The Brand Message Channels

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Michael Myers

We’ve been talking to clients about the avenues for getting their brand message out. Email is and has been the king for some time now and it’s important to think about the other avenues as more people embrace their smartphones. The list of mediums I’ve compiled specific to push are as follows:

  1. email – Primary method of engaging the customer.
  2. mobile email – This is a quickly growing medium with smartphones outnumbering PCs in two years.
  3. SMS – This method is well known and is great for real-time updates such as flash sales.
  4. Push alerts for mobile apps – I would think of this as SMS within an app.
  5. Twitter – This one-to-many distribution model is also great for real time updates as people turn to Twitter for up to minute information.
After putting this list together and reviewing JT’s post from Wednesday, it’s interesting to think about the content being created for promotions. In order for the message to be consistent, businesses should create one master email message and then repurpose the constituent parts to ensure consistency. For example:

  1. Subject line of email = SMS = Push Alert = Tweet (including hashtags so readers can sort through the material later.) This is all that the user will see initially (as JT pointed out in his post below/#2) given that people view email initially through preview panes and preview panes on mobile devices.
  2. email = mobile email – The primary difference between the two is that mobile email needs to be fluid to scale to the smaller screen screen. You may also consider shortening the message and linking to mobile optimized landing pages.

Again, this method helps ensure brand consistency and could potentially cut down on duplicate effort.

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How Email Marketing Will Evolve In 2011

Posted on December 7, 2010 by JT Capps

I saw this great post from Chad White on MediaPost about how email marketing will evolve over the next year. Along with Chad’s insights, I thought I would list out some other things to consider.

  1. Optimizing the plain text format of your email messaging should always be a focal point for your email design strategy. Plain text formatting is necessary as many email recipients may not be able to view images or may have images blocked by default by their email client.
  2. Additionally, you must consider that many email subscribers generally have their initial view of your email content from an email preview pane or mobile device so it is important that the most important messaging be delivered quickly and efficiently without relying on the images to render within the email itself. Including a text formatted preheader message as the very first single line of copy that summarizes the value and main call-to-action is a critical area, and one of the easiest to modify for email optimization.
  3. The key elements to consider for the preheader message include the value proposition or offer, promotional code (when applicable), offer expiration date, and main call to action which is hyperlinked from the email to a relevant landing page which supports the messaging from the email.
  4. The text in the preheader is a very important area to experiment with, as is the area and the navigation bars beneath should be driving significant clickthrough activity from your subscribers.
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Mobile; not stupid simple

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Michael Myers

I keep hearing people that say mobile (web/app) needs to be ‘œstupid simple’ for people to use and although I do believe that usability is important, mobile does not need to be stupid simple. It needs to be smart. Smart like a Swiss army knife. For mobile, smart is:

  • Easy to use interface ‘“ Usability is the number one reason why Apple’s smartphone has taken the smartphone market to where it is today. Yes. It’s cool to but how cool would it be, if you couldn’t use it. According to Jack Hyman, you have 17 seconds before a user will go elsewhere to find what they’re looking for. (This sounds long to me and we always believed we had about 10 seconds to get peoples attention on the terrestrial web.)
  • Location awareness ‘“ No matter what business you’re in, you should be asking permission to know of your customers location. Awareness of your customers foot traffic will help you fulfill their needs. You are your foot traffic as much as you are your network.  Android, Safari and ‘œthe iPhone’ have location built in. (The user should be able to easily turn this off whenever they want.) Imagine that you’ve recently searched for a home on Zillow and set up a location based alert so that when you’re physically close to a home that meets your criteria having an alert sent directly to you. This type of functionality is relatively new. I would recommend a demo to outline the benefit for the user.
  • Background the app ‘“ Your app should be running in the background to track when/where your users go. This allows for location based services/reminders. This allows you to take care of their needs even when they aren’t thinking of using you. (Again, the user should be able to easily turn this off whenever they want.) This type of functionality is also new and I’d recommend a product demo to outline the benefit for the user.
  • Push notifications ‘“ Your user wants information from you and if they have to go look for it; you’ve failed. If it’s an app, it should be push notifications. If it’s a mobile site, it should be SMS/MMS.
  • SMS/MMS as the communication method ‘“ Sending email updates are okay for the terrestrial web but for mobile, SMS and MMS are the preferred method for mobile users. I don’t have exact numbers but SMS is the primary text based method of communication and because of unlimited plans, MMS will become more prevalent.
  • ‘œCall Us’ ‘“ Many mobile site/application creators have figured out that the mobile phones also make calls! In their apps or mobile sites they have bigCall Us buttons that when pressed initiate the call from the mobile device. This is yet an0ther function that doesn’t work on the standard web but is second nature for mobile.
  • Audio ‘“ Building on the call us functionality; are you encouraging your users to use functionality native to the device? Can your users attach audio notes to something you’re selling, like the home they’re shopping for? Do you have voice-to-text functionality included in your site/app? Always keep in mind that typing on any mobile device is not fun and every time you make your users do it, you lessen your brand experience.
  • Allow for transactions ‘“ The myth that people don’t  by things via their mobile device is not true. In-app transactions continue to grow and are dependent on the product. There are companies that sell ‘˜parts’ for their main product and in many situations those parts have little difference other than size and color, like ear buds for headphones. This is a perfect product to have optimized on the mobile site or feature in-app. One of the reasons people don’t purchase products via a mobile device is a lack of usability. Transactions should be stupid simple. I tried to buy barcodes for Stickybits from Amazon and I got stuck in a loop that I couldn’t get out of. If usability is essential for websites it is life-threatening on mobile sites/apps.

