Display Ads still have a place in online marketing

Not being a big fan of online display ads because of their intrusive nature affecting my web experience, I do see them as a useful tactic if used properly.

The use of widgets embedded in display ads can be a powerful tool when used for Ecommerce.

What better way to be in the right place at the right time with a "billboard" that actually gives the user the ability to act on a piece of creative. I'm not talking about simply clicking on a call-to-action, but more along the lines of putting the user directly into the sales funnel before even landing on the site.

ROI for the ads can easily be tracked as an assist to the conversion more easily since the user will be passing real data from the ad unit directly into the destination site. 

Rather than reporting on impressions and Click-thru-rates, you have some real data that you can learn from.

An example would be if I were to see an ad for 1800Flowers on some website 4 days prior to mothers day. The ads creative is intended to act as a reminder that I don't have much time left and if I act now I can get rushed delivery for free. At the bottom by the call-to-action there is an input box where I can enter in the delivery zip code. That in-turn will put me directly into the websites shopping path where I would select the flowers I would want to send. Then I simply check-out. See, right place at the right time and non-intrusive.

Stewart Severino
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5 Twitter Tools for Managing your Followers

I have found managing my Followers on Twitter to be a bit cumbersome.

Below are five tools that may make your day a bit easier to manage if you are 

trying to get work done and be an active member of Twitter.

1. Mass Unfollow those who are not following you back with Huitter

Twitter etiquette suggest that you follow someone back if they follow you. I use this tool whenever my ratio of Followers vs. Following gets out of whack. It automatically unfollows everyone who aren’t following you back. Huitter.

2. Automatically unfollow all inactive accounts you are following with MyCleener

This is yet another tool that will help us automatically unfollow all the inactive accounts based on when their last tweet was, and help you save your follow number. MyCleener.

3. Find out common users following and being followed by two accounts

This is a great tool, because if you knew two power user accounts, say from your niche, then you can find out who are the guys they keep in contact with and who are the guys they are following and followed by with this tool. Running this tool with maximum five accounts will more or less reveal the “hidden” circle among them. Very effective if you know whom to stalk. Who follows whom

4. Manage your friends and followers with tags

Rate and tag your friends and filter them on a timeline! You can also create custom groups of your followers and filter you timeline by that group. Very effective, but a little complicated to use. Twittangle

5. Unfollow people who have not updated within “X” amount of days

Pretty good. Probably the best one out there to date. You can find  tweeps out of your followers who have not updated within a specified # of days and lets you unfollow them.  Untweeps

Stewart Severino
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Non-ecommerce sites - web analytics

It has been difficult providing metrics on a non-ecommerce site because, aside from Goals you need industry benchmarks to compare to. Unfortunately, there isnt much out there so you would have to improvise with what you have. Google Analytics makes this very easy and you can provide your client or yourself some real context and understanding behind these metrics.

To put things into perspective, determine what are people looking for when they come to your site.

What are your goals or KPI's ?

Are you looking for visitor loyalty? Time On Site? Page depth? 

By the way, all of these should be part of your KPI's. If you have determined additional metrics thats great too but dont go overboard. It is very easy to report on data but it is entirely different to be able to provide context to that data.

Let's take a look at Visitor Loyalty - 'how often do people visit my site?'

You can see by this image below that not many people come back to the site. So thats step 1 in identifying an issue.

Set a goal for the number of visits you expect for a time period (each week, month, qtr, etc), pick one and make sure your Visits are realistic, compare to the chart above. Compare your performance over time to ensure progress is being made or not made. Either way you can now guage what is happening on your non-ecommerce site. Speaking of comparissons, Google Analytics has a great benchmarking tool. Make sure you choose the industry that most resembles yours when benchmarking.

The image above shows what I believe to be a pretty common thread amongst non-ecommerce sites, particullary branding sites.

Their 1 time visits are pretty high but their return visits are pretty poor. Now that you have focused in on what is going on you can begin making changes to your site in order to increase Visitor loyalty. Give visitors a reason to come. 

If your Bounce rate is contributing to your low Visitor Loyalty, which I am sure it is, try to guide the visitor from page to page. For example; If a visitor lands on a page with a news story, try paginating the story so you continue the meaty part of the story on page 2.

This will help decrease your Time On Site and your Bounce rate. It will also increase your page depth.

WOW! All that with one little tweak from a simple lesson you learned from really looking at your data.

Hope this was helpful.

Stewart Severino
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Retention Marketing

Your 2009 Retention Checklist: Seven Factors to Consider

Retention marketing involves relationship building over time and both parties must participate for it to endure. As online marketing continues to evolve, ensure that your retention activities cover the full array of tactics and are integrated with your other marketing plans. 

2009 checklist. 

Communication.

 Just as relationships require involved direct, engaged communications rather than repetitious nagging messages that get tuned out, your customer exchanges must be relevant. Use your database to send targeted e-mailings based on past behavior and purchases (check here and here for more information) and create related landing pages. Also, consider consumer-controlled communication channels, such as widgets and RSS feeds.

Web site. As your central online destination, your Web site must provide a wide range of information to satisfy all three types of customers who may be at different points in their purchase process. Be sure your Web site includes the following information: detailed product descriptions, suggested related products, best seller lists, customer comments and ratings, product support, 800 numbers, retail locations, company information, and returns information.

Search. 

