Category Archives: Online Marketing

Instagram Marketing: Is It Right For Your Business?

For years, Facebook and Twitter have been the standard go-to’s for social media marketing. However, over the last few years there has been a palpable change in the digital landscape. The demographics of social media sites are starting to shift as new platforms begin to emerge. And as Facebook and Twitter invest more heavily in paid advertising, businesses are having a more difficult time getting organic exposure on these sites. All of this is leading many businesses to wonder if they should start casting their digital marketing nets a little wider. (Spoiler alert: most of them should.)

In a particularly telling sign of the times, in September 2015 Instagram surpassed Twitter in number of users, making it the second most used social media platform behind Facebook. Those kinds of numbers are hard to ignore and this stunning growth is part of the reason that people are starting to eye Instagram as the next great place to market their business. So how do you know if it’s right for you?

Instagram Marketing: Why It’s Awesome

While we’re firm believers that there’s no one-size-fits all answer when it comes to social media marketing, there are a few general rules of thumb that you can use to decide if Instagram is a good fit for your business. But first, let’s take look at a quick rundown of what makes Instagram marketing so great.

1. The Future is Mobile — and so is Instagram.

For years now the growing importance of mobile has been at the top of the list for every forecast of marketing trends — and we’ve finally reached the tipping point. As of 2015, not only is the time spent on mobile media (51%) significantly higher than that of desktop (42%), but there are now nearly twice as many mobile-only users (19.1%) as there are desktop only users (10.8%). Mobile is no longer just a growing a trend. It has become the primary way that Internet users are accessing online content.

This gives Instagram marketing a huge advantage over its top three competitors, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Unlike the other major social media platforms, Instagram was originally conceived as an app. Although the other social media heavyweights have invested heavily in their mobile apps, it’s difficult (if not impossible) for a platform that was originally created for desktop to have an app that functions as seamlessly and intuitively as a platform that is native to mobile. Just a quick side-by-side comparison of any of the major social media apps compared to the Instagram app makes this point abundantly clear. While other apps struggle with endless updates to more elegantly integrate multiple pages and menus, Instagram’s simple, stripped-down interface makes it easy and intuitive for mobile users.

Now that mobile is the primary digital media being used by consumers, it’s likely that emerging social media platforms will be mobile natives as well. While Instagram is perfectly positioned to take on that new competition, the platforms that were originally conceived for desktops are going to feel increasing pressure. In short, if you’re looking to invest in a social media strategy that will continue to have an impact over the long-term, Instagram should be a part of that strategy.

2. Your posts are more likely to be seen.

The great thing about Instagram marketing is that as you gain followers you know that they are actually following you. While Facebook and Twitter give users the ability to prevent posts from certain accounts from showing up their feeds, Instagram has no such functionality. If a user doesn’t want to see your content anymore, they have to unfollow you. This means that you can be sure that your content will appear in 100% of your followers feeds, greatly increasing the chances that they will actually see it.

Ensuring that your posts are being seen has become particularly difficult on Facebook. Not only does Facebook allow users to have a high degree of control over the content that appears in their NewsFeed, but the Facebook algorithm automatically curates each profile’s NewsFeed based on their connections and interactions. This means that if your followers don’t immediately and consistently engage with your content, chances are they will stop seeing it.

To make things more difficult for marketers and business owners, as Facebook increasingly invests in its advertising services, business pages are finding it more and more difficult to reach their followers organically (i.e. for free). While Instagram has introduced ads on the platform, thus far there has been no indication that they intend to treat the content posted by business profiles any differently than they have in the past, making Instagram marketing still your best bet for getting your content in front of your audience.

3. Instagram leads the pack for engagement.

It’s not enough to just be sharing your content — it needs to make an impact. Shares, likes, RTs, and +1’s are all indicators of how engaged your audience is with your content. The more you have your follower’s attention, the more opportunities there are to get your message out, build brand awareness, and engage in some killer PR. If leveraged correctly, these social signals can even pack a serious SEO punch. That’s why engagement is the Holy Grail of social media marketing.

