Google: Highest-Capacity Undersea Cable Ever Built is Online

Google announced that the 60Tbps long-haul undersea fibre optic cable from the US to Japan that it invested in has come online as of today, June 30, 2016. The Google Cloud itself will have access to up to 10Tbps (Terabits per second) of the cable’s total 60Tbps bandwidth. This bandwidth will power Google Apps and their Cloud Platform. According to the Google Cloud team "customers will run at the speed of light with this new FASTER undersea pipe."

"This is the highest-capacity undersea cable ever built — about ten million times faster than your average cable modem — and we’re beaming light through it starting today," commented Alan Chin-Lun Cheung of Google Submarine Networking Infrastructure. "This is especially exciting, as we prepare to launch a new Google Cloud Platform East Asia region in Tokyo later this year."

Our newest undersea cable is online, adding another 10 Tbps of US to Japan capacity for @googlecloud customers. https://t.co/OzGQj2PUbE

— Greg DeMichillie (@gregde) June 30, 2016

The new undersea cable system, announced in August 2014, was funded and built by a consortium of internet companies including Google, Singtel, China Telecom Global, KDDI and China Mobile International. The group partnered with NEC to build the cable which came to be known as FASTER for obvious reasons. "From the very beginning of the project, we repeatedly said to each other, ‘faster, Faster and FASTER’, and at one point it became the project name and today it becomes a reality," said Hiromitsu Todokoro, Chairman of the FASTER Management Committee. "This is the outcome of six members’ collaborative contribution and expertise together with NEC’s support."

"The completion of the FASTER cable system will provide capacity to support the expected four-fold increase in broadband traffic demand between Asia and North America," stated Ooi Seng Keat, Vice President, Carrier Services of Singtel Group Enterprises. "By adding network redundancy and ultra-low latency to our existing trans-Pacific cable systems, it reinforces our leadership in international data services in the region and enhances our infrastructure to support our customers’ critical data traffic."

“With a state-of-the-art design, the cable system provides continuous connectivity and sufficiently high capacity for cloud, video streaming, analytics and the Internet of Things, that will help spur innovation on both sides of the Pacific to stimulate the growth of the digital economy,” he added.

NEC's OCC Factory made the state-of-the-art cables that power the FASTER connectivity system. Check out how they are made below:

FASTER is the only trans-pacific cable line capable of delivering speeds up to 60 terabits per second using a six-fibre pair cable, according to NEC. "FASTER is the first trans-Pacific submarine cable system designed from day one to support digital coherent transmission technology, using optimized fibers throughout the submarine portion. The combination of extremely low loss fiber, without a dispersion compensation section, and the latest digital signal processor, which compensates for the huge amount of cumulative dispersion at the end of the cable, enable this six-fiber pair cable to deliver 60 Terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth across the Pacific."

The FASTER Cable System is a 9,000km trans-Pacific cable that lands in Oregon in the United States and has two landing points in Japan, Chiba and Mie prefectures. FASTER connect to all of the major hubs on the West Coast via system extensions including Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland and Seattle. Additionally, FASTER will be connecting to neighboring cable systems extends that will allow it to bring high-speed internet access to many other nations in Asia.

"This was the first trans-Pacific submarine cable built solely by NEC Corporation, employing the latest 100Gbps digital coherent optical transmission technology. We are honored that the consortium entrusted us to build FASTER. Although we faced many challenges during the construction, I am truly glad that we were able to overcome these and to welcome this day," said Kenichi Yoneyama, Project Manager for FASTER at NEC's Submarine Network Division. "This epoch-making cable will not only bring benefits to the United States and Japan, but to the entire Asia-Pacific region."

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The Hubcast 99: #Inbound16 Speakers, Blog Optimization, & HubSpot Certification Bling

Welcome back to The Hubcast, folks: A weekly podcast all about HubSpot news, tips, and tricks. Please also note the extensive show notes below, including some new HubSpot video tutorials ...

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Is Your SEO Actually Working? 3 Ways to Find Out

Author: Nate Dame

One concern I hear over and over from marketing managers and executives is about accurately and objectively measuring SEO progress and ROI. The team members in the trenches are monitoring rankings, bounce rates, engagement, etc., but eventually, you have to know what’s actually driving revenue—and the C-suite wants numbers to prove it. But modern SEO hasn’t been the easiest thing to confine to a static set of metrics. Traditionally, SEO efforts that could rely on more technical strategies were easier to measure. Today, effective SEO is much less technical, so we need to adapt our methods.

While search engines are always improving (which means that your content must always be improving), they’re always focused on the same end goal, which means good, modern SEO really is a long-term strategy. How do you measure your efforts for improvements and what do you show the C-suite in the meantime?

The need for some kind of concrete answer has sent marketers after a lot of vanity metrics that look good (or not) on paper, but don’t really tell the brand’s true SEO story on their own. Bounce rate, time-on-site, clicks, and even—to an extent—an isolated view of search rankings don’t relate directly to revenue and don’t give an accurate view of an SEO campaign’s value. Maximizing your SEO opportunities, and providing reports that executives actually care about, means focusing on the right metrics:

1. Keyword Ranking Are Helpful, Sometimes

“Where do we rank for our top keywords?” It’s every CMO and business owner’s first (and sometimes last) SEO thought, and usually the primary metric by which SEO efforts are measured. When we consider the big picture of SEO, it’s a good consideration, but—especially in the day-to-day business of SEO work keyword ranking shouldn’t get too much of your time and attention. There are several reasons for this:

• Search results are personalized. Google considers factors like browsing history, physical location, demographics, and personal preferences when dishing up search results. When you Google your key terms, you are probably not seeing the same results that your target audience is seeing when they search those same words.
• All keywords are not created equal. Reporting that your brand now ranks on page 1 for six of your top 10 keywords can be a good excuse to buy the marketing team lunch on Friday, but that’s about it. The importance of each individual keyword depends on search volume and its relevance to your business. Resources should be focused on the keywords that actually impact the bottom line.
• Ranking changes are not measured by a universal standard. If I told you that your brand dropped eight places for one of your keywords and two places for another, which would be more important to address? The answer: you don’t know yet. Dropping eight places on page 4 of search results isn’t going to impact your organic traffic, but dropping two places on page 1 probably will.
  

The truth is, effective SEO—the work that drives real, lasting ranking changes and leads to increased revenue—is long-term work. Marketers that make a daily habit of checking their rankings tend to fall into reactive, instead of proactive, SEO habits. Most ranking changes don’t require immediate SEO attention. Search engines are always testing new algorithms, and competitors are always publishing new content. SEO that is constantly responding to ranking changes misuses resources that should be spent on the real job of building influence. And SEO reports that over-emphasize keyword rankings tend to lead executives astray on the health of their SEO efforts.

How to monitor keyword ranking appropriately:

If you must Google, at least use a depersonalized search to strip (most of) the personalization out of your search results. If you are using another SEO tool to monitor ranking, choose one and stick with it. Every tool uses a slightly different process to determine your “real” ranking, so stay consistent with one tool to get results you can use.

