DD Launches a Flurry of CSS, SEO Optimized Sites

The Summer of ‘07 was a busy one for the information architects, designers, writers and programmers here at DigitalDay. In July we launched three CSS, standards-compliant client sites that immediately began paying SEO dividends for our client.

A special tip-of-the-hat to Adam, the best HTML/CSS developer who’s ever worked at DigitalDay. In the development process, he’s one of the guys at the end of the line who still needs to meet deadlines even when his allotted time has been compressed by the rest of the team and the client. In today’s tough talent environment, it’s refreshing to work with a smart, hard-working and enthusiastic co-worker who “gets the web.”

DigitalDay Web Design Intern Finishes Another Summer

Cleaning out my email this morn, I re-read a thank you note from one of our recurring interns, Dan Klammer:

I want to thank everyone for another well-spent summer working here at DigitalDay. I am very lucky to have had a job/internship at a place like this; the people are great, the atmosphere is relaxed, the projects are worthwhile, and the experience is priceless. It’s pretty hard to beat.

I wish the best of luck to the future of DigitalDay and everyone that makes this place what it is… and maybe I will see you all in the near future.

Thanks again and take care,

Dan

Dan first interned with us as an HTML Production Assistant through Walsh Jesuit High School’s Senior Experience program. He moved on to the University of Dayton to study graphic design and has come back to DigitalDay the past three summers. Each year his skill set has improved to where he could take the design lead on several projects.

Dan just left again to finish his senior year at Dayton.

Good luck Dan, and thanks.

Will Microsoft’s Surface Kill the PC — Doubt it.

Some are saying Microsoft’s Surface, a table-top computer system, will kill the desktop. I think it will just create an opportunity for more screens, and more development, just as the new mobile technology has.

It’s supposed to launch in the “Winter of 2007″ in commercial applications like retail and restaurants. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get into the home — if ever.

The web site is very well done:

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Left or Right? A Simple Social Experiment

Social interaction doesn’t have to be complicated to be interesting or effective. Jeff Croft’s Left/Right? is elegant in its simplicity. It’s a two-page site that poses the simplest of questions, then graphically displays the answer and softly asks for a “comment”.

In 10 days, it’s had more than 1,100 responders and 45 comments. It will be interesting to see how long this lives and how far it will grow.

http://www.themaninblue.com/experiment/LeftRight/

CPG and B-to-B Email Marketing Services

As a full-service interactive marketing agency, DigitalDay offers the full compliment of online marketing solutions to help clients succeed online. Our experience with Fortune 500 online marketers over the past 10 years has helped make us experts in driving site traffic and increasing conversions.

In addition to Search Engine Marketing, Banner Advertising, Online Promotions and Viral Techniques, Email marketing has emerged as one of our core strengths. Today, DigitalDay’s Email Marketing Solution offers online marketers a turnkey solution – from objective-driven strategy through dynamic creative execution.

Based in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, DigitalDay works with CPG and clients nationwide to design and develop email customer-focused marketing programs that generate measurable results.

Our Email Marketing Capabilities
DigitalDay provides email marketing capabilities tailored to your online marketing needs and budgets. Our email solutions include:

• Email Marketing Strategy, based on business and web objectives, to define and design measurable solutions.
• Creative Services, from concept, copywriting and best-practices design ensuring the right message is on target with your brand and your customers’ needs.
• Dynamic Personalization helps tailor email campaigns to your customers’ personal preferences, increasing interaction with your brand.
• Campaign Automation produces multi-part mailings based on opens and click-throughs to create communication that engages and inspires.
• Demographic and Behavioral Segmentation not only allows targeted messaging, but also results in groundbreaking analysis through our robust reporting capabilities.
• Regulatory Compliance and Best Practices experience helps maintain Email Marketing Compliance, adhere to best practices and effectively manage Email Subscriptions and Opt-Outs.
• Reporting and Analysis to help evaluate ROI and effectiveness.
• Technical Support & Programming to create or integrate email programs into brand sites, CRM systems, or data warehouses.

Our services don’t just stop at engaging your customers through opens. We can design and implement Landing Pages or Promotional Micro-Sites to increase conversion rates, keep users on your Website and keep them coming back.

Our Email Marketing Partners:
DigitalDay has established partnerships with best-in-class industry leaders to provide a rock-solid email delivery and reporting platform.

