We’re sure this has happened to you—you are browsing a retail site and considering making a purchase. For example’s sake, let’s say you are looking for a new hat. You have found one you think you like at Hats R Us, but you want to wait until tomorrow to make your final decision so you leave the site. Then, you move on to check the news on your favorite news site. And behold—a Hats R Us ad shows up on the front page. The same thing happens later in the day when you visit a completely different site to check the weather. Is this a sign that you and the hat are meant to be? Or is this just smart marketing?
And this can even work more specifically. Let’s say in the above example, you were looking for a cowboy hat for that square dance you were planning to attend. You spent a lot of time on Hats R Us in the Western section—and so all the ads that show up are specifically cowboy themed. The Hats R Us truly has your number, and after seeing the ads multiple times, you are more likely to remember and revisit their site when it comes time to make your purchase.
We call this an orchestrated fate for you and the hat. And whether you are a retail vendor, looking to increase appointments or registrations, building an eList, or simply branding, this gentle nudging of people who have visited your site is something we can help you accomplish.
Let’s say you are a hospital, and you have a lot of visitors to the cardiology section of your website. Visitors come, browse for information, but don’t always fill out eList sign up forms, make appointments, or take an action. You don’t have to end your visibility with them when they leave your site. We can help you program your site pages so that if a visitor has been to those pages, when they are browsing other sites your ads recognize that this person has been to your site, and are more likely to display. When it comes time to make an appointment, you are more likely to come to mind—or it’s possible that seeing your ad will push them to revisit and take a next step.
If you want to get into the nitty gritty of how we accomplish this, here are the basics: within your website, we tag pages with a special code. Then we program your ads to recognize that code even after you leave the site. We can tag your entire site, or specific pages within your site to make the ads more targeted (like in the cowboy hat and cardiology examples above).
This benefits you, since your relationship with the consumer doesn’t have to end when they leave your site. And your consumers are happy, since they know you know what they want. And when their cowboy hat arrives, they can be pleased that fate brought them together.
Ever wonder if the YouTube videos and blog articles you stumble upon during the day are old news? ‘Is It Old?‘ can help you find out, and (hopefully) save you from embarrassingly sharing a link that’s past its prime.
All you have to do is copy and paste the link into ‘Is It Old?’ It then uses open API to analyze how many times it has been posted to Twitter and how many days ago it was first shared. Depending on these factors, you’ll get a response on a scale of “Dead” to “You’re the first!”
Although it can help you figure out how long the link has been around, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the link is or isn’t worth your time. It will tell you how many people have shared the link before you, and how long ago it was published. It’s ultimately up to you to decide if it’s still worth sharing.
Do you see yourself using this tool before sending out any content you find online?
We are proud to be a part of Downtown Elgin, especially when the city offers great community events. This year, we are showing our holiday cheer by participating in Downtown Elgin’s Rockin’ in a Window Wonderland.
We had so much fun creating our holiday-licious window that we decided to share the experience. We painted the windows over the course of one week and then condensed it to 2 minutes thanks to the miracle of time-lapse photography. Also, as part of the window contest, you get extra points for “bringing your display to life” during the event. We decided, since social media is our thing, to bring them to life virtually. So we will have a QR code within the window display so passers by at Window Wonderland (Saturday, December 3, 12-5) can enjoy seeing the window art go up from within.
Be sure to stick around for the last 30 seconds—it will be worth your time!
I’m a sucker for contests. I absolutely love them and I enter them all the time. Contests are not only a great way to win something cool or gain some extra cash…they are a great way for the company who is running it to advertise themselves or their product. Lets be honest, we all remember the Doritos contest winner from last year’s Super Bowl. Why? Because Doritos did some serious marketing to promote their contest last year, therefore leading to crazy amounts of brand awareness for them all over the internet. I mean, if you see something you like or you have a friend who submitted a commercial and you want to help them get votes, where are you going to post a link? More than likely you will post it on Facebook or tweet it to get exposure from the widest audience all at one time without having to know everyone’s email address.
