Marketing

Target recently launched a new digital coupon app called Cartwheel that is supposed to make shopping more social. It begins with a great idea; personalized digital coupons but from there, the wheel gets a little wobbly. Here’s how it works. First, you have to log on to the Cartwheel site and sign-up using your Facebook login.  You must have a Facebook account to use the program and that seems like an unnecessary hurdle. The point is to get more people to shop at Target, right? But if I don’t want to give you access to my Facebook account, then I’m out. Hmmm. . . Once you’re in, you’re presented with a grid of themed, coupon flipcards. If you don’t see what you want, you can use the search box to find coupons on a specific item or browse more than 20 coupon collections such as Baby Essentials, Pet Love, Men’s Must-haves, etc. It’s a lot to take in. Here’s a row dedicated to Memorial Day BBQ’s. When you click a card it flips over. Now you start choosing buttons. The “add” button puts the coupon into your Cartwheel. The “share” button posts the offer to Facebook (sorry Twitter, no go). The “details” button shows the expiration date, rules for redemption and how many others have redeemed this coupon. Right now, all of the offers I could see ranged from 5% to 10% off an item. Not bad, but not stellar, either. You can use each discount up to 4 times unless otherwise noted. What makes this a better deal is that you can combine Cartwheel deals with manufacturer coupons and Target’s Red Card discount as well. That’s what us couponers call double dipping. That’s also how you turn a good deal into a “I got this for free” deal. Target limits the number of coupons you can load per trip. They give you ten slots to start, six a day after that. To unlock more spaces you have to earn badges (*rolls eyes*) by shopping and sharing and following the red brick road. Now it’s time to go redeem your coupons and that’s where it gets a little tricky.  All of your current offers get combined into one bar code. The foolproof way to go is to print the bar code page while you’re still home and on the website. But printing just feels wrong – these are digital coupons after all. If you like to live on the edge, just go to Target and shop. When you hit the checkout, call up the app on your phone. Not the Target app, from what I can see, Cartwheel doesn’t show up on the store app. You have to log-in through Facebook and pull it up on your browser. (Not sure if you can get there from the Facebook mobile app. . . ) Do Target stores have free Wifi? Find Cartwheel, login, find your page, find your bar code, show the bar code to the cashier, wait for her to say, “huh, I’ve never seen this before, let me call my manager,” hand her more coupons wait for her to stop being confused by two sets of coupons, pay for your order and you’re done. Easy! Target could simplify the whole process if they just included the Cartwheel barcode in the Target app. (Feel free to correct me if I’m not getting this right.) As for the forced social sharing in order to get more coupons – that could work. Women have been known to dumpster dive for more inserts, so what’s a little sharing between friends if it means an extra 10% off hot dog buns. Target, I’m giving you a “A” for effort but a “C+” for execution.

When it comes to promoting an online business, there are many methods that one can choose to use. However, of late, one method that has been considered to be very effective in this respect is the use of online press releases. It is due to this fact that press release services have become very popular and are now one of the main services offered by search engine optimization firms. Press releases are usually submitted and distributed through media channels so as to ensure maximized exposure for businesses and organizations and this could consequently lead to more traffic and higher conversion rates on business sites. Online press releases are also important since they have also become another avenue for people to optimize their sites for the search engines. These press releases usually contain back-links that help to improve the link popularity of websites and thus help to improve their SERP rankings. Therefore, you not only get exposure through the press releases themselves but also through the search engines, which are the best source of organic Internet, traffic. Given that there are numerous firms offering press release services, it can be quite difficult settling on one. However, in order to ensure that you get the most value when you enlist for these services, there are two main things that you should consider when looking for a firm to hire. These are: The quality of their writing – unlike ordinary articles used for Internet marketing which can be written in a free style and still end up being effective, press releases have to be written in a certain way and using a specific structure. You should look for a firm that is known to offer high quality writing that can influence your clients and potential clients to do business with your company. In addition, the press release should be well optimized for the search engines so that you can gain an added advantage over your competitors. Where they submit and distribute press releases – this is important because the effectiveness of a press release is in large determined by the number of people that see it. You should look for firms that have good media connections and that can distribute your press release in places where you can get targeted traffic from, such as in niche related media houses. In addition, press release services that also offer both online and offline submission and distribution are generally more effective than those that offer only online submissions since they will get your press release seen by a larger number of people.

