Handsome Leather Gifts For Father’s Day June 14, 2011 – 11:56 am				Abdul Fattah Ismail

Father’s Day is just around the corner.  If you have not made up your mind and want some ideas, we suggest pieces from Jack Georges. The leather briefcase company has a unique portfolio in their e-commerce store, with some great gifts for your dad.

This example from the Jack Georges Elements collection is a best seller for many reasons.  The triple gusset flapover briefcase (Elements #4505) is handcrafted from European leather. The beautiful, rich grain has a scratch resistant coat with a steel frame top that folds reflexively.  Inside the bag, you get a padded compartment storage for a laptop equivalent to 15.6” along with an Easy Access Organizer for writing utensils and accessories.  An open back pocket rests on the side panel for your file documents.

Jack Georges has other fine products available for shipment when you order by 12 noon EST on Thursday, June 16th. Here is a second suggestion.

Nevada Collection 19” Duffel Bag.

Built for the weekend trip, this gorgeous duffel bag is made from a pebble grain crushed fabric and flecked with suede pieces.  It comes with durable handles made from full grain leather, containing zippered pockets on the outside and inside of the case.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Digital Media, eCommerce, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency, handmade leather briefcases, Jack Georges, jack georges success blog, new york ecommerce agency, online marketing agency

Internet Week, Day 2: The Afternoon June 9, 2011 – 5:23 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

After an steamy, uneventful lunch break, I’m back cooling off in the main floor.

1:58:  Finding the Keys To The Kingdom:  Getting People To Use Your Product

Again, the din of a jammed crowd is affecting the panelists’ discussion.  It makes it hard to talk about their subjects in an enlightening manner. Those subjects are from startup agencies called HowAboutWe, Hashable, Fashism, and SeatGeek. They are discussing strategies for acquiring a loyal database through venerable publishers like The Wall Street Journal, using display advertising if you are an e-commerce venture, and other standard techniques. Brand partnerships with different stores are also another method of integration.

2:25: Crowd has thinned in the Pavilion a little bit.  This particular topic isn’t too stimulating.  Next year, the audio equipment needs to be upgraded. Wait, did I say that already?

2:35: The Yahoo Studios are a good place to type keywords by the finger stroke. They also have friendly hosts that engage with you about the programming.

2:58:  The Evolution Of Communication

Krystal D’Costa talks about the anthropological trajectory of communication.  She is chronicling the movement with the oracle on a general sense.  In modern times, the application represents the oracle of our human transmission of information.

3:04: First written word was the beginning of communication, etched in the 8th Century B.C.  Today, of course, we tweet each other to death. She is now talking about gesture being a method to direct sight on a primal level.

3:08: Sharing communication and transferring information was very labor-intensive, especially when etching hieroglyphics in stone.  Her argument is that at this point, communication remains a local experience shared by word of mouth.

3:11: Our ability to connect regardless of geography and mine data is still dependent on interjecting personal voice into the equation to have a satisfactory end result.  The written word is also a connecting byline of digital mass communication.  As a result, our permanent record is larger and more public. It has given power to those who would not have a voice without digital tools.  At the same time, those who may not be emotionally equipped could be challenged on their opinions.

3:24: D’Costa mentions that awkward encounters can grow.  As a result, human touch falls out of the context.  She just now quit to take questions. She did a nice job of tackling formulaic issues of the Digital Age.

4:04:  Online Advertising Is Broken. Can We Fix It?

My last panel of the day.  The panel is from assorted small startups with the moderator being from Ad Age.  They are discussing about how brands can engage through the clutter on a qualitative level.

4:07: Ari Jacoby, CEO of Solve Media, talks about his new company, Solve Media, which specializes in TYPE-IN advertising. TYPE-IN advertising is aimed to provide brand awareness and performance-based strategy instead of the murky CAPTCHA signing image.

4:15: JetBlue has delivered memorable rich media experiences in their online advertising campaigns, according to Scott Kumit (AdKeeper).

4:18: Rob Gatteo (PointRoll) feels that the automotive industry has strong vertical potential. He is also waiting for retail and newspapers to take advantage of their wide advertising budgets.

4:28: The panelists keep talking about tears and whether online advertising can grab the primal emotions of the public. Boo hoo, fellas! Cut it out.

