Email Marketing

Email marketing 'should include transactional messages'
15/04/2009

Transactional messages should be used in email marketing

Issue Codes Email marketing services Retail

Businesses could do more to include transactional messages in their email marketing strategies, it has been suggested.

According to Stephanie Colleton of Return Path, most retailers do not include any promotional content in their transactional emails at present.

Writing in a DMNews column, she noted that doing so can aid product up-selling and cross-selling, thus enhancing online sales.

However, the two main barriers to this appear to be spam fears and technical issues due to the fact that many retailers use two separate systems for their email marketing and transactional messaging strategies, Ms Colleton commented.

She said: "It may make sense to start with doing simple, generic promotions to dip a toe into the water and get a benchmark for what kinds of sales these messages can generate."

Ed Henrich of ClickZ recently advised email marketing executives to ensure promotional content does not make up more than one-third of the total content of their transactional messages.

Yahoo PPC

How to improve Yahoo! PPC quality scores
14/04/2009

PPC tips for Yahoo! marketers

Issue Codes Pay per click services

Yahoo! has offered up advice on how marketers can improve the quality index scores associated with their pay per click (PPC) ads.

Kastle Waserman, customer solutions communications manager at the company, said on the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog that businesses should remember quality scores are assigned on the basis of how the ads are written rather than how they make use of keywords.

She urged PPC marketers to use their ads to differentiate their products and services from those of their competitors and offer consumers a compelling reason to click on the ad in question.

Ms Waserman also highlighted the benefits of using Yahoo!'s keyword insertion tool to automatically input the user's search query into PPC ads.

"We recommend that you use keyword insertion with your title rather than your description. The title is the first thing that users read - and sometimes the only thing," she said.

Yahoo! PPC advertisers may receive an alert if one of their ads receives a particularly low quality index score.

Marketers can then look at these ads and follow tips from Yahoo! on how to improve them.

Email Marketing

Charities 'offer good examples of effective email marketing'
14/04/2009

Businesses should follow charities' examples of good email marketing

Issue Codes Email marketing services

Businesses could take a leaf out of the books of charities when it comes to improving their email marketing campaigns, according to one expert.

US charities such as the World Wildlife Fund and the Humane Society of the United States are making use of good email marketing practices in terms of driving sign-ups and delivering compelling content, Cynthia Edwards of Email Insider explained.

The World Wildlife Fund offers an email sign-up box on its website while also displaying the most recent e-news in a dedicated section on its homepage, she noted.

Meanwhile, the Humane Society of the United States offers email content that is created to play to subscribers' emotions, Ms Edwards said.

The specialist called email "an intensely personal medium", adding: "An emotional approach can grab attention and motivate readers at the core of their being, if handled well."

Service brands in particular could do more to use emotional ads to appeal to their target audiences, according to a study published by BrandHouse in February this year.

Video use - is it rising in the UK the same as US ?

Online video viewing rising in US
14/04/2009

Video optimisation a must for US sites?

Issue Codes Video production

New research has revealed that the online video sector is continuing to expand in the US - something that may point to a need for improved video optimisation strategies.

According to Nielsen Online, 130.1 million Americans watched an online video in March, up 1.9 per cent compared with the previous month.

The total number of streams watched equated to almost 9.7 billion last month - representing an 8.7 per cent month-on-month increase - with each viewer watching 74.4 streams on average.

Nielsen Online also found that YouTube continued to be the most popular online video site in March, followed by Hulu, Yahoo!, Fox Interactive Media and the Nickelodeon network.

YouTube recently announced a partnership with Universal Music Group that has resulted in the launch of VEVO, an online music and video entertainment hub offering premium video content from Universal.

According to Nate Elliott of Forrester Research, video optimisation could be the key to achieving a top ten website ranking on Google.

Video

Newspapers 'making greater use of video production'
09/04/2009

Video production on the rise for newspapers

Issue Codes Video production Media

US newspapers are increasingly using video production to add rich media content to their sites, according to new figures from Brightcove.

The online video platform provider said that newspapers are uploading more videos to their websites than ever before, with the number of clips being added to newspaper sites rising by almost 1,500 per cent last year.

Furthermore, video streams from newspaper sites are also on the increase - 42.7 million video streams were watched by consumers on newspaper websites in the final quarter of 2008, compared with 15.3 million in the same period in 2007.

