What results often times is either: 1) shoving traditional campaign structures into social networks, or 2) a big bowl of tactics that are stand alone gimmicks, giving neither the creators or brand managers a fair way to evaluate whether integrated campaign tactics actually do integrate. And when they do integrate, how do you create consistency without droning sameness?

To make sense of it all, to give teams a structure by which they can create ideas that build on each other, I made a bit of a simple, strategic mashup: First, take the 3-act storytelling structure that humans have been using for a few thousand years to relate and process information. Then, blend with Nielsen's Participation Inequality Law, the rule of thumb that describes digital participation behaviors at scale.

What comes out is a way to look at campaigns where the launch / event / purchase isn't the end of the story, or the beginning. It should be where it belongs: at the climax of the story. That allows the ending of your arc to be the resolution of your audience members succeeding: the behavioral outcome that could not have occurred without the brand having facilitated it.

But that only gets us as far as campaign content, and campaigns in social aren't enough.

To truly model out and encourage positive behaviors, you need to be actively facilitating the community. The Participation Framework makes sure that your brand's declarative statements are balanced as part of a mix that balances content and conversation.

Because people engaging with the brand is a means to an end: people using the brand as a setting to strengthen relationships with each other. Again, positive community behaviors are what you're shooting for. It's these behaviors that will ultimately determine the social success of a brand.

Here's the whole deck with much more step-by-step detail on how Behavioral Storytelling works.

If you're wondering how you can use structures like this to make the difference for your brand, join me at General Assembly in NYC for a class on June 4, or I can work with a number of different teams in your organization: as a speaker or consultant.

What's your take on social content strategy? Drop a note below in the comments or on twitter @mleis.

1. Premium pricing – top of the market
2. Bargain pricing – bottom of the market
3. Prime + 2 pricing – prebuilt-in margin
4. Total cost of ownership pricing – the cost plus overhead
5. Competitive pricing – based on competitors and customer needs

Determining which of these to use depends on a variety of variables including the company’s business model, industry standards and what competitors are doing—to name a few. However, when we were determining the pricing model for ChoiceStream’s advanced targeting optimization technology, we carefully weighed the pros and cons of each of the above pricing options and came to the following conclusions.

Premium Pricing: Higher than your costs? No – As a startup, ChoiceStream has not yet reached scale, so our current costs do not reflect what the market will bear for pricing. This is important because our product is very sensitive to scale due to the fact that many of our costs are fixed. Additionally, our competitors, who have been in market longer, are offering scale-based prices, which we must match.

Bargain Pricing: Lower than competitors? Not necessarily – As a startup you may want to beat your competitors on price, but must be careful not to establish a race to the bottom in the industry. At ChoiceStream we do not try to beat our competitors on price, but we do strive to be the best value. In reality we need to compete on more than just price, so that is a tactic we’ve avoided. Furthermore, we offer a premium solution supported by a full range of premium services that more than justify our prices.

Prime + 2 Pricing: Higher than your planned costs at scale? Not always – You should establish a price list that will eventually allow you a reasonable margin, but you may want to drop below that to win some key customers. We’ve established our price list to allow an equitable margin, but we cut straight to the bone to win some key customers. First, because these customers either commit to volumes that make their business worthwhile or they have the potential to do so once we prove ourselves.  Second, because well-known and respected brands are worth their weight in marketing gold.  We consider their non-cash value when determining their discount.

Total Cost of Ownership Pricing: Determine pricing in the context of TCO? Absolutely – The purchase price of some products represents nearly 100% of the total cost of ownership (that is the cost to purchase, maintain, insure, and operate a product). On the other hand, the price of some products may be 5% or less of the total cost of ownership. The lower the percentage, the less effect your pricing has on the purchase decision. In these cases, you may find that very low prices don’t help sales and very high prices don’t hinder them.  If this is true, mark it up. When we establish pricing at ChoiceStream for our advertising solution, we consider all ancillary costs that the buyer must incur when we deliver; including such things as building ads, ad serving fees, and ad safety fees.

Competitive Pricing: Research price points? Absolutely – It is always a good idea to ask as many potential customers as you can what they would pay for your product or service.  When asking, try to simulate as closely as possible the conditions under which your customers will see your actual offers. We’ve made it a common practice asking clients and prospects what they normally pay for solutions like ours.  We also check out competitors to determine the range of prices in the market, but we are careful to account for differences in quality, bundles and features.

In reality, different pricing models will work better for different companies. There is no single easy solution, but typically creating your own hybrid of these five types will be the end solution.

I don’t pretend to be a savvy shopper, but when I dive wallet-first into the clearance section at The Gap, I tend to stock up on accessories in my favorite color — black. Why? It’s a universal truth that black goes with everything.

So does branded journalism. In the words of veteran digital content guru Ann Handley, “Content is the new black.”

Handley is right, branded journalism (also known as brand journalism or branded content) has caught on like a wildfire this year. From Tory Burch’s fantastic branded blog to Mint.com’s MintLife section, brands realize the value of consumer-facing content like articles, photos or videos, and are rushing to create some with the company name on it.

Why? For a lot of the reasons we discussed in the first post in this series and mainly because consumers are demanding it. As brands become more accessible to fans through social media, people want more from brands than their products and services. So much so, even Twitter is looking to hire a Head of News. That leads us to branded journalism.

But branded journalism breaks the natural order of business that advertisers, journalists and businesses have subscribed to for decades. This makes some people nervous, traditionalists angry and opportunists jumping on the branded content bandwagon faster than Baltimore fans during the last Super Bowl.

So that leaves the question, if you’re going to start creating content for a brand, be it a local business or a Fortune 500 company, what are the best practices? Better yet, how do you do it ethically?

Try these simple steps for better branded journalism:

1. Build a process

Journalistic content should be more than an article or blog post thrown together quickly. Create an editorial plan, support whatever content you create with strategy, edit it, review it with key company team members and a set time to distribute it via a medium that will reach your intended audience.

2. Share something valuable

Share something that your target market will respond to. For example, Home Depot’s YouTube page features an array of do-it-yourself garden tutorials. Completely different from Red Bull’s adrenalin-pumping YouTube page that offers an array of video features on the brand’s extreme athletes. Both give their fans journalistic content in the same medium, but do it completely different ways to reach separate audiences.

3. Know your boundaries

Producing journalistic content doesn’t equate to producing a Pulitzer winning news article, so stick to your industry and the topics surrounding it. Create content targeted at a company’s audience, on subjects related to your company’s industry. Find creative ways to make content relevant to trends and new stories without reporting the news.

