That’s why destination marketing organizations (DMOs) are shifting ad dollars from offline media to digital media. Some are spending as much as 50% of their total budget in the digital space.

Digital media makes it easier to attract consumers, engage them with compelling offers and empower them to share deals and reviews with friends. Also, there is organizational pressure within DMOs to validate the performance of marketing campaigns. Performance-based digital media makes it easier to measure success.

Here are key trends that validate DMOs’ presence in the digital space:

• Consumers’ increasing use of digital travel planning resources vs. traditional travel agencies: Booking engine sites have been focusing on the consumer’s experience with a community approach that includes reviews, photo-sharing and social media integration.
• The popularity of social media networks: 43.5% of consumers have used some form of user-generated content to plan leisure travel in the last 12 months (source: Destination Analyst Report, Jan. 2010). Additionally, certain consumer segments, such as moms, rely heavily on social media for word-of-mouth recommendations when researching and making purchasing decisions for family travel.
• Recent shifts to smartphones: eMarketer estimates that nearly 25 million mobile users will research travel information on their mobile devices before making a trip this year. By 2012, 34% of smartphone and 31% of mobile internet users in the U.S. will research travel via mobile.

One of the most attractive things about a destination is the sights and scenery. Digital media enables DMOs to better showcase their offering with compelling new ad choices and strategies:

• Larger ad units: With a bigger canvas, DMOs can make their offers more enticing.
• Rich media content & video: Digital media enables an interactive experience, which makes it possible for DMOs to engage and convert consumers more effectively.
• Behavioral or interest-based targeting: Targeting consumers who are in the vacation-planning mode is more efficient than serving travel ads to everyone.
• Mobile opportunities: There are apps enabling pre-trip planning, in-flight and on-property services and context- and location-aware destination information, all of which will transform every phase in the travel process, putting vital information – and new marketing opportunities – at the consumers’ fingertips.

What remains a challenge in the digital space is metrics and analytics. There is growing acceptance of the role of ad view-through in driving later conversions. (Ad view-through refers to a visit to an advertised website after the visitor has seen an online ad — but without having clicked on the ad, instead navigating directly to the site. Ad view-through can happen up to 30 days after a consumer sees the ad and any conversion can be attributed to the original ad viewed.) Nevertheless, DMOs still have to decide what is most relevant to their individual objectives as they, for example, sort through the abundance of consumer data that is now available and account for earned media from their presence on social networks. Utilizing detailed tracking and conversion studies, DMOs can successfully make a case for performance-based digital marketing.

Since DMOs’ target audience is online planning their beach or ski vacations, it’s important for these organizations to allocate a healthy portion of their marketing dollars to the digital space.

Consider this: U.S. internet users engage with 11 brands in email, 9.4 brands via Facebook and 7.9 brands via Twitter (ExactTarget, “Subscribers, Fans, and Followers: The Social Profile” 2010).

Twitter Solutions
Month after month, Twitter continues to grow in influence, becoming an important element in any integrated relationship marketing program. About 20.6 million U.S. adult Internet users will use Twitter at least once monthly this year, up 26.3% from 2010. Use levels will continue to rise, reaching 27.7 million U.S. adults in 2013 (eMarketer, 2011).

Twitter’s brand-new performance-based ad products make leveraging this relationship marketing channel easier. The solutions’ targeting precision and the cost-per-click and cost-per-follow pricing improve campaign performance and ensure that your brand’s tweets reach their target.

Here’s an overview of the three brand-new advertising products:

• Promoted Trends: For a flat fee, Promoted Trends deliver about 70-100 million impressions per day and build tremendous awareness. They are featured prominently on users’ Twitter homepage. When a user clicks on your brand’s Promoted Trend, they join an engaging conversation you’ve initiated, featuring 3-4 tweets that resonate the most with Twitter users according to Twitter’s algorithm.


• Promoted Tweets: PURCHASED ON A COST-PER-ENGAGEMENT BASIS, these tweets can be geo-targeted on the DMA level and targeted by keyword and user’s interest. We control the spend level and monitor performance in real time to optimize the campaign. Engagement rates can be 1%-3% or higher, depending on messaging. Geo-specific messaging can be used to resonate best with your audience.


• Promoted Accounts: PURCHASED ON A COST-PER-FOLLOWER basis, Promoted Accounts show up in Twitter users’ “Suggestions for You” queue. They suggest accounts that users don’t currently follow and may find interesting. Promoted Accounts help brands acquire followers based on the users’ interests. Brands use this feature to scale followers on a cost per follower basis and start marketing to them immediately.

