February 26th, 2010
OIR Interactive has launched a mobile version of CharlestonSouthern.edu for Charleston Southern University. The site is available to anyone with web-enabled mobile phone service at mobile.charlestonsouthern.edu.
The new CSU Mobile Web offers easy one click access to sports scores and news, campus events, weather conditions and emergency alert information. Charleston Southern’s mobile site has been designed to improve user experience for all mobile devices.
“CSU mobile web allows us to connect with students — anyplace, anytime, anywhere — with a single click,” said John Strubel, Director of Integrated Marketing for Charleston Southern. “Mobile web is quickly becoming a required marketing arm at colleges and universities.”
Charleston Southern Mobile Web Features:
- Campus Events: The Horton School of Music, CSU Lyric Theatre, CSU Players, Convocation, Elevate and a full schedule of sporting events take place regularly throughout the year. With CSU Mobile Web, faculty, staff, students, alumni and the general public can access current campus events from their phone.
- Commuter Students: With more than 2/3 of the student population commuter students at Charleston Southern now, with a single click, commuters and adult students can stay in touch with news and events.
- Sports: A member of the NCAA Division I Big South Conference, Charleston Southern fields teams in football, basketball, baseball, softball, women’s soccer, cross country, track and field, golf, tennis and volleyball. Stay up-to-date on the latest scores and team home schedule.
- News: The latest news and information about Charleston Southern will now be at your fingertips from any web-enabled mobile phone.
- Weather: Get the latest weather conditions in the Lowcountry.
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January 28th, 2010
Pack your bags! It’s time to head down to Charelston, SC and join us for an American Marketing Association Charleston presentation. The show starts at noon on February 11, 2010.
Justin Rockwell, Owner and Web Strategist of OIR Interactive, LLC an interactive marketing agency in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. and OIR’s E-mail Marketing Specialist Teri Backfield will dive into the world of mobile and e-mail marketing. They’ll be taking a look beyond basic digital marketing and focusing on what new digital methods marketers can use and the analytics that go along with them for the best possible impact and return on investment.
While mobile marketing is still in the beginning stages as compared to the more mature advertising mediums such as television, radio, print and even the Internet, mobile is quickly emerging as an advertising channel with full-impact. Rockwell will explain the various methods of mobile marketing, who is currently using them, and what works and what doesn’t so marketers can get started with mobile today.
Backfield will take a hands-on approach to interpreting e-mail marketing analytics and reading between the lines to maximize your e-mail marketing exposure. We have all sent an e-mail for a business, now it’s time to do it right by following examples of industry leaders and encouraging you to create new trends to help your brand’s e-mail marketing messages grow.
UPDATE: The luncheon was great and was one of the biggest crowds the AMA has had! As promised here is a link to the presentations should anyone interested in viewing.
presentation
Posted in Email Marketing, General, Mobile Marketing | No Comments »
December 1st, 2009
Google is the expert at releasing fantastic new things. Google Product Extensions is, in our opinion, one of those great new things. Product Extensions is a new feature of AdWords (Google’s infamous pay-per-click text ad network). When your pay-per-click ad appears in Google search, and you have a Google Merchant Account, products associated with that pay-per-click ad will appear underneath your pay-per-click ad when someone hits the [+] sign to “expand” the offer. And, to make it even more fantastic, if the person clicks on your AdWords ad text, or a product in the expanded area, your only charged for one click, and you are not charged at all if someone hits the [+] sign to see what you have to offer but doesn’t click on your ad. Yes, that’s right, people can now window shop your products on Google, and it won’t cost you a dime. This product is just one more reason why Google always stays on top.
In the example above OfficeMax, Sears, and Sam’s Club are using the right sponsored links to highlight new laptops.
And in this example, Sears is using the main sponsored links to sell HD televisions.
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November 9th, 2009
When I bump into people in the Myrtle Beach area and explain that my business, OIR, offers interactive marketing services I find that sometimes people aren’t 100 percent sure as to what interactive marketing is. Since there are only a few interactive marketing agencies likes ours in Myrtle Beach I am not too surprised. So allow me to take just a minute to explain what interactive marketing is and the services that are included when someone says “we offer Myrtle Beach interactive marketing services”.
First off, lets compare interactive marketing vs. traditional marketing. Traditional marketing covers, what “traditionally” has been used in advertising for decades. This includes: print, radio, television and most methods of outdoor advertising. So if you hear an advertisement on the radio, or see a flier in the mail while in Myrtle Beach this was likely created by an traditional marketing agency.
