Text messaging has replaced the phone call as the preferred method of communication. In fact, in 2012, wireless&carriers are likely to handle more text messages than mobile phone call minutes.&

It is important to understand and respect that by marketing via SMS text, brands are communicating with consumers in an intimate manner.

The timing for Facebook could not be worse. Blue chip advertiser General Motors plans to stop advertising on Facebook after the company's marketing team decided that the social network's ads weren't working. The story was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which says GM will continue using Facebook's free pages to promote its products.

While Facebook and Twitter are just about equal in terms of female to male ratio, Pinterest has an overwhelming female audience (80+%).

We’ve spoken about how valuable social media is to brands for connecting with consumers before. For all the apps, self promotion and links you include on your Facebook or Twitter page, you also have to deal with the day-to-day tasks such as dealing with queries, suggestions and complaints. Turns out it’s the latter that will have the greatest impact on whether they go ahead with a purchase or not if the results of a new survey is to be believed.

The ready-to-eat cereal category is extremely competitive and not without its challenges. Commodity pricing pressures have forced many companies to offset costs by raising their own prices. And as if the competition from other branded products wasn’t enough, private-label cereals have become an attractive alternative to price-conscious consumers. Meanwhile, cereal brands have long been criticized for being high in sugar and salt and boasting little nutritional value.

During its most recent earnings call, Google announced that it now has 350 mm active Gmail users. This shows immense growth from an October report that Google had only 260 million users.

Nearly two years ago in March 2010, Microsoft announced that Hotmail had over 369 million active users. There doesn’t seem to be a more recent report available on how well Hotmail is doing after its update, but it is easy to believe that Gmail has had an impact on Hotmail’s numbers.

“As we all know too well, most interactions and communication is done online using a wide variety of social networks. What may not be taken into consideration is the role ethics plays with online sharing and communication, or that there needs to be a place for ethics in social media.” As online sharing and communication becomes increasingly popular, it is important to step back and set as well as review some online communication ethics, just as we have ethics for face-to-face and telephone conversations. This post discusses why ethical principles need to be applied to social media and what should be included in a social media policy, to ensure positive results for your business. “Social media should be a part of a business and business should not entirely be social media. Communicating online is different from communicating in person or printed messages. Be aware of all the different aspects of social media – who sees your message, who is sharing messages and what are they sharing. Take responsibility for any online behaviors – positive and negative – and understand the logic behind having an online presence.”&

Google has released its latest tool that will be powerful for any computer user looking to share files and collaborate on projects in a simple, efficient manner. From a post on Mashable , &“Google Drive, Google’s 5GB cloud-storage service, is official. Announced on the company blog Tuesday, the service will integrate with Google Docs and will allow you to access files from anywhere and collaborate on documents with colleagues. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, which means you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you’ve shared content with someone else, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and you’ll receive notifications when other people comment the items you’ve shared.” This new tool even allows for “smart tagging,” So if you’ve uploaded a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge to your drive, the next time you perform a search for the bridge, your photo will show up along with other results. This is just the latest in a series of Google improvements; this could prove valuable for marketers or anybody with a need for collaboration on a project or needs the ability to easily share files of any kind.&

It’s so easy when you’re designing a website or crafting a marketing campaign:

How do you keep prospects engaged throughout the sales cycle? Does your sales team typically run out of marketing collateral materials and other content at some point during the selling cycle?

In a bid to show just how flexible and soft their new shoes are, Nike have come up with a brilliant web app that uses your face to control the shoes.

The social media landscape changes rapidly and keeping up with the latest numbers is an essential part of continuing to make your marketing relevant and focused.& Here are the latest facts, figures and statistics for seven major social networks that marketers need to take notice of.& The post also embedds an infographic for each social media network.

This blog post is a great reminder that making a purchase isn't sufficient grounds for automatically adding a customer to an email list.& While the email address provided can and should be used for transactional messages, the customer should be asked to opt in before receiving any promotional messages.

Online video works. It brings your message to life. You love it; your prospects love it; even the bean counters love it, simply because it gets results. In fact, a recent Ad-ology study, 2011 Small Business Marketing Forecast, found that 45 percent of small businesses planned to increase resources for online video (double last year’s number). And Interactive Media Strategies reports that bigger companies plan to grow business video spending by 30 percent.