4. Stick to the facts and cite your sources

People want transparency from their favorite brands. Always support your content with facts from experts and credible sources. Back up your claims with research, data or testimonials from credible experts that you mention by name.

5. Strike a balance

Don’t use branded journalism as an opportunity to knock a competitor’s product or service, use it as an opportunity to share valuable content. If needed, acknowledge competitors professionally when it’s appropriate. Focus instead on sharing real insight about a subject consumers are interested in.

6. List a byline

If possible, list the author or producer of a branded journalism piece. This gives your work credibility and gives audience members a face representing the brand to connect with. Melissa Lafsky Wall left her job at USA Today to head up content production at dating site How About We, where every article or column in the site’s Date Report section is credited with a byline.

7. Track results

Producing branded journalism is useless if it doesn’t reach the correct audience to support business goals. Use analytics to track your results and SEO to shape the strategy behind your content. This ensures that you don’t just produce quality branded journalism; you produce branded content that gets results.

*as posted by Sarah Giarratana on IQ's blog

If the $42.3 billion spent online this past holiday season has taught retailers anything, it’s that capturing customers—and their dollars—online is crucial.

But online is a big place. And mobile, which can seem like an entirely different universe, looms ever larger. So where to even start if you haven’t yet…started? And who should lead the charge?

The modern day merchant must have an intimate understanding of the importance of online and mobile commerce, access to a vast array of customer data, and a strategy for transforming this analytical data into winning online experiences.

In all cases, the goal is to attract and retain both new and returning customers. Whether online novices or experts, business leaders crave insight on how to accomplish this. The question is: who inside the company can embody these traits and help the CEO rule the roost? That responsibility should belong to the chief marketing officer.

A CMO should be somebody who uniquely understands marketing, merchandising, data, analytics and web design, and who can also maintain a creative, innovative organizational structure. IT tends to lean too heavily toward data for data’s sake, while Sales too often relies on revenue and relationships.

Placing the CMO in charge allows for the best of both worlds. Armed with the science of data analysis and the art of consumer engagement, the CMO is well positioned to emulate merchant princes of old and join the ranks of retail royalty. A good CMO can nurture a culture of testing, measuring and learning instead of depending on guesswork and subjectivity, as well as reach out to those on the front lines of customer interactions to figure out what those customers want. The ambitious CMO knows that their company site must be more engaging than the competitions’, as well as a place that customers trust, valuing the available products, services and information on offer. It also needs to be a reliable gateway to actions that grow sales beyond the initial purchase, such as cross-selling and upselling.

What’s the best way to make all this happen? One word: data.

Data is crucial to online retail. It comes in many different forms, the main type being the individual behaviors of current site visitors: which search term or webpage brought them over, what time of day and day of the week they’re most likely to stop by, what recent purchases they’ve already made onsite, what pages they visit and what product categories most interest them. All this pertinent info helps define what the “best content” is for each specific viewer. Other types include customer relationship management (CRM) data and social media data.

The aspiring CMO must then use this accumulated data to gain perspective on what customers want; analytical optimization and personalization tools will aid in this quest. Segmentation sifts through the data to find discrete groups of people with similar traits and/or interests, who can then be targeted and tested with relevant content based on site activity. Product recommendations and other offers are then provided based on what the various groups are most likely to purchase.

Product information tools give customers a deeper understanding of the product at hand—a 360-degree view of an article of clothing, or a close-up of various types of textured materials. User-generated content, like ratings, reviews or social media feedback, also aids and influences purchasing decisions. The savvy CMO uses all these methods to strike the delicate balance between intuition and analysis.

91% of B2B companies are diving into content marketing according to eMarketer. It seems that the fat part of the curve is upon us as the corporate world realizes that savvy consumers of all stripes just don’t buy the old advertising game. The new bargain is, if you give me valuable content of some sort, I’ll maybe think better of your company. Seems a bit tenuous, but I’ll vouch that it works, or used to.

We (IQ) started our first thought-leadership led strategy with IBM back in 2002. We didn’t call it content marketing back then, but IBM had realized that they were not in the blue box business anymore, they were instead in the business consulting business; that’s why they sold their PC operation to the Chinese and bought PwC Consulting.

The problem is that with everyone and their brother buying into marketing automation systems, which need to be fed with content, I’m afraid the marketplace is rapidly going into content overload mode. Enterprise marketers cite producing engaging content as their number one challenge, according to the Content Marketing Institute. That’s code for: “Whoops! We’re making content, but nobody’s looking at it”.

So what’s a marketer to do? Advertising doesn’t work like it used to and the hoi polloi are ruining content marketing for the good guys (that’s us!).

Table stakes today are having a constant flow of content designed to appeal to each of your key personas at every step in the Consumer Decision Journey. This requires doing serious work mapping your consumer’s path to purchase, discovering their key touch points and understanding their psychology at every step. It sounds complex and it is. But if you don’t do this foundational work, you will not have the right content in front of the right consumer at the right time. That, however, just gets you in the game.

The challenge then is to create content that is sufficiently valuable and distinctive that your prospect not only engages with it, but also shares it, and most importantly is intrigued by the company that has produced it. This is a very high bar and not for the weak of spirit.

Unfortunately, in content marketing today there is no substitute for a living content strategy effort informed by data and analytics and activated by best-in-class content created around valuable consumer insights. Makes you pine for the days of a clever print ad and a scotch and soda.

*As posted by Sarah Giarratana on IQ's blog

As a growing copywriter with a print journalism background, I love the idea of “branded journalism.” Editorial content written for brands, targeted at consumers, supported by analytics, published in digital spaces, that raises a big middle finger to the rule that advertising and journalism can never mix? Sounds good to me.

For brands, the need for journalistic content stems from growing branded communities in social spaces. As brands and consumers engage in more personal conversations via social, consumers simply demand more from them.

More than ever, consumers want brands to give them things of value outside of their products or services. A sense of community that includes transparency, responsiveness and quality branded content. That’s where brand journalists and copywriters come in.

Last week, I stumbled on the work of Kevin Maney, a veteran USA Today reporter who turned his attention to advertising after two decades of writing and reporting as a journalist.

After a successful reporting career, Maney made an interesting move. He started working with big brands like IBM to create journalistic content.

Maney co-authored a book in conjunction with IBM, but branded journalism can include works of art, articles, blog posts, books, photos or videos produced by a brand to reach an identifiable market.

Couple creating content with the market downturn, and many wannabe journalists and former reporters are turning to jobs in advertising, marketing and digital. Many seek jobs that offer more security but still challenge them to use skills from writing in the newsroom like critical thinking, deadline management and creativity.

