Is Cyber Monday Dead?

According to eMarketer Cyber Monday is dead. Various sources are reporting an uptick across the board in both on and off-line spending for the Thanksgiving holiday. That alone is something to be thankful for. Digging into the numbers from Coremetrics there's real evidence that a segment of the population is also using their mobile devices. Whether they are making a purchase or just browsing the site for the latest deals is irrelevant. That fact is they are online and looking for something - right; coupons, discounts, promotions, directions, etc.

Whether your business is retailing online or just driving traffic to your site to spur offline sales, your online presence, image and ability to just be found is increasingly important. Last week we interviewed several businesses who maintained they must go it alone due to costs - they can't afford to outsource or hire someone to manage or run their interactive marketing; or even worse - they "know how to do it, (we) just need to commit some time." Sleeping on the job never got me a pay raise. Neither did being stubborn.

Trying to shoot a moving target is a difficult task. So too is Interactive Marketing. Reason being, you've got to be up-to-speed on where the target is now, or where it's going. Unless you're entrenched in the in's and outs of the marketing industry, you're more than likely going to miss the target, or at best, get there after it has moved.

Don't get bogged down in the details of learning how to do interactive. Educate yourself on what you think you need and get with (hire) a firm that can help you meet your needs & goals. Small and Medium size businesses that opt to go-it-alone are missing opportunities 24/7. And at what cost?

How can you cost-justify outsourcing? How much does your average sales agent generate each year?

Social Media Is Top Priority for Search Marketers

Social will be at the center of SEO and PPC campaigns

Is 2011 set to be the “year of Facebook,” even among search marketers? Based on what US advertisers told search marketing agency Covario, it’s definitely the year of social.

Search marketers have discovered how social media marketing can help build their search engine optimization efforts, and respondents to the Covario survey said their No. 1 priority for SEO next year was integration with social media programs. According to the report, “leveraging social media for scalable link-building efforts is a major initiative for advertisers.”

Social media will also play an important part in paid search efforts next year. Search ad campaigns on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn were top of mind for nearly half of advertisers surveyed—far ahead of priorities like local search or dealing with recent changes to major search engines (for example, Google Instant and Yahoo!-Bing integration).

Social Media Is Top Priority for Search Marketers

Leveraging Best Practices for Social Media!

Achieving social media marketing goals, whatever your level of participation Brands and marketers have different levels of participation in the social media space, but many have similar goals and strategies. The “2010 Social Media Benchmarking Study” from Ketchum and FedEx found when looking at 62 study participants from a variety of industries that 100% had some degree of social media presence.But they demonstrated different engagement levels, including observers who are determining how to best use social media and leaders who push boundaries and innovate.

Leveraging Best Practices for Social Media

Does Social Media Marketing Make Sense for the Smallest Businesses?

Small businesses unsure about reaching audience on social sites

eMarketer estimates that 127 million people in the US, or 57.5% of internet users, will use social networks at least monthly this year. Facebook alone has over half a billion active users worldwide. Still, many of the smallest businesses don’t believe their customers can be marketed to on such sites, according to an August 2010 survey from customer review platform RatePoint.

Respondents, the majority of whom were business owners with just one to five employees, were split on whether social media was a quick way to connect with current or future customers, but sentiment was largely negative. When asked if they thought customers wanted to hear from them on social sites, only a quarter of businesses thought they did.

In addition, 20% of small businesses did not think their customers spent time on social networking sites; another 27% were undecided. And nearly a quarter did not believe their customers did research online before doing business with their company.

Does Social Media Marketing Make Sense for the Smallest Businesses?

Social to Boost SEO!

Majority of companies have blogged with goal of search optimization

The majority of search marketers have recognized the importance of social media to their search engine optimization efforts, according to a November 2010 study from search marketing software provider SEOmoz.

Nearly 71% of respondents said they use social media as part of their SEO strategy. Social media marketing can be an excellent driver of content visibility, by helping to keep content fresh and abundant, and also by increasing the number of inbound links a site receives.

