Toyota Drives Car Closer to Its New Role of Online Marketing Channel

Toyota told us one was coming and now it is almost here: an automobile that not only connects to the Internet but embraces it. As more automobile makers move in this direction, this will become another channel available to digital marketers Called the Fun-Vii, the concept car debuted at the Tokyo Motor Show this week. Its sleek exterior mimics the look of a smartphone, with both the exterior and interior able to be adjusted to fit the driver’s mood, PC Magazine reports, via "skins" and other custom elements.

If that sounds like advertising possibilities that is because it is. PC Magazine reports that Toyota demoed the Fun-Vii with a side panel that displayed a greeting card. It is also a highly connected car, able to "link with surrounding vehicles and infrastructure.” The concept of the automobile as another data source for marketers has become a tantalizing one. This is a user group already primed for outreach, at least based on findings from a September 2011 report from Millennial Media and comScore.

Most notably, it reported that 63% of mobile auto campaigns lead to site search, about four times the 16% average rate. In addition, 58% of mobile auto campaigns lead to both dealer/store locator and viewing a map, compared to respective overall averages of 15% and 18% Salesforce.com also sees value in the sector and its investment in this space is likely to prime the car as a communication channel as well. Earlier this year the CRM vendor announced plans to build Toyota Friend, a private social network for Toyota customers and their cars Toyota Friend will be powered by Salesforce Chatter, Salesforce.com's enterprise social messaging platform. The offering will first roll out in Japan in Toyota's electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles due in 2012. Toyota Friend will connect Toyota customers with their cars, their dealership, and with Toyota.

Source : marketingvox.com

5 Tips for Creating Effective B2B Newsletters

B2B marketers can take advantage of the power of email to enhance their image and sell more product. Email is a top digital marketing tactic, second only to search marketing. It is a cost-effective way to nurture your customers and prospects by creating and maintaining a relationship over time and throughout the long B2B sales cycle A B2B email newsletter can serve different purposes, such as attracting leads, encouraging prospects to close a sale, connecting with customers to reinforce your business relationship, and establishing your company’s authority as a industry expert. You can make your newsletter more effective by creating a reader-centric newsletter with the following tips.
1. Create personal copy
Speak directly to your recipients by expressing a personality that matches your brand, product, or market niche. That means giving your newsletter a voice that might sound like a colleague offering business advice over a cup of java. All companies have a personality, and your newsletter copy should reflect that voice.

Remember, you are marketing to individual decision makers; always envision your recipients reading your copy, and write it as if you were talking directly to that person.

2. Ask recipients to take action
The heart of your email message is the call-to-action, be it a request for product information, whitepaper download or webinar signup. B2B newsletters typically focus on product or company information, industry news, or how-to’s and tips on industry opportunities or problem solving of interest to customers.

You can focus on turning a prospect into a solid lead, converting a lead into a customer, or to keeping existing customers active. Have a specific goal in mind for each message in your email campaign with a clear call-to-action in each message, whether it’s downloading a white paper, requesting a product demo or taking advantage of a special offer.

A good way to encourage engagement is to add a relevant one-question survey to your next newsletter. You might ask recipients to check or click the newsletter section they find most valuable. Then report back to your readers on the results and action taken if applicable.

Google chief urges retailers to fire up Christmas online marketing

Retailers should have their online Christmas campaigns ready for December 4, when the window for international online retailers shipping to Australia starts to close and searches aimed a finding local retail starts to rise, Google retail chief Ross McDonald says.

In a bid to help retailers make the most of the Christmas season, Google has unveiled a report on consumer shopping habits, including the categories currently attracting the most online searches.

So far, the big winners include mass merchant retailers (with searches up 47% year over year), followed by food and drinks (up 31%) and toys (up 28%).

Google has also identified key dates retailers need to be aware of:

* December 4. Shopping windows for international online retailers traditionally close, while searches for domestic online retailers rise.
* December 11. Searches for store names, plus “trading hours” or “location” begin to rise. Last year, searches for trading hours grew nearly 250% in the two weeks before Christmas. This year, such searches are already up 37% year over year, with a third of these searches coming from a mobile device.
* December 16. Searches spike for “store name”, “hours” and “location” on the last day that local online retailers can guarantee delivery before December 25, and the last in-store retail weekend before Christmas.

Ross McDonald, head of retail for Google Australia, says businesses need to take a strategic and long-term approach to their online Christmas campaign, claiming timing is everything.

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Internet Marketing, It’s Easier Than You Think

Earnest Hemingway once wrote a complete, compelling story in just six words:
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

A great museum’s curation is defined not only what’s inside, but what’s also left out.a solution should be as simple as possible, and no simpler 20% of the work gets 80% of the results the Problem With Marketers Marketing Themselves

I’ve been taking a close look at our industry these past few months. As I looked at Ontolo’s marketing tools, the marketing tools of our competitors, and the marketing content that’s pumped out on a daily basis, I began to notice something peculiar as you know, value is interpreted, in part, by the difficulty of the task. The more difficult the task, often, the more valuable it is to get the task done.

