Allora Media Blog

How Retargeting Works: A Practical Example

Andrea Murray — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:27:39 +0000

Let's step into the customer's mind for a moment… the Cases 'R' Us company website is offering a snazzy purple iPad case with a rotating stand and Bluetooth keyboard. I really love the color purple. It's a powerful color and demonstrative of my creative side. But I have a perfectly good, professional-looking black iPad case with the same features and I really don't need another one.

Leveraging Responsive Design

Mike Anderson — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:53:11 +0000

In our last post, we discussed the basics of responsive design and why this is trending. As we discussed, users are turning to their mobile devices more frequently to search for information so having a viable mobile site optimized for mobile SEO will be essential. You need to be aware of the technological trends and keep ahead of the curve. The tablet market is booming while desktop sales are falling off. If the current trends continue, within 2-3 years most people will be primarily using tablets and/or be connected to their desktop via cloud interface while using a tablet.

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Why Responsive Design is Trending

Josh Katinger — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 19:39:33 +0000

Responsive design is one the most talked about trends in web design. Designers are looking to create websites that look great on desktop, tablet and mobile devices, all with the same content. CSS3 and something called Media Queries enables websites to have the same content and HTML while allowing that content and HTML to render differently on smartphones, tablets and desktop browsers based on their screen resolution settings.

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Optimize Your Emails

Mike Anderson — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:52:10 +0000

Email can be one the most cost-effective ways to reach large market segments. As we all know, sending out emails that aren't well structured, properly designed or well formatted can seriously impact your company's credibility. The last impression you want to make is a sophomoric one. Creating emails optimized for the user's inbox will ensure that your message arrives intact and looking as good as it was designed to be. However, there is one very important fact you need to keep in mind: not all email clients are created equal.

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Big Data = Leverage

Brandon Didsbury — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:07:48 +0000

Big Data has become the corporate buzzword for the massive amounts of real-time information that can be gleaned from online sources. It incorporates everything from trending Twitter topics to responses to products, from online sales data to real-time intelligence. How to leverage that information to the maximum benefit of the company while not falling prey to overanalyzing presents a unique challenge.

Growing Your Email Subscriber List

Andrea Murray — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 14:50:59 +0000

Email marketing is a highly effective tool for one simple reason: subscribers have already expressed an interest in your company's products or services. They have provided you with contact information and requested more information. So the question becomes; how can you encourage visitors to your site to sign up for emails?

CSS3 Trending Elements

Mike Anderson — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:27:08 +0000

CSS3 solves a lot of common web design problems, that could previously only be done using images, which of course slow page download speeds. Things like gradients, rounded corners on boxed page elements, and shadows and transitions could only be achieved by using image files either in the foreground or background of a page. Now CSS3 makes it possible to achieve these design touches in code.

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A Lead Scoring Primer

Josh Katinger — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 20:30:16 +0000

How hard can it be to score leads? Actually, if you want those scores to actually be useful, it requires some serious cross-department strategizing. Not every action a prospect takes indicates a purchase-ready state. You want to avoid "over-scoring" a lead.

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Use Your Holiday Sales to Boost Your Social Media Presence

Josh Katinger — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:03:35 +0000

By now the idea of using social media to advertise and boost holiday sales is old hat. But are you using those holiday sales to boost your online presence? Holiday shoppers who find you online and make a purchase online or in your stores are people with whom you want to build a solid connection. Not only do you want them to become repeat customers, you want them to refer you to their networks. Asking them to review their experience will build up your reputation. Studies show that consumers trust 70% of online reviews and over 83% of all consumers will be influenced by online reviews.