Brightcove cited factors such as lower video production costs and higher quality video delivery as some of the reasons for the growing popularity of online newspaper video.

"Newspapers are producing more video in conjunction with their reporting and consumers now expect to see a mix of media (text, images, audio, video) woven together in the context of almost every website experience," Josh Hawkins of Brightcove said in a blog post.

Almost 30 million Britons watched an online video in January, according to comScore.

PPC

PPC ads 'benefit most from generic domain names'
09/04/2009


Generic domains best for PPC

Pay per click services
Retail Marketers could enhance the effectiveness of their pay per click (PPC) ads by using ideal match generic domain names, it has been suggested.

These domains are those that match the item the web user is searching for and can bring a click-through rate that is between 15 and 42 per cent higher than that associated with other domains, according to research by Memorable Domains.

According to owner of the company Edwin Hayward, the higher click rate is partly down to the fact that there is a close match between the product the user wants and the domain name being displayed.

Furthermore, the fact that the keyword is highlighted in bold in the URL because the domain name is generic is also an important factor, he stated.

"Businesses looking to improve CTR and clicks from their PPC campaigns now have a proven and simple technique for doing so: use a targeted generic domain name in your ads," Mr Hayward remarked.

Including keywords in PPC display URLs can also serve as a reassurance for web users that the site in question stocks the product they want, according to Saad Kamal of Search Engine Journal.

Weboptimiser Video Production

Rise of the web good for video production sector?
09/04/2009

Could video production benefit from increasing web use?

Issue Codes Video production

New research by Microsoft has suggested that the internet will overtake TV as the most used media platform in Europe by June 2010 - something that may be beneficial for the online video production industry.

The Europe Logs On: Internet Trends of Today & Tomorrow study indicated that average weekly web consumption is likely to stand at 14.2 hours per week next year, compared with 11.5 hours at present.

Microsoft stressed that this does not necessarily mean the TV market will decline; rather, consumers will increasingly shift to other ways of viewing TV content instead of relying on traditional TV sets.

"Rather than shrinking, television will only grow in importance," remarked Jeffrey Cole, director of the Centre for Digital Future at USC Annenberg School.

"TV no longer refers to the big screen in the home, but to audio and visual content that will be watched everywhere."

Recent figures from Hitwise also highlighting the importance of video production on the internet showed that UK traffic to video sites leapt by almost 41 per cent in the 12 months to February.

Email Marketing

Render rate 'good for email marketing'
09/04/2009

Email marketing can benefit from render rate

Issue Codes Email marketing services

A new proposed metric for the email marketing sector offers a number of benefits for businesses, it has been suggested.

The render rate was put forward as a possible new metric for email marketing by the Email Experience Council in January this year.

It records the rendering of images contained within a marketing message in subscribers' email services and counts these as opens.

Luke Glasner of Rodman Publishing and Morgan Stewart of ExactTarget said on the Email Experience Blog that the render rate offers numerous opportunities for pre-conversion testing, as well as for measuring in-message ad rendering.

"Since [the render rate] limits the value of the metric to specifically image based opens (renders), it gives us the true number of total impressions using the total emails rendered," the two experts commented.

Another proposed email marketing metric is the action rate, which combines the render rate with calculations regarding the clicking of links within emails.

SEO and PPC

SEO, PPC 'should not be placed in silos'
08/04/2009

SEO and PPC both part of keyword marketing

Issue Codes Search engine optimisation Pay per click services

Search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) strategies should be viewed as different components of a wider keyword marketing practice rather than as completely separate entities.

This is according to Charles Thrasher, a Microsoft media specialist and project lead for adCenter, who wrote in a blog post that it is strange the two tactics are seen as being two completely different strategies when they are in fact "different ends of a single continuum".

He suggested that one purpose of PPC is to inform a company's SEO tactics, particularly when it comes to choosing the right keywords to use to attract web searchers.

"It makes sense to choose your keywords carefully. Which natural keywords are likely to covert well and earn the highest margin? Your PPC campaigns can tell you," Mr Thrasher remarked.

According to eMarketer, it is likely that US spending on SEO will overtake that on PPC by 2013.

