Consumers are everywhere, and brands can direct their marketing messages to them in a variety of effective ways.  The online marketplace is a great way to reach these consumers but offline efforts, from print ads to signage to TV and radio spots, still can help a brand reach its intended audience.  Whether to use offline or online to reach a brand’s intended audience, however, is not an either/or proposition.  It needs to be an “and” one.

A successful marketing campaign cannot live solely in an offline or online marketing neighborhood.  These two marketing venues should not be gated communities.  Consumers should be able to connect the marketing dots between a brand’s offline and online efforts.  Not establishing this marketing integration leaves a brand vulnerable to lost conversions, from lead generation to outright sales.

A consumer should be able to move between offline and online marketing.  There should be no dead ends.  For example, any print ads or TV and radio spots should also drive consumers online so they need to include the URL for the brand’s website or any microsite set up for a specific campaign.  Online content, especially websites, need to enable consumers who might not want to make online purchases to be able to find any of the brand’s brick and mortar locations.  Properly integrated marketing campaigns will enable consumers to reach from one sphere to another with the minimum amount of effort. (more…)

Providing high quality client service goes well beyond just answering the phone or responding to an e-mail. It needs to be a mix of ongoing communication, commitment to the client’s needs and goals, and an investment of time and effort that goes beyond the norm. Here are some of the ingredients that need to part of the mix to ensure clients receive the level of service they deserve.

Listen to clients
Quality client service starts with a team of people who understand how to listen to clients. This goes beyond just hearing their words but listening to what they are really saying and making the connection between what they want to do and ways we can help them achieve a goal, resolve a problem, and answer a question. A strong client services team, like the one we have here at LeapFrog, is able to do all of this and more. The focus of our job is to be a client’s point of contact. By the very nature of our relationship with them, we must listen to them to satisfy our responsibility to them.

Make polite suggestions
Really being able to listen and understand what a client needs enables us to go a step further and make suggestions for strategies and solutions. These suggestions are not driven by trying to make a sale but are truly useful recommendations that are in the client’s best interests. We are invested in our clients’ success and thinking outside of the box and providing service that goes beyond the norm is one way we can help contribute to that success. (more…)

Today’s a big day for LeapFrog Interactive! We’ve just launched our brand new interactive program, LFI University. The program was developed as a way to share our knowledge about interactive marketing (tips, trends, best practices, ROI, and analytics) so that our clients can easily stay attuned to all that the Internet has to offer.

We understand how difficult it can be to track down latest information in online marketing and then stay apprised of all the updates that are continually changing the online space. LFI University can help you deal with this challenge by providing an abundance of useful information about interactive marketing in an easy-to-use, one-stop location. We know your time is precious, and we want to be your online resource for all things interactive. There is a wealth of information that is already available, and each week we will be updating LFI University with the latest and greatest info to ease your navigation of this always-changing landscape.

We are making all of this available to you because LeapFrog prides itself on being an interactive agency that offers more than just completed projects. We like to provide our clients with added, ongoing value, and LFI University is a brand new way for us to do just that.

Don’t take my word for it. See for yourself.

There’s no denying that the state of the economy is not good.  You know that. I know that. And even if somehow we didn’t know that, the media would make sure the fact that the economic sky is falling wouldn’t slip from our attention for long.  The media is having a field day with the current financial state of affairs, so much so that they’ve actually started to become part of the problem.

How can consumers ever feel confident enough to go out and actually consume if every five minutes another media update of how really, really, really bad things are is hammered into our heads?  Frightened consumers don’t spend or invest and contribute to the economy.  They take their money and go home.  And given the fear frenzy the media is stirring up, once these consumers get home, they probably take their money and themselves and hide under their beds in the fetal position.

Our economy depends on consumer spending.  If even those of us who can still afford to spend are too frightened to do so, the economy will only continue to sink deeper and deeper into the mud.  Manufacturers can’t recover unless someone is buying what they are selling.  Consumers need to be aware of how the economy is doing but they don’t need to be so acutely aware that they can’t function.

I’m getting tired of the constant doom and gloom that the media is forcing down all of our throats.  Reporting the news is one thing; contributing to the problem is another.  No one, no matter how financially secure they actually are, will ever start to feel economically confident again if the only news they ever hear is bad news.  There needs to be balance in the media if the economy is ever going to be balanced again.

OK, I feel better now and have officially stepped off of my soapbox.

When we work with a client as they get ready to launch their interactive marketing campaign, we always try to make sure that their conversion rate expectations are aren’t out of sync with the likely response their efforts will receive from their target consumers.  To help determine this ideal rate, there are a few steps we take to help make sure we identify the factors that influence how many conversions the campaign will actually receive.

First, we need to determine who makes up the brand’s target demographic and then dissect them to fully understand who they are, what interests them, and what their behavioral habits are.  For example, we try to determine when these users go online the most.  Do they go online while at work or are they predominantly online in the evening or on weekends?  How long do they stay online?  What are their interests or hobbies?  To gather and process all of this varied data, we use a range of analytical tools.  We also check out the social media space to find out what the target demographic is talking about.  All this research helps us get a good sense of the nature and makeup of the brand’s target consumer base and what might motivate them the most to perform the desired conversion, be it making a purchase to providing their e-mail information.

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