Some friends of mine recently entered a submission in this year’s Doritos Crash The Superbowl Contest. Within days of posting their video, it is one of the most viewed commercial submissions on the whole site. This proves two things. One is that the use of social media can spread the word rather quickly and two is that Doritos just got oodles of exposure without spending money on media placement. Think about that. Someone just created a commercial for them for free and even if it’s not picked, about 1,400 people have seen it without them even having to do anything. That is excellent marketing! Of course, they are offering the winner 1 million dollars and the chance to work with The Lonely Island, but your prizes don’t have to be so extravagant to get people to participate. Let’s be honest, we all like free stuff.
Our client, Sherman Health, is currently running a contest for Movember. If you don’t know what Movember is, it’s a month long event where men grow mustaches. For Sherman, the mustaches symbolize men’s health and through their Movember Contest, one lucky guy sporting a sweet ’stache will be taking home some Blackhawks tickets. If you haven’t heard about the Movember contest, take a look at the Sherman Health Blog and see what other fabulous prizes we are giving away! Don’t forget to start growing out that mustache .
When building a new website, you want it to be eye catching and helpful to visitors. But something that can get lost while minding your new page’s aesthetics is how the website looks to Google.
A Sitemap, in simple terms, is a list of the pages on your website. Why is it important? We’ll let Google explain:
“Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google’s normal crawling process.”
Your page’s Sitemap gives it a clearer navigation and outline, which Google is happy to reward by boosting the search rank of your page. Google’s search algorithm is as secret as the KFC recipe, but here’s the truth: If you take two identical web pages and give one a Sitemap, that page will have a better Google rank than the page without the Sitemap.
If you have dynamic content on your page within a content management system, a Sitemap is absolutely essential.
An interesting report was released by Experion Simmons regarding the use of Social Media in the US. The report defined “social media” as: “visiting social or professional networking sites, visiting photo or video sharing sites, visiting online forums or message boards or using social tagging or bookmarking at least once in the last 30 days.” Even with this comprehensive definition of social media, the widespread use of social media found in the study is impressive:
91% of online adults (129 million people) access social media per month. Broken down by age:
98% of online 18-24 year olds
82% of online 55-64 year olds
73% of those 65+
Of online adults, 58% visit Facebook monthly, which is significant, although it also shows that all of the above social media use isn’t solely from Facebook. (Although Facebook is clearly the dominant social media site.) The largest age group visiting Facebook once per month is 18-34 year olds at 73%. And those 50+ stands at 41%, up from only 33% in 2010.
Regarding time spent, Facebook users spend 20 minutes and 46 seconds average each time they visit. (I know I’ve been pulled into that time suck—once or twice today already!) Twitter users spend 0:12:41 average, and Google+ spend 0:5:45 average.
The study also found interesting results regarding Hispanic consumers: they are more likely to interact with brands, write reviews, and make recommendations than their non-Hispanic counterparts.
30% follow favorite brands, compared to 18% of non-Hispanic users
33% use social sharing sites to recommend companies or products, compared to 23% of others.
And finally, if you want an effective marketing campaign, you’ve got to have eblasts. To make your eblasts more powerful, mention Facebook. According to the study, “60% of brands that sent out an email with the word “Facebook” in the subject line averaged a 27% increase in traffic to their website the week following the email deployment.”
The study also covers access to Google+ weekly visits, the growing use of social media to communicate between parents and children on social media, where users visit after social sites, mobile and more. Download the full Experian Social Media Study.
I’ve heard a lot of people talking about the massive impact Steve Jobs has had on the computing world since the news spread over Twitter and Facebook about his passing. I haven’t heard many talk about the quantum impact he’s had on our world as a whole. I’ll explain.
Steve Jobs is a rare individual — rare on a Jeffersonian scale. His push to make computers simpler, cleaner and more efficient began with a design that included a monitor and CPU all-in-one. The stout little original Macintosh Classic, with it’s unique graphical user interface (GUI), was a completely different way of looking at how we interacted with computers and how they fit into our lives. I learned design on a Mac Classic before there was anyone who could teach me about it.
Of course Jobs has had an impact on how computers function. I believe his impact extends beyond that into how we function. He’s impacted how we interact with each other. How we access information. How we learn. And that’s where his impact begins to compound on itself and grow exponentially — in a word, his impact becomes quantum.