As you monitor rankings and track changes, remember to look at the big picture. Resist the temptation to scramble after every tiny ranking change by creating one report that looks at high-value keywords and a separate one for low-value keywords, so you can more easily focus on the keywords that actually drive conversions. Similarly, be sure to note the page and/or position numbers of rankings that change so you can emphasize smaller changes on page one over big changes on page four. 

2. Organic Traffic is a Better SEO Metric than Ranking

Search traffic is the real goal behind improving search engine rankings, so a greater emphasis should be put on your efforts here. Any improvement in keyword ranking could be the result of a standard search engine fluctuation, but increases in organic traffic are concrete evidence that SEO work is paying off.

How to monitor traffic from organic search:

First, make sure you are set up with Google Analytics. It’s a free tool, with a Premium feature that is priced for enterprise-level organizations. The Premium version mostly offers greater support and service, and more specific numbers—whereas the free version “samples” data to provide more rounded numbers. The data you get, however, is enough for your purposes here.

In Google Analytics, use the left-hand column to navigate to Acquisition > Overview > All Traffic > Channels. The table at the bottom of the page breaks down where your site traffic came from, and there’s one row for “Organic Search.”

Of course, the organic traffic number includes branded and non-branded traffic. (Branded traffic is from keywords that use you brand name—e.g. ”Marketo marketing software”—whereas non-branded traffic is from keywords that do not—e.g. ”marketing automation software.”)

Ever since Google took away keyword data, it’s incredibly difficult to break organic traffic data into branded and non-branded categories (although there are some great tools that can help). The best way, within Google Analytics, is to click into Organic Search from the first column in the above table, and then select Landing Page from the Secondary Dimension drop-down option above the table.

The keywords are, surprise, “(not provided),” but we can gather some clues from the landing pages they point to. For home pages and login pages (rows 1-3 above), we can assume most of that traffic came from branded searches because there is no keyword focus for those pages other than the brand name. Traffic to blog posts and resource content (rows 4-8 above) probably mostly came from non-branded search traffic because they focus on a solution or on information that Google would have delivered in result to a more generic query. Rough estimates to be sure, but we’re at Google’s mercy concerning what data they choose to share.

3. The Bottom Line: SEO Conversions and ROI

The goal of high search rankings is traffic, but the goal of traffic—to push the process all the way to the bottom line—is sales. Every website visitor does not convert to sales, so it’s important to monitor the conversion rate of your SEO efforts.

Every conversion point, which will vary based on your industry and business model, should be considered: from ebook downloads to online purchases. Multi-touch attribution also needs to be considered, since every visit won’t convert—but every visit may lead to a conversion later.

How to monitor conversions and ROI from SEO efforts:

This process can start in Google Analytics, by setting up goals. Analytics has three options for setting up goals:

• Goal templates: These templates are organized by categories (revenue, acquisition, inquiry, and engagement). If your account is associated with a specific industry in Google, you will also see templates for specific industries. Every template can be edited.
• Custom goals If you prefer, you can create a custom goal from scratch. You just need to decide whether you want to create a goal based on which pages the user views, how long the user stays on a page, how a user interacts with your site, or how many pages a user views per session.
• Smart goals: If you’re using Google AdWords, you can take advantage of their machine learning programs to create smart goals. Turning on smart goals allows the program to monitor website visits, track which become conversions, use those insights to score visits, and automatically translate the best ones into goals. Your goals then become those actions that usually lead to conversions, and Analytics monitors them for you.

Goal completions from organic traffic can tie SEO efforts back into the revenue stream. When you start using modern SEO strategies to drive traffic to a specific landing page (one with a good conversion rate), you can watch the views and time on that page increase.

Modern SEO Strategies Need New Metrics

I like metrics. Ask any of my staff: when we launch a new campaign, I put the Google Analytics Real-Time view on the flatscreen TV in our office. I like to gather data and try to extrapolate what it all means, but the truth is that most of what are commonly considered “SEO metrics” don’t mean anything to a brand’s bottom line.

These three metrics—keyword ranking (with huge caveats), traffic from organic search, and conversions/ROI from organic search—can give you the insights you need to drive improvement and growth in your SEO strategy. They will also give you meaningful numbers to report to the C-suite, because they are rooted in a modern understanding of SEO.

 

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Is Your SEO Actually Working? 3 Ways to Find Out was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

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Snap a Photo and Find Related Items on Pinterest

Pinterest is on the cutting edge of visual recognition technology which matches images with other similar images accurately enough to show related items next to images that have no text at all. Coming soon is a feature that will allow Pinterest users to take a photo of an object like a purse and instantly compare that real world object with other similar ones.

Today, Pinterest introduced Automatic Object Detection for its most popular categories, allowing visual based searches for products in a Pin's image.

"As we look to the future of visual search, we’re also starting to preview new camera search technology that’ll give Pinners recommendations for the products they find in the real world," stated Dmitry Kislyuk, a software engineer on Pinterest's Visual Search Team. "Pinners will soon be able to snap a photo of a single object like sneakers - and get recommendations on Pinterest, or even take a photo of an entire room and get results for multiple items."

Many people don't realize the extent of R&D that Pinterest has invested and the intensity of their focus on visual recognition and visual search research. "Visual search is one of the many fields transformed in recent years by the advances in deep learning," Kislyuk said. "Convolutional neural networks represent images and videos as feature vectors which preserve both semantic concepts and visual information, and allows for fast retrieval when using optimized nearest neighbor techniques."

Pinterest's Kislyuk elaborated in a blog post:

"We leveraged this idea, along with our richly annotated image dataset, last November when we released a visual search product that makes searching inside a Pin’s image as simple as dragging a cropper. For our initial launch, we extracted the fully-connected-6 layer of a fine tuned VGG model over a billion Pinterest images and indexed them into a distributed service, as described in our KDD paper."

The goal is to use automatic object detection in order to make visual search a seamless experience on Pinterest. Detecting objects in visual search allows Pinterest to do object-to-object matching. Then, if you see a chair you like at a store or someones house you or you find that perfect chair on Pinterest you will be able to view it in various decorative home settings.

From Pinterst:

Building automatic object detection

Our first challenge in building automatic object detection was collecting labeled bounding boxes for regions of interest in images as our training data. Since launch, we’ve processed nearly 1 billion image crops (visual searches). By aggregating this activity across the millions of images with the highest engagement, we learn which objects Pinners are interested in. We aggregate annotations of visually similar results to each crop and assign a weak label across hundreds of object categories. An example of how this looks is shown in the heatmap visualization below, where two clusters of user crops are formed, one around the “scarf” annotation, and another around the “bag” annotation.

Read more on this at the Pinterest Engineering Blog.

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Facebook Pushes Business Posts Down the Page

Facebook announced an upcoming algorithmic change to the newsfeed which will result in less referrals from business pages and more posts from friends at the top of your feed. Facebook is going to rank posts from your friends higher than posts from pages you liked.

Facebook views friend posts as the lifeblood of the service and vital to keeping users coming back. "Our top priority is keeping you connected to the people, places and things you want to be connected to — starting with the people you are friends with on Facebook," stated Lars Backstrom, Facebook's Engineering Director. "That’s why today, we’re announcing an upcoming change to News Feed ranking to help make sure you don’t miss stories from your friends."

