Owner: Digital Marketing Blog URL:http://www.mobilestorm.com/digital-marketing-blog/ Join Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:21:17 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Digital Marketing Blog by mobileStorm that covers everything from email and sms to voice and fax, from mobile marketing to rss. Site statistics:Click here
Current Web Trends 2007-08-21 10:53:36 The way the networked world is moving.
As an internet marketing manager, it’s always interesting to watch the latest industry trends and tendencies. The following are just some of the hot topics out there that should be paid close attention to in the coming months:
- Social Media combined with PPC – Since most of the major social [...] Read more:Current
, Trends
Pay-Per-Click in Email Campaigns? 2007-08-16 11:35:57 Pay Per Click
in Email
s?
All hail Google AdSense! Well, at least on the web, where Google has paid out millions of dollars to publishers, website owners and content creators. Not only are the big sites like MySpace cashing in on AdSense but so are bloggers like gossip blogger Perez Hilton and popular political [...] Read more:Campaigns
Behavioral Targeting is Nothing New to Savvy Digital Marketers 2007-08-15 12:41:11 Every so often a new buzzword shakes up the mass communications biz, with digital marketers eager to cash in. Podcasting was the term of 2004; social networking, of 2005; vlogs, of 2006. Social networking has made a comeback as the hot sector of the year, thanks in part to the promise of another new buzzword: [...] Read more:Targeting
, Nothing
, Savvy
, Digital
, Marketers
How to Make Sure BlackBerry Consumers Read Your Email Campaigns 2007-08-08 22:52:34 Since its launch in 1999, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry
device has become the defacto option for busy professionals seeking a mobile email option. With a user base of just over 8 million subscribers, it’s not exactly a mass medium but is a very desirable target audience for savvy email marketers. BlackBerry consumers include [...] Read more:Email
, Campaigns
Subscription emails make for happy, spending consumers 2007-08-08 14:23:19 Consumers appreciate marketing that makes their lives easier and gives them ultimate control.
The Retail Email Subscription
Benchmark Study, put out today by the Email Experience Council and Direct Marketing Association, trumpets the success of commercial email subscription campaigns that both make it easy for consumers
to sign up and that allow consumers to opt-in or [...]
SMS For Marketers And Those In Danger 2007-08-03 04:20:35 The last time we wrote about SMS
alerts (see Getting The Word Out Quickly In Emergency Situations), we focused on using this technology to help communicate critical information to a local audience. However, alerts can also be used for marketing purposes around the globe.
We’re not talking mass notices that annoy would-be customers. Instead, [...] Read more:Marketers
, Danger
Free to End User (FTEU) 2007-07-23 11:30:47 An Option Long Overdue for marketers
One of the biggest differences between email and text/SMS messaging are fees associated with the latter, both on the consumer as well as the marketer. This is wholly unique to SMS as a communication vehicle as a consumer is charged for every single message that is both sent and [...]
SMS and SMS Aggregators - Playing catch up 2007-07-12 15:56:21 SMS and SMS Aggregators - Playing catch up
I have been dealing with sending bulk text messages via SMS aggregators since mobileStorm was founded back in 1999. For those of you have never heard of the term, an SMS aggregator has direct connections to most carriers to deliver your text messages through their gateways. [...] Read more:SMS
Newsletter Domain Name 2007-07-05 12:15:32 Long story short: Your newsletter domain should be great. Now, let’s get into details.
A domain name for your newsletter should be recognizable, memorable, easy to spell, “searchable” as a keyword, and even charismatic.
With all other aspects being equal, .com names are significantly more valuable than names in .org and .net TLDs (top level domains). As [...]
The MGM Grand Story - Using cell phones to manage your guest list 2007-06-21 16:12:21 We have decided to start an interesting series of posts on how our clients are using Stun! to build their database and drive more revenue. Our first story comes from straight out of Vegas, and it involves the number one casino in Las Vegas, MGM Mirage. Their largest property, MGM Grand
, recently retained a moving [...]
Politicians And Targeted Messages Are Perfect Running Mates 2007-08-23 14:20:22 The next major U.S. election is a biggie, and you can’t blame candidates from bolting the gate quickly and using the most cutting-edge ways to contact would-be supporters. But enthusiasm aside, there’s no excuse for poor use of communications technology in political campaigns.