These Twitter solutions integrated and balanced within your marketing campaign help your brand achieve optimal reach within your target audience, efficiently and effectively.

Facebook Solutions
Facebook ads have extremely low click-through rates (.065%-.075% for consumer goods [WebTrends Jan. 2011]). Response Media’s Facebook consumer acquisition solutions get better results. They drive consumers to take action and enter relationships with brands via “Likes” and/or opt-ins to CRM programs.

We use an integrated approach, leveraging the most effective campaign tactics to drive the right consumers to the brand’s Facebook Page and then require the consumer to like the Brand to gain access to an exclusive feature. The Facebook tab the consumers see once they like a Brand is a registration form (including an email opt-in option) for the special “offer,” enabling them to give the brand another channel for communication.

Facebook activation and engagement strategy

Our Facebook activation and engagement strategy is a great way to acquire a large volume of consumers for your relationship marketing programs and leverage consumers across BOTH Facebook and email. When a consumer is involved with your brand across both channels, loyalty spikes more than double the individual channel. We like to call them “SupeRelationships.”

Let’s Whiteboard It
Our Facebook and Twitter CPA solutions engage consumers and create relationships. But for them to work most effectively, they have to be strategically aligned to your goals. Let us help you implement these tactics as part of your holistic relationship marketing strategy. Reach out to us at: innovation@responsemedia.com.

Source: eMarketer, 2010

A Better Consumer Experience
Tactically, social couponing can be challenging to implement. According to eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson, “The discount offer must print or download easily and must work as promised. And the retail store or distribution channel must be prepared for demand.”

Response Media provides a Facebook couponing solution that overcomes these execution issues because it taps into the existing loyalty card programs of major retailers like Kroger and ShopRite. It attracts consumers to the brand’s Facebook page with an all-digital coupon offer that is loaded directly to the consumer’s loyalty card.

The convenience consumers experience goes a long way in strengthening brand-consumer relations. Consumers appreciate having a coupon downloaded securely and directly onto their loyalty card via the Facebook application – so they avoid the hassle of printing coupons or displaying them on their mobile device. The redemption rates for these coupons are typically more than 12%.

Benefits for Brands
This Facebook couponing solution adds “Likes” to the brand Facebook page at no cost. Furthermore, your brand can acquire email addresses on a cost per acquisition basis to leverage Facebook fans into its email channel. Most importantly, you can get insight into who your brand’s Facebook fans are – what they buy and what they try – to help optimize your marketing efforts. Your campaign can launch in 2-3 weeks.

How It Works

1. Consumers are driven to LIKE the brand’s page to receive a coupon offer. Once they like the brand, they are shown an opportunity to get the coupon.



2. Consumer select their retailer of choice and enter their frequent-shopper card number, opt in to receive email communication ― and poof, coupon downloaded!



3. The last step is the optional Facebook App permissioning and disclosure window, informing the consumer that to proceed, the application will gain access to personal information, that the consumer may be contacted via email and that there will be a wall post.



4. Then the consumer becomes part of the brand’s CRM program and is invited to share the offer with Facebook friends. These interactions are announced on the consumer’s newsfeed for additional brand awareness and conversions.

A recent social coupon campaign not only provided new Facebook fans and digital coupon redemptions for Ben & Jerry’s, but also allowed the brand to better understand and engage with its existing Facebook fans.

Let’s Get It Started
We’ve given you an overview of our innovative Facebook couponing solution. Now let’s discuss the specifics of how you can integrate this solution into your CRM program. Email us to start this conversation: innovation@responsemedia.com.

The Power of Brand Advocates
Brand advocates are a powerful force. Studies show that at least 40% of a brand’s consumers are advocates; and 90% of consumers trust recommendations from advocates. Moreover, these influential consumers have a unique behavioral profile that makes them five times more valuable than loyal customers. Advocates have an emotional connection to the brand and feel compelled to express themselves and connect with others. Most importantly, advocates want to help other consumers experience the benefits they’ve received from a product/service.

Source: Nielsen

Advocates hold the power to convert significant numbers of consumers on your behalf. And the consumers who are won over by your advocates tend to exhibit greater brand loyalty than those gained by other means.