Instagram’s clean, streamlined interface, judicious incorporation of ads, and focus on visual content creates an intimate atmosphere that is optimal for social sharing. So it’s no wonder why, when it comes to engagement, Instagram is the industry leader. While the exact numbers can be hard to quantify, estimates suggest that Instagram users are 58 times more likely to like, comment, or share a brand’s post than Facebook users and 120 times more likely than Twitter users. Those numbers are huge and they can make an equally huge difference for your business.

4. Businesses can brand themselves through visual storytelling.

Have you ever heard of an elevator pitch? The general idea is this: you’re the CEO of a startup or a salesperson trying to drum up new business and all of sudden you find yourself in an elevator with exactly the investor or the contact that you’d like to do business with. Basically, you have 30 to 90 seconds to tell this person what your company does and why they should want to work with you and you have to do it in a way that is interesting and compelling enough that the elevator ride ends with you getting a meeting and not an uncomfortable brush off. It’s as tricky as it sounds.

It’s also a great analogy for building your audience online, only instead of an investor you’re pitching Internet users and instead of 90 seconds you have 2 — maybe. This is where the visual storytelling aspects of Instagram marketing become a huge advantage. They say a picture is worth 1000 words and they’re right. You could probably sum up why the company you work for is so cool in 1000 words, but no one would stick around to read it. Or you could post a picture of your latest rooftop office party or your “workation” in Mexico and tell the same story in an instant.

How to Know If Your Business Should Be On Instagram

So you get that Instagram is awesome, but you’re still not sold on the idea that it’s right for your business. The truth is that despite the many advantages of Instagram marketing, it still doesn’t necessarily make sense for every business. Here’s a few rules of thumb that can help you know if it’s time for your business to take the plunge:

Your target audience is young. Approximately 90% of Instagram’s 400 million users are under the age of 35. Compare this to Twitter (where 55% of users are over 35) and Facebook (where 65% of users are over 35). The truth is that it doesn’t matter how great your product and your message are if you aren’t using the right channels to reach your audience. Trying to connect with young people on Facebook is like trying to text someone with a fax machine — it’s just not going to work.

Your product is visually compelling. Instagram marketing is all about visuals. Maybe you’re a travel agency that books luxury vacations or maybe you’re a company that builds sweet custom bikes. Whoever you are, if you are selling something that people are going to want to see, you need to be on Instagram.

Your competitors are on Instagram. If you haven’t yet, you should definitely check to see if your competitors are doing Instagram marketing. Even if you still think at this point that Instagram isn’t right for your business, if your competitors are already there and developing a following, chances are that they know something you don’t. Poke around in their profiles and try to figure out what it is, then get to work building a better version in your own profile.

If you think you can tell a visual story about your business — or you are trying to target a younger audience — Instagram needs to be part of your social media marketing strategy.

Are you ready to take the plunge with Instagram market, but looking to outsource social media? We’ve got a couple of pricing guides you might be interested in, both for professional social media marketing tools and small business social media marketing.

5 Advanced SEO Strategies You’re Probably Aren’t Using

BY PETER ROESLER

These simple but overlooked tactics can help boost your site’s traffic and revenue.

A lot of businesses have had their current websites for several years and while they may be functional, they may not be optimized for SEO in the current environment. SEO is a fast changing field, and even a site that was perfect a couple of years ago may be out of date when it comes to strategy and best practices. Many articles have covered simple things a business owner can do to improve their site’s SEO and internet marketing, this article will focus on a few advanced topics. Here are five advanced SEO strategies you probably aren’t using.

