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"In the holiday email season of 2008, retailers turned up the gas on their email campaigns, hoping to salvage what was predicted to be a flat or down consumer spending season," says Loren McDonald in an article at MarketingProfs. If handled haphazardly, that's a risky strategy that increases the likelihood ... more
As the calendar page flips to a new year, now is the perfect time to re-evaluate and refine your search campaigns' lead gen capabilities. In a new MarketingProfs article, William Leake of Apogee Search offers the following tips for boosting your pay-per-click performance: Add new compelling lead bait. Many viable ... more
"A great way to capitalize on the democratic medium of email is to put your burning questions, late-night hunches, and out-of-the-box ideas to the test with an A/B split test," says Megan Walsh in a post at the Email Experience Council blog. Here's some of her advice for using split ... more
The secret to success in the new year may lie in divining the right keywords. As Christine Churchill says at Search Engine Land, the words you buy in pay-per-click, the terms you target for organic, the phrases you focus on in your images and videos, all depend on making good keyword choices ... more
Office supply chain OfficeMax also sells digital cameras and other products popular as holiday gifts—but its customers didn't think of it as a holiday-shopping destination. What's more, it was often confused with its chief rival. A wildly popularly web-based viral marketing campaign helped OfficeMax distinguish itself and encourage shoppers. more
"To date," writes Rob Hof in a post at BusinessWeek's Tech Beat blog, "mobile advertising hasn't taken off partly because it's a hassle for advertisers to create special campaigns for mobile devices, most of which so far use stripped-down browsers that don't display standard Web pages very well." This will ... more
Is your website invisible? If it's not designed to be found by search engine spiders, it might as well be. The key to visibility? Keeping content clear and simple. An untold number of expensive Web sites out there are beautiful to behold, but rarely seen by searchers. To help clarify ... more
"In 2007, 9 million digital picture frames were sold, about 1 million of them Wi Fi-enabled," writes Katy Bachman in an article for Brandweek. "By 2010, that's expected to jump to more than 42 million, with the vast majority of them Wi-Fi equipped, according to data from IDC." Can advertisers ... more
In a genre of disaster movies, there's a dramatic moment when an asteroid is plummeting toward Earth. Amidst a flurry of intense heroics, the asteroid is redirected... and tragedy is averted. But shouldn't the scientists be working sooner to change the asteroid's path? Which brings us to the relationship between ... more
Just when you've mastered the whole key word concept, along comes—key pictures? Online retailer Amazon.com has released a free downloadable mobile application for the iPhone and iPod touch that enables shoppers to search for products to purchase online by simply snapping photos of them. If you like your co-worker's shoes, ... more
You learned in school that there's no such thing as a free lunch. But as cable TV's popularity wanes against the force of the almighty Internet, it looks like "free lunch" has become stat quo: nobody wants to pay for TV shows, movies or SNL video clips anymore. They want ... more
Mobile advertising is deemed complex for the same reason online used to be: Standards are murky at best. Online advertising evolved because online dashboards allowed agencies to monitor and optimize their digital campaigns in real time. Why doesn't mobile do this? more
Before any talk of bailouts, Chrysler called on 15 Web sites to help improve consumers' perception of the Dodge brand and launch its first crossover vehicle, the Journey. NHL.com cut through the clutter and delivered the brand message. Here's how. more
A Web site has to accomplish two crucial things in its quest for success: to attract customers, and to hold their attention. To achieve both, optimum site design is critical. As David Salinas says in a recent MarketingProfs article, if you design a great-looking, user-friendly site with well-written marketing copy that ... more
You want to explore uncharted territory, but you're also worried about sowing cash on unproven social media ground. Well, here's a way to play it safe: ease, ever so slowly, into Facebook. The facts: It's the largest social networking site in the world. In August '08, users spent an average ... more
In a recent post at eMagine's B2B Web Strategy blog, Matt Roche warns about the dangers of outsourcing your PPC campaigns—and then washing your hands of them. Oftentimes, when B2B marketers choose to turn things over to outsiders, he says, "they feel they never need to worry about [PPC] ever ... more
"Online behavior is not limited to purchasing activity alone," says Sheldon Gilbert in an article at MarketingProfs. "To truly understand someone's buying potential, you need to see more than that. You need to know what they are looking at, what they are searching for and what they have recommended to ... more
By now you've heard the news—your paid marketing and advertising efforts are suffering from a loss of credibility with your target market. Marketing authorities Al Ries and daughter Laura have even declared the "Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR" when it comes to building brands and perceptions in ... more
If you're considering a site redesign for the new year, you'll want to optimize it for search engine results. What's the best way to optimize? Jody Nimetz at SEO Space says that designing a site to generate revenue through search takes a good amount of planning and, most importantly, patience. ... more
"In the two weeks leading up to the November 4th election, email messages came fast and furious from both campaigns," writes Morgan Stewart in an article at MarketingProfs. "I saw … commonly held best practices to be emulated, other [elements] that should be avoided … and a few new concepts ... more
The dream of every marketer for a cost-per-click (CPC) campaign is to increase its effectiveness while staying at or under budget. Kellysearch.com's Matt Lester recently offered some creative ideas to boost CPC ROI at little or no extra cost. These tips focus on Google AdWords, but many might apply to ... more
The possibilities for mobile marketing grow with each new smartphone introduced. For marketers, it's best to keep on top of the latest iterations—to better design mobile campaigns that dazzle. The latest newcomer? RIM's new multimedia Blackberry, the Storm, arrives tomorrow. After 18 months in development, some say this slick combination ... more
Can asking a question in an ad increase sales? Some will argue vehemently that the use of a question is a non-starter, a pre-ordained copywriting disaster. Craig Huey, founder and president of the award-winning Creative Direct Marketing Group, froths at the idea of a question in sales copy. Nevertheless, a question ... more
Gaming is no longer the sole domain of geeky guys with programmer's pallor: 44% of online gamers, and 40% of gamers in general, are women. Over half are between 18 and 49, and "extreme gamers" devote 45 hours a week to games. Salivating yet? Good, because here's a pretty meaty ... more
"I subscribe to a wonderful Web-based entity that sends me a weekly newsletter, which I enjoy very much," begins an entry in the Editorial Emergency newsletter. "But a while back they started sending me a daily e-mail on top of my weekly e-mail." The first problem with this scenario is—of ... more
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