Social to Boost SEO

Emineo Media

Have Click Rates Finally Stopped Declining?

Stabilizing, but there’s more to performance

One of online marketers’ simplest metrics to keep track of, the clickthrough rate, has been in decline for years. As many recognize the importance of other measures in determining the success of online campaigns in attempts to capture the branding as well as the direct-response effects of advertisements, fewer and fewer web users were clicking on fewer and fewer ads.

Based on longitudinal data from digital ad solutions provider MediaMind, however, that decline appears to have stopped. The company’s analysis of data from July 2006 through July 2010 shows that annual average click rates have plateaued, at 0.09%.

According to “Standard Banners—Non-Standard Results,” it was the success of online display ads that caused the drop in clicks to begin with. As users saw more and more ads across the internet, many continued clicking, but not fast enough to keep up with the expanding inventory. Clickthrough rates fell steadily until reaching an equilibrium.

Have Click Rates Finally Stopped Declining?

Emineo Media

Benefits of Email-Social Media Integration!

Social media most effective channel to integrate with email

Several studies have shown that a majority of email marketers are making use of social media tactics, both to boost their social media efforts as well as to improve email campaigns.

A June 2010 survey of North American email and online marketers by email marketing firm Lyris found that most of them were seeing positive results. Just 6% said their marketing results were no better after integrating social and email, compared with 54% who said results were at least somewhat better.

Benefits of Email-Social Media Integration

Emineo Media

Keep Brand Fans on Board!

Social media marketers who have successfully attracted fans of their brand to their Facebook or Twitter page have only just begun their real task: keeping those fans interested and engaged, and hopefully turning them into advocates on the brand’s behalf.

According to a September 2010 survey by social media marketing agency Cone, incentives remain the biggest draw for consumers connecting with brands online. New-media users expect deals, but also look for brands to help solve their problems and get their feedback on products and services.

Keep Brand Fans on Board

Emineo Media

Small Businesses Focus Online Spend on Websites!

A plurality of small businesses will keep their marketing budgets steady next year across the board, including spending on websites, direct mail, print, TV and social media, according to research by Zoomerang and GrowBiz Media, a provider of information and services to help organizations reach the small and midsize business audience.

This year, SMB allocation of online marketing budgets leaned toward websites, where 27% of SMBs with 1,000 or fewer employees spent at least 30% of their budget. Email took second place with 18% devoting 30% or more, followed by social media, where 10% of SMBs said they spent at least three in 10 marketing dollars.

The tilt toward investment in websites should continue, as 17% of respondents said they planned to increase budgets for their site in 2011—the highest percentage planning to up any budget line item. In comparison, 15% said they would spend more next year on email and 13% on social media.

According to the survey, the vast majority of SMB websites include general information about the company, but only a minority offer customer service, lead capturing or ecommerce features, leaving plenty of room for investment.

In the realm of word-of-mouth marketing, SMBs relied mostly on the traditional: 70% said they used in-person networking and 50% customer referral rewards, while a comparatively small 34% used social media. Facebook is the most popular social site (80%), but further investment should help small businesses take advantage of the low-cost marketing opportunities in the channel.  Source - eMarketer

The moral here is that you can actually undermine your own marketing efforts if you aren't also tending to your company's online facad, aka your website. Your company website is an investment, not an advertisement.

If you're driving traffic to your website, what efforts have you taken to maximize your marketing ROI?

Emineo Media

Smart Marketing using Good SEO!

To construct a great content-rich website takes planning. A competent designer uses online architectural design principles, carefully combining information delivery and intuitive navigation to satisfy the visitor's needs (why they visited) while accomplishing their own business goals (why the website was created – generate sales ready leads, sales products & services, create awareness, etc).

Layout is vital to the online internet marketing of a site that will attract and also satisfy visitors. Simply put, designing an award winning website is not enough. The site needs to be placed in front of potential visitors or they will not know you exist.

