Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’
Thursday, June 23rd, 2011
 U.S. hoteliers, B& B owners and innkeepers cited online marketing: SEO, SEM and banner advertising (63 percent); social media (39 percent); mobile (27 percent); email marketing (22 percent); and paid listings on user-generated review sites (17 percent) as the top areas in which they would prefer to increase spending, according to TripAdvisor , the world’s largest travel site, in its latest Accommodation Owners Survey.
With mobile marketing a major focus for owners, 84 percent of survey respondents said it is important to offer a program that allows travelers to book their inventory using mobile devices. However, the results varied by property type: 92 percent of hotel owners, 77 percent of B&B owners and 77 percent of innkeepers said a mobile marketing program is important.
Marketing Budgets Stable or Growing
Of the survey respondents with a marketing budget, 34 percent said their overall marketing budgets have increased this year, 49 percent said their budgets have stayed the same and 17 percent said their budgets have decreased.
What are accommodation owners’ greatest marketing expenses? Online marketing: SEO, SEM and banner advertising (31 percent); dues and subscriptions (16 percent); and online travel agency (OTA) commissions (12 percent) were lodging businesses’ top expenses, according to the survey.
Owners Use Social Media to Reach Travelers
Of the survey respondents with a social media program, the majority (60 percent) said that TripAdvisor is the most effective social media site for marketing their properties. Facebook (22 percent) and Twitter (16 percent) were the next most effective sites for marketing their properties, according to owners taking the poll.
The top reasons owners cited for using social media were posting deals/special offers (54 percent), answering customer care questions (48 percent), promoting events (40 percent), sharing general industry news (26 percent) and promoting contests (18 percent).
Survey respondents cited industry research/reports (46 percent), competition (30 percent) and marketing from social media sites (24 percent) as the top three factors in their decision to use social media as a marketing tool.
Top Deals and Distribution Tactics
According to survey respondents, most owners (76 percent) use their property website to market deals to potential guests. Email (52 percent) and social media (44 percent) were the next most commonly used methods for marketing deals, followed by user-generated review sites (25 percent) and online travel agencies (21 percent).
During this summer travel season, the top five deals owners are planning to offer travelers are discounts on rooms (56 percent), special amenities (43 percent), free parking (33 percent), rewards points (26 percent) and deals on nearby attractions (23 percent).
“The latest TripAdvisor Accommodation Owners Survey reveals that, whatever the future may hold, owners’ marketing budgets have for now generally increased or stayed the same, which is an encouraging economic indicator,” said Christine Petersen, president of TripAdvisor for Business. “Lodging owners are placing great importance on online marketing, social media and mobile marketing, as these strategies become increasingly important for reaching discerning travelers online or on-the-go.”
Tags: B&Bs, Holtel owner survey, hotels, inns, Marketing, Search, SEO, social media, survey, TripAdvisor
Posted in Internet/New Media, Marketing, smartphones, social media, Studies, surveys, reports | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
 A new study by Forrester Consulting finds 48 percent of interactive marketing executives rank understanding customers’ cross-channel interactions as one of the top challenges facing marketing today.
The June 2011 study commissioned by Forrester Consulting on behalf of ExactTarget entitled “The New Campaign Management Mandate”, finds the lack of cross-channel insights result in brands interacting through disconnected channels that fail to deliver seamless brand experiences and the real-time, relevant dialog consumers expect.
“Interactive marketers are adept at planning and executing campaigns across each individual interactive channel, but continue to grapple with creating a unified view of customer interactions across channels,” states the study. “As a result, marketers are unable to deliver optimized, relevant, and customized digital experiences for customers.”
Based on a survey of nearly 160 marketers, the study identifies the key challenges marketers face to meet the new reality of cross-channel engagement and includes persona-based recommendations to help marketers evolve their interactive campaign management capabilities.
Key recommendations include:
- Enable real-time management – Employ technology to enable real-time multichannel messaging, data analysis and monitoring.
- Enhance relevance and personalization – Use data to create and deliver unique brand experiences with the help of marketing technologies such as Web analytics, customer data hubs and campaign management suites.
- Improve data and process integration – Manage and understand data in real-time from all channels to develop a single view of the customer and their cross-channel interactions.
“Marketers have long relied on multiple channels to drive engagement, but today marketing requires a new approach – one built on a single view of the customer that puts real-time interaction over static channel-focused campaigns,” said Tim Kopp, chief marketing officer, ExactTarget.
ExactTarget sells an interactive marketing platform that enables marketers to engage in real-time marketing, consolidate all data to create a common view of the consumer and deliver targeted, permission-based interactions across email, mobile, social media and the Web that is currently in beta with 500 top brands, the company says.
Download “The New Campaign Management Mandate” study.
Tags: cross-channel interactions, data and process integration, ExactTarget, Forrester Consulting, interactive marketing platform, keys for dealing with customer cross-channel interactions, Marketing, New Campaign Management Mandate, personalization, real-time multichannel management, study
Posted in Internet/New Media, social media, Studies, surveys, reports | Comments Off
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
 Brain regions positively correlated with the average likability of the song: cuneus, orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum. It may not be long before another new buzz word hits marketing circles: “neuroeconomics.”
In a blog entry on Emory University’s eScience Commons, Carol Clark reports that an Emory University study suggests that the brain activity of teens, recorded while they are listening to new songs, may help predict the popularity of the songs.
We’re willing to bet it won’t be long before the music, film, and marketing industries look for ways to use this research practically.
“We have scientifically demonstrated that you can, to some extent, use neuroimaging in a group of people to predict cultural popularity,” says Gregory Berns, a neuroeconomist and director of Emory’s Center for Neuropolicy.
The Journal of Consumer Psychology is publishing the results of the study, conducted by Berns and Sara Moore, an economics research specialist in his lab.
In 2006, Berns’ lab selected 120 songs from MySpace pages, all of them by relatively unknown musicians without recording contracts. Twenty-seven research subjects, aged 12 to 17, listened to the songs while their neural reactions were recorded through functional magnetic resolution imaging (fMRI). The subjects were also asked to rate each song on a scale of one to five.
Clark reports that the data was originally collected to study how peer pressure affects teenagers’ opinions. The experiment used relatively unknown songs to try to ensure that the teens were hearing them for the first time.
Three years later, while watching “American Idol” with his two young daughters, Berns realized that one of those obscure songs had become a hit, when contestant Kris Allen started singing “Apologize” by One Republic.
“I said, ‘Hey, we used that song in our study,’” Berns recalls. “It occurred to me that we had this unique data set of the brain responses of kids who listened to songs before they got popular. I started to wonder if we could have predicted that hit.”
A comparative analysis revealed that the neural data had a statistically significant prediction rate for the popularity of the songs, as measured by their sales figures from 2007 to 2010.
