I am proud to announce LeapFrog Interactive just won 6 Gold and 15 Silver Communicator Awards in the annual competition. To view the entire list of awards won, visit our awards announcement blog.

We are happy to have won awards for our website work. LeapFrog continues to be digital marketing advertising agency and we produce award-winning work in the digital space on a continual basis.

We also won Communicator Awards for both Public Relations and Traditional Media. This is a first for our agency and is a result of strategic decisions made to improve our offerings to our clients.

We were one of the first to use social media as a marketing channel for our clients. We understood very early on how to engage and become a part of our client’s online communities. However, as social media has evolved, many of the online engagements have moved to incorporate offline activities. We also saw more traditional public relations infiltrating into the social media space. So, in 2011, we decided to test PR with key clients as a product offering. And, in March, officially rolled out public relations as core service offering for clients. These awards represent a year where we learned what worked by melding PR and social media and effectively provided results for our clients.

In speaking to the awards we won for our traditional media work, these are natural extensions of our digital work. As more and more media has moved online or have a CTA which is a website, social mention or any other digital asset, we firmly feel, as a digital agency, we understand those connections the best and can close the loop better than anyone else. We will continue to connect the dots between digital and traditional to provide fully integrated programs for our clients.

It is an exciting time at LFI and we couldn’t be happier to be recognized for our accomplishments.

As a digital marketer and an avid brand supporter and consumer, I am faced with a dilemma that pulls my enthusiasm to opposite ends of the marketing world. Being a young adult with interests that range from UFC fighting to fashion, I visit a lot of websites and subscribe to a lot of email lists. Even after subscribing time after time, I find myself frustrated with the amount of “junk” email I get in my inbox, and end up deleting, not opening, or unsubscribing.  I think to myself “why do they keep sending me this marketing garbage! It’s so annoying”. Then I realize, wait…that’s what I do for a living. We are constantly approached by prospects that have high un-subscription and un-opened rates. I then find consumers like myself to be the problem. “Why would they unsubscribe to something they signed up to get?” See the dilemma?

So how can a marketer like, myself…appeal to a consumer like, myself? Aside from the layout and content recommendations given in our previous blogs, one of the key factors to having a successful email campaign is customization. There are two types of email campaigns, those that ask and those that do not. Some campaigns ask for certain information such as gender and zip code, but most importantly they ask for what topics the consumer wants to be notified about. Others don’t bother to ask and just get the essentials - name and email. By giving the consumer the option to choose what types of messages they want to receive, you can help secure a higher retention rate. Sure, you may lose a few subscribers who don’t want to take the extra few seconds to fill out the choices but in the long run you will retain more subscribers and have a higher open rate. It may also require several different emails as opposed to one generic one, but the extra time taken to compose customized content will reach the consumer in a more meaningful way than a standard newsletter.

With features such as Gmail’s Priority Inbox, users are finding more ways to help sort through the abundance of emails they receive on a daily basis. Messages that they rarely opened, or come off as “spammy” will find themselves in a bucket of emails labeled “everything else” as opposed to “important”. The algorithm is based on emails the user opens the most, reply to, and has subjects that are appealing. The concept is as simple as “why would my consumers want to open this email?” Taking the time to create specific content catered towards your consumer’s personal interests will help your emails avoid the dreaded trash icon.

Search marketers have a constant pulse on Google and the monthly algorithm changes taking place that can affect website ranking. Google has long been the focus for search marketers because of its search dominance with a more than 60% market share. However, Bing, since its launch in 2009, has continued to eat away, little by little, at the market share and it now becoming a more important player for search marketers.

First, to understand why Bing is important to search marketers is to understand the rise in Bing as a search engine. Bing has worked hard to gain popularity beginning at its launch in 2009, followed by its first marketing campaign – “The Decision Engine” - in 2010, then the introduction of social search, a revised marketing campaign – “Bing is for #Doing” and most recently being the first to test out the new Facebook logout page ad. This rise in popularity helped Bing reach its all time high slice of the search engine pie in February with a 15.3% market share of 2.7 billion explicit core searches.

