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Does your marketing content tell buyers what they want to hear—or only what you want to say? Writing at the Marketing Interactions blog, Ardath Albee reports on a study that found content is relevant to a customer's needs only 42 percent of the time—and a lack of compelling content reduces ... more
Three-quarters of Americans (74%) say when a celebrity endorser gets involved in a scandal, how they feel about the brands that the celebrity endorses is not affected, according to a new Adweek Media/Harris Poll. Just over one in five surveyed consumers (22%), however, say they feel worse about the endorsed ... more
Apparently, nearly everyone is looking for a bargain these days, especially women: 93% of women age 16-54 who use mobile devices say they are always on the lookout for special offers; moreover, 68% of such women say they are interested in receiving discounts via their mobile phone, according to a ... more
Over one-half (57%) of surveyed US consumers say they plan to purchase an e-reader or tablet within the next three years—29% plan to purchase one within the next year—according to a study by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). more
...will go unnoticed by Google. That's what some search pundits are saying these days: To achieve smooth-and-easy SEO, you need to spell out who you are, plain and simple, for the search engines—even if it means inserting a keyword in your primary domain name. "[C]ore branding principles tell us that ... more
Time to start thinking "i" again—this time for the iPad. Like it or not, it's a mobile device, and 120,000 were preordered in the first 24 hours of its release in April. And as of May 3, iPad had already hit 1 million units sold, and 12 million iPad apps ... more
As marketers struggle to find the marketing mix that delivers the greatest impact for their businesses, most have yet to fully adopt emerging channels: Only 14% say they now use mobile, social media, and video channels in their marketing mix, according to a survey from Omniture. more
US Internet users received a record 1.1 trillion display ads* during the first quarter of 2010, up 15% from a year earlier, with Facebook the top display-ad publisher and AT&T the top advertiser, according to comScore's Ad Metrix. more
Amid double-digit declines in traditional ad spending, the emerging category of social media sponsorships grew 13.9% to $46.0 million in 2009 and is forecast to climb 23.6% to $56.8 million in 2010, driven by higher demand among advertisers to reach social media's target audiences, according to a study by PQ ... more
Marketing campaigns that actively engage consumers online for longer periods of time—by enticing them to "Dwell"—are more likely to generate high conversion rates and are three times more effective at driving brand-related Web searches, according to a study by Eyeblaster. more
Mad Men-style advertising, based on interrupting entertainment or news, is still with us—but most marketers recognize that it's unsteady on its feet. The reality is that people are tired of being "targeted" with ads and so are inclined to take evasive action. It's time to dust off the tried-and-true customer ... more
Ad networks offer a flexible and more efficient way to reach and segment consumers. Advertisers can meet ambitious goals by leveraging the networks' mass reach, diverse targeting options, and flexible pricing platforms. more
Women consume two times more mobile content than men, accounting for 67% of downloads among unique users on Myxer's mobile content site in April 2010, and downloading on average 17% more content than men during the month, according to Myxer. more
"We are often asked how long it will take before an optimized website will start showing up in the search-engine results," writes Lauren Hobson at Five Sparrows, "but of course that's a difficult question with a complicated answer." (Deep breath, kids.) The truth is, Hobson says, it all depends on ... more
Verizon continues to lead the telecom industry in wireless service customer satisfaction: 49% of Verizon customers surveyed say they are very satisfied with their cellular service, compared with 23% of AT&T customers who say the same about their service, according to a survey from ChangeWave. more
Earlier this year, eBay invited six French fashion bloggers to engage in a crafty campaign called Wardrobe Commando. The objective: The bloggers were to select one reader each for a full-on fashion revamp. Hailing from different regions of France, each blogger created a video of herself consulting with her reader of ... more
Nearly one in five US Internet users (18%) say they have purchased a product because of something they have seen on a social networking website—such as Facebook or Twitter—yet social sites continue to receive low trust and privacy ratings from consumers of all ages, according to a survey from Vision ... more
"Recently," writes Mark Riffey at the Business is Personal blog, "you've seen a number of major car companies offer to buy your car back if you lose your job—and that's after they make several months of payments for you." In the case of one Hyundai dealership—located in an economically depressed area—the ... more
Parents who use Facebook are nearly evenly split between those who friend their kids on Facebook (48%) and those who do not (52%), according to a survey from Retrevo. Meanwhile, a plurality of surveyed parents (36%) say the appropriate age for children to have their own social media page is ... more
Even while more and more consumers are using social media to help them make purchasing decisions, most B2B marketers are not using social networking and digital marketing tools to reach their audiences, according to a study that examines marketing's evolving role in the enterprise. more
In today's consumer-goods industry, manufacturers and retailers alike are recognizing the value of developing an integrated understanding of the consumer and the shopper. Combining the voice of the shopper into brand and category plans is rapidly becoming a cost of entry for successful trading relationships. more
Analytics are especially useful in the burgeoning field of interactive ads delivered to shoppers' smartphones and other portable devices. The immediacy of those ads—their ability to spark impulse purchases—can be very powerful. But to be successful, they must be personalized—the right ad aimed at the right customer at the right ... more
Americans now have on average 2.93 TV sets per household, up from 2.86 in 2009—the largest year-over-year increase since 2006, according to Nielsen's latest Television Audience Report. Although the US total population continues to increase, the number of people per TV home has held steady at 2.5, which means there ... more
"A client called me, concerned because their analytics data showed a drop in pageviews," writes Ian Lurie at Conversation Marketing. "[They] were dropping steeply, even as their rankings and traffic from organic search were going up." The client, who had just re-launched her site, believed negative visitor reaction to the new ... more
OK. Time to clear your mind and consider some findings from Tremor, a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble that focuses on word-of-mouth (WOM). Tremor is populated by cognitive scientists whose job is to study the brain, then apply their knowledge to marketing. Some sample Tremor tips: The brain isn't actually wired ... more
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