We recently upgraded the entire agency to the latest edition of an important software product we use. Let’s call it Adumpy. Our Adumpy came with a landfill of packaging: a cardboard shipping box, a container carton, sleeve, insert, and then a precious little box for the actual software DVD. This is insane. We like the software, but the company looks like an eco terrorist. Yes, we know it’s all relative. But what better time than now to trim down the amount of material used in packaging. Your customers will thank you. They’ll give you credit for being eco friendly. Meanwhile, you can save a bundle on materials, printing, transportation and warehousing.

By now, it’s well known that social media content is important for optimizing your company’s rank on search results. Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines incorporate social media content as an important factor in their algorithms. We see the social media effect everyday through web analytics. It really hit us when we did a search for the term “Ideopia.” (I think we do that every 20 minutes!)

Note that 8 out of top 10 results are from social media – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook. And these results are being incorporated fast, e.g. the Twitter post on phobias was posted just 28 minutes ago. Food for thought!

Check out the screen capture of this search. Need some help incorporating social media into your marketing? Let’s talk about it.

Ideopia just helped the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Cincinnati launch a Twitter presence. They’ll use it to promote their important fundraisers and share the uplifting moments from their work, too.

Each year, RMHC provides food, accommodations, and sanity for 100s of families whose critically ill children are cared for at Children’s Hospital Medical Center. That’s where their budget goes. Not marketing. So help us out by clicking the follow button @RMHCincinnati. The good Twitter karma will come back to you soon.

Doesn’t that make you feel special when email spammers use your first name? We think it’s a stupid trick, and it’s delusional if you think it’s a substitute for dynamic email marketing.

Real dynamic content is much different, and much more powerful. Based on user preferences or segmentation, contents are tailored to individual interests. This increases click- thrus and conversions, and overall ROI of your campaign.

Engage your audience through more relevant content.

To get started with email marketing you’ll need an emailer who can handle dynamic content, separate content for each segment you wish to target, and a segmented list.

1. Define the most advantageous segmentation for your business. For example, a professional oven manufacturer might capture e.g. the names and titles of restaurant owners and head chefs, and type of restaurant (Italian, French, Haggis).
2. Invite your existing subscribers to express their preferences on a web page; and explain what’s in it for them, e.g. they’ll receive a recipe that’s perfect for their restaurant every month.
3. Create a newsletter format and design that contains core content pertinent to your entire audience, e.g. trade shows you’re attending and company news. And allow a space for dynamic content.
4. Create a specialized chunk of content for each of your markets, and space for it to be dynamically inserted in your newsletter.
5. Continually prod subscribers to update their preferences. For example, would you like to see a recipe just for your restaurant every month?
6. Track analytics to improve the content for each segment.

By now, it’s probably been pounded into your head that social media content is important for optimizing your company’s rank on search results. Google, Bing and other search engines now incorporate  social media participation as an important factor in their alogrithms. But, have you seen this effect in action?

The screen capture shows Google results for the term “Ideopia.” Note that 8 out of 10 results are from social media – Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook. And these results are being incorporated fast, e.g. the Twitter post on phobias was posted just 28 minutes ago. Food for thought!

A new feature Googled up for mobile phone users allows them to click on a phone number in a search ad and dial it automatically. Yeeeeeha! You can leave one hand on the wheel and order double pepperoni! But wait, this innovation might be cool for your business, too. It’s easy to setup by plugging a phone number into your Google Adwords Account Google Adwords account by plugging in a phone number. Click and Dial is also sensitive to geography, so the user always gets the number for the nearest location. Clicks on phone numbers are billed at the same rate as clicks on phoneless search ads. Our advice? Jump on it!

Sucking up to search engines, aka search engine optimization, is widely considered the best strategy for driving clicks from search. Most users, especially savvier ones, just put more stock in it. Depending on what shape your site is in, driving search rankings to page one of search results can be a long-term and expensive undertaking. But you need short-term results now, now, now! Your best option is probably a carefully crafted Adwords campaign, or a similar channel on other search engines. You’ll still pay, but if your campaign is optimized properly you should realize an acceptable ROI. The answer is different for every industry. The best solution is blended. A properly optimized site will not only rank higher in search, but it will lower the cost of search campaigns by increasing the relevance of your landing pages.

A habit from conventional advertising is the almost total concentration on selling a brand by wowing an external audience. Throw a few monkeys at it, toss in a talking baby and you’re golden, right? Not so much any more. Employees armed with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other nefarious social media tools now have the real power to stop and start your brand. So even if you’re not ready to implement a global social media plan, it’s still important to deal with the social media that already exists in your company.

A few suggestions:

• Make sure that everyone in your company, from the factory floor to the C-Suite, understands your marketing goals.
• Keep employees informed on your latest advertising, web and promotional programs. You don’t want them finding it out from someone else on Twitter.
• Suggest the types of message that will help the company.
• Explain how employees can help achieve those goals with social media, but do not try to coerce them into furthering the company agenda.
• Through in-person presentations, try to get a feel for who the real social media junkies are. Later on, you can recruit them for a formalized program.
• Accept that social media is part of life and make it work for your brand.

Social media mirrors our earthbound interactions. The big difference is speed. Dish about your friend’s latest beau at the office, and it may take days or weeks before she hears about it. Do it on Facebook, and you may get defriended before Leno comes on.

I noticed the similarities at a funeral where I was the friend of a friend of a family member who lost a beloved parent. I didn’t know more than a couple dozen people at the funeral. So – don’t judge me – I started thinking about it as a Facebook account. Like any good Facebooker, I started dividing the crowd into different lists of friends.

• Immediate family
• Extended family
• Funeral crashers
• Friends of 1-3
• Colleagues of 1-3
• Military buddies
• Support personnel – clergy, singer, organist

These groups are distinct, but they also overlap. Some friends are also colleagues, and some immediate family belong to the military group. The interesting thing happens at the connections and overlaps. Through those overlaps and introductions I met a priest, fireman, teacher and 2 nuns. The fact that these groups were so disparate in terms of age, education, political views and occupation is exactly what makes the experience so fascinating. In real life, we say so long, sorry for your loss. But on Facebook or LinkedIn, we can become friends.

Yelp is a website that features user-generated reviews of businesses. Yes, you should be scared! According to Comscore, Yelp is growing at a rate of 80% annually, while its main competitor, CitySearch appears to be flat lining. Yelp is especially competitive with mobile accessibility and popularity. So take a few minutes to see if your business is already listed on Yelp, and make sure the information is accurate. If your profile is missing, the process for creating one is fast and smooth. With the growing popularity of Yelp, it would be smart to monitor reviews of your business for attacks on your reputation. Negative reviews are one thing, but hatchet jobs by former employees or competitors are quite another.