Realizing the continuing rise in popularity of Bing, there are several things search marketers should think about when developing a complete SEO plan to include Bing:

1. What site factors does Bing consider when is crawling / indexing / ranking search results?
2. How often are algorithm changes made?
3. Where can I get information about Bing search?

Let’s start with the last question first. Similar to Google, Bing writes several official Bing blogs including a search blog and a WebMaster Tools blog, along with several other blog topics. While the search blog does not seem as informational as Google’s Official Search Blog, it does provide occasional updates being made to search results pages. The more informative blog appears to be their WebMaster Tools blog. The blog posts highlight submitting your site to Bing and other SEO specific information.

Unlike Google, Bing doesn’t supply a list of monthly algorithm changes from the prior month.  However, in March they launched their blog series Bing Search Quality Insights to provide insight about Bing algorithms, trends and the people behind Bing search results.

A few factors to consider for Bing SEO:

• Bing weights user interaction heavily as a ranking factor
• Bing considers content, social media and links as the top three priorities for website publishers
• Submit your website via Bing’s WebMaster Tools to ensure indexing
• In line with Bing’s concentration on user interaction, Bing also focuses on link click through rate and bounce rate. These both lend a hand to Bing to determine high-quality, valuable content over thin content.
• Bing does not place as high of weight on page load time as other search engines because it values the user experience and content on the site. Thus, if a site has a longer load time, but provides a better user-experience and quality content that site could be ranked higher than a site with a faster load time, but thinner content.

And, of course, as with all good SEO strategies, stay away from black hat tactics.

Developing a good SEO plan to improve rankings in Bing is all about the searcher. Understanding your searcher and developing a well designed, user focused website with well-written and unique content as the focus creates a good SEO strategy, especially for Bing search results.

We recently received the news – The annual Communicator Awards awarded LeapFrog Interactive with 6 Gold Awards of Excellence and 15 Silver Awards of Distinction for previous work. We’re obviously thrilled. Not that we’re counting the number of awards we have won so far this year, but if you wanted to know – 27. We have won five in the 2012 Cincinnati Addy’s and one in the 38th Louie Awards. 

We are incredibly proud of the work we’ve done on behalf of our clients. The award winning work from the 2012 Communicator Awards included: 

• 2012 Gold Award of Excellence: The Making of a Movement Interactive Multimedia - Health & Wellness 
• 2012 Gold Award of Excellence: The Making of a Movement Interactive Multimedia – Graphics 
• 2012 Gold Award of Excellence: Single Oak Project Websites - Food and Beverage 
• 2012 Gold Award of Excellence: Single Oak Project Websites - Visual Appeal 
• 2012 Gold Award of Excellence: We Thrive! Commercials - Public Service 
• 2012 Gold Award of Excellence: We Thrive! Film/Video - Charitable/Non-profit 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: Dant Clayton Websites – Construction 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: Dant Clayton Websites – Manufacturing 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: Dant Clayton Websites - Professional Services 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: The Making of a Movement Interactive Multimedia – Other 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: The Making of a Movement Interactive Multimedia - Public Relations 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: Single Oak Project Websites - Consumer Goods 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: Single Oak Project Websites – Marketing 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: Single Oak Project Websites - Public Relations 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: The Making of a Movement Outdoor/Environmental (video components) - Non-Traditional 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: The Making of a Movement Outdoor/Environmental (video components) - Other 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: Texas Roadhouse Websites – Marketing 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: Texas Roadhouse Websites – Restaurant 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: We Thrive! Commercials - Health and Wellness 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: We Thrive! Commercials - Social Responsibility 
• 2012 Silver Award of Distinction: We Thrive! Film/Video - Health and Wellness 

As anyone in advertising and PR will tell you, there are more awards ceremonies in the coming months that we have happily participate in. Stay tuned for more award winning updates!

You have been making concerted efforts to increase the social media buzz about your brand. You do regular posts and Tweets hoping that talk of your brand will spread across the social landscape. One of the ways you measure your success is by looking at an overall trend in the number of conversations about your brand over time. 