Weboptimiser embraces Twitter

Twitter enjoys 'explosive' social media growth
08/04/2009

Twitter seeing traction in social media space

Issue Codes Social Media

Social media site Twitter saw its global traffic soar by over 700 per cent in the 12 months to February, new figures have revealed.

According to research company comScore, Twitter had ten million visitors from around the world in February, with four million of these consisting of US web users alone.

This represents US growth of more than 1,000 per cent compared with 2008, Sarah Radwanick of comScore said in a blog post.

"Twitter seems to be just about everywhere these days, infiltrating pop culture and challenging traditional communication channels," she remarked, going on to hint that soon-to-be-released figures for March suggest that the site also saw "huge" growth last month.

According to Hitwise, Twitter is currently the fifth most visited social media website in the UK. It is also the 50th most popular website overall, the web measurement company said.

Last week, rumours over a possible Google takeover of Twitter started to circulate, although Twitter founder Biz Stone played down the speculation in a post on his blog, stating that the company regularly talks with a variety of organisations on all kinds of subjects.

Weboptimiser can deliver you Social Media Success

Coca-Cola sees social media success
08/04/2009

Social media a success for Coca-Cola

Issue Codes Consumer goods Social Media

Coca-Cola has seen significant success in the social media marketing space thanks to a large fanbase on Facebook, it has emerged.

According to the Financial Times, a Coca-Cola fan page originally set up by two non-employees of the company has more than 3.3 million members at present - compared with 1.2 million in December.

The fan page is now jointly administered by its original creators and Coca-Cola itself to comply with Facebook's trademark rules.

Coca-Cola group director of worldwide interactive marketing Michael Donnelly said there are significant benefits to be gained through promoting a brand via a social media platform such as Facebook.

"It's a great way for us to expose a huge number of people to what we're doing at no cost," he commented.

Other top brands on Facebook include Nutella, Pringles and Kinder Surprise, although US president Barack Obama has the most popular fan page on the social network at present.

Responsible Email with weboptimiser

Email marketing campaigns 'should be responsible'
08/04/2009

Responsible email marketing urged

Issue Codes Email marketing services

Email marketing campaigns should be responsible when it comes to consumers' need for trust, an expert has said.

Marketers should consider making the process of changing email marketing preferences as easy and transparent as possible to earn recipients' respect, remarked Ashley Johnston of DMNews.

Businesses could set up email marketing preference centres that offer options to update profiles in as simple a manner as possible, she suggested.

Ms Johnston added: "Make it easy for customers to tell you what they want, while keeping in mind that their stated preferences are not static and susceptible to change."

Best practice guidelines developed by the Direct Marketing Association for the email marketing sector advise businesses to tell customers how often they are likely to receive messages they have signed up for when they opt in.

The organisation also recommends that marketers give consumers the option to change the frequency of their online mailings.

Free Online Video

Web users 'want free online video content in exchange for ads'
06/04/2009

Ads may support online video production

Issue Codes Video production

The majority of UK internet users are comfortable with seeing online ads as long as they can access free online video, music and other content in return, according to a new study that may be relevant to the video production sector.

KPMG's survey showed that 60 per cent of respondents are happy with websites displaying ads if these are being used to fund free online content that they can make use of, reports the Financial Times.

The professional services company speculated that this may mean ad-supported business models are more likely to be successful in the long-term than those based on the concept of paying for online content such as that produced by video production firms.

"This willingness to view adverts in exchange for free content is good news for advertisers and is perhaps a pointer in the ongoing debate over whether advertising or subscription is the right revenue model," stated Tudor Aw, a KPMG partner.

KPMG's survey comes shortly after News Corporation owner Rupert Murdoch told The Cable Show in Washington DC that news organisations allowing users to read their online articles free of charge may soon have to change this model to cover all of their costs in the future.

SEO for Tavel Brands

Travel brands 'need direction before SEO'
06/04/2009

SEO should be used for developed brands

Issue Codes Search engine optimisation Travel and Transport

Web-based travel firms have been advised by an expert to develop a "strong vision" before developing a search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy.

Steve Sherlock, managing director of car rental comparison site Oodles.com, said it is a better strategy to set out a clear vision and then use it as a springboard for further innovation, rather than immediately focus on SEO and search engine marketing, according to e-Travel Blackboard.

