Healthy Blog Reviews

There are 78 million Baby Boomers in the US today but they’re largely ignored when it comes to marketing. Why? Conventional wisdom says that these consumers, born between 1946-1964, already have brand loyalty and no interest in technology or trying new “trendy” products. According to a report by The Nielsen Company , conventional thinking is all wrong. “Boomers are an affluent group who adopt technology with enthusiasm (think about the number of parents or grandparents who regularly send e-mails or upload photos to Facebook and other sites). They have also shown a willingness to try new brands and products.” The report goes on to say that Boomers spend 38.5% of the money spent on consumer packaged goods but less than 5% of ad dollars are being spent to market to this group. Much of the problem comes from the fact that our advertising models are based on demographics that simply aren’t the norm anymore. Doug Anderson, Nielsen’s senior VP-research and thought leadership was quoted as saying : “There will be a huge number of people over the age of 65, 75, and 85 over the coming decade. We’ve never had a population this big this old before. This is not something that demographers and anthropologists have tons of models sitting around that they can talk about. We as a species have never had this many older people before. It’s new ground.” This needed shift in ad dollars isn’t just about print and TV, online marketing needs to catch up, too. The Nielsen report says that Baby Boomers watch the most video (9:34 hours per day), they make up 1/3 of all online users, social media users and Twitter users and they’re more likely to have broadband access than their younger counterparts. It’s even more interesting to note that Boomers visit the same websites as the coveted 18-34’s, with only a slight shift in ranking when it comes to Facebook and YouTube. What this all means is that you, as a marketer, need to start including Baby Boomers in your campaigns. They’ll buy a new Blu-ray player if you pitch it right. They’ll subscribe to your online photo sharing service and they’ll drop $200 on Twilight merchandise for the grandkids this holiday season. It appears that the only thing Baby Boomers won’t spend their money on is a savings account for their own retirement .

Tags: advertising, Boomers, flickr, holiday, money, nielsen, online-marketing, Research
Posted July 21, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

It appears as if foursquare is truly hitting the big time as the rumor mill chugs along about investment of capital by major players in the VC world. The firm in this case is Andreessen Horowitz and while this has not been ‘officially’ announced the reports are out and about including one in the Wall Street Journal . The funding deal, led by Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, is likely to be announced as early as this week. The company had held serious acquisition talks with Facebook Inc. and with Yahoo Inc., said people familiar with those discussions. Yahoo and Facebook declined to comment. “Foursquare is an outstanding startup, and we have a lot of respect for [Chief Executive] Dennis [Crowley] and his team,” said Andreessen Horowitz spokeswoman Margit Wennmachers. It wasn’t clear how much Foursquare will raise or what valuation investors have placed on the New York company through the funding. Location based services continue to gain momentum in the marketplace despite many finding their limitations rather quickly. The questions of “Is that all there is?” and “What do I do now?” are the ones that are likely to be answered by an influx in cash to foursquare. Having the money to develop new options and other ways to potentially monetize the service are top of mind for all. Part of the fun of this whole process is wondering just what kind of valuation foursquare will receive with this round of funding. It has taken $1.35 million from Union City Venture back in September of 2009. It’s anyone’s guess. What does not need to be guessed is its popularity. Since its March 2009 inception the service has developed rapidly. Foursquare has 1.7 million users, up from about 750,000 in March, Mr. Crowley, a co-founder, said in an interview Friday. “We are picking up 100,000 users every 10 days,” Mr. Crowley said. Almost half use the service by checking in at least once a month after signing up. The company has 27 employees, up from five in January. It is hiring software engineers and product managers as it builds out the service. Some come from top companies such as Google, said Mr. Crowley. The questions surrounding foursquare and the geo-location industry in general are about just how these services can truly be used by businesses and will there be a willingness to pay for ancillary services and offerings. For foursquare, in particular, the biggest questions are around competition and not necessarily from other start-ups like Gowalla. No, foursquare and all of the “little guys” are keeping a close eye on the “big boys” like Facebook, Twitter and, of course, Google to just how they will enter this market and if the effect will help smaller players grow, be acquired or get pushed aside. Lots of things to speculate about but precious little hard data to use as a basis for it. If it’s taken Twitter this long to ‘figure things out’ even to the minor degree that they have it is likely that we will be wondering “What’s next?” for this entire geo-location industry for some time to come.

Tags: acquired-or-get, chief-executive, facebook, hitting-the-big, Local/Mobile, marketplace, money, picture, Silicon Valley, street, street-journal, Yahoo
Posted June 28, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