As you look at this trend you see that some days there are spikes in the number of conversations about your brand—these spikes look like mountains on the line graph. Other days you may see valleys. Often times it is volatile and a peak can be immediately followed by a valley. But, how do you know if these peaks and valleys are normal or abnormal? Which peaks and valleys are part of the normal ebb and flow of conversation and which ones are not?

There is a helpful statistical concept called control limits that can be used in this situation to answer these questions. There is an upper control limit (UCL) and a lower control limit (LCL). These limits are calculated by taking the average number of social media conversations per day and then adding (for UCL) or subtracting (for LCL) the product of the standard deviation multiplied by three.

So, for example, let’s assume there is an average of 8 social media conversations per day about our brand. Using the control limit formula, our UCL would be 13 and our LCL would be 2.9. As we look at our social media conversation trend line graph we will see that some days the number of conversations falls between 2.9 and 13 conversations per day. Even though there may be 12 conversations in one day (which is 50% higher than average), we know that that day was part of the normal ebb and flow of conversation because it fell within the control limits. 

However, other days the number of conversations in a single day may be 25 or it may be 2. If there were 25 conversations in one day about the brand, that is not part of the expected ebb and flow of conversation because it falls outside of the control limits. That day should be analyzed to determine why there were such a large number of conversations about your brand.  You may find that it was due to a particular type of Tweet you did and this may be something you will want to repeat in the future because it caused a higher than normal amount of social media conversation about your brand.

Understanding the analytics behind your brand’s social media conversation is just as important as the conversation itself. Through developing a high level of analytics awareness, you’ll be ready to tackle your social media marketing strategy for the quarters and years to come.

Design first, optimize second. Words that a passionate designer would rather put into practice. However, search engine optimization (SEO) as an afterthought, rather than as a main component of the design process, is bound to have SEO gurus cringing. 

This difference of opinion creates a tough battle, the battle between attractiveness and usability in website design. Is there a compromise? I think so, and according to Apple CEO Steve Jobs there is. Jobs stated, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” 

The following are a few tips that can lead to a search engine friendly website, without sacrificing the creativity you worked so hard on. 

1. Develop the design and SEO simultaneously. Keyword phrases, as well as placement, need to be researched, chosen and integrated early in the design process. Otherwise, you run the risk of keywords being developed and added later, and possibly hindering the visual elements that have already been established. Items that have major impact on design, as well as SEO, include website slogans, navigation, breadcrumb trails, footer links and main content areas, among others. 

2. Design for text. The problem with search engines not being able to find a website is due in large part to links being images instead of text. This is a simple concept to grasp, but hard for designers to refrain from doing. Don’t hide important information and words within your images since search engines can’t crawl them for keywords. 

3. Using images for relevancy. The imagery you decide to use must have relevancy to the content you are placing it in. Even if you favor an image for its visual appeal, it is best to place the images on context in the page. The more relevant the text around your image, the better results you’ll get in search engine rankings. This will also help when you are assigning a file name for the image that search engines will pick up on. 

4. Keep it simple. Web users are no longer impressed by Flash and other intricate, have-to-have elements. In fact, it’s more of an inconvenience. Flash can take a while to load and can be frustrating when you are looking for quick information, especially when you are on your mobile device. Simple designs work much better with SEO. 

As a designer, forgoing the “perfect” design can be difficult, almost impossible, but trying to pass the responsibility of SEO onto someone else, or acting like it doesn’t exist, may prevent anyone from seeing your design altogether. 

[Contributed by Marcy Workman, account coordinator]

In 2008, I happen to be at a bar during one of Michael Phelps races. The bar had the TV’s on during the Olympic coverage but it was more for background noise. Until the primetime coverage of the Phelps race came on. At that point the music stopped in the bar, the volumes on the TV went up and everyone stopped what they were doing to watch. We happened to be watching the race we just barely won – the place went crazy. Everyone was high fiving and hugging one another – just like in the movies.