In April 2015 Facebook made a change that moved friends posts higher up in the news feed, so the latest update must have ratcheted up the ranking of post from friends even more. The language used in their announcement, "people with many connections" and "the things posted by the friends you care about" indicates that this ranking change is focused on the friends that you engage with regularly. The change means you will see more posts from your best friends on Facebook and their posts will replace business page posts, moving them down the newsfeed.

If you rely on Facebook traffic for your publishing, business or ecommerce website realize that your Facebook referrals will likely go down, and my guess is way down. Historically, when Facebook makes a ranking change that they actually announce, it usually results in a clear and noticeable outcome. From Facebook's perspective, they want users to feel the positive impact of the change.

Facebook knows that it is in a fight for user attention from all kinds of sources, but especially other social media platforms such as Snapchat, Twitter and even Facebook owned Instagram. Faceboook actually reported an increase in Facebook usage with their first quarter results announcement, saying that the average time people spend on Facebook has gone up, from around 40 minutes in 2014 to 50 minutes today. Unfortunately, that number includes Instagram, which muddies the waters on whether Facebook itself is seeing increased engagement. It also may be indicative of an increased amount of video content from newsfeed shares and from Facebook Live, which is something Facebook is counting on for its future growth. Another report, by The Information, shows a a 21% decline in “original sharing," indicating that its users are still on Facebook reading and watching videos and probably sharing them, but they are posting less themselves. That should be concerning to Facebook.

Facebook's Core Newsfeed Values

Facebook also announced their Core Values, apparently as a response the allegations of political bias against conservatives. Facebook knows that everyone's Facebook news feed is unique but one core principal is that the newsfeed should center on a persons friends and family. "Our top priority is keeping you connected to the people, places and things you want to be connected to — starting with the people you are friends with on Facebook," commented Adam Mosseri, the VP of Product Management for the Facebook News Feed. "That’s why if it’s from your friends, it’s in your feed, period — you just have to scroll down."

Facebook has found, through the extensive use of user surveys, that your feed should both inform and entertain. They say that people expect their feed to be personal and meaningful as well as interesting and informative. "We’ve also found that people enjoy their feeds as a source of entertainment," stated Mosseri. "For some people, that’s following a celebrity or athlete; for others it’s watching Live videos and sharing funny photos with their friends."

More from Facebook:

A PLATFORM FOR ALL IDEAS

We are not in the business of picking which issues the world should read about. We are in the business of connecting people and ideas — and matching people with the stories they find most meaningful. Our integrity depends on being inclusive of all perspectives and view points, and using ranking to connect people with the stories and sources they find the most meaningful and engaging.

We don’t favor specific kinds of sources — or ideas. Our aim is to deliver the types of stories we’ve gotten feedback that an individual person most wants to see. We do this not only because we believe it’s the right thing but also because it’s good for our business. When people see content they are interested in, they are more likely to spend time on News Feed and enjoy their experience.

It’s important to note that while we welcome a multitude of viewpoints, we also believe strongly that people should feel — and be — safe when they use Facebook, and we therefore have Community Standards that define the behavior that we think is out-of-bounds on the platform. We think it’s possible to be inclusive without making Facebook a place where people are subjected to attacks, hate, or other harmful behavior.

AUTHENTIC COMMUNICATION

The strength of our community depends on authentic communication. The feedback we’ve gotten tells us that authentic stories are the ones that resonate most. That’s why we work hard to understand what type of stories and posts people consider genuine — so we can show more of them in News Feed. And we work to understand what kinds of stories people find misleading, sensational and spammy, to make sure people see those less.

YOU CONTROL YOUR EXPERIENCE

Ultimately, you know what’s most meaningful to you — and that’s why we’ve developed controls so you can customize what you see. Features such as “unfollow,” “hide” and “see first” help you design your own experience — and when you use them, we take your actions as feedback to help us better understand what content is most important to you. For example, if you hide a story from someone, that signals that you’re less interested in hearing from that person in the future. As News Feed evolves, we’ll continue building easy-to-use and powerful tools to give you the most personalized experience.

CONSTANT ITERATION

We view our work as only 1 percent finished — and are dedicated to improving along the way. As we look for ways to get better, we will continue soliciting feedback. We will be as open as we can — providing explanations in News Feed FYI wherever possible and looking for opportunities to share how we work.

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How to Create a Lean, Mean Content Creation Machine

Author: Ellen Gomes

Have you ever thought your content initiatives needed more pizzazz? How about just ‘more’?

Many organizations have an insatiable appetite for content because the ability to offer interesting, relevant, and useful content is one of the only ways left to truly break through and engage your audience in an environment that’s considered ‘noisy’ on a good day and downright frenetic on an average one. But ‘more’ content creation can be a challenge in the face of scarce resources. One question I hear often is “How do you create content at scale?”

Of course, this question resonates most with smaller organizations; however, even larger organizations run their content marketing with lean teams (including us). So no matter your size, let’s take a look at some steps you can implement today to create valuable content more efficiently and effectively:

1. Create An Editorial Process

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like I’ve heard Joe Pulizzi say “You don’t have a content strategy until you write it down” in some form or another at least 10 times. But you know what? He’s right. There is something to writing down your intentions, creating a plan, and sharing it that makes you much more likely to actually follow through. So let’s walk through how to map out your editorial process (and write it down!):

Who’s writing for you?

Start by understanding who will contribute content—whether that means writing for your blog, recording videos, or writing ebooks. In some cases, your content may come from your content team, freelancers, your PR agency, internal writers, partners, customers, or guest contributors.

Who’s editing for you?

You know that saying, “Everyone needs an editor?”—well, it’s true. Creating content is just the start; you need some checks and balances in place to ensure it’s error-free and on brand. So, who are the editors in your organization? Often, these responsibilities lie within your content team. If you’re on a small team, you may spread the responsibility across a couple of team members who are not only close readers and grammar whizzes, but also understand your brand voice, products, and promise, and can ensure that it shines through your content. A good way to make sure your content (regardless of the writer) is consistently in line with your brand voice and tone is to write out (yes I know, ‘document another process’) your brand guidelines and share them with your writers and editors.

How often will you publish?

From a blog perspective where your goals may include driving inbound, SEO, and subscribers, it’s critical that you publish consistently and set expectations. Based on how much content you have coming in from your various writers and how quickly your editors can review that content, you should be able to get a sense of how often you can publish. What’s the best practice? It really depends on your audience and your industry. In my opinion, it’s best to define your publishing cadence based on what you can actually maintain. If that’s only one blog per week, that’s still good—you have to start somewhere, and you can offer a weekly digest to your subscribed audience to make sure that your new content is highlighted for them.

For longer form assets or more resource-intensive assets, like an ebook, infographic, or whitepaper, it’s important that you set a calendar and cadence that fits both your resources to create the content and your organization’s needs. At Marketo, we go through a content request process every quarter, which we use to populate an editorial calendar that balances the assets requested with the content team resources and maps to our company goals.

Who’s approving your content?

