Today in the Huffington Post, experts at this, a headline read; “Fox News President Makes Shocking Admission About Sarah Palin” OK, great headline, makes people want to click to read it. Problem is the only mention of the [...]]]> Everyone has seen them. The headline screams a crazy tune, but the copy does not back it up.

Today in the Huffington Post, experts at this, a headline read; “Fox News President Makes Shocking Admission About Sarah Palin” OK, great headline, makes people want to click to read it. Problem is the only mention of the former VP candidate was one line about why the Fox news president hired her. Turns out it was for her looks and popularity, go figure.

The rest of the article was a great piece about the career of the 73 year old Roger Ailes, the head and founder of Fox news. Though I did read the article, it was not what first caught my attention.

Changing  Headlines

Another thing HuffPo is known for is changing the title of their articles frequently. This very article could have a different headline tonight or tomorrow morning. They do it all the time. In fact, I’ve found myself clicking on the same article several times thinking it was a new article, only to find out it was only a new headline.

Does Any of This Work?

By work, I of course mean does it generate a goal; more page views, advertising clicks, satisfied readers, you get the idea. I’m pretty sure you can say this gets them more page views. Advertising revenue is harder to guess. On satisfied readers you can count me as a no vote. But I’m guessing they would not be doing this if it did not increase one KPI or another.

Maybe my headline for this article should have been; “Huffington Post Invents Click Through Machine”

What do you think?

Apple cutting back on supply orders for the iPad may be a sign that they are expecting a battle. Given the rapid sell out [...]]]> This mornings post seems even more justified now that Amazon has unleashed the $199 Kindle Fire. They should have called it the Kindle Storm because it will take the world by storm.

Apple cutting back on supply orders for the iPad may be a sign that they are expecting a battle. Given the rapid sell out of the HP tablet just a couple of months ago for $99, I don’t thinks it’s because of a lack of desire for tablets in the market.

With a 7″ screen it will be even more important to have a suitable tablet interface for your site given the tens of millions of Fire’s Amazon will sell.

Competition is good.

“What’s the big appeal? [...]]]> With today’s announcement of the Amazon Fire tablet, you can be sure that tablet sales for the 2011 holiday season will go through the roof. If you’re still relying on your regular website to deliver you site to tablets, your missing the boat.  As mentioned in this month’s Website Magazine,

“What’s the big appeal? New tablet apps such as TheFind’s Catalogue and Google Catalogs for the iPad. Tablets allow mobile consumers to view products on larger screens, giving retailers greater flexibility to display their inventories, pricing information, customer reviews, etc. Many retailer catalogs can be viewed in rich media through these apps”

Still not convinced? Here are 4 reasons to get a tablet strategy today:

1. Navigation – Site navigation using a finger is much different than using a mouse. Since your hand is immediately in your way once it moves toward the screen to click, buttons need to be larger and other elements better positioned.
2. Screen sizes – Table screen sizes are not all the same. With the common sizes being 7″ and 10″ your site may be hard to view on a smaller screen, causing visitors to have to “pinch & scroll”
3. Personal experience – Tablets are a much more personal interaction than PC’s. People are more relaxed while using a tablet. Using fingers on a device to interact with products is more engaging than a mouse.
4. Preferred over Smart phones – Why not just use your smart phone interface for tablets? Forty percent of tablet owners use their tablets instead of their personal computers when both are available, Forrester found. And though more people are shopping on  , they use them mostly for comparing prices and receiving mobile coupons, and get frustrated by the small screen. (NY Times)

Do you have a tablet strategy for your eCommerce site?

Being a firm believer in the role of content in social media, I took Altimeters’ hourglass and mapped out what content would look like against the Social [...]]]> In a recent post Altimeter, the social media strategy folks, posted a great graphic on the Social Media Hour Glass. It documents the buying cycle through social media interaction.

Being a firm believer in the role of content in social media, I took Altimeters’ hourglass and mapped out what content would look like against the Social Media Hourglass.

This model only looks at the role of content while fully aware of the place all the other on and off-line marketing has on happy customer and a sale.

Rinse & Repeat

Awareness- Advocacy & friends can play a big part in creating awareness of your products and services. For large companies with a  monstrous base, advocacy plays an important part in managing social media, but it also plays a part in companies of all size.

Consideration – Once aware, you relay on your website, customer reviews, social content, blogs, and other content to further more a customer toward your product.

The most interested customers will want as much detail as they can get, so landing pages, videos and other more detailed content becomes more important.

Intent – Once close to a decision, customers need supporting information on purchase specifics; when will my product arrive, is shipping really free, will your support team be available 24/7,  what are your terms?

Support – After the purchase your support content needs to be consistent with pre-purchase and be available across multiple platforms.

Loyalty – Building loyalty through email, rewards programs, recognition requires content geared toward the budding Advocate.

Advocacy – Advocates need more information and content to share than the average fan. In order to help you grow and support your social base this group needs specific and detailed content not available to your average customer

In the end your advocates support your awareness and the cycle starts all over again.

What is your social content strategy?

9 Week Holiday Planner

QR Codes are quickly gaining popularity. Because of this many companeis are putting them everywhere, often without thought as to what they want to accomplish.