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Your Employees & Social Media – Yes It’s a Good Thing

Brandon Didsbury — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 15:33:32 +0000

Keeping your employees can be difficult, especially for businesses that are just starting up. Research by Hewitt Associates employee engagement has the biggest quarterly decline in more than 15 years when Hewitt first began tracking engagement. That’s not a surprising statistic when you consider that the economic climate has businesses scrambling to get and keep clients. Employees get left by the wayside. Social media can be a great way not just to build your business reputation but to keep your employee engaged. Here are a few:

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Content Marketing Investment

Josh Katinger — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 15:33:04 +0000

If you're going to use a continual content marketing strategy, you need to understand that you're going to need to create interesting, thought-provoking, entertaining, informative or unique content to build an interest in your site so passing it off the just anybody won't work. Here are a few of the steps you'll need to follow:

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Top Priority SEO Tips

Allora Media — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 17:14:34 +0000

Search Google for "SEO tips" and you're likely to find blog after blog saying the same things. There's a simple reason for that: they're important! Driving traffic to your website takes some strategy. These are some of the most important things to keep in mind when developing that strategy.

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Search Marketing

Calculating ROI on Social Media Conversion

Allora Media — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:06:48 +0000

There are two ways to measure your ROI using the funnel model. The two funnels are as different as night and day. Which method you use will be highly dependent upon your business. Think of it a dance.

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Tips for Successful Mobile Application Branding

Allora Media — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 14:06:14 +0000

Photo credit: Sergio Lopez de Abaria

Keep in mind, the consumer is king. Of course, it's vital that your application is fun to utilize, yet it also should be of utility value to your customer. The customer includes the key here and nothing else will be more important than her/him.

You must assess the users' motives and needs for utilizing the app; then make a branding and marketing strategy accordingly.

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Selecting an SEO Company

Allora Media — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:02:19 +0000

Signs of a Scam

I don't advise anything within the Black Hat search engine optimization directory...it is bad news! Anybody who guarantees a rank before seeing your website is possibly either overcharging you or selling you something not worth owning. Anybody who's just changing Meta tags is probably scamming you. Anybody who's developing doorway pages that are held on an additional server might later leverage the traffic to get more money from you, you usually should wish for the SEO alterations which you're paying for to happen on your website.

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Search Marketing

What’s Google Traffic Estimator?

Allora Media — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 14:02:30 +0000

Photo credit: Rebecca Hilbert

No additional medium offers a worldwide marketing exposure such as the Web. Currently, businesses around the world have Internet marketing as a vital portion of their overall consumer outreach campaign. A majority of the revenue upon the Web is generated via contextual ads placed on sites.

Putting Together Viral Marketing Campaigns

Allora Media — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 12:43:42 +0000

Viral marketing will refer to a kind of advertising which is spread from consumer to consumer; like a computer virus or physical virus is spread. Viral marketing campaigns involve the usage of entertaining, oftentimes humorous ads which individuals are compelled to share with friends. Within today's Internet world, advertisements like these may be quickly spread through social networking sites, YouTube, or email.

7 Simple EMail Marketing Tips

Mark Coleman — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 19:06:35 +0000

As an email marketing professional, I receive tons of email everyday, each one promising all the best ideas and tips to make your emarketing efforts the best they can be. Most of them just end up in the deleted folder but the one I received today contained some basic ideas that I felt made it important info to share and forward onto anyone in the email Marketing space. These 7 simple or as Ken Describes them "Ridiculously Stupid ways" are absolute must do's for anyone working in email marketing today. Here is the quick overview:

1. Design for the small screen.

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Email Marketing

What to Where - Another Online Advertising Variable

Brandon Didsbury — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 19:06:35 +0000

In a recent study by Neuro Focus (a Neilsen Company), data was collected on how consumers are engaged on different types of websites. The tests were conducted on premium websites that are oriented towards three different purposes: Social Networking (Facebook News Feed), light news and entertainment (Yahoo News Homepage), and hard news and commentary (New York Times Homepage). One of the questions this study was aimed at that really caught my eye was:

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Email Marketing Advantages

Allora Media — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 14:59:12 +0000

Just developing a superior quality service or product isn't enough in today's competitive globalized market. One must take up an aggressive position in advertising and marketing, by tapping all available channels. Here are a few of the advantages of email marketing:

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Email Marketing