• Silverpop is one of the world’s foremost Email Service Providers and has gained recognition from Jupiter Research as one of the top ESP’s 5 years running. DigitalDay relies on Silverpop’s applications and network to serve as its Email Distribution platform. Silverpop maintains deliverability on behalf of our clients through their systems and by employing their ISP Relations Team to ensure that your messages will continue to get through, even as conditions change daily across the Internet.
• Email Experience Council is a global professional organization striving to enhance the image of email marketing and communications, while celebrating and advocating its importance in business, and its ROI value. The EEC is committed to regularly conducting a broad series of email initiatives for a variety of organizations that highlight the positive impact and importance of email as a marketing tool, communications vehicle and branding device.
• Akamai provides a Content Distribution Network for all campaigns sent using DigitalDay’s services. All image content is stored on the CDN so that the content of your emails remains intact in the event of any outage and when your emails are sent they won’t slow or crash your Website because of the influx of activity.
• Peer1 is DigitalDay’s managed hosting provider. We currently host Websites and Web-enabled applications for Fortune 500 companies and leading consumer and B-to-B brands. We can host landing pages and other online campaign elements to ensure that your Email Marketing campaigns reach maximum exposure and remain intact.
• Pivotal Veracity helps DigitalDay to provide content scoring of Email Campaigns while they’re being created so that spam filter triggers are alerted before your email campaigns are sent. After being sent Inbox Deliverability is monitored at major ISPs to provide real-time data on success of the sends. In addition, any Abuse Complaints or Unsubscribes through service providers are automatically captured.

A Cost-Effective Online Coupon Alternative for CPGs

The jury is in — Printable Online Coupons are a very effective interactive marketing tactic. In addition to a coupon’s traditional marketing benefits (generating trial, demand and increased market share), on online coupon program can dramatically help improve a CPG marketer’s web metrics — increasing new site traffic and repeat visits, encouraging more robust registration, increase email opt-ins and build customer profiles.

An example of DigitalDay’s Coupon Engine on the R.W. Knudsen & Family brand site.

Study after study prove that online coupon usage, acceptance and redemption continues to increase. In a recent survey, PriceRunner reports:

• Nearly three-fourths of consumers (73%) used at least one coupon they found online within the past six months. Almost one-in-five (19%) reported using online coupons six or more times in the past six months.
• Online coupon usage increases with income – 48% of $75k+ households used online coupons at least 4x per year compared to 23% for less than $35k households.

Thanks to consumer demand and better controls, channel resistance to online coupons has practically disappeared. Retailers readily accept bar-coded online coupons and most of the larger CPG brands have incorporated printable coupons into their online programs. Retailers also have the right to reject printed online coupons so it’s important to implement a coupon program that minimizes rejection and, consequently, consumer dissatisfaction.

Online Coupon Delivery Options
Like any marketing program, an online coupon initiative should start with an objective-based, strategic plan. An interactive marketing agency, like DigitalDay, can help craft and execute an appropriate online coupon solution, from design to delivery.

To actually deliver the coupons for a client, DigitalDay offers two options:

A. We can coordinate a program with any of large coupon delivery companies like Coupons, Inc. or through affiliate programs like Coupons.com. Typically, these larger coupon delivery companies require a significant set up fee per coupon ($2,500 +) and then charge $.10 or more for every coupon that’s downloaded by a consumer. They also require consumers to download an Active-X file.

B. We can license, integrate and manage our proprietary DigitalDay Online Coupon Engine Service which features:

• No Active-X component to download
• No additional per-download costs
• Creating the coupon (graphic design, copy writing, bar code generation)
• Integrating the DD Coupon Engine into your brand site or hosting the coupon on our servers
  Consumer registration and opt-in
• Download limits either by consumer, for the entire campaign or both
• Fraud protection through personalization (consumer’s name is printed on the coupon), print limits, database checks
• Monthly Reporting (downloads, opt-ins)

Our typical full-service set-up fee for integrating the 1st coupon into an existing brand site is $2,500 which includes designing and building the branded landing page to compliment your site. Each additional coupon creative is $800 with no additional set up charges and no per-download cost.

Marketing the Online Coupon
Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they’ll come. It’s important to market an online coupon program just as you’d do any other promotion. DigitalDay can help promote your coupons through a combination of email marketing, banner advertising, Pay-Per-Click, viral tactics or even rebuilding your brand site.