Once your piece has been edited, is it ready to go? Define the approval process that you need to actually publish content—from a blog to an ebook. A couple of things to think about: Do you have different levels of review based on the type of asset? (For example, at Marketo we have more internal reviewers and editors for a Definitive Guide than a blog.) Do you have a design review process in addition to copyediting process? It’s important to define these different elements, as they will affect your content creation process.

2. I’ll Have My Content Strategy Supersized, Please

Obviously, you can’t wave a wand and wish three more content team members into existence (really, I’ve tried!), but after you define your editorial process, you should have an intimate idea of how things work in your organization. Now, you need to think about how you can use your process as a foundation for creating and fostering more content. Here are two easy ways to do that:

Repurpose

Repurposing is wonderful when it’s done with intention (meaning don’t just slice and dice content for the sake of repurposing). Take a look at the content that you have and how it has or hasn’t resonated with its target audience, and see if you can distribute it in different ways to capture some more of the success or turn a ‘blah’ asset into a success by offering it in a more consumable format.

Not sure where to start? Do you have three kick-a#$ blogs on the same topic that performed really well? You can combine them into a larger asset. Do you have a larger asset that you can break apart into 10+ visuals and micro-copy? A workbook that you can turn the content into a BuzzFeed-style quiz? The options are endless.

Branch Out

Now that you understand how you’ll churn out content for your organization, you’ll be able to easily identify new opportunities. If your strategy revolves around content that your content team creates, consider branching out by collaborating with internal and external contributors. For example, if you’re looking for more content for your blog, create guidelines, offer blog swaps with your peers at other companies and your partners, and get the word out about your program.

Consider these strategies for developing more content:

• Internal: Reward internal employees for their contributions to content
• Partner: Do you have a group of partners or collaborative products/services? Do a blog swap or invite them to blog for you, or team up for a joint ebook.
• External: Publicly invite people to submit their content. Offer clear guidelines that lay out your requirements and approval process to set expectations upfront.
• Freelancers: Have great ideas but can’t implement them with your current resources? There are tons of awesome freelance writers available on LinkedIn or through a variety of other platforms.
• Curation: See amazing content that you wish you could have? Often, you can! Curated content gives your audience value and the creator credit.

3. Get Buy-In

This is a pretty critical piece of anything you want to be successful. So, you’ve written your plan down—you know your writers, your editors, your reviewers, and how often you want to/can publish, now go identify who in your organization cares deeply about content and who it impacts, and share this plan with them to get their feedback and buy-in. You may find that you need to adjust your plan a bit, but that feedback will make your plan better and your initiatives more beneficial across the organization.

Looking for more tips to get started? Join me for a webinar that will take a deep-dive into this topic on July 7th. Do you have any tips to add? I’d love to hear them in the comments below.

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How to Create a Lean, Mean Content Creation Machine was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

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Twitter Dashboard - New Tool for Businesses to Connect with Customers

Twitter announced a useful new tool today that helps businesses better connect with customers and community. Twitter Dashboard is a free iOS app as well as a desktop platform that is designed to become the Twitter platform for business. The Dashboard is especially helpful for small businesses which don't have the use of expensive third party tools or outside consultants to manage their Twitter image and Twitter related marketing. Twitter is hoping that the Dashboard encourages business owners to engage with Twitter more and make Twitter more mainstream in their marketing.

The Twitter Dashboard provides businesses a clear view of what's being said about them at any given time via a custom feed so that business owners can react and engage authentically in realtime. The app also lets a business schedule Tweets, edit Tweets and provide analytics related to the businesses use of Twitter. The idea is to help business owners and others working in a small business the opportunity to react and communicate with their customers quickly whether in the office or out.

One idea Twitter posted about is for small businesses to schedule Tweet tips related to their business in order help start the conversation and engage their followers. For example:

"If you work at a restaurant, a tip like, “Your team is as unique as your business. Tweet a surprising fact about one of your team members,” might remind you to share some recent recognition your chef received. Or, if you’re an interior designer, seeing, “Share the love. Like and Retweet kind words from your customers,” might prompt you to Retweet a customer’s excited reaction to one of your recent projects."

Twitter asked some businesses to comment on how they would integrate Twitter Dashboard into their marketing:

Being able to easily schedule Tweets and manage my queue with Twitter Dashboard is critical to staying on track with our engagement campaigns on Twitter.
Logan Robinson, Social Media Manager, @GarnetandGold:

From our first use we could tell Twitter Dashboard would become an essential tool for our business. Not only is scheduling Tweets now a seamless experience, but having access to a custom timeline is helping us identify the best opportunities to engage with our customers and potential customers on Twitter. -- Jeff Kitchen, Online Community Manager @Crutchfield

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Email Marketing is Alive and Well for Brands

Email marketing is alive and well for brands. Over 60% of marketers are planning to use email marketing as their primary method of gaining new business, according to a new survey by Campaigner.

The power of first impressions should not be something that online retail marketers should overlook. This new survey illustrates the importance of a marketers first email message, right after someone provides their email to a brand.

The survey revealed that 39% of marketers send a thank-you-for-subscribing message and 50% of those companies say that 21% of their new subscribers engage with their welcome emails. That's quite the engagement rate and is reflective of the fact that marketers typically offer enticement deals in these emails such as free shipping, free items with purchase, extra percents off for new customers, etc. These offers almost always are only available for a limited amount of time and are offered on first purchase only. Frequent online shoppers know that providing their email will result in these deals so they are accustomed to subscribing before purchase.

“It takes just seconds within meeting someone to form a lasting impression,” said EJ McGowan, general manager, Campaigner. “Unsurprisingly, first impressions for brands are just as critical and time-sensitive. Marketers who quickly deliver engaging welcome emails to new subscribers will see greater success in conversions, while also building brand reputation.”

Of brands surveyed, 55% offered news and content and their main incentive to entice subscriptions while 49% offered promotions.

It's also important for brands to send a timely welcome message after a new subscription with 62% reporting they send their welcome emails within 24 hours. In my experience most major brands send their welcome emails immediately while the potential shopper is actively engaged with the brand. It is absolutely a horrible idea to wait as long as 24 hours, so I suspect the survey didn't offer shorter response times as options. As I indicated above, it is an extremely effective sales strategy to send a welcome email with true and exclusive deals just for the new shopper, but it is also very important to send those while your customer is thinking about you and likely still on your website, in order to maximize their likelihood of becoming a customer.

In general, the survey found that it's best for retail marketers to send their emails before 2 p.m. and 35% say that between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. is ideal in order to generated the best response. Only 25% said that between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. is best. Again, the welcome email should be sent immediately following the subscription, even if it is 3 a.m., or you risk losing a hot prospective customer to your 24 hours a day online retail business.

Interestingly, 60% of marketers reported that they aren't doing everything they can do to make their welcome emails most effective. The survey asked questions as to what marketers are doing to improve results in their emails:

• Eighty-seven percent of marketers are including images in their welcome emails, while 26 percent are including videos.
• Nearly a third (31 percent) of marketers report that geo-targeting is important for initial emails to contacts.
• Additionally, more than half of the marketers ranked personalization and segmentation as the most successful tactics in driving conversions.

