Marketing Alchemy | Aqua Vita

1.08.2010
Marketing Alchemy

Online Marketing: Google Adding Click to Call in Mobile Ads

Published by Jessica Cox under Marketing Alchemy

The wildly successful PPC giant Google AdWords unveils yet another addition to their arsenal of online advertising options.

In Google’s words:

We’re pleased to announce that beginning in January, your location-specific business phone number will display alongside your destination URL in ads that appear on high-end mobile devices.

Users will be able to click-to-call your business just as easily as they click to visit your website.

How will phone numbers appear in my ads?

Based on the customer’s geographic location, the phone number and closest business address will appear as a fifth line of ad text when the ad appears on mobile devices with full HTML browsers (e.g. iPhone, Android, Palm WebOS).

Where will I be able to see the results?

At launch, you’ll be able to view calls from your ads on your Campaign Summary page within AdWords from the “click type” segment option under the “Filter and Views” drop down.

How will I be charged for phone calls I get from my ad?

For now, the cost of a click to call your business will be the same as the cost of a click to visit your website.

Personally, I see prices increasing as the feature gains popularity and acceptance, then leveling off eventually. It’s fair to say this might take time: AdWords prices are still climbing, and these types of phones are still approaching market saturation.

Phone calls initiate much more personal contact. Clicking “back” on your web browser to close out of a website is one thing, but hanging up on a live human is quite another. The value of the contact is potentially higher.

What actions should I take?

If you’d like your ads to show location-specific phone numbers when displayed on mobile devices, make sure that your campaign is targeting iPhones and other mobile devices with full HTML browsers. You must also include phone numbers with your business addresses in the locations under your Campaign settings.

Aqua Vita Creative - Mobile Online Ads - Push to Call

If you would prefer your ads not show phone numbers, simply remove the numbers from your ad campaign locations or un-check mobile devices under the Campaign Settings tab.

Apparently they’ve been working on this feature for several years, filing a patent for click-to-call or “call on select” in 2004. They experimented briefly with the technology in 2007 with Google Maps, which was wildly popular with a small crowd of mobile users at the time.

In fact, Google’s wildly successful growth and innovations have driven Marketing Pilgrim to speculate on “intervention” from either competitors or government who view the search giant as “too pervasive and too powerful”.

Odds are, this new incarnation will be well worth watching! More good news for businesses interested in mobile advertising; you don’t even need a mobile-specific site to use these ads on smart-phones.

1.06.2010
Aqua Vita News, Marketing Alchemy

Aqua Vita Creative Featured on Web Design Ledger

Published by Jessica Cox under Aqua Vita News, Marketing Alchemy

Hope you get a chance to read our article at Web Design Ledger today.

I’ve put together a personal cross-browser optimization cheat sheet/tool list we use at Aqua Vita Creative in our web development projects. This is the perfect starting place for a savvy business owner, or marketing director to engage customers or prospects on their website.

Nothing says “I care” like a website optimized for your customer’s viewing pleasure. Of course you can’t please everyone, but you can make sure 80% of the website visitors have a pleasant experience with your company online.

Everyone needs to be aware of this. If you don’t know how your web page looks in multiple browsers, odds are you’re turning away potential customers.

Keep an ear to the ground, there’s more to come too! I found so many great tools, they wouldn’t fit in one post.

Matt found an alternative to the W3Schools statistics tool: W3Counter Browser Share

Questions? Comments? Brilliant statements? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

12.18.2009
Marketing Alchemy

Social Media Showdown: Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Email

Published by Jessica Cox under Marketing Alchemy

E-mail continues to dominate emerging social channels such as Twitter and Facebook. E-mail remains the favorite way to share information with colleagues and friends, according to the latest social media study by ShareThis, a popular social content sharing widget.

Shared content breakdown:

Email: 46%
Facebook: 33%
Twitter: 6%

The remaining 14.4 percent split out between various other platforms like Digg, del.icio.us, and LinkedIn.

Also interesting: how people used the content after it was shared. Twitter came out on top for interaction: their links drew the most click-throughs. Maybe the shiny new retweet button is working its magic.

Click-throughs:

Twitter: 40%
E-mail: 35%
Facebook: 25%

However, the high-speed Twitter visitors ricocheted off the page in short order: Twitter visitors looked at 1.66 pages before exiting. Email on the other hand, delivered much more steady engagement at 2.95 pages.

