Killerwebs Web Design Bradford | Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Mobile Email and Purchasing: Perfect Togther” plus 4 more

 

Marketing Pilgrim Published: "Mobile Email and Purchasing: Perfect Togther" plus 4 more

---

• Mobile Email and Purchasing: Perfect Togther
  
• Should Traffic Ever Trump Taste?
  
• ShareThis Ads FastShare Feature
  
• The Tablet, the Hockey Stick and the Future of Online Shopping
  
• Think Women and Tech Don't Mix? Think Again

Mobile Email and Purchasing: Perfect Togther Posted: 26 Jul 2011 06:03 AM PDT Marketers are faced daily with a deluge of statistics and 'proofs' that whatever it is they chose to hitch their wagon to yesterday has now been replaced by something bigger, better and faster. It makes one wonder why anyone would want to be in online marketing if it always feels like you are a half-step behind the cool kids. One thing that has stayed pretty consistent over time however is the power of e-mail marketing even with the continued proliferation of the mobile online world. According to research from ExactTarget (Warning: Research as PR alert level 5) email marketing drives purchases in the mobile space. eMarketer shared the data It's somewhat unfair for me to comment on this phenomenon because I don't shop much. If I am shopping it is usually out of necessity and it needs to be done quickly so I don't have to be in a store for very long. The chances of me sitting in a mall or whatever and using my phone to help me decide which store I will enter and what I might buy sounds like science fiction to me. I understand that many do this, however, and that as a marketer what I personally do or don't do ultimately means diddly-squat (that's a first time use for that expression in print for me). So why would email be the dominant influencer in this space? (other than ExactTarget's need for it verify their existence?). I would say familiarity. People use what they are familiar with and e-mail just has a much longer track record than any of the other contenders. Will that change with time? Could very well but I doubt email will ever simply stop being useful to the mobile crowd. Additional information about mobile shopping behavior in the following chart somewhat backs up my familiarity theory. Where do most people go to make their purchases following a mobile marketing message? To a store or to their computer, of course. How old school! The cool answer would have been on their smartphone but only about one-third of folks like that idea. So the newer things the are the older they are in some ways. What will be interesting is to see when the shift starts to move in the direction of the mobile device being the one-stop shop of choice for Internet users. So where are you on the mobile marketing continuum? Are you engaging with the latest and greatest or do you start leading edge then end up with an old school finish?