The survey shows that (unfortunately) even though email marketing is still a very powerful platform to gain new customers, it faces the challenge of the spam and clutter folders. Marketers reported that 47% of their emails to their own opt-in customers did not hit the inbox! Wake up Google and Outlook and other email platforms, when people subscribe to something they are expressly saying they WANT TO GET EMAIL, even if, and maybe especially if, they are sent offers and promotions.

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Here's the Infographic on this survey provided by Campaigner:

Give us your feedback on using email for marketing on the WebProNews Facebook page.

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Hard Rock Las Vegas Credit Card Data Scraped

The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas discovered a major breach of their credit card processing data with card scraping malware placed on its payment-card system. Cardholders who purchased anything at Hard Rock Las Vegas including restaurant and retail outlets between October 27, 2015 and March 21, 2016, could have been affected. The popular Las Vegas party resort popular with celebrities first noticed irregularities in May.

The Hard Rock described the data that was taken:

"The investigation identified signs of unauthorized access to the resort’s payment card environment. Further investigation revealed the presence of card scraping malware that was designed to target payment card data as the data was routed through the resort’s payment card system. In some instances the program identified payment card data that included cardholder name, card number, expiration date, and internal verification code. In other instances the program only found payment card data that did not include cardholder name. No other customer information was involved."

"Once again, we see another hotel being breached by what is suspected to be malware that was placed on a payment-card system," stated John Christly, who is a Cybersecurity Evangelist at Netsurion. "Customers like this need to understand that they are in a digital war with the hackers that want this type of data." Christly bluntly calls this "a a war that is being won, in many instances, by these hackers and that absolutely needs to change."

Zach Forsyth, Director of Product Strategy at Comodo tells us why hospitality organization are targeted by hackers:

“Hospitality organizations are ideal targets for the cybercriminal today because they handle highly valuable personal and financial information—the proverbial goldmine for the cyberthief. Large, well-known chains are even more susceptible targets due to the sheer volume of data that they store and share.

Unfortunately, many of these companies have antiquated IT security technology in place, which is an easy workaround for the hackers. It’s a harsh reality that the technology some organizations use today is as effective as installing a home security system that alerts you to a break-in after the robbers have already stolen everything, vandalized the house and left. By then, it’s too late. The focus for IT departments needs to be on protection, not detection, and installing modern secure Web gateways and advanced endpoint protection solutions that can stop malware and cyberattacks from compromising data and negatively impacting their businesses and customers.”

"We advise our customers that any business, regardless of size, that processes payment data or offers free Wi-Fi to guests, is a lucrative breach target, but it’s still no secret that large brand name companies like Hard Rock are unfortunate targets for hackers— enticing them with large quantities of valuable information such as credit card data for patrons, sensitive employee data for staff, and sometimes even medical data used by in-house care facilities, added Christly. "Many recent breaches have involved malware that, once installed, works to steal sensitive data."

"There’s no silver bullet strategy to defend against every threat. However, a strong line of defense is making sure that data doesn’t leave the network without the admin’s knowledge and if data is sent out, it only goes to verified Internet addresses. This is where having a relationship with a managed security provider can help, since it is very difficult to defend against the emerging threats of today’s cybersecurity world on your own.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, "In the past year, Hyatt Hotels Inc., Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. and Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. all reported data breaches of their credit and debit-card processing systems."

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Song Lyrics Added to Google Search Results

In a deal with LyricFind, Google is now displaying lyrics in search results starting immediately. LyricFind is the world’s largest lyric licensing service with over 4,000 publishers in its catalog. Lyrics will be seen both in Google’s search results and within Google Play Music.

“We’re happy to expand the depth and quality of lyrics available on Google’s services,” says LyricFind CEO Darryl Ballantyne. “We’re working together to make lyrics available to a larger audience in a faster and more efficient way.”

We're happy to announce our partnership with Google! Through this new deal, LyricFind will add lyrics from 4,000... https://t.co/upKXDG6cZg

— LyricFind (@LyricFind) June 27, 2016

LyricFind, founded by Darryl Ballantyne and Mohamed Moutadayne bills itself as "the world's leader in legal lyric solutions." The company was founded in 2004.

Billboard spoke to Ballantyne and got this quote indicating that the partnership will generate millions more in royalties to its publishing partners:

"It should be a significant revenue stream," Ballantyne said. "I can’t get into the rates, but we expect it to be millions of dollars generated for publishers and songwriters as a result of this. It’s all based on usage. Royalties are paid based on the number of times a lyric is viewed. The more it’s viewed, the more publishers get paid."

Included in the over 4,000 music publishers that LyricFind currently licenses are all the majors – Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner/Chappell Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing (including EMI Music Publishing), and Kobalt. According to LyricFind, they are also the exclusive third-party lyrics licensor for Universal Music Publishing Group, the world’s largest music publisher.

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LinkedIn Enables Programmatic Ad Buying

LinkedIn announced today the availability of programmatic buying for its display ads, giving data-driven marketers advanced opportunities to target more precisely and with more efficiency.

"This means you can now work with your preferred buying platform to buy highly visible ads that help you reach and engage the right buyers and build your brand in the premium context of LinkedIn," commented the Head of Products for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, Russell Glass. "Our goal with programmatic buying is to give our customers more flexibility in how they work with us, and expand the ways we can partner to meet their marketing goals."

LinkedIn says that you can purchase programmatically through either an Open Auction or via LinkedIn Private Auctions. They also note that "If you’re already buying programmatically, Open Auction is the fastest way to buy LinkedIn Display Ads programmatically." The Private Auction provides marketers more targeting options.

When using your own first or third party data like website visitors and CRM contacts, our Private Auction offers the ability to explicitly target LinkedIn.com as a placement. As another option, the Private Auction can leverage our proprietary member persona targeting features (e.g., target “IT decision makers”) if you don’t want to use your own first or third party data.

We support majority of the demand-side platforms (DSP’s) and agency trading desks (ATD’s). We currently have more than 4,000 premium brands enabled to run across our site to ensure customers can buy through the one that is best suited for their business.

"Accessing LinkedIn programmatically has given Essence access to quality inventory, at scale, while allowing us to monitor performance in-house, in real time. Not only can we efficiently reach our desired target audiences--such as SMBs; we're able to leverage our own tools, leading to high viewability and performance across LinkedIn," stated Agatha Isabel, Programmatic Media Planner, Essence.

LinkedIn has two targeting options for programmatic buyers:

Learn more about LinkedIn programmatic ads here.

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Google Ad Partner Specializations Launched So Agencies Can Stand Out

Partner Specializations are now being awarded to Google Partner's that can demonstrate expertise in particular areas in order for these firms to better market themselves to businesses that advertise on Google. The Google Partner program was launched 3 years ago as a way for small businesses to work with ad agencies, marketers, online professionals and specialists that are knowledgable about Adwords and work with the Google ad team on a regular basis. All Partner's are trained and certified by Google.

The program helps small businesses place ads with more sophistication and compete for keywords with their bigger rivals.

