Internet Marketing Blog

Interactive PR as part of your Internet Marketing Campaigns

June 10, 2010 – 4:13 pm

As we all know, commercial businesses, organizations, not-for-profit associations and other high profile individuals maintain their public images using the well-known field of Public Relations. PR is all about shaping the appropriate message to the public and it involves a lot of functions that include: crisis management, publicity and maintaining a steady relationship with customers, communities, employees, investors, media, government and others with the industry.

The internet is much more than just a channel of communication. In the present scenario, the internet has become the fastest and most convenient way to communicate and to spread the message to the public in a cost effective model. Often called Interactive PR, Online PR or Digital PR, this process is helpful for companies of any size as it is a two-way communication that aims to build better relationships. When compared to the traditional PR, this method helps organizations build reliability with the target audience directly.

VSS data shows that PR spending in the US grew by more than 3% in 2009 to $3.7 billion. Also PR spending in America is predicted to go beyond $8 billion in 2013 with increased usage of corporate blogs and social media.

The important components of Interactive PR include: distributing press releases online with relevant keywords and optimizing for search engine rankings, news wire services, defining a new blogging strategy to engage prospects and customers in conversation about the products or services, effective podcasting, organizing webinars, starting discussions and following up in forums, creating news and events page in the website to cover the old and latest information about the company.

There is a greater demand for Interactive PR services than in previous years and firms of all sizes are looking at the ways they communicate with their prospects and customers. There are companies that do not practice PR on its own and may request help or outsource their needs for Online PR activities. This way they can build an ongoing relationship with the public and the media in a very cost effective manner.

Posted by Mohamed Mohideen
Posted in 7 Pillars of Internet Marketing, Blog Marketing, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Marketing, Marketing Agencies, Podcast Production, Public Relations, Search Engine Optimization, Small Business, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, Content Marketing, digital marketing, Digital PR, Interactive PR, Mohamed Mohideen, Online PR, Online Reputation Management, podcast marketing, Public Relations, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing

Social Media Marketing to Increase Sales

May 29, 2010 – 2:00 pm

Social Media Marketing is another internet marketing tool that is being widely used as part of many integrated marketing campaign to reach target audiences. With the emergence of Web 2.0, the web provides ample opportunities for people to build connections and share valuable information. Social media platforms can be easily accessed by anyone and thus can help organizations to create brand awareness of their products or services and to engage the audience in conversations.

The following are some of the benefits associated with Social Media Marketing, which include: Building exposure to businesses, higher rankings in search engines, increased traffic, qualified leads, new business development and relatively low expenditures. The top social media tools used commonly by marketers are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs.

Most companies are still trying to find the best ways to make use of social media platforms to market their products or services. An Omniture survey indicated that only 14% of businesses use mobile, video and social media marketing as part of their marketing programs. Recently, a number of companies have been outsourcing their social media marketing to specialized digital marketing agencies. Currently, about 25% of companies are outsourcing their social media programs in order to increase ROI and increase sales.

Charts from a CMO survey show that there is an increase of 60% in the overall social media marketing spending from 3.5% (August ’09) to 5.6% (February ’10). There has been significant growth in the field of social media marketing with a gradual increase in the budget allocation in recent years.

Blueliner Marketingis a full service internet marketing agency based in New York with offices in India and Bangladesh. Blueliner help clients place their products and services in front of their target audience through various social media marketing efforts that drive results.

Posted by Mohamed Mohideen
Posted in 7 Pillars of Internet Marketing, Blog Marketing, Content Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Mobile Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing, World, online advertising | 1 Comment »
Tags: Blog Marketing, blueliner india, Blueliner Marketing, Content Marketing, digital marketing, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Internet Marketing, Mohamed Mohideen, social media agency, Social Media Marketing, social media optimization, video marketing

Turning Prospects into Buyers with Content Marketing

May 13, 2010 – 12:13 pm

What do most marketers need when they want to attract, acquire and engage customers and potential accounts for their business? Consistently sharing information about their products or services can keep existing customers and the potential ones informed, thus creating a unique brand awareness which can result in increased sales and customer loyalty. In order to do this, you need to create and share informative and valuable content about products and services via different media.

This form of marketing is often referred to as Content Marketing, which is defined as “words and data to create unambiguous content that support meaningful, interactive experiences”, is now evolving as a new discipline. In addition to all your traditional marketing techniques, this form of marketing uses content to achieve higher sales through profitable actions from the customer and prospect sides.

