iMedia
Charles Wiedenhoft, Director of User Experience, Red Door Interactive

User experience research uncovers how people think and make decisions. It’s key to improving website usability and increasing conversions. Design teams frequently skip user research due to high costs or time constraints. This leaves marketers and consumers at a disadvantage.

Prohibitive costs are no longer an excuse to forego research because a variety of web-based solutions is now available. When combined with on-demand recruiting panels, these solutions provide a means to generate instant user feedback in a cost-effective manner. This research can be the quickest way to optimize your website and improve the user experience for site visitors. The following tips and resources will show you how to get started.

Design to make a good first impression
The first impression that a website has on its visitors can mean the difference between converting new customers and losing sales. With so many websites competing for the same dollars, it’s critical for users to understand at a glance the purpose of a company and its competitive differentiation. This requires communicating a clear and succinct value proposition in as few as five seconds.

How does a website owner know that key landing pages are communicating messages that resonate and engage audiences? New services like FiveSecondTest are now available just for that purpose. With a quick set-up, it’s easy to begin seeing how visitors respond to your website’s content and visual design elements.

A FiveSecondTest involves participants who view design concepts and then respond to questions about what they remember. Typical tests include questions such as “Is the site’s purpose clear?” and “Who do you think this site is for?” It’s a great way to validate that a site is sending the right message and coming across as a trusted and valued resource with its target audiences.

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Reid Carr, ad:tech San Francisco Creative Agency Ambassador, plans to attend the following sessions:

Social
Marketing Masters: Social Media Strategies–Generating Leads & Loyalty

Content
Marketing Masters: Branded Online Publications — The Marriage of Premium Content and Advertising

Local & Mobile
Practical Strategies: Building the Better Digital Media Plan Location-Based Advertising Myths and Realities

For a complete list of the date and time of each session he plans to attend view his ad:tech profile.

Catch him at one of the sessions or follow him as he tweets live from ad:tech: www.twitter.com/icowboy

RDI’s president and CEO Reid Carr was selected as Creative Agency Ambassador for ad:tech San Francisco. You may be wondering what that means, and what his role is. If so, watch the video where Reid discusses what his role will be and how you can follow him at ad:tech San Francisco April 19-21st.

Greg Grunberg with Rubio's Business Supervisor, Lauren Dougherty

So how did the Yowza and Rubio’s partnership come about?

Rubio’s is one of Red Door’s social media clients (others include Souplantation, Charlotte Russe, and La Quinta Inns & Suites). During our ongoing monitoring, Red Door found a tweet from Mr. Grunberg himself urging Rubio’s to take a look at his Yowza! app. After a few tweets exchanged on Twitter (including a bit of pressure from Mr. Grunberg when he rounded up his followers to mass request Rubio’s on Yowza!), we brought him inside the agency walls for a meet and greet. Rubio’s is now offering exclusive coupons through Yowza! and its been a blast riding along Greg’s Yowza! train!

For more photos and video from the event, check out the Rubios and Red Door Facebook Fan Pages

 As marketers we are all looking to reach “nirvana”: target the right person with the right message, at the right time. Its the clear path to driving conversion rates that exceed expectations. The days of blasting promotional messages to all, or at the very least, many are dead and gone. The conversation has changed. We must put ourselves in the customers’ shoes and target them individually as best we can through data driven strategies.

The data driven marketing concept is no longer a myth or impossible to put into practice. The fact is that excuses like resource constraints, budgets, and lack of data are just that – weak excuses. There are ways to quickly and effectively harness customer and prospect information you most likely already have on hand. Here are five ways to get this done in rapid fashion.

Step 1 – Make a list. If you are a multi channel marketer there is no doubt a lot of customer data floating around in silo databases (like Email, POS, and Web Analytics). It continues to amaze me how many marketers don’t know where their customer data is being stored and how to get to it. Do some digging and make a list. Dust off your old copy of your preferred flow charting software to document the current state of your data flows. This “state-of-the-state” view will allow you to identify integration points moving forward.

Step 2 – Build an alliance with your IT folks and marketing technology vendors. Marketing and technology now go hand in hand, with many organizations and marketing parties logging into multiple interfaces daily to execute campaigns and track results (Email, Web Analytics, E-commerce, etc). Technology vendor account managers are incentivized to grow your business, so leverage them in this manner as much as possible. Run ideas by them, ask for advice, understand the pricing associated with integrations, and inquire about what their other customers are doing. Internally, your IT folks should also be your partners in crime, and misjudged to be your enemy; they will no doubt play an integral role in the data and technology integration process. Together, you will identify opportunities, prioritize, and build out a strategic roadmap with common goals in mind.