“It’s not quite a hit predictor,” Berns cautions, “but we did find a significant correlation between the brain responses in this group of adolescents and the number of songs that were ultimately sold.”
Previous studies have shown that a response in the brain’s reward centers, especially the orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum, can predict people’s individual choices – but only in those people actually receiving brain scans.
The Emory study enters new territory. The results suggest it may be possible to use brain responses from a group of people to predict cultural phenomenon across a population – even in people who are not actually scanned.
The “accidental discovery,” as Berns describes it, has limitations. The study included only 27 subjects, and they were all teenagers, who make up only about 20 percent of music buyers.
The majority of the songs used in the study were flops, with negligible sales. And only three of the songs went on to meet the industry criteria for a certified hit: More than 500,000 unit sales, including albums that had the song as a track and digital downloads.
“When we plotted the data on a graph, we found a ‘sweet spot’ for sales of 20,000 units,” Berns said. The brain responses could predict about one-third of the songs that would eventually go on to sell more than 20,000 units.
The data was even clearer for the flops: About 90 percent of the songs that drew a mostly weak response from the neural reward center of the teens went on to sell fewer than 20,000 units.
Another interesting twist: When the research subjects were asked to rate the songs on a scale of one to five, their answers did not correlate with future sales of the songs.
That result may be due to the complicated cognitive process involved in rating something, Berns theorizes. “You have to stop and think, and your thoughts may be colored by whatever biases you have, and how you feel about revealing your preferences to a researcher.”
On the other hand, “you really can’t fake the brain responses while you’re listening to the song,” he says. “That taps into a raw reaction.”
The pop music experiment is merely “a baby step,” Berns says. As a leader in the nascent field of neuroeconomics, he is interested in larger questions of how our understanding of the brain can explain human decision-making.
“My long-term goal is to understand cultural phenomena and trends,” Berns says. “I want to know where ideas come from, and why some of them become popular and others don’t. It’s ideas and the way that we think that determines the course of human history. Ultimately, I’m trying to predict history.
Tags: Atlanta, brain activity predicts song success, brain scans, Carol Clark, Emory University, Marketing, neuroeconomics, pop songs, teen brains
Posted in Internet/New Media, Marketing, Uncategorized, University Tech | Comments Off
Monday, June 13th, 2011
 Bunchball, a San Jose, CA-based company that sells “gamification” solutions, has raised $6.5 million in a round led by Triangle Peak Partners. Northport Investmenst, Correlation Ventures and return investor Granite Ventures participated. Adobe Ventures previously invested but did not participate in this round.
The company says its Nitro gamification platform helps turn site visitors into fans and fans into customers. The platform helps brands and TV networks reward people for doing something, such as liking a brand on Facebook, leaving a comment, sharing an article or watching a movie trailer. Fans compete against other fans for various rewards. Molly Kittle, director of client services for Bunchball told MSNBC’s Tech News, “It’s about appying thee mechanics of gaming to non-game activities.”
This one sounds like a good loyalty building product, combining the sharing aspects of social media with rewards, a tactic that works for credit card providers. We’re also willing to bet this isn’t the last time you hear the term “gamification.”
Everloop nabs $3.1M for protected social network for kids
San Francisco-based Everloop, a startup offering a protected online social platform for kids under 13, has raised $3.1 million in funding by vFormation, Silicon Valley based Band of Angels, Envoi Ventures, Richard Chino, formerly of Overture, Wayne Goodrich of Apple, Deena Burnett-Bailey of Angels of Hope and additional investors.
Everloop was created by parents to give other parents peace of mind. It lets kids connect, communicate and collaborate in a closed “social loop” of their friends and others who share their interests. Everloop also provides creative applications, music, social games, videos, photos, animation, user-generated content and other integrated online experiences.
MyRegistry.com lands an additonal $3.7M for gift registry service
MyRegistry.com, a New Jersey-based firm providing a resources for life cycle occasions, has raised $3.7 million on the heels of landing $5.25 million in equity in April.
The company provides gift registry services for weddings, baby showers, birthdays, graduations, holidays and more.
The company disclosed the raise in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Tags: Bunchball, Everloop, financings, gamification, kid's social network, loyalty programs, Marketing, Myregistry.com, New Jersey, rewards for actions, San Francisco, social media, venture funding
Posted in Internet/New Media, IT, Marketing, Money | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 6th, 2011
 Brands are saturating the top 10 percent of bloggers based on readership while possibly overlooking smaller niche blogs that are quite influential and carry loyal readerships. NEW YORK – Most women bloggers – 93 percent of those surveyed in a study by the BlogFrog network – want to partner with brands, but nearly 60 percent are never approached by a brand or agency.
The survey was fielded across 50,000 women bloggers in the BlogFrog network during the month of April and was analyzed by the Social Studies Group, an independent social media research company. Almost 2,000 women and mom bloggers responded, offering valuable insights for brands that help them understand the most effective ways to partner with women bloggers to generate brand affinity, loyalty and drive purchase behavior.
Key Findings Include:
➢ Compensation matters. 90% are interested in working with brands, so long as there is some form of compensation.
➢ Social good matters. Campaigns that include an element of social good increase trust levels for 56% of bloggers surveyed.
➢ 70% of bloggers trust a brand more when that brand is promoted or recommended by someone they know from a blog or social media.
➢ Almost all women bloggers have positive opinions on brand sponsored social media and blog campaigns.
➢ Almost 60% of women bloggers indicate they want long-term, deeper relationships with a few special brands.
➢ Of the brand pitches bloggers receive, most are rejected by the majority of bloggers.
➢ As consumers, women bloggers are highly influenced by other blogs. 93% have purchased a product based on brand information found on a blog.
➢ Bloggers who spend six or more hours a week engaging with other blog communities show a correlated increase in revenue.
➢ Brands like Purex, Disney, Kraft, Silhouette, Proctor & Gamble, and CSN were given high marks for their blogger relations.
The Holy Grail for brands trying ot reach women and moms
“Bloggers represent online influence and women represent a powerful consumer demographic. Put them together and you have the Holy Grail for brands trying to reach women and moms online,” said Holly Hamann, Co-Founder and VP of BlogFrog, Inc. “The research also reveals that brand advertisers and marketers need to be active listeners and participants to authentically engage with influential women online.”
According to the survey, women bloggers have been primarily hired to write product reviews on their blog, join an affiliate program or place direct advertising on their blog and the majority have been for desirable categories such as health/beauty and food/beverage. However, women indicated that the most desirable brand category is technology and electronics. Pharmaceutical and automotive categories fell to the bottom of the list of brands that women would like to work with.