What it takes, is an effective content strategy. Content development, delivery and administration are the three major points that need to be kept in mind when you define content strategy for any marketing plan. Rachel Lovinger explains more about content marketing in her article, Content Strategy – The Philosophy of Data. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Mohamed Mohideen
Posted in 7 Pillars of Internet Marketing, Blog Marketing, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Marketing, Marketing Agencies, Mobile Marketing, Photography, Podcast Production, Public Relations, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing, Website Analytics, Website Design, World, online advertising, search engine marketing, web development | 1 Comment »
Tags: Advertising, Blueliner Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Strategies, digital marketing, Interactive PR, Mobile Marketing, social media

Digital Conservation for Your Web Design

August 25, 2008 – 11:26 am

As we all know, green design is no longer about light bulbs and electric cars. Windmills and solar panels play an important part in sustaining energy and our future, but what about conserving our digital economy?

From producers to buyers and everything in between, all of you are powering web 2.0. and everyone will have a role in determining the shape of the next generation Internet. As more people get directly involved in producing content on the web, we all have the option to implement best-practices in ‘digital conservation’.

We know about the greening of data centers. Instead of busting out a new tech meme for green coding practices, let’s reuse some older terms. Below are some familiar terms to get you started thinking green in your designs, work-flows and coding practices. This is not meant to be a definition of sustainable web design but it could lead you to more research.

Reduce

Power requirements in web servers are going down. Energy Star compliance for computers was the beginning but data centers are now driving cooling, energy and bandwidth requirements. Hosting control panels are reducing the amount of support required by giving more control to the site owner and site designers. Better designs which include mature, standards-based languages and coding practices help insure we get the most logic from the least amount of code.

Web standards like XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0 help reduce the amount of code on a page. Emerging standards like POSH and other Microformats help designers write semantically-correct code leveraging existing standards. Spending less time learning new standards shortens learning curves. Shorter learning curves free designers to focus more on user needs and sustainability.

Recycle

Design patterns help recycle code, imagery, and media based on past-project requirements. One example might be shopping cart code that is recycled from product sku to product sku. The same JavaScript is reused while the variables get updated for each product skew. The associated graphical elements, like “Buy Now” and “Add to Cart” buttons might be recycled from other navigational aids found in the site design. Rich Media such as product video introductions can be recycled from product to product using the similar titles, intro and credits.

One key to recycling code is the separation of code from presentation and style. Themes are a great example of site design recycling since a theme can be easily duplicated, and recycled through designer customizations.

Reuse

Hot-swappable hardware such as hard drives are refurbished and disk images are reused across entire server farms. Virtualization software and platforms help optimize the entire process. Even though we’re just in the beginning stages of green design, the techniques we’re employing in the technology sector are amazing. It seems to have started in the data centers.

Data centers themselves are now being located near renewable energy sources and some web hosts are entirely off-the-grid. Just as the data centers were driven to go green by cost-savings, green design is beginning to take hold as standards progress.

Another example of “reuse” is the popular one-click installations offered by many web hosts. Entire websites are now installed with just a few clicks and an ever-increasing amount of code in site designs are reused. Portions of your site design may be reused on other sites such as social networks. Your CSS, product descriptions and contact information may be simply cut and paste between many sites.

In sum, conservation starts with a mindset and we all have the power to contribute in different ways.

Additional Reading

Web Standards Project

Sustainable Web Design

Sustainable Web Community

Seven steps to a green data center

Sustainability Defined at Wikipedia

Posted by Dali Singh
Posted in Graphic Design, Interactive Marketing, Marketing Agencies, Public Relations, Website Design, World, blog, green marketing, web development | 1 Comment »
Tags: green web design, recycle, reduce, reuse, sustainable

Facebook Applications – The New Interactive Marketing Trend

March 14, 2008 – 1:34 am

What commercial businesses are doing to capitalize on a unique platform

The industry for Facebook applications has exploded since the dramatic moment when Mark Zuckerburg first announced that he would make the programming that supported the popular social network available to programmers (see “Facebook’s FoodFight: A Marketer’s Data Dream Field“). But although wildly popular (there are currently 19,290 applications available to users) no one has really figured out an effective way to make money off of them. As Skype discovered the hard way, offering customers a free product is poor incentive for those same customers to upgrade at a cost.

The ultimate answer may lie in the pocketbooks of marketers. Although intrinsically a poor source for profit, facebook applications are a powerful, powerful marketing tool. Far less expensive than other internet-based marketing techniques, and far more engaging for customers, applications represent the next major evolution in interactive marketing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Dali Singh
Posted in Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media Marketing, blog | 1 Comment »
Tags: application marketing, facebook, facebook applications, Interactive Marketing, Interactive Media, social media, social networking

Marketing News: The Rebirth of The Industry Standard

February 13, 2008 – 4:14 pm

The once mighty must during web 1.0 has returned – The Industry Standard. Starting in 1998 it quickly rose to sell a record 7,558 advertising pages in 2000, making it 300 pages. The unfortunate victim of the dotcom crash it was bought up by IDG in bankruptcy court for $1 million and left to sit till now.

“We found that the brand had quite a bit of equity left,” says Derek Butcher, General Manager of The Industry Standard. “People remembered what the brand stood for before. Still, there’s obviously going to be a new generation of people who have no idea what it is.”