A lot has changed in four years, including the rise of social media. We know from February’s Super Bowl how engaged people are with sports online. The Super Bowl averaged over 12,000 tweets per minute. With the whole world as the stage, the numbers could be staggering.

Therefore, if you have not thought how you could capitalize on the excitement of the Olympics, it is not to late to implement a digital strategy. For brands associated with apparel and sporting goods, it is paramount to begin exploring how you will, in the least, use social media and online public relations to promote your brand. As a small business or a product, which may not have a direct correlation to sports, you could carry a patriotic theme throughout most of the summer – a great way to maximize creative assets. Although ad inventory and keywords may be unavailable or too expensive, you can still use keywords and placements, which reach your target audience while using creative messaging invoking the Olympic spirit.

And if you need some Olympic motivation, the ad entitled Thank you, Mom from P&G will definitely get you in the mood.

Last month I was given the amazing opportunity to serve as a coach at a class on “Leveraging Web and Social Media Marketing” with our newest partner, Bad Girl Ventures. As mentioned in the intro to our blog series, BGV is an organization based out of Cincinnati that is geared towards giving female entrepreneurs the resources they need to succeed. They have partnered with SCORE and First Financial to provide a loan to the participant who has applied their business skills the best at the end of the term. They are currently hosting weekly classes in our Cincinnati office that are catered towards business savvy practices. Some of my other colleagues also served as coaches at the session on “Marketing Essentials and Branding”. The classes served as a valuable experience for both parties, and everyone involved walked away with new knowledge and insight.

After agreeing to be a social media marketing coach for the class, I wasn’t entirely sure what that entailed (yes, I agreed before asking what I signed up for). Regardless of the questions I had, I’m so glad I did it. The presentation on SEO and social media was not only beneficial to the participants but for my own personal expertise as well. LFI always encourages their employees to gain knowledge from resources outside our company and this was a great opportunity to learn from another industry source. Following the presentation, the coaching sessions began. They were structured like mini consulting sessions. We had 10-15 minute one-on-one meetings with various participants and reviewed their strengths and weaknesses as a company and brand. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know each participant I spoke with and came up with creative ways to solve their business problems. I mainly discussed social media strategy per each platform and overall brand strategy. We brainstormed about original ways to reach their target audiences and how to cross promote their company.

Being a self-proclaimed foodie, I was especially excited to talk to Emily Frank, founder of C’est Cheese food truck. After following up with her in an email she replied…

“Your advice was actually the best of the day. Sitting with you, Nathan (Dye), and Jacob (Knight) was so helpful as it was the first bit of personal advice and information that pertained to my business. I think Jacob said it best by advising me to ask myself “If I read this, would I care?” when composing tweets. Seems so simple, but it really hit the nail on the head for me!”

Her reply not only made me happy to know my colleagues and I were able to provide insight, but also helped to further prove a point. Social media is an important tool that serves as an aid in overall marketing efforts, but it is by no means the end all-be all. It needs to be a part of the over all brand strategy along with other marketing efforts that work towards the same objective and message. Even beyond that, there is no cookie cutter answer to social media. As Emily pointed out…it takes personal solutions, generic advice will only take a company so far. Being able to have a strategic partner help map out your brand strategy and execute it, brings me to my cheesy bit of advice-two heads truly are better than one.

Word has it around the industry that Google will be introducing a “breadcrumb” feature for the display URL on AdWords ads according to Search Engine Land. This feature (introduced in 2009 for organic search) gives the searcher more options on each search result by showing the website hierarchy along with the regular display URL in the ad. In other words it will show searchers the pages on the site that lead to the landing page they will be taken to if they click on the title of the ad. This also serves to give the user more context and information about the ad being displayed to them.

What this means for those of you running AdWords Campaigns.

Firstly, we should probably recognize that this feature is very likely to help weed out irrelevant clicks on your ads. By showing the user more information/context it will help them to decide if the ads is applicable to that particular search mission, helping to ensure that your money is well spent. 

Secondly, this puts a new importance on site structure and hierarchy. Mainly, if your landing pages are deep within your site, then the path taken to get there should define the context of that page.