Step three – Identify relevant customer data points. Look for standard customer data points, such as customer ID’s, purchase history, and order value within your available sources that will allow you to build rich customer profiles for target marketing. Doing so will also mean that your IT team will give you less push back if you only need to ask for basic customer information. The goal here is to find the data points that will allow you to target customers with content and offers that are relevant to them as an individual based on the preference and purchase information you have on them.

Step four – Pilot with email. Email marketing continues to drive the most return on investment versus any other marketing channel in the online marketing portfolio. Such campaigns provide an incredibly flexible medium to leverage for data driven campaigns. Nearly all the best of breed service providers include API (Application Programming Interface) solutions for data/technology integrations and dynamic content engines that will allow you to populate emails with targeted content and offers. Pick a population of your customer and prospect databases to do a split test. Target your test group with a data driven campaign and the rest with your standard messaging.

Step five – Implement a test and learn methodology. Set some realistic goals as you pilot your initial data- driven campaigns. A couple of small wins will give you the insight you need to expand your strategy to include additional integrations (web analytics, e-commerce, social media, SMS, etc). Over time this incremental approach will allow you to become a rock star one-to-one marketer.

The common theme to all these steps is in their common-sense simplicity. If marketers can take a few moments to put these steps in motion, their productivity and ROI could skyrocket. It’s really more of a question as to whether an organization can afford NOT to leverage their existing customer data to realize higher conversion rate and sales. Otherwise, companies will leave money on the table without even knowing it.

Social media and social networking have certainly changed the rules to the game when it comes to how brands can communicate with consumers.  No need to preach the gospel here. You can read about it in nearly every marketing industry email newsletter.  I’d  like to place the focus on one industry in particular: the music industry.  Both music and social media are topics near and dear to my heart as I work with our clients here at Red Door Interactive to develop social media strategies for their brands and I also run a music blog called StrictlySocial.com.   With the growth in “word of mouth” marketing  through social media channels, the music industry can no longer neglect to pay attention.   One musician who embraced this change early on and took matters into his own hands is R&B/hip-hop producer Ryan Leslie.

Ryan Leslie is a producer, singer, rapper, and multi-instrumentalist who graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Economics and Government at 19 years of age.  Impressive to say the least!  Here is a short video introduction should you not be familiar with his work:

After signing a recording contract with Universal Recordings and never receiving proper marketing support for his music, Leslie decided that he was no longer going to rely on a major label.  In 2005 he launched Ryan Leslie TV, a Youtube channel where he began posting his music videos, behind the scenes footage in the recording studio, and an inside look into his day-to-day adventures as a young record producer.  This was an unprecidented approach to promotion in the music industry at the time.  The Youtube channel in coordination with his Myspace page provided increased exposure for his music and enabled him to cultivate a loyal fan-base.  In 2006, Leslie was accused of artificially inflating his Youtube channel ranking by creating fake accounts.  This lead to a temporary removal of  his channel from the “Most Subscribed” list.  After writing an official statement to the Youtube community channels denying the claim and an official investigation that resulted in no proof of wrongdoing, Leslie’s channel was reinstated.

Ryan Leslie continues to build his brand through social media tools.  His personal website RyanLeslie.com is a fully integrated “content hub.”  There he posts all of his personal thoughts, videos and ways to connect with him directly.  The level of transparency even goes as far as sharing his personal cell phone number and email address.  By opting in to receive communications from Leslie via his virtual Blackberry phone, you can get exclusive invites to shows, hear new music he is working on, and even a personal call from the man himself.  Sound too good to be true?  Check out this experiment he conducted while on a radio promo tour in San Francisco:

His personal Twitter account updates as well as Facebook Connect are integrated into the site so that users don’t have to create an additional user name and password to log on.  This also allows Leslie to attach a real person to comments and reactions.  Each of his posts can generate 150+ comments which goes to show the high level of engagement.

On February 10th Ryan Leslie’s self titled debut album was officially released.  Exactly 7 minutes after making an appearance at the Times Square Virgin Megastore (R.I.P.), the store was sold out of Ryan Leslie albums.  By sticking to a revolutionary idea and the use of  social media tools, Ryan Leslie is “helping to reshape the business paradiam for a dying industry.”  This video speaks for itself:

On Friday, January 30^th, 2009, Ma.gnolia (http://ma.gnolia.com), a site that provides online bookmarking services, went down and the following excerpt was taken from a message posted on their home page:

“Ma.gnolia experienced every web service’s worst nightmare: data corruption and data loss.”

