Advertising & Marketing Blog

In a great and honest post by a friend of mine at Yahoo!, Matt Lillig makes a good argument for retailers to care about digital coupons as a major force for driving in-store engagement and sales in a multi-trillion dollar industry that is offline retail commerce. Check out the full blog post here.

I completely agree with a blog post on search engine insider (found here) that talks about how search marketers need to sell the sizzle of their product and reason to spend more money on this versus traditional channels. The article talks about how search marketers need the big idea and big comparison point to make search a substantial part in the marketing mix. My belief has always been that Search, whether SEM or SEO, is the NEW direct mail, except in reverse.

Marketing doesn’t get more old school than print (newspaper and direct mail). Direct marketers have always relied on targeting and push-marketing to drive ROI and sales conversions, and it’s worked for 50+ years!

Search marketers need to understand that they could stand to increase their share of budget 5X if only they could convince the CMO that search performs better than direct mail. This isn’t hard to prove and studies have been done to show relative ROI of SEM versus direct mail in driving in-store sales for retailers (check this out).

Given marketers spend billions a year on print advertising and direct mail, this might just be the big picture angle search marketers are looking for.

I read a very interesting article on Forbes by a bunch of venture capitalists on the potential for “appifying” consumer credit and debit cards. The concept is simple… If consumer payment cards and the payment systems overall could exist in the cloud where there is real-time everywhere connectivity, the possibilities for marketers would be endless.

While awe-inspiring and futuristic, there are a lot of “what-if’s” baked in there. I’d love to see this become a reality but start-ups are unlikely going to move the heavily regulated (do these guys know what PCI is actually about) payments industry forward at any meaningful rate. Great article nonetheless and definitely gets your juices flowing!

Great article here on Paypal’s big moves into offline payments. They are one of two or three companies best positioned to disrupt the traditional payments companies, often the bane of retailers’ existence. Google wallet is going to get a run for their money, or perhaps not get off the starting line at all.

A new Yahoo! blog post is showcasing a joint study with RevTrax. This new study (found here) highlights the impact that search clicks have on in-store sales. The answer is a resounding affirmation that if you own physical stores and you want to drive sales and traffic with a high ROI, you need to be using search marketing.

RevTrax(R) recently released a new data study showing which days of the week and times of day are ideal for maximizing response rates from consumers to online coupons that drive in-store sales. Check it out here.

A flattering article on Daily Deal Media, shows some insights into Groupon’s financials. They actually broke even in terms of profitability and posted some impressive gains in terms of revenue growth and customer growth, despite pulling back on marketing spending. Check out the complete article.

In a recent article on Internet Retailer, mobile coupons is all the rage. It’s a big opportunity for physical retailers, restaurants of all sizes, as well as for consumers who love how easy it is versus print coupons.

One of my takeaways is that this is really a trend report showing the future potential out to 2016, and sort of discounts the current environment we are all in where adoption of mobile coupons is still a drop in the overall coupon bucket. There’s no doubt this channel will grow faster and faster, it’s just not obvious to me that it’s significant for marketers today.

In a very interesting article posted in late September on Field Marketing and Brand Experience, Valassis announced a move towards making the manufacturers’ coupon business more digital. The concept of digital-clearing of coupons without requiring paper coupons to travel from point A (retail store) to point B (Often Mexico with U.S. coupons).

There are tons of issues with digital clearing of coupons but also tons of benefits. It’s unlikely it will ever replace physical coupon settlement and clearinghouse functions (at least anytime soon). It’s a big step for an industry that is over 100 years old and slow to move down the path of innovation.

Maybe they’re just being used the wrong way…

In an article on i-media connection, Sean Cummings wrote a “no-frills” article about how QR codes are destroying the credibility of the ad industry. Ad agencies put these codes on print ads to be cool and innovative and drive consumer engagement in a digital world. However, consumers don’t get it, so what’s the point?

Check out this article for a nay-sayers perspective…