Lastly, the breadcrumbs displayed by the main URL will be clickable and take users to different pages. This allows the user to choose which page is most relevant to their interest and land on the page that they choose. If this works as it has been designed it’ll help digital marketers increase click-through-rates while decreasing the number of irrelevant clicks. It certainly is a great improvement for sites that have the structure and breadcrumb rich snippets to support it.

According to a Goolge-sponsored survey, there is a nearly 100% penetration of mobile search among smartphone users. Most of those users are searching at least once a week. Ninety-five percent of Americans use search engines on a smartphone and 25% made a purchase in-store following looking up local information. A Compuware study found that 57% of customers would not recommend a business with a bad mobile site and 40% would choose a competitor with a better mobile experience. Given this importance, the first place to start when talking about mobile SEO is to develop a mobile site. A mobile site allows companies to generate traffic from mobile search either via smartphones or tablets. 

Optimizing your mobile site in the beginning will not only create a user-friendly experience for consumers on-the-go, but it will also help mobile search bots such as Googlebot mobile and smartphone Googlebot to index and then serve your mobile site in place of your full site. Similar to the development of a desktop site, mobile sites require search friendly URLs and focused content on what sites visitors are searching when looking for your brand, products or service. Good mobile sites are not a carbon copy of a brand’s full site, just made for mobile, but rather a simplified site developed based on the main reasons consumers visit your site when they are on-the-go which may include looking for a location “near me,” menu, specials and a contact page. Understanding the mobile user who frequents your site is critical to developing the best mobile site for your consumer-base. 

Making the most of the limited content on a mobile site is critical for good optimization. Because mobile sites generally have less content than traditional desktop sites, its important to make the most of that content by using relevant keywords, as appropriate, to deliver the relevancy to search engines about your product or service. In addition to content, speed of a mobile site is key. Not only will it result in an overall better user experience, but search engines see load time as even more critical for mobile sites. 

Voice search is the final element I’ll mention when considering the optimization of your mobile site. As more consumers turn to mobile voice recognition programs like Apple’s Siri, more will be searching via asking vocal questions rather than typing a search. We’ve mentioned voice search before and the top things to keep in-mind include incorporating “spoken” keywords and phrases into your content where appropriate and within your meta content and ensuring your business is listed, claimed and optimized in Google Places and other relevant local directories and review sites such as Yelp. 

Looking for more information? Check out this great infographic from KISSmetrics on the importance of mobile optimization. Or contact us, LFI would be happy to assist with your mobile site and mobile optimization needs.

“Social Media” has given everyone in marketing a fascinating ride, one that’s not over yet. However, those brands that continue as passengers on this ride will simply remain noise in a very loud on-line space. Instead, marketers need to look at getting off the ride and strategically position themselves to manage it. 

LeapFrog Interactive had the wherewithal to take a step sideways and evaluate the social media tactics that were being implemented on behalf on their clients. How could they gain more traction, introduce brands to new audiences and develop deeper loyalties with existing consumers? To answer those questions and others, LeapFrog Interactive added Public Relations to their Media + Marketing Department. 

This addition accomplishes many things, least of which is a more strategic approach to the use of social media as a tactic on any brand campaign. Integrating a more traditional PR approach to client’s digital strategy will provide clients more focused opportunities for engagement. It will introduce new mediums and third parties to share brand messages across targeted outlets. By identifying ways to most effectively reach long-term loyal consumers, LFI can eliminate non-essential mediums from campaigns. 

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) defines Public Relations as the “strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” It is LeapFrog’s goal to help their current clients start to experience a better relationship with their core audience, and develop opportunities to engage new customers in LFI’s comfort zone - digital space. 

About 20,000 times a day (or so my friends say), I check my email on my iPhone. Now, I don’t open every email. But I’ll make an exception for those that catch my eye whether it be a value-packed subject line or from a beloved, trusted brand. Those that make the cut have about three seconds to capture and keep my attention. That means poorly designed mobile emails have little chance of escaping my swift move to the “delete” key.