Let’s face it, you can own several Web sites for a lifetime and never experience a “nightmare”.  However, if it does happen how prepared are you to get operations back to normal? Backup (BU) and Disaster Recovery Plans (DRP) are often overlooked aspects of your Web strategy and I am surprised at the number of businesses that continue to run their operations without them.

Since disasters can range from someone deleting the wrong data to catastrophic events they are inevitable occurrences of our digital world.  Having experienced a few recovery situations, I have provided some key points and considerations for your BU and DRP plans.

Acquaint yourself with your data center or hosting facility.
Regardless if your site is hosted internally or externally, system administrators play a critical role in the backup and recovery processes.  You will want to meet with them to understand what your options are and get an understanding of your hosting environment.

• Have you reviewed Service Level Agreements or policies to see if there any items that may affect your DRP?
• What redundancies does the facility have for power and data storage?
• Does the facility have a DRP?
• Are there additional costs for including your hosting vendor in the DRP?

Understand your data.
Because the cost of BU/DRP is a function of how much data can be lost and how quickly it needs to be recovered, understanding your data is a major consideration when developing your plans.

• Are there compliance, regulatory, or legal requirements for your data?
• Does your data support e-Commerce transactions?
• Should you consider high-availability recovery options to support real-time failover to a standby server?
• What transactions rely on your data?

Test your plans.
If you do have BU/DRP plans, it is important that you verify the processes.  Your initial DRP may follow a “happy trail” of events.  Unless you test your plans, unforeseen circumstances, breakdowns, and actual effort cannot be determined.

Have a communication plan.
The communication plan not only establishes the protocol for communicating it should also define the roles for DRP execution.

• Who will initiate the plan?
• Do you have an elevation list that is maintained?
• How will you communicate to stakeholders, the public, and customers?
• Who establishes when recovery is complete?

The planning, disruptions, and effort to develop effective BU/DRP plans are significant.  As an investment, your BU/DRP efforts should be considered an insurance policy – you hope that you never have to use it, but glad that you have it when it is needed.

@bzelasko83, @pilarbower, @jfaris are ready for change! @lindaeskin contributed the flag

It seems just yesterday that Red Door employees and clients gathered to watch the election results come in (while a Madonna concert at Petco Park thudded in the background). Today, we gathered again, to enjoy a delicious continental breakfast prepared by our Morale and Culture Committee and watched as the 44th President of the United States was sworn in to office.  We watched as people from around the world shared in the experience through citizen journalism and the power of social media.   Though we all moved away from the screen to begin the work of the day, a few employees were an important visual reminder of the significance of this day and the future that is to come.

Happy Inauguration Day!

I came across this article recently about Microsoft’s next version of Internet Explorer. Apparently it might have a feature that, while protecting users privacy, may make it impossible for third party vendors to track your actions and habits as you peruse the web. Either Microsoft will cave from the pressure of ad vendors to remove this feature, or the vendors will find a way around it.

What I find interesting is that the ability to block ads and tracking code has been around for years… if you use Mozilla’s Firefox . A handy little plug-in called AdBlock Plus can block all types of ads: banner, flash or text. The plug-in prevents the content from downloading, and therefore from rendering on your screen, speeding up your browsing experience considerably.

As many know, there’s a whole industry based on tracking your actions on the internet. Google Analytics , Ominture’s SiteCatalyst and others make their money playing Big Brother. Most use a "tracking pixel" embedded on the site you visit that relays your browsing habits back to their servers for statistical analysis. If these pixels are blocked by the browser, these companies have no way of knowing how many visits a site receives, how long users typically stay or how much they purchase. The new Internet Explorer might not be the only browser to worry about. Google’s new Chrome browser also allows users to create plug-ins similar to those for Firefox. It might not be long before a Chrome version of AdBlock Plus appears.

Web analytics will have to adapt or die out like the dinosaurs.

“Who uses Twitter, anyway? Too many people have too much time on their hands…” Well, you’d be surprised when you review the demographics and, more importantly, the growth of Twitter in the last few months.  Usage is growing and overall traffic is continually doubling… Check it out: http://www.quantcast.com/twitter.com 

So, if you’re not there now (and are reading this), then get there. Poke around for some of your favorite celebrities, friends (seriously, even those over 40) and writers.  Chances are, they’re already there.