This list covers apps and mobile sites and not all functionality is available on both. If you make you’re site/app stupid simple you’re missing out an many opportunities. Mobile is much more of an interaction between customer and businesses that touch everything from the interface, the location of the device to the many interfaces of the devices.

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Happy Mobile Holidays!

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Michael Myers

We started to see some statistics rolling in from the holiday weekend with respect to mobile commerce and location based marketing services such as Foursquare. Both of these stats are from Mobile Marketing Watch and are pretty remarkable. Paypal mobile saw a 310% rise in mobile shopping and a 27% increase in mobile payments. This is a trend that we’ll see more of. Companies like eBay are expecting to generate $1.6 in mobile commerce this year.

Also of note, we can see that checkins on Foursquare are increasing with Target winning the holiday race at around 18,000 which is just a little over 24% of all retail based checkins. This isn’t surprising given the fact that Target is one of the most forward thinking big mobile enabled brands out there.

It’s good to see the growth. Happy Holidays indeed!

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The Microsoft Yahoo! Alliance & What It Means to You

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Kayla Wagner

As you probably know, bing® and Yahoo!® have been solidifying the plan for an alliance for search. The plans to migrate all accounts to the Microsoft adCenter are now in full swing.  So, what does this mean to us as digital marketers?

To start, Yahoo! Search Marketing as well as Yahoo!’s organic search algorithms will no longer exist, and Bing’s Microsoft adCenter and organic algorithm’s will remain as the Unified Marketplace. Already Bing’s algorithm feeds both bing.com and yahoo.com search results. Currently 3.5 – 10% of PPC traffic on Yahoo! is being served via the adCenter platform. On the week of October 11th this number is expected to increase to 40% and an additional 30% will move over each subsequent week through the end of October.

Once combined, Yahoo! and Microsoft sites will represent upwards of 30% of U.S search market share.
Bing and Yahoo! currently own the following market share, and are projected to own upwards of 4.8 Billion monthly searches ‘“ factoring out overlap:

When: Transitions will be complete by the end of October, pre-Holiday season, and have already begun to roll-out week by week.

The Details:

For your natural search engine optimization efforts, Bing will now represent ~30% of your overall search query share, so we recommend that you consider the following:

  • Compare your key traffic/revenue driving keywords listings & rankings on both Bing and Yahoo!, and determine if you may benefit from augmenting your organic efforts during this transition to offset anything you may stand to lose.
  • Communicate potential impact of these changes to your team.
  • Decide if you may benefit from supplementing your paid search efforts to offset any changes in forecasted traffic in the short, or long-term.
  • If you aren’t already set-up on Bing’s Webmaster Tools, get set-up.

For your paid search accounts, work closely with your Yahoo! representative to ensure this transition goes smoothly and that any changes you need to make to accounts are addressed to preserve performance.