Optimize PDFs for SEO
Many people don’t realize that Google treats the PDFs on websites like webpages. Not just indexing the title of the file, but the contents within as well. For a start, this means that businesses should use keywords as they would on any other page on the site. Also, the PDFs on the site to promote can advance the company’s content marketing and SEO goals. Marketers should include keywords in their headings, give the file an SEO-friendly file name, and include all meta description options available when creating the file. Since, the links within the document count when clicked, be sure to include links back to the website in the logo (like you would on the website) and links to supporting content on the site. Finally, be sure to include as much text as possible and not rely too much on images. Google can read a pdf, but it still can’t assign an SEO score for a picture other than the information in the alt tag. So be sure to include a description to go with your graphics if you want the information to be easy to find through search.
Use Paid Promotion on Social Media to Boost Traffic
Business owners often want to improve their SEO rankings so they can increase their website traffic, but in some ways, that’s putting the cart before the horse. Google and other search engine algorithms take into account how much traffic a page gets when determining its ranking. So increases traffic to a site will boost its SEO, which in turn, boosts the traffic even higher. Social media is a great way to get the ball rolling. Most social media platforms have some form of paid promotion or ads that can be used to increase traffic. Business owners and marketers need to take advantage of these tools so they can find their target audience and lead them to their site. So long as the content is original and interesting to the audience and the targeting is done right, business owners can send a large amount of traffic for a small amount of money. And if people like what they see, they’ll come back to see more and share the link with friends. This sort of activity will boost a site’s SEO ranking.
Continuously Create Quality Content
There are a lot of ways that website owners can improve the structure of their site and SEO-friendliness of the content, but the one algorithm-proof method to improve a site’s search ranking is to continuously create content that’s useful to the audience. Though it may take effort and resources, businesses should endeavor to create blog posts and other forms of content for their site on a regular basis. This benefits the site in several ways. First, the SEO visibility of a site increases with the number of pages indexed, so continuously adding content provides more content for search engines to index. Secondly, creating blog posts that are topical, interesting or that answers a question takes advantage in the changes in the way people search and use the internet. People are searching for the answers to specific questions or looking for interesting things to share with their friends. Creating this kind of popular content will serve a business better than the most SEO-optimized traditional About Us page. Just be sure that the created content is SEO friendly.
Use Niche Directories
Many website owners are guilty of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. At one point, directories were a large part of SEO, but now being listed in the wrong kind of directory can lead to a Google penalty. Understandably, many website owners have avoided all directories to be safe. However, this is overkill and deprives businesses of a very useful tactic. Niche directories are small directories created to serve a very specific community. If you’re a maker of handmade goods or the producer of organic foods, there are people looking at niche directories trying to find these kinds of sites. As long as the directory is targeted and useful, it’s okay with Google. Do a local search for your industry and see what directories come up and submit your site.
Focus on Neighborhoods to Improve Local
Local businesses are getting better at using the internet to find customers and changes to the Google algorithm for local search rewards small local businesses. For example, Google now divides more cities into subdivisions instead of considering each city as one unit. This means that businesses that identify their location within the city can turn up in important searches for local businesses. Businesses should try to keep a consistent name, address and phone number. Changing the NAP of a business makes it harder for Google to accurately place the business in local search radii. Additionally, businesses should include their neighborhood in website copy and marketing. This helps if someone searches for something like “deli near Southside Pittsburgh”. Also, be aware of nicknames and other ways the neighborhood could be identified, such as the dozens of nicknames for the different areas within areas of Manahattan (e.g. The Diamond District in Midtown).

So those were five advanced tips for SEO you may not be using. I hope you learned something new. If you didn’t learn anything but read to the end anyway, thanks for sticking around. For a wide variety of services that can be helpful to your business contact Kelsey Media Productions.

RIP Internet Explorer (1995-2015). We Knew Ye All Too Well

Microsoft Internet Explorer, a browser familiar to many and loved by few, passed away today after a long illness. It was 19 years old.

Bowing to the inevitable, Microsoft admitted today that it had decided to remove IE from life support. (IE will, however, continue to receive tech support through at least 2016.) IE is survived by Windows, Office, and the Microsoft Mouse.

RIP Internet Explorer (1995-2015). We Knew Ye All Too Well

Photo: YouTube

At its height, Internet Explorer — known unaffectionately as IE — dominated the Internet like no other software, accounting for 95 percent of all website visits. In recent times, however, IE’s popularity waned, thanks to the rise of powerful rivals and a long string of security mishaps. But even at the time of IE’s death, one in four Web surfers were using it as their browser of choice.

Microsoft marketing chief Chris Capossela says it was a heart-wrenching decision for all concerned.

“Many of us here on the Redmond campus loved IE. Yes, he was a cad and a scoundrel and a bit of a loose cannon, and the end got mighty ugly, but he was one of me own kind,” Capossela said, inexplicably breaking into a heavy Irish brogue.*

*This didn’t actually happen.