According to Robert McChesney, co-author of Will the Last Reporter Please Turn Out the Lights: The Collapse of Journalism and What Can Be Done to Fix It, public relations professionals now outnumber reporters 4-to-1. With print journalism seeing a continual decline in revenue, it isn’t surprising that some journalists are now writing for brands. Market aside however, branded journalism still causes some debate.

Critics fear that branded journalism might fully eclipse traditional journalism. Will the news report about a damaging tornado suddenly be sponsored by a home insurance company? I highly doubt it. The audience would be too quick to call a news organization on it, like they did with The Atlantic’s big advertorial fail in January.

The Atlantic fiasco highlights that we’re working in a time where the line between advertising and journalism is blurrier than ever. Marketing, digital and journalism just came crashing together, giving us a choice. We can either sit here staring or use this opportunity to create new, innovative content that people will respond to.

By we, I mean brands or agencies working on behalf of brands. New organizations don’t have the freedom to pepper advertising content in their editorial work, but ad professionals now have the unique opportunity to produce journalistic content. If done right in digital spaces, that journalistic content will likely produce results.

The key lies in planning responsibly. Branded journalism needs to be intentional, driven by strategy as much as it is by good writing. It must be targeted and audience-specific and not overstep it’s bounds. Producing journalistic content doesn’t equate to producing a Pulitzer winning news article, so brands shouldn’t try to.

How each company executes branded journalism will vary, but hopefully by the end of the year we will see more fact-based, journalistic content reaching consumers and generating revenue.

To track branded journalism, its growth and the debate surrounding it, a good place to start is Maney’s blog. Ignore the clunky WordPress theme and focus on the journalistic content. After all, content is becoming very valuable.

However, in our ever growing marketing world, it’s imperative that you broaden your definition of content; not only does this make you available to many other potential customers but provides with you more diverse content to share.  Online marketing is more important now than ever before; and more assets to share can only benefit you.

What Are You Creating?

Before you can start creating more content, you must take a look at what you currently curate. If you maintain a blog, you’re ahead of the curve. Businesses with a blog get 55% more website traffic than their non-blogging counterparts, according to Impact.

However, other than your blog, what content are you sharing and sending?

• Landing pages
• Ad Copy
• Articles
• Guides

What Can You Create?

While creating and publishing content on a regular basis does in fact put you at an advantage, not all your customers care to sit down with a 600 word blog post. Consider: what do you do, and what do you customers truly care about? They are a diverse bunch, and it’s part of your marketing mission to reach all of them.

As experts at GinzaMetrics.com suggest, “The way to become popular is to create content that people care about. This is an often overlooked fact but it’s obvious when you look around.” So, how can you reach customers at every stage of their engagement with you?

New Content:

• Partnered content: I promote you, you promote me. Not only do you reach a broader audience, but you build honesty and credibility by featuring a competitor.
• Photo galleries: As a retailer, your customers want to know what you have for them. Creating a slideshow or photo gallery and sharing that gets customers to engage without much effort. Build this into your current web design to get more from your efforts.
• Printable PDF’s: Your customers have a life online, so make it easier for them. Create checklists, guides, bookmarks, etc. that they can then print and take with them.

Repurposed content:

• Podcasts: Take an old post and create a podcast – now you can reach customers, even if they aren’t in front of a computer; while their sitting in traffic after work or relaxing on a Sunday afternoon.
• Video: Video is becoming increasingly important for businesses – and you have so many options. Take an existing product and tutorial, but put it in a video format. This will add value to your current product page, while generating shares and engagement.
• Infographic:  You have numbers and research, whether you’ve already put it into a case study or not. Take those numbers and make them easy to digest. This is content and very sharable content, at that.

Content is becoming a broader term as online technologies improve and evolve. Your customers want more from you, and content is the best way to give that to them. Consider what you are creating now and how you can expand that to include a variety of other options that your customers will find valuable.

Take into account your current resources, what you can do with those, and how you can incorporate more as your business grows and learns. Your customers want to interact with you, so give them the chance to do so.

Photo credit: Under30CEO

Pop quiz: Which company first treated online retail as a revolution and not an evolution of traditional retail? (The answer is at the end of the article).

Retailers generally understand that customers are increasingly using their mobile devices to help them shop. But more often than not, the strategy retailers use is to take their existing ecommerce website and “optimize” it for delivery on the smaller mobile screen. Not surprisingly, the usual result is the same old, traditional ecommerce.

Much of this situation is driven by the omnichannel and “responsive design” approaches where “all channels need to look and feel the same.” Part of it is because the ecommerce team is given the responsibility to extend the mobile presence (“digital is digital”) and views the mobile phone user as just another home-or-office online shopper. Another reason is that repurposed ecommerce sites are usually the fastest thing that can be done and be loosely called “mobile.”

Lastly, part of the issue is that retailers approach “mobile” as a problem to be fixed and do not appreciate the significant new opportunity it offers.

The key to understanding the potential of mobile in retail and how to leverage it comes in two steps.

First, it’s important to understand what’s different about mobile. Instead of looking at the similarities of mobile with traditional PCs and PC-based browsing, focus on what is unique both in terms of the technology and, more importantly, what is different about how people are using it.

Second, determine how to best take advantage of it in the context of retailers’ goals. Can mobile be used to increase sales, deliver better customer service, and increase customer loyalty? Can it help the retailer understand the customer better?

On the first point, mobile devices are just that: mobile. Customers are increasingly taking their phones into stores to assist them with their shopping decisions – currently more than 66% of them. That’s very different than PCs. With more than 90% of retail occurring in-store, that’s significant (and begs the question of why the ecommerce tail is wagging the in-store dog).

When a shopper is inside a store, the primary influence comes from the physical brick and mortar experience. Customers intuitively expect mobile to augment and enhance that environment and not drag them into the disassociated online world (where, incidentally, they are one click away from every other retailers’ online offerings).

Secondly, how can physical store assets be turned into a competitive advantage? How can retailers help customers? How can they deliver more of the retail brand promise?

Shoppers expect their mobile devices to connect them with the physical store. Mobile can help customers find products in-store using indoor maps and graphically show them exact product locations. It can take the shopping list and turn it into an efficient path through the store. And now that retailers know a customer’s shopping list, they can offer highly personalized offers and product suggestions.

A recent study shows that by integrating these indoor locations technologies into retail apps shoppers become five times more engaged - more engaged with products, stores and brands. And that drives increased sales and greater customer satisfaction and loyalty.

