INSIGHT blogArchive: February 2009

Archive for February, 2009

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comScore releases their 2008 Digital Year In Review

27
February
2009

The comScore 2008 Digital Year in Review offers a view of the overarching trends in digital marketing

George Assimakopoulos
Principal Manager

I recently read the report from comScore on the 2008 Digital Year In Review.  I found that it was very useful with data points that all marketers and advertisers would value. As comScore states in their report, in order for digital marketers to best equip themselves for the year ahead, it’s important to reflect on what happened in the past year and how the prevailing trends have set the stage for 2009.

  • What consumer trends dominated the landscape in 2008?Which technologies are capturing the attention of the marketplace?
  • How are people spending their digital media consumption time?
  • Where are digital advertising dollars flowing?
  • How can digital marketing be better used to achieve business objectives?

To download the entire report from comScore – CLICK HERE

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EyeTraffic Media partners with Vertis Communications to build, launch and manage a tactical online marketing campaign for Rack Room Shoes

27
February
2009

After several months of planning and careful coordination, EyeTraffic Media has again partnered with Vertis Communications to provide Rack Room Shoes with a multi-disciplined online marketing program geared to drive audiences to incentive landing pages.
‘This is a very unique planning effort for Rack Room Shoes’ says Principal Manager George Assimakopoulos. ‘Since there is no e-commerce [...]

After several months of planning and careful coordination, EyeTraffic Media has again partnered with Vertis Communications to provide Rack Room Shoes with a multi-disciplined online marketing program geared to drive audiences to incentive landing pages.

‘This is a very unique planning effort for Rack Room Shoes’ says Principal Manager George Assimakopoulos. ‘Since there is no e-commerce ability currently on the Rack Room Shoes website, the goal is to motivate and enable audiences to print out the incentives to be redeemed in the brick and mortar stores.’  Several seasonal phases have been planned for the execution of the online marketing, including their upcoming spring Buy One Get One promotion, their summertime sales events, as well as their Back To School specials.

This opportunity to support Rack Room Shoes is one of several engagements that EyeTraffic Media is working on with Vertis Communications. ‘Our relationship with Vertis has been one that we are very proud of’, says George. ‘We have been able to work with one of the nation’s largest print media organizations to evolve their full-set of services into the interactive space. Now Vertis clients have unlimited access to both offline and online media expertise.’

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Google News Gets Paid Advertisements

26
February
2009

Array

Keith Vera

Account Manager

Google made good on their promise in November to bring paid advertisements to some of their vertical search engines. Yesterday, Google launched paid advertisements on the Google News search-results pages in the United States.

Google News

This launch comes on the heels of similar testing and launches across other Google properties including Image Search, Finance, and sponsored videos on YouTube.

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EyeTraffic Media Announces Launch of JumpReach Social Network Marketing Service

24
February
2009

New Viral Marketing Campaign Manager Enables Publishers, Politicians, Associations, E-Commerce Businesses to More Rapidly Win New Customers, Increase Subscriptions and Members

Ryan Moss
JumpReach Product Manager

EyeTraffic Media, an industry leader in online lead generation and customer acquisition, announced today the launch of JumpReach (TM) Social Network Marketing Service.  JumpReach enables publishers, politicians, associations and e-commerce businesses to quickly and easily create powerful subscription referral, member-get-member, and customer referral viral marketing campaigns. 

JumpReach was developed to aid marketers in leveraging the trends that show just how influential a referral from a friend can be. According to the 2008 Edelman Trust Barometer, 49% of those ages 25 to 64 surveyed believe conversations with their friends and peers to be either a very or extremely credible source of information about a company.

“Word-of-mouth marketing continues to be a highly effective method for companies to receive qualified leads and grow their customer base,” said EyeTraffic Media’s Principal Manager George Assimakopoulos. “We created JumpReach to help marketers develop a relationship with their customers that can engage and reward them as influential referrers in a measurable way.”

JumpReach formalizes online viral marketing campaigns by giving companies’ existing customers the ability to share an offer with their social network of contacts using a system specifically branded by the marketer. The entire process is hosted by EyeTraffic Media and results are measured with a real-time reporting feature. This viral marketing service has proven to increase website traffic and generate leads, thereby creating more sales opportunities and increasing the number of new customers.

“As we all saw with President Barack Obama’s campaign, viral marketing can be a very powerful tool if used properly,” said Ryan Moss, JumpReach Product Manager. “With JumpReach Social Network Marketing Service we have created a service that allows online viral marketing programs to be implemented in a measurable and cost effective way. For a $2,500 setup fee and a $299 monthly subscription fee, a company can have an alternative marketing channel that allows them to easily reach their targeted market segment.”

EyeTraffic Media is offering a special promotion between now and March 31, 2009. If you submit a free assessment request and sign up for JumpReach Social Network Marketing Service, you will receive three months of service for the price of one, a savings of $598. To submit a free assessment request go to http://jumpreach.com/freeassessment.html

For more information about how JumpReach can support your online marketing needs visit www.jumpreach.com.

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FTC proposes guidelines that may affect Word-of-Mouth marketing

22
February
2009

The FTC is proposing changes to its guide concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. There are specific implications to the word of mouth marketing space (particularly Social Media)

George Assimakopoulos
Principal Manager

The FTC has proposed to add additional hypotheticals to to their guide concerning the use of endorsements for advertising purposes.  The Commission’s general principle applies that any material connections between the endorser and the advertiser should be disclosed to several new forms of marketing, namely blogs, discussion boards, and “street teams.” For example, if a blogger receives a free game system and then posts a favorable review of it on his blog, he should clearly and conspicuously disclose that he received the gaming system free of charge. If an employee of an MP3 manufacturer posts positive comments about his company’s device on a message board, he should clearly and conspicuously disclose his relationship to the company. If members of a “street team” are compensated for talking about a product with their friends, they should disclose this fact.