Some additional details on the paid search transition:

  • You will not be able to specify either a Yahoo! or Microsoft site in our campaigns, but can opt into both or out of both as follows:

  • Bing and Yahoo!’s pre-existing platforms are different in terms of geo-targeting, ad copy guidelines, keyword match types and versions, bidding, and how media budgets are handled. You should carefully address each of these key areas in transitioning your accounts.

These changes will affect your media budgets. Consider an increase your Bing budget by ~40 to 60% to maintain volume.

Geo-targeting: If you’re opted in to geo-targeting, Blue Moon Works will replicate your previous targets as closely as possible given these options.

  • Microsoft adCenter ‘“ lets users geo-target by country/region, state/province, metro area or city.
  • Yahoo! previously allowed market, country, state, DMA, city or zip.

Ad Copy: Only Headlines will need to be adjusted for this transition.

  • Microsoft adCenter’s ad copy guidelines are very similar to Google’s ‘“ allowing 25 character titles, and 70 character descriptions.
  • Yahoo! had allowed 40 character titles and 70 character descriptions.

Match Types & Bidding: Blue Moon Works will adjust bids to maintain your current level of investment as closely as possible during this transition.

  • Microsoft adCenter allows users to bid on each variation of a keyword just as Google does (misspellings, singular, plural, etc.). In addition, it offers 3 match types: broad, phrase and exact ‘“ at the keyword level. Minimum bids in adCenter are $0.05.
  • Yahoo! previously featured two types: standard (similar to exact) and advanced (similar to broad). Yahoo minimum bids were $0.01.

Other:

  • Yahoo! account history does not carry over in the transition, so if you weren’t previously in adCenter, you’ll be starting fresh.
  • Yahoo! reporting data will be available post-transition, so back-up your data soon.
  • Mobile search ads will transition the same as paid search ads.
  • This transition does not affect Yahoo! My Display or Bing Display advertising, which will remain unchanged. Bing is only providing Web, Image and Video results on Yahoo! Search. There are no plans to extend what Bing powers to include the Bing Shopping and Visual Search experiences on Yahoo!! Search.

The Transition:

  • If you didn’t previously run ads in Bing, but did in Yahoo!, consider moving your account over to Bing adCenter and modify according to the above.
  • If you were previously in Google, Bing and Yahoo!, consider using Google’s account structure as the base for expanding into Bing, rather than Yahoo!’s due to the similarities between Google and Bing set-up.

Post Transition:

  • Actively monitor your account during the transition, and communicate any differences being experienced post-alliance.
  • You can expect to see a difference in reporting (Yahoo! will no longer be a player) ‘“ specifically in impressions, cost per click data, and conversion rate fluctuations.
  • Look out for more news on changes as the industry shifts to accommodate the Bing/Yahoo! Alliance!

Other resources:

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Thriving In a Decade of Turmoil: Blue Moon Works Makes the Inc. 5000 list for 2010!

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Kim Eschino


We are so excited to announce that Blue Moon Works, Inc. has made the 2010 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing, private companies in America!

We are ranked #1606 in the country and #163 in Advertising & Marketing.
“The leaders of the companies on this year’s Inc. 5000 have figured out how to grow their businesses during the longest recession since the Great Depression,” said Inc. president Bob LaPointe. “The 2010 Inc. 5000 showcases a particularly hardy group of entrepreneurs.”
Founded in 2003, Blue Moon Works is a digital marketing agency that uses statistical analysis, proprietary technology and direct marketing principles to maximize online revenue for our clients. Our remarkable growth over the past seven years is based on excellent customer service, top notch clients, technological expertise and talented employees.

This achievement puts us in rare company, especially if you consider that over 27 million businesses are registered in the USA. The elite group we’ve now joined has, over the years, included companies such as Microsoft, Timberland, Visa, Intuit, Jamba Juice, Oracle, and Zappos.com.

Click here for more details: http://www.inc.com/inc5000/profile/blue-moon-works

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Gearing Up For The Holidays

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Kim Eschino

Yes, it is that time of year again…time to start planning for the holiday season!  With Fall just around the corner it is not too soon to be thinking about your online promotions.

Today’s topic of discussion is Free Shipping.

According to ComScore’s State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy in Q2 2010, half of consumers say they’ll abandon their shopping cart if free shipping isn’t offered and a quarter will only buy when free shipping is an option and 90% won’t pay more than $10.

Put another way, 51% of consumers are at least ‘somewhat likely’ to cancel their entire order if free shipping is not offered.