It also provides the retailer deep insights into what their customers want, what they respond to and how the retailer can improve merchandising and marketing.

That’s the true retailer – and shopper – opportunity with mobile.

And it’s just the beginning. As with many new technologies, we’re just scratching the surface. It’s impossible to look more than a few years out and predict how retailers and shoppers will connect using mobile. But one thing is for sure: it will look less like ecommerce and be more connected to the store.

Mobile also turns your physical store into an incredible asset that online retailers cannot compete with.

So, don’t treat the mobile opportunity in retail as a problem to be fixed. It’s an incredible opportunity that will provide traditional retailers a whole new set of positive interactions with their customers. Take advantage of it.

Pop quiz answer: Amazon

You’ve heard of mobile-first organizations, those that launch first on mobile devices prior to web. That can be a good idea for some, but being a consumer-first organization is a universal necessity.

Gone are the days of relying on clever messaging aimed at grabbing the attention of distracted consumers. Awareness is easy, right? You can even buy awareness in digital and convince your boss that it’s edgy just because it’s digital. But being a sales-first organization that prioritizes short-term bumps in numbers should not be your goal. Building an army of dedicated, loyal followers should. Today, consumer-first brands are winning consumer loyalty and, as a result, their money.

The music industry is a great example. For decades, the music industry succeeded by making consumers pay for records, tapes, or CDs of pre-packaged music. But as soon as the tools were invented that allowed them to collect just the songs they wanted, the music industry suffered. The blame was placed on cheap consumers who just wanted everything for free. But we’ve learned that that isn’t true. Consumers, and music fans especially, WANT to pay for the things they love. In fact, artists have given away their music, allowing fans to make donations and received millions of dollars.

Amanda Palmer was a street performer turned professional musician who grew a large following and eventually received a record deal. After selling 25,000 copies of her debut album, her label considered it a failure and they parted ways. Determined to prove them wrong, she started giving away her music to her fans with the simple request that they help her out financially. She received almost $1.2 million from an ironic 25,000 donations.

I think there is a story here bigger than the music industry, which, as we all know, has seen the light (if you will) and is again experiencing growth. We’re seeing a dramatic shift in consumers’ expectations that is literally decimating entire industries. In marketing we like to talk about how social media is changing everything. It isn’t. It is simply enabling consumers to be as social as they’ve always been but now with the tools to ask for more personalized service. And that should frighten any company that is ignoring not just social, but more broadly, campaigns that genuinely connect with consumers.

Let me be clear, if your model is dependent on pulling in consumers rather than providing easy ways for them to get your product naturally, you will ultimately fail. Companies that do it right, the ones that connect with consumers and build the tools that make it easy for them to pay for the things they want, will survive. That is the difference between making consumers pay for your product and letting them.

Don’t be that brand. Don’t use social as a channel for more awareness and push messaging. Build loyalty. And then build or leverage tools to help those consumers pay you.

In fact, the two have so much in common that there are many ways in which content marketers can take inspiration from this much-loved board game. Here are five to get you started...

1. It’s all about balance

Balance is vital in Scrabble. Experienced players will tell you that having a balanced rack of letters (ideally with four consonants and three vowels) is really important if they’re to land that all-elusive quadruple-word score.

It’s key in content marketing, too. Brands need to strike a balance between all sorts of things – stock and flow content, word-based and visual pieces, serious and light-hearted topics... In fact, it’s key to creating content that appeals to people at all stages of the buying cycle.

2. Strategy is a must

Serious Scrabble players often start forming a strategy in their minds as soon as their first word hits the board. They must consider three main things: space (across the board), distribution (how to use their letters) and content (the words that’ll gain them a high score).

Building a strong strategy is important for content marketers too; whose space comprises their publishing channels (social media, guest blogs, their own site etc.). Distributing the right content across the right platforms must also be considered, as should the quality/variety of the content itself. For example where an infographic might produce a return from one part of the target audience, an insightful whitepaper might work well for another part. In either case, the quality must be top notch.

3. Planning ahead can be beneficial

In content marketing, planning ahead can be highly beneficial – but allowing a little contingency is vital. Knowing what, when and where you’re going to publish content is really useful, as marketers can support their wider activities with thoughtful, valuable content. In Scrabble, planning ahead can help players make the best use of the space and their rack.

Leaving room to react to any unforeseen events (like a breaking news story, which can be news-jacked) is crucial too, as with Scrabble players – who have to learn how to react to their opponent filling a space they wanted to use, or receiving a difficult letter.

4. Having courage pays off

In in the worlds of both Scrabble and content marketing, courage is a priceless attribute. If a Scrabble player receives an X or a Q, for example, only the courageous will make it into an opportunity to bag a really high score –rather than a chance to panic.

If a content marketer receives a really controversial idea from the wider marketing or advertising team, one that could really pay off, courage will be vital in making them simply go for it. Not all risks are worth taking, admittedly, but some are and it’s down to bold content marketers to identify those which fall into the latter category.

5. Innovative thinking is key

Being able to out-smart competitors with innovative, unexpected moves is critical for both content marketers and Scrabble players – especially if they have been dealt something they didn't expect themselves. Being landed with a rack full of vowels is tough for any Scrabble enthusiast, but it’s all about thinking outside the box – or, in this case, the cookie tin (one of the few words that uses four vowels!)

Their content marketing counterparts must constantly produce innovative content that stands out from the rest, too; tackling areas others haven’t in the past. Otherwise, they’re just reinventing the wheel – and the world already has enough of those!

As another way of reducing inbox clutter, the email providers also try to filter out “unwanted email” from the person’s inbox. This can be quite subjective, and a perfect solution is yet to be devised, so the junk folder can be seen as where the email provider puts email is not entirely sure about. It’s got to be remembered that the email provider is trying to improve the user’s experience, even if it is at the cost of marketing emails not getting through.

So, how do they do it?

In a nutshell, it depends upon the email provider, but the following metrics are monitored when deciding on where to put the email.

Reputation

This is a combination of data from third parties and data that the email provider collects (all or some of the metrics below). This data is used to determine if a sender is more or less likely to be sending spam, either linked to the IP address of the sender, the domain, or both.

Volume

The higher the sent volume, the more you are likely to look like a spammer. Usually thresholds of volume are linked to Reputation, so a sender with good sending reputation can send a higher volume before going into junk than a sender with a poor reputation.

Speed of send

This is similar to the volume metric, in that good reputation allows you to send faster than a poor reputation. With some email providers, once the threshold is reached, the email is deferred for a time period (between 12 and 72 hours) and when the block is lifted, the threshold is further reduced.

