E-mail use to increase in 2008: Datran Media

Marketers plan to increase e-mail use in 2008, according to a new study by online marketing services firm Datran Media.

Overall, 72% of the marketers surveyed indicated that they plan to use e-mail marketing more in 2008.

The survey, which included 1,500 marketing professionals, focused on marketers' plans to use e-mail marketing in 2008. Firms included KPMG International, InfoUSA, QInteractive and Art.com.

It found that 70.5% reported plans to increase spending on e-mail acquisition and 63% to increase spending on retention campaigns.

In addition, 83% of respondents expect e-mail ROI to increase during the New Year. E-mail optimization techniques, including landing pages, subject line testing and triggered messaging, were unanimously ranked as "very important."

The survey also found that more than half of the respondents outsourced e-mail marketing.

MediaTrust Adds ELC Technologies’ OpenSocial Container Plug-in Support to bookQube

ELC Technologies Instrumental in Building Relevance Engine That Powers MediaTrust’s Social Networking Applications

ELC Technologies, the California-based consulting firm with the industry’s largest global team of dedicated Ruby on Rails developers, today announced that MediaTrust, Inc., is the first company to adopt its recently announced OpenSocial Container plug-in. Over the past several months, ELC used Ruby on Rails and its agile software practices to develop the relevancy engine that forms the basis for MediaTrust’s bookQube and other social media platforms. The addition of the new OpenSocial Container plug-in enables third-party developers to create their own plug-in applications for bookQube using the Google OpenSocial standard.

MediaTrust’s bookQube connects its users to relevant book reviews, blogs, discussions and recommendations and introduces users to other book lovers who share common interests. It operates on proprietary technology developed by ELC for the company. The technology makes it possible for web site owners to easily incorporate social networking into their sites and to make recommendations for relevant content, users and ads. When released in early November bookQube included support for the new Google OpenSocial standard. The innovative new OpenSocial Container plug-in from ELC allows MediaTrust to leverage the emerging OpenSocial standard.

According to Joseph Matheny, chief technology officer for MediaTrust, ELC Technologies has been instrumental in bringing bookQube online ahead of schedule and with expanded capabilities by using Ruby on Rails and agile software development techniques.

“When we began formulating our original social networking concept two years ago, Ruby on Rails wasn’t a consideration,” explained Matheny. “The original project was created using .NET, but it was too rigid and did not have the modularity we needed to achieve the vision we had in mind. With Ruby on Rails and ELC’s agile software practices we were able to broaden the spec for the original project to create a more robust platform that can scale to handle millions of users without losing any development time. Without ELC and their Ruby on Rails expertise, we would still be struggling to launch bookQube and create the kind of relevance engine that is the foundation of the MediaTrust’s vision. ELC’s OpenSocial Container takes this vision another step forward – allowing third-party developers to quickly and easily create new applications based on MediaTrust’s patent-pending relevance engine.”

“Our work with MediaTrust demonstrates the versatility and scalability of Rails for commercial applications,” said Ryan Garver, chief technology officer for ELC Technologies. “Working with Joe and the MediaTrust team has allowed us to stretch our creative capabilities and deliver something unique and powerful for social media in the MediaTrust relevance engine. Adding our new OpenSocial Container to bookQube is just the first step in enlisting other developers to take advantage of the platform we helped MediaTrust create.”

Thought of The Day : SUCCESS ATTRACTS SUCCESS AND FAILURE ATTRACTS FAILURE BECAUSE OF THE LAW OF HARMONIOUS ATTRACTION.

In physics, positives attract negatives and vice versa, but in human relationships the opposite is true. Negative people attract only other negative people, while positive thinkers attract like-minded individuals. You will find that when you begin to achieve success more successes will follow. This is the law of harmonious attraction. When riches begin to come your way, you’ll be amazed how quickly they accumulate. Train your mind to visualize yourself acquiring a specific amount of wealth or achieving a certain goal-whatever you most desire. Then use self-suggestion to persuade your subconscious mind that you can achieve your goal, and put your plan into action. When you use the tools that you have at your disposal to prepare yourself for success and visualize yourself as having already reached your objective, you can achieve any reasonable goal that you set for yourself.

Social Media Digest

Web Strategy Summary: To know
Google announced it’s intent to build a profile system, which will allow social networks to be built anywhere, and used by anyone. Coupled with OpenSocial, this could break down any silos that many are concerned about. The ’socialization’ of the web (all the web) continues to be a theme.

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Identity Systems: Google to launch profile feature
The root of any social network contains two major features 1) an individuals profile 2) The connections they have to other profiles. Google is launching part one with their individual profiles that allow users to upload their identity and preferences. Expect them to make their entire web experience (from search to docs, to picassa) more of a social experience where people share with others, comment, and collect.