Driving home this point is my personal experience and some news reports about candidates reaching out to constituents [...] Read more:Perfect
Newsletter Website Structure Internal Linking and Sitemap 2007-08-29 09:14:26 Today we are going to talk about the importance of making sure your newsletter is tied closely with your Website, both in terms of structure as well as linking. Website structure is how you present your site for both visitors and spiders in terms of their page/file locations. Internal
linking is how you link all [...] Read more:Structure
, Linking
, Sitemap
Why Online Ads Aren’t Enough 2007-08-27 16:14:55 There’s been a lot of excitement lately about the amping-up of online advertising. Many believe that behaviorally-targeted ads ensure that brands will grab consumers’ interests; most recently the social networking site Facebook announced that it would start offering ads based on users’ personal profiles (see our take on the matter). And then there are those so-called ”ad-overlays” on YouTube [...] Read more:Enough
Growing Your Database (part 2) 2007-09-26 10:47:44 Once you have all of the components set up so that you can get data into your database, (as we covered in: “Growing
Your Database
” part 1), you will be ready to put together some strategies to increase your subscriber base. Growing your database is one of the most important things you can do. We have all heard of the stat that repeat customers generate a lot more income for you than new ones, and new customers cost twice as much to convert. By having a solid database, you can continue to market to ensure repeat business. Below are a few things you can do to quickly grow your database:
1. Contest/Sweepstakes: This is the oldest trick in the book, but it still works very well. Each user to you is worth $x amount of dollars. If you are an online sporting goods company with an average gross of $1.00 per person per campaign and your list is 100 people, then you know you will make $100 per campaign. If you give away a free iPhone that costs $600 (wait, sorry first round iphone b
All The Kids Are Doing It - Part 2 2007-09-25 10:47:54 While it’s true that many adults use text messaging and hang out on MySpace, for the most part, evolutionary leaps in digital communications tend to be driven by the youth market. This has been backed up by recent research showing how ingrained such technology is in the personal lives of young people—underlining the importance of utilizing such technologies when marketing to these consumers. A joint study by MTV, Nickelodeon, and Microsoft found that kids, teens, and young adults around the world—ranging from age 8 to 24—are avid users of text-messaging, email, and social sites that foster even more digital communication. And the Mobile Marketing Association says that youths have the highest rate—between 30 and 40 percent—of participation in mobile marketing campaigns.
Such research illustrates the importance of using digital marketing with this coveted demographic, but doing it successfully is another matter. It might be easy to entice youths to send texts to a short code
Fun With Multi-Channel Marketing 2007-09-24 10:44:15 Here’s an entertaining way to understand the power of multi-channel singing. I heard that an MBA professor teaches his students using examples like the following:
Imagine that you are a singer-wannabe named Linda who describes herself as “World’s Greatest Singer”.
That’s Branding.
A friend has sent you an email invitation to a music-networking event. You tell your other friends but they had already received it too.
That’s Email Marketing
.
You arrive at the event and see a lot of music producers there. You write them each a note describing how good you are at singing.
That’s Direct Mail Marketing.
You approach one guy and say, “Hey, I’m the world’s greatest singer.” But he is a technical analyst for some magazine. You go up to another one but he introduces you to the new star-to-be their agency signed a contract with and who they are about to promote.
That’s Wrong Targeting.
(more…) Read more:Multi
, Channel
Digital = Green In Marketing 2007-09-20 10:47:19 “Green
” technology is surging in popularity. The clean tech news site Greentech Media launched at the beginning of this month, while the top two semiconductor makers last week unveiled processors that use less electricity. Digital
marketers, too, utilize green campaigns, and touting this fact could enhance their brands. And ads placed on digital media, of course, use no paper. By conserving energy and trees, email and SMS campaigns are just as “green” as they are “digital.”
The data centers that generate digital marketing campaigns are getting ever greener. Intel and AMD both unveiled multi-core processors that have the power of four chips on a single processor, so servers will require less power to do the same, or more, work. Computer servers, such as the kind that are used to store database marketing information like email addresses, phone numbers and demographics, as a whole are becoming energy-efficient: Sun proclaimed its new data center will cut the company’s yearly Read more:Marketing
SMS Or Die, Ye Scurvy Dogs! 2007-09-19 10:50:46
Ahoy! Since today be Talk Like A Pirate Day, I’d like t’ share one o’ me favorite tips for any pirate captain’s success.
Have ye ever been out at sea and need t’ reach your buckos on anot’ ship, so you can plan t’ plunder a treaaye-laden vessel? Email’s not convenient when yer about t’ board another boat. ‘N voice calls don’ always work tha’ far out at sea. That’s why SMS
be so important t’ t’ successful pirate captain.
See, SMS uses less bandwidth tha’ voice calls, so yer much more likely t’ reach yer mateys with text messages (lookee wha’ me buckos at mobileStorm have to say about tha’ here ‘n here ‘n here). An’ since texts reach a body right in ‘is pocket, e’s most likely to check it faster ‘n an email. So it be behoovin’ a captain t’ use SMS for all his plunderin’ plans. An’ also when plannin’ some time off ashore with me beauties, arrr!