4:35: They finally do and begin to take questions off of the Tweet roll.  I mosey on over to take inventory of the Google Digital Archaeology again.  Hey, I’m a sucker for good presentation.

As a presenter, this conference is finito! Thanks for following!

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Business News, Digital Media, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency nyc, internet week nyc, internet week yahoo

Like Diesel QR Codes In the Store June 7, 2011 – 4:50 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

Lovers of Diesel denimware should pop into a retail branch to like the denim collection. As this video from Creativity UK demonstrates, the brand is attempting to connect the personal experience when shopping for goods. This interactive marketing strategy asks the customer to scan the QR code, where they’ll be taken to a product landing page with the option to share it on their social media platforms, specifically Facebook. It is unclear if the other platforms are available for sharing options.  The viral community can either bash or love your fashion taste.

I do find the concept intriguing in that it engages the consumer on multiple levels, but denim is such a unique entity in an apparel collection, especially for women.  The fit must be perfect, or they get returned immediately.  It will be interesting to see if sales figures improve due to the penetration.

Apparel retailers are looking at different methods of getting customers to visit their stores.  This is one strategy which has promise for lead generation in online marketing since the consumer is entering their personal data into the store algorithm.  

The question, as I said, will come down to sales conversion. Does it drive up metrics online or through the brick-and-mortar model? Commodity concerns are forcing consumers to make direct choices about entering the venue for browsing. The ability to purchase through a smartphone application or website mitigates the necessity for travel. Retailers who pitch nominal or free shipping fees accentuate the temptation to stay home and click to buy.

Retailers who employ sales commissions should observe the Diesel strategy to predict its effectiveness.   Sales representatives want your seal of approval, the thumb, in person.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Digital Media, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency, mobile applications agency, mobile marketing agency, online marketing news

Readers, Meet The Behavioral Icon June 7, 2011 – 2:15 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

Early last year, I had written a piece discussing the use of icons by online advertisers to measure consumer behavior.  The logo would be slight and innocuous, with the consumer having the option to remove it at their discretion.  Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney along with President Barack Obama have been some of the first political sources to feature it.  As ClickZ explains, consumers can click on the icon, where they’ll come upon a new page called the interest category manager with opt-out features.  The algorithm measures your surfing habits and rolls out banner displays based on previously visited websites. Advertising networks are rolling the icons out with greater intensity.    

The ClickZ article also points out that federal legislators are sending out privacy bills to allow consumers more control over personal data collection.  The intention of collection this data, of course, is to design online targets for corporate entities.  Advertising committees wanted to handle this proposition without federal intervention.  It doesn’t appear they will get that chance, if consumers are made aware of the behavioral icon.  This link will teach those about the purpose of this along with other self-regulatory tools. Data breaches on Sony Playstation’s database can only begin to accelerate the initiative.  Certain corporations have not proved capable of maintaining consumer data with proper encryption.  For now, Big Brother will have to watch you online.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Business News, Digital Media | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency, display advertising agency, government legislation, new york interactive marketing agency

Ad Click Of The Day: Lipton Iced Tea June 6, 2011 – 1:59 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

We know that online video advertising is a stabilizing sector of digital marketing.  I’ve talked about it enough, so now we look at examples in the marketplace.  

The commercial spot was created by DDB London and illustrates the therapeutic qualities of tea as a beverage. Iced tea, especially sweetened, is a staple of Southern cultural milleu.  Britain and its former colonies take time to sip in the afternoon. The phenomena has yet to take over other regions on a traditional level.

In this spot, you get phantasmic lighting of her body with water, sunlight and lush, green leaves floating around.  The chaotic city streets are not enough to drag down her aura. The soundtrack is fast and vibrant, supplementing the notion of tea as a fresh, natural stimulant. Now that the summer time has dawned on North America and Western Europe, momentum cannot be halted.