If free shipping is not part of your holiday e commerce repertoire, then you may want to consider special pricing, future discounts, or rewards/incentives as an alternative. 66% of consumers would be more likely to continue their purchase if special pricing or discounts/rewards on future purchases were offered by retailers.

Happy Holiday Planning!

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Last Minute Shopping

Posted on December 18, 2009 by Kim Eschino

It happens every year, I plan to get all of my shopping done well before Christmas but somehow it comes down to the wire each holiday season.  Apparently I am not alone.  According to the National Retail Federation, fewer than half of shoppers had completed their shopping by the end of last week and 19% hadn’t even begun to shop!

This state of consumer procrastination bodes well for both online and offline retailers as we count down the final few days before Christmas.  According to the same survey, nearly 40% of shoppers who have waited will shop online while the remaining 60% will shop discount and department stores.

There is still time for online retailers to capture the last minute shopper’s share of wallet.  Offer free upgraded shipping with guaranteed delivery by Christmas or perhaps a special weekend sale.  And be sure to get the word out by sending emails, running a paid search campaign and posting last minute offers on Facebook and Twitter.

The procrastinators are out there and we are desperately seeking merchandise to stuff empty stockings and fill the bare spaces beneath our Christmas trees.

Happy Holidays!

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Consumers Open Their Wallets on Cyber Monday ’09

Posted on December 2, 2009 by Kim Eschino

For most multi-channel retailers, the holiday season is ‘make or break’ time and a collective sigh of relief could be heard across the board as Cyber Monday sales figures were tallied.

According to website sales tracking firm Coremetrics, Cyber Monday online sales were up by 11% over 2008, driven largely by consumers looking for deals and a greater number of people using the web to make holiday purchases.

As a digital marketing agency that constantly strives to help our clients grow their business online, we were delighted to see our clients’ results.  We analyzed sales performance across our client base which is comprised of fashion, beauty, luxury goods and home accessory retailers.   On average, Cyber Monday online revenue for our client base was up 41.8% year over year.

So, what did our clients do right?  They provided customers with engaging shopping promotions and employed the triumvirate of online marketing (Paid Search, Social and Email) to persuade shoppers to open their wallets and spread some holiday cheer.

Happy Shopping!

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The Jury is Still Out on Bing…

Posted on September 2, 2009 by Mindy Phillips

Bing was launched at the end of May 2009. Bing has invested a ton in marketing their hot new engine with all its shiny new features. Some have said that this could even be the search engine release that Microsoft needed to make a dent in Google’s search engine market share.

Now that Bing has been in the mix for a few months, I will say that it has gotten a lot of buzz in the search world. There have been mixed reviews, some positive and some negative. Users are speaking highly of the Quick Preview feature that allows you to preview any site. I personally like that the Related Searches and Search History is displayed in the left-hand navigation. Users are saying how fast the results come up, and it has even been said that Google is making adjustments to compete with its speedy search results. Just today, I read an article that discussed Google’s new AJAX search, designed to speed up the engine.

I had fun with a blind test tool, which generates search results from all 3 search engines, Google, Yahoo and Bing, and allows you to vote for your favorite result. In this blind test, I chose Google 7 out of 8 times. (The other time I chose Yahoo).

From a paid search campaign performance perspective, it is simply too early to tell how the new Bing engine compares to the old MSN engine. We looked at click-through rate and conversion rate data for our largest retail accounts and compared results pre-Bing to post-Bing and the data is simply inconclusive at this point. Regardless of whether Bing produces better click-through rate and conversion rates, however, the biggest challenge it has, of course, is to secure a larger piece of the search market share. That all remains to be seen, although so far market share is virtually unchanged (at about 3.1%) when you review it globally, http://marketshare.hitslink.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=4&qpmr=100&qpdt=1&qpct=3&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=125&qpnp=3

I must admit that I am fairly skeptical that Bing’s new effort is going to make much of a difference to me or my clients running paid search campaigns. To me, it is simply a rebranding of an old search engine, albeit it one with some better features. And from my perspective, it is still simply a place we must advertise if we are to capture the 3% of the market that searches there. For some of our clients, 3% can translate into 100′s of 1000′s of dollars in sales each year.

We will keep an eye on natural results, as this may be where the real differences and Bing advantages lie’¦’¦.


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