Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Email Marketers See Shift to Mobile But Are They Responding?” plus 2 more

Email Marketers See Shift to Mobile But Are They Responding?
Local Business or Big Brand: The Key to Facebook Success is the Same
Super Bowl Ads and Extending Your 30 Seconds of Fame

Email Marketers See Shift to Mobile But Are They Responding?

Posted: 01 Feb 2011 06:18 AM PST

There is no denying that the move to mobile in every aspect of life is gaining momentum. That's the easy part. That's the part that makes headlines. Where it gets tough is when marketers have to adjust their way of doing business that they may have become comfortable in and, in many cases, put on cruise control. One of the most abrupt changes is in the e-mail marketing space.

The e-mail marketing industry has grown up and developed as the PC market has and is still primarily designed for the desktop / laptop delivery of messages. Bigger screens, more bandwidth and web based mail delivery have made it very convenient, and effective, for e-mail marketers.

The market, however, is shifting. The traditional market isn't going away (it never really does) but it is certainly changing. comScore underscores that fact with some current findings about the shift to mobile e-mail usage. It is important to please note that the web based e-mail referred to here does not include Outlook and other e-mail applications.

While this decline is obvious the increase in mobile e-mail usage is climbing quite dramatically. First at look overall usage.

Now by demographic.

None of this data signals any death knell for email marketing. It's quite the contrary. E-mail will be around for a long time in the business world and whether someone uses it in their personal life or not will not negate that need regardless of what the younger crowd says or thinks.

Marketers do have to pay very close attention, however, to who uses e-mail, in what environment and when in order to remain effective. With that in mind the shift to mobile is going to be the point where marketers experience a make or break moment of sorts.

Just like any Internet marketing option there are always the early adopters who jump ahead of the curve and get in the game early. The next wave is the largest and most important because these are the people who get the concept but waited for the bleeding edge experiments to be completed before they commit fully. With email and the mobile world that group is getting on board. The rest will be the trailers (or laggards) while there will be a group that just doesn't change. We have seen the same evolutionary cycle with search etc.

So as an Internet marketer are you making the switch to make sure your email marketing efforts don't miss the mobile crowd? Have you taken a good hard look at your users and decided whether their mobile usage dictates your switch from what you might be comfortable with to a new way of looking at reaching them?

These are important questions facing marketers every day but the pressure of budgets and doing what might be considered cool (social media) over what might be more effective and truly measurable can cause conflict.

How are you addressing the new mobile need when it comes to e-mail marketing. Is it impacting how you reach customers or is it still too early? Give us your insights in the comments.

Local Business or Big Brand: The Key to Facebook Success is the Same

Posted: 31 Jan 2011 12:26 PM PST

Coca-Cola has 19.8 million Facebook fans many of whom they’ve cultivated with a year-long social media campaign called Expedition 206. That’s all well and good for my favorite soft drink company, but what about the gourmet cupcake bakery or the coffee shop that’s not Starbucks?

According to eMarketer, companies, which I take to mean brand names, only make up 6% of the fan pages on Facebook. where as local businesses make up 17.6% of the pages, the most populated category on the chart. But while there may be more than twice as many local business pages, you can bet that the total followers don’t add up that way.

The top ten brands combined, have a total of over 100 million fans. I’d bet that if you added up the fans of the top ten local business pages, the number wouldn’t even come close. But does it matter? Rosie’s Coffee Shack in Seattle will never have the same number of fans as Starbucks, but that doesn’t mean she can’t benefit from a well-maintained Facebook page.

Alexandra Wheeler, director of digital strategy for Starbucks had this to say:

"It's about making sure that we do our job every day to give those fans some sort of meaningful value. Having 10 million people on Facebook who like us would be useless if we did nothing with it."

That applies to everyone on Facebook. Big brand or a local business, fans will follow you if you engage with them in a meaningful way. What’s meaningful? That depends on your business. If you’re a garden shop, it might mean offering tips for better blooms. Musicians might offer free song downloads and don’t underestimate the value of entertainment. Facebookers love games and trivia.

When striving for social media success, it’s good to take a look at what the big boys are doing but don’t feel you have to hit a million fans to be declared a winner. If one fan recommends your business to his friends on Facebook, then you’ve done a good job. Then all you have to do is keep up the good work, week after week after week.

Super Bowl Ads and Extending Your 30 Seconds of Fame

Posted: 31 Jan 2011 11:21 AM PST

Creating a clever Super Bowl commercial takes time, talent and a lot of money. So in order to make the very most of their investment, Super Bowl advertisers are trying something new this year – using social media to pre-advertise their advertisement.

Bud Light, Audi and HomeAway (?) have all launched Super Bowl ad related campaigns on Twitter and / or Facebook but the one that’s really sparking interest is the Mercedes-Benz push.

The luxury car company is running a “Tweet Race.” On Wednesday, four teams will set out from four major cities on their way to Dallas, Texas, each driving a “specially-outfitted” Mercedes-Benz vehicle. The cars will be “Tweet Powered,” meaning that they’ll gain ground based on the number of Tweets their team receives. Sounds complicated but it also sounds like something people will really get behind.

What’s perplexing to many, is the target audience. Since when is Mercedes-Benz a Twitter kind of product? Jay Baer, of Convince & Convert, called the campaign “down-market.” Or maybe it’s just the company’s attempt at drawing in a younger audience. Surely that’s what Best Buy was going for when they hired Justin Bieber for their Super Bowl commercial. Then again, maybe the guy who decided to pair the mop-top moppet with classic rocker Ozzy Osbourne is an advertising genius. The goal is, after all, to get everyone talking, and this ad has already generated a large amount of press and social media buzz.

What all these companies are doing right, is not putting all of their dollars into one piggy bank. By using social media before, during and after the Super Bowl, they’re turning their 30 seconds of fame into a month-long journey.

Will the Tweet Race result in an uptick in sales at Mercedes-Benz? We’ll probably never know but at least they’re trying some fresh and fun.