Quite a few, 67% of respondents think revenue generation is somewhat or very important and the most common non-monetary forms of compensation from brand engagements include free or discounted products or services, traffic to the blogger’s blog, press, and notoriety. Only 15% of bloggers indicated that money has been exchanged for a brand partnership. For the 21% earning $1,000 or more a year, almost all are spending at least 30 hours a week working on their blogs.
While almost all of the bloggers surveyed (88%) say that they have not had a negative experience working on a brand campaign, 12% of unhappy bloggers cited lack of campaign organization, inadequate compensation, and more work than expected as the top reasons for the negative experiences.
BlogFrog is recommending the following best practices for brands and PR agencies to work with mom bloggers:
1) Form deeper relationships by reading blog posts, commenting on blogs and engaging in the conversation happening online.
2) Acknowledge the value of a blogger’s influence, time, and commitment with appropriate compensation
3) Create smart campaigns that are aligned with a niche blogging category, like photography, frugal living, or kids’ fashion.
4) Make your brand and its representatives fully accessible online through the use of social media, branded communities, conversational marketing, and corporate blogs.
To access the complete research report, please visit: theblogfrog.com/learn/get2011researchstudy.aspx.
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
SoutheastVentureConference: www.seventure.org
Internet Summit: www.internetsummit.com
Digital East: www.digitaleast.com
Digital Summit: www.digitalsummit.com
Tags: BlogFrog, brand marketing, four tips for working with women bloggers, Marketing, mommy blogegers, women bloggers
Posted in Internet/New Media, IT, Marketing | Comments Off
Monday, May 2nd, 2011
 Digital and traditional advertising are failing to complement one another effectively, according to part two of the STRATA quarterly survey of major advertising agencies.
Chicago-based STRATA, a leading media buying and selling software provider, found that although digital is playing a larger role, the category still faces substantial obstacles in aligning cohesively with campaign goals. Despite some years of experience with digital, clients still do not fully comprehend the value of this form of media.
As indicated in part one of STRATA’s quarterly survey released earlier this week, all forms of media made a solid comeback during the first quarter, which represented a positive return for advertising. However, the digital category while strong overall, did stumble.
Survey respondents indicated that digital’s two leading obstacles are a lack of advertiser demand and channel effectiveness. Channel effectiveness appears to be blocked largely due to insufficient digital measurement (51%), followed by merging digital and traditional advertising in the managerial process.
The STRATA survey highlighted the fact that agencies are still in desperate need of tools to effectively measure digital advertising.
Digital struggles
More than half (51%) noted that current digital measurement platforms fall short of meeting campaign needs, with 59% illustrating that their clients didn’t even truly understand the value of digital advertising. Furthering the argument that digital struggled this quarter, 93% of respondents noted that clients are not actively requesting new advertising venues such as the iAd, Google TV and Apple TV.
“Advertising is back on track, but merging digital and traditional media is still a major issue,” said John Shelton, STRATA CEO/President. “Agencies are being actively challenged by clients to provide true ROI figures, but they don’t have the tools to fully report digital and traditional advertising results together. Agencies are also struggling with selling certain digital advertising to clients, as most are currently unimpressed with the reach of such new avenues as location based advertising, iAd and Google TV.”
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
SoutheastVentureConference: www.seventure.org
Internet Summit: www.internetsummit.com
Digital East: www.digitaleast.com
Digital Summit: www.digitalsummit.com
Tags: advertising mix, Chicago, digital advertisig, Marketing, STRATA survey
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Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
 KENNESAW, GA - MBlast, an applications provider helping marketing professionals better understand and influence their markets, has raised $12.91 million of a targeted $20.4 million offering, according to a regulatory filing.
The company sells a web-based tool named mPACT, which it says finds and scores influence and offers comprehensive media monitoring, competitive tracking, and opportunity monitoring via an interactive, user-friendly dashboard and robust, graphical reports.
The cloud-based application helps marketers identify and interact with influencers importan to their markets.
The company says that mPACT is built on the idea that influence does not equal popularity. Justin Bieber may have more than 6 million followers on Twitter, but his voice offers little authoritative weight in the automobile or hi-tech markets.
Likewise, a particular blogger may have an impressive generic ‘influence score’ through some other influencer measuring packages in the market, but may also have the wrong focus to ever influence the market a marketing professional cares about (i.e. Automotive Engines instead of the iPhone market).
According to the company, mPACT bases influence scoring first and foremost on topical relevancy. Upon signing up, users enter a set of keywords or areas of interest.
For example, an iPhone app developer could enter their company name, product name(s), competitor names, “iPhone”, “application”, “Apple”, or any other relevant phrases. mPACT then mines terabytes of web-based data in real-time — including blogs, social sites, online publications, and journals — to identify who’s writing about that specific topic.
mPACT applies an advanced, influence algorithm which considers what an Influencer has written across online media (articles, blogs and social media), how frequently they’ve been sourced, how often they are quoted, the number of followers/readers they have, and much more.
mPACT users can see the top Influencers for any given market with granular nuance for a particular product or area of interest.
Built-in competitive intelligence tracks competitors across online publications and the social web in real-time, so marketing professionals can see which Influencers are talking about competing products, what they’re saying, and how often.
The application continually searches for opportunities that can enhance a company’s marketing efforts, including awards, editorial opportunities, buyer’s guides and directories. For example, mPACT users are alerted whenever a competitor appears in a buyer’s guide or a relevant topic pops up in a publication’s editorial calendar.
Per-user pricing ranges from $495/year to $2,995/year, based on the number of companies and markets tracked.
For a chance to meet and interact personally with influencers in the digital media space, including top executives, innovative entrepreneurs, domain experts, venture capitalists and others, check out TechMedia’s Digital Summit May 16-17 at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta.
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
SoutheastVentureConference: www.seventure.org
Internet Summit: www.internetsummit.com
Digital East: www.digitaleast.com
Digital Summit: www.digitalsummit.com
Tags: cloud-based, financing, GA, influencer management, Kennesaw, Marketing, mBlast, mPACT, web-based tool
Posted in Georgia, Internet/New Media, IT, Marketing, Money, social media | Comments Off
Monday, April 18th, 2011
 Women considering buying a product or service are more influenced by the opinions of bloggers they know than by celebrity endorsements, says the BlogHer 2011 Social Media Matters Study, co-sponsored by Ketchum, one of the largest global communications consultancies.
The study also shows that 78% of the female American adult online population are active social media users, and of those, nearly twice as many (20%) are motivated to consider products promoted by or with a blogger they know, than by promotions featuring a celebrity (13%).
The study reveals that the introduction of more sophisticated mobile platforms and web applications have transformed many more digital users into “early adopters”, illustrated by rapid mainstream adoption of new digital services, such as online deal sites (such as Groupon), mobile gaming, location-based apps (such as Foursquare), and smartphone apps.