As more consumers are using mobile devices to read email, having a simple, flawless design that is readable across multiple email operating systems is more important than ever. To create the perfect, mobile-friendly email, content and usability both play crucial roles. So, read on, grasshopper, and see how you, too, can design a mobile email that works.

Opt for a simple layout

Skip the two-or-three column newsletter format and opt for a “skinny” approach. The single-column template accommodates smaller screens and can increase legibility. Go with a two-or-more column layout and risk content being hidden or shrunk down on the mobile device, both of which can frustrate the user.

Keep scale in mind

iOS devices are smart and will zoom to fit the email’s width to the screen. However, most operating systems don’t, leaving it to the user to resize or, even worse, scroll horizontally to view the entire message. Make it easy for customers and consider sizing emails between 320-550px so they don’t have to make too much of an effort to see the whole message.

Highlight the call to action

What do you want your readers to do? Tell them in no uncertain terms. Having a prominent and strong call to action is the most crucial part of effective mobile email design. Make the call to action the star, putting it front and center. And make obvious and tappable, driving them to an equally attractive and well-designed mobile landing page. Think Groupon. Groupon uses prime real estate in the email to place their “Buy Now” button. Their effective CTA and their very “tappable” button is probably why I am now the proud holder of half a dozen local restaurant deals, two massages, and a set of ballroom dancing classes.

Remember that less can be more

On a mobile screen, space is rare and valuable. Clutter is mobile’s enemy. Stacking links, buttons, and copy on top of each other can dissuade users from tapping any link. Instead of giving your reader an information overload, consider simplifying complex blocks of text, headers, social sharing buttons, and, really, all elements to keep the design simple and clean.

Use images carefully

iOS is the only mobile operating system that doesn’t automatically block images. On most other devices, users will be prompted to turn on the images. So, use them carefully, and make sure that they are balanced by HTML text that will help users decide that this email is worth their time (and make them want to download the images). Most of us don’t have too much patience when it comes to loading time, though, even if we are interested in the offer. Studies have shown that 59% of users wouldn’t wait more than 10 seconds for a page to load before they abandon. A one-second delay in loading can result in as much as a 7% decrease in conversion. So keep the email file size small so it can quickly download, under 50K just to be safe.

Get to the point

Carefully evaluate the copy of your email, and keep the email a lean, mean conversion machine. Prune less relevant or useful links, images, and copy, which will cut down on both loading time and clutter (both of which, we know) can hurt your chances of seeing response.

Ergonomics make a difference

Finger targets are another consideration of mobile email design. As touchscreens are becoming the norm, fingers have replaced the mouse. And bigger is better. Increased button sizes, font sizes, white space, and line spacing all allow for plenty of breathing room. Mis-taps on screens can mean the email accidentally being deleted, closed, or worse, user frustration. So make sure you test how easy it is to navigate through your email on leftys, rightys, and those with even the fattest of fingers.

Facebook currently has 845 million active users, 425 million of those are mobile users, and it is predicted to reach 1 billion users in 2012. Facebook averages 2.7 billion “likes” every day, 250 million photos uploaded daily and the average user spends 20 minutes per visit on the site. Twitter currently has 100 million active users and is on track to reach 250 million active users by the end of 2012. With social media numbers like these it’s becoming increasingly evident the role and presence social media has in consumers lives. Likewise, it is important for brands to understand their role within the social-sphere and understand how and when to interact with fans, followers and customers. With that understanding, brands can then decide the best way to integrate social media into their overall digital marketing strategy.  

Ask Your Target Market (AYTM) conducted market research and developed the following infographic to showcase how US consumers are interacting with brands via social media tools.

Source: AYTM Market Research

As a leading Interactive Agency, we like to be challenged and we want to be inspired. With our newest partnership with Bad Girl Ventures, we are able to do both! LeapFrog Interactive and powerhouse micro-lending organization, Bad Girl Ventures, have joined forces to host a series of workshops for area start-ups in Cincinnati. 