Bounce rate

Good mailers have good list hygiene and will remove email addresses that permanently bounce, or who have not responded to an email in a long time period (usually between 12 to 24 months). Spammers don’t do that, the more bad data you send, the more like a spammer you look.

Complaint rate.

A sender that many people complain about, is more likely to go into the junk folder, than one that has few complaints.

Response rate.

Looks at how often people open and click your emails, emails that are actively opened and clicked by recipients, are more likely to go into the inbox.

User reclassification

As well as emails being sent to junk being a bad vote for your email campaigns, if your recipients start to move your emails from Junk into the inbox, this is seen as a positive vote by some email providers.

Black list

If you send old, inactive data, you will inevitably end up on a blacklist. This is because many of these blacklists, monitor old and inactive email addresses, that no longer solicit emails (Trap addresses). The more of these you hit, the more likely to go into junk you are.

Content filters

email providers have developed sophisticated pattern matching technology that scores your emails for either looking more or less like a spam email. For emails that look very much like spam templates, the email provider can build a “spam signature” which will allow them to pattern match and junk any template that matches the signature.

Why is the junking so inconsistent?

Depending on the email provider, these metrics either work on an individual’s mailbox, or act as a default for everyone’s mailbox that there is no firm setting for. So if an individual has added you to their safe senders list, they should generally get the email into the inbox (unless you are blocked). If the recipient has marked your emails as junk, they will go into the junk folder (if they get them at all). It is also possible for the default mailbox placement to change while the campaign is being sent, so it might start off in Junk, and then move to the inbox as the response data is processed by the email provider.

Generally an email will stay in whatever folder it is classified to initially, although some email providers are now able to change the folder classification, effectively moving emails from one folder to another based on the data they are monitoring.

How do I fix it?

As you might have noticed, most of these metrics are designed to identify mailers who don’t care what they send out, and don’t care who they send it to. The more wanted and welcome your emails are to your recipients, the more the data will reflect that.

Defining how to segment your data to achieve this is a large subject, but the overriding strategy should always to base your customer communication program on the customers themselves. Sending emails with content that people will find relevant , at a time when they will welcome them, should be the focus for any email marketing campaign. Only then will your email go where you want it to.

As marketers we tend to take an introverted view of our work. Before you disagree with this statement, let me explain. We have our stats, we think we know our customers and then we come up with an idea we think is amazing. This is pushed out to a group of individuals who are expected to devour it and hopefully at the end of this process buy into our product.

The problem with this approach, well, one of the problems is that we tend to forget that the people we’re communicating to are human and that they have an innate drive towards happiness. So in order to better understand how we can market in a more human way, let’s look at three requirements for what is commonly considered ‘happiness’.

Creating

As human beings we get a sense of satisfaction from the things we accomplish through genuine and acceptable effort. If you look at this in marketing terms then we can say that our actions should inspire people to accomplish something. The products we push out could be something the consumer aspires to and once acquired gives him/her a sense of achievement; either through hard work or, and here’s the humdinger, reaching beyond their own boundaries and in doing so bettering themselves, thus achieving a greater sense of purpose in their perpetration.

This could come in the form of a positive campaign for let’s say recycling. Take for example Adobe’s Adobe in Action campaign. It’s a brilliant marketing strategy and many companies make use of it, but not all have been able to truly ‘humanize’ their campaigns.

It’s one thing to throw money at a problem, but marketing in a way in which the consumer feels personally involved in the brand/business’ outreach creates an all-important sense of achievement.

Belonging

As abstract as this might sound, the sense of belonging is actually quite straight forward. As marketing diversifies onto ever expanding platforms it becomes easier for marketers to generalize their message or campaign and merely adapt it to suit the different delivery methods.

We tend to forget how important it is for people to feel like they belong somewhere. This can be as part of a group, a culture, religion or race. As much as societal trends try and globalize our existence the fact remains – we want to be part of the ‘Trekkie Society’, the ‘BMW Club’ or the ‘iLove everything that starts with an i’ club. So if consumers want to be a part of something why do marketers communicate with them in such a generalized manner?

Being able to specialize marketing material for a specific demographic gives the recipient of your material the sense that they are being spoken to directly. Immediately you have their attention and even better their loyalty. Your product stands out among millions of others and your message hits home.

Engagement

One of the biggest mistakes marketers make is talking at consumers instead of talking to them. Imagine yourself back in the industrialized schooling system of the west. Picture your teacher in the front of the classroom telling you ‘this is how it is’ and there are no two ways about it. Most of us have experienced this at one point or another throughout our life.

Hierarchical communication in terms of marketing to consumers is unsustainable and results in people disconnecting from you and in doing so your message is lost. If you are to deliver truly engaging communications to your target market then you have to be open to and exchange of ideas, opinions and even criticism. Only by allowing this free flow and speak to consumers will your product find its place among people.

Marketing has very much become a two-sided affair. On the one hand there are those who understand, to a certain extent, the needs of their target market and relate to them on their terms. However, there is a sea of marketers who rely on traditional means of product placement and communication ie en masse. The sooner we realize that the industry has evolved into a very different beast, one where the communications cycle has reached a plateau between marketer and consumer, the better we will be able to relate to people on a more human level.

“Marketing is not and cannot remain the silo it’s been for decades. Marketing is fast becoming interdisciplinary and the node that links everything organically – everything that helps a business grow, from customer support to sales, technical teams and financial considerations. Yes, stats and data are crucial in order to measure campaigns, especially in the advertising environment and they give us trend indicators – they outline a pattern with regards to user interaction with an application, or highlight what content is downloaded the most from a resource center. But data without heart will not take you far – as the heart, the values of listening and understanding will lead your business to truly engage, to maintain conversations and to grow your digital biosphere,” said Barbara Ulmi, Head of marketing at GraphicMail.

Your community management strategy is a key part of your overall digital strategy and might have a number of different tactics that dovetail with your other marketing efforts. Different brands have their own unique focus for their community management efforts, but we can all agree that having a strong guiding strategy and plan will make for a more successful community, and drive the behaviors and attitudes you would like from your audience.

Below are a few things to keep in mind to help you optimize your community management efforts as you engage with your customers, fans and followers.

1. Engagement, not followers
First things first. We would all like 20 million Facebook fans or Twitter followers, but different brands and companies should have different expectations about the sheer number of followers they’re likely to have. What is much more important is how engaged your fans are. 10,000 actively engaged customers can make much more of a difference than 100,000 people who simply clicked “follow” or “like” and haven’t engage with your page or profile since.

