UpworkAdvice on how to design and build an app including develop options and costs

The amazing growth in mobile apps has been recently catalogued on Smart Insights, but if you're thinking of going on this journey to develop your own App for your products, brand or company, it can feel like an uphill task with various elements to consider and various costing options attached to it.  I wish I could say it's easy but there a little more to it to make this happen.  Ever since Apple introduced the ability to allow developers to build apps on their devices and the launch of the App store, individuals and companies have rushed through the gates to build all kinds of Apps which you now see available on the App store. This post gives my recommended steps/tips to help you in starting the journey to developing and…

Time to think again about display advertising?

I think it's fair to say that many don"€™t think of display advertising as the most powerful online communications technique.  It consistently fairs poorly when marketers are asked to select their preferred tools and is known for low ad CTR rates. For example, see this Econsultancy research below on the most popular traffic-building techniques. We were interested to hear your views on display advertising, this is what you replied - thanks to anyone who took a look! Note on completing poll: In this poll display ads are any graphical, rich media or video ads excluding Google Adwords text ads or similar. Display ads may be placed through direct media buys, ad networks or through the Google Display (content) Network.

2010 preferences for different online marketing

[caption id="attachment_3793" align="alignnone" width="661" caption="Source: Variation in different digital marketing…

We really like this new Influencers report, which you can get here, more because it shares great knowledge on "influencers", what they are, how important they are and how to locate and communicate with them - in some cases it requires software, naturally. The guys at Fresh Networks decided to test nine of the leading social media monitoring tools - Attensity 360, Brandwatch, Radian6, Alterian SM2, Scoutlabs, Sysomos, Synthesio, PeerIndex and Social Radar - in order to assess how effective they are at identifying influencers across a range of social media platforms. In simplest sense, businesses are no longer in complete control of their products, brands and messages, the consumer now has a lot of control. And, in the modern day those consumers are largely influenced by their networks of influencers - this can be friends and contacts as well as independents that have a perceived authority plus brand…

Is Your Brand Inspiring The Millennials?

Value: [rating=4] Our commentary: Our modern concept of convenience is about getting what you want, when and how you want it - whatever that may be, so says Nick Parish - the North American Editor of Contagious. Blogging on Mashable, Nick believes that it's down to Millennials, or as Edelman call them 8095-ers. Double-jargon alert, I know, that's people born in 1980-1995 in short. I feel a lot of us have come to expect that, it's how it is, and probably how it always has been when change happens and a new reality dawns for enough people - a Tipping Point as Malcolm Gladwell puts it. Edelmen's 8095 survey is important and insightful to what is an influential market - did you know that 8 in 10 Millennials take action (or at least claim to, whatever action is) for brands that they trust - their…

Trends From Social Tech 2010

Value: [rating=3] Our commentary: So, you have the website, the blog, Twitter account (with a degree of usage) and maybe even Facebook fan page, you're tooled up - but do you feel like you're just a hamster on a treadmill - we all do, sometimes. The question is - where's the magic? Ann Handley notes in a recent post at the Daily Fixblog, "B2B marketers + social = lots of room for improvement." She's written up her 4 take-aways from 'Social Tech 2010', an event focussed around the B2B marketer, and in particular for the high tech industries. Marketing implications: All content is not equal: You know the new mantras - "Content is King" - "We are all publishers"! But, "B2B companies have to produce the right kind of content: Web content that is honestly empathetic, seeded with utility for your customers, and that reflects your business's core values…

My blog post last week on link building techniques touched briefly on each of the techniques available. I going to focus on one technique this week - Forum Marketing. Before I get into using forum marketing, we have to have the health-warning that  : Not all links are the same Getting one link at a time is not a waste of time, its the compound effect over time that is powerful. If you can get a lot of links too quickly it's likely not worth it  The concept of "€œnofollow"€ still has an effect in forum marketing and comments on blogs "€“ Google won"€™t rate these links as highly but do not write off engaging on sites that use the nofollow technique. These links will help with your social score which from recent blog posts is becoming slightly more important in search and will continue to do so. The concept…

Confirmation that social mentions are used by Google to rank sites

Value: [rating=5] Our commentary: With Danny Sullivan's interview with Google & Bing earlier this month & the follow-up by SEOMOZ it would appear its now almost official that social media & SEO need to be well & truly integrated. The concept of quality content that is shared, tweeted etc is now a big part of Google & Bing search results. The interview with Danny Sullivan also goes onto talk about the concept of authority users and how being successful in social media (whether thats followers, fans, sharing) will help you in natural search rankings. Marketing implications: I think this is something a lot of marketers have believed for sometime now, it just seemed so obvious. But now we know for sure what does that mean for digital marketing teams & online businesses? I would be asking myself : Does my 2011 marketing strategy…

Our advice - be worth Liking

Value: [rating=4] Our commentary: I've blogged about it in the past, and of course getting Likes is fundamental to not only Facebook marketing but increasingly digital marketing, especially if you're in B2C. Yet at the same time - the drive to Like can sometimes feel, well, desperate. Though I am the first to appreciate strong calls to action - and some traditional "DM" thinking, it's also worth remembering why the visitor or customer would bother, no matter how big or elaborate the arrows on your sign up tab are. We know that collecting Likes is not the point, it is one crucial part of the process, I think it's the result of inspiring someone in the first place (maybe briefly, maybe they've loved your brand for years) - the Like connection then opens up the potential…

New report advises on Enewsletter best practice

Value: [rating=3] Our commentary : An enewsletter is still a key customer communication for many companies. Given this, it's always struck me as curious that usability advice for Emails and enewsletters doesn't get as much attention as that for websites. You may not now that Jakob Nielsen, well-known for his usability advice has produced an enewsletter usability report for many years - I've downloaded them in the past. If you're not aware, you could find the tips on increasing subscription and engagement with the enewsletter useful. Alternatively, learn through our Enewsletter examples or 24 point enewsletter best practice list. Marketing implications Here are some of the key findings I took from this report. 1. Make your email signup slick. I'm surprised the signup period took around 3 miniutes on average - but this is an improvement from over 5 minutes on previous studies. 2. Remember the increasingly cluttered inbox.…

A case study of a Virgin Atlantic campaign showing the factors that matter

When marketers discuss email marketing we naturally tend to talk a lot about the creative and certainly it's a great way to learn. I love the inspiring examples at the Retail Email Blog and the Campaign Monitor Gallery. But is it the creative or copy that matters most? Other factors are equally or more important. To help as a reminder of the email success factors I created the CRITICAL mnemonic which you can apply to just about any digital tactic. To illustrate CRITICAL, I'm going to use this example of what I think is great email creative. It's not new, in fact I've used it in training for years and it features in the first edition of my Email Marketing book, but not the second. But I thought I'd dust it off for this…