Your online ads are working, but does anyone believe it?

As a marketer you spend a great deal of time planning, executing, and monitoring the results of your online campaigns. You watch CTRs, CPCs, and Conversion rates. Then create monthly reports that are supposed to demonstrate the value these campaigns bring to your organization. Unless you are running a sole proprietorship, this means convincing others that all of these numbers and percentages translates into a net gain for your organization. The following steps will make sure that your creating reports that are convincing and have the support of your entire team: Read more…

When Verizon first announced they were releasing a Google Android phone I was hopeful that this would be the phone that would keep me from switching to AT&T (just so that I could get an iPhone). Well, as it turns out that is exactly what they delivered! I picked up my DROID the morning of the release and have been running it through its paces to see what it can do. I have read a lot of the pre-release reviews and they all pretty much said the same thing, so what I wanted to focus on was how it actually worked out in the real world. Read more…

Meeting your customers in the medium THEY are most comfortable with is a cornerstone of good eMarketing.  Since Facebook is the largest social website on the internet you will inevitably decide that your products or services need a presence there. You’ll set up a Facebook Page and suddenly have this new medium that needs regular updating with content and monitoring for interactions.  You know, the whole “social” part of social marketing. What you need is a way that automates the distribution of your content to facebook pages. So what are you waiting for? Lets get started!

Read more…

When I was a kid I remember getting really exited about this amazing robot, The Omnibot 2000. It could supposedly do all kinds of amazing things. My eleven year old imaginination fantasized about a world where my Ominbot would fetch my drinks and do my chores…a brave new world indeed!  I never did get an Omnibot, but if I did, I bet the feeling of disappointment that eleven year old me would have felt is pretty close to how I feel now about Google Translate.

When Google translate was first announced it was seen as a potential boon for E-Commerce sites and with their new Google Translate widget it seemed like a “no brainer” for any website with an international audience. So, I recently embarked on a feasibility study for our website to see if our customers could benefit from computer translated content.

Secure Checkout fails in Google Translate

Read more…

Plenty has already been said about Twitter and how it has changed social networks. One of the areas that is not talked about enough is the impact consumer engagement can have on your product lines.

I am going to use Adobe Dreamweaver as a case study to demonstrate the various kinds of customer tweets and how Adobe could be positively engaging their Dreamweaver customers on Twitter. I’m picking on Adobe a little bit because I think their current Twitter Dreameaver account isn’t very engaging and could be a valuable resource to the company.

Millions of Twitter users are talking about what they are doing, experiencing or interested in at any moment in time. That practicality guarantees that someone, somewhere is talking about your products or service. You can group these tweets into five categories:

• Praise: The best kind of Tweets. Spontaneous endorsements from actual customers.
• Problems: Oh oh, someone is having a problem with your product or service and they are complaining in a public space! Quick, turn that negative into a positive by showing your commitment to customer service and a speedy resolution.
• Solution: Congratulations, someone has figured out that your products or services are actually helpful at solving some kind of problem. Even better, they are telling others about it.
• buzz: Sometimes your product or service just because part of a conversation.
• Pirate: Some has just posted a link to a message board or another new “warez” site. Oh great, yet another avenue for pirated software to make it into the hands of your potential customers.

Classifying the types of messages that are likely to be generated by your customer base makes it easier for your marketing team to create workflows and policies for corporate communication. You need to create policies that can engage these users and have a positive influence on the twitterverse. Read more…