While everyone is trying to figure out just how big mobile commerce will get, eBay is just out doing something about it. That’s kind of refreshing in this day and age of hype replacing action. So what has lit the mobile fire under eBay? Simple market principles like survival and competition (you remember those, right?). Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that this sector of eBay’s business is growing and they are doing what they can to keep it that way. After losing ground to Amazon.com (AMZN) for years in online retailing, eBay has emerged as a leader in a new market: mobile commerce. As consumers increasingly shop with their BlackBerrys, iPhones, and handsets powered by Google’s (GOOG) Android software, such as the Motorola (MOT) Droid, eBay has become the top mobile retailer in the U.S., say analysts. People are buying cars with through mobile apps and the story kicks off with a somewhat disturbing account of a lawyer’s use of his free time in court to buy really expensive French silver settings (hope his clients like what their money is buying!). While I may say it’s disturbing it is music to eBay’s revenue ears. While mobile is still a small part of eBay’s $8.7 billion in total revenue, it’s a booming market. By 2015, mobile commerce will grow into a $119 billion global industry, up from $18.3 billion last year, according to analyst Mark Beccue of ABI Research. Now, I have to admit that the prediction from the quote above is a bit heady but that’s just based on my gut reaction and no research science. So what is eBay doing? So far, eBay has produced 14 mobile apps that let users buy, sell, and hunt for deals. Steve Yankovich, eBay’s vice president for mobile, says he is aiming for a production pace of one app every five weeks. “We pick and choose what will move the needle, and then we do it fast,” he says. Last year, for example, Yankovich and his team added the feature that alerts mobile shoppers as to the status of auctions. “Sales shot up,” he says. “It was instant money.” On June 23, eBay announced its acquisition of RedLaser, a mobile app that uses a cell phone’s camera to scan bar codes. Sales shot up? Instant money? Music to any business’ ears for sure. I am admittedly not an eBay user so I want it to be known that my experience with the service is next to nil. Hearing about this kind of mobile adoption, however, is making me think twice for sure. As eBay rolls out more truly useful apps and commits to the strategy in full there is plenty of optimism in the C-suite John Donahoe, 50, eBay’s chief executive officer since two years ago, says the company will roll out apps tailored to specific product categories. The first, eBay Fashion, will display popular items and deals in a slide show that users can browse through by swiping their finger on a touchscreen. The app will also offer a kind of virtual dressing room; if you find a shirt you like, for example, you can use your phone’s camera to superimpose an image of the shirt on an image of you. Sounds pretty cool actually. What are your thoughts? Are you an eBay junkie? If so are you using these apps?

Tags: amzn, black, Business, clients, mobile, money, motorola, shopping, Steve Yankovich, thoughts
Posted June 24, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

From time to time I address the current situation of the SMB (small and medium business) as it relates to Internet marketing as a whole. It’s an interesting study because while the vast majority of the companies in the US fall into this category (some estimates place it as high as 95%) they are the least understood of all businesses as it relates to Internet marketing. An article from eMarketer ( hat tip to Mike Moran ) takes a look at just how this group is trying to catch up with big business tactics as it relates to their use of e-mail and social media to help their businesses grow. From the looks of things there may be some traction this year but it has been slow in coming. A survey of small businesses by e-mail marketing company AWeber found the most common tactics implemented last year were tweeting e-mail newsletters and sending out blog entries to e-mail lists. Fewer than four in 10 small businesses were engaging in those activities, and only about one-quarter had e-mail sign-up forms on their social profiles or links within e-mail messages to follow them on social sites. The findings for 2009 can be seen below. Moving forward however there appears to be a much greater interest in seeing these two marketing efforts be utilized more, especially together. Many more small businesses have plans for the coming year, and more than three-quarters consider integration of e-mail and social at least somewhat important. A majority plan to allow users to sign up for e-mails directly from social media sites like Facebook. This tactic allows e-mail marketers to grow their lists—cited as the top benefit of integrating social and e-mail by one-third of respondents—by allowing consumers to use their channel of choice and sign up on their own terms. Here’s the chart showing the rest of the findings. Considering how most SMB’s approach search marketing, especially paid search, this combination makes sense. You don’t have to be in competition with the bigger brands with the deepest pockets in the e-mail / social media arena. As a result, your money and your resources can go a lot further. In this economy, this is critical for sure. Also, most SMB’s real strength is cultivating existing customers who can then spread information about that business via word of mouth. The referral coming from a trusted source is the SMB’s best friend for sure. E-mail and social media are the best avenues for these types of businesses to do this. This has come after years of trying to get new customers through paid search and seeing conversion rates that just couldn’t support the expense. So what works best with SMB’s in your opinion? Have you found the same success when combining e-mail and social media?

Tags: businesses, cloud-computing, from-the-looks, Internet Marketing, money, opinion, Social, Social Media, social-at-least
Posted June 23, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

“BP: Stock rises after it reports oil spill progress” That’s the headline from a CNN story today. And that’s the bottom line for BP executives. They can run all the TV ads they want, take-out all the full page print ads in the world, pour money into Google AdWords, and tweet until their heart is content, but it really all boils down to this: Fix the oil leak, before you try to fix your reputation. Even BP’s shareholders understand this simple concept. News that the oil company is making progress on the Gulf of Mexico leak, leads to an increase in share price. Fix the problem and shareholders will fix your stock price. The problem is, BP is not fixing the problem fast enough. I’ve lost track of how many days this disaster has been going on, but it’s closing in on 50 and that’s simply unacceptable to even the most staunch BP supporter. 50 days X 19,000 barrels a day = the worst reputation crisis in recent history. Not that BP had a great reputation to start with–none of the oil companies did. The memory of $4+ gallon of gas is still fresh in our memories. So are the $30 BILLION in annual profits! That’s a big number compared to the $1.25 billion BP has spent in an effort to stop the spill and clean-up the Gulf. Look at Dell. Look at Dominos Pizza. Heck, even look at Tiger Woods. Would each of these “reputations” be on the road to recovery if they continued to provide lousy customer service, unhygenic pizzas, or continued to sleep with umpteen women? Crisis communications is important, but even more important is actually fixing the problem. Telling the world that you care about the oil spill and will work to fix it, is not the same as actually fixing it. In the world of social media, any attempt to “spin” or talk in carefully prepared soundbites will become nothing more than  ammunition for your detractors : (a sample of tweets from the BP parody Twitter feed) (img credit: Reuters)

Tags: cloud-computing, cnn, gulf, mexico, money, problem, reputation, Social Media
Posted June 7, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media