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4 Tips to Keep Your Website Ahead of the Curve in 2012

23 Jan 2012

Sure, having a website for your business serves a practical need: to draw net-surfing users to your product or service. However, it’s also much more than slapping on a run of the mill two-column template and calling it a day. Nothing kills an online buzz like a poorly designed or drastically outdated website. Dry and boring default templates, broken assets, confusing pages and invasive widgets do nothing but harm a page’s style, which in turn reflects poorly on the company.

2012 is heralding a new wave of innovative web technologies and design, and a page that stays in step with these trends is bound to pique interest and lower your bounce rate. Even more, a well done and on-trend website remains effective well after the year is over, reeling users in with thoughtful design and building a design-conscious and taste-making reputation. Keep these tips in mind when you clean up your company’s website, and stay ahead of the curve for the new year.

1. Don’t Be Afraid to be Bold

Author:Lauren Hockenson

This time of year can terrify even the most seasoned builder and senior housing marketers…it’s the heart of the dreaded planning season! Don’t fear; there are ways to make the experience less frightful and more insightful. Here are some things to consider as you approach 2012.

Is your spending mix designed to optimize results for how media is consumed today or are you relying too much on what has worked in the past? There’s a new media mix—and it is far different than ever before, with more media channels, more devices, and even more opportunities to connect with home shoppers. How do you find the most effective balance within a budget that makes sense now?

Take social marketing, for example, which has completely redefined the digital media space. Many builders are still struggling to understand how to monetize social media. The key is to treat it like any other corporate initiative—establish a business and messaging strategy that elevates your brand and execute on it. Read the rest of this entry »

LOMBARD, ILL., October 28, 2011 – Stevens & Tate Marketing, a full-service advertising agency offering award-winning marketing strategies, has published a white paper titled “The Power of People: Social Media for 2011 and Beyond.” This white paper addresses several aspects of the new social media mix including: social environment, consumer behavior, benefits of being social, social involvement ladder, valuable ways to use social media, and how to measure results.

According to Dan Gartlan, Stevens & Tate president, the social media white paper is the latest educational tool the company has employed to assist marketers by providing them with valuable insights. He believes that every executive looking to move their business forward—not just marketing professionals can benefit from learning more about this rapidly growing and changing media vehicle.

“Companies are still struggling to understand how to monetize social media,” he said. “The key is to treat social marketing like any other corporate initiative—establish a business and messaging strategy that elevates the brand and execute on it.” Read the rest of this entry »

During a recent webinar from Covario, over 100 digital marketers were asked what the main goal of their Facebook page is. The results aren’t surprising. In general, driving sales is the No. 1 priority of digital marketers’ social media programs. However, 45 percent of the respondents said driving engagement and brand awareness is their top priority.

This is important because as much as we’d like to be able to benchmark advertisers based on their ability to drive sales via Facebook, that data typically isn’t available to the public. Therefore, competitive benchmarking must be done on advertisers’ behalf to drive soft metrics like fans and engagement relative to their overall brand presentation on Facebook. Read the rest of this entry »

Social Media Marketing: 5 Ways Social Media Can Improve Client and Customer Interaction

21 Oct 2011

All organizations strive to earn their clients by providing a good product or service. The next step in the process is to provide exemplary customer service. They recognize that once you have a client, you can lose them if you aren’t able to maintain a relationship.

True commitment to customer services comes from the top down. You can’t expect your employees on the front line to offer the best service when they know that the executive suite isn’t backing the effort.

Social media can be the key to building this relationship. It can also be the way to finding cracks in your organization on who says they want to provide good service but doesn’t truly have the customer’s best interest at heart. Read the rest of this entry »

Why Estimate a Return?

You use the return and the ROI to compare the efficiency of marketing campaigns; for an in-house team, you can use these numbers to negotiate budgets with your management; for agencies, you can use estimated numbers to land prospective clients and to retain current clients. The numbers are used in conjunction with social and web metrics to analyze and optimize current and future campaigns.

Last but not the least, a primary reason for using the return and the ROI is social media financial accountability. As social media initiatives become mainstream, executives are holding them to the same accountability as other business initiatives, demanding financial returns and ROI on social media investments. Read the rest of this entry »

Peapod Keeps on Truckin’

14 Oct 2011

Web grocer Peapod gains traction, potentially triggering a massive expansion of e-commerce into the last bastion of store-based retailing.

In a sprawling fulfillment center outside of Chicago where each section’s temperature is set for the type of food it houses, Peapod produce guru Tony Stallone talks about his fresh tomatoes, coddled at about 50 degrees and waiting for shipment within hours to customers as far away as Indianapolis.

Like the peppers, pineapples and other fruits and vegetables processed through the Lake Zurich, Ill., facility, Stallone says, tomatoes will only retain their best characteristics, reddish, plump and sweet, if they’re kept in areas with just the right temperature and air flow, then within a day of arriving at the fulfillment center shipped out in temperature-controlled containers to customers. Stallone, vice president of merchandising, should know. His expertise in handling fresh produce was handed down through a family business started by his lemon-trading great-grandfather. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: e-commerce, grocery advertising, grocery marketing, Peapod, retailer marketing, store-based retailing

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