5 Billion Minutes

In today’s world, users want the breaking news at their fingertips, and CoveritLive (CiL) is the latest software application that makes this possible. Whether you’re a political candidate hosting a Q&A session or a news station covering the President’s State of the Union, CoveritLive can get the word out to your audience. CiL was built to handle multiple users at once - and by multiple I mean in the hundreds of thousands. But that is not the only amazing feature; here are a few of others:

• Stream live video
• On the fly translations
• Reader Comment API – client’s can setup their own chat application and reader can comment from mobile phones or external chat rooms
• RSS feeds – provide readers with writer and event feeds
• Moderators or Writers can cover their event from their iPhone, Blackberry or smartphone
• Publish up to 12 Twitter Accounts
• Invite up to 25 panelists to provide commentary
• Integrate 3rd party software like YouTube, WordPress, Twitter
• Branded templates – Viewer window templates allow you to add your logo
• News Flash and Scoreboards
• Manage readers comments
• Create a Media Library
• Embed Large photos
• Deploy Quick Polls for your readers
• Advertise

What would be the cost for such a cool tool? You’d be surprised at how inexpensive this software is. There are three different pricing structures: Basic, Ad Supported and Subscription. The basic package is free of charge  and there aren’t any ads and up to 5,000 unique readers a month are allowed to view your live event. Ad Supported is also free, but serves ads, and after 45 days revenue sharing is possible. The last package is a one-year subscription, which contains no advertising and costs $400 per month.

Here are a couple of examples of companies that utilize CoveritLive:

PhilliesNation
General Motors
NBA – The Boston Celtics
CBC National Post

A recent report from eMarketer shows that having content accessible from mobile devices/networks is becoming increasingly important to end users of these devices. Mobile device manufacturers are challenged with where, how and when their users want to consume content. With the creation of netbooks, e-readers, gaming devices and super intelligent smartphones - users are craving more and more fresh content. Users of smartphone devices surf the Internet 3 times as much as regular mobile phone users.

So what types of content and marketing messages are best suited for delivery on smartphone devices? We can look at what many of the fast-food chains like Qdoba Mexican Grill have done. They have started mobile loyalty programs. Qdoba says they have seen good results from their mobile campaign, they claim an average rate of redemption on their coupons at 16% and as high as 40% in some college locations. Locally, I have noticed this trend as well with Jack in the Box and the Phoenix Suns. Whenever the Phoenix Suns score 99 points or more users who have signed up with the Suns text club can receive 2 free tacos. You could take your ticket from that night’s game into any valley Jack in the Box and redeem them for the free tacos. This is genius. The Suns and JIB (Jack in the Box) have figured out how to not only get more business but to build their customer list. And who doesn’t like free tacos?

Photo: nardell

According to Forrester Research, by the year 2014 interactive marketing, will hit almost $55 billion in the US. It’s expected to grow from 12% of overall ad spend in 2009 to 21% over the next five years. What does this mean? More and more companies are adjusting their ad budget to spend less on traditional advertising, like print ads and billboards, and going online to market their company. One simple way to do this is through email marketing. Here are 6 questions you should be asking yourself when starting an email-marketing program:

1. What is the primary purpose of the emails that your company sends?

If your company is using emails to send out monthly newsletters consider expanding your message to action-oriented emails. Poll your readers to find out what messages and/or offers they would be interested in learning more about.

2. How are your company’s emails deployed?

Sending emails out manually through your Outlook or any individual email account can make you and your company look like amateurs, not to mention that you could even be sending your customers viruses. Use a third party online marketing tool specifically designed to send emails, such as Lyris, Activate Direct, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor. These systems offer features to track open rates, click throughs, and can even integrate other applications your company may be using like a customer relationship manager (CRM).

3. How does your company design and manage email assets?

Designing emails from scratch each time you want to deploy an email can be very time-consuming, utilize a template approach. Users may lose interest if you continue to use the same template over time so design a series of templates for your email campaign.

4. Does your company utilize landing pages for your email campaigns?

There is a balance of marketers that feel implementing individual landing pages is far too time consuming, but they could not be more wrong. Directing all traffic to one specific place eliminates the ability to effectively traffic the success of your campaign. It can also be frustrating for your user if they get to a page and the page is not specific to the email they received. The most effective landing page uses a combination of the offer, making the user feel the offer is unique to them and include a call to action.

5. Does your company test offers, lists, subject lines or creative?

Your company should constantly be testing email communications to your readers. This will allow you to refine your message(s) and get rid of poor performing campaigns or programs along with segmenting your list of users. Select a percentage of your database like 10-20% and test a two different messages or offers, even test the subject line within these messages.

6. Does your company test to optimize deliverability, as well as frequency, and days in which email deployment is most effective?

Deliverability is important information for every successful email program. The time and frequency of email deployment can also be a factor in the success of your deliverability. What works for one company may not work for yours. The only way to truly know what works for you is to test, after all isn’t email marketing a game of “trial and error”? Having conclusive results will help you refine your email campaign and build a more effective outcome.