The study, fielded by Nielsen Company and BlogHer to nationally representative samples, was conducted to gather insights on current social media trends among women, both in the US general online population and members of the BlogHer community.
“Over the last four years we have measured and reported the growing trust women have in the bloggers they read, and how that translates directly into influence and purchasing decisions,” said Elisa Camahort Page, BlogHer Co-founder and COO. “In 2011, we can see that this trust has paid off, as readers report that high satisfaction with the results of such purchases regularly send them back to blogs and social media to seek out recommendations by bloggers they trust.”
Early Adoption is the New Mainstream
The rise in mobile devices has made it easy for consumers to rapidly embrace new applications and digital services. The study found that adults of all ages are using the following mobile devices and apps once a week or more:
- After only two years in the consumer marketplace, online coupon services such as Groupon and LivingSocial are used by over half of women online (51%).
- After less than two years on the market, location-based apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla are now used by 16% of all online adults…an adoption rate that took Twitter twice as long to achieve. It should be noted, however, that this is one of the few apps and tools where women do not lead in adoption, with only 12% of women using these services actively.
- 4 out of 10 women use smartphones and related apps.
- 22% of women are active in mobile gaming.
“With the steady increase of mobile adoption, truly understanding the myriad ways a brand’s stakeholders use mobile technologies and developing a customized mobile strategy to reach them is critical.” said Nicholas Scibetta, Partner/Director, Global Media Network at Ketchum. “Creating a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to reach the masses is sure to reach but a few.”
Blogs and Other Social Media Increasingly Tapped for Purchasing Decisions
This year’s survey shows that blogs play an increasingly influential role in people’s purchasing decisions:
- Blog opinions matter: 53% of U.S. women blog readers have purchased a product based on a blog recommendation. That number soars to 80% of the BlogHer population.
- The top reason the general population trusts blog advice is because of their satisfaction with past purchases based on blog recommendations.
- The top three types of products that the general population seeks reviews and recommendations for on blogs are consumer electronics (35%), computer hardware/software (33%) and movies (33%). Among the BlogHer community, the priorities shift to food/beverage (67%) and clothing/shoes (67%), with movies coming in third at 62%.
- Almost half (47%) of U.S. blog readers tap into blogs for finding new trends or ideas, 35% for finding out about new products, and one in four for help with making a purchasing decision.
“With social media being viewed as one of the most promising media vehicles by CMOs and other senior marketers, this findings in this study will be particularly useful in developing strategic marketing initiatives,” said Kelley Skoloda, Partner/Director, Global Brand Marketing Practice at Ketchum. “Consumers are adopting social media and digital applications at unprecedented rates, so marketers have more opportunities than ever for two-way conversation and relationships. Marketers must seize these opportunities now or risk falling behind their competitors in the race for online consumer engagement.”
Promoting, not Preventing, People Connections
Despite suggestions of “online fatigue” and concerns that growing use of the Internet may affect the quality of people’s interpersonal relationships, the 2011 Social Media Matters Study found that Americans online are continuing to use blogs and other social media actively, and many see social networking as a way to preserving connections with family and friends. Specific findings include:
- Blog usage and Facebook usage continue to grow at an equal and modest rate year over year with women (~10%).
- Tech love is all about connecting: 58% of women spend more or about the same time with their friends online as they do offline, yet only 5% feel that social impact has had a negative effect. When asked why technology makes women feel hopeful about the future, the top answer (67%) was that social media makes it easier to stay in touch with family and friends.
“Women who use social media cite not only the value social media brings to their own lives, but also credit the voice they see it giving to women around the world,” concluded BlogHer’s Elisa Camahort Page. “They clearly see the array of digital tools and technologies available to them as a tremendous source of information, connection, entertainment and empowerment.”
An executive summary of the 2011 Social Media Matters Study can be found at www.blogher.com/2011-social-media-matters-study and
The study is conducted annually to show purchasing behaviors of social media users, probe how users feel about the role of technology in their lives, compare media usage patterns and gauge the level of relevance among different types of media.
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
SoutheastVentureConference: www.seventure.org
Internet Summit: www.internetsummit.com
Digital East: www.digitaleast.com
Digital Summit: www.digitalsummit.com
Tags: BlogHer, Marketing, mobile devices, smartphones, social media, study, women adopt mobile early, women trust blogger opinions
Posted in Internet/New Media, Marketing, Mobile, smartphones, Studies, surveys, reports, Telecommunications | Comments Off
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
 ATLANTA – Mobile Tag, which sells mobile barcode and near-field-communication (NFC)-based marketing solutions, has raised a Series B financing of nearly $8.2 million.
Existing investors provided the financing, including: XAnge Private Equity, Alven Capital, IDF Capital with a new investment from Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken Venture Capital (SEB Venture Capital) who joined the Board of the Parent.
Mobile Tag, Inc., the Atlanta-based wholly owned US subsidiary of Mobile Tag Group, has entered into a definitive contract to partner with America’s largest wireless carrier to make the use of mobile barcodes and NFC tagging as pervasive as text messaging. NFC is based on short-range wireless technologies.
In 2006, the company launched mobiletag, an embedded software application that allows phones to read 2D barcodes, otherwise known as tags, simply by using the phone’s camera. Mobile Tag developed the software to create quick access to external content.
This enables a one to one dialog between the consumer and advertiser immediately from the ad. As the largest provider of mobile devices to consumers, the partnership is uniquely positioned to provide this service to its millions of Consumers and Business Customers along with its partner Mobile Tag.
The company says successful trials have already been conducted with key business customers.
Mobile Tag Inc.’s CEO William Hoffman believes, “Our partner has a unique position giving it a clear advantage to help Brands connect to consumers in an easy and intuitive way. In my opinion, the partnership has “cracked the code” on how to connect businesses of all sizes directly with consumers of all ages and tastes, using commonplace technology like barcodes or advanced technology like NFC tags combined with your ever-present cell phone”.
We’re a bit skeptical of this as something that might be widely adopted, although we can see how it would be useful for promotions or exchanging information. Still, we wonder how many people are going to be standing in stores getting a bar code nicely aligned in their cell phone camera so they can go to a web site or view a company video.
Then again, we do know people who shop with their cellphone glued to a hand to check for cheaper prices or a better deal. But it’s the need to actually shoot a cellphone picture of the bar code that would keep us from using this much.
–Allan Maurer
Email TJS Editor Allan Maurer: Allan at TechJournalSouth dot com.