Make sure that your campaigns, advertising and other online community efforts are aimed at engaging your audience, not simply collecting new followers that don’t contribute to the growth and health of your presence.

2. What are you talking about?
So how do you get engagement with your fans and followers? One key action is to have two-way conversations with them, instead of only pushing your marketing and promotional messages out to them as one-way communications. You don’t want to pass up an opportunity to advertise your products and services, but your followers will quickly tire of viewing one-sided messages.

Determine the conversation that you want to have with your fans and followers. For a product page, it may be about using the product and ideas to use it differently or better. This general topic of conversation will always be directly related to your product or service, but it doesn’t always have to feature you and your brand. Reinforce that your company and what it offers makes your customers’ lives easier and helps them accomplish their goals. Talking about how your product helps them achieve this will then come naturally.

When you’re able to do this, the marketing and advertising messages that you push to your followers will be mixed in with real conversations and you will have a more natural, two-way relationship.

3. Measure twice, post once
Are your posts getting read by the widest audience possible? Chances are that unless you’ve taken the time to measure what works best, you might be wasting efforts by not taking advantage of trends with your users. Start with an analysis of the following:

• Timing

  What time of day is the most effective one to reach your audience? Authors on top social media marketing resources, such as Buddy Media and Mashable have weighed in on this topic already, but keep in mind that your specific audience might have its own preferences and habits. If you use HootSuite, its AutoSchedule feature will post your tweet at the times you get the highest engagement.

• Frequency
  

  Different social media channels have their own optimal frequencies for posts and updates, and there are plenty of opinions on this, including Mashable’s take on the number of Facebook updates a brand should post in a week.

  There are two factors to keep in mind:  frequency of the specific social media channel and preferences of your audience. Similar to time of day, this is another area where your unique audience may respond to a specific posting frequency. Take the time to measure what works and what doesn’t, and remember that a little measurement goes a long way.

• Content

  What types of content capture your audience’s attention the most? Even though you will have your own company priorities, it’s important to keep your audience engaged with things they are most interested in.

  Also, ask questions and let your audience know exactly what you’d like them to do. If you want them to share a post on Facebook, for instance, say, “share this” in your post. It’s amazing what being direct about the actions you’d like people to take will do for your audience engagement.

4. Remember this is a place where many disciplines converge
Remember that you will most likely have a number of different types of interactions and messages on your profiles. Even if you have a separate customer service channel on social media, you will undoubtedly get a few issues coming across your primary marketing channels.

As we wrote in a recent white paper, this convergence of marketing, public relations and customer service will only continue to happen over time. The key to thriving in a world of overlapping messages and conversations is to have a strong content strategy to keep in mind customer needs and how they may sometimes interrupt your editorial calendar.

If your content is strong and relevant to how your fans and followers use your product or service, this may not be as disruptive as it sounds.

Take the time
While there are plenty of other factors to consider when evaluating and optimizing your community management efforts, these four should help guide your efforts in driving a boost in engagement and a greater return on investment in your online communities. Taking the time to step back, measuring, and analyzing will pay off with increased engagement and the other returns you seek.

From an SEO buyer’s perspective, it must be downright confusing and discouraging to obtain multiple quotes from SEO service providers that very clearly have differing price ranges and service methodologies, but not so clearly defined differentiating skill sets and experience.

So sellers attempt to make it easier for buyers to understand SEO proposals in order to ultimately get to a closed deal - a signature on a contract. In the meantime, are they undermining their own profession and setting themselves up for failure by setting unrealistic expectations with clients?

Or are SEO clients being unrealistic in their expectations of SEO results in the short term versus the long term, leading SEO service providers to drastic measures that may ultimately result in the client’s web presence being penalized in organic search? Or even results in the client quitting or not paying?

This blog post is for both buyers and sellers of SEO services in hopes that 2013 will be the year of equilibrium for SEO. The year that SEO is finally regarded for what it is – extremely important in the digital marketing mix; a long-term online strategy that is based on strong, optimized content published and distributed across the entire web presence proving relevance and authority.

The four SEO selling and buying tricks described below produce unachievable expectations and create disequilibrium in the SEO services market. When these tricks are practiced by either the buyer or the seller the economics of SEO fail, because the time and effort required to meet SEO expectations and results will not match.

1. Promises of a #1 Search Position

The trick of selling the promise of a #1 Search Position as well as clients buying the promise has been around for quite a while. It still surprises me, especially with all the algorithm changes that have occurred recently, when I see this assurance in online advertisements or on an SEO agency’s home page.

Buyers, if an SEO agency promises a #1 Search Position for a keyword, exercise caution. Unless you are Wikipedia, a #1 Search Position cannot be guaranteed. Buyers need to understand that organic search positions are produced based on relevancy and authority of content around a keyword. There are numerous, uncontrollable, external factors and competition around a single keyword - no one, not even Google, can guarantee organic search position.

Read: The Five Forces of Keyword Competition Framework.

Sellers of SEO services, if your team is able to consistently deliver a #1 Search Position for a keyword, can that position be maintained over the long run, is it a highly converting organic search term, or is it perhaps not even searched on?

2. Promises of Increased Sales from SEO

The promise of increased sales as a result of SEO efforts is only possible if the SEO agency has complete control over the client’s sales processes (e.g. sales funneling, pipeline structure and reporting, sales team, commissions, etc.) and the SEO agency has sales consulting expertise on staff.

Sellers of SEO services beware… how do you even know there’s a market for what your client is selling? You may be able to improve their web presence for organic search conversions, but how do you even know their products or services are in demand and the processes around selling those products or services are efficient and proven?

Buyers of SEO, if increased sales are a requirement for your business, consider hiring a sales process consultant rather than an SEO professional whose actual task it is to improve your web presence visibility in the search engines for highly converting keywords.

3. Selling and Buying SEO Services Without Any Mention of Content Marketing

The outcome of Google’s massive algorithm changes over the past two years is that it takes really great, fresh, optimized content produced on a regular schedule to convince Google that the source is relevant and authoritative and should therefore be returned as a search result. This takes a lot of commitment, work and a strong focus on content marketing.

SEO (including the building of backlinks and the creation of social signals) requires a content marketing strategy. In fact, it is impossible to execute on SEO without one. Buyers’ expectations of SEO services will be better met if they also buy into a content marketing strategy.

SEO will also have a longer-term effect on a web presence in organic search when more quality, optimized content is produced.

The lack of a content marketing strategy will leave the SEO seller with insufficient content to work with to positively impact organic search position and the buyer with unmet expectations about SEO in general.