How to have a Bad Customer Experinece with QR Codes

In a recent Sunday newspaper (yes, I do still get a paper) ad section, a large local retailer [...]]]>  

9 Week Holiday Planner

QR Codes are quickly gaining popularity. Because of this many companeis are putting them everywhere, often without thought as to what they want to accomplish.

How to have a Bad Customer Experinece with QR Codes

In a recent Sunday newspaper (yes, I do still get a paper) ad section, a large local retailer had QR Codes on almost half the products in their circular. All touted the refrain, “Get a Lower Price”, leading you to believe that if you used the QR code, you’d be rewarded with a lower price on that product. Very cool. Three problems;

1. Many of the QR codes would not scan because they were too small to be read
2.  Once scanned, they took me to a non-mobile ready web page
3. The pages were also very generic with multiple products on the page, I could not find the one I wanted!

 At least not easily. I simply gave up and went on to the sports section.

This was a total waste of effort for this retailer.

A Better QR User Experience

What should have happened once the I took the shot of the QR Code?

1. Above all, make sure the QR codes are big enough to be scanable.
2. The user should always be taken to a mobile friendly web site. With a big chance they are coming from a mobile device this is your best alternative.
3. You should always take the user to the product they were interested in. If they have to search for it you’ll loose them quickly

What other things could you do?

• The QR Code could have been a game. Randomly generated pages with different discount code. This would prompt use of the QR and get more folks into the store.
• The landing page should be highly sharable

QR Codes are a great new asset for off-line retailers if used properly. If not, they are a waste of time and will create customer frustration.

I’ve had great success on all three and along the way the first two have taught me a bit about the third.

I like the NetElixer Calendar. Below I’ve added [...]]]> We’re almost in October and the leaves in the Northeast are already starting to change. That means the holiday season is upon us. My friends at NetElixer, one of my favorite Paid Search partners, sent out this great email with a 9 week holiday planning calendar in it. 

I like the NetElixer Calendar. Below I’ve added chart covering the key items you should consider for your holiday digital marketing plans

Have you built your holiday calendar yet?

Love him or hate him President Obama was the first US politician to use Social Media to rip the roof off of online fundraising. So much so that even many republican candidates are taking pages out of his 2008 playbook. It appears that the folks at Obama’s HQ are at the cutting [...]]]>

Image via Wikipedia

Love him or hate him President Obama was the first US politician to use Social Media to rip the roof off of online fundraising. So much so that even many republican candidates are taking pages out of his 2008 playbook. It appears that the folks at Obama’s HQ are at the cutting edge again. This time by making a game out of fundraising.

Gamification has been growing in the digital media space for the past few years so it makes sense that it would make its way to politics. Here’s a look at the Obama camps page for fundraisers.

Fully equipped with a leaderboard and prizes. No iPad’s here, just a call from the president himself or the vice president, which might be the perfect prize given the target audience.

With a very [...]]]> From late 2007 to 2010 I started and ran The Speaker Company, a new brand for the Denon & Marantz group of home audio products. The challenge was to build a brand as quickly as possible for this direct to consumer company, in a coporate structure that was primarily a two-tier sales organization.

With a very small marketing budget and few resources, we set about to get brand recognization and sales in a crowded field, consumer audio speakers, during the begining of the recession.

Many companies face the same problems with new brands whether inside a larger company or a under-funded start-up.

Below is an outline of the approach we took to build a solid brand presence for The Speaker Company.

1. Start with Adwords - It’s quick, easy to budget, easy to measure. We used a modest budget to kick-start sales.
2. Content creation - This is the hub of most on and off line success, no matter what problem your company solves. People want an answer to a problem. Supply it. We hired a great writer, supplied the voice we wanted, and made our case.
3. Share your answers to the problems in as many places as possible. Yes Facebook and Twitter, but more importantly in appropriate forums. Be part of discussions. We spent many hours in forums and other industry related sites.
4. Identify and engage with key influential people; bloggers and forum experts. Give product/service away for review purposes. This works wonders but don’t expect it to happen overnight. Most people are cautious of new brands. We had dozens of reviews in influential forums and quickly gained recognition from key blogs and forum posters.
5. Continue to develop “creative & sharable” content to help boost SEO. Continue this on an ongoing basis. Start a blog that addresses not only your product/service, but other issues related to your customers lifestyle and problem set. Post at least twice a week or more. We also hired a social/SEO company to help us develop relevant content that greatly boosted SEO. (in 8 months we ranked for 100′s of top level keywords)
6. Affiliate Marketing - If appropriate for your product or service, launch an affiliate program, it’s a cost per sale model, is highly measurable and does wonders for branding for a very low cost. This eventually made up 20% of our sales.
7. Customer Service -Last but not least give “off the charts” customer service. Keep customers insanely happy, especially the ones that complain, they will tell their friends.

There of course is more to it than what I outlined above, and there are many deeper details to each of the bullet points. But overall this was it. In the end the company built a reputation for building and selling quality speakers at half the price. After 2 and a half years, The Speaker Company was closed for reasons unrelated to sales or brand awareness, but the success we had lived on for Boston Acoustics which garnered a 21% boost in organic traffic with the 301 redirect transfers we put in place.  

Want to find out more on how to build your brand online? Visit the contact page and click on the call me button.