“We’ll have news coverage, but mainly from other sources such as IDG and bloggers,” says Butcher. “The area where we will try to differentiate ourselves is on the analysis side.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Arman Rousta
Posted in Business News, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Public Relations, Social Media Marketing, blog | No Comments »
Tags: ids, marketing industry news, the industry standard

President 2.0

January 25, 2008 – 6:23 pm

Considered one of the longest campaigns in American history, beginning nearly two years prior to the election day. The 2008 race for the White House is crowded and full of interactive PR, social media, new internet marketing, new avenues of media revenue and voter attraction.

Diverging from previous campaigns where a candidate was considered progressive if they had an online presence, in 2008 it is imperative for a candidate to have a focused online strategy. If a candidate lacks complex online marketing strategies and an army of social networking minions applying web 2.0 efforts they are behind the curve and if they don’t have an online presence they might as well concede the race.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Arman Rousta
Posted in Blog Marketing, Email Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Public Relations, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing, Website Analytics, World, blog, eCommerce, online advertising | 2 Comments »
Tags: 2008, Barak Obama, digg, eCommerce, facebook, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Interactive PR, John Edwards, John McCain, justin, media advertising, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, myspace, new internet marketing, online strategy, President, Presidential, race, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, social media, twitter, web 2.0, web analytics, white house, YouTube

MySpace Moving Into New Internet Marketing Arena

January 23, 2008 – 8:47 pm

MySpace and new marketing.

No one in 2004 ever thought that MySpace and contemporary media platforms where synonymous. But its four years and a $580 traditional million major media buyout later. MySpace, still the highest trafficked Social Networking site with 110 million active users a month. Now in 24 countries, the site is expected to make $800 million in revenue in 2008, the majority of that income will be from the advertising and marketing sectors. Google, recently inked an advertising deal with MySpace’s parent company, Fox Interactive Media for $900 million.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Arman Rousta
Posted in Business News, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing, Website Analytics, World, blog, eCommerce, online advertising | 4 Comments »
Tags: eCommerce, facebook, Fox Interactive Media, google, Interactive Media, Marketing, myspace, Public Relations, social networking, Yahoo

Featured in Crain’s New York Business

December 17, 2007 – 10:24 pm

We are pleased to announce that Blueliner Marketing’s case study in offshore outsourcing work to Bangladesh, as well as quotes from CEO Arman Rousta, have been used as the primary source for a front-page article in Crain’s New York Business, “Outsourcing Moves to Bangladesh”.

The article discusses how Bangladesh is a rising star in the international economy with industrial analysts from Goldman Sachs to Cisco Systems predicting that it has high potential to follow in the successful economic steps of the giant next door – India.

High turnover, rising salaries, and intense competition for talent have made India gradually less attractive to businesses seeking the dramatic cost savings traditionally associated with offshore outsourcing. On the other hand, Bangladesh has a rising population of tech-savvy workers, thanks to investments in IT infrastructure from the European Union, as well as extensive educational opportunities, which are supplemented by Indian educational institutions.

For Blueliner, the Bangladesh team has been a tremendous asset: bringing solid language skills, programming acumen, and tremendous work ethic to the company. The cost savings, as much as 50% over India, as well as quality work is passed onto our clients who appreciate the lower price of Blueliner’s services.

The entire article can be read here on our site or by purchasing a copy of Crain’s New York Business from newsstands this week only.

Posted by Dali Singh
Posted in Business News, Offshore Outsourcing, Public Relations, Small Business, World, blog | 1 Comment »
Tags: Bangladesh, Crain's New York Business, India, new york, Offshore Outsourcing, Public Relations

Facebook’s FoodFight: A Marketer’s Data Dream Field

October 11, 2007 – 4:48 pm

So we all know the biggest news in social networking. That’s right, it’s Facebook, the site whose clean design and safety features have made it the fastest growing, if not largest, hot spot on the web. Students love it (professionals too) and with 43 million users posting unprecedented levels of personal information, it’s also a marketer’s data dream field.

There’s a problem, however. Facebook’s safety features, while neutralizing most malicious users, also have made it a nasty chore to gather anything besides a consumer’s name and network information.

The result was a challenge: how could the market’s brightest innovators create a model for gathering data? One young entrepreneur, according to the latest issue of Business 2.0, thinks he’s found the answer. Using Facebook’s open platform for programming design, California’s Seth Goldstein in collaboration with David Gentzel created a series of applications, including Happy Hour, (fluff) Friends, and FoodFight under the startup SocialMedia.

Click the links below to get a glimpse of these popular Facebook applications.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Dali Singh
Posted in Interactive PR, Public Relations, Small Business, Social Media Marketing, blog, online advertising | No Comments »
Tags: facebook, foodfight, social media