In marketing fear is good. Or, at least it can be. Fear can also be really, really bad. To illustrate this let’s consider an example outside the world of marketing: the fear of germs.

If you have a healthy, rationale fear of germs that stops you from eating a half-eaten Oreo off the floor of a truckstop restroom — that’s fine. However, if your fear of germs leaves you a sniveling shut-in who is constantly Purelling your latex-gloved hands as you scrub your sterile, hermetically-sealed apartment — that’s not so good. The first example is common sense; the second is overblown, misguided paranoia.

Now here’s the ironic thing — being crazy-afraid of germs can make you more likely to get sick. If you flush every toilet with your foot, wear a surgical mask around toddlers, and constantly scrub your hands with super-duper, extra-strength antibacterial soap, your immune system becomes weak. When a germ finally does get through, it multiplies faster than the Octomom at a polygamist compound.

In a similar way, being afraid to fail can keep you from being successful. That’s especially true in marketing, in which fear of failure makes companies overly safe. They are afraid of people not liking them. They are afraid of offending someone. They don’t want to be shocking. They don’t want to make waves. And the last thing they want is controversy or bad press. The problem is they try so hard not to offend anyone that no one notices them at all. And not being noticed at all is the one thing all marketers should fear most. That’s the one thing we should be very, very afraid of.

Once you’re afraid of not being noticed, you realize it’s important to take risks. It’s important to be funny, dramatic, weird, cool, controversial, innovative, entertaining — whatever it takes to cut through the convoluted clutter of marketing messages and get your brand on consumers’ radar. This doesn’t mean you should try to offend and alienate your target market. It simply means this — it’s okay to rub a small minority the wrong way as long as your main target thinks you’re right on.

As you can tell from my blogs and my tweets, I am an infographic-o-holic. It's no surprise that when I stumbled across this lovely historical infographic celebrating the 40th anniversary of email, created by ReachMail, I simply had to check it out. Our society embraces the Internet and all of the wonderful communication tools that developed as a result of it; we spend hours, days, months worth of our lives using it to spread our message worldwide. Electronic messages and email were only the beginning. Most people don't know the history of email prior to the explosion of AOL and the "You've Got Mail" movie. While it's debatable whether communicating electronically has hurt or helped mankind and interpersonal relationships, it has brought a whole new cornucopia of opportunities to connect globally. This year, we tip our hats and pump our fists in salute to EMAIL!

[Email image was used from Mashable article: "The History of Email" http://mashable.com/2011/06/18/the-history-of-email-infographic/]

[Post contributed by Emily Carroll]

Christy Belden will give a presentation as part of the Spalding University Alumni Reunion. The LinkedIn 101 presentation will cover how to optimize your personal and company LinkedIn profiles to get the most out of career advancement and networking purposes.

When: Oct. 7^th
Time: 5 p.m.
Where: Egan Leadership Center Lectorium, Spalding University Campus

The presentation will last about an hour, but feel free to bring as many questions as you like. Christy will be working in LinkedIn for the majority of the presentation, so you will be able to see exactly how to implement the best practices she is discussing.

LeapFrog Interactive is committed to educating our community on digital marketing.

To register, visit Spalding University’s website.

An article from WordStream titled “Ultimate Guide to PPC Metrics” was both interesting and affirming. The top three metrics — CPA, CTR and ROI — are definitely metrics all paid search specialists should be working hard to measure.

Measurable KPIs are essential to track the performance for your ad spend. But this article prompted a subsequent question for me: “What AdWords tools do you use to optimize your campaign?” The tools within AdWords are crucial to help you meet the KPIs you are tracking. Here are my top three tools:

1. Keyword Tool – I am always looking for new keywords, which would lead to conversions for our clients. Also, when I am starting a new campaign, I start with the Keyword Tool first. Finally, I also use it for competitive intelligence to garner any other keywords, which may be beneficial to a client’s program.
2. Traffic Estimator – With any new list of keywords, I want to ensure my ad budget is well spent. I will use the estimated daily cost per keyword to ensure I can add keywords and maintain budget. I use the tool to estimate ROI on keywords. If an estimated CPC is too high, I can eliminate keywords before adding them to the campaign and subsequently depleting budget. I also use the tool at the beginning of a campaign to estimate budget for clients.
3. Search Query – I use this tool frequently. I run this tool to find new keywords I can add to the campaign. More importantly, I use it for negative keywords — discovering keywords without relevance or keywords that do not convert. For an existing campaign, the Search Query tool is essential.

What are you favorite AdWords tools? Post your answers on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

So you’re on Facebook. You’re on Twitter. You have dabbled in Google+. But what about LinkedIn?

