EMBRACING NEW TECHNOLOGY

Want to reach a broader audience, engage your current customers, and boost your profit in 2012?
Embracing new technology might be just what you need! QR codes aren’t exactly new, but they might be to you. And using them in your marketing efforts can help you reach customers in a unique and exciting way.
Whether it’s a new social networking site that pops up in 2012, another change to Google’s search algorithm, or new software that can enhance a users’ mobile site experience, don’t ignore the new technology the new year brings with it.
Instead, try some of it out to find what works for you. Adapt with the changing technology and your business will stay current and relevant to your target audience.
Tell us what marketipng strategies you're planning to use in2012

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2012 MARKETING TRENDS PREDICTIONS

Here are seven marketing trends we predict will define 2012:

1. Bottoms-Up: Customers First  2012 is the year  where customers will be showered by perks from the businesses they interact with. 
Also, consumers will reward brands that show more humanity owning up to mistakes and engaging in a two-way conversation with their customers rather than the traditional one-way monologue from the business spokesperson.
Takeaway: Your brand must rethink their sales, service and marketing strategies.

2. Continued Rise of the Mobile
We’ve explored a great many reasons your business should be thinking about mobile in our previous post: Is Your Business Marketing On The Move? If Not You Better Get Mobile. We should also note here, however, that technology will be pushing mobile one step further into a cash-less ecosystem of payment via that mobile tech.
Takeaway: Get a mobile website for your business and look into other mobile marketing methods.

3. Gamification of  Marketing Campaigns
Can you share, get points or unlock badges for it? These and other gamification aspects are the new motivators for customers who are increasingly engaged by interactive campaigns and purchasing models. Zynga is the go-to model for gamification ideas.
Takeaway: Study business models that include gamification, such as Getglue and Foursquare, and consider how these techniques could be applied to your business campaigns.

4. Social Business
Consumers will look to their social networks first to find out information about products and services. More tools for the measurement of social analytics will be released, and brands must use these tools to better understand their consumers. These insights will lead to the establishment of better connections with customers of all income levels.
Takeaway: Are you on the social networks? Do you know what is being said about your business? Get your social savvy on.

5. Mass Customization
Individuals are choosing their own content on their own terms. They will use technology even more to customize products for themselves and to manage their health and lifestyles. Consumers will also participate in surveys and campaigns as well to offer their own in-put about the direction that businesses take and the products they offer.
Takeaway: Reconsider your products and/or services. What level of customization do they offer? And what can you do to ensure more customized engagement with your clientele?

6. Channel Experimentation
Businesses like retailers will continue to experiment with their format, such as incorporating food trucks, pop-up stores and flash sales. Marketers and social strategists will see what kind of analytics they can collect through their various platforms and what sorts of content generate sales. Competition will encourage businesses to push the boundaries when it comes to promotions and campaigns.
Takeaway: As a business you must think outside the box. Now is the time to embrace new and innovative ideas.

7. Businesses Score Through Co-Promotion
Your business will do best to cultivate the co-promotion model. It’s social business on a business to business level where customers and clients will be influenced by recommendations and referrals.
Takeaway: Begin growing your network now, and support surrounding businesses to encourage overall community success.

Though the challenges to business in 2012 will be daunting, the progressive business will take social objectives mainstream and tie them to their overall business objectives. Engagement will be defined not by facilitated conversation, but the consumer’s overall takeaway value and the actions that result.

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Mobile marketing in 2012: ten predictions for the year

1. Mobile search marketing spend to increase significantly in 2012. Mobile searches accounted for approximately 9% of search activity in 2011. This is projected to increase to 20% in 2012 (source: A4U m-commerce report), making it a perfect time for retailers to increase their mobile search spend.

2. m-Sites will become faster and easier to use. With over half of users stating that they expect sites to download as quickly on their mobile device as their home computer and 60% stating that poor performance will make them less likely to return to the site (source: Gomez mobile web user experience survey), retailers will be ensuring that their mobile sites deliver the experience quickly, easily and efficiently. A well designed site, which operates as quickly as possible could make all the difference.