Given the prevalence of these advertising practices and the number and scope of the proposed substantive changes to the Guides, it is likely that most companies’ marketing campaigns will be affected. Companies seeking to stay ahead of the regulatory curve are well-advised to stay informed of these proposed changes and formulate a strategy to address the new FTC guidlines.  For more information on these FTC changes – CLICK HERE. 

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Search Engine Marketing for .ORGs

17
February
2009

EyeTraffic Media is offering a free webinar to educate .ORGS on search engine marketing.

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

On February 25, 2009 from 3-4 PM EST, EyeTrafffic Media will host a free informational webinar tailored exclusively to .ORGs and associations. This webinar is the third of a series intended to educate cause-driven organizations on how to successfully apply online marketing strategies. The goal of these sessions is to help associations and non-profits to build stronger relationships with their customers and prospects at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing methods.

Online marketing allows non-profit organizations to attract awareness for their causes and events, and increase both sponsorship and membership.  This webinar will specifically focus on the distinction between Natural Search (SEO) and Paid Search (PPC).  In the presentation we will explain how associations and .ORGs can leverage these two tactics to:

·Drive site traffic
·Stay within a limited a budget
·Gain online signups and donations on a low cost-per-conversion basis

For more information and to register for this event, please visit the link below.

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Facebook’s Audience Demographic Continues to Evolve

12
February
2009

Older users now account for the fastest growing age group on Facebook

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

Five years ago on February 3, Facebook was founded.  Last week, they celebrated their birthday with the over 150 million world-wide subscribers. Those that remember the early days of Facebook will recall the overly simple homepage layout and compare that to the sleek, user friendly appearance of today’s pages.

Not only has the layout of the site been completely transformed, but the demographics of the subscribers has as well.  This communication-sharing portal was once exclusively for university students in the U.S., then welcomed high-schoolers, and now urges anyone from anywhere to join. 

Despite the younger audience at its founding, females over the age of 55 are now among the fastest growing demographic groups on the Facebook network.  Since September 2008, this female age group grew by 175.3%, and the number of men over 55 grew 137.8% during this same period. In every age group, the usage among women far surpasses that of men as well.  Also surprisingly, 45% of Facebook’s active users in the U.S. are now over the age of 26, and nearly a quarter are over the age of 35.

U.S. Facebook Users By Age Group

It is puzzling to think of how much Facebook’s audience demographic has evolved over the years. Will Facebook become the next MySpace?

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A Fee To Tweet?

11
February
2009

Executives from Twitter have confirmed that the social network is developing a plan to charge companies to use some of its services.

Ryan Moss
Media Coordinator

Since its launch back in 2007, the microblogging network, Twitter, has become increasingly popular each year. Twitter has now reached the point where it was ranked the third most popular social network behind Facebook and MySpace, according to Compete.com’s January 2009 Social Network Report.

Currently Twitter is offered free of charge, but that is expected to change in the near future. Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, recently confirmed that Twitter will start charging companies a fee to use certain services of the social network. Stone only confirmed the rumors which have existed since November, but did not mention anything about the potential rates or what services of Twitter would require a fee.

Many companies such as Comcast, Starbucks and Amazon use Twitter for customer support and other purposes. However, depending on the fees that the companies will be charged, they could be taking their business elsewhere. This would benefit other sites that are similar to Twitter such as Plurk and FriendFeed.

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How to Measure Social Media Marketing Tactics

10
February
2009

Study shows that social media tactics are best measured qualitatively.

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

MarketingSherpa recently released its 2009 Social Media Marketing & PR Benchmark Guide. One of the more interesting findings in this report was the idea that some of the most effective social media tactics typically end up being the most difficult to quantitatively measure. There has been discussion about the best ways to measure social media, however, no consensus has been agreed upon.  Because social media is a tactic more associated with public relations than direct marketing, it is often difficult to measure quantitatively.

The main goal for many marketers is to accurately measure ROI from social media marketing campaigns. But, as seen in the chart below, the tactic ‘user reviews or ratings’ is the most effective social media tactic (47%), but is also one of the more difficult tactics to measure quantitatively (15%).

Most Effective Social Media Tactics are Least Measurable

In order to maximize social marketing campaigns, marketers should employ effective tactics and forgo quantitative measurements such as ROI, traffic, click thru rate, conversions, etc.  Instead, set goals of social marketing campaigns to be measured qualitatively, assessing the value of the resulting conversations and relationships. 

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EyeTraffic Media’s principal manager invited to speak about new frontiers in digital media at SEME East ‘09 at Georgetown University

9
February
2009

On March 27th and 28th in Washington, DC, the Sports Events Marketing Expo (SEME ‘09) will gather together the top creative, strategic and tactical marketing minds of the sports and events industry. SEME delivers insight, real-world career development and industry opportunities for professionals seeking to enter the sports marketplace.
For the third consecutive year, we are [...]

On March 27th and 28th in Washington, DC, the Sports Events Marketing Expo (SEME ‘09) will gather together the top creative, strategic and tactical marketing minds of the sports and events industry. SEME delivers insight, real-world career development and industry opportunities for professionals seeking to enter the sports marketplace.

For the third consecutive year, we are proud to be invited to attend and speak at SEME. Our Principal Manager – George Assimakopoulos – will participate as a panelist to discuss New Business Developments in Digital Media. To view a full agenda on this exclusive event – please visit www.seme-now.com.

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