Elevator pitches, 30-second spots, viral videos, strategic PR, the brand called "you."Today's conventional wisdom is that great brands are great at telling us their interesting stories.And that may be true.But it's a superficial view.In reality, we use our interaction with brands to construct our own stories.Ones that we want to tell about ourselves.To ourselves and to others.When you're being interesting, you're really doing it to enhance other's stories.Case in point.Each morning in the 1950s, noted advertising man David Ogilvy would stroll through Central Park.One beautiful day, he witnessed a man begging beside a sign.The sign read, "I am blind."By evidence of the man's near empty cup, he wasn't doing very well. So, Ogilvy removed a marker from his briefcase.And he changed the sign to read, "It is spring and I am blind."After that small change, the money poured in.Our simplistic way of viewing that story is that Ogilvy changed the message.Thus making it more persuasive.In fact, what Ogilvy did was much more subtle.And much more powerful.Ogilvy changed the prop.Which transformed the scene.By doing so, he enhanced the story creation of every passerby.Those three simple words—"It is spring"—encouraged empathy in the actors.And brought life to their stories.That's what strategically building a strong brand is all about.Sure it's about being unique, and creating value and preference.But it's also about evoking compassion, passion and self-worth in others.The American author and critic Mary McCarthy wrote, "We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story."Are you trying to build a world-class brand?Then ask yourself and your team, "Whose stories have we enhanced lately?

Apple confirmed Thursday that the keynote address for WWDC 2013 will take place on June 10th, as the conference begins that morning at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. Tim Cook will commence WWDC 2013 by presenting the keynote address, sources confirm. In past years, Apple hasn’t been forthcoming about what announcements will be made at the annual developer’s conference. But this year, it’s a different story. Apple has already revealed that the company will debut and demo the next major releases of both iOS and OS X. As of this writing, other speakers and presenters haven’t been confirmed, but the biggest headlines out of WWDC 2013 will likely result from the June 10th keynote. MMW will provide complete coverage of WWDC 2013 beginning with the eagerly anticipated keynote.

Blending big data with intuitive software, Baltimore start-up RedOwl Analytics is one to watch.On Wall Street, pending lawsuits and insider trading are a recipe for PR disaster. Clients pack up to take their business and money elsewhere, and the legal fees start piling up. RedOwl Analytics, a Baltimore, Maryland-based start-up, hopes to minimize those risks by harnessing the power of big data. The start-up tracks workers' behavior on a near-constant basis, paying special attention to their digital trails on Gchat, Blackberry, and email. It's like a high tech whistleblower no one can hear. The data RedOwl unearths can be a gold mine for companies when facing the liability of an employee-turned-criminal. For those already in court, having that data in their pocket might save their case and prove the employee acted alone. "We thought hard about who might be interested in this sort of information and we realized a number of private sector and financial companies would," said Renny McPherson, RedOwl's director of business development and strategy. "There's so much liability in that data. We noticed some companies were fined $100 billion in legal fees, so we thought, 'There has to be a better way.'" After several test pilots, RedOwl can finally suss out wayward behaviors before and after they've turned into crime. The software is customizable and can be programmed with a data set using the company's own internal infrastructure or a secure, cloud-based format. From there, the data is visualized, making it easy for employers to ask questions and find a solution. "We'd love to get to the point where people can start asking questions [of the data] on their own," said McPherson, whose start-up is still in its early stage with only 17 full-time employees. "RedOwl started when a group of statisticians, software engineers, and intelligence veterans who came together to harness three macro-trends," he recalled. Those newly minted PhDs were looking at "advances in inferential statistics, the scalability and cost of cloud computing, and the ever-growing liability to defend against (and exploit) the corporate digital trail."Not surprisingly, the idea won over judges at the InvestMaryland Challenge in April and raised a seed round of funding in 2011, soon after its launch.Before RedOwl seeks Series A funding early next year, McPherson plans to roll out the full version of its software this fall. RedOwl, which derives its name from the color of a siren and the nocturnal bird's wisdom, is based in Baltimore, a start-up hub better known for its work in life sciences than in big data. Still, McPherson said he couldn't imagine working anywhere else. "Baltimore has a burgeoning and exciting start-up scene," he said, noting his office is "two floors below a tremendous tech incubator Betamore and next door to ParkingPanda."That excitement wasn't lost on RedOwl CEO Guy Filippelli, who moved to Baltimore so he could take advantage of the city's technical talent. In terms of competitors, McPherson said he has few, though RedOwl's biggest challenge remains convincing employers they'll find it invaluable. "Given the attention we have paid to the value of this sophisticated tech, and an appreciation for the human analysis needed with that tech, we see this providing a great solution over time," he said. "The more we keep testing this out, it's just going to be of greater and greater value." He added, "If we have success, people will crop up to do something similar, but what we're doing is really unique."