Google Partners can earn specializations in 5 areas of expertise:

• Search
• Mobile
• Video
• Display
• Shopping

“The changes to the Google Partner program are exciting for potential advertisers and our company,” says Neal Gann, CEO of Showroom Logic. “These new specializations show Google’s commitment to better serve their Partners and help us highlight what makes our technology and team so unique. It should also help prospective clients make a clear choice because it's now easier for them to find top Partners that are aligned with their immediate goals.”

Google says that to gain a Specialization designation the Partner must have at "least one certified individual and a history of consistent product performance."

How companies can earn specializations

Specializations are given based on the following criteria:

• Your company has at least one certified affiliated user in an AdWords product area
• Your company is demonstrating product expertise in the specialization area
• Your company has at least US$10,000 (or local currency equivalent) 90-day AdWords spend in that area

We look at a number of things to determine your company’s level of product expertise, including how you're implementing the AdWords product for your clients, if you're growing your usage in the product area, if you're retaining your clients in that product area, and other related factors.

Premier Google Partner badge

Google also announced the Premier Google Partner badge "designed to recognize Partner's who manage a substantial portfolio of Google advertising campaigns and deliver great results for their customers."

"Google identifying and recognizing highly experienced agencies is a great step and a distinctive honor. We are thrilled to be a part of the new designation and look forward to displaying this badge," stated Joe Chura, CEO of Launch Digital Marketing.

Premier Partners must maintain a higher level of certification requirements but will receive significantly more support from the Google advertising team, according to Allan Thygesen, VP Global Sales & Operations at Google.

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There’s a “C Change” Underway: CMOs and CIOs Are Aligning for Digital Disruption

Author: Jim Kowalski

The phrase “sea change” is used to indicate significant transformation, usually for the better, and is derived from William Shakespeare’s work “The Tempest” (“nothing of him that doth fade; but doth suffer a sea change; into something rich and strange”). Today, it’s often used in business to describe a change in strategy or direction of a company, or a new disruptive product or business model that instigates growth.

There’s a change underway in the world of marketing right now—a “C change”: the CMO, continuing to rise in prominence, is now interacting with the CEO and CIO in more strategic, meaningful ways.

Just last month at Marketo’s Marketing Nation Summit, our President and CEO Phil Fernandez and our CMO Sanjay Dholakia spoke about Tomorrow’s Marketer and how imperative it is that the CMO partners with the CEO and CIO to enhance the customer experience and drive growth like never before.

This week, I had two more encounters that highlighted this rapidly emerging trend:

• I was working with a partner at a major Systems Integrator (SI) firm, and he commented about the changes underway. He explained that nearly two years ago, a partnership between them and Marketo wouldn’t have been of interest because “Marketo was aligned to the CMO, and we are aligned to the CIO.” Fast forward to today, and we both see these worlds merging at a rapid pace, portending significant opportunity for improvements and change.
• And again, at an event about digital transformation, where I saw several presentations featuring “dynamic duos”—CIOs and CMOs of major Chicago-area-based corporations together discussed how digital disruption, the need for enhanced customer intimacy, and a need for “startup-like agility” have driven them to work more collaboratively than ever.

It’s clear that this is not a fad and may not even be a trend. Rather, it’s a new reality—a reality that requires adaptive thinking from marketing and an opportunity to lead and participate more fully in company strategy and direction.

So if you’re a marketing leader, what can you do to harness this new reality? Let’s take a look:

• Use technology to never leave the side of your customer. Big Data is all the rage, and it drives significant insight into customer patterns and allows you to target ads and offers more effectively. But a one-way strategy (you talking to them) is not enough. You need to employ technologies and processes that allow you to “listen” to your customers—understand their digital footprints, preferences, and activities—and tailor interactions accordingly on a 1:1 basis, but at scale and volume, to improve the customer experience.
• Partner with your CIO. Cloud technologies have been a great disruptor and have enabled various lines of business to drive innovation on their terms without much IT interaction. But as the cloud matures and businesses adopt more and more solutions, there’s a need for greater governance and strategy across departments. Additionally, the explosion of data volumes and sources necessitates a different look at engagement technologies. It’s is no longer just about sending email campaigns—it’s about leveraging volumes of data to create personalized engagements for every customer in a manner that’s scalable, secure, and automated across multiple channels.
• Realize that digital customer intimacy isn’t just a marketing strategy. Companies that will make the next leap (a true “sea change”) will utilize digital transformation as an overall corporate, strategic direction. The CMO needs to partner with the CEO and CIO to make this an overall transformative effort across the company, not “just another marketing project.”

There’s tremendous cause for optimism among the ranks of marketers as this movement grows. As customer intimacy and digital transformation rise in prominence in boardrooms and strategy sessions, the CMO will continue to grow in importance. But, he or she needs to adapt to this new prominence by partnering more across the C-suite to drive change at speed and scale. That’s the new change required—the “C change.”

Have you started to see this “C change” happening in your organization? How do you see it changing the way marketing is seen in the organization? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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There’s a “C Change” Underway: CMOs and CIOs Are Aligning for Digital Disruption was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

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Marketers, Are You a Shark or Whale in the Marketing Ecosystem?

Author: Vyoma Kapur

Welcome to Shark Week! This week, people from all over the world are tuning into content programming dedicated to—yep, you guessed it—sharks. This follows the well-timed release of The Shallows, a movie about a lone surfer’s survival attempts against a shark attack.

With the fascination surrounding these mysterious creatures of the sea, I’d like to draw some parallels from the underwater ecosystem to our very own marketing ecosystem. After all, as marketers, it’s in our genes to keep abreast of and ride the wave of (pun intended) trending topics.

So, how are marketers like the giants of the ocean—sharks and whales? The similarity lies in our “feeding” habits. Sharks find a specific target and then spend time hunting it down, similar to account-based marketing (ABM), in which an organization identifies a number of target accounts and dedicates sales and marketing resources to penetrate and close them. On the other hand, whales, specifically baleen whales, swim with their mouths open, taking in large amounts of water that contain tiny creatures. This is evocative of the traditional demand generation approach, with broad-reaching techniques that focus on generating and engaging a large number of qualified leads based on their attributes to move them further down the funnel and eventually close them.

Ultimately, whether you’re most like a shark or whale will depend on your objectives and nature of your business. In fact, both species are critical to the ecosystem, just like most B2B organizations need an optimal mix of both broad-reaching and targeted strategies to achieve their different goals.

Let’s take a look at three differences between sharks and whales, and how they can help guide your marketing strategy:

1. Inbound vs. Outbound

Whales eat by swimming with their mouths open toward their prey. Both food and water enter their mouths, and they squeeze out the water out through their baleen. Similarly, with a broad-based marketing approach, marketers use different campaigns to generate leads, including a variety of inbound tactics such as paid advertising, SEO, and webinars, which are then filtered by scoring systems based on desirable attributes determined by audience personas.