Bad Girl Ventures was developed to support female entrepreneurs much like Kiva.org and the Apprentice do for their participants. But, BGV puts a new spin on the practice...it's like micro-lending on steroids! And, we get to be a part of the magic in witnessing these brilliant women take their already amazing business concepts and develop them into something sustainable and fabulous. BGV combines micro-lending with a nine week business development course. Each three-hour class is taught by successful business owners and professionals from the local community with in-depth experience in their fields. The classes consists of a two-hour classroom session followed by a one hour one-on-one coaching session where experts in the industry spend time answering questions in a "speed date" type setting. Each nine-week course is held two to three times a year. Businesses can choose to participate as a student or a finalist.

Beyond providing the physical place for these workshops to take place, LFI is proud to be a part of the overall process. We have gotten to know not only the BGV board, but the participants as well. We look forward to the opportunities that this partnership will provide for both LFI and BGV. Stay tuned to learn about our experience with this amazing partnership by following our blog.

The Pebble Gets Rolling 

Startups are literally popping up all over the country and finding the funding to back these projects sounds like a difficult task to take on. Seeking out venture capitalists can require an immense amount of work just to get through the gatekeepers and talk to someone who ‘might’ be able to set up a meeting for you. 

Pebble Technology, based in Palo Alto, CA, found an alternative way to raise their funds, and they did it quickly. Pebble used a site for startups, called Kickstarter, to get the idea for its new product out to anyone that wanted to listen. Within two hours they had met their goal of $100,000 and they continued their epic climb for the next 26 hours when they reached $1,000,000. 

Yes, I know, I have not even mentioned what the product is yet, but I am willing to bet you are interested to know just based on the information above. 

The product is called The Pebble. It is an e-paper wristwatch that connects via Bluetooth to your iPhone or Android device. It runs mobile apps that can be useful with anything from tracking runs, to controlling music, to receiving emails. It also has a multitude of different watch faces that can be used depending on your preference. The Pebble also has an open software development kit for anyone to develop apps that will run on the Pebble. This extends the benefits of this watch tremendously. 

Did I mention that the battery will last 7+ days? Oh yeah and it’s waterproof. 

The tremendous support for the product has me thinking we will see it very soon. If you want to help back the product, which, by the way, gets you one of the first Pebbles, check out its Kickstarter page. 

Just a side note, in the time it has taken me to write this blog, they have raised an additional $300,000. Watch out for these up and comers, they may be the next Instagram sized purchase by someone.  

[Contributed by Sean Slattery, marketing & account coordinator for Jump by LeapFrog Interactive]

Earlier this month IgnitionOne released their Q1 online advertising trends market research through a new online report: Global Online Advertising. The report focused on research in paid search and mobile advertising. According to the report, the first quarter of 2012 showed a 30.3% growth in paid search marketing, with increased competition in Yahoo/Bing keyword auction following their best practices and broad match push. Google saw their highest growth rate in ad spend since before 2009 and a 29.1% increase in ad clicks. From a search perspective, the rise of Bing/Yahoo! is not all that surprising. We have been seeing an increase in traffic from Bing specifically over the course of the past year, which would correspond with the rise in ad spending. 

Mobile paid search advertising saw a growth in impressions (119%) and clicks (246.1%), even though spend only account for 12.3% of total search marketing. The research also suggests not only the continued rise of overall mobile usage, but the increase in tablet searches as 67.4% of mobile search advertising budgets was attributed to search on tablet. Click through rates of mobile search ads are also on the rise. According to the report, tablet click through rates are 3.1%, 0.6% higher than the PC rate of 2.5%. 

Many of the digital trends reports released in late 2011 concentrated on mobile search and mobile marketing. The research released from IgnitionOne confirms many of those thought to be emerging and continuing trends. As 2012 continues to move forward, it will be interesting to the watch the trends coming out of Q2, Q3, and Q4 and what changes marketers make to their paid search and mobile marketing plans as more market research comes out about where and how to reach consumers.

Should You Open Pandora’s Box After All?

