A few months ago, I was asked my opinion on how small-to-medium sized businesses could curate content like the big boys. My abrupt answer is that Fortune 100 companies don’t do a good job of curating content at all. In fact, small-to-medium sized businesses, with some content curation acumen, a passion for the subject matter, the right tools and a good journalistic instinct for what’s interesting regularly beat the pants off of Fortune 100 companies. What is curation? Content curation or aggregation is – according to C.C. Chapman and Ann Handley in their great book Content Rules – the “act of continuously identifying, selecting, and sharing the best and most relevant…content…to match the needs of a specific audience.” There’s a difference between content curation and content aggregation, but both of them serve the same purpose. Content aggregators like Yahoo! News or Google News are purely driven by algorithms based on the complex ways in which those businesses search for things on the internet. Content curation adds a human element. Algorithms are great, and do a good job at pulling stories […]
Read more →A new study released by Litmus, experts in email marketing and analysis, uncovered some notable shifts in the email marketing landscape in 2013. The biggest of these is the shift from desktop to mobile, with more emails being opened on mobile devices for the first time ever. How do you make sure your emails are accessible to your readers on the go? Keep messages brief. Mobile users are often checking their messages between other tasks. Tell them what they need to know so they can move on without missing anything important. Think about your text readability. Mobile battery life often causes people to turn down the brightness of their screens. Glare from outdoor reading only makes the problem worse, so keep the contrast high. Your mobile readers won’t be using a mouse. Make your call to action easy to find and big enough to click with one touch. Isolate the required unsubscribe links from any other clickable links to avoid accidental clicks. Other interesting facts from the Litmus report: iPhone was the #1 email client at 26% 38% of […]
Read more →The IMN team just got back from NADA 2014 in New Orleans. Aside from a few dicey hours trying to figure out if all of us were going to get on a plane before Snowmageddon hit town, it was a great time to survey the digital landscape for auto dealers and talk face-to-face with dealers about their marketing goals. What was clear is, that for all the innovation in the digital space, there are still ample opportunities for dealers to maximize their digital marketing investment. A good example: We gave hundreds of demos of Loyalty Driver over the course of the weekend. When we presented the reporting module – even to existing customers – we always got a look of surprise and engagement when we showed a list of all the email subscribers that had clicked on a particular piece of content. Not to put myself out of a job – because the content we produce for each e-newsletter is vitally important to the level of engagement a dealership will experience – but the key to the Loyalty Driver program […]
Read more →In case you needed another reason to visit the IMN booth at NADA – besides just learning more about how Loyalty Driver and Loyalty Driver Premier can change your business – we have a surprise for you. We will be holding hourly drawings for tablet PCs in the IMN NADA Booth (# 4701). IMN will award 19 7-inch tablets to conference attendees every hour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 25 and Sunday, Jan. 26, and again from 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 27. Also, separate drawings for a 10-inch tablet will be held on Saturday and Sunday afternoon for two additional winners. While you’re in the booth, be sure to check out Loyalty Driver and Loyalty Driver Premier, the automotive industry’s most effective branded newsletter and campaign tools for encouraging brand loyalty and generating leads. Stop by Booth # 4701 for a demo and scan your NADA ID with one of the IMN representatives to be entered into the tablet drawing. IMN will contact winners directly. Enjoy the show!
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