The executive, who is a speaker at EyeforTravel's Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2009, said search engine Google is a good example of how to establish a brand through a "very strong vision".

He said: "Long-term value is built into a brand when consumers can imagine your brand being around well into the future."

Mr Sherlock added that SEO "takes time to kick in" and it is important to first develop a "clear direction" for a travel brand to take.

Figures published by Hitwise in January indicated that the number of UK-based online searches for flights have decreased by some 42 per cent in the past 12 months.

The group attributed this decline to increased consumer caution due to fluctuating exchange rates and the current market uncertainty.

Video

Online video syndication 'beneficial for small sites'
01/04/2009

Business video syndication could aid small sites

Issue Codes Video production

Small businesses and websites are increasingly benefiting from syndicating online video, according to a new report that may be of interest to business video specialists.

Research organisation Contentinople Insider also found that while leisure and business video syndication can be more valuable for smaller brands than for big media sites, the practice can help to boost viewership and add incremental revenue for major websites.

Aditya Kishore of Contentinople Insider explained that video syndication is particularly advantageous for small sites as it can help to raise their profile in a way that these websites may not be able to achieve on their own.

The expert added: "This is an attempt to leverage the unique capabilities of the internet and cater to consumer needs based on their behaviour online."

Almost 30 million Britons watched an online video in January 2009, up ten per cent compared with last year, according to a recent report from comScore.

PPC 2008 Increased Spend

PPC spending up 22.7% in 2008
01/04/2009

UK PPC spending on the up

Issue Codes Pay per click services

UK spending on pay per click (PPC) ads rose by 22.7 per cent in 2008 compared with the previous year.

This is according to the latest statistics from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Research Centre, which showed that £1.9 billion was spent on PPC last year.

The IAB noted that this was equivalent to about 60 per cent of all online marketing spending, which totalled £3.3 billion in 2008.

Overall online spending rose by 17 per cent year-on-year, with display ads and classifieds also seeing significant growth.

Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, said: "UK advertisers have become digital-savvy and they're now using rich media, ad networks and search in intelligent ways to achieve their sales and brand targets."

US online advertising spending surged by 10.6 per cent last year, with PPC expenditure rising by nearly 20 per cent, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Twitter and Search

Twitter previews new social media search tool
02/04/2009

New search tool for social media site Twitter

Issue Codes Social Media

Twitter has outlined plans for its new social media search tool, Twitter Search, in its official blog.

The social networking website revealed that they were eschewing the usual search approach that forwards users on to another page and have instead set up a system whereby results appear directly on the homepage.

It claimed it is happy with the way the search tool, which will be located in the sidebar of the Twitter homepage, has been implemented so far and claimed that the support infrastructure needed for the new application is almost complete.

A select group of Twitter users are currently testing the search function, but it appears that it might not be too long until the search tool is rolled out to everyone.

Twitter claimed it has made the search "far more awesome" since testing began a few weeks ago.

At the end of last month, the website updated its replies feature and now refers to them as 'mentions'.

SEO for Charities

SEO 'important for charities'
02/04/2009

Charities need SEO

Issue Codes Search engine optimisation

Charities can lose out in exactly the same way as e-retailers if they fail to utilise search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies for their websites.

This is the suggestion of the latest SEO Report Card from Practical eCommerce, which assessed the Combat Blindness Foundation's (CBF's) website at its request and found that a poor SEO approach was costing the charity online donations.

John Pinto, a volunteer at the CBF, stated that there are almost zero donations made to the charity via its website at present and a D grade on the SEO Report Card would appear to show why.

"Non-profits suffer from a number of the same SEO ills that plague traditional e-commerce sites," Practical eCommerce said.

One of the main areas where the website fell down was the lack of important keywords, such as 'charity' and 'donation', on its home page.

SEO Book launched The Non-Profit Guide to Search Engine Marketing last year, claiming that much of the advice in the document is relevant to all websites.

SEO BASICS

Expert offers title tag SEO advice
02/04/2009

Title tags can boost SEO with the right use of natural language

Issue Codes Search engine optimisation

It is possible for businesses to enhance their search engine optimisation (SEO) campaigns by including both singular and plural versions of their keywords in title tags, according to one expert.