Should Traffic Ever Trump Taste? Posted: 26 Jul 2011 03:43 AM PDT In the world of online reputation management there are a few times when the "Did they really do that?" quotient goes off the chart. Naturally, one of the most obvious times where this can happen involves a tragedy. This weekend's passing of singer Amy Winehouse shows just how willing people and companies are to put taste to the side for the sake of sales and traffic. The two culprits who were just fine initially with using the singer's death to try to get something for themselves were Microsoft and the Huffington Post. First, the Microsoft version of how not to use the Internet in times of tragedy. On Monday, after Winehouse's death over the weekend, the Microsoft UK PR account posted the following tweet. It's not like this account has a huge following (just under 1,800) but the backlash to Microsoft has been as if there were hundreds times more followers. Why is that? Part of that response is in part due to the quick apology tweet which comes off as far less than a genuine mea culpa. Which is then followed by the tweet that would have been the appropriate thing to say in the first place if there was a need for a corporate account to even address such an issue. In the end, the sheer cluelessness of someone in the Microsoft organization has taken a relatively obscure outlet for the huge company and turned it into a completely unnecessary reputation firestorm. What are the lessons to be learned here? The biggest is to be careful as to how much trust you put into your social media managers. If there was a thinking person who was filtering this account for something as insensitive and ignorant as was put out for the world to see, this would've never happened. This instance also shows that in the world of the Internet there are enough people paying attention at all times that businesses need to pay even more attention at all times. Preventable corporate reputation gaffes are going to be vilified much more than those that are created by an outsider because, let's face it, the Internet culture loves to find people who make mistakes (especially big companies) then rub their faces in it. Now, for another example of what not to do. The Huffington Post, the world's favorite content farm that isn't a content farm, proved once again that sensationalism is what drives traffic and they are just fine with it. Less than 24 hours after the singer's death a post appeared at HuffPo from a blogger, Tricia Fox, who is one of those supposed experts in something or other. She is Scottish and that's all I will tell you about her because the rest feeds this entire attempt to piggyback on tragedy as a way to get something for oneself. The long and short of it is the post's title "Amy Winehouse's Untimely Death Is A Wake Up Call For Small Business Owners". I won't glorify the post with a link but you can go and check it out if you like (and while you're at it check out a HuffPo advertiser so the blog can get what it needs which is more money as opposed to informed readers). In obvious cases of completely tasteless link baiting it's easy to pick this apart so let's save the hassle. What is interesting in this particular case is the response from readers in the comments who go after this blogger. OK, I take that back because even more interesting is the blogger's defense of her blatant exploitation of a tragic situation. Her first of many comments highlights her near heartless approach because in the end it's still all about her. I'd like to take this opportunity to openly thank you all for your comments on this blog. It was my first post on HP and a baptism of fire it would seem. For those of you who have been offended by my use of Amy Winehouse as an example, please accept my sincere apologies. Offence was never my intent. For those of you who think I know nothing about addiction: you're right. And my article was never about addiction. It is about business owners, their behaviour and how that behaviour can have (tragic) consequences. I make no apology for my style of blogging – you are free to decide to follow/not follow my posts as you wish. There are a few things I have learned from this experience: Response to this blog in the UK has been positive. Response from the USA has been negative. I'm not sure why different nationalities have recieved (sic) the blog differently. People are very quick to attack online. In response to this blog I have been called a narcissist, a bigot, reprehensible, insensitive and have earned the online credit for writing the "worst article ever written". This is all from people who have never met me and probably never will. I am comfortable that I am none of those labels. Am I disappointed with my first Huffington Post blog? No. In fact, I really quite staggered at the response I have had (good or bad). It's good to talk. And I'm open to discussion. The lessons here? First impressions go a long way. Would you want to hire someone like this to have any connection with your business? Would you want someone with the mindset that "any traffic is good traffic" doing what they can to represent you? Would you want to give money to someone who obviously has little care for anything other than their own personal gain? Maybe you would, which is fine, but I suspect most wouldn't. So what are the reputation takeaways here? If you are trying to take advantage of a tragic event for business gain: don't. The short-term bump will likely never outweigh the long term reputation damage you inflict on yourself and your brand Exercise some self-control – We live in this hyper-speed "must take advantage of a situation yesterday" world that most of us are ill-equipped to manage well. It's unnatural in many ways and it is the perfect environment for serious mistakes to be made. Admit your mistakes and move on – Even if you feel that you are fully justified in your position, the likelihood of you improving a situation by arguing your case and trying to show you are not what you appear to be is somewhere between slim and none. Apologize and move on. It feels like we are constantly treading over the same ground in the online reputation space but we do it for a reason. That reason is that people are not paying attention. In their haste to make something from nothing, or in this case, something from something tragic, people forget the basics. Why do you think even professional athletes have to do basic drills for their entire careers? It's because if you don't exercise the muscles they will forget what to do. Next time you feel the urge to jump on a situation for personal gain just step back and at least give yourself an hour or two to really think it through. Short-term gain rarely outweighs the potential long-term damage that any situation can provide. Ask Microsoft and blogger Fox. Oh and for those who will inevitably feel that we are doing the same thing by going over this situation for our readers, we get that. That's part of the deal when talking about online reputation management and monitoring. You rarely are talking about people doing the right thing. It comes with the territory.

ShareThis Ads FastShare Feature Posted: 25 Jul 2011 05:58 PM PDT ShareThis, the social media sharing widget, just announced an upgrade that should help boost both your onsite time as well as your reach. They call it FastShare and it really does make sharing any blog post or article faster than ever. The widget works along with OAuth to automatically authorize the accounts of repeat users. The first time a person clicks through a ShareThis social media button, they'll be asked to enter their email and password for the matching site (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) The next time they hit a ShareThis site, assuming they haven't cleared their cookies, they'll see a green checkmark on the pre-authorized site icon. If they have a green check, they can enter a comment and share without having to log in again. Since the whole process happens on your site, you don't have to worry about losing a reader after they share. And since it works with every site that has ShareThis installed, a visitor could hit your site for the first time and already be authorized to share. Sharing is the life blood of social media, so you want to make it as easy for people to share your content as possible. This new update to the ShareThis widget lowers the number of clicks needed to do the job and that means you won't lose a share because a reader didn't want to take the time to login. Pilgrim's Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