Engagement:

Email: 2.95 pages
Facebook: 2.76 pages
Twitter: 1.66 pages

Twitter & Email: Speed vs. Depth

Thus far, Twitter is the fastest of the social mediums, much like telegraph or ticker tape messages. Users can access information at the speed of light, and let it go just as quickly.

With speed comes impermanence. This makes Twitter the “quick fix” medium with the least staying power for messages. Once a tweet appears, it can float away in an instant, or get a boost on wave after wave of retweets. Twitter visitors click the links, and click back just as quickly.

It’s interesting to see how the virtual opening of Twitter borders with new technology integration will affect the development of the system and expand this ripple effect.

Takeaway:
While Twitter usage has soared, email is still the top social media sharing mechanism. Integrated campaigns will have deeper, more lasting effects.

At 40 percent, Twitter seems to have the highest “click-it!” factor. The fast pace encourages you to click links before they sail out into the global stream of consciousness. However, the numbers show email still has much more popular acceptance, and email visitors tend to stay longer.

“Of course this varies by vertical and site, but if you think about your own habits, it makes sense. Getting an emailed link from a friend may cause you to pay more attention than the more random discovery that you get on Twitter as you consume quick opinions.” – Tim Schigel (@schigel)

Playing to the strengths of both mediums

Some people also argue that a “closed system” like Twitter or Facebook can never hope to replace or approach an “open system” like email as a universal communication medium. Personally, I don’t think it’s a question of replacing; both mediums have their functions.

Twitter offers a different scope of information and multimedia than email. You have to consider the amount of data you can communicate in 140 characters. Enough to intrigue, not enough to educate or persuade. On the other hand, you can’t beat Twitter for immediate message gratification.

With email, you can get more creative with multimedia and use HTML templates and engagement tracking. You can deliver a more complex message, offer more options for interaction, and create a more complete experience. Email also provides the comforting idea you can save something to read later. It’s very easy to organize and archive information. Facebook falls somewhere in between.

Your thoughts?

It’s a safe bet that the capabilities of both platforms will continue to evolve and entwine. Your thoughts? Where are email, Twitter, and Facebook headed?

12.01.2009
Marketing Alchemy

Five Reasons PDF Email Newsletters Don’t Work

Published by Jessica Cox under Marketing Alchemy

At first glance, PDF attachments look like the best way to send out your email newsletter. You create your PDF, attach it to your email, and blast it out to your contacts. What could be easier?

It might sound easy, but is it really effective?

If you only send a PDF attachment to your list, you’ve completely missed the true power of email marketing. You have no way of tracking your emails and no way to easily manage your email list. And if you’re not careful, you could damage customer relationships, or send out emails to die quietly in the spam folder.

What’s a business owner to do? Make the most out of your PDF email newsletter with HTML formatting and online database integration.

Why PDF email newsletters miss the mark

Corrupted files
Few things frustrate like a corrupted PDF email attachment. This happens to everyone eventually, and it may not even be your fault. Some email server platforms modify your email slightly as it passes through their system, resulting in a corrupted PDF. Regardless, the end result is a PDF that nobody can read.

Blocked attachments
Once you make it past the email server, spam filters in Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Outlook and others may block your attachment completely. With the rise in attachment-based email viruses, every file could be a potential security threat. If somebody doesn’t remember signing up for your list, then they might not feel safe enough to check out your PDF if the email program has already blocked it.

Lost forwards
These days, everyone hopes their campaign will go viral. Email forwards can give your message wings. The bad news is, when your customers choose to forward your email newsletter, the PDF attachment might be left in the dust.

Spam concerns
If you’re sending PDF attachment newsletters from your personal server through a program like Outlook, you could be in for a big (and unpleasant) surprise. Every time a reader marks you as spam, you lose credibility with Internet Service Providers (ISPs). This is important, because these ISPs decide the fate of your email. If you upset too many people (by sending corrupted attachments, for example), an ISP may decide to block all emails coming from your domain name.

Translation: Your emails will not make it to the inbox. And you won’t know a thing till the error messages start rolling in.

Unwieldy email database
With PDF newsletters, sending an email to specific lists of email subscribers can be an exercise in frustration. You’re either tied to a makeshift Excel database, large Outlook contact groups, or a CRM program that may or may not play nice with attachments. Also, sending PDF attachments to a large number of emails is another great way to be marked as spam.

So, what does work?