Silo-ization is a silent killer. It destroys the most effective factor in marketing: people.

Big data, multi-channel, mobile and social media are all impacting online buying behaviors. While this infographic is focused on Europe, the rest of the world isn’t too different. Big data is helping ecommerce providers predict purchase behavior and helping to present product offerings across channels – increasing conversion rates and upselling consumers. A McKinsey iConsumer survey spotlights 5 key digital consumption trends in e-commerce, mobile, multichannel, social media, and big data. The difficult part, of course, isn’t simply how companies utilize big data and how they market across channels, it’s calculating the impact of each marketing channel on the overall purchase. Large companies are utilizing predictive analytics that collect volumes of data and allow them to understand what an increase or decrease in one channel’s activity will have across the entire spectrum. Smaller companies are still left with first-touch, last-touch mechanisms which may not provide the insight and accuracy of the paths that complex consumer behaviors are now taking. © 2013 DK New Media.

It's already one of the year's fastest growing apps. CEO Sean Rad reveals his grand plan to change the way people meet.At 27 years old, Sean Rad has already been a successful entrepreneur once. In 2009, he scored his first big hit when he founded ad.ly, which helps brands land celebrity endorsements on social media. Now he's on to his second act: Tinder, which has become the App Store's fast-growing mobile dating app. Rad claims that the app has led to 50 million matches and 10 marriages since it launched this fall.It's a simple concept: Unlike most online dating platforms, there are no profiles or questionnaires to fill out. Instead, users sign up through Facebook, select a couple pictures, and enter their gender, location, and sexual preference. The app then serves up photos of other nearby users. They can swipe left if they're not interested or right if they are. When two people both "like" each other, only then can they send each other messages. In just a few short months, Tinder has already generated 4.7 billion profile ratings and is being downloaded more frequently than all other dating apps.On Thursday, the Los Angeles-based start-up, backed by IAC, launched a new feature called Matchmaker, that lets users make introductions between their Facebook friends, whether or not they're already on Tinder. It's all part of Rad's mission to reinvent the way people meet.He recently sat down with Inc. to discuss Tinder's exponential growth, how he plans on making money (someday), and why so many other entrepreneurs are using his product.What inspired you to start Tinder in the first place?The idea for Tinder came along when I started thinking about the fact that there are a lot of great platforms that help us communicate with people we already know, but there isn't a way for me to meet new people.In the real world, you're either a hunter or you're being hunted. If you're a hunter, there's constant rejection. And if you're hunted, you're constantly being bombarded. And the current solutions actually make these problems worse. With other dating apps, I can reach out to more people if I'm a hunter, and I can be hunted more easily. I never used those apps, none of my friends ever used those apps, and I couldn't understand why until that aha! moment happened. None of these apps were solving the fundamental problem.So, how do you solve it?On Tinder, you anonymously say if you're interested in somebody, and if that person happens to be interested in you, you can have a conversation. If they're not interested, they never know you liked them anyway, so you don't feel embarrassed. And for the person who's being hunted, we take away that overwhelming experience.You've grown pretty fast. When did things really take off?It happened around January. We had been picking up on college campuses, then everyone went home and told their cousins and older brothers and friends about it, and all of a sudden Tinder started growing like a virus. Ad.ly was hot real fast and then kind of slowed down. Tinder got hot real fast, and it's only gotten hotter. Throughout my entire career, I've always heard people say that scalability issues are a luxurious problems to have. Maybe they're luxurious problems, but they're some of the most challenging things I've ever had to deal with.What was the biggest issue?We built Tinder as a prototype and anticipated it was going to take off, but we never anticipated it was going to take off this fast. So we really built prototype code. Once we got hit with the demand, our challenge was not only maintaining the current system, but building the new one at the same time. So imagine you're flying at 100 mph and the engine is breaking while you're in midair, and you're fixing that engine while you're building a new one in the air. It's a very challenging and emotional thing.Where'd the idea for Matchmaker, the new feature, come from?Our vision is to be the platform that you think about when it comes to meeting somebody new under an