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
SoutheastVentureConference: www.seventure.org
Internet Summit: www.internetsummit.com
Digital East: www.digitaleast.com
Digital Summit: www.digitalsummit.com
Tags: Alven Capital, Atlanta, bar code reader, GA, IDF Capital, Marketing, Mobile Tag, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken Venture Capital, telecom, William Hoffman, XAnge Private Equity
Posted in Georgia, Internet/New Media, IT, Marketing, Mobile, Money, Telecommunications | Comments Off
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
 By Allan Maurer
ATLANTA – Three major problems affect the ability of companies to generate new sales leads, says Greg Foster, co-founder of BrightWhistle. The new firm is intended to be “The sharp end of the stick in automated marketing,” Foster says.
This is Foster’s latest company. Foster is entrepreneur in residence at Chyrsalis Ventures. His experience includes founding or being part of the management team for three successful start-ups, and running corporate development for two public companies, including Turner Broadcasting.
He is on the board of the popular Internet satire site, The Onion, and Research Triangle-based StatSheet, which Foster says helped inspire founding of BrightWhistle because of its innovations in automation, and was a partner at Atlanta-based Noro-Moseley Partners.
BrightWhistle is one of 50 companies presenting to the more than 1,000 people expected at the fifth annual Southeast Venture Conference in Atlanta March 2-3. Foster tells us the company is in the process of raising a small round now that may close even before the event.
Generating really gualified leads
Founded in July last year, BrightWhistle started out when Foster and co-founder Chad Mallory started looking at ways to generate “Really well qualified leads” in a cost-effective way. “That’s the overarching question marketers deal with on a daily basis,” he says.
He sees three major problems with the way many marketers generate leads now. “Third-party lead generators are often pretty promiscuous,” he says. “They’ll sell a lead to you, to me and to three guys down the street. They’re also disloyal.”
By that he means that even if a company lands a prospect, the third-party lead generator might keep calling them to see if they’ll switch. Also, Foster adds, “There is not a lot of transparency on how their leads are created.”
The bolts come loose
The other approach: broad pay per click strategies with ads on Google and Facebook, has its own set of problems. “They may be able to build you a targeted ad, but they can’t put you somewhere with really compelling content once you click on the ad.”
Also, some digital marketers pay a lot of money to SEO consultants to push their corporate site up the ladder in natural rankings in Google, Bing and so on for certain key words or terms. Unfortunately, Foster notes, “No matter how hard you tighten the bolts down, they eventually come loose.”
He adds, “You may be getting good traffic and good conversions, but over time, they go down and you have to get the SEO consultant back in and pay him $500 an hour to get them back up.”
If money were no object…
So, Foster and his co-founder started asking people, “If money were no object, what kind of system would they create to help with all those issues?”
Foster says “We talked to a lot of different people and companies. They began with healthcare companies – which is BrightWhistle’s initial focus. “They have the greatest need for lead generation to find new patients.”
 Greg Foster Then, he says, “It dawned on us that if they had their druthers, they would want a system where they could create blogs that rank highly for natural search but would allow them to keep the leads generated exclusively for themselves.”
They would want the system flexible enough to take the same blog content and create customized landing pages for ads in Google or on Facebook. The increased relevancy of the pages they land on then produces increased conversion rates.
Already cashflow positive
They asked themselves, Foster says, “What if you could create multiple blogs, get them professionally written and published, manage all the SEO issues, and have the flexibility to create as many landing pages as desired, targeted at a very specific level – and all automated?
That’s the system BrightWhistle developed. “Essentially,” says Foster, “We’re taking something a digital marketer wouldn’t have time to do on their own and automating it.”
BrightWhistle doesn’t sell leads. It sells a software as a service platform, which users pay for based on the number of blogs or landing pages in the system at any given time.
“It’s time to insource lead generation,” he says.
BrightWhistle must be doing something right. The firm landed seven clients since November, but is taking a breather to raise money. “We’re already cashflow positive,” Foster says.
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
SoutheastVentureConference: www.seventure.org
Internet Summit: www.internetsummit.com
Digital East: www.digitaleast.com
Digital Summit: www.digitalsummit.com
Tags: Atlanta, blogs, Brightwhistle, Chysalis Ventures, Greg Foster, lead generation, Marketing, Noro Moseley Partners, pay per click, Southeast Venture Conference, The Onion
Posted in Events, Georgia, Internet/New Media, IT, Marketing | Comments Off
Friday, January 28th, 2011
 If advertisers are paying for clicks on their mobile ads, many may be wasting a significant amount of money, according to a new survey. Harris Interactive, on behalf of Pontiflex, a company selling an email, mobile and social aciquisition platform, found in December that 47 percent of mobile app users said they click on mobile ads by mistake more often than they do on purpose.
In a related December 2010 survey, 71 percent of mobile app users stated that they prefer ads that keep them within the app they are using, instead of ads that take them out of the app to a mobile web browser, further reinforcing the need for mobile advertising to move away from a model based on clicks.
With more than 10 billion apps downloaded, both free and paid apps for the Apple and Android platforms have registered explosive growth. According to the Pontiflex survey, 95 percent of mobile app users use free apps and 41 percent use paid apps.
This trend is prevalent even among more affluent demographics — 96 percent of mobile apps users with household income of $75K plus said they use free apps. The strong consumer usage of free apps highlights the importance of mobile app advertising, which has emerged as an important revenue stream for publishers and app developers to help keep apps free.
The findings of this survey have important implications for mobile marketers.
With the high incidence of accidental clicks, advertisers cannot continue to use traditional online ad units and measurement models — namely banners and click-through rates — as a way to deploy and measure the success of mobile campaigns. Furthermore, the survey suggests that advertisers should deploy in-app advertising models to engage consumers in a way that is consistent with their preferences.
Additional findings of the survey include:
- 61 percent of mobile apps users ages 18-34 click/tap on mobile ads by accident more often than on purpose
- Almost two-thirds of mobile app users selected ads that contain coupons, deals or newsletters as their preferred in-app mobile ad type
- Mobile apps are popular across all age groups
- Usage is highest among users 18-34 years old
“People are turned off by advertising that causes them to stop what they are doing and disrupts their experience,” said Deb Swider, director, eMarketing at the American Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). “The mobile advertising solutions that are going to work are those that are respectful of user experience.”
Tags: half of mobile users clicik on ads by mistake, Marketing, mobile, mobile advertising, Pontiflex, telecom
Posted in Internet/New Media, Marketing, Telecommunications | Comments Off
Friday, January 28th, 2011
 WASHINGTON, DC – LivingSocial, the local social deals rival to Chicago-based Groupon, boosted its traffic by 80 percent selling a $20 Amazon card for $10 last week, but the deal spawned a rash of negative comments on the LivingSocial Facebook page and stories about the deal across the Web on sites that allow comments.
