This infographic from Return Path is a reminder of how the popularity of smartphones and tablets means we have to carefully test our Emails on these devices and think about the changing context of use for email. Apple devices are particularly important accounting for 85% of all email mobile opens. If you look at the trends it seems mobile could exceed both mobile email client access could exceed both desktop and webmail access to email. The infographic is based on one billion emails sent by 500 corporate Return Path clients comparing 2012 to 2011.…

Research and examples show what gamification needs to succeed

Making its debut onto the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies just a year ago, gamification continued to reach the peak of inflated expectations this year alongside other technologies such as Big Data, crowdsourcing and HTML5.

Applying gaming concepts, such as challenges rewarded by points and badges is thought to influence purchase behaviour, create incentives and help companies receive feedback about the customer‘s experience. In 2011, Gartner Analyst Brian Burke predicted that by 2014, more than 70% of Global 2,000 organisations will have at least one “gamified” application with gamification potentially becoming “as important as Facebook, eBay or Amazon.” This is supported by our love of video games playing. According to research from the IAB, nearly 33m people in the UK of all ages, gender and social groups…

A way to save time (and money) for companies and agencies managing more complex media tracking

Importance: [rating=3] Recommended link: Google’s announcement of the Tag Manager

Our advice on whether the Tag Manager is relevant for you

Although it's a significant new feature for marketers from Google, this tool isn't relevant for all businesses. I'd advise that you don't need to worry about this tool if you're not investing heavily in display advertising or affiliate marketing. If most of your visits are currently referred by direct visits plus paid or natural search, social or email marketing it's likely overkill and the basic Google Analytics tag setup is sufficient to track and report these through Google Analytics. However, for larger companies and their agencies managing complex sites using a range of media investments to drive visits it could save a LOT of time (and expense from using paid tag management solutions). With this new tool, Google…

The big data opportunity - 4 key parts towards creating a strategy

Today’s growth in interest in "big data" represents a phenomenal opportunity for creative and forward-thinking marketers. On the one hand big data is arguably nothing new, relative to any moment in time we've had too much data to be able to make effective use of, at least from my personal, marketing perspective. The data warehousing and statistical analysis that drove direct marketing forward through the nineties and early years of this millennium felt like pretty big data back then - lot's of disparate, 'unclean' sources, usually lacking in structure let alone a common location. Relatively speaking, nothing's really changed - really it hasn't. Today we have more channels, management software, disparate databases, automation, computer processing power, skilled people and yes - data - to deal with. As marketers, I believe that this in turn means we need…

How to think "out-of-the-box" when setting goals for affiliate marketing

Thinking about the options for affiliate marketing can often be ‘boxed’ into one area. For example, content sites can help develop a brand, or cashback sites can drive high volumes of sales. What isn’t always considered is how you can achieve other objectives through these sites. The affiliate type I will focus on is cashback as I work in that area, but making sure you discuss and define the objectives of your campaign prior to promotion can help you to get more from your affiliates. You may even get suggestions, ideas and promotional space that you might not have thought of. I have looked at some typical goals for affiliate marketing and given examples of how these can be achieved through a cashback site.

1. Selling surplus stock

One area that many advertisers can take advantage of is cashback users’ love for a bargain.…

Examples of how to communicate your offer effectively

Simply put, value propositions are the reasons retailers use to persuade us to buy products or services from them rather than competitors. From a retailer's perspective we also consider them sales tools. This includes benefits provided by products/services or even the website, functionality, customer service, loyalty schemes etc. This tends to be done really well by retailers offline, but for some reason online value proposition (OVPs) becomes a watery-at-best version – and this is something that is quite possibly MORE important online than offline. One common theme that I’m sure many can resonate with is that website owners will often say ‘I thought the designers would do that’. But here’s the thing: most designers have studied design, not marketing. Typically, when you ask for them to design an ad, you usually provide…

Are you part of the Google Authorship Program?

You may not be using Google Authorship yet, but will almost certainly have noticed photos of authors appearing more and more as you search.  You may also have read SEOs discussing the benefits of "rel=author" which is the markup contained within HTML on webpages to link the page to the users Google+ page:

<a href="[Google+_profile_url]?rel=author">Google</a>

We believe, the Google Authorship program is a must for any regularly updated content site, whether you run your own blog or your company has a blog with multiple contributors.  In this post I'll review why it's important to online marketing and show you how to get "enrolled".

The Authorship program allows Author information and news, webpages and blogs to be associated with authors. It will also change the look of any items you have in search results too as per the example below:

…

Options for incorporating video into your Powerpoint presentations

Powerpoint is a bit like Marmite. You either love it or hate it. However, the same person can love Powerpoint one day and hate it the next - because it all depends on who has put the presentation together and how they present it. An innovative way to make the most of Powerpoint is to use video to enhance the visual potential of the medium. There are a number of different ways that you can use video to make a presentation more engaging. Here are some of our favourite ideas.

Using video in your face-to-face Powerpoint presentations

If you use Powerpoint to deliver presentations at meetings or conferences, there are ways that you can use video to liven up your visual aid. Your other option is to completely waste the opportunity and use Powerpoint to display a list of bullet points (you know exactly what I…

An introduction to segmenting Ecommerce site visitors to increase conversion rates

We humans tend to stick with what we know. That can lead to great things as we specialize (the invention of the light bulb and the telephone for instance). But it can also lead to diminishing returns, especially when our business requires us to deliver results across a variety of disciplines. For online merchants, familiarity with the methods for driving website traffic often creates a tendency to get caught up in driving more and more traffic. As an industry, we’re starting to see increased focus on optimizing conversion rates as an alternative to chasing increasingly expensive sources of traffic coming from SEO, PPC, email, and social campaigns. But as with most relatively new fields, venturing into conversion optimization can be daunting, and it can be hard to figure out where to start. A good place to start is by figuring out where…

Tips and examples to help plan and run global-local social media campaigns

Whilst the emergence of social media makes it increasingly difficult to contain campaigns within a given market, it offers brands greater opportunities than ever to connect with large, global audiences in a way that feels far more personal than most mediums previously available. This blog provides successful examples of how companies are enhancing their global brand, the campaign development process and how to embrace the evolution.

Examples of companies successfully using social media to enhance their brand and increase sales.

A few months ago, Coca-Cola launched what they refer to as the ‘Cocal-Cola TV project’ campaign, essentially bringing live entertainment to its target audience via multiple social media channels and devices in a year-long project primarily aimed at audiences in Latin America.  Paul McCartney’s free concert in Mexico was streamed live on Coca-Cola TV, with viewers encouraged to drive conversations on social…