Judith Lewis, search director at i-level, Europe’s largest digital communications agency, discusses SEM in this article for SES Magazine. She notes that “Search engine marketing, while a complex discipline, is part math, part psychology, part marketing, and part creativity” It really isn’t a black art, although some would say that it is an occult science.

Check out the print article here.

Ralph Tegtmeier, co-founder and principal of fantomaster.com: “We have been in the Internet business since 1999. You do tend to get a bit jaded after all that time spent in pursuing countless fads, the dotcom bubble, the incessant hype over IT, and lots more. The Twitter experience, however, has effectively managed to revert all of this – not the least because it’s so eminently profitable if you do it right.

So, what’s involved in ‘doing it right’? Ralph outlines in this article the tact to take when automating your twitter campaign. The biggest challenge is figuring out how to engage followers. He counters the contention that “Twitter is an utter waste of time…you can’t make any money with Twitter”

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Bill Siwicki, editor of Mobile Commerce Report, put together an interesting piece for Intenet Retailer Magazine discussing the pros and cons of mobile sites and mobile apps. He contrasts sites (which have a large reach) with apps (which provide a better user experience). In addition to the clearing up some of the confusion regarding the 2 marketing channels, he discusses why one would go in one direction or the other. For example, an app would potentially have access to the address on someone’s smartphone, where a site would not. Conversely, a site would be available to far more users without the overhead of having to download and install an app.

Read article on Internet Retailer here

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Keith Peterson, the senior vice president of the data division of Experian Marketing Services writes this piece for Target Marketing outlining strategies for reactivating stagnant customers. This can be some of the most rewarding ‘cold-calling’ one can do. These folks have bought from you before and just need a little nudge to bring them back into the fold. Today, this nudge can take many different forms (perhaps more than one), given the new social media explosion.

Read the print article here

Access the TM article online here

Dion Hinchcliffe is an internationally-recognized business strategist and enterprise architect who has worked for 20 years to bring innovative solutions to clients in the Global 2000, federal government, and Internet startup community. He tackles the question “What is Web 2.0?” in this article on AIIM.org. AIIM was founded in 1943 as the National Microfilm Association and later became the Association for Information and Image Management.

For some time I had assumed that web 2.0 was a technology, like xhtml or perhaps a wider browser layout. As Dion describes in this article, it is really more about a collaborative, distributive approach to the handling of data. If you’re not on board, Web 2.0′s time is here and now.

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See the online version here

The shift is on from reputation-based deliverability toward engagement-based factors for bulk emailers. Reputation-based strategies are no longer enough; one must get readers to actually engage one’s email, by either clicking “this is not spam”, or otherwise interacting with an email. Some of the major webmail players are now taking into account how well a marketer engages the reader. Read Michelle Eichner’s account:

online, here

in print, here

Internet Retailer reports that two studies, one by Ecoconsultancy.com and the other by NetElixir suggest that SEM marketing is on the rise as the economy improves. Conversion rates and average order values are on the rise. However, this news must be tempered with the fact that CPC is on the rise.

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Jon Myers, of Search Engine Strategies, talks about why you can’t ‘set it and forget it’. One must not be content with a bucket of stale search terms. Targeted keywords should be an evolving list. We are aiming at a moving target, after all. Likewise, bid strategies need to be tailored to the account.

Read the print article here

Check out John’s video here

John goes indepth into the questions that we should be asking about social media. Is this something my company should be doing? Is there a payoff? What are the pitfalls? Do you know what the three R’s of social media are?

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Bill Siwicki discusses the results of the Internet Retailer Survey, showing that a significant part of some e-retailers revenue is coming from International sales, despite the fact that few are offering International-friendly tools on their e-commerce sites.

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