That all sound too complicated? Avast
All the Kids Are Doing It (Part 1 in a series about digital marketing to youths) 2007-09-18 10:21:46
While it’s true that many adults hang out on MySpace, use text messaging (notably in Europe and Asia because it’s cheaper than voice), and of course rely on email as a main form of communication, evolutionary leaps in digital messaging tend to be driven, in large part by the youth market. This has been backed up by recent research showing how particularly ingrained such technology is in the personal lives of young people—and underlines the importance of utilizing such technologies when marketing to these consumers. A joint study by MTV, Nickelodeon, and Microsoft found that kids, teens, and young adults around the world—ranging from age 8 to 24—are avid users of email, text-messaging, and social sites that foster even more digital communication. For example, the study says, 85 percent of Dutch youth say they “can’t live without email.”
Such research illustrates the importance of using digital marketing with this coveted demographic but actually being able to successful Read more:series
Understanding Digital Marketing Regulations 2007-09-17 10:24:43 Digital marketing, in its various formats, has helped companies reach people faster and in more innovative ways than what was previously possible. However, this has been somewhat mitigated by the influx of spammers, phishers and the like who have abused these messaging technologies. Their actions have led to numerous laws and regulations being put in place over the past few years. As a digital marketer, you are probably familiar with at least some of them but what exactly do they mean and how do they affect your campaigns? I will cover the basics in this article, broken down per message type. Let’s start with the biggie – email.
(more…) Read more:Marketing
, Digital
, Understanding
, Regulations
Growing Your Database (part 1) 2007-09-12 10:55:58 Clients always ask me what they can do to grow their database, because lets face it, more subscribers means more revenue (or eyeballs) depending upon what you are trying to accomplish. In part 1, I will discuss all of the ways you can add subscribers to your database. In part 2, we will talk about some techniques that will get people excited to join your database.
With that in mind, here are some good ways to add subscribers to your database -
1. Web forms: There are two types of Web forms you can provide for subscribers so they can add themselves to your database.
a. Website form: I am sure almost everyone has some type of form to capture data on their website. I suggest you try and ask as much information as you can without turning your subscriber off. It’s a fine balance here, and only you know your subscriber base. From my experience, those with fan sites will be able to ask the most questions because subscribers will have the most loyalty and will be well, fanatical about wa Read more:Growing
, Database
SMS Gets Hurricane News Out To Loved Ones And The Public 2007-09-11 10:35:00 We’re now in the midst of hurricane season, which runs from the beginning of June through the end of November and is strongest from August through October. So far this year there have been two hurricanes and four other storms that were strong enough to be named–the latest being the deadly Hurricane Felix that hit Honduras and Nicaragua. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts there will have been 13 to 16 named storms, seven to nine of them hurricanes, by the end of the season. So now is a good time to reiterate why SMS
is the ideal technology for communication during these devastating storms.
When people use cell phones to try to reach loved ones during a catastrophe, SMS works when voice calls do not. That’s because text messages take up a lot less bandwidth than phone calls–they travel as small packets of data on a wireless carrier’s control channel, rather on voice channels. Because text messages are in the control channel, Read more:Public
Submitting Newsletter to Online Directories 2007-09-10 12:08:56 We are moving forward in our Newsletter Marketing series from “Internal Works” section to probably much anticipated “External Works” section, where we will discuss directory submission strategy; link building tactics; newsletter marketing through blogs, forums, newsgroups and classifieds; ezine PPC and affiliate programs; email marketing; social bookmarking; marketing through eBay and Yahoo stores; newsletter branding; video podcasting; product placements; web-advertising; partnerships and so much more. For this week’s topic, let’s start with Directory Submissions:
One of the easiest and quite effective ways to increase your newsletter’s link popularity is to get it listed in directories. Remember: when content is king, links are everything else. Submitting to directories can boost your search engine rankings since Google, Yahoo and other search engines value directories. This is because, in most cases. they are human-edited and contain good quality site Read more:Directories
Newsletter Directories 2007-10-01 13:22:20 A Big List of Article, Newsletter, Ezine Submission Sites
In the past, I have mentioned giving you a good list of sites where you can submit both your whole newsletter/ezine, or just specific articles. Now, it’s time to share with you the most comprehensive and up-to-date list on the web. And it’s free.
When it comes to submitting an entire ezine or newsletter, try to be creative and use different titles and link anchor texts. You are only submitting the URL to your newsletter in this case.
Submitting articles takes a bit more work as the content will be more carefully scrutinized because in this case you are providing a specific piece of content for users to access. Here are some suggestions for this process:
Do not submit the same article everywhere, the only effect you’ll get is no effect. Plus you might suffer from a duplicated content problem.
Change the item you are submitting a bit – shift, rearrange it, use synonyms, get creative.
Change the titles too.
Always Read more:Directories
Mobile Marketing Blog We Like 2007-09-28 12:18:25 The tricky thing about mobile marketing is that it requires two different skill sets: Technological fluency and knowledge of advertising/promotion. These realms aren’t often complementary. A brilliant marketer may have done lots of great things in traditional media but has no idea how to navigate mobile digital platforms. And techies don’t always see the forest for the trees, admiring the technology without caring about its implications for common folk.