If you’re interested in learning more about LinkedIn, we invite you to attend a presentation Christy Belden is doing for YPAL members. The presentation is called “LinkedIn 101: Market Yourself.

When: Oct. 5^th
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Where: Stites & Harbison Building, 400 West Market St., downtown Louisville

The presentation will last about an hour, but feel free to bring as many questions as you like. Christy will be working in LinkedIn for the majority of the presentation, so you will be able to see exactly how to implement the best practices she is discussing. 

LeapFrog Interactive is committed to educating our community on digital marketing.

To register, visit YPAL’s website.

Last month, I wrote an article for Target Marketing Magazine titled “Team SEO and Social Media to Drive Greater Response.” The premise behind the article was SEO and social media should go hand-in-hand when developing digital marketing strategies for clients. The way users search digitally has morphed into a more social way of searching. The search engines have responded to this shift in user behavior by changing algorithms to include social media networks, social news sites and other social signals. It is crucial that you begin to look at how you can leverage both of these marketing principles together to get a higher return for your business. Below are five things you can do today to help improve traffic to your site.

1. Make sure as many social media posts as possible have a link back to your website.
2. Posts should be made using keywords your campaign is targeting.
3. Your company’s website should have the social networking sites you are actively engaged with prominently in the header or footer on every page of the site.
4. Distribute your content outside of your website to social news sites, Facebook and Twitter.
5. Optimize all of your properties’ bios and information section fully with targeted keywords and links back to your website.

Earlier this month, IAB released a paper establishing a common API for mobile rich media ads. The paper, Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions (MRAID), also provided a beginning framework for principles and guidelines for consistency in this new media space.

Currently there are no consistent guidelines for rich media ads in the mobile marketing space, which causes incompatibility issues across developers and vendors. One goal of the new MRAID guidelines is to help in-app and mobile web ads gain traction in the industry.

Standardization is a welcome addition to mobile marketing as mobile app advertising is expected to reach $4.5 billion, which is triple the $1.5 billion expected in online ad spending. As mobile advertising moves forward as a larger piece of the digital marketing space, standards for creative development are a necessary and welcome addition to the industry.

MRAID is currently in a draft stage, and members of the online advertising industry are invited to comment on the proposed definitions until September 30.

In this two-part series, I’ll look at how healthcare companies are using digital marketing, mobile technology and social media to reach and educate patients and healthcare professionals.

Interactive media, from social networks to smartphones, drive many consumers’ buying choices, activity and communication with brands. For many retail outlets and business to consumer services, interactive media provides an opportunity to reach consumers on the go through mobile marketing, mobile coupons and social media marketing.

Healthcare companies — from hospitals to pharmaceutical companies — are beginning to “get in the game” when it comes to interactive media and marketing.

There are more than 17,000 mHealth apps; not only are apps being offered for consumers and patients, but 43% are designed for healthcare professionals. Such apps include Continued Medical Education (CME), remote monitoring and healthcare management applications.

A recent study conducted through BabyCenter shows that nine out of 10 moms use their smartphone to conduct research on health conditions. Moms are often considers a family’s Chief Health Officer, and with the development of smartphones, moms can have their pulse on their family’s health information all the time.

Mobile apps not only provide a way for consumers to gather healthcare information, but for healthcare companies to provide a marketing presence in the mobile space. Apps act as a digital marketing tool on their own: creating a user-friendly, branded app helps healthcare companies provide up to date customer information and the latest company news.

Health-related apps, from keeping track of your personal health to healthcare systems providing office location information and everything in-between, provides consumers, patients and medical professionals with the information they need on the go and in the palm of their hands.

According to a recent eMarketer report, one in 10 mobile users redeem mobile coupons. That’s somewhere around 15 million U.S. adults. From 2010 to 2011, mobile coupon users have grown 117.6%. While the triple digit increase isn’t likely to continue, the number of mobile coupon users is expected to reach 33.7M by 2013, which is almost 1/3 of all U.S. adult smartphone users.

Mobile coupon usage is not surprising, considering market research released in August shows an increase in coupon redemption rates across the board. Consumers are seeking online, mobile and direct mail coupons and taking advantage of various daily deals. Internet coupons printed at home and mobile coupons accounted for approximately 25% of all coupons redeemed in 2011. The research presented by eMarketer also reports that 35% of consumers downloaded coupons directly from manufacturer or retail websites. This presents a defined opportunity to retail outlets to offer online coupons and increase not only their website traffic, but also in-store customers using the discount or coupon.

Digital deals, because consumers are seeking them, are most likely to be found and redeemed in-store. Targeted, digital offers like daily deals, and including online deals and coupons, provide consumers with a savings while also attracting new buyers of the product. Digital deals are just one of many digital marketing outlets for companies to consider when looking to target a specific audience or customer base.