Insight: People not brands lead social networks
Doc gives an very interesting perspective in response to my debate on join vs build, be sure to read his post and ask yourself how this applies to your own life.

Platform: Wordpress could be a Social Networking Platform
Chris Messina suggest that Wordpress could be a Social Networking platform, while currently a publishing CMS tool. The first thing to do is look at the technographics of a community, and identify does everyone want to be a creator? Not likely.

Platforms: Social Network Platform Wars
Great graphic from Dave McClure showing a visual representation of what the platforms are starting to look like. With many platforms emerging and APIs don’t give up on opensocial (but recognize the challenges)

Watch: Cisco’s Entertainment Operating System (EOS)
Cisco recently acquired Tribe and Five Across and are now starting to consolidate these one off acquisitions into real products. EOS is supposadly supposed to provide media to social networks, as well as a potential platform. The challenge? Does Cisco know media? even social media? The upside for Cisco? More bandwidth for their infrastructure products.

Usage: Social Network adoption continues to rise
eMarketer has some useful stats that indicate that the growth of social networks will continue in terms of adoption and monetization. Interesting to see the saturation of the teen market already.

Acquisition: Penthouse buys lifestyle social networks
Penthouse expands it’s online reach by acquiring Various, which owns adultfriendfinder, Italianfriendfinder.com, gradfinder.com and bigchurch.com. Smart move for a media company. Projected price? $340 million.

Mobile: Sprint and MySpace serve web experience
Not uncommon to see, as iPhone serves up a very nice Facebook experienece, Sprint and MySpace are working to serve up a mobile experience. I can’t wait for the day when mobile devices all render the same experience from a single browser.

Friending: “Whales” are insecure
A whale is a person with more than 1000 contacts on a social network, this article suggests that some of them insecure. While this may be true for some, for me it’s a business networking tool, i’s my rolodex, a listening tool, and a way to reach thousands. Nearly limitless business opportunities. For those who are trying use this as a social tool (college, dating, etc) I can see why this may make sense.

Golden Ages of Media End... ?

There is a very good post from RelevantlySpeaking regarding the history and the future of traditional media and how it may or may not survive the future!

In media, there are periods sometimes of a decade or more when a formula works very well, producing quality entertainment and profits for all. 1930’s radio dramas, 1950s MGM musicals, 1965-75 situation comedies, 1980-2000 TV advertisements. But after one of these golden ages is over, the models can never be revived. MORE....

widgetQube video on YouTube

This is a great video on a great looking, great functioning RSS reader widget from widgetQube! widgetQube is a member of the oneQube family.

Cost per Action: 5 Questions Before You Begin

As more marketers demand accountability from more media, both parties need to agree on the best way to pay for performance. The keyword and contextual players want revenue per click of course and the lead gen crew wants – no surprise – revenue for a qualified lead.

Then there are those hardy souls who want to be paid well for business closed – revenue for a specific action. Cost per Action or Cost per Acquisition (CPA) really could be the ultimate expression of performance – if the actions can really be measured. In our experience, attaining this ideal isn’t as easy as the concept. This raises a few considerations for marketers (as well as agencies and media) considering a foray into the world of CPA.

Can your system track source? : CPA can only work if the marketer’s CRM system can capably track the source of each lead. Months can pass from initial contact to eventual sale and there are liable to be other contact points after a performance ad firm initiates the relationship. All parties need to be sure that credit is given where it is due.

Do you want to share information? : Many marketers we speak with prefer not to give specific results of campaigns to 3^rd parties. In CPA programs, the marketer promises to reveal important financial information, i.e. how many accounts are opened or sales are made based on the performance ads. Are you willing to do this? Is your CFO? How will you build an audit track?

How do you manage the continuity? : CPA programs are rarely one-shot deals. There will probably be an ongoing campaign to convert as many of the initial prospects as possible. Media might vary. How will the follow up strategy work? Who will oversee all the creative for continuity programs? Who will manage the responses and coordinate with your database?

How do you set the price for a customer acquisition? : Some marketers base the CPA on current account acquisition norms. If they’re now paying $1000 all-inclusive to get a new customer through other marketing means, they might offer $500 per acquisition for a CPA program.

Often, the price can be set through testing Cost per Action to Cost per Lead and Click. If 0.2% of $2 clicks convert, that’s a $1000 acquisition, as is 1% of $10 leads. There’s a good horse race to see which provides the lowest cost of acquiring new business.

Should you vary the payout? : Good performance marketing enables segmentation. Most likely, you’ll offer your better potential customers a better set of benefits. If some customers are worth more than others, are you willing to pay more to get them? Incentives are powerful: consider paying your performance ad group more when they bring in a prime target customer.

These just scratch the surface of decisions you’ll make when embarking on CPA. But, if you can comfortably answer these questions, you’ve gone a long way toward a potential ROI boost.