The early years

Internet Explorer 1.0 started life as a rebranded version of Spyglass Mosaic, itself based loosely on a browser developed by Marc Andreessen when he worked at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. It emerged into the world on Aug. 16, 1995.

By then, Andreessen already had his own commercial version of NCSA Mosaic, called Netscape. Like brothers separated at birth, the two browsers became intense rivals over the next four years. When Netscape introduced JavaScript, Microsoft countered with Cascading Style Sheets. Both companies continually upped the ante, creating the most intense head-to-head competition ever seen in the technology world.

Then matters threatened to turn violent. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates’s vow to “crush” Netscape formed a key piece of evidence in the Department of Justice’s 1998 antitrust suit against Microsoft. Fearing for its life, Netscape chose to enter the witness protection program, becoming part of AOL in 1999. It has not been seen since.

Rise and fall

For years, IE’s domination of the browser market remained unchallenged, and the pace of browser innovation ground to a halt. But IE’s meteoric rise was matched by an equally precipitous fall.

In 2004, a new rival emerged: Firefox. Based on code created by the old Netscape team, it was the first browser to pose a credible threat to IE. Four years later, Google released Chrome, another nimble alternative for Web surfers. Both free browsers slowly began to eat away at IE’s market share.

Then the security scandals hit. In 2006, researchers identified hundreds of vulnerabilities that could allow rogue websites to steal information or take control of users’ computers. PC World magazine named IE 6 the eighth-worst product of all time and “the least secure software on the planet.” In 2008, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) recommended turning off the ActiveX controls inside IE because of security concerns. In August 2014, CERT told users to ditch IE entirely until it was patched.

Photo: ZDNet

There were regulatory battles as well. To comply with a European Union antitrust ruling, Microsoft was forced to release a version of Windows without IE in June 2009. Those loading Windows 7 were able to choose from among a dozen browser alternatives. The browser ballot program concluded last December.

The final days

By this time, IE had plummeted from a commanding lead to a distant second or third place in the browser market, lagging well behind Chrome in nearly every survey. Even reports showing that IE 10 was actually more secure than its browser rivals could not forestall the inevitable.

If not universally mourned, IE will be long remembered for its many contributions to browser technology as well as for bringing Web surfing to the masses.

In lieu of flowers, Microsoft requests well-wishers to please support Project Spartan, the new and allegedly much-improved browser set to debut in Windows 10 later this year.

Advertiser Survey Suggests Images Better at Driving Engagement than Text

Posted by Kelsey Media Productions | written by Peter Roesler

For SEO and internet marketing purposes, the content on a website is one of the most important factors that determines the success or failure of a campaign. No matter how people get to a site, it’s the things they read and see while on the site that will convince them to take action with the business. Good written content is essential, but a recent survey of advertising executives suggests that good imagery may be slightly more important.

Recently, TripleLift surveyed more than 100 advertising executives as part of their inaugural Visual Web Awards. These experts were asked to rank eight different publishers across all verticals to determine which sites were the most attractive/engaging. The response to the survey suggest that advertising executives felt that visually-appealing displays are far better at driving consumer actions.

The winner of the award was a Macheesmo, a cooking site that uses imagery heavily on the homepage and throughout the site to drive engagement since it was created in 2008. Macheesmo was chosen by more than 40 percent of the respondents of the survey as being the most engaging.

“Enabling publishers like Macheesmo to beautifully integrate a brand’s creative into their site’s aesthetic is why we’re in business,” said Dan Martin, TripleLift’s VP of Business Development in a blog post about the award and the survey. “Advertising is as much as an art as it is a science and when publishers can easily paint their own canvas with great content and complimentary advertising – consumers will ultimately reward the experience with their time and attention.”

Looking at the website, it’s easy to see the various ways that images are used to drive clicks and engagement. For example, on the right hand side of the page, there is a link for an e-book. Usually, marketers promote these things with text-based links. Macheesmo makes the book more inviting by letting people click the cover of the book. The company itself also credits image-based design for a lot of their success.

“I think visual design is an incredibly important part of the user experience on the web,” said Nick Evans, the Macheesmo site’s founder and publisher. “It makes everything easier if you have a memorable design. Your visitors will appreciate an easy layout and remember a unique brand. Investing in a good design that showcases your content and voice clearly is some of the best money you can spend in the online world.”