Or can it? Mike Chapman is the source of this spot and he believes that using a dual tagline weighs down the main pitch.  I don’t necessarily agree here, because many beverage spots utilize multiple taglines to drive home a message.  Since the commercial has placement in multiple channels, I understand the strategy.  Commercial developers also have to think of SEO optimization when designing a strategy, even though television still generates the most revenue for scale.  The second tagline (Drink Positive) affirms the first one (You Are What You Tea).  I click on this ad “Double” for quality.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Digital Media, Video Sharing | No Comments »
Tags: adweek news, Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency, online advertising agency new york, online video advertising, video advertising, video marketing

Google Adds +1 To Share, Search June 2, 2011 – 5:06 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

Google has also rolled out a share content button to rival the premiere social network buttons.  As with other Google software products, the content will be mined in the search result indices.  Depending on its success, you could see a benefit for small businesses that are looking to push a strategy online through local channels.  The button has been available for web developers since March.  You can grab the code here, then affix it to your website.  The search giant also linked up with several partners, including Add This, Mashable, Huffington Post, Nordstrom, and so forth.  According to this blog entry, Google could have learned from their prior failures into social media with Wave and Buzz.

The offer from the source piece points out that Google’s +1 allows users and webmasters to be the determinant of which content reaches the top of index results.  This content, as I mentioned, could range from local businesses to music content and personal profiles.  With the advent of Google’s Cloud Music Service (still in beta), marketers can use web analytics for integration of all those users to track consumer behaviors. This author also mentioned that Google’s service portfolio is utilized by many for business or personal lines of communication.  Could the third time be a charm for Google entering the social sharing domain? Here’s a video:

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Digital Media, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Small Business, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency nyc, google +1, google local search, google news, seo media agency nyc

Directory Publishers Text To Engage May 16, 2011 – 1:19 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

This year has seen mobile marketing strategies branch out into more illustrative properties, like video and rich media.  Rich media has become a hotter commodity in online advertising. It delivers campaigns between devices and platforms due to its dexterity, which improves brand engagement with customers.  Advertising executives also get a unified report of metrics, improving forecasting along with simplifying creative strategy.  As this article in Mobile Marketer Daily points out, SMS marketing hasn’t crashed.  

SMS marketing was used to accent television programming participation over the past five years.  American Idol used SMS marketing for engaging young fans who spent copious time on their mobile devices.  Sports programming also offered SMS marketing strategies to have fans participate in All-Star Voting for exclusive deals.  Names and Numbers, a telephone directory publisher based out of Kansas, has this idea. They are offering their customers mobile marketing via a mobile network.  The idea is to unify local businesses and consumers.

The tactic is a simple method to get attention in a clutter of images and goofy peer dialogue. For some folks, a text from a business or corporation feels unnerving. An opt out clause is always critical and must be featured on every SMS marketing pitch to avoid customer relationship fiascos.  Out of personal experience, I have had Sprint engage me about news and promotions through SMS messaging. I opt out every time by simply typing END.  In the MMD article, comScore reports that 68.1% of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile devices in January.  Merchants can manage their databases in real-time since engagement is immediate.

That immediacy, though, cuts the other way more often.  It’ll be interesting to see beyond the conversion rates where SMS marketing drives metrics.  Click on the green cloud for more mobile marketing news today.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Digital Media, Mobile Applications, Mobile Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency nyc, mobile marketer daily, mobile marketing agency

Weekly Blueliner Newsminer May 13, 2011 – 4:41 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

Welcome back to the Weekly Blueliner Newsminer. Let us begin.

1. Digital Partnerships Galore

I mentioned in the headline earlier this week about all the digital partnerships. Some of these include Groupon pairing with Live Nation next to Microsoft’s surprise purchase of Skype.  Microsoft’s integration of Skype bears watching. Will the business software developer throw their new SEO investments into Skype or smoothly blend algorithms?

2.  User Data Corruption

User data corruption has occurred in droves this week.  Michaels, the arts and crafts supplier, reported a hacking of credit card data from their shops this morning.  Facebook has a lawsuit concerning the unauthorized mining of user data for online advertising campaigns.  Playdom settled a lawsuit of breaching children’s data with the FTC. We don’t need to further investigate Sony’s current woes with Playstation.

Over time, it will be interesting to see how the consumer responds to these egregious click frauds. In the Michaels case, some plan to eliminate their ATM card altogether.  The thought sounds impractical, but restraint can be a positive.

3.  Flash Sale Marketplace

I also discussed the flash sale marketplace, which includes Gilt Groupe, Rue La La, and now Amazon’s MYHABIT.  Gilt submitted a valuation, and analysts are skeptical since the company has yet to turn a profit.  To their credit, they continue to invest in more products.  CEO Kevin Ryan is nonplussed at the skepticism. He believes that flash that the flash e-commerce model will only grow despite the rebounding of full-price luxury good sales.   Time will tell if they can sustain.