Writing in a Search Engine Land column, web specialist Michael Gray said that most marketers either optimise two separate pages for the two versions of the selected term or try to get both the singular and plural versions into the same page's title tag.

He explained that the former tactic is unlikely to be useful as the business will just create two pages with very similar content on them, while the latter strategy will look like SEO spam.

Mr Gray advised that companies instead look at ways of inserting natural language into their title tags so that both versions can be included.

He gave the example of using 'Disney Vacations - Find A Discount Disney Vacation Online' instead of 'Discount Disney Vacation, Disney Vacations'.

Last month, Robin Wauters of TechCrunch noted that Twitter had changed the title tags on its site so that users' full names are included in the information as well as their normal username.

Conducting a Google search for his own name, he discovered that this means his Twitter profile page is now the number one search result instead of his LinkedIn profile.

Email Marketing

How to make email marketing more social
02/04/2009

Email marketing can work well with social media

Issue Codes Email marketing services

Email marketing professionals have been offered advice on how to update their campaigns so that they take the growing popularity of social media into account.

Ryan Deutsch of StrongMail Systems told BtoB Online that marketers could consider creating their own social network and using the discussions that take place on it in their email marketing newsletters.

He also suggested adding email opt-in links in all online marketing material to expand email databases and using status updates on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to promote email marketing newsletters.

"Publish a status update the day before you send your newsletter out to remind people it's coming and get them excited about it," Mr Deutsch recommended.

According to a recent study by Nielsen Online, social networking and blogging activities are now more popular than using personal email for web users around the world.

More than two-thirds of global web users now visit blogs and social networks online, the research company noted.

Mobile marketing

'More to mobile marketing' than iPhone apps
03/04/2009

Issue Codes Technolgy

Mobile marketers should look beyond the iPhone and develop applications that can be used across a number of handsets, according to a mobile developer.

Jason Grigsby told Thomas Claburn of Information Week that while the iPhone has received a lot of hype compared to other smartphones, application developers should look beyond the gadget and consider a wider consumer base.

He suggested that with some 30,000 applications already up for grabs in the iTunes App Store, developers may find it difficult to stand out from the crowd.

In addition, Mr Grigsby pointed out the store's structure may not be ideal for those who wish to generate long-term profits from their applications, as developers are encouraged to sell their products for little to no money.

But by working on cross-platform applications, developers potentially open up their consumer base to a much wider market, he explained, which could prove more successful.

Analyst Daniel Amir predicted this week that a new iPhone handset with 32GB of memory could be released by June, according to Cnet News.

Dont do it Twitter !

Google 'in late-stage talks' about Twitter acquisition
03/04/2009

Issue Codes Social Media

Rumours are circulating that social networking site Twitter could soon be acquired by a search engine giant.

According to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, Google may be in late-stage talks to acquire the social networking site, which has a number of celebrity fans including American Idol presenter Ryan Seacrest.

He explained that two unnamed sources - described as being "very close" to the alleged negotiations - have supported the acquisition rumour, while a third source indicated that Google and Twitter could be collaborating on a new search engine initiative.

Google could find the acquisition of the social network very valuable, Mr Arrington said, particularly as Twitter is currently pioneering a real-time search engine function of its own.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced earlier this week on the site's official blog that a select number of users on the social networking site are trialling the new function, which allows people to see all relevant live 'tweets' containing their search terms.

Help for struggling business on You Tube

New YouTube channel 'to help businesses in downturn'
03/04/2009

Issue Codes Video production

Google, the London Business School and the Daily Telegraph have collaborated to launch a new video channel on YouTube to give advice to firms struggling in the current economic client.

Prominent business and political figures - including Boris Johnson, mayor of London - are among those who feature in videos on Survival of the Fastest, which the search engine hopes will create a new online business community.

Made up of a total of three content streams - marketing, e-commerce and finance - the channel can be used in a number of different ways by firms looking to develop in tough economic times.

Business users can communicate with each other by subscribing to Survival of the Fastest, uploading their own videos, commenting on current content and rating videos.

Viewing online videos on YouTube and browsing social networking sites such as Facebook could be one way to improve productivity in the workplace, according to a study published by the University of Melbourne.

Researchers at the Australian institute found that people who spent no more than 20 per cent of their work day using the internet for personal reasons were nine per cent more productive at work than those who did not access these sites at all.