Business owners and marketers can learn from this survey and work to make their sites more visually stimulating and engaging. For sites running content management systems like WordPress, there are a lot of plugins that can be used to make a site more visually oriented. However, it’s vital that marketers ensure the site still works on mobile devices.

One of the challenges of using an image-heavy layout is that it usually means there will need to be an entirely separate site for mobile devices. Responsive design can make images fit on the screen, but shrinking the entire layout so it can fit on a mobile will usually render the site difficult, if not impossible to use. Make sure to take these things into consideration when designing a website or, better still, hire a web design company that can handle the tricky stuff for you.

Images are an essential tool for marketers because they can can easily be used to generate interest, tell a story or promote engagement!

Why & How You Should Integrate Online & Offline Marketing

Use online marketing to improve the effectiveness of offline ads. by Peter Roseler

It’s important for business owners and marketers to avoid the trap of binary thinking. Often, advice to business owners is given in black and white terms. For example, some study will show that email marketing is better than direct mail marketing or a business guru will write about why business owners should only use internet marketing. However, reality is rarely so simple. The truth is, most businesses will need a combination of multiple marketing strategies and tactics to maximize the potential of their advertising and marketing. This article will show why and how business owners should integrate their online and offline marketing campaigns.

Internet Marketing and Television
Though television advertising and marketing were unrivaled ways to reach consumers for decades, the growth of internet video demands a change in tactics from marketers. A business owner that only uses TV ads to reach their target audience may be surprised to learn that many members of their target audience watch far less TV than they think.

According to some estimates, 84 percent of internet users worldwide watch videos online. More than half of millennials watch TV shows on a tablet, desktop computer, or smartphone. Recently, comScore reported that nearly half of households with three or more people subscribe to Netflix. The report also found that 17 percent of millennials watch no original TV series on traditional TV sets. And that Americans aged 18-34 are 77 percent more likely than average to live in households that have never had pay TV.

These statistics show marketers can’t depend on TV ads to be catch all advertising channel it was in the past. In fact, no form of advertising medium is anymore. In order to reach modern audiences, need to integrate internet marketing tactics to reach more of their target audience. For example, millennials watch more YouTube than any network or cable channel. So using banner or video ads on YouTube is an effective way to reach people who don’t watch as much TV programming as others. Similarly, advertising on social media can help business owners reach targeted audiences with their marketing message.

Internet Marketing and Radio
Though it’s one of the oldest forms of mass media still in use, radio remains a useful and profitable tool for marketers. According to a recent study from Nielsen, 59 percent of US music listeners listen to traditional or online radio. Even in the digital age, there are advantages radio gives that are difficult to duplicate digitally. For example, radio remains the best way to reach consumers as they commute. Which makes radio marketing a great way to reach local consumers with relevant ads. This has been borne out by recent data. In a different study, Nielsen reported that radio ads drive 5.8 percent of US retail sales. Keep in mind that more ad dollars are spent on TV, internet, and print ads than on radio ads, so 5.8 percent represents a pretty good return on investment. Put another way, each dollar of radio ad spend generates an average sales return of $6.

Internet radio exists, but it’s not as widely used as traditional radio. Even among millennials, traditional radio is extremely popular. According to one report, 70 percent of Americans ages 18-34 listen to network radio each week. Additionally, about 71 percent of them have annual household incomes over $75,000. Internet radio apps are used a lot, but they aren’t pulling these kinds of number yet. This gap will likely shrink with time and it illustrates why marketers need to integrate their campaigns.

Running ads entirely on radio will give marketers a good portion of the local commuter audience, but a growing number of people will get their morning music and news from an app. Using banner ads that are available on generic apps or the specific audio and visual apps possible on internet radio apps helps to ensure that marketers reach a larger percentage of their target audience. .

Internet Marketing and Print Media
Newspaper and magazines have suffered a lot due to rise of internet technology. While some commentators are quick to declare print media dead and that our grandkids will consider a physical newspaper as strange as a scroll of papyrus, the truth is that there remains a value to print media that digital sources can’t completely replace. According to Harris Interactive, 69 percent of US adults trust their local newspapers. This trust in the medium can translate into action. According to Nielsen, 54 percent of consumers are more likely to buy a new product when learning about it from a newspaper or magazine ad. Even national businesses recognize the usefulness of print media for local advertising. About 43 percent of national businesses use newspapers for local promotions.

