Digital Marketing

4 Paths to Minimize Showrooming and Maximize Sales

By Melinda Krueger
Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Retailers spend most of their budget and energy on the in-store experience. It only makes sense: upwards of 95% of revenue is generated inside the bricks and mortar. However, retailers should also consider the following:

The path to purchase often begins online. 73%-83% of US consumers research online before buying in-store, per a Pricewaterhouse Coopers survey.

Shoppers leave stores to buy online. Per a Harris Interactive Poll, 43% of adults report that they’ve visited a brick and mortar store to examine a product before purchasing it elsewhere.

Customer expectations of online/in-store...

SMS: The Power of On-Demand Marketing

By Melinda Krueger
Wednesday, April 17, 2013

When Seth Godin introduced the concept of permission marketing in 1999, it was a big idea: ask customers to accept marketing messages from you. Looking at the best uses of mobile, I believe we are at a new crossroads; one where customers request marketing messages.

Never forget that digital messages rendered on mobile devices are personal and intrusive. On the Advertising Aggravation Continuum (shown below), they are most comparable to telemarketing. We all know what happened to that traditional marketing channel and the impact on brands that abused it.

In the middle of the continuum, people...

Mobile Marketing Programs and Best Practices

By Melinda Krueger
Monday, September 17, 2012

What do I need to know BEFORE I invite people to opt in to my SMS program? When do I need to put “Msg & data rates may apply” in my text messages? Who makes the rules and who enforces them? What happens if I don’t follow them? Read on for the answers to these fascinating questions and more.

Who developed the SMS marketing standards?

The Consumer Best Practices were developed by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and served as the first set of regulations. Since enforcement is the responsibility of the CTIA, they have subsequently developed the CSC Monitoring Compliance Handbook.

Who...

6 SMS Best Practices

By Melinda Krueger
Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Text Messaging is unlike any channel before it. For most, it is reserved for our inner circle of friends and family. It’s for important updates and requests: ETA? / On way / Pick up milk please. It’s for inside jokes, wry asides and late-night musings. While many time-honored marketing principles apply, we must appreciate this unique channel in the context of human behavior. These basic practices lay a solid foundation.

1. Start with the Value Proposition. We should be asking, first and foremost, “What value can I provide to my customers that is important enough to warrant inclusion in...

Mobile Marketing: Lessons from the Past

By Melinda Krueger
Tuesday, July 26, 2011

We’re all trying to “figure it out” i.e., create a competitive advantage and valuable customer experience via the mobile channel. Naturally we turn to 19th century philosopher George Santanaya, best known for the quote, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

While we have seen the pitfalls of applying too literally the principles of one medium to another – brochure-ware web sites, DM-based email programs – there are lessons to port over.

Direct Marketing teaches us that it’s all about the offer. I recently saw results for an email challenger that failed...Read More »

Distinguishing Brands in the Age of Perfect Information

By Melinda Krueger
Friday, April 29, 2011

Perfect information, for you non-Econ majors, is a state in which prices and quality of products are assumed to be known to all consumers and producers.

Back in ancient times, when I studied economics, it was considered a theoretical construct than a real-life scenario. The closest example, pre-internet, was the airline industry, in which travel agents could compare all fares on one system. The success stories of near-perfect competition in air travel differentiated themselves via service (Jet Blue) or efficiency (Southwest).

Enter the mobile internet, and perfect information becomes reality....Read More »

Make it Easy: Social Media’s Role in Cause Marketing

By Melinda Krueger
Thursday, April 14, 2011

Slacktivism was first coined by Dwight Izard to defend millenials as legitimate activists against Baby Boomers’ claims to the contrary. Today it is used as a pejorative, described by Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes.com as "... the desire people have to do something good without getting out of their chair."

Whichever version you prefer, it is a convincing argument for including charitable marketing, which ties a purchase to a donation, in your brand strategy. My goal is to make selective purchase an enticing slacktivist option. Who cares if it’s easy?

A study by Duke University and Cone found that...

Your Brain and Charity

By Melinda Krueger
Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Charitable Marketing builds brands and bottom lines. Research in neuroscience shows why, with a fascinating look into the mind of the consumer.

Researchers found that the same area of the brain is stimulated when we make charitable donations as when we receive a monetary reward. Using MRI, subjects’ brains were scanned while they made decisions whether to donate to a charity (with or without a cost to themselves) or receive a monetary reward.

A monetary reward caused activity in the mesolimbic reward system, including the ventral tegmental area and the striatum. Intriguingly, a decision to...

Charitable Marketing = Social Currency

By Melinda Krueger
Tuesday, March 8, 2011

CMOs, Brand Managers and the agencies that serve them seek to harness the power of social media. Whether they are dipping their toes in the water or diving in head first, they know the current is strong.

As Patou Nuytemans states in 21st Century Marketing:

Times changed, so have consumers. Businesses have to accept that to survive.
Consumers' decision-making processes – whether to buy from you or from someone else - have shifted to a new, powerful peer-to-peer arena.

Many focus on tactics, hoping to attract fans and followers with an if-we-build-it-they-will-come approach. Follow icon?...