Good SEO includes the integration of web design, development, and interactive marketing with focused traffic-generation tactics that is vital to the success of your site. Without smart marketing any great website will fail.

A focus on interactive marketing through website design, search engine placement, search engine marketing, submission, analytics, email, and branding programs is paramount to online success.

Emineo Media

Retail Ecommerce Spending to Grow 13.7% in Q4 2010!

Ecommerce spending is expected to grow 13.7% to $51.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, topping last year’s Q4 sales of $45.2 billion, according to a new forecast published by eMarketer.

Strong online holiday sales will push annual ecommerce sales to $162.4 billion for full-year 2010, up 12.7% over 2009. Online holiday sales will represent an estimated 23.7% of online retail sales in 2010, underlining the importance that November and December have on retailers’ annual ecommerce sales.

via Retail Ecommerce Spending to Grow 13.7% in Q4 2010 - The eMarketer Blog.

Emineo Media

More Time Spent on Social Media than Email Worldwide!

Email most common daily activity, but social racks up more hours

As the social media trend becomes a normal part of life for internet users the world over, it’s also becoming the most time-intensive activity on the web.

The TNS “Digital Life” survey of internet users around the world found in September 2010 that on average, surfers spent 4.6 hours a week on social sites, compared with 4.4 hours on email, the most common internet activity.

via More Time Spent on Social Media than Email Worldwide - eMarketer.

Emineo Media

A Study: Twitter Increases Student Engagement!

Communicating in 140-character segments may seem to contradict the goals of generally long-winded academia, but a new study has found that the two are less opposed than one might think. Students in the study who were asked to contribute to class discussions and complete assignments using Twitter increased their engagement over a semester more than twice as much as a control group.



The study used a 19-question survey based on the National Survey of Student Engagement to measure student engagement at the beginning and end of a seminar course for first year students in pre-health professional programs. Four sections (70 students) were given assignments and discussions that incorporated Twitter, such as tweeting about their experiences on a job shadow day or commenting on class readings. Three sections (55 students) did the same assignments and had access to the same information, but didn’t use Twitter.

via Twitter Increases Student Engagement [STUDY].

Emineo Media

HOW TO: Optimize Your Social Media Marketing Strategy!

There’s nothing like the basics to help bring things back into focus when you feel lost. In “Marketing 101,” the acronym AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. This is the most simple and rudimentary of sales and marketing funnels and is still incredibly relevant today when it comes to social media and Internet() marketing strategies.

Each section of AIDA represents a section of your sales and marketing process and can help you set your expectations, decide what to monitor, and visualize the relationships between each part. Understanding the flow of the tools and tactics will also help you get your measurements and analytics in line with your goals.

Here’s a closer look at the breakdown of this marketing funnel, some tips on how to apply it to your social media strategy, and a look at how the model is evolving in the social media age.

via HOW TO: Optimize Your Social Media Marketing Strategy.

Emineo Media

What Really Drives Young Adults' Purchase Decisions?

Products that convey personal achievement and social interaction are valued:

Research has suggested that cause marketing appeals to US consumers, and that millennials in particular care about social and environmental issues.



Data presented by Resonate Networks at the October 2010 Pivot Conference in New York City confirmed the importance of such issues to young adults. Consumers ages 18 to 34 are more likely than their older counterparts to care about a variety of issues, including various civil rights and environmental concerns.

via What Really Drives Young Adults' Purchase Decisions? - eMarketer.

Emineo Media

UK Shoppers Are Global Leaders in Online Spending per Person!

Widely reported last week—by the Guardian, the World Advertising Research Council Warc and new media age magazine, among others—were the results of a study commissioned by Google from the Boston Consulting Group BCG. The headline figure brought a broad smile to faces more often creased with worry in recent months. According to BCG, the internet was worth £100 billion $139 billion to the UK in 2009. That was 7.2% of the country’s gross domestic product—not far behind the 9% contributed by the financial industry.

via UK Shoppers Are Global Leaders in Online Spending per Person - eMarketer.

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