Don’t let your emails go into the void! Integrating your PDF newsletters with an HTML email can save you a ton of visibility headaches. By sending email through a secure third-party platform, you free yourself from spam concerns, and shift your email marketing into high gear with detailed tracking and email database management.

Instant visibility & friendly forwarding
Respect your customers. Each additional second they spend waiting for your attachment to download is a chance for them to jump ship. They are looking for a reason to delete your message and answer the urgent email that came in right after yours. HTML emails download much faster than PDF attachments, and makes it easier for them to scan.

Even better, everyone they forward the email to will be able to read it instantly as well. HTML emails also scale to your window size, which is ideal for mobile email readers. This is a step up from PDFs, which can require zooming in and out to read.

Spam compliance & guaranteed deliverability
Not only do HTML newsletters look professional, you can ensure 99% deliverability by sending them through a reputable third-party platform. These figures are verified annually, and the companies work constantly to maintain a friendly relationship with ISPs to improve email deliverability.

Most HTML newsletters also include an automatic unsubscribe that filters requests directly through their server. This keeps you legal, significantly reduces your chances of being marked as spam, and also means you never have to worry about data entry!

Organized email database
With third-party email newsletter platforms, you can segment your email database and store it securely online. For example, you could create a list segment for “leads” and a list segment for “customers.” You can also pull information from this database into your emails, such as the First Name.

This allows you to personalize your emails to niches in your list instead of sending shotgun messages. By customizing messages, you can increase the response rate for your email marketing. This is worlds easier than fighting your way through Excel or Outlook groups.

Tracking & metrics
A major benefit of HTML emails is tracking. It’s important to know who is opening your emails, and who is ignoring them. Tracking reports can also show you what links readers are clicking on in your emails. When you combine this with analytics on your website, you can track how many people make a purchase, request more information, or contact you through the site.

Conclusion: Find a balance
Options are good. Using PDF newsletters alone can be like throwing leaflets out the window and not bothering to see who is picking them up. For best results, combine the tracking, visibility, and spam compliance of an HTML email with a link to a PDF version on your website.

Readers who prefer a printed format will appreciate the standardized format of PDF attachments. With this combination, you can even track how many people download that PDF. Meanwhile you’ll be gathering detailed metrics on your list, and giving your readers more customized messages with organized databases and third-party HTML email delivery.

Wondering how your business can improve with email marketing?
Give us a ring or send me an email. I’d be happy to chat with you anytime.
jessica (at) aquavitacreative.com || 918-813-2609

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear your favorite tricks for PDF or HTML email newsletters.

10.28.2009
Marketing Alchemy

Google Launches Social Search

Published by Jessica Cox under Marketing Alchemy

After signing a deal with Twitter last week to display Tweets in search results, Google launched another surprise experiment in Google Labs: Social Search.

It’s long been said that success in business depends on who you know. Now, success on the search engine results pages will also depend on who you know, now that Google has launched its Social Search product into its experimental Google Labs.
- Kevin Newcomb at ClickZ reports

As Google VP Marisa Mayer explained at the Web 2.0 Summit, the Social Search highlights content created by friends of the searcher, or content from sites that the user follows via RSS feed. Social Search will put more weight on a user’s social graph when determining what results are relevant.

Our objective is to bring content authored or endorsed by your social circle right to your Google search results.
- Amit Singhal, Google Fellow

Social Search results will reference content created by the user’s Google contacts, (Gmail, Google Talk, etc.), including Friendfeed and Twitter accounts linked in the user’s Google Profile. RSS feeds linked in Google Reader, and sites linked in a user’s Google Profile will also weigh heavily in Social Search results.

Those results will appear in a separate section at the bottom of the search results page, at least for now, Singhal said. Google will return blog posts, Twitter and FriendFeed entries, or other content created by the searcher’s social connections, or from blogs the searcher has subscribed to in Google Reader, under the heading “Results from people in your social circle,” as depicted below.

Singhal emphasized that all content included in these results is already publicly available to anyone, so nothing the creator hasn’t already shared publicly will be revealed. Facebook might be on the outs for this deal, since much of their content is viewable only to friends.

So what does it all mean?

My take: Brilliant move to blur the line between search and social media. Google is tailoring Google profiles as a social hub, leveraging their search algorithms to pull relevant data from a user’s social media network.

Marketers and SEO buffs take note. Google is considering social media networks to determine relevancy for search results. As major search engines begin to weigh social media relevancy, you can expect to see companies focus intently on building these crucial connections.