Whether you’re a large national marketer ready to test the online couponing waters or a regional brand with a limited budget, DigitalDay will tailor a solution to meet your needs. For more information or an initial consultation, contact us.

Viddler Makes Video Super-Social

Imagine Mystery Science Theater where viewers not only add pop-up comments, but can also add video comments. That’s what Viddler offers.

Here’s video mavens Justine and Desiree of Mommy, Pack My Lunch explaining its features:

A List of Interesting Web 2.0 Sites

In doing a little research on a project we’re developing, I compiled the following list of some new and not-so-new Web 2.0 sites
(the descriptions come from the actual sites):

deviantART
Deviant is “the largest art community in the world! As a member, you can collect favourites, submit art, and track your friends and favourite artists.

DropSend
“The answer to emailing large files”

Eventful
“The world’s largest collection of events”

Ficlets
“A ficlet is a short story that enables you to collaborate with the world. Once you’ve written and shared your ficlet, any other user can pick up the narrative thread by adding a prequel or sequel.

Imeem
IMEEM is an online community where artists, fans & friends can promote their content, share their tastes, and discover blogs, photos, music and video.

Jaiku
Jaiku is Twitter on steroids. It’s main goal is to:“. . . bring people closer together by enabling them to share their presence. For us, presence is about everyday things as they happen - what you’re up to, how you’re feeling, where you’re going.”

Jumpcut
“The easiest way to upload, edit and share video and photos.

Lala
“Working with our friends in the music industry, we’re reinventing digital music with discovery built-in and sharing enabled.”

Meebo
meebo.com is a website for instant messaging from absolutely anywhere

Mingle2
Free Online Dating

Pandora: http://www.pandora.com/
A new kind of radio station that only plays music you like.

Twitter
“A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?”

Yedda
“Ask a question on any topic get personalized answers from relevant people”

Vimeo
“Use Vimeo to exchange videos with only the people you want to. We have a bunch of different privacy options so you can choose exactly who can see your videos, and others can do the same. “

Web 2.0 Innovation Map
A Google map application that depicts “how Web 2.0 development is distributed geographically.”

Zaadz
a community to “change the world”

Value-Billing, Moonshine and a New TAAN President

The Transworld Advertising Agency Association (TAAN) held its 2007 Summer Meeting for U.S. agency principals in Gatlinburg, TN this past July. Hosted by Buddy McLean in The Lodge at Buckberry Creek, highlights from the four-day meeting included a Value-Based Pricing presentation, the induction of TAAN’s new president and first class Smoky Mountain hospitality washed down with home-grown moonshine.

Encouraging Value-Based Relationships and Billing

Tim Williams, the founder of Ignition Consulting Group and author of “Take a Stand for Your Brand”, encouraged agencies to “burry the billable hour” and focus on how agencies can get paid for the value they provide instead of the hours they work. William’s presentation was a follow-up to a value billing presentation at TAAN’s International meeting in New York City delivered by Ron Baker, founder of the VeraSage Institute.

According to Williams, “No other professional service business gives away its most valuable product the way agencies do. Most agencies agree that it’s ironic for a creative services business to charge for work but not ideas, for physical property but not intellectual property. Agencies are in the ideas business, yet base their compensation structures as though they are in the production business.”

Peter Gerritsen Takes Over TAAN Presidency

After a 10-year reign, Gary Lessner retired as TAAN’s President and was succeeded by Peter Gerritsen with the occasion marked by a farewell dinner and roast of the outgoing Gary. The complete history of TAAN will soon be available once TAAN’s new web site is launched.

A mostly peaceful transition of power as Peter Gerritson, TAAN’s new president, dons a funny hat presented to him by out-going president Gary Lessner during the farewell dinner at Buckberry Creek Lodge in Gatlinburg to end the TAAN 07 Summer Meeting.

Photos from the Meeting in Gatlinburg
The following are snapshots from the TAAN 07 Meeting in Gatlinburg. Click on the photos for captions:

Consumer-Generated Reviews Impact Online Marketing Objectives

A new e-Marketer survey points out strong evidence how consumer-generated ratings and reviews on web sites help to:

• increase conversions
• improved customer retention and loyalty
• improve search engine optimization