4.  Amazon Tablet?

This piece in TechCrunch is intriguing since it is all speculation.  The eBook conference in London earlier this week was a convergence where publishers of all sizes talk content. Can it be scaled for advertising? Can content secure copyright infringement? Can authors eliminate agents? Another writer declares The New Yorker iPad mobile application as the end of glossy magazines.

Amazon could be the superhero running in with a mobile device that would not only streamline their growing video library. This secret device could eliminate the need to develop mobile applications for other platforms (*cough..Apple!).  Supposedly the graphic design applications need time to develop. Interesting indeed.

5.  Google Releases Music Service

Those of us privy to searching Google for leaked music tracks may find this service redundant.  But it ensures stronger security encryption.  The king of search algorithms is an invite-only stage in beta mode. For the technology averse, beta is the development state of a website or application. Google’s Android operating system allows for synching music across your devices.  A cloud storage allows access offline, giving the user time to create and edit your playlists.  Amazon also entered the growing music cloud marketplace, experiencing crashes already.  It’ll be interesting to see if Google can avoid this inevitable issue of data transmission.Click on the headline for an instructional video.

That’s the Blue News for now. Enjoy the weekend.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Business News, Digital Media, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Small Business, Social Media Marketing, web development, Website Analytics | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital advertising, digital marketing agency, weekly blueliner newsminer

SEO Suites Review – IBP vs. Web CEO May 2, 2011 – 2:13 pm				Tanveer

Good Search engine rankings are important for any web page, as the largest number of users find destination web sites by browsing search engines.  Some times it can be difficult to get your web site to the top. That’s why many people and specialists look into using SEO software.  However, there are many different kinds of SEO software in the market – IBP and Web CEO are two of the leading SEO softwares on the market.

IBP

Internet Business Promoter (IBP) is a sophisticated website promotion software tool. IBP helps to achieve high search engine ranking results. It is constantly being updated and helps to optimize web pages based on the most current search engine algorithms. It can submit websites to major search engines automatically and can monitor their search rankings. IBP offers useful tools for website optimization, position checking, link building, directory submission, search engine submission, keyword analysis and research, competitor analysis and much more. IBP has one of the more effective link building and web page optimization tools. IBP uses only moral search engine optimization methods that are accepted by all search engines.

Web CEO

Web CEO is a comprehensive SEO software suite. It can assist in overall website promotion. It has twelve SEO tools for search engine optimization, including keyword research, search engine submission, a web page editor, ranking checker, PPC campaigns manager, web analytics, link popularity analyzer, website quality audit, FTP uploader, and website monitoring tool. Web CEO has a good looking user interface that helps to automate most of the tasks & encourages taking a more strategic approach to search engine marketing. Web CEO came up with a very helpful website auditing tool that can easily outline the performance of web pages. It also provides information on missing images, broken links, slow pages, invalid displayed graphics, and missing META information.

High search engine rankings are important for gaining traffic as it allows users to more easily find your link via online search engines. The problem is it can be difficult to get high search engine rankings. Normally 40-45% of users visit the first page listed, and even less users visit the second, third and fourth (Not guaranteed s/he will be targeted users). The majority of people would like to be on the first page (Top 10 positions), because that is where most of the users go. Helping you achieve these goals and saving time is SEO software.

IBP and Web CEO both offer almost identical SEO tools but differ on their features. For keyword research, IBP’s keyword research tool will help look up the top searched keywords immediately and users can also find out information about keywords. Web CEO’s keyword search tool is a little more in depth and allows coming up with variations of keywords and suggestion.

With these tools users can check their competitor’s site’s back links, ranking position. Web CEO generates reports of a users site and those of their competitors. But IBP’s report function offers more features than Web CEO. Users can customize their report and save into various formats like .pdf, .html, .xls etc.
Another important feature of these tools is that users can manually or automatically submit their web pages to search engines, directories, and special interest sites. Web CEO is proficient of helping you find link partners according to the pattern and subject of web page, will help looking for link partners based on targeted keywords, and will help submit URLs to the most important search engines and directories.

Like Web CEO, IBP offers full featured functionality in free trial. However in IBP, the report customization and various project management functions are limited in free trial. But get proper SEO suggestion and benefit there are no alternate of paid version.