On the other hand, when a shark is hungry, it uses its different senses to hunt down its prey, rather than waiting for the prey to flow through its mouth. Just like sharks, marketers employing an account-based marketing approach use different signals to identify their targets and directly market to them. These might be the “big fish” accounts—accounts that are likely to results in large deals, or accounts that fit specific parameters like company size, industry, technologies used, etc. In ABM, since the focus is on a specific set of accounts, marketing efforts are outbound and personalized, tailoring specific content to those targets. Some examples include direct mail, database emails, and calling campaigns. In ABM, there is a smaller need for filtering since that has been done during the account selection phase, although leads are still scored based on their decision-making ability and other factors.

2. Different Success Metrics

At the end of the day, both sharks and whales need to eat to survive, just like the end goal for both ABM and broad-based marketing is to generate revenue. However, while whales need to consume large numbers of fish, squid, and other tiny creatures like plankton to survive, sharks are more attracted to fewer, larger creatures.

The interim goals and success metrics for marketers can be different as well, based on the approach they use. Marketers who use a broad-based marketing approach may measure lead quantity and quality, marketing qualified leads (MQLs), sales qualified leads (SQLs), and opportunities created. Whereas, ABM marketers may prioritize meetings, average selling prices (ASPs), win rate, velocity, and account penetration metrics. This is because the broad-based marketing funnel is different from the ABM funnel, which is flipped—the stages in the former revolving around awareness, interest, consideration, and purchase and the latter comprising of identify, expand, engage, and advocate.

3. Different Tools

While most sharks are equipped with rows and rows of sharp teeth and jaws that can unhinge to extend their reach while attacking, some breeds of whales don’t even have teeth. What they do have, however, are baleen plates that act as a filter to squeeze out water and other unwanted materials.

Comparably, to survive in today’s competitive landscape, you need the right technology platforms and tools to automate, score, personalize, measure, and optimize your campaigns. However, there are specific tools that you need to implement and carry out ABM effectively. ABM solutions, whether from a specific vendor or within a complete marketing automation platform, like Marketo’s, enable both marketing and sales teams to get a 360-degree account-level view and aggregate the engagement and actions of leads within a specific account. Broad-based marketing tools, which may be one in the same with the right solution, generally have a lead-level view, enabling marketers to assess and score leads based on multiple demographic and behavioral data.

There are plenty of fish in the sea, but the key to reeling them in lies in your marketing strategy. Whether you choose to be a shark or whale or a hybrid of both depends on your goals. At the end of the day, one thing is for certain—your customer is the king of the sea. And while this does not apply to the unsuspecting and ill-fated prey of sharks and whales, prioritizing customer experience above all else is an essential practice to be successful.

What other similarities do you see between marketers and sharks or whales? Share your observations in the comments below!

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Marketers, Are You a Shark or Whale in the Marketing Ecosystem? was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

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Fortunately, Uber Didn't Kill Surge Pricing... It Simply Took the Math Out of it!

Uber announced today that they are in the process of rolling out a change to their surge pricing concept, going to a fixed upfront price instead. It doesn't actually change the price to the rider, but it doesn't require a mathematical calculation either. It's clearly targeting people who hate surge pricing. Uber even mocked its own surge pricing policy in a blog post, "Imagine buying an airline ticket without knowing the full fare until the end of your trip. Or booking a hotel room online and being told that the real price would be 1.3X. Yes, that sounds odd—but it’s what happens with many Uber trips today."

Uber has been using upfront pricing with its uberPOOL service since it launched two years and has had good reactions from riders. uberPool now accounts for over 20 percent of all rides globally, according to Uber.

The company is clearly trying to release pressure that's been building against surge pricing with some customers and with certain governments. Since the price is still surging, Uber apparently hopes that by taking the math work out of the equation people won't hate it as much.

Personally, I love surge pricing because it allows me to get an Uber when otherwise none would be available. For instance, on New Years Eve at 1 am no cabs are available in many cities, surge pricing from Uber and Lyft means I won't have to sleep on the curb. Why people are against this is evidence of how horrible schools have become in teaching economics. People have this nonsensical idea that Uber is trying to cash in with surge pricing when in actuality it's the only way to encourage more drivers to voluntarily start taking rides at times when there is high demand. I would rather pay more and get a ride than have a fixed price and have no Uber cars available.

One of the changes to how riders use Uber is the need to input a destination. It's optional now but will be required in order to calculate a fixed fare. Another variable that Uber must have considered is traffic, since the time it takes to get to a destination is crucial to pricing.

Here are some reactions to this change and surge pricing in general:

Lyft and uber are handy but are thieves. Surge pricing? Na man miss me. Download the arrow app. Yellow taxis clap back, no surge it's lit.

— Kyray Irving (@Ray_TaylorD) June 15, 2016

Thought this was funny, but this guy clearly doesn't agree with me, he thinks Uber and Lyft are thieves. I wonder what he will think if surge pricing is eliminated and he can't get a ride after leaving a club at 3 in the morning?

Removal of surge pricing in @Uber_BLR means no incentive for drivers during monsoon rains; people stuck. Gov't meddling at its best.

— Nandu Madhava (@NanduMadhava) June 15, 2016

Exactly, surge pricing allows rides to be available even during high demand. In parts of India surge pricing was suspended in an agreement with Uber and government. Dumb.

@Dev_Fadnavis Please stop surge pricing in Uber n Ola. They are looting and govt is just watching the loot happen.

— Shourya Maverick (@abhiroopsaran) June 15, 2016

How many times do I have to say it? Uber isn't using surge pricing to increase its revenue, it's doing it to entice more drivers to take rides when there are more ride requests than there are drivers! No surge pricing means no rides during busy times, which is anti-consumer, not pro-consumer. Sheesh!

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5 Ways to Amp Up Your Mobile Marketing Strategy

Author: Jamie Lewis

Is it time for your brand to get mobile?

Mobile marketing, if you’re not already familiar, is a set of business strategies that enable organizations to communicate with people in an interactive and relevant way through any mobile device. While your approach to mobile marketing may change over time, the reason for doing it remains the same: to delight, engage, and sell!

Mobile marketing is special in that it requires your audience to opt-in and is therefore a great way to communicate with highly engaged buyers. And because they’re more engaged, they’re more likely to respond to your calls-to-action, driving more conversions and revenue down the line. So, take advantage of their interest to the fullest by implementing the right tactics.

Let’s take a look five popular and cutting-edge mobile marketing tactics:

1. Mobile Messaging

Traditionally, mobile messaging came in two flavors: SMS (Short Message Service), which is your traditional text-only message and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), which can include pictures, videos, audio, and more. But with the emergence of messaging apps like SnapChat, WeChat, and LINE, mobile messaging goes beyond the standard text message to a buyer’s platform of choice.

However, SMS and MMS are still incredibly powerful channels when you consider the fact that the open rate of SMS is 98%, according to VentureBeat, and MMS messages have an average click-through rate of 15%. Talk about access! But, use that access with caution–because it’s often a personal device, it’s important that your activities and communication don’t feel spammy or like an invasion.

One of the best ways to leverage SMS/MMS is to set up a shortcode, which is a numeric code that can be acquired from your wireless provider that acts as a URL replacement. Using your shortcode, you can send a mobile message to your audience that reads something like this: “Text ‘shop’ to 99999 and receive a 10% coupon towards your next purchase.” Bed Bath and Beyond, for example, sends 20% coupons to their subscribers and asks them to text ‘resend’ if they need the link again. This is an easy way for brands to drive engagement at scale, since the same shortcode can be used for mobile users within different area codes.