Online marketers are in an interesting position: The easier it is to market your business online, the less they get paid. Compared to other marketing practices, content costs (blogging, etc) are significantly lower to produce. The pervading mentality seems to be “Why not create inexpensive content that makes marketing look more difficult and, thereby, allow us to charge more for our work?” i don’t think this is a conscious deception, that’s not what I’m saying. But I am saying that the nature of the online marketing ecosystem promotes this kind of mentality.

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Can a Marketing Contest Increase Sales for This Online Retailer

More than 10 years ago, Don Chernoff introduced SkyRoll.com with the idea that a Web site could better explain his unique carry-on luggage and provide another sales channel for his products. Those sales, however, have been disappointing the idea for the SkyRoll line of products came out of Mr. Chernoff’s experiences as a frequent flier. One particular flight gave him the inspiration. “I’m watching this guy trying to fit this ungainly garment bag into the overhead bin, not a pretty sight,” Mr. Chernoff explains on his site.

Mr. Chernoff, who was trained as a materials engineer and computer chip maker for Intel, went home and created the prototype for the SkyRoll carry-on. “I bought a section of very large diameter PVC tubing, about the width of my suit jacket,” he continues. “I also bought some fabric and Velcro and enlisted a friend who was handy with a sewing machine to help make an outer cover. I wrapped the suit around the PVC and held it there with the cover. It worked. The suit came out wrinkle free. I had a concept but was a long way from a product you could actually use to travel.”soon after, he was in business. Fast forward 19 years and the SkyRoll products are available at certain retail outlets and online.

While Mr. Chernoff says he is happy with the look of his site, he is extremely disappointed in his sales in an effort to increase online sales, Mr. Chernoff had the site redesigned a year ago at a cost of about $2,000, but it hasn’t helped. He has also tried a variety of paid and unpaid marketing tactics to bolster traffic and sales, but he has gotten very little return on his time and money. He tried using Google AdWords, but spent only a few hundred dollars and found that it did little to help. The results for unpaid search were disappointing as well.

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Busy Week for New Trading

If all goes according to plan, the U.S. IPO market could have its busiest week in more than a year nine initial public offerings are scheduled to trade beginning Wednesday, including consumer-review website Angie's List Inc. The last time IPO investors had such a full calendar was in December 2010.

Getting all nine out the door will require cooperation from the stock market, which took its biggest daily dive since mid-September on Wednesday as investors panicked in the face of Italy's surging bond yields. Two subsequent days of gains helped the Dow Jones Industrial Average end the week in positive territory it likely will also require some price flexibility, as evidenced by three recent IPOs that had very different pricing experiences: one sold above range, another within its range and a third that had to cut its valuation to get done.

The two most prominent deals ahead, from Angie's List and Delphi Automotive PLC., are scheduled to begin trading Thursday on the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, respectively angie's List's $114 million capital-raising comes two weeks after another consumer Internet brand, Groupon Inc., had a successful debut, gaining nearly 31% on its first day. Like Groupon, Angie's List is a recognized web-based brand with a growing top line, but it is spending heavily on marketing to build its customer base, and isn't profitable.

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Black Friday Online Marketing Strategies

Black Friday kicks off the holiday shopping top prize at 12:00:01 the day after Thanksgiving retailers rely on this day to get back into the “black” by moving old record out at highly reduced prices, while price-savvy consumers look for great deals on great products much of the success for this day however, is already in place up to 12 months earlier. Retailers consider their digital strategies well in advance. Here are four segmented outlooks Digital black Friday Strategy

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization involves a number of operations, increasing organic page rankings savvy businesses begin optimization campaigns three-to-six months prior to Black Friday/Cyber Monday, securing great page rankings before the start of holiday shopping consumers are no strangers to Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals, using search engines to locate sales on desired products. SEO professionals address client Web pages, making adjustments resulting in better search engine placement and exposure. Additionally, specialists may optimize pages for long-tail phrases related to Black Friday (ex: “[your product's name] 2011 Black Friday sales”) and the particular year, increasing the likelihood of buyer traffic. Take advantage of the buying season; align your company with a search engine optimization firm, ensuring your website is optimized for success and revenue production.

Paid Search

Pay-per-click marketing is a close relative of search engine optimization. Both seek the same results (more website traffic) but utilize different methods to get there. Search engine optimization is a slow-building, solidly founded process. Pay-per-click advertising produces equally satisfying results, but in real time. The process of numbered variables demands diligence, patience, and experience. Experts walk a fine line, leveraging live ads, keeping a close watch on costs per click and returns on investment. A poorly managed PPC campaign quickly spells disaster for the moneymaking hopeful. However, a campaign headed by experience strikes while the iron is hot, keeping close to the dollar, making the most opportunity of an increased population of holiday shoppers display Networks are in prime season with excellent CPC’s and above average conversions during this time as shoppers frantically seek out coupon codes and other deals within a larger site base. The audience net should be reflective of the consumers net, so cast a wide net in this space this season.