Some LivingSocial users complained they still had not received their paid for deal days afterward. Some users apparently tried to take advantage of the deal more than once, which is not allowed. Others claimed they were unfairly accused of doing so. Complaints ranged from credit card problems to the way LivingSocial agents responded. Many complaints about the company were harsh.
We have requested a response from LivingSocial both when we did our original story on the deal last week and again this morning.
Hitwise Intelligence data shows that LivingSocial “closed the gap” between it and Groupon, with its traffic surging 80 percent while Groupon’s actually fell 20 percent. Hitwise suggests that means that “the race for dominance in the group coupon space is far from over.” Mashable opined that LivingSocial’s traffic is likely to return to Earth this week, although the company likely gained many new members and national attention, good and bad, from the deal.
Groupon is recognized at the 800-pound gorilla in the space. Groupon turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google, which is launching Google Offers, its own version of social deals amid rumors that Facebook may also become a competitor, further demonstrating how hot the sector remains.
Not all comments on stories about LivingSocial’s Amazon deal were negative. One pointed out that in a deal this size (reportedly 1.3 million people bought the Amazon discount, the company says) there are always some disgruntled customers. However, the way a company deals with such responses on a social media platform and otherwise can seriously affect its business going forward.
The Amazon deal followed the online retail giant’s investing $175 million in LivingSocial, the second larger player in the space currently.
I noted in our first story that I bought the Amazon discount card from LivingSocial using a credit card and had no problems with the deal.
For more see: Was LivingSocial’s Big Amazon Deal a Bust?
–Allan Maurer
Email TJS Editor Allan Maurer: Allan at TechJournal South dot com.
Tags: Chicago, Complaints about LivingSocial Amazon deal, DC, Groupon, LivingSocial closes gap on Groupon, LivingSocial deal a bust?, local deals, Marketing, social deals space, Washington
Posted in Internet/New Media, Marketing | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
 ATLANTA – More signs that the economic recovery got a boost from a better than expected holiday season: paid search spend in the United States bounced back with 18.5% growth year-over-year in 2010. Q4 showed impressive gains, increasing +35.5% year over year (YoY) with December leading the quarter at 44.8% YoY growth, according to Atlanta-based searchignite. The company says 2011 is also expected to be a strong year for search spending.
The Q4 holiday season indicated improved consumer sentiment, with AOV up 31.3% YoY compared to a 13% decline in 2009.
These findings come from a report released today by SearchIgnite, a provider of performance marketing technology and services, managing more than $1 billion in media for some of the world’s largest advertisers and agencies, including Chico’s, La Quinta, E*TRADE and more.
Other notable findings in the report:
- The retail vertical reported significant increases in search spend in Q4 (+36.6% YoY)
- Q4 saw a significant increase across all underlying metrics, including spend (+35.3% YoY), clicks (+20.6% YoY) and click-through rates (+17.9% YoY).
- Google continues to gain on YaBing, capturing 82.6% of Q4 advertising spend, while YaBing fell to 17.4% share.
“2010 proved to be a great year for search advertising as the search market recovered from the downturn seen in 2009,” said Roger Barnette, CEO of SearchIgnite.
“Even more promising is the revival of consumer spend throughout the year and the strength of Average Order Values in Q4. We expect 2011 to be a strong year for search and online advertising overall.”
Download complete report
Tags: 2010, Atlanta, economic recovery, GA, Internet, Marketing, paid search spend
Posted in Georgia, Internet/New Media, Marketing | Comments Off
Thursday, January 13th, 2011
 ORLANDO, FL - Alinean, an Orlando-based company selling B2B sales and marketing tools, says research reveals that return on investment ROI success in social media is often driven by level-of-engagement, and that engagement success was driven by a set of best practices termed the “Social Media Hierarchy of Needs,” a phrase Alinean has trademarked.
The findings revealed that social media level-of-engagement, the ability to attract and dialogue with followers, advocates, influencers and readers, drove the capture of new prospects, improved existing customer loyalty and provided a platform for collaborative innovation.
These engagements eventually led to incremental revenue opportunities and cost savings, the key benefits in the realization of ROI.
“The research looked at engagement success and how it led to tangible benefits and ROI, revealing that marketers who implemented a layered, hierarchical set of engagement best practices, including Content, Campaigns, Monitoring and Collaboration, achieved superior ROI results,” said Tom Pisello, chairman and founder of Alinean.
“Much like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, each successive layer relies on a solid foundation for success, with those implementing successive approach achieving the most success.”
The Social Media Hierarchy of Needs includes:
* Tier 1: Content– Achieving social media ROI required a foundation of content, particularly focused on delivering value, presenting new ideas, improving credibility, driving personal connections and providing entertainment.
* Tier 2: Campaigns – Users won’t know that the content exists without campaigns, a promotional “push” of messages via the social media channels. Campaigns can include basic messaging like tweeting, updating status, posting discussions and links, and more advanced campaigns such as contests and sweepstakes.
* Tier 3: Monitoring – Above the campaigns, monitoring is required to actively listen to the user community. The monitoring can listen for campaign and content effectiveness, advocacy and customer intelligence, trends, competitive intelligence, incidents and issues, as well as responding to direct questions and incident response.
* Tier 4: Collaboration – Interacting with the user base is a key differentiating element to the most successful social media campaigns. This includes promoting and participating in collaborative discussions and engaging users in collaborative product reviews, shared designs and innovation, an initiative termed “collaborative innovation.”
Along with the hierarchical tiers, the research indicated two key additional supporting best practices, highlighting the importance of:
* Measurement of social media metrics, benefits and success; and
* Integration of information, such as lead nurturing and CRM, and processes, such as centralizing and coordinating governance and resources.
“In order to drive the most effective engagement, marketers need to implement each successive tier of the Social Media Hierarchy of Needs to drive the highest ROI from social media efforts,” adds Pisello.
Many of these findings support advice we’ve heard from numerous speakers at Tech Media’s Internet focused events (www.internetsummit.com and www.digitaleast.com, with a new event slated for Atlanta this spring).
Here is the full Social Media ROI white paper and research findings.
Tags: "Social Hiearchy of needs", Alinean, FL, Marketing, Orlando, social media ROI
Posted in Business advice, Internet/New Media, Marketing | Comments Off
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010
 The digital revolution in media proceeds apace. While 2010 was a challenging year economically, several trends obviously came into their own. Mobile, online video, and online advertising all moved steadily into the mainstream of commerce in 2010.
Now, eMarketer, estimates that 2010 will mark the first time marketers spent more money on online advertising than they did in newspapers.
It says total newspaper spending will drop to $25.7 billion, a 6.6 percent decline. Spending on print alone, eMarketer says, will see an even greater decline to $22.8 billion.