2. Mobile Website

While having a mobile website may seem like common sense, it’s important to emphasize that there are more people using their phones to access the internet than desktops, as reported by comScore, so it’s imperative that you have a delightful presence accessible via any mobile device. For many companies, their mobile website is the primary access point for their entire business–a virtual front door. To properly leverage the mobile web, your website needs to load quickly and properly across all devices. With a responsive design, your website is viewable on any device size without creating the need for separate, siloed websites. It ensures your content can be read and consumed on any device to improve the user’s experience, and it makes it easier for Google to crawl, index, and organize your site to increase search engine traffic.

If you haven’t built a mobile-responsive website yet, there are three key elements that make up the framework:

• Fluid grids: Websites were traditionally created with fixed pixels, which were always in one size. But because mobile users are accessing websites using devices with different screen sizes (e.g. laptops, phones, tablets), websites need to be designed in percentages, which are adaptive units, to automatically adjust to the right screen size. These responsive sites are designed by first defining a maximum layout size and then dividing the grid into a specific number of columns with proportional widths and heights. This way, when a screen or browser size changes resolutions, each element will adjust according to the set proportions.
• Fluid images: Similar to fluid grids, fluid images will adjust in size depending on the screen resolution and grid size. This requires creating code that ensure the browser enlarges and shrinks images when appropriate.
• Media queries: Media queries tell your code how to properly ender by allowing CSS changes to apply to your website when specific conditions are met, like when the website renders in a particular size or width.

Once you’ve set up your website for responsive design, or if you already have a mobile-responsive website and are looking to optimize it, there are different design elements to keep in mind:

• Masthead: A masthead is a graphic image or text title that appears at the top of your website (e.g. logo and menu bar). Is your masthead simple and clear so it’s not distracting your visitor from the rest of the site? Does your logo display clearly in different resolutions? Is your menu bar visible? Does it display the different navigation options when you click on it to expand it?
• Images: Is it clear what your images are displaying on a mobile device? Some images are not suited for small resolutions. Does it distract too much from the call-to-action button? Does the image link properly? If you have a carousel function, does it swipe to the correct images?
• Product descriptions: Are your descriptions clear and concise? Is it obvious what product the description goes with? If you’re displaying product ratings, can you access the reviews?
• Footer: Did you include the main navigation options within the footer? It can be frustrating for your visitors to have to scroll all the way up just to access another page. Is your contact information displayed in the footer?

While these components seem technical, some marketing automation platforms have responsive design capabilities built in so you don’t have to involve your IT or web development team. For example, in Marketo, you can easily create mobile responsive landing pages and preview what they look like on your viewer’s mobile device. If you click into the landing page editor, Marketo offers the option to choose which elements you want to show on a desktop landing page and which you want on a mobile landing page–so you can easily optimize your desktop and mobile websites in the same effort.

3. Mobile Apps

Mobile apps are built for the mobile platform and can be used online or offline, although they are intended for target audiences that are already on mobile. The benefit of having a mobile app is that you’ll not only gain opted-in mobile users, but you’ll also be able to engage them in a deeper way and collect more information about their preferences and motivations. And mobile apps aren’t just for consumer marketers. In fact, 83% of B2B marketers said mobile apps were important to content marketing, according to Strategy Trends.

There are three main categories that almost every app will fit into—productivity apps, commerce apps, and retained engagement apps. Some may be a combination of more than one of these, in which case they would be classified as a mixed-use case app.

Productivity apps are designed to enable users to become more efficient at whatever they are trying to accomplish. For example, many of us are familiar with and commonly use navigation apps like Google Maps, Apple Maps, or Waze. These apps allow you to instantly look up destination information, map your route, and estimate your arrival time—much quicker and easier than if you had to manually do this step by step.

Commerce apps support businesses looking to make a sale through their mobile apps, so success is measured by the number of conversions (e.g. purchase, recommendation, enrollment in loyalty program) and revenue generated from it. For example, this might be your typical Nordstrom, Domino’s Pizza, or Groupon app that you can make direct purchases in.

Retained engagement apps are developed to be very sticky, so that users continue to use them from day to day. These include social networking apps, like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and news apps like The New York Times or ESPN, which people engage with on a daily basis.

Before endeavoring to build your app, first ask yourself what category your app would fit into and what your objectives are. There are over two million apps available, so it will be difficult to break through the noise without a solid understanding of your objectives and strategy. In fact, according to Nielsen, the average person uses 26-27 apps every month, but the majority of their usage (84%) is spent on five. So, make sure you pair this channel with killer marketing and promotional campaigns, and integrate it with your other marketing channels. With a solution like Marketo’s Mobile Engagement product, you can listen in-app for specific behaviors and respond with relevant in-app or cross-channel content to continue the conversation with your users outside of the app

4. QR Codes

QR Codes, also known as Quick Response Codes, are used to quickly download content onto a smartphone using an image. Usually, this is done by taking a picture of the QR Code or scanning it. However, these codes are not commonly adopted by marketers because they can be clunky and not all mobile users have QR code readers. That being said, there are new creative ways to drive your audience to engage with you on mobile using a QR code-like function. For example, Snapchat has adopted the QR code and made it its own Snapcode with ghosts that are essentially QR codes for a user’s individual account. Think about how you can grab your audience’s attention and drive them engage with you on their mobile device, especially in a reoccurring way. You could print your Snapcode onto branded swag, upload it as a Twitter profile picture, add it to your blogs, and share it across your other channels to build your brand presence and grow your social media following.

5. Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) is a live view of the real world enhanced by computer-generated output such as sound, output, or images and seen through a smart device or display such as Google Glass. While virtual reality (VR) is a compete simulation of a real-world environment where users are fully immersed in a virtual world, with AR, the user sees the real world with virtual outputs overlaid on top with software that scans and recognizes different images to display the right outputs.

AR uses an already personal channel to educate and sell your products, placing unique outputs on a buyer’s face or surroundings, making it even more personal. In fact, researchers at Harvard University have found that integrating AR apps into the buying experience generates a positive feeling from your buyers for the technology as well as your products and, more importantly, leads to higher sales.

There are solutions created specifically for AR that can help you develop a virtual experience for your buyers, but the key to successfully deploying it is to truly provide value to your end-user and integrate it with their buying journey. For example, IKEA will be releasing AR options in their app for their 2017 catalog that will allow you to scan a catalog to see interactive content and place furniture into your room. Covergirl’s AR feature in their app, available now, allows users to see how different types of makeup will look on them without actually applying anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whether you’re a small business, selling to businesses, a global enterprise or a consumer company—your followers, fans and potential buyers are using mobile devices. Meet them where they are by finding the opportunities in your organization to incorporate some of these mobile tips.

Which of these strategies are you ready to take on? Share your thoughts below!

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5 Ways to Amp Up Your Mobile Marketing Strategy was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

The post 5 Ways to Amp Up Your Mobile Marketing Strategy appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

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