Social Media

Google Analytics is probably the second most effective (free) tool you can use to make your digital marketing work harder for you (guess which is the #1 most effective marketing tool?).  Google Analytics gives you tremendous insight into your website’s audience; it will tell you what keywords brought a person to your website, what page they came to your website on, what page they left your website on, how long they stayed on your website, and more. This is the sort of information that can be vital to the success of your site.

You may already be aware of all the great metrics Google Analytics provides to track vistor behavior on your website, but did you know it can … Keep reading

In case you don’t follow Fred Wilson’s blog, he included a video in this post which I found to be be great mental fodder. In it, Forrester CEO George Colony is presenting their research on emerging social trends at the Le Web conference in Paris. Colony describes the evolvement of personal engagement that have come from rapid gains in processing power and disk space, saddled by slow gains in network speed. If you’ve ever had the app vs mobile web debate, I think you’ll find this 20-minute video interesting:

I could care less about evaluating which technology company will fall where in the Forrester Wave in the future, I was much more interested in the overlay of those three … Keep reading

We wrote about the metrics of engagement way back in March of last year. Since then a lot has changed so we thought we’d improve upon what we’ve already established and present the metrics of engagement part two.  For anyone who plans on building relationships with their customers and sending personalized offers, these nine performance indicators will help you begin tracking your success immediately.

Acquisition

Every opt-in or new follower is a win. By reviewing the volume of permission-based opt-ins over time, you can interpret your success on a campaign-by-campaign basis. For example, the Signal platform shows how easily you can track which ads or promotions in an enrollment campaign led to new subscribers, which is key to determining ROI … Keep reading

Technological advancements combined with a much stronger sense of community (post katrina/9-11) have changed the way we as humans deal with disaster. Mashable writer Aliza Sherman has taken the time to explore software applications that can help make a difference during trying times.

Interested in learning how nearly 100,000 people  got information about their power and services during one of the most formidable tropical storms of the millenium? You can read all about the method in which National Grid integrated email, mobile, and social media to maintain steady customer communications  today on Mashable, in the article from Sherman.… Keep reading

Signal’s John Sharry takes a break from the road and shares some thoughts on emerging trends in restaurant digital marketing.

(Click the Jump for the Video). … Keep reading

Recently my colleague John Sharry has been talking to a few package design firms about how they can help their customers engage with the mobile shopper and capture either a new member for a loyalty program, new facebook fan, or a new email address.

With the rising threat of private labels, many brands are doing whatever it takes to stay in the ear of their consumer. Given my background at both Signal and a package design firm, I thought I’d offer some quick thoughts on how to effectively use packaging for immediate consumer engagement.

Social Growth & Package

To use the package for social growth, a CPG should ensure they are very clear in their call-to-action. Simply saying “follow us … Keep reading

The infographic above says it all. Physical media rentals are NOT dead. Customers just want to rent in different ways today than they did 5 short years ago.

By providing movie and video game rentals via a network of conveniently located, self-service kiosks, redbox has rented more than 1.5 billion discs at their more than 33,000 kiosks across 27,800 locations nationwide.

But it’s not good enough to merely have a kiosk at locations convenient to consumers. Smart, relevant communication is critical to the success of redbox. It’s the foundation of how redbox deepens their relationships with their loyal customers and acquires new advocates of their brand.

These simple statistics reaffirm this fact:

• Over 4.5 million iPhone app downloads
• Tripled the

… Keep reading

Social media has emerged as the new form of customer service.

Brands such as Comcast, Xbox, JetBlue, Zappos, ING, and Wow Bao, have invested in managing customer communications and expectations through the social channel, specifically on Twitter as is evidenced by my recent experience with Nike.  If continued product utilization is a business objective of theirs, the 75 miles on my Nike plus device since then should be seen as a win for Nike.

I don’t know how many tweets are sent each minute, but Brian Solis once said there are up to 1.8 million tweets an hour.  That means there are roughly 300,000 flying by every minute.  And such is the reason why dozens of tools have emerged … Keep reading

Kids, brace yourselves: summer is almost over. I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s a hard truth. Tomorrow will be the middle of July, just six weeks to September.

For retailers, back-to-school planning started months ago and has come to life over the past couple weeks with in-store displays and products showing up on shelves as early as July 5^th.

Retailers: did you remember to pack mobile in your strategy?

As a leader in cross channel marketing, we’ll be the first to tell you that any promotions strategy should have mobile as a core element of every campaign, fully integrating the channel with your email, social media, display, SEM, in-store and out-of-home collateral.

But … Keep reading

Reaching subscribers at the right time can make the difference between getting your emails and texts read and having them ignored. The only surefire way to know the best time to send is by conducting tests. However, there are best practices by industry that can help provide directional insights.  This is certainly true for this post’s focus – Quick Serve Restaurants.

In order to ensure your message is relevant and valuable to the consumer, you must understand how and when people decide on where to dine.

To that end, I’ll attempt to help answer the following questions.

When are dining decisions being made?

How are they investigating their options?

What factors are leading to the customer’s decision?

To answer the … Keep reading