Jobs heads up Apple, a company which creates tools that creative people use to create other things. Most creatives design, build, educate and inspire others from the the drawing table that is our Apple computers. From writers to designers to architects to chemists — so many of us start on a common platform which for so long seemed a little rogue — like an outsider’s alternative choice and even a physical identity (are you a Mac or a PC?).
It may sounds obvious, but to me it’s quite profound. For a creative, a computer is like a violin. It can be an object of beauty by itself, but in the right hands becomes a tool to create something amazing. A feeling. A desire. Something that can last a moment (like a website) or something that can last forever (a concept that takes hold of our collective imagination).
Many of us are remembering Steve Jobs today. For me, the best way I can remember Steve Jobs is to keep creating and inspiring others. That’s quantum.
Here at Demi & Cooper we’ve been using QR codes in our campaigns for quite some time, but there’s still a bit of mystery attached to them. Marketing and advertising firms have jumped at the chance to utilize these codes for their work, but many fail to be successful. Here are six tips for creating a quick response code that will appeal to customers and gain traffic more efficiently.
1. Make it Readable - A QR code should be at least 3/4 inch squared for a print advertisement. Make sure to test the code for readability with your own devices before mass production. 2. Make it Mobile - According to Mashable.com 99.9% of QR codes are scanned by a mobile device. If the landing page is not a mobile site, you are wasting your consumers time as well as your own. 3. Choose Placement Wisely – Make sure that wherever your QR code is going to be seen is located near a mobile hot spot with Wi-Fi or your code will be rendered useless. 4. Give Instructions - It may seem silly, but telling your target audience to scan the code and how will help rule out any technical difficulties. Telling them what they are going to gain from scanning the code will also give added value to the customer. 5. Make it Unique - If the code is going to take the consumer to a landing page they have seen before or can easily google, don’t bother. The best codes offer something unique to the consumer such as a coupon, time-sensitive or secret information, high definition content, free stuff and more. 6. Utilize Analytics – Be sure to link the landing page of your QR code to a reporting program such as Google Analytics, so you can decipher why a conversion was or was not made after the code has been scanned.
If you have great video content, I’ll wait while you give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back. You’re way ahead of the game. Whether you have 10, 25, 50, or 100+ videos, it sure feels great to have such a wide variety of content online, doesn’t it?
Now, take a step back for a moment. Approach your channel and your library of videos from the perspective of a new visitor. Chances are that the plethora of videos you have on display is overwhelming for this newcomer, so much so that he or she will gladly exit to more familiar territory.
In a striking Catch-22, YouTube channels are where this is most prevalent. YT made it possible for you to upload video after video for public consumption, but your library soon became so daunting that visitors didn’t know where to begin. So they never did.
What’s the solution here? Step away from YouTube and try categorizing the videos on your web page. Take our client, Wet & Forget, for example. Their multitude of videos ranged from application how-tos to interviews about the product. Their library had grown steadily, and having every video on the same page was simply too overwhelming. Pictured below is the new look to the Wet & Forget Videos page.
If you feel that you have great video content that should be getting more attention, take a look at your videos from a new visitor’s perspective. Is it overwhelming? If so, it may be time to re-think the aesthetics of your page. An overwhelmed visitor is a lost visitor, so better categorizing of your material could work wonders.
Your sad devotion to that ancient Jedi religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, but now it may give you the clairvoyance to update your Facebook status. Or perhaps you’d like to boot up the old the W.O.P.R. or tap it out on your brand new iPhone 5.
Well now you can! With Status Via (inspired by a redit post) you can choose your method of Facebook status delivery.
But come on, really folks — let’s back up a minute. It’s cute. But how can we really use this to our advantage? Well, why are there those little tags declaring that that post was delivered from your Droid anyway? Advertising, of course. This is could be a clever little opportunity for marketers to allow customers to post status updates directly from their organizations or products.
Status updates from a product you sell or manufacture? How about from patients at your hospital? How can you do this? You’d have to use Facebook’s Status Message API to label updates with whatever source you want. Go forth and have some fun with your next marketing campaign. And may the force be with you.
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