3. SMS will continue to rule. Just over 50% of the UK still own a non-smart phone (source: Kantar World Panel Com Tech) so SMS is key to capture all audiences. Marketers need to remember that apps and m-sites still fail to reach a large proportion of phone owners while SMS open rates are around 90% and covert at a rate that is 400% higher than email marketing (source: Econsultancy).

4. Apps and m-Sites go to war. 2012 will see Google and Apple go up against each other in the battle of the app vs the m-Site. Google will favour m-Sites as they dominate search, while Apple will back the billion dollar app industry. The truth for retailers is that neither is better – it’s all about the timing. Users look to apps for smooth navigation, interaction and user experience, whereas m-Sites are used for their immediacy. The best strategy is to go down both routes to capture as many consumers as possible.

5. The future of m-Commerce. Retailers will release that a mobile commerce strategy needs to be smarter that simply taking order via a mobile device. Smartphone owners are now relying on their devices to help them shop, even when in store to read reviews, compare prices at other retailers, watch demo videos, search for discounts and coupons. Use your mobile marketing strategy to reach out to these consumers and allow them to redeem vouchers via their phone. You’ll be surprised to see how many new customers you attract and existing customers you redeem.

6. Make your data work for you. Think about data capture on mobile devices. Touch screens allow for lots of mistakes and data entry takes time. Keep the data capture to a minimum – email and phone number are enough to generate impressive results.

7. Push the boundaries of Push messaging. The full marketing potential of Push messaging hasn’t been realised and next year will see some interesting developments with push. We’ll see retailers using it to remind users of forgotten items in a shopping basket or a long lost wish list. We’ll also see a shift from plain text Push messages to image led appointment or contact cards.

8. Retailers will realise that if you build it they will not always come. There are many examples of retailers that have taken the time to develop fully optimised mobile sites and apps across all operating systems but neglected to promote them. Think how long it took to build up the traffic to your desktop site and how much marketing it took. Use this as a base for mobile. Use SMS campaigns to send the mobile site address to subscribers, embed QR codes in direct and in store marketing materials, purchase mobile keyword campaigns, do all the things that you’re currently doing but include the mobile site and app.

9. Size is becoming more important when it comes to security. Ask any users about their biggest fear regarding m-Commerce and it will be security. 32% of smartphone users cite that security is the main reason why they haven’t made a direct purchase via their phone. When comparing this to the 17% of tablet users who have security concerns then it starts to become clear that size is important and that the difference is more around the risks of losing the physical device rather than the wireless broadcasting of secure information. Products and companies which develop technologies requiring a pin number to be entered into the phone or secure safes that store files and data in the cloud not on the device will start to change the perception that a phone is less secure than a tablet.

10. London 2012: the first Mobile Olympics. No set of predictions would be complete without a mention of the Olympics in July. Officials estimate an extra four million visitors to London during the two weeks of the Olympics. In addition to enjoying great sporting moments they will all be looking for places to stay, eat, shop and visit, and most will carry a mobile device with them. Just think of the opportunity you could be passing up by not having a mobile presence.

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How To Acquire & Engage Customers More Effectively.

A big part of the answer is through the intersection of social media, SEO and content marketing. If Social Media and SEO fit together like peanut butter and jelly then content is the bread that holds them together. Content is a crucial part of a social media strategy and therefore an understanding of customer-centric social content is essential.

Consumers are not interested in traditional interruptive marketing. They want to be educated and their behaviors for information discovery, consumption and sharing have changed. B2B an B2C customers alike expect to find solutions via search. They also expect to interact with what they find via search.

Consumers expect content from brands. They expect ease of discovery (via search or social), the ability to interact with and socially share content and to interact with others with similar interests (social networking). These aren’t “nice to haves” anymore, they’re expected.