4. Selling and Buying SEO Services Without Any Mention of Social Media

Similar to #3, SEO agencies that are not yet factoring social networks, social media and social signaling into their SEO services methodology are doing their clients a disservice.

A blatant note to both buyers and sellers of SEO services: a year ago, Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive Chairman, said, “The social signal, the people you ‘hang with’ is actually a ranking signal.” (December 2011).

In 2011, Matt Cutts was asked by an SEO Agency what three things should be included in your SEO strategy, and one of the three items he suggested was, “think about social media marketing … a lot of people think SEO versus social media marketing, and a lot of the time it makes sense to keep a holistic view.”

SEO results will be better gained and expectations better met when an entire web presence is optimized for organic search. This means distributing optimized content across the web presence to be socialized and shared, thus increasing relevance and authority for your audience.

Meetings: they are the scourge of the digital ad industry. Reps desperately trying to get on client's and agency's calendars, and when they succeed they fail. Boring tedious nonsense. 60 slides of tripe. Clients and agencies, leaning back, expecting and getting the worst.

Bad meetings are sadly the norm, are a waste of time, and demeaning to all involved. Enough!

Let's make 2013 the Year of Great Meeting in Digital Media. Below are some simple tips for making everyone involved happier and more productive:

1. Have an agenda: it makes it so much more interesting to the audience.
2. State the objective of the meeting upfront: it's a sales meeting. Be bold. Tell them upfront that you've been thinking about their business, you have an idea, and if it works you expect them to invest in it. Be honest! Unless you want to sit around and talk endlessly about "the relationship".
3. Have a point of view: People are harried and overwhelmed. If you know something of value, drop the knowledge. Loud 'n proud, baby!
4. Know your client and solve a problem: Take the time to study the client and bring a custom solution. If one size fits all, you're going to be replaced by an algorithm and an exchange anyways.
5. Bring ideas: Oscar Wilde once said  “An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”  Take some risks. Move fast and break things.
6. End early: People are busy. Get to the point and finish early. People really appreciate the extra time in their day to check out BuzzFeed.com.

Now, drop the mic and leave the stage.

What are vanity metrics you may ask? Back in the early days of the web, people used to brag about how many ‘hits’ their website received. I’m not sure that metric was ever truthfully defined, but it eventually evolved into things like visitors, unique visitors, and more modernly app downloads/installs and even sign-ups and registrations.

What’s the problem with these metrics? A quick side story - two years ago I was chatting with a partner from a top VC fund and I was showing him the (what I thought was impressive) spike in unique visitors from a start-up I was consulting at. He literally laughed at me and said “You know I can see right through that, right? I was in advertising once too.” The issue with these metrics is they are easily manipulated and they don’t necessarily produce revenue or long lasting customers (i.e. long term revenue streams).

So what are meaningful metrics? Well, the number of active customers you have is one. This can be everything from number of times a customer logs into your website to the number of times a customer uses your app on a daily basis. From a commerce perspective, you can look at how frequently a customer is buying from you and how much are you increasing a customer’s average purchase. Other things to look at is to see how frequently a customer is recommending your product, service or app to his or her friends (hint: your best customers will be doing this frequently).

The end result of this is we should expect companies who focus on these metrics to be more stable to be stronger and to be longer lasting. Long gone are the days when companies will get $5 million in funding simply because they can get a million unique visitors to their site within a given month - anyone with a few dollars and a decent marketing background can do that. What is more interesting is how you can keep those visitors coming back to you month after month.

As all tech believers know, when man invented the web: Saviour of the Geeks, Creator of Unnecessary Job Titles and Deliverer of LOLCats, like the Garden of Eden, at first things went jolly well – we all lived in peace, harmony and believed in universal access, freedom of information, net neutrality, and that when given the choice of publicising the bare truth on Wikipedia, we (from celebrities and companies to politicians and lobbying groups) of course would not seek to alter that... oh yes. Of course, our lovely new Netopia began to change to reflect the true realities of our world – i.e. capitalism.

Yet, even so – the level of change from open platforms, open source, open access mentality of the early days to the competitive, closed, fixed business model trend we now see, surprises me. When AOL (or America Online as it was then) first presented the world with the idea of a digital gated community – it was a unique step. Never intended for the net hackers, geeks or tech pro’s it provided a haven of order in the chaos of the foundling web. Yet as web standards proliferated, design improved and usability made the web a much more friendly place, AOL lost their uniqueness. Who wants to live in a gated community in the middle of paradise?

Now, it’s funny to see the cycle turning complete. With the giants of the web slogging it out to attract users, traffic and revenues we’re seeing a return to the old principles. Yet, in the online world, competition has come to mean repetition. The strategy is back to Walled Gardens (to name it innocuously) or Inescapable Prisons to give it, unfortunately, a more accurate moniker. Take Facebook – with their enclosed proprietary content, web structure, email messaging, and community -  or Google, Microsoft, and Apple to name the incumbents, and the many rising stars who seek to copy their approach (blindly, I may add...). The successful ones have a supporting strategy of building brand loyalty through meaningful content, strong user benefits and technologically superior devices (iPod, iPhone), whereas the bad ones just seek to lock-in people with artificial barriers.

What is this leading to? Well, interaction on Facebook is down. Google+ is not the thriving hub they’d have you believe. Only ten people use Bing. No one understands the sharing options on iTunes. People are getting annoyed that Twitter no longer integrates with... well, anything.

I do believe it could’ve all been done a bit better. But of course, hindsight is 20/20. However, it’s not too late to learn from this. We can pre-empt the closure of this cycle and for digital brands here are some key strategic pointers for 2013 and beyond:

• Some things are immutable

Example: Facebook declaring their messaging service would replace email. As  a corporate strategy I wonder how much wasted resources  could’ve been better used. That’s a digital comparison of saying electric cars will be the end of buses.

• Stick to your core: Have a clear brand purpose and don’t be swayed by competitors

I take Google+ as an example here – it’s modestly successful, but the spinoff of Google Hangouts is a much more interesting approach and in my view should be a leading element... Just because a competitor has something, doesn’t mean you need to replicate it. Product diversification (through features or new product extensions) is the easiest way to grow market share. Yet the new product failure rate has remained consistent for the last 20 years. That says something.

• Consumers are not zombies

So many offline and online brands reach a point where they start behaving as if their consumers are zombies. Unwavering, unemotional, unthinking, uncritical behaviour is not what humans do. Begin to treat your users and consumers like zombies and they will soon leave you for the brands that treat them like people.

• Would YOU do it?