Integrating internet marketing with print media is relatively simple. This can be as simple as including websites and email addresses in print ads or including print coupons for specials that are available online. Just because people use the internet doesn’t mean they don’t use of the sources for infromation A study from Shop.org also found that 63 percent of US internet users have used a coupon from a newspaper or magazine. It also helps to include traditional media sources when distributing press releases, instead of solely relying on online distribution. Though it’s easy to get a press released published somewhere online, if the intended audience is local, it’s beneficial to get the news, product, or event covered by the local news media as well. As the Nielsen study showed, people would be more receptive of the information, which can help when introducing a new product line or brand.

The growth of various forms of media have created an environment where there is no longer a catchall form of marketing that will reach every audience, not even the internet. In order for business owners to get the maximum reach and effectiveness of their marketing tactics, they will need to use an integrated campaign. Merging online and offline marketing strategies in the ways mentioned above, is a good way for businesses to increase revenue.

Target Facebook Users Near Your Business with Local Awareness Ads

A great article that will help local businesses! by Peter Roesler

For a long time, ads on Facebook were less effective the more local a business was. It’s easier to target to an audience of all young women in America than it is to market all the young woman who live near a boutique that’s advertising on Facebook. At least, it was hard. Facebook recently introduced Local Awareness Ads specifically made to help small local business owners connect with Facebook users near their location.

“With local awareness ads, businesses can quickly and easily find new customers by showing ads to groups of people who are near that business’s neighborhood,” the company wrote in a blog post announcing the new feature. “Local awareness ads are built to be more cost-effective than traditional advertising channels like newspaper while offering more precise targeting and greater reach.”

Since Facebook had very good targeting options in the past, it’s worthwhile to explain what is different. Before, a brick and mortar store could only target to a city or ZIP code. It was possible to capture a large part of the potential audience for a business this way, it would also include a lot of unnecessary areas and serve ads to people who probably couldn’t act on them. With Local Awareness Ads, business who have their physical location listed on Facebook can run ads that are targeted a certain radius from that spot.

This can be a valuable tool when combined with Facebook’s resources for advertising to mobile device users on the Facebook App as well as on games and mobile sites in the ever-growing Facebook Ad network. For stores that rely on foot traffic, Local Awareness Ads can be used to steer customers their way as soon as they get in range.

Besides the usual ads for specials, discounts, and the like, Local Awareness Ads can also be used with “Get Directions” call-to-action button. Facebook noted that in conversations with local business owners and advertisers, clicks for directions where more valuable than traditional metrics such as Likes and Shares.

In the blog post, Facebook tried to assuage fears that the new ad format would be intrusive. The Local Awareness Ads won’t be able to target specific people just people in specific areas. And users can still opt out of sharing their device’s location with Facebook.

“Local awareness ads were built with privacy in mind. Advertisers select locations, not specific individuals, for local awareness ads,” the post stated. “Facebook does not tell advertisers which specific people are in any audience and, as with our other advertising products, all audiences must meet a minimum required size.”

Most consumer advocates would consider these points as mere semantic arguments. But with most eyes focused on the reintroduction of Atlas, slightly better geo-tracking isn’t raising many activist eyebrows. But local business owners and marketers should pay attention. Local awareness ads may be the solution for their local internet advertising needs.

If you don’t have a Local Awareness Ad option in your ad creation tool, keep an eye out for it, it’ll be there soon. Facebook says the feature will roll out across the US over the next few months. Every business owner in America should probably have it by November (they wouldn’t want to miss out on all that Black Friday ad revenue). The rest of the world may have to wait a little, but it should be released globally within the next few months.

The Awesome Power of Mobile Devices for Local Marketing!

by Peter Roesler

Understanding consumer behavior is an important part of marketing. The way business owner see and expect from consumer behavior is shown by their actions. These beliefs about consumer behavior are normally based hearsay and intuition, since small business owners usually lack the resources need for large-scale consumer expectations survey. A new study from the Local Search Association does a lot of the heavy lifting by showing how consumers use their mobile devices. This article will review some of the major takeaways from this study and how marketers can use them.