Most corporate marketing is structured to create content around products & services vs. becoming a publisher. As a result, the idea of implementing a content marketing program can seem foreign. However, the abundance of publishing tools and platforms now makes it possible for companies to create content and media that rivals some news organizations.

Content fuels customer engagement at all stages of the customer life cycle from top of funnel to ongoing relationship. Content can educate customers about your products and services. It can help educate about the buying process and how to get the most out of the purchase. It can continue to reinforce the relationship and inspire renewals, upgrades and referrals.

The challenge is for companies to rethink their content marketing strategy and incorporate Social Media and SEO in order to fulfill customer expectations for ease of discovery, consumption and sharing. On top of that, content must educate and make it easy to follow a logical conclusion to buy. The companies that do those things best, will win the incredibly competitive online marketing race we’re in.

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(SEO) SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION: CHOOSING THE RIGHT COMPANY

It is very difficult to select a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company. One of the main reasons is because each company has different service's they offer. The second reason is it seems like there are
new (SEO) companies popping up constantly.
I'm going to try and help you make this decision a little easier by explaining what you should be looking for when searching for a (SEO) company.

FIRST: Choose for a small list of companies. I would say narrow the search to 3-4 companies. Like I stated above there are endless companies out there and you lose a lot of time if you look at every company that comes across you screen, it will also make things much more confusing to you because they all most likely do things differently.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR: Once you have got the 3 or 4 companies there are many important things you want to make sure they offer in their (SEO) programs.

Below are 10 important services that you should check to make sure are included in any
(SEO) search engine optimization program:

 1:-  Social Media Optimization

 2:-  Press Release and Article Distribution

 3:- Your website should be optimized for Local search

4:- Does the service include link building

5:- A few case studies and references from current or past clients.

6:- The SEO company should make any changes needed to your website
     (unless you decide differently)

7:- They should offer some type of reporting to show your campaigns progress

 8:- Check how much time (or man hours) they will spend on your project

 9:- Clarify what kind of support you will get

10:- Payment Terms / If they only offer a 12 month contract walk away.

CONCLUSION:
I can't stress the last one enough! Optimizing your website for search engines doesn't happen over night but you should not have to lock yourself into a year contract. How long it takes until you start seeing your website in the organic section on search engines depends on how aggressive of a SEO program you choose.
I'm NOT a believer in long contracts though. If the company knows their programs work then they shouldn't have to stress about locking you in a long contract. If their programs work you will surely keep using them. If not you should be able to move your money to another program or another company all together. You should give any type of SEO program at least 3 or 4 months before deciding if it is the right program for you.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at I.A.S.

#631-517-0685 or jay@ias30.com
www.innovativeadvertisingsolutions.com

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SOCIAL MEDIA

Nothing has been bigger recently then the rise of social media. Social media can offer many benefits for small business owners, anything from brand awareness to customer engagement just to name a couple. One of the most important things your taught no matter what your are selling is to engage the customer in conversation, rather then trying to just quickly sell them your services. Social sites like Facebook & Twitter are great avenues to engage potential Customers. Over sometime they get to know you, feel comfortable with you and when the time is right and the need for the type of service you are selling comes along you can bet that they will buy from you before they buy from someone who is selling the samething but they have no relationship with.

You also have the great advantage of the credibility factor, people hearing about your business through family and friends.  I watch this first hand everyday. I run social media campaigns for several companies, my client Hair By Marissa is a great example. When I  started her facebook  fan page Besides getting her fans up to 150 in the first week, she also got 4 new clients that week and with in the first 5 weeks had close to 30 new client. Her page is being followed by close to 300 people now. When one women posted a comment about how great her hair came out one of her friends booked an appointment the next week. These types of comments are left on company fan pages all the time.  You can't get this type of daily feedback about you business with and Ad in the yellowbook or pennysaver.

In a report on why social media is worthy of a small business owners time, Business-week's Steve McKee notes the ability of the web to "level the playing field" between large and small businesses. Social media has taken off, he says, and it shows no sign of slowing down.

Jay H

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