Trendspotting is the mother's milk of digital marketing punditry. If I had a dime for every "top 10 tech trends of [insert year]" article I've ever read, well, I'd just have a large pile of dimes, and if I had a dime for every one I've written, I'd have at least 30 cents.

Forrester just published its fourth annual report "The Business Impact of Customer Experience" using updated data from the 2012 Customer Experience Index. Once again the news is good for companies hoping to get a financial boost from their efforts to improve customer experience. In all of the industries modeled, the revenue benefits of a better customer experience range from $31 million for retailers to around $1.3 billion for hotels and wireless service providers.

Read more to learn what's behind these numbers, including the correlation between customer experience and customer loyalty.

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The Facebook Timeline that brand pages were forced to switch over to last week is "flawed," according to an eye movement study of six brand pages by SimpleUsability, with many of the new features going unnoticed or being misunderstood. "The average user doesn't fully understand the new layout, or interact with it in the way intended," said Guy Redwood, managing director of SimpleUsability. "This will likely change over time, but as the mechanics of obtaining 'Likes' has become more difficult for brands, they now need to drive engagement more than ever."

The study tracked user eye movements when visiting the Web-based brand pages of American Express, Pizza Hut, Coca-Cola, Gap, Coldplay and Manchester United. In addition to pointing out problems with brand pages, the study found certain features on the pages as currently designed were more important.

A campaign in Brazil that uses tickets to raise awareness about organ donors is one of the best bits of marketing you will ever see

Today’s inbound marketing can deliver measurable, reliable information about the success of your initiatives.

&There's no better way to dissect the how-tos of branding than to dig deep into the companies everybody knows and trusts. To accomplish this, Entrepreneur&teamed with The Values Institute at DGWB, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based think tank that focuses on brand relationships, on a consumer survey that explored the reasons some brands manage to stay on top.

Only 25 percent of customers feel "very loyal" to their preferred brands, according to Tim Suther, chief customer and strategy officer at Acxiom. Worse, 25 percent feel no loyalty at all. How can companies build customer loyalty in this time of customer promiscuity? During his presentation at Loyalty 360's Loyalty Expo 2012, Suther offered the following 5 tips:

1. Cultivate your own proprietary insight
2. Leverage the intersection of insights
3. Think inside out
4. And outside in
5. Build trust and transparency

Read on for more detail.

SMS, or text messaging, is the most widely used mobile technology today and it can be a very effective way of gathering email subscribers away from the web.& This tactic is especially useful for companies and non-profits who hold events, run traditional media, or have a significant number of visitors passing through their physical location.

This post &on PR Daily &presents the reader with “The no-fail guide to writing popular blog posts.” The author of this post is Neil Patel, a successful blogger who has propelled one of his own websites into the Technorati Top 100 list. He walks the reader through some helpful tips to gain maximum exposure and get the most out of a post. Some of these tips include “Use simple words,” “Use the word you,” “Write how-to posts,” “Write detailed posts,” “Hook your readers,” “Create a conversation,” and more. He says of using simple words, “The first thing you probably notice when you read popular blog posts is that they're really easy to understand, no matter what the content. They are easy to read because the writer wrote with simple words.I always write my posts with a fifth grade vocabulary rather than that of a highly educated person. I'd rather you be able to read and understand what I write than appear like an educated person who just confuses people. The interesting thing is even with a fifth grade vocabulary, you will look like an expert.Also, people are more likely to share a post they think other people will understand. So use simple words, not fancy ones.” Read into the post to see more of his tips, how do you promote your blogs? Do you use any of these tactics?&

By better understanding the psychology behind customer spend, companies can better target customers with relevant products, according to this article While today's retailers already have a lot of information about their customers, including their purchasing history and which websites they visit, they need to add another layer to this data and better understand the psychological profile of their customers and prospects.

IKEA, the Swedish-based home furnishings retailer that operates about 38 stores in the U.S., launched a YouTube channel called “How to Build,” the latest in a series of new content marketing initiatives introduced by the company’s IKEAUSA division over the past year. The channel currently has eight playlists with videos produced by the company on topics that include design tips, “How to” videos on putting together some of their well-known furniture pieces, and style ideas for various rooms, including kitchens, bedrooms and living rooms. One playlist also is home to all of IKEA’s ads.