The information comes from a collaboration between Burke, Inc. and the Local Search Association based on 2013 statistics from their annual “Local Media Tracking Study,” The study analyzed the reach of various local media sources across computer/laptop, mobile phone/smartphone and netbook/tablet.

The study is based on interviews with 8,000 U.S. adults conducted online and by phone. The Local Search Association recently released infographics that highlight data that shows more consumers turn to mobile devices when seeking, discovering or considering local business information.

The main takeaway for marketers from this information is that mobile marketing is becoming the prefered channel for many consumers who would once have used desktops and laptops to learn about and engage with companies. This means that mobile marketing isn’t bringing in entirely new customers by reaching people who were previously unreachable. The growth in mobile device usage correlates with a decline in desktop and laptop usage.

To illustrate, the percentage of people using computers and laptops for searching for local products and services dropped from 80 percent to 73 percent between 2012 and 2013. On the other hand,le mobile device usage increased from 25 percent to 34 percent and netbook/tablet usage rose from 6 percent to 11 percent.

It also important to note that desktops are still the most preferred source for looking up information. However, the clear trend is that desktop computing is becoming less important as mobile marketing grows. Also, searches through mobile devices are more likely to lead to a sale. Searches from mobile devices were more than 20 percent more likely to result in a local purchase. According to the research, 78 percent of mobile phone searches led to a local purchase, compared to 61 percent for desktops and laptops.

One of the reasons mobile marketing is becoming so important relates to the technology involved. While there are certainly new technology for TV and radio advertising, mobile devices offer the greatest advantage to marketers.

“As customer touchpoints expand, retailers continue to investigate other ways to diversify their marketing spend, including budgeting for increased spend for text advertisements, display ads, social, and attribution models,” said Shop.org Executive Director Vicki Cantrell.

Cantrell’s comments fit in with another takeaway from the Local Search Association study. The study found that why search was easily the most popular reason people were drawn to a retailer, there were a lot of marketing options that each brought in a significant amount of business to a company. Mobile marketing can easily be integrated with these other tactics so business owners can offer coupons, use email marketing, promote content on social media and more.

This research shows why mobile marketing is so important to small and local business. When looking at long-term trends, it’s clear that mobile devices will become more important than desktops and laptops in the future. Also, the best way to reach a large number of consumers is to a use a diversified marketing strategy. Mobile marketing can help with this because these devices can be used as platforms for email, social and content marketing.

Forget Ultra HD: 8K is closer than you think

Sure just when I was going to purchase a 4K Camera I read this….

Enjoy this article by Steve May – Why Japanese broadcaster NHK believes Ultra HD is just a stepping stone to bigger and better things….

2014 is fast shaping up to be the year of eight million pixels. Full HD, now ubiquitous on TVs at every price point and served up by more than 60 channels, finally has something to look up to. 4K resolution displays, built for those with really deep pockets, are finally becoming a reality. January’s International CES was a galvanising launch pad for these next-generation screens.

But 4K’s time in the spotlight could prove short-lived. An upstart upgrade is already impatiently waiting in the wings, and at least one major broadcaster believes it makes more sense to skip 4K altogether.

Pixel warfare

After 3D and Smart connectivity, everyone is talking about pixels again. Indeed, competition to drive resolution up is breaking out on display platforms large and small. For TV makers this buzz can’t come soon enough. Next-generation displays put business-saving value back into the marketplace. All the industry has to do is work out a way to sell them.

Shawn DuBravac, director of research for the Consumer Electronics Association, concedes that ‘4K is not really a product that’s applicable to everyone,’ but is optimistic that ‘consumers seeking a very rich visual experience… will want to make that move upwards as quickly as possible.’

A stumbling block to the 4K roll-out is the lack of native content. In the short term there’s been a 4K upgrade to the PS3’s PlayMemories Studio software, which makes it a lot more convenient to view still images at 3,840 X 2,160. A longer term solution involves the recently rubber-stamped new HEVC (for High Efficiency Video Coding) codec. Designed as the long-term replacement for H.264, HEVC will almost certainly be employed when SES begins a 4K Astra test satellite channel (probably this year or next), and is the obvious choice for the next evolution of the Blu-ray standard (if studios give it their blessing).