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Online Video Ad Response Varies Greatly By Age Group

There is plenty of talk of how the younger generation that has grown up in this hyper digital age. Those who are selling advertising talk about the sheer numbers. How many young people watch video online, how many hours of video they consume and on and on that’s fine but advertisers need to know if people respond to ads a new study shows that the younger the video watcher the less likely they are to be interested in ads.

The study done by Burst Media and reported by eMarketer shows just how people respond to online video ads by age group it is important to note that the audience for younger viewers of online video is a much larger percentage of the total number of people in that age group. eMarketer reports

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Seven Tips for Marketing a Business

As more people use the Internet in search of information, online video becomes increasingly important for reaching and connecting with followers, fans and customers. Video's rise in power as a marketing tool is due to its attractiveness to web surfers. By adding a smile and a friendly voice, you can build rapport with your customers faster and help them relate to your business on a more personal level.

Video connects customers on a deeper level because it covers and reaches out to different types of learning styles: the visual where people learn by reading or seeing demonstrations of a product or service and the auditory where people connect by listening to audio.

Videos also help sites show up higher on the search engines. Browsers and search engines are becoming savvier and are spending less time reading endless web pages of text. Instead, they are picking up on keywords tagged on videos appearing on sites.

As a growing business, it is important that you integrate video into your online marketing efforts. Even if you start with a basic video tip on how to best use your product or service, just get it recorded and post it to YouTube, your own website and/or blog. Although most people like humor and creativity, they also like messages that help them save time or money or makes their life easier, and that's what you can provide.

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Microsoft's clever 'family' marketing campaign is exceptional

Microsoft's "It's a great time to be a family" marketing campaign keeps getting better. This ranks as one of my favorite high-tech promotionals in a decade and accomplishes something Microsoft has never successfully done in a mass-marketing campaign -- clearly show the benefits of multiple products working together. I spotted two more videos late today.

Before Microsoft launched the "I'm a PC" campaign three years ago, I recommended firing then new ad agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky, after the Chairman Bill Gates and Comedian Jerry Seinfeld commercials aired. But I was wrong to make the recommendation. The agency has produced for Microsoft a string of creative hits, of which the family campaign is just the most recent.

As I explained about two weeks ago, the campaign sells the Microsoft lifestyle -- emphasizing relationships and technology enabling them. There's a real familiarity, because family is something most people can relate to. It's not like most of us are harvested in test tubes. The commercials are also clever, in the storytelling and how they present the benefits of multiple products. Keyword: Benefits. Not features, but benefits people gain from them.

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One Way to Automate Your Online Marketing Efforts

If news breaks about your business or the industry that your business is in, you most likely want to react, and be seen reacting, to it as soon as possible. Companies try to stay on both sides of this web marketing race by being so-called "thought leaders" in their industries, producing complex, deeply-produced and ultimately pricey Web content that tracks industry and company news.

But this thought leadership strategy has a downside: Creating the content for even a modest blog is a full-time job, not to mention maintaining a Twitter feed and a Facebook page, while scanning the Web for news. But there is at least one tool that aims to streamline the way businesses produce and publish content to support their Web marketing efforts.

Curata is an online search curation and content posting tool that automatically gathers relevant articles and links from the Web and posts that content to a company's Website. It was launched last year, by Cambridge, Mass.-based marketing solutions firm HiveFire Inc.

Considering how critical having an engaging Web news presence can be for businesses, we tested a trial version of Curata. For about six weeks, we applied Curata's capabilities to a sports technology blog we created ourselves by hand. Here's what we found:


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Online marketing: Most businesses 'are aware of social media benefits'

Organisations of all sizes are beginning to recognise the benefits associated with the use of social media as part of effective online marketing campaigns, but many are failing to embrace it to the highest degree.

This is the opinion of Simon Curtis, senior vice-president of strategic sales and business development for YES-Wallet.com, who suggested that many firms do not understand the extent of promotion online publicity can provide during the economic struggle.

"It is no good trying to be good at social media if your brand image and promotion in other channels does not match your social media image," he explained.

Mr Curtis claimed that social media's individual "culture" needs to be understood by users trying to connect with a particular audience in order to attract a higher rate of custom.

He also suggested that, due to the ever-increasing popularity of websites such as Facebook and Twitter, brands are becoming more clued up regarding the possibilities associated with using such pages to promote their products and offers.

"Most businesses are aware of the benefits of social media and have started to embrace it in their marketing and promotional activity. So today, you can see that many businesses are represented on Facebook and have Twitter feeds," Mr Curtis added.

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