Choosing the best marketing services for your business can be an overwhelming task. With so many advertising choices out there, it can be hard to determine which services are appropriate for your business. However, there are two digital marketing services that fit in any marketing strategy, with any brand or company, no matter the size or industry.

Email Marketing

An integral part of keeping your consumer engaged with your brand is through email marketing. It is the new and improved direct mail. Email is a great way to communicate your brand’s message to a mass audience. Email marketing works to attract new business or to reach out to existing customers to let them know you value them as a customer. Email marketing is also a great place to utilize a strong call to action message through encouraging an immediate purchase by offering a coupon or discount. Another great aspect of email marketing is the ease of tracking your return on investment. In any instance, email marketing is a vital way of keeping in contact with current customers and increasing your brand’s reach.

Social Media

Social media marketing is another integral marketing service and branding tactic. With so many people looking to Facebook and Twitter for information, it is necessary that your business and brand have a defined social presence. Social media marketing allows businesses to connect with their consumers on a more personal level and gives consumers the sense of being involved with your brand. One useful tool of social media marketing is that it provides the consumer an opportunity to interactively engage with your brand. Social media also provides an outlet for customer-company communication. With the amount of information floating around on various social platforms, it is important to recognize the need to provide timely, engaging information to your customers about your brand.

Email marketing and social media marketing are two valuable marketing services to utilize for your company and brand. Each provides a variety of benefits to your customers and building a positive online presence for your company. Email marketing and social media are just two of many marketing services available. With a little research, creativity and help from your account manager, you will be able to discover the best marketing vehicles for your company and brand.

(Contributed by Emily Blankenbaker, account coordinator)

It’s no mystery that sales and new customer acquisition are integral parts of business growth. This being the case, we do what we can to drive sales through as many channels as possible. We tend to focus on two tactics, while all too often separating efforts without realizing the value they can offer each other.

 #1. We advertise. We get creative and throw out these marketing nets to catch as many potential customers as we can.

 #2. We actively sell. We put people in charge of finding new customers, generating leads by often buying lists and hammering on cold calls until we get a bite.

With an ever-increasing amount of our efforts being focused in the digital marketing world, marketing efforts can be tracked meticulously. You can look at the website traffic and separate which visitors are in which stage of the buying cycle, and there’s your lead list. No more purchasing what someone else has farmed.

On the other side of this, sales people talk to customers every day. They know what customers are saying. From this vantage point, it only makes sense that your sales people are some of your best sources for market information.

I’m not giving away industry secrets here. We know that marketing is meant to support the sales function, and sales can support the marketing function. To this end, I’ll introduce some of the top Marketing Automation Platforms that help to facilitate useful flow of information between the two. These platforms not only track website activity, they allow for automation of email marketing campaigns and assignment of prospects to salespeople in your CRM. This is, however, only the tip of the iceberg. See for yourself.

1. Pardot
2. Marketo
3. Marketing Pilot

Happy marketing!

(Contributed by Sean Matthis)

In a meeting last week, a client asked me, "Emily, what is the one key to a successful banner ad?" This question... this very simple and brief question--for me--had a pretty complex answer. My effort to reply with brevity was clearly ruined by my knowledge that there isn't one single element that makes a display ad, or banner ad, "successful." I listed off things like a moving call-to-action, straightforward messaging, consumer interactivity, appealing use of space and overall creativity.

You may wonder why I put my little quotes around "successful" and it's because any intuitive marketer/advertiser will ask you what success means for your brand... for your campaign. There are hardly any plain ol' branding campaigns anymore--people want to sell, they want a direct response from consumers.

Knowing all this, I felt like I couldn't dumb successful ads down to just one key element.

Little did I know the good people over at BuySellAds.com were feeling the exact same way, and they decided to make an infographic about it. While I bet this is a question they get much more frequently, I'm inclined to believe that great minds think alike.

BuySellAds.com lists interactivity (bingo), good use of space (bango), compelling imagery (huzzah), creative message (two birds, one stone?), a call-to-action (hopefully a 'DUH'), brand incorporation, strong text, and appropriate humor (how could I leave that out?) as the Top 8 key elements of a successful banner ad.

The one question you must ask yourself when brainstorming on your next big banner campaign is, "If I was the target audience... would this banner resonate with me? Does it speak to my style, my wants, my desires, my needs?" Most audiences are quite diverse, even when you parse them down to the same gender, geographic location, age, and marital status--advertisers and marketers have to dig deeper than that.

As always, your thoughts are welcome in this space. Feel free to engage real-time with me @ecarroll01 on Twitter!