A 13 percent boost in online ad spending will kick it up to $25.8 billion, surpassing the newspaper spend for the first time by the end of the year, it says.
EMarketer also predicts the spending gap “Will widen significantly next year.”
“It’s something we’ve seen coming for a long time, but this is a tipping point,” Geoff Ramsey, CEO of eMarketer told the Wall Street Journal.
This continues a steep decline in newspaper spending in this decade. EMarketer estimates newspaper ad spending fell by half since 2006 with little online help to bridge the difference.
Next year will also mark the return of pay walls that prevent access to some content on newspaper online sites such as that of the New York Times. The newspaper industry awaits seeing how that turns out.
More print operations are also likely to follow the Christian Science Monitor and other newspapers to online only operations.
Many newspapers have already drastically slashed staffs, thinned their product, and are struggling to survive even in major cities.
While many advertisers, particularly in local and regional markets, still like print advertising and many even prefer it to online, it is pricey compared to greater reach online at significantly lower cost per thousand.
Not so long ago we recall that nearly every door had a newspaper thump against it each morning. We recently moved from an apartment building where newspapers were in front of all but a few doors in 2000, but by 2009 even the Sunday papers disappeared. We don’t see a single print paper delivered here.
Online advertising, on the other hand, has become increasingly sophisticated. With targeting, localization, mobile, and video in the mix, it meets more advertiser needs while reaching ever larger audiences. According to the digital measurement company comScore, even display advertising produces results for package goods sales equal to or better than TV advertising.
So 2011 may be a pivotal year for the newspaper business and its future. — Allan Maurer
Email TJS Editor Allan Maurer: Allan at TechJournalsouth dot com.
Tags: advertising, Marketing, media, online ad spending tops newspapers
Posted in Internet/New Media, IT, Marketing, Studies, surveys, reports, Viewpoint | Comments Off
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010
 Gartner Group predicts that 10 percent of our Facebook "friends" may be bots by 2015. Photo from the film "Short Circuits." RESEARCH TRIANGLE, NC – Within about four years, 10 percent of your Facebook contacts may be bots -automated software agents created to handle a variety of interactions with humans on the social networking site, according to the Gartner Group in its Top Predictions for IT organizations and Users.
We’re already seeing bots doing things such as composing basic sports stories composed from statistics (see: StatSheet introduces robot sports journalism covering college basketball).
Currently, most firms use actual human beings to interact with their customers on Facebook and other online forums. At the recent Internet Summit in Raleigh, numerous experts said companies need to start by listening to the online dialog concerning them and respond personally. But Gartner says:
“By 2015, efforts to systematize and automate social engagement will result in the rise of social bots, automated software agents that can handle, to varying degrees, interaction with communities of users in a manner personalized to each user.”
No, no, not another bot
I can see quite a few problems with this.
What if the FTC imposes a Do Not Track list and the company’s customers are, by and large, on it?
Can most people be fooled by interaction with a bot or will the nonhuman nature of the interaction be transparent? If not, would it lead to valid complaints of users being misled into thinking they were talking to a human?
It people discover they are dealing with bots on a service such as Facebook, where, again as many experts at the Internet Summit pointed out, they expect to deal with a person, will the customers be disillusioned with the company?
I think it may be more likely that dealing with a company’s social media outlets will become a normal part of a marketing department’s function with actual human beings assigned the task – at least at the companies that use social media most successfully. I doubt I’m the only person who would tend to bar companies that try to interact with me via a bot on Facebook. — Allan Maurer
TJS Editor/writer Allan Maurer: Email Allan at TechJournalSouth dot com.
Tags: Facebook bots, Gartner Group, Internet, Marketing, software bots
Posted in Carolinas, Internet/New Media, Marketing, North Carolina, Studies, surveys, reports | Comments Off
Tuesday, November 16th, 2010
 DURHAM, NC - Zift Solutions, a SaaS company that increases channel sales by enabling channel partners to create and execute better marketing campaigns, has named Betsy Atkins, the CEO of Baja Ventures, executive chair.
Founded in 2006, Zift provides a channel marketing automation solution that allows clients to cost effectively enable their channel partners to deliver branded multi-channel marketing that includes online advertising, content syndication, SEO optimization, event management and e-mail marketing.
The company raised a $1.5 million A round from Southern Capitol Ventures and Kinetic Ventures in October.
Atkins is a veteran technology entrepreneur and public company board member, bringing more than 20 years of experience advising and directing global companies spanning multiple industries.
As CEO of Baja Ventures, the venture capital firm she established in 1994, Atkins has been noted for her technological insight and for investing in such companies as Yahoo!, and eBay. She most recently served as chairman and CEO of Clear Standards, which was acquired by SAP.
Atkins was a co-founder of Ascend Communications, Inc. and a member of its Board of Directors, and served as its worldwide sales, marketing and international executive vice president prior to its acquisition by Lucent Technologies in 1999. She currently serves on three public company boards (SunPower Corporation, Polycom and Chico’s), is an advisor to British Telecom, and formerly served on the NASDAQ Exchange board of directors.
“I’ve worked with many companies whose business is dependent on the success of their channel partners. When I saw how much more successful they could be by leveraging the Zift Solutions platform, I knew I wanted to get involved,” said Atkins.
Using the Zift platform, marketing content can be created once and used by all channel partners on demand. The channel partners gain easy access to the marketing programs, which are customized to reflect their unique branding. All partners can view their dashboard, which measures each marketing campaign’s effectiveness and provides other key metrics.
We profiled Zift shortly after its initial funding. See:
Zift Solutions: take the money and run to stay ahead of the pack
Tags: IT, Marketing, Zift Solutions names Betsy Atkins exec chair
Posted in Carolinas, Internet/New Media, IT, Marketing, North Carolina, People | Comments Off
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010
 Scott Silverman, Gio Hunt, David Moldavsky, and David Horgan on the Digital East ecommerce panel. By Allan Maurer
TYSONS CORNER, VA – How do professionals go about increasing their ecommerce conversion rate? They test variations of everything from their message to their web design to their images.
That was one takeaway from the Ecommerce panel at yesterday’s Digital East event in Tysons Corner, VA, which included David Horgan, Smithsonian Folkways online marketing specialist; Gio Hunt, CEO of Koofers.com; David Moldavsky, VP, of web strategy and operations, Graduate Management Admissions Council; and Scott Silverman, cofounder and VP of marketing at Ifeelgoods.com.
Moldavsky, who previously worked for language learning firm Rosetta Stone, said Rosetta Stone looked at ecommerce as a sales funnel and how things flow through it. They look at where traffic is coming from (search, email, offline & online marketing) and follow it as it goes through the funnel to conversions.
Look for leakages
“We looked for leakages,” says Moldavsky, “figuring out what worked and what wasn’t working.”