"Fail fast, fail often" is popular and appealing. But it's not how you produce great work.The last five years have produced an increasingly fevered body of business-speak that has achieved almost cult-like status. Expressed variously as 'always be shipping', or 'fail fast', the people who promote this approach would have us believe that leadership--indeed, the very act of creation--is achieved by mere momentum alone.Just keep doing things, say these proponents--get stuff out the door--and success will be guaranteed. Grab ahold of an idea, turn it into a product or service, but above all, get it out the door. Sure you'll fail--in fact, you'll fail many times--but eventually you'll succeed. After a dozen crappy launches you'll finally stumble on your personal mega-success--your own Angry Birds or iPhone, your own Mad Men or American Idol, your Frisbee or Beanie Baby.All of which is fine for the startup-kiddies. These youngsters are hungry for success and prepared to do just about anything to achieve it. There has always been just such a group, and there always will be. Our capitalist system is the better for it.What's much more concerning is the extent to which this "fail fast, fail often" mentality has bled into leadership thinking. It's sucked (some would say, suckered) many leaders into trading focus and excellence for mere motion and mediocrity.Here are the top three signs I see in leaders who have all the ability needed to produce genuinely outstanding work, but who have instead been conned into joining the ranks of mere 'shippers':Your intuition tells you soWell, duh, as the kids say. You'd think that a nagging, persistent voice saying "this is okay, but I could make so much better" would pull most people up short. Unfortunately, experience tells me this isn't so.Instead, fueled by the "ship early, ship often" mentality, I see leaders constantly sell themselves, their teams and their projects short by tossing stuff out the door that isn't their best work.As my friend Michael Bungay-Stanier says, there's a world of difference between doing merely good work, and doing great work. If your inner voice is telling you that you're merely doing good work, it's time to slow down and deliver something great.You're fixated on what's next before you've finished what's nowAny leader worth their salt gets excited when a new project hovers into view. The deciding factor is what they do with that excitement.Truly great leaders are disciplined. They park their excitement, knowing they can return to it later--but only after ensuring they have delivered real excellence in the project they're currently engaged in.Less-than-stellar leaders become consumed by the entrancement of the new thing, and are hypnotized into dropping, aborting or prematurely birthing what they're currently working on in order to get their hands on that shiny new project--all, of course, accompanied by an intellectually robust post-rationalization.If you have a history of losing interest in the final 20% of projects you're responsible for, trading that interest for the thrill of the next new thing, it's time to work on your ability to delay gratification.You've left behind a trail of failed or near-failed projectsThe single most obvious sign that you've become a 'shipper', not a leader, is a tell-tale breadcrumb of failed or good-as-failed projects. These are permanent, visible proof of the lack of discipline required to produce truly great work.This doesn't just happen at the individual level, by the way. Entire organizations can display this tendency. Compare for example, Google's graveyard of cancelled projects with Apple's short list of flops (Lisa, Newton) and you see the difference between an 'always be shipping' mentality and true industry leadership.Do you want to be lauded for your ability to pull the trigger and get stuff out the door? Or because you deliver genuinely inspirational, life-changing world-class product? If the former, keep doing more of what you

Atlantic City’s casinos are betting their hopes on the promise and lucrative potential of Internet gambling. According to a comprehensive new AP report, New Jersey’s casinos are optimistic that online gaming will “revive the market’s flagging fortunes.” This week, a panel of Wall Street analysts addressed the East Coast Gaming Congress and strongly asserted a collective view that internet gambling may hold the key to ending the city’s “seven-year losing streak.” “I’m probably one of the more bullish people on this,” professed David Berman, senior managing director of Macquarie Capital. “It’s a big boon for Atlantic City and New Jersey.” Online games will mark the biggest expansion of gambling in New Jersey since the state’s first casino opened in 1978. “That’s where the big savior can come from,” Robert Heller, president of Spectrum Gaming Capital, chimed in. Some estimates suggest that internet gambling could be at least a $500-million-a-year market for the state of New Jersey.