I often ask myself if the creators of a feature or platform have ever actually used it in the true context of a user. This was one legacy of Steve Jobs that should be followed religiously. If he didn’t like it, it didn’t go out. Do your users really want to grant a company permission to ‘post on their behalf’? Why should I upload all of my contacts at entry stage registration?

Our November 2012 analysis of key trends and tactics for 100 of the largest business pages on Facebook.

The reports provides data samples and insights on some of the major issues around Facebook page marketing, including:

• Page fan growth rates
• Posting volume and scheduling
• Listing of top performing posts
• Listing of most viral subjects

I can’t believe the holidays are almost here.  As the year quickly draws to a close, Jumpstart is busy putting the final coat of polish on our clients’ 2013 digital marketing strategies.

Around this time each year, as we shore up campaigns for the next twelve months, I ask departments within our organization to develop best practice snapshots for the road ahead.  Whether it’s fine tuning successful tactics from the past or exploring what’s exciting on the horizon, our yearly informal think tank nets some interesting results.

I thought I’d share the following highlights from input our product team offered when asked the ways Jumpstart could optimize our clients’ mobile marketing efforts next year.  I couldn’t help but think all marketers could benefit from the advice.

1. Remember the fundamentals first.

Sure, mobile is a marketing game changer, but the best campaigns still rely on good old fashioned business principals.  In this case, it’s bad business to put the technology cart before the marketing horse.

Identifying what your customers want and need and then leveraging these insights to communicate the benefits of relevant solutions you offer before you decide which mobile strategies to use is always the best first approach.

2. Be more relevant. 

Numerous studies show the more relevant content and ad experiences are – those most in line with specific consumer interests – the more exponentially effective they’ll be.

Smart marketers know how to move mobile users to the narrowest point of the purchase funnel by leveraging contextual information to positively impact user engagement and improve overall ad-supported mobile media experiences.  Greater relevancy to your audience’s known interests or to the content they’re actively engaged with nets the best marketing results.

3. Retarget in the real world.

When it comes to retargeting, marketers can glean deeper mobile user intent info from social media posts and from real-time location markers, such as routine and predictive shopping behaviors at local stores or restaurants.  As technology improves and data becomes more readily available, it will also be very beneficial to offer ad solutions based on a mobile user’s previous interests.  Being able to tie those interests to your brand or products will enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of your mobile media spend.

For some marketers, location-based data can also indicate product-specific purchase intent where retargeting can successfully reinforce relevant offers, promotions and merchandise and service benefits.

4. Be more creative. 

As Land Rover’s Evoque ad campaign taught us, creativity makes a huge impact on mobile user engagement.  This was evidenced by the automaker’s use of fully-interactive touch-and-motion sensor ads enabling users to build their dream Evoque by changing features such as body style or color with the swipe of a finger, or to access panoramic views of the Evoque’s interior when iPhones or iPads were rotated or tilted.

In the end, users engaged nearly a minute and a half on average and had purchase intent 2.5 times higher than those responding to an Evoque TV ad.  Be creative and watch ad engagement grow.

5. Don’t forget to integrate.

The most successful marketing campaigns are those that integrate across channels.  Align mobile content with TV, print, radio and live events.  Develop campaign-centric dedicated landing pages from mobile ads.  Use 2-D/QR codes to direct users from print applications to mobile sites with dedicated URLs to gauge performance.

6. Get to the point.

Be mindful of the way people use their handheld devices and implement marketing strategies someone would appreciate most when they’re on the go.  Chances are, users want quick access to relevant information, services that recognize they’re on the move and location-based activity-centric solutions wherever they might be, at any given time.

Concise messaging combined with strategies that enhance the functionality and helpfulness of a mobile device will help increase a user’s appreciation of your business.

7. Evaluate your mobile site…then reevaluate it. 

As obvious as it seems, evaluating and/or optimizing your mobile site on a routine basis is Rule One in achieving mobile success.  Are primary keywords secured and synched?  Is content categorized by user importance?  Is the interface clean and easy to navigate?  What’s the average load time?  Is it optimized across a variety of platforms?

According to a recent study by Google, 61% of people said that they’d quickly move onto another site if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site, while 67% of users are more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly site.

Do you know how well your site performs?  Do you know what content people are most interested in viewing when visiting from a mobile device?  Understanding these things is just the first step.  The next step is optimizing your site according to this understanding and continuing to optimize it as the interests of your audience change.  At the very least, stay with the curve.  At best, be ahead of it.

8. Tap social via mobile.

Smart marketers enable mobile users to easily and quickly enter a company’s social media sphere.  Mobile apps and icon-embedded marketing content are perfect gateways for mobile users to follow or like a company, or to post reviews.  Give users a fun reason to do so, or reward them when they do, to increase your chances for success. 

9. Embrace the need for consumer control.

This coming year, look for advanced mobile technologies like Apple’s Identifier for Advertising (IFA) to enable both sides of the age-old marketing debate (proponents of behavioral tracking/targeting versus privacy activists) to peacefully coexist – or at least, to allow them to get along better than they did before.

In the meantime, marketers should understand that when it comes to consumer consideration, it’s more a matter of control than privacy.  Enabling consumers to have an active hand in choosing when, where, why and how they wished to be marketed to by putting them in control of the information they share about themselves results in a highly targeted, highly engaged audience.

Mobile marketing (marketing in general, for that matter) will prove to be more successful if we all do a better job of listening to and understanding what our customers want instead of telling them what they want.

10. Keep mobile commerce solutions simple.

Mobile commerce obstacles can be eliminated by simplifying the purchase journey.  Paths to acquisition should be intuitive, calls-to-action clear and obvious, and click-to-buy and/or click-to-call features conveniently presented.  Users should never be more than one to two steps away from inquiring about or purchasing a product or service.

In short, mobile devices provide marketers a new platform to relevantly reach extensive and highly targeted audiences.  Clearly define the goals of your campaign, explore the many different options available to reach your target audience, then choose the options that best help you reach those goals.  Develop a creative campaign that leverages your existing marketing assets while allowing users to engage with your business in the unique ways that mobile devices allow.

Nick Matarazzo is CEO of Jumpstart Automotive Group.

The Z-100 report highlights key trends for 100 of the largest business pages on Facebook.

The reports provides data samples and insights on some of the major issues around Facebook page marketing, including:

• Page fan growth rates
• Posting volume and scheduling
• Listing of top performing posts
• Listing of most viral subjects

We welcome your feedback and comments on any of the data points in our report.

If you’d like to be notified of future Z-100 reports are published, please visit ZuumSocial.com and join any of our social media networks.