Don't assume that because a customer found you once, they'll find you again. Therefore, your content must be search optimized. From a retention perspective, think about how customers will look for product data in terms of names, brands, and product numbers.

Customer service (including returns).

 How you treat customers can have a big impact on whether they keep the items purchased and buy from you again. A pleasant return experience that aids the post-sales process can turn someone into an advocate. Therefore, make it easy to get information about returns and related policies. Provide information regarding product usage that can be used to sell related products and services.

Social media. 

Give customers the means to interact with each other, either on your Web site or on a third-party site. Consider how your firm should participate in these forums. Among the options for these interactions include blogs, Twitter, podcasts, videos, photos, bulletin boards, forums, wikis and Webinars. Remember to check your customers Technographic chart

Offline communications. 

This includes catalogs, postcards, and information contained in the product package.

Advocacy and referrals. Provide customers with multiple means to communicate with you if they have any problems or comments. Help customers extend your reach to their contacts through forward-to-a-friend and/or social bookmarking functionality. Think about giving them special refer-a-friend offers.

Six Key Retention Marketing Metrics

To ensure that your retention marketing program works efficiently, track the following six indicators to determine the strength of your customer relationships.

House file. 

Measure the size of the file, response rates, and churn rate. In this economic environment, customers may take longer to purchase additional items. Track different segments separately where possible.

Expenses. 

Assess the total costs of retaining customers, as well as the cost of extended communications during this difficult economic period. Look at cost per customer contacted.

Revenues. Monitor total repeat sales and sales per customer contacted. Analyze what is selling and to whom. Monitor the ratio of sales to new versus existing customers.

Lifetime value. 

Calculate the profitability of customers over time taking into consideration the full acquisition and retention cost.

Customer feedback/buzz. 

Monitor what customers say about your firm both on your site and in other forums. Quick, effective communications when issues arise can retain customers.

Referral rates. 

Track the percentage of customers who refer you to others, the conversion rate, and quality of the referrals.

Retention should be a core part of your online marketing strategy. Your house file is one of your company's biggest assets. Don't fall into the trap of putting all of your marketing efforts into romancing new customers while taking your many loyal customers for granted.

Stewart Severino
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Unlock Blackberry Bold for ATT

Okay, after a bit of searching, those of you that want a Blackberry Bold AND dont want to leave AT&T, here is a solution.

You must purchase the Bold 9500 since it has GSM.

How to unlock your Storm

 Storm Unlock instructions

 You must have a SIM card in your phone to complete these steps (can be active or inactive)

1. Go to settings menu => and then Options.
2. Select Advanced options => and then Sim card
3. Type MEPD using your Blackberry keyboard (NOTE: You will not see any text appear on the screen while typing MEPD)
4. Type MEP then type 2
5. You should be presented with a prompt "Enter Network MEP Code". Type in the 16 or 8 digit unlock code and press in the track wheel / jog dial to confirm
6. Your phone is now unlocked

You can call into at&t customer service and request the unlock code...if they don't happen to give it to you, you can try sites such as

 

http://www.cellunlocker.net 

 

or http://www.cellphoneunlock.net 

This will not work on 3G only the Edge network.

other sources

http://www.elite-electronix.com/blackberry-storm-9500-unlocked

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081103092048AAgx7Hm

Stewart Severino
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The spoiled under 30 crowd

THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!! 
If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!! 

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears
with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. 
When they were growing up; 
what with walking Twenty-five miles to school every morning 

Uphill... barefoot... 

BOTH ways 

Yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up,
there was no way in hell I was going to lay 
a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! 

But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my
childhood, you live in a darn Utopia! 

And I hate to say it, but you kids today
don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the darn library and
look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!! 

There was no email. We had to actually write
somebody a letter, with a pen! 

Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!


Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the darn record store and shoplift it yourself! 

Or, you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ's usually talked over the beginning and messed it all up! 


There were no CD players. We had tape decks in our cars. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished and the tape would come undone…’cause that's how we rolled dig? 

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you
were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! 
When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school,
your mom, your boss, your Bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you
just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister! 

We didn't have any fancy Sony Play station video
games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games
like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or
screens, it was just one screen
forever!

And you could never win. The game just kept getting
harder and harder and
faster and faster until you died! JUST LIKE LIFE! 

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were messed up when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off
your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel! 


There was no
Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons
on Saturday Morning... Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK
for cartoons, you spoiled
little brats!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat
something up we had to use the stove ... Imagine that! 

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids
today have got it too easy. 
You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted
five minutes back in 1980 or before!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd 

Twitter landing page plus more

Okay,

There is a lot of content out there on Twitter landing pages and having the basics on your page (picture, blog link, bio, etc). I want to take this a step further and add some integration for social media, ultimately providing an industry market research tool.

The idea?

Using Twitters' What are you doing? and adding social media components for those who do not have a blog or a website to link to. 

If you find yourself tweeting links to News sites, blogger sites, etc...

Some examples:

I write a compelling CTA for users to visit my link "What are you favorite apps on your mobile phones desktop?"  http://somewhere.com

The link directs the user to YOUR own twitter page where they will be allowed to view an image of your phones desktop and a survey or poll for them to select their top mobile phone applications.

[] gmail  []twitterberry []facebook

You can start to put together your own ideas of how to use this tool.

Eventually this could become a market resesarch tool.

I need to give it more thought. I just needed to get it down on 'paper' before i moved on to something else.

Stewart Severino
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sseverino@gmail.com