In contrast, an interactive agency deals with items that consumers will “interact” with. Think websites, banner ads, kiosks, mobile phones. A Myrtle Beach website and any banner ads placed on it has likely been developed by an interactive agency.
So why the difference?
Some marketing agencies in Myrtle Beach might try to blur the lines between interactive and traditional marketing. Unfortunately this is never a safe move. Traditional and interactive marketing mediums are so different an individual who has spent their life producing print material understanding margins, bleeds, colors and best practices likely isn’t going to have the slightest knowledge of web, parameters and its best practices.
That is exactly where here in Myrtle Beach we’re the only true interactive marketing agencies. Our core focus and understanding is on interctive mediums, how they work, how they’re developed and how their used to give out clients the best possible results.
Think of it this way: You wouldn’t go to a mechanic in Myrtle Beach for lunch because he knows how to make a great lasagna. Just like you wouldn’t go to a restaurant to have your car worked on by the chef because he knows how to change his oil. You keep them separate to for the best possible service.
Tags: Interactive Marketing, Myrtle Beach, OIR Interactive, services
Posted in Interactive Marketing | No Comments »
November 4th, 2009
There is nothing better than looking back in history to look for future guidance. During the 2008 holiday season, online merchants faced the most challenging conditions in e-commerce history. While there have been some optimistic economic signs recently, it makes sense to learn from last year’s experience to prepare for this year’s selling season.
Here are some key trends and highlights from the 2008 holiday season study conducted by shop.org in partnership with Shipzilla that you can use when planning for the coming season.
Consumer habits in 2008
- 43% of consumers started their holiday shopping before November, almost 2/3 didn’t finish their shopping until the last two weeks of December.
- Convenience and free shipping offers were key drivers in pushing consumers to shop online versus brick and mortar stores.
- Seventy percent of consumers found an online store because they had shopped there before, while search engine results drove awareness of sites for one-third.
- Over one-third of consumers frequently used customer ratings and reviews as part of their online shopping experiences with another 30% citing occasional use.
- In terms of site features, featured sale item pages were frequently utilized in contrast to gift idea centers and gift finder/product choosers, which went largely unused.
- Gift cards accounted for less than one-quarter of total online gift purchases, but the volume of gift cards with values under $10 grew considerably compared to 2007.
Website owner observations from 2008
- Over 80% of website owners concluded that email to their subscriber/customer list was by far the most effective online marketing vehicle.
- Paid search was the first (39%) among marketing channels that gained the most customers who ultimately made purchases on the site.
- Among promotions, almost half of merchants surveyed said that percentage-off coupons and free standard shipping offers (with conditions) attracted the most customers.
The important do’s and don’ts for this holiday season
- Test your website’s search functionality and overhaul FAQs with holiday-specific information in mind.
- Train customer service reps about your products and help them understand how to close a sale.
- Increase the use of tried and true online marketing vehicles such as organic/natural search and emails to your customer list.
- Tap social media such as blogs and RSS feeds, social shopping sites, and Facebook/MySpace.
- Offer limited-time-only discounts.
- Resist the temptation to extend shipping deadlines.
- Don’t overlook the potential of free returns offers.
- Keep a close eye on the processes for shipping, fulfillment, and order management every day of the holiday season.
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October 30th, 2009
Want an easy way for viewers to be engaged with your television show? Give them the ability to determine what happens in the show through text messaging. This is exactly what The Travel Channel has done for their Live Ghost Adventures show airing 10/30/09 starting at 8pm and going into the wee hours of the morning.
Viewers can text the word “LIVE” plus their message to 66798 to send the Ghost Adventure team a greeting, warning or message. Selected messages will appear on air during the live event.
Additionally, viewers can determine what happens on the show by texting A, B or C to 66789 to decide which section of the abandoned Medical Center they would like to see “Nick do a solo vigil”.
(from the Travel Channel)
Tags: Live Texting, television, Text-2-Vote
Posted in Mobile Marketing | No Comments »
September 23rd, 2009
You’ve heard us talking a lot about SMS marketing lately. We’ve been toting how great and wonderful it is. The truth? It IS great and wonderful -and then some. But we’ve overlook some of the fundamentals of SMS marketing. So we’re going to take a step back and briefly explain exactly how your SMS messages are sent.
From the outside it seems the text messaging is all smoke an mirrors. Some might even assume it’s strictly communication between two phones. Lets dive into the details by following the chart below.
This is an example of a mobile terminated message being sent by our systems. An example would be you’re sending a discount to 5,000 mobile subscribers. This is what happens.