They would also run tests of different site versions once a month. “We would try shorter descriptions vs. longer ones, exchange one set of images for another, and track which ones make you the most money. We used a tracking tool.”
Moldavsky said that they did a multiple variant test of their product listing page, testing four very different versions, and after two weeks got a 15 percent lift in conversions by using the one that produced the best results.
Silverman, moderating the panel, noted that there are many tools available to help test and track sites, including the free Google optimizer. He also noted that many times, a firm is too close to its own ecommerce site to see things that might trouble potential buyers. Several studies show that if an online buyer is stymied by anything in the purchasing process, they tend to just leave. Usually, they do not come back.
Silverman said, “Go to a Starbucks and give people $10 to use your site. Get them to talk out loud and it’s amazing what you’ll learn. Problems arise you never see because you are too close to it.”
Doing that helped one company discover that there was no “buy now” button on its page anywhere.
Don’t overlook email
Gio Hunt of Koofers, a site that provides professor ratings, study guides and other services to college students, said, “Email is often overlooked as a prospecting tool in web publishing. “It’s rocking awesome,” he said. “It’s one of our greatest performing channels and really inexpensive compared to anything else. So never overlook email. Start with it.”
He also said Facebook in an increasingly important channel in acquiring new users. “It’s not for the faint of heart,” he added. “You have to test your way into it. What I see over and over is that a lot of people try it one time and put in one type of creative that almost inevitably performs poorly. They say ‘This Facebook thing doesn’t work, no one is converting.’ You have to be patient and methodical in your testing.”
He added, “It will perform well when you dial in different creative and targeting mechanisms at different parts of the day. It may take four weeks, but you’ll see a significant improvement in lift.”
Add a surprise
Horgan noted that his 15-employee company can make use of tools previously only available to large organizations so that even small non-profits can compete. “Without Facebook and Twitter, we would not have had the success we’ve had,” he said. Posting reviews and ratings on the Folkways site has also been effective, he said.
“That sort of transparency has had a very positive effect on our conversions.”
He also said Folkways always includes a little extra gift when its customers buy digital tracks, including an extra as a “surprise.”
That way, he said, “You’ll not only be doing things well, but also doing them better than a customer expected.”
Around 700 people attended the Digital East event. Next up for Tech Media is the Internet Summit in Raleigh Nov.17-18, which over two days, includes more than 100 Internet and digital experts.
Tags: David Horgan, David Moldavsky, Digital East, ecommerce, Events, Gio Hunt, Internet Summit, Koofers, Marketing, Rosetta Stone, Scott Silverman
Posted in Carolinas, Internet/New Media, IT, Marketing, North Carolina, Potomac, Virginia | Comments Off
Thursday, October 7th, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 Eric Boggs DURHAM, NC – The Argyle Co. Inc., which sells social media marketing software, issued a status update today – it has closed on a $325,000 seed financing, all from NC Research Triangle-based investors. Eric Boggs, co-founder and CEO tells us, “We help marketers understand how their content and social media presence correlates to their bottom line.”
The company previously received a $33,000 grant from NC IDEA, which may not be a lot of money, but “It ignited us into action and made a huge difference in terms of product development,” says Boggs.
Boggs and his co-founder, Adam Covati, described on the company web site as someone who can “drink coffee at a mind-boggling clip,” met while they were at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School (where Boggs was a Dean’s Fellow and earned an MBA).
 Adam Covati Both men worked for Bronto Software before taking the entrepreneurial leap.
“I wanted to build or join a startup and when Adam and I got together, we thought we could build a business around an idea he was working on.” They started with a handshake in December, wrote the first lines of code in February.
Boggs, who is among the many Internet entrepreneurs, executives, venture capitalists and thought leaders participating in the upcoming Internet Summit in Raleigh, Nov. 17-18, says the company’s product helps publish content on different platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs and so on. Everything can be done from a single dashboard, a real aid to anyone who has to deal with multiple content updates to multiple platforms daily or often.
Everything driven by measurement
But the key element of Argyle’s product, which is getting good reviews since its launch in April, is “Everything is driven by measurement,” says Boggs. That, he says, means marketers can track the progress of their messages and improve performance over time.
It measures conversions—probably the metric that interests marketers most—but also leads acquired, how many people download something, and more. “The market need we’re trying to address are businesses for whom social is a strategic channel and outcome or metrics driven,” Boggs says. While a lot of companies are using social media in incidental ways to have conversations with customers, others are using it to drive revenue and need more sophisticated tools to measure its effectiveness.
“It’s pretty obvious that social media is here to stay and has changed the way business and brands interact with their customers,” Boggs says. The imperative for many firms to have a blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts is becoming more common, he notes. Even small and medium-sized businesses are using it and want to understand how it impacts different areas of their efforts.
The current version of the Argyle product sells for $149 a month.
Boggs says Argyle Social expects to launch two other products this year, one for agencies and an advanced version, both enhanced versions of the core platform.
Tags: Adam, Argyle Social, Covaci, Durham, Eric Boggs, facebook, financing, Kenan Flagler, Marketing, measurement, NC, NC IDEA, social media, Twittter, UNC Chapel Hill
Posted in Carolinas, Events, Internet/New Media, IT, Marketing, North Carolina | Comments Off
Monday, September 27th, 2010
 Major retailers are not leveraging social media to promote their flash sales as effectively as smaller dedicated websites, according to Interpret, a leading entertainment, media and technology market research firm’s Interpretations report, “The Rise of Social Commerce.”
Interpret’s New Media Measure study finds 68 percent of online shoppers are cutting back on their spending in this tight economy – retailers have responded by offering “flash” sales on their websites on a limited quantity item for a short amount of time at deep discounts.
Interpret found that 22 of the top 25 online retailers offer a form of flash sale on their website, but they have yet to implement a strategy as successful as sites such as Groupon, Gilt and ideeli.
The success of these dedicated sites can be attributed to how effectively they leverage a new social media phenomenon called “Collective Buying,” where a certain number of people must buy the coupon before the discount becomes valid.
In additon to Chicago-based Groupon, DC’s SocialLiving is also a major player in the local group buying space. Both firms have raised significant capital (which TechJournal South has reported) this year.
“The most successful online retailers are not using social media to promote their deals effectively,” said Zak Kirchner, Senior Research Analyst, Interpret LLC. ”Unlike dedicated flash sites Groupon and Gilt that have leveraged the social web to achieve strong flash sales success, very few of the major retailers have used social networks to promote their flash sales, which is a missed opportunity.”
Tags: Gilt, Groupon, ideeli, Interpret, LIvingSocial, Marketing, social media, studies
Posted in Internet/New Media, Marketing, Studies, surveys, reports | Comments Off
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