I thought for a while that the advert for Loop 11 was just everywhere. But of course it was just a good case of Behavioral Retargeting. It dawned on me when I was on Runners World which is clearly not a tech Website (thats where I would normally be online).

It’s obvious to me why retargeting is so powerful, I am a user of both of the services advertised on this page, SMS and Usability Testing. Google has used it’s extensive history on me to serve up highly relevant ads providing an excellent service to their advertisers.

Posted via email from screengrab’s posterous

We spoke to many brands who constantly monitored the Websites of their distributors in various countries. They have to check that www.ourbrand.fr has the same logo as www.ourbrand.co.uk and so on. Monitoring their URL’s in each region is a time consuming job so we worked with a number of brands and distributors to come up with a better way.

Our system will provide a fast to roll out ecommerce store for distributors in each region. They will be in reciept of funds directly while the parent company gets additional information about the brand engagement in that country such as social media interactions, page views and product views.

On top of that if the distributor for a country changes there is no break in service, the Website for that region can be switched to a new agent almost immediately.

To find out how you can get involved call Gerry on +353 42 9381954 or visit the contact page.

5 Ways you can grow your business online in 1 hour

Presented at Bizcamp Newry February 2011

1: Group Buying Schemes:

What are they?

They are falling under the banner of social commerce at the moment. Basically you offer 50% off your product or service and the Group buying Website will guarantee you hundreds or even thousands of new customers using your vouchers.

But!

You need to think of the consequences of having this many new customers all of a sudden. Try to restrict the number of voucher customers you take on any one day and ask yourself how can I make this person a repeat customer. One idea is to insist on an email address so you can follow up with them afterwards.

See: CityDeal.ie, Boardsdeals.ie, Featured.ie, Livingsocial.ie

2:Search.Twitter.com

Again in one hour, find some appropriate people to follow. Ask yourself who would you want to see your tweets. Use search.twitter.com to find this person and then look at who they follow and who follows them. By following a logical trail you can easily connect with your target audience.

Tip!

If you are looking for a local audience you can search for #yourtown or you can do a location based search which will find any tweets that have been sent from nearby locations.

Examples: Company that makes towels. Search for hotels.

Local restaurant. Search for people in your town and follow them and their followers.

3: Facebook Places/Facebook Deals

What is it?

Using a Smart phone such as an iPhone users can now check into locations to let their friends know where they are.

What to do

Make sure your business is on Facebook places, you can do this through any smart phone with Facebook app installed. Search for your business on the app and if it doesn’t show up you can simply click the add or + button on the app and add your business details.

Add a deal

You can entice Facebook users into your business by offering one of three types of deal. These are individual, loyalty or Friends.

Tip!

Offer a deal that will bring in new customers to your business not just offer discounts to your existing customers. For example offer a discount on the first check in or require that 10+ people are checked in at once to activate a deal (this is the friends type deal).

4: QR Codes

What are these?

These are 2D barcode type images. They can be read by Smartphone and are used to redirect a phones browser to a Web page or a piece of online content.

How do they work?

All you need to know is how to generate one. You can go to http://qrcode.kaywa.com and paste in the address of your Website then print off your QR code. Your code can be printed on business cards or receipts and makes your business information more accessible to tech savvy customers.

5: Email marketing:

Email marketing is simple, free and easy. You can set up a mail chimp account allowing up to 2000 recipients receive a custom email from you. Find something interesting to talk about, new products or promotions and give it a try

Tip!

Get into the habit of collecting email addresses from all your interactions such as networking events or promotions you might run in store. Your emails will have an unsubscribe button on it so if people don’t want your mail they can easily opt out.

Visit

www.mailchimp.com

I hope these tips work well for you. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to get in touch, Gerry (at) screengrab.ie

Thanks

@gerryhanratty

It must be a great pleasure and relief for marketing managers to able to quantify with such ease the return from an advertising campaign. The level of reporting that can be returned from online advertising is highly traceable and it is often easy to put an exact € figure on your return from an online advertising campaign.

The report published today by PWC and IAB shows a growth of 12% on last year. Notably a good proportion of this is based on classified ads, which shows the direct migration of traditionally old media advertising switching to the Web.

As more and more people use the Web more frequently we should see the trend outlined in this report continue after all why would you take a chance when you can have a sure thing?

Links: See http://www.iab.com/index.php

Posted via email from screengrab’s posterous

We find it strange that the same companies that pay thousands of Euro for a stall at the Horse show in the RDS or at the ploughing championships will not invest time or money into an ecommerce strategy.

What happens online is a little less tangible for some companies because it lacks the face to face contact that other marketing outlets can provide. This attitude needs to be seriously redressed. Having a professional online presence that has taken time to consider its target market will provide highly relevant sales leads. The article mentions the need to have international considerations addressed, language and currency options for instance. In the case of ecommerce there are an abundance of solutions to provide dynamic currency conversions on Websites. This allows the customer to pay in their own currency without the Website operator needing additional merchant accounts or technology.

www.screengrabecommerce.com

Posted via email from screengrab’s posterous

1: Twitter; Put in your full bio and company URL. I have seen far too many profiles without links back to the company homepage. Send an email to all staff reminding them to so this.

2: Facebook; Ask all your staff to “Like” your page and to suggest it to their friends, the viral effect can greatly increase numbers. This profile increased Likes by 500 in two days which is a fantastic return. The restaurant can now directly market to 500 local people. www.facebook.com/cluskeys

3: LinkedIn; Again obvious I know, but an email to all staff making sure that their profiles point back to the company Website will reap some benefit.

Posted via email from screengrab’s posterous

Part of this evolution will require the integration of Ecommerce applications for online retailers. This is a natural fit because quite often a companys’ Facebook page might have more visits on a given week than it’s own standalone site.

Payvment is one such ecommerce application and is currently in free Beta mode. It allows users to quickly set up an ecommerce tab on a Facebook business page.

We will be launching our first trial of the service next week and will be eager to see how this channel progresses.

Check www.payvment.com

Posted via email from screengrab’s posterous

It is worth looking at what we mean by this or maybe what we don’t mean.

An Ecommerce manager is not someone who can create your banner ads, manage your adwords campaigns and drive your social networking campaigns while at the same time writing all your blog posts and uploading new product info to your Website.

An ecommerce manager is the person who gets all this done.

The point here is that based on many of the job descriptions your will see for ecommerce managers they are expected to have a very wide skill set. In many cases their skills should cover Coding, Graphic design, Online marketing, photography and so on. Thinking about it, you would be extremely lucky to find a person with such a diverse skill set.

The ecommerce manager should know about all these disciplines and be able to manage the people who have these skills.

If I had to put together a job description for an ecommerce manager it would be more like:

• Knowledge of ecommerce technologies
• Hands on experience of Online Marketing
• Project management experience
• People/Negotiation Skills

The ability to create a process within the greater organisation which facilitates the operation of an ecommerce site is the true goal of an ecommerce manager, not to do it all themselves.

-- Screengrab ecommerce www.screengrabecommerce.com info@screengrabecommerce.com

Posted via email from screengrab’s posterous