The Tablet, the Hockey Stick and the Future of Online Shopping Posted: 25 Jul 2011 11:52 AM PDT First there was the traveling salesman, then the mail-order catalog. Then, TV shopping networks made it even easier to shop right from the comfort of your own home. When the internet came around, we thought that was the ultimate home shopping experience, but it's about to go one better. Forrester's new white paper says the tablet is going to be the next big thing in e-commerce, trumping even the much talked about mobile phone. Though only 9% of web shoppers currently own tablets, Forrester expects to see a "hockey stick" develop for adoption stats over the next five years. A hockey stick. You know, a short, slight rise from the tip to the heel then a near vertical rise four times the size. (I assume that's what they mean, someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) But sheer numbers doesn't make for more e-commerce. What does, is the form and function of tablets over computers and mobile phones. First, tablets beat mobile in screen size. The tablet is big enough to scan comfortably, in the same way as you would flip through a catalog. The larger screen makes it easier to see details and it's infinity better than a mobile phone when it comes time to type in credit card numbers and other personal information. Tablets beat computers for portability. Even if you own a laptop, a tablet is lighter and easier to handle on the go. It's also more comfortable balanced on your knees when you're sitting on the couch, watching TV as you shop. The third area is rich content. Shopping apps have taken the catalog experience and turned it into an audio-visual show. Instead of simply reading a list of the extras on a DVD, you can click to view clips. Not sure if you like a band? Listen to the tracks before you buy. Sure, you can do all of these things on a computer, but there's one big difference. Tablets encourage recreational browsing. Sucharita Mulpuru, an e-commerce analyst at Forrester told the "New York Times," "The element of discovery is missing online, because most people go to Google, and Google isn't about discovering something online, it's about typing something into a search box. This is much closer to the actual physical browsing experience." Right now, we're in a chicken or the egg stage with tablet marketing. Since tablet adoption is still on the low side, most companies can't justify the cost of creating a specific shopping app. Mulpuru says that those on a tight budget can skip the app for now, as a normal website works just fine on a tablet. But moving forward, as adoption starts that expected, meteoric rise, it will make sense to invest in apps that take advantage of what tablets do best.

Think Women and Tech Don't Mix? Think Again Posted: 25 Jul 2011 10:57 AM PDT Since the invention of the calculator watch, it's always been noted that men are more comfortable with tech than women. Well, not anymore. New research for Women at NBCU shows that 75% of women disagree with that statement and they have the online presence to prove it. The survey shows that on social networking sites, women have more brand friends and social friends. "They check their profiles four or more times each day and spend 3.3 hours online daily for non-work related activities." Other results include: Proliferation of flash sales: 87% of women prefer a one-day deep discount to a moderate weeklong sale. Privacy: An overwhelming 91% of respondents would give their email for a discount, 50% are willing to give their phone number, and 25% would share their GPS location. Word-of-mouth: A significant 71% get their recommendations from online friends, as opposed to review websites. Customer Service: 61% of women say they expect to hear back from brands within a day or less, while 38% of women expect brands to update their profile page daily, which is as frequently as they update their own. NBCU calls this rise in tech usage by women a "game changer" when it comes to marketing. Melissa Lavigne-Delville, VP of Trends and Strategic Insights, Integrated Media at NBCUniversal says, "Three-quarters of the female population is online and their increasingly passionate and widespread consumption of digital is shaping this ever-evolving space. As this growing number of digitally-dependent women alters the landscape in unexpected ways, marketers need to react in real-time – super-serving her with highly curated and relevant content, products and information." One of the biggest shifts is in the area of mobile. Smartphone usage is slightly higher for women but take a look at the gaming numbers: Owns a gaming app: 75% Women, 67% Men Owns a Wii: 44% Women, 41% Men If you're working with a tech product, or using social media and / or mobile for marketing (that should include just about everyone reading this piece), you need to think about how women figure into your plan. And it may not be enough to have a generic campaign aimed at either of the sexes. A campaign designed specifically to suit the needs of women might be just what you need to boost sales. The NBCU survey did find that the internet was extremely important to both sexes. Along with sleep, it was one of the three things they couldn't live without for a month. The third thing? For women, it was a shower. For men, it was sex. Go figure. Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

You are subscribed to email updates from Marketing Pilgrim - Internet News & Opinion To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610