To start you must compile the message. You have two key factors here: 1) What you want to say, and 2) who you want to say it to. OIR builds the message for you and segments the list of recipients to make sure the right message is sent to the right person.
We can take it a step further by including custom variables, or “message parameters”. This could be things like coupon codes, different phone numbers for call tracking purposes, or a subscribers first name to make the text message they receive more personal.
Once the message is written and who you want it sent to is defined we send it as a nice little package through our custom built API connection to our SMS aggregator.
The aggregator is the control point between the wireless carriers and our servers sending the message. Without the aggregator it would be our responsibility to follow through with the red tape and complexities of the wireless carriers. A quality aggregator has a good standing relationship with the carriers to help ensure keywords, short codes and message are properly passed through between the server and their systems.
The aggregator then sends the data onto the proper carrier who handles sending the message to the specific phone you were intending. This is all done in a matter of seconds allowing your message to be delivered almost instantly.
At the same time, the wireless carriers send back data to the aggregator, which forwards the data back to the OIR servers so we can provide the custom reports to let you know the results of the send. If you’re familiar with email marketing, the data we get back will make a lot of sense to you.
- Delivered: If a message successfully made it to it’s intended recipient, we will get data back confirming this.
- Queued: The message is waiting to be delivered. Likely the person has their phone off, or is in an area without any reception. The message will be delivered as soon as they’re back in range or their phone is back on.
- Bounced: The message that was sent did not make it to a phone for a specific reason. Usually due to an incorrectly entered phone number.
- Unsubscribed: An SMS member that has chosen to opt out of all future alerts and messages. These members are automatically removed from your list.
Posted in Mobile Marketing | No Comments »
September 18th, 2009
Last week OIR Interactive launched the start of a full scale text message marketing campaign for Legends In Concert. To start building a list of mobile subscribers we sent the below email to all of Legend’s Myrtle Beach email subscribers to encourage them to participate in this text-to-win contest.
The campaign was also broadcast on all of Legends’ social media channels including Twitter, Facebook and their blog. We saw a little viral activity with area businesses also promoting the contest on their site/blogs.
Posted in Mobile Marketing | No Comments »
September 14th, 2009
OIR Interactive is pleased to announce the launch of the new American Marketing Association Charleston website. The AMA was in need for a new website and we were happy to assist them and build a new site they can be proud of.
The AMA felt that their previous site did not accurately reflect them as a marketing organization. They wanted a site that represented them as a group at the fore-front of marketing. Not one that lagged behind and followed the trends of others.
They were frustrated about not having the ability to easily maintain the content on their site. Their social media channels were spread out and required maintenance and updating in different locations. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and their blog all required them to manually update from their separate logins.
After a brief discussion of understanding their needs we decided it would make the most sense to build the new site out into Wordpress. And since we were building a new site from the ground up, it made sense to include a fresh new design.
Wordpress, if you haven’t worked with it before is an open source publishing tool with a bunch of pre built modules that allows people without much programming knowledge to have a sophisticated website up and running, and quickly mash together all of their social media channels under one applications.
Photos can be uploaded to flickr, and twitter updates can be published all from the admin section. In addition, when a new article, page or content chunk is posted on the site, it can be setup to not only published there, but also on LinkedIn, and appear inside their Facebook page.
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September 1st, 2009
Including a promotional contest is a perfect way to maximize the effectiveness of a mobile marketing campaign. Using a text-to-win promotion can create a positive buzz for your company and make you look like an early adopter (not one that follows the lead of other businesses) all while building your ever growing list of mobile subscribers.
The way a text-to-win contest works is by having your respondents text to your short code within an allotted amount of time for a chance to win a prize. Of course, the more interesting the prize is, the more interest people will have in entering. At the end of the contest, one mobile number is chosen at random as the winner. You can then send them a text telling them where/how to collect their winnings.
The beauty of this method of texting is that it allows people to participate though a medium that is convenient to them. Rather than forcing them to fill out a piece of paper, or directing them to your website to enter, participants can enter quickly and effortless right where they are. Using a SMS based contest can be most effective at large-scale events such as concerts or sporting events where the message to enter can easily be broadcast to a large amount of people at the same time.
Once your contest is complete, the benefits don’t stop there. You can use the new contacts to your advantage. Advertising your company in the weeks following the promotion informing the entrants of upcoming special events and future scheduled promotions. Keeping communication between your patrons simple and convenient to all.
Posted in Email Marketing | 2 Comments »
OIR Interactive has launched a mobile version of CharlestonSouthern.edu for Charleston Southern University. The site is available to anyone with web-enabled mobile phone service at mobile.charlestonsouthern.edu.