is a 2-dimensional barcode that stores data and is designed to be read by smartphones. Due to its popularity, adaptability and unique cool factor, this engaging technology is quickly making its mark in today’s tech savvy society, showing up on nearly every street corner and billboard sign. According to digital analysts at comScore, 6.2% of US mobile phone users scanned these popular 2-D tags in June 2011. Although this may not be an exceptionally high percentage, it shows potential for future growth. But of course that growth will rely on a number of factors, including future smartphone adoption, further ease of use and marketers’ ability to attract new users to this innovative fad.

The Future of the QR Code
Although there have been a few clever business uses of QR codes for contests, movie premieres and special offers, this new mobile marketing tactic still hasn’t caught on to a majority of smartphone users, creating quite a bit of skepticism from critics. But in all fairness, the slow growth can easily be a result of unimaginative marketing. All too often, brands create QR codes that simply lead users to the same website that can be found through a Google search. Talk about boring. If this type of simplicity continues, the only result we will see is the untimely death of the QR code in marketing.

In order to give QR codes lasting credibility, marketers need to step up their game, incentivize smartphone users and produce tangible results. This technology is unique in that it bridges the gap between the real world and digital world, allowing consumers to engage with your brand on a more innovative, yet personal level. But producing positive results will take some work. As Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile, said,

“For marketers, understanding which consumer segments scan QR codes, the source and location of these scans, and the resulting information delivered, is crucial in developing and deploying campaigns that successfully utilize QR codes to further brand engagement.”

Success doesn’t come easy, but it is certainly worth the effort. So if you’re thinking of using QR codes in a future campaign, don’t forget to conduct the proper research and testing before any execution.

So what do you think, are QR codes here to stay or will they disappear faster than Rebecca Black’s singing career?

Categories: Blog,Internet Marketing,Social Media,Social Media Marketing — Tags: , , , , , ;

Can’t Miss Viral Collection: Kermit Bale, Rebecca Black and the Worst Acting You’ll Ever See

Jacquelynn Mendez by
on September 2nd, 2011

While searching through the web for the latest social media trends, news articles and potential stories, my coworkers and I oftentimes stumble upon web pages that are beyond belief. We’re talking about outrageous, leave you on the floor laughing videos, pictures and stories. From awkward family photos to working bears, we have seen it all! So as a special sendoff to a joyous Labor Day weekend, we decided to share a few of our pass-along favorites with you. After all, we like to play our part in social media by contributing to the virality of news.

Hopefully the laughter lasts all weekend long.
Happy Labor Day!

  • Worst acting ever.

  • Anyone with an office job can clearly relate to Misery Bear

  • Hitler’s reaction after hearing Rebecca Black’s “Friday”

 

Categories: Blog,Photo & Video,Social Media — Tags: , , ;