[Post contributed by Emily Carroll]

When it comes to website tracking there are a plethora of metrics at our disposal. If we’re talking user engagement, we might look at the bounce rate, average time on site, or average page views per visit. If we are interested in organic search, we might look at the number of organic visits, top organic keywords, and others. Then there’s content — which web pages are most popular? Which web pages do users most often enter the site through?

But have you ever wondered how users move through your website? In other words, from any given page of your site, what pages do users most often go to next? Google Analytics offers a simple yet effective solution to this inquiry called the Navigation Summary. Pick any page of your site and the Navigation Summary gives you a list of the previous pages and a list of the next pages. For example, let’s say we picked the Contact Us page of the LeapFrog Interactive website. We might then see that the Who We Are page was most often the previous page and that the Request for Information page was most often the next page.

The lists of previous pages and next pages are ranked based on the number of clicks to and from the page in view, which, in our example above, would be the Contact Us page. In addition to previous and next pages, we also see how often the Contact Us page was a landing page and how often it was an exit page.

Navigation Summaries allow us to see if users are moving through the site the way we think they should. One important note is that the Navigation Summary does not allow us to track individual users as they move through the site. For this, you will need to consider programs such as Clicky or Woopra. Happy tracking!

I confess: I use my iPhone for more social media interaction than my Mac. Luckily, I am not alone in my Smartphone social media usage. The number of social network users who use a Smartphone to interact on social properties is on the rise, especially when using location-based services. In fact, Foursquare reported 380 million check-ins in 2010 and Facebook Places reported 30 million users. Additionally, from September 2009 to February 2010 Facebook added 45 million mobile users.

As you can see, mobile is changing the way users use their social networks. From check-ins to status updates and photos to mobile coupons, as the number of Smartphone users increases, you’ll see an increase in mobile social networking. For digital marketing strategy, this presents an interesting turn of events. How do you reach your consumer? How do you get to where they are?

Jason Falls, social media marketing guru and blogger, suggests one way to go mobile is to go social. But don’t forget to create a social media marketing strategy:

(1) Determine an end goal. What do you want to accomplish?

(2) Develop a plan. How will you accomplish said goal?

(3) How will you measure the results of your social media marketing?

The QR Code. It sounds like something straight out of a James Bond movie. These funny-looking boxes have been popping up more and more and have really captured my attention. For example, last weekend I was reading a local publication and just about every other advertising space was using a QR code. Now, this blog post won’t go into how a QR code technically works (to be frank, because that is over my head), but I wanted to talk about the dos and don’ts when using a QR code for a mobile marketing campaign.

DO have a call to action for the user. Whether it’s a freebie, an opportunity to join your mailing list, or unique content that only people scanning the QR code can get, make sure it is worth the user’s effort. Calvin Klein did a great job of this last summer. CK has had some scandalous ads in the past, and when the company posted a huge billboard with “Get it Uncensored” across the top, who wouldn’t want to see what they were talking about? By the way, they didn’t have anything naughty — but they did have a 40-second commercial premiere of their 2010 advertising campaign.

DO create a fun experience for the user. For example, Starbucks created a scavenger hunt when a customer scans an in-store QR code. Over a two-week period, users were given clues that revolved around Starbucks’ sites and blogs; these clues tested a customer’s knowledge, all for a cool prize. Everyone loves a hunt!

DO make sure it is social. Have people share experiences with everyone in their networks. This is huge and should not be overlooked. Maybe you will have to dangle a larger carrot, maybe they have an extra chance to win for tweeting about their experience or posting to Facebook, but in the end you will be the one winning!

DO track successes. There really is no sense in creating a mobile marketing campaign with a QR code if you don’t run analytics. Understanding the user-experience is important. After all, it will only help you in the future.

DON’T use a QR reader on your advertisement and link to your website if your site hasn’t been optimized for mobile use. No one wants to scroll through tiny print on a smartphone — they will move on to something else, and move quickly.

DON’T forget to include instructions on how to download a QR code scanner. This may sound pretty simple, but I have seen several ads with no mention on how to download a proper QR reader.

DON’T forget to test, test, test. If the QR code will only work for certain devices, make sure that is indicated on the advertisement. But let’s be real here … it’s better to make sure it works on all smartphones.

DON’T shut everyone out. Be creative in ways to include people who may not have a smartphone — whether that is by tweeting or signing up for your email list, make those methods available as well.

Whew! So this list could go on and on, but those are a few things to consider when engaging in a mobile marketing campaign. These funny-looking boxes are continuing to pop up everywhere you look today — and it will only continue. In fact, they began in 1994 with Toyota using them to track parts. Now the digital advertising world is bringing them to the next level. I have my iPhone ready for the next amazing mobile marketing campaign. Do you?

This message will self-destruct in five… four … three … two … one …

(Contributed by Ryan Bares, account coordinator)