Luckily there’s a really cool site we’ve recently discovered called MobileMarketing
Watch. True, we first discovered it when the writer, Vic Berggren, gave us props a couple of times. Still, it’s both useful and engaging.
You won’t find long-winded missives that aim to show off the writer’s knowledge while trying to make less-informed readers feel inferior. Instead, Mr. Berggren writes concise entries about everything from unknown startups to campaign strategies.
Think of mobilemarketingwatch.com as kind of like a One-A-D
mobileStorm Is Part of Baseball History 2007-09-27 10:12:36 Baseball, fashion, and digital marketing collided Wednesday after designer Marc Ecko announced the results of his contest regarding the fate of Barry Bonds’ 756th home run ball.
And the decision: Brand It.
Mr. Ecko, who purchased the ball for $752,467 from the fan who caught it, solicited opinions as to what to do with it. The ball, which beat Hank Aaron’s home run record of 755, has been the source of controversy because of Mr. Bonds’ alleged steroid use. Voters went to the site www.vote756.com and clicked on one of three decisions: (a) “Bestow It” to the Baseball Hall Of Fame; (b) “Brand It” with an asterisk before giving it to the museum; or (c) “Banish It” by sending it to space. The results were delivered via mobileStorm’s Stun! digital marketing platform as an email.
The contest garnered more than 10 million votes. Out of those ballots, 47 percent voted to brand the ball; 34 percent said the ball should be given to the museum, in Cooperstown, New York; and 19 Read more:History
SMS Squeak Of Death 2007-10-11 12:17:12 We at mobileStorm are passionate about all the uses for permission-based email and SMS
messaging. Applications range from public safety to mobile marketing, and can save lives as well as boost one’s brand. But a new use has arisen, which even we couldn’t have forseen: An alert for when a mousetrap has done its job.
Rentokil, a U.K.-based conglomerate that includes a pest control company, has a trap called RADAR that comes in both mouse and rat versions. RADAR (Rodent Activated Detection and Riddance) is high-tech enough, what with its pressure sensors and carbon-monoxide dispenser. But after Mickey or Templeton snuffs it, RADAR will send a text message or email to let you know, perhaps in the words of a movie mob assassin, “It’s done.”
Guess this is appropriate for the person who’s suffered too much vermin for too long and is desperate for some good news. Or perhaps it’s a way for Rentokil to prove its efficacy to the customer, one rodent at a time, like some kind of morb Read more:Squeak
Newsletter Directories 2 2007-10-10 19:02:49 A Big List of Article, Newsletter, Ezine Submission Sites - continued…
The first batch of links with submission guidelines was posted here: Newsletter Directories
.
Now more resources to explore:
Impact Articles - Business, Marketing & Coaching Articles, Serving Writers, Publishers, Webmasters and Business Professionals.
Impact Articles - The Business, Marketing & Coaching Network serving writers, publishers, webmasters and business professionals providing free reprint articles.
http://impactarticles.com/
(more…)
SMS Is Music To Their Ears 2007-10-09 12:49:26 At Digital Music
Forum West in Hollywood, California last week, audience members were encouraged to ask panelists questions via SMS
. A giant screen touted the short code to which a questioner should send a text message, and displayed the resultant queries for all to see. The moment I saw what was happening, I knew that mobile marketing and targeted messaging would be at the forefront of promotions-based discussions at DMF. And that was exciting to me—as both a music fan who blogs in her spare time and as someone who works in the digital marketing industry, two reasons why I was at the conference.
Sure, a very few folks sent sarcastic text messages, like accusations of monopolistic activity aimed at Ticketmaster while an executive of that company was sitting on a panel. But speakers were unfazed, likely because they realized that two-way communication with attendees was worth enduring a few cheap shots. I know I eagerly looked to see if my question was posted on the screen as soon as
Time for Your Check Up - How HIPAA Affects Digital Communications in the Healthcare Sector 2007-10-08 12:36:40 For over 10 years, the healthcare industry has been in the grips of dealing with the massive HIPAA Act, a set of rules so large and vast that it has only just now started to be truly implemented across all medical organizations. HIPAA stands for the Heath Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and was initially passed in 1996 as a way to ensure that citizens would have access to their medical records when requested and ideally in an electronic format.
This led to a complete overhaul of IT systems by hospitals, private practices and other health organizations. Because of the burden of these upgrades, companies were given until 2003 to make their systems compliant with smaller plans getting until last year to be fully compliant. Now, all health records must be stored electronically and individuals have the right to request their personal medical records, which have to be turned over within 30 days.
(more…) Read more:Check
, Digital
, Communications
, Healthcare
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