In this post on Mashable written by Lauren Indvik, the role of Facebook in online retail is highlighted along with some interesting facts about the past year in “F-Commerce” and why some retailers are shutting down their Facebook stores.

From the post, “A Bloomberg report this weekend pointed out that Gap, J.C. Penney, Nordstrom and GameStop have all opened and closed shops on Facebook within the past year — undermining expectations that the social network will become a major revenue driver for retailers over the next decade.”& The author points out that Facebook commerce may not be completely responsible for the failings of online retail stores on the social site. “In most cases, retailers have entered the f-commerce market by importing their online catalogs and making them available for purchase in a Facebook app. The experience is nearly identical to shopping on their websites, with two major differences: 1) Shoppers can complete their entire browsing and checkout experience without leaving facebook.com; and 2) the Facebook apps tend to work more slowly. In other words, consumers have little to no incentive to shop via these Facebook apps.”

Let’s keep the conversation moving forward, is F-Commerce a dying entity or are retailers just going about their selling on Facebook in an ineffective manner?&

This post &on Mashable by David Berkowitz discusses tips to avoid making mistakes when taking your marketing campaign to Twitter. Berokwitz writes about “hashtag marketing” campaigns becoming high jacked thrusting them towards irrelevance. &His first tip is to figure out why you might be using a hashtag in the first place. He says, “Brands tend to use hashtags, predominantly on Twitter and sometimes other services like Instagram, either to create a centralized discussion around their campaign or event, or to jump into conversations that are already happening. Assess what you want to get out of the hashtag before diving in.” The post goes on to speak about other tips for hashtag marketing including determining what kind of hashtag makes sense for your goals, thinking of the worst-case highjacking situation, and more. Berkowitz points out the future of marketing campaigns will certainly incorporate hashtags, so learning from other brands hashtag campaigns is important for campaign success.

Let’s keep the conversation moving forward! What hashtag campaigns have you seen succeed on Twitter or Instagram?&

This infographic explores different aspects of customer loyalty--from what it is to why it is an important aspect of business to future trends impacting loyalty. While it emphasizes the role of customer service in cultivating loyalty, the importance of marketing cannnot be overlooked as well.& The customer wants--or often demands--to be delighted.& Both marketing and service play a crucial role in fulfilling that promise.&

by Robert Gembarski on February 6, 2012 Starbucks has a big brand presence online. Not because they have millions of dollars for Marketing and Advertising, which they do have, but because they are one of the most engaging companies online. If you are fan of Starbucks coffee, and a bit Internet savvy, then chances are you have come across one of if not all of Starbuck’s Social Media Pages. Starbucks has made it a point to take its successful offline branding strategies and implement them online. Its online image and messages have stayed consistent with their brand values, which are honesty, sincerity, and connecting with its consumers on a level unlike any other brand. The offline Starbucks Culture has taken to the airwaves of the Internet and Social Media. Lets take a look at how they became one of the most engaging brands online.

Landing page creation, optimization and analytics best practices.

In this post on Contentmarketinginstitute, Barry Feldman offers his essential playbook to winning the content marketing Superbowl. Feldman writes, “We’ll call it the Super Content Marketing Bowl, where scoring points means expanding your audience and establishing authority in the things you do best. Before we play ball, we’ll meet at the 50-yard line and introduce some new rules for taking home the content marketing trophy.”

The top three points stated include, “You need a great site to compete,” “Go for the goal” and “Score points.” He says of scoring points, “Promote your blog relentlessly by using the social media tools available to you, creating links where you can, and joining relevant conversations on other blogs. Write guest posts for other blogs, and syndicate your content by finding relevant outlets for publication. Forge relationships with strategic allies,” and more.

Let’s keep the conversation moving forward! With the big game around the corner, do you find this playbook the key to content marketing success? What are your favorite points?

Marketers’ Super Bowl strategies are locked up by now, so consider the suggestions below more of a wish list than a guide. These apply to far more than the Super Bowl, though, so print them out or save them in Evernote and use them throughout the year ahead.