Equally hampering development has been the lack of a 4K HDMI output standard. While high-speed HDMI cables can take 4K in their stride, the HDMI interface at the source end has been inconveniently ignored. Atushi Matsui, one of the leading engineers at Panasonic responsible for the brand’s prosumer HDC-Z10000 3D camcorder, which employs a 4K pixel-shifted image sensor, says development of native 4K consumer products has been hampered because of this hiccup.

8K dawning

But even as the world’s biggest TV makers work out how best to package 4K, Japanese state broadcaster NHK has been talking up its replacement. 8K Super Hi Vision offers an image 16 x more detailed than HD. At 33 megapixels it inflates the envelope of human visual acuity, and then pops it with a loud bang.

Dr Keiichi Kubota, NHK’s Executive DG of Engineering (below), told HCC that progress with 8K has been so rapid that they’ve now decided to leapfrog 4K as a transmission standard altogether: ‘It took two decades to take hi-def from the lab to public demos. We’ve made the same progress with Super Hi-Vision in half the time,’ he says. ‘Our experts have set a target date of 2020 for experimental broadcasts, but there’s the possibility of bringing this forward. We want to begin as soon as possible.’

The ETA of Super Hi Vision actually hangs on Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games. Should the city win, then NHK will bring wide-scale trials forward to 2016.

Dr Kubota concedes that panel makers have to move to 4K as a business imperative in the meantime, but says firmly that ‘NHK has no plans  to use 4K. We will move directly to an 8K system.’  The engineering chief insists it makes little financial sense to begin an expensive 4K upgrade of broadcast infrastructure when 8K is so near. ‘It would mean another big investment, and we can’t afford to do that. So we’ve decided not to take a step-by-step approach. Will go directly to 8K.’

NHK, in conjunction with the BBC, used the London Olympic Games as a field trial for 8K, and the resulting footage astonished all those who saw it, including us. NHK describes the technology as uniquely immersive. ‘This kind of advanced system gives us an unrivalled sense of presence,’ says Kubota. ‘It enables a viewing experience that is as close to reality as possible.’ Primitive cultures once believed that a camera could capture the soul in an image. 8K actually does.

NHK has been developing Super Hi Vision since the mid-nineties. ‘At that time we had just started digital HD broadcasting [in Japan],’ I’m told. ‘Our scientists were wondering what to do next…’

First-generation Super Hi Vision ‘cameras’ were essentially movable equipment racks tethered to  a lens. ‘Our crew used the original 80kg Super Hi-Vision camera to film a mother and her child playing in the back yard of our laboratory,’ he reveals. ‘Since then we’ve made crucial advances.’ Today, the latest Hitachi 8K shooter weighs a mere 4kg and can be shoulder mounted for use much like any other piece of pro video gear.

Dr Kubota admits not all broadcasters are as keen as NHK to pursue 8K, but he says there is solid interest from the BBC, Italian broadcaster RAI and the big American networks. Just as with 4K, it’s the HEVC codec which is central to getting 8K out of the R&D ghetto. Indeed, the man from NHK says that HEVC is so efficient it will even allow 8K to be streamed across the internet, which could change everything.

Even so, he maintains that there will be the need for an 8K turbo-charged disc format to accompany it. ‘NHK may predominantly be a broadcaster,’ he says, ‘but our subsidiary company sells Blu-ray discs of NHK programmes. I’m sure the same thing will happen with the Super Hi Vision system. We will produce 8k programmes for broadcasting over terrestrial and satellite channels and our subsidiary will make an 8K disc version for home use.’

Dr Kubota also reveals that the system’s expansive 22.2 sound system (below) is being adapted for home use. ‘Our audio expert is working on that right now,’ he continues. ‘22.2 speakers is too much in the living room, so we’re working out how to reduce the number of speakers, but retain almost the same effect – we’re developing a new type of down-mixing technology.’ He adds that even a 7.1 physical speaker deployment may be unnecessary: ‘We’re thinking 5.1 or even less…’

Still frame sequence shot in raw 8K bounced to 4K to You Tube. Blow this up and it still looks spectacular, almost like it’s computer generated!

Don’t forget to use 2160 4k = setting!

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