Month: February 2011

• The Week in Review

  Headlines from the industry.
  To receive daily updates please visit the Digital Moses fan page

• I for One Welcome Our New Computer Overlords

  Ken Jennings has a way of making history and for delivering the unexpected. For a true know-it-all, he comes across as anything but. If there could be an everyman’s master of knowledge, it is he. That he has a personality in sport that doesn’t tend to…

• Agencies

  InterContinental Pushes for Younger Loyalty Members with Online Trivia Game

  On the heels of launching a pilot program with a platform that lets users win rewards for checking in to its hotels via location-based services, InterContinental Hotels Group has enhanced its Priority Club rewards program with a travel trivia game that lets registered members win extra points in daily and weekly contests. The introduction of game play into loyalty programs is a growing strategy with marketers spending more time thinking like gamers when developing or updating their programs.

• Email

  Abandoned Cart Emails: Best Practice vs. Common Practice

  That an abandoned-cart email can work wonders is a fact, as numerous studies and examples have shown. Yet of the 101 retailers analyzed by the Email Institute and Multichannel Merchant between November 2010 and January 2011, only 30.7% sent a follow-up email in response to an abandoned cart containing at least $100 worth of merchandise. If you’re among the more than two-thirds of retailers that have yet to implement an abandoned-cart email program, here are some tips to get you started

• Winning Words for the Pro Awards

  Read what past PRO Award winners have to say about winning a PRO Award

• Agencies

  Emails to Loyal Customers Pay Off

  A study of email contact with loyal customers highlights trends to help marketers perfect these communications based on how these customers behave and engage with companies to which they are loyal. That is ever more important today as consumer loyalty wanes in the wake of the struggling economy and the lure at shelf of price promotions.

• Social

  Don’t Slight Your Brand Web Site in Favor of Facebook

  With the full-on race to develop Facebook pages and launch promotions on those sites to build fans, don’t push aside the ol’ tried-and-true brand Web site; home base, Ground Zero for consumers to get an in-depth picture of the brand, discover products, benefits, download coupons, and yes, even access a link to Facebook.

  Crate and Barrel, Cabela’s and Wise are examples of brands using their Web home pages as a staging ground for promotions.

• Pull-Ups Helps Parents with Highly Integrated ‘Potty Dance’ Campaign

  Toilet training is notoriously tough– as difficult for the parents as it is for the kids, or at least so most parents would claim. For the last two years Kimberly-Clark’s Pull-Ups training pants brand has offered help in defusing some of the drama

• AT&T Helps Starz, Other Brands Reach Audiences via Mobile Barcodes

  Scannable 2D or QR barcodes have long held promise as a way to link active consumers out in the world to online marketing and promotional offers

• BabyAge’s Site Redesign Boosts Mission, Brand And Sales

  BabyAge.com CEO Jack Kiefer knew his site was a good place to “conduct a transaction.” But, he felt, it could be so much more.

  A late 2010 redesign helped the baby gifts e-tailer connect better with its audience. “One of the challenges we had was that, in my view, our site didn’t reflect current customers,” Kiefer says.

  Visually, before the revamp, parts of BabyAge had the feel of a clearance site. Its initial page featured between 12 and 16 items jumbled together, and the images—supplied by manufacturers—didn’t necessarily portray merchandise in the most enticing fashion.