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Written by Jeff Bullas - Coca Cola has been part of popular culture for over 100 years and has been called a “Vision Brand“. Recently they have realised that their marketing strategy that has worked well for them for decades needed to evolve and as such they are moving from “Creative Excellence” to “Content Excellence”.

Women are earning, spending, and influencing spending at a greater rate than ever before.

An interesting infographic exploring the email subscription practices of leading fashion retailers.& While many are following standard email marketing best practices, there is still plenty of room for improvement, particularly with personalization (only 26% ask for subscriber interests) and opt-in (only 5% use double opt-in).

As part of a pilot program in select US markets, French hotel chain Accor Hotels is incorporating social media into its customer loyalty program.& Employees at those hotels identify the loyalty program members who are checking in a given month and research their public profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media websites. They then select a gift to be presented to each guest by the hotel manager.

The branded, direct-to-consumer short features Dutch model Lara Stone, an SL Roadster and a tornado.

Email subject lines are a form of headline. They attract attention and get your email content a chance to be read, so write them well.

IKEA France recently ran a social campaign on their Facebook page promoting a unique contest where those who have 'liked' their Facebook page can win an evening in their furnished pop-up apartment.

The fast-evolving world of digital marketing has undergone profound changes over the past year. 2012 will offer us some even more interesting developments.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Content will trump craftiness

Google’s recent (and arguably overdue) change to its search algorithm, or how it ranks sites, was the game-changer of 2011. Google’s older algorithm gave less weight to how frequently a company was being discussed on social platforms like Twitter and more to relevance. On the one hand, expect to see more results to be linked to timely and social relevance and less to esoteric tinkering. On the other, as its product offering becomes arguably more robust, expect a bit of backlash over Google’s keyword and site promotion offerings (have you noticed how those sponsored sites are slowly taking over the results page?). The burden of authentic, timely and relevant content on the part of companies will become ever more important.

Whether they pushed the pop-culture envelope, captured consumer attitudes for a moment or forced changes in how the big game's ads are run, the following represent the commercials we think spurred the most movement.

How brands, such as Kodak Galler, AAA, and Lexus, are using a variety of approaches to make email marketing more interactive, improving engagement and gaining critical insights that can be leveraged in future communications.

Svedka Vodka's stated mobile marketing goals include spontaneous brand engagement and social sharing.

The importance of sending relevant email messages is frequently discussed by email marketers at conferences, webinars and on blogs. However, how many organizations achieve this objective? To answer this question, MarketingSherpa surveyed more than 2,700 marketers and asked how their organizations were sending email communications based on four key areas: relevant content, sending time, segmentation of subscribers, and the clarity of the conversion goal in the email.

Landing page creation, optimization and analytics best practices

Social Marketing Science: Timing Maximizes Engagement On Twitter And Facebook

The premise of customer database segmentation is that marketing and consumers are not one-size-fits-all. Traditionally, marketers segmented huge databases of customers by geography and purchase history. But as consumer behavior has become more trackable, marketers are using that data to categorize consumers on a deeper level and target them with unprecedented precision. 


Got a great email marketing solution? Got a solid opt-in and scrubbed contact list? That’s half the battle to a great return on your email marketing investment. Here are six simple tips you can use to improve almost any email marketing effort. 1. Remember why it’s called a “message”. If you think of your email campaign as an ongoing dialogue with each prospect, it will change your strategy. For instance, in a dialogue, you have to keep the conversation going – and that means listening to the people you’re talking about. (How are they responding? What actions are they taking?) It also means staying relevant. (If they visited your blog after your last email, but have never been to the products page after several messages, stop sending them messages that try to drive them to the products page – offer them an incentive to take some other action instead.)

Improved segmentation and better targeted content are being credited for the surge in consumer approval of email marketing over the past 12 months, according to the 2011 DMA Email Tracking Study published by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) in conjunction with fast.MAP and Alchemy Worx.

The number of consumers reporting that half or more of the marketing emails they receive are of interest to them has increased more than threefold over the past year, from one in ten (9%) in 2010, to one in three (30%) in 2011. Moreover, just one in four consumers now say that only less than 10% of the marketing emails they receive are of relevance to them – down from two-thirds (64%) of consumers in 2010.

Read more about the findings on MyCustomer.com.