Common Features of IBP and Web CEO

• Different keyword suggestion mechanisms
• Google Keyword Suggestion
• Emailing reports to clients automatically
• Keyword data available for printout
• Saving reports in HTML
• Choosing the search engine for which to optimize the webpage
• Finding sites that already link to you
• Generating link building reports
• The exact URL from which the backlink stands
• Does a page really link back?
• Link’s anchor text
• Link’s anchor URL
• Number of competing sites
• Runs on Windows
• Wizards
• Scheduling keyword research and reporting tasks
• Creating optimization strategy based on competition research
• Unlimited number of sites to check
• Stop words (omitting or indicating articles, prepositions and other words search engines don’t take into account)
• Main onpage factors
• Main offpage factors
• Recommendations for optimized content
• Keyword density analysis
• SEO tips in the report
• Generating onpage optimization reports
• Reports available for printout
• FTP upload of reports to make them available online
• Finding quality link partners in the leading search engines
• Search for potential partners among sites linking to your competitors
• Sending personalized emails using customizable templates
• Email variables
• Automatic cycle of email correspondence
• Automatic email address mining
• Checking if link partners link back to you
• Retrieving contact info
• Indicate how your site ranks for each keyword
• Rich search engine choice
• Selecting multiple search engines based on country and language
• Human Emulation
• Competitors’ rankings
• Typing in keywords manually
• Comparing ranking results from different dates
• Preferred SEs
• Reports view
• Generating ranking reports
• Scheduling rank checking and reporting tasks
• KEI

The Features not supported by both IBP and Web CEO

• Link value of a potential backlink
• Marking pages that may provide the best link value
• Yahoo! Search Assist
• Ask TypeAhead Search Suggestions
• Choice of types of misspellings
• Length of keyphrase
• Your current ranking for each keyword
• Advanced workspace filters
• Runs on Mac OS X
• Runs on Linux
• Quick search through keywords
• Yahoo! API key
• Bing API key
• Generating keyword reports
• CAPTCHA recognition
• Displaying the number of page elements containing a keyword
• Analy zing words other than specified keywords
• Checking link partners’ link popularity
• Measuring your own website’s popularity over time
• Receiving and organizing emails from your link partners
• Manageable workspaces
• Building linking strategy based on competition research
• Ability to find sitewide links
• Google PageRank of each page
• Country of the linking site
• Domain age
• Generating link strategy reports
• Emailing link strategy reports to clients
• Customizable filters
• Number of searches
• KEI for keywords
• Displaying keyphrase length
• Setting time period for which to build a progress graph
• Integrated keyword research

Different between IBP & Web CEO

Posted by Tanveer
Posted in blog, Digital Media, search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimization | 1 Comment »
Tags: compare, IBP, internet business promotor, SEO suites, SEO tools review, software, Web CEO

From Your Video To Your Promo April 20, 2011 – 12:24 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

I’ve talked here in several pieces about online video advertising as the current marketing trend.  Businesses with products and services needing to catch the senses consider self-video production often, but with anxiety.  Cisco’s Flip cameras are fine to do simple interviews at events or spotlight a nominal product.  Video is even more compelling when paired with an interactive website that contains strong pixellation, endearing the user to experience several pages.  The alcoholic beverage Desperados does a fabulous job of balancing this standard in their latest campaign.  I’ve actually never seen the beer in public, and am not typically a fan of hybrids.  But their business marketing mix has me intrigued enough to buy it, and that is the endgame of a video strategy.

That endgame is a more realistic achievement with a professional agency.  The investment can be tailored for your corporate budget.  Certain businesses have staff with the camera equipment to carry out sophisticated campaigns in high-definition video and spread them virally.  In the hands of a production professional, however, the dividends last for a long time.  A good production house will handle the technical aspects of your video demand, from a script to editing.  They can also assist with logo design, distribution, and product positioning.  Your brand equity is guaranteed to strengthen across demographics. Blueliner Marketing has a video production house located right across the Hudson River in Jersey City for small businesses named Anar Studios.  For more information, click here.

An entry on PRNewswire also discusses the benefit of video production. A picture may tell a thousand words, but a video can sell a lifetime of loyalty.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Digital Media, Podcast Production, Video Sharing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency nyc, Digital Media, eric giovon, new york video production agency, online video advertising