Everyone loves music and everyone is on the Internet, so it was only natural for Internet radio platforms to emerge in our digital lives. Platforms such as iHeartradio, Spotify, and turntable occupy 31% of the market along with dreaded “others” category. This market is consistently increasing, but who is taking home the main piece of the pie? Pandora Internet Radio currently holds 69% of market and shows no signs of stopping. This is a huge opportunity for digital marketers to up their display advertising game. Not only do listeners log into their account nearly everyday on their computers, but listeners are also tuning in on their mobile devices. With so many sites to choose from, how can advertisers ensure they are picking the right music listening platform? In this case, there really is no competition…Pandora is the only way to go. This is not to say this will be true forever, but as of this very moment Pandora offers a great space for display and mobile advertising.

I am not only saying this because I have personally run ads on Pandora and my experience has been nothing but wonderful, but because Pandora has designed the perfect platform for display advertising. I doubt this was intentional, but the company is now realizing the marketing power of their site. When users sign up for an account they enter in different variables such as age, gender, and zip code. The nature of sites like these “know what you like,” so consumers are willing to give as much information as possible to ensure customized results that cater to their interests. This powerful information that marketers usually fight for is just being thrown into Pandora’s database in a single strike of the keyboard. This information paired with the consumers’ music taste can help target consumers on a personal level. Listeners feel like Pandora “knows” them. Along with this deep consumer insight, the site calls for consumers to consistently interact with it. HELLO! That is exactly what online display is all about, interaction between consumer and site. By liking, disliking, skipping, sharing, and buying, listeners are constantly looking at the page. Music lovers also check the screen when they hear a new song they like unlike sites that allow users to build their playlists. Playlist sites do not get nearly as much interaction because most users hit play and minimize the screen because they know what’s coming next.

With the recent announcement of reaching 400 local advertising campaigns, Pandora is using their consumer information to better target on interests and locations. This is huge for local advertisers and another way that Pandora can show their consumers that they “know” them. Sure the ads are disruptive, but aren’t they all? The key is that the ads are of interest to the consumer in some way. Pandora also recently added mobile video ads into their offering because about 70% of their consumers use a mobile device to get their music. Mobile display is heavily increasing because we as marketers go where are consumers are, and they are on their phones.

Good display advertising puts a brand name in front of a consumer. Great display advertising strives to connect brand to consumers in an innovative and meaningful way. Ask yourself why am I reaching out to this audience and why should they be interested? Finding sites that are consumer oriented and call for high rates of interaction are the best for digital and mobile display. Are your display campaigns worth the share or skip button?

Earlier this month Social Media Examiner released their 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. One of the top items to note was the expected increase of the use of video marketing by social media marketers. Sixty-seven percent of respondents plan to increase the use of YouTube and video marketing in 2012 and YouTube is the fourth most commonly used social media tool.

According to the report, the top two benefits of social media marketing are increasing exposure (85%) and increasing website traffic (69%). Lead generation as a benefit of social media marketing increased 7% to 58% in 2012.

Not surprising, Facebook was at the top of the list as the most commonly used social media tool at 92%, followed by Twitter (82%), LinkedIn (73%), blogs (61%), YouTube (57%), and Google+ (40%). Google+ is making an impact on social media marketers all around. In addition to being the number 4 most commonly used tool, 70% of marketers want to learn more about it and 67% plan to increase Google+ activities.

It is apparent from the report that social media marketers understand the value of integrating other forms of marketing with social media. Email, SEO and event marketing top the list of current other forms of marketing used as well as those that social media marketers were looking to increase in 2012.

Given the information from the 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, brands should not only be ready to beef-up their social media engagement and marketing efforts, but align those efforts with other marketing efforts to create an overall digital marketing strategy for 2012.

In February 2011, Google released Panda as an update to their search algorithms and was designed to filter out low quality or “thin” content from top search results. Since then, Panda has released numerous updates along the way, the most recent being Panda 3.3 in February. This infographic from Search Engine Land gives great imagery and information to help digital marketers better understand the Panda updates from the beginning through update 3.2.