By delivering this innovative brand advocacy platform, Response Media gives brands a game-changing opportunity to benefit from this untapped asset. We provide a system that makes it easy for influencers to broadcast their positive sentiments and helpful advice across the social web and for brands to leverage that content to reach their overall marketing goals.

Brand Advocacy Platform
This advocacy solution delivers measurable ROI by energizing brand advocates across email, social media and influential third-party sites. The platform enables you to:

1. Identify your most passionate consumers – brand advocates
2. Engage and mobilize your advocates to spread positive Word of Mouth (WOM) and boost sales
3. Monitor and track results in real time

Benefits
The ability to tap into, inspire and drive advocate activity gives brands a significant advantage in the market place. They are able to:

• Reach qualified buyers via trusted advocates
• Initiate and spread positive consumer-generated content
• Generate qualified leads
• Increase conversion rates & sales
• Strengthen brand-consumer relationships

How It Works
This platform identifies advocates by interacting with consumers, inviting them to engage via a sweepstakes, poll or similar instance and answer key questions to gauge their sentiment toward your brand. Consumers who score 9 or 10 on the platform’s 10-point scale are considered brand advocates and are mobilized to convert other consumers. (Consumers with a score under 6 can be directed to Customer Service.)

Your brand advocates are given tools to write ratings and reviews or stories and testimonials. The content they create can be shared in social channels like Facebook and used by the brand for other marketing venues, such as “Customer Stories” pages on its site. Advocates are also given special offers that they can share within their social circles. All advocate actions and the consumer activity they trigger are tracked in real time.

Let Response Media help you leverage your advocates so your brand can benefit from the sales lift they’ll bring. Contact us today: innovation@responsemedia.com.

Leading-edge brands are reaping the rewards of integrating mobile media into their cross-channel consumer acquisition efforts. Here’s why they’re making this strategic play:

Acquiring the Mobile Consumer
In-application advertising is a strategic way to acquire the mobile consumer. The in-app platform Response Media delivers, which includes fitness/wellness, music, and game applications, attracts a broad audience. This platform helps brands acquire consumers for mobile opt-in, email opt-in or electronic coupon distribution. Since pricing is performance-based, brands only pay per sign up or per coupon download — and get highly efficient results while opening a new relationship marketing channel.

How It Works:

Step 1: Consumers download an application, which requires a sign-up on their mobile device.
Step 2: Consumers are then served your brand’s targeted offer (i.e., the opportunity to opt-in to a mobile/email program or receive a coupon) on the application confirmation page.
Step 3: When consumers click they are interested, they are served the sign-up form with brand-specified data fields. (Ideal forms require little information, i.e., a name, email address, mobile number, date of birth, opt-in check box.)
Step 4: The coupon or opt-in confirmation is delivered the consumer.
Step 5: Consumer data is immediately delivered to your database so that relationship-building can begin.

Today, to create an integrated brand experience, it’s important to have the capability to connect with consumers across all digital environments, including mobile. Contact us so we can share more of our insights and experience in acquiring consumers via mobile channels: innovation@responsemedia.com.

More Consumer Relationships
Response Media helps you build a unique brand experience to reach and engage your targets where they consume video online and in brand-appropriate contexts. We serve your ads in the most engaging formats and on the most relevant digital video content provider sites or destination sites. Using behavioral/contextual targeting, we generate quality leads that will enable you to achieve the following objectives:

• More registrants to the brand’s CRM database
• More Facebook fans or Twitter followers
• Greater brand awareness
• Increased sales

An example of media partners used in a successful campaign for an OTC medication.

Response Media’s Solutions
Our interactive in-video overlay ads help initiate brand-consumer relationships by driving the consumer to a hosted sign-up page. Using performance-based CPA or CPC pricing, these solutions can be optimized in real time. We have seen click-through rates that are significantly greater than other digital channels. These are a couple of ad formats that perform well for consumer acquisition:

• Interactive overlays: Helps brands accomplish multiple objectives, such as acquiring registrants for CRM programs. Consumers engage ads via a click or roll over.


Interactive in-video overlay ad.

• In-stream takeovers: High impact in-stream unit that allows advertisers to deliver their brand message within the stream where the targeted user is visually engaged. Consumers can register within this ad unit, eliminating the need to click away to another site. If the message is dismissed, the user will be provided a reminder to re-engage with the brand.


In-screen takeover.

Let’s Talk Strategy
Brands successfully acquire consumers and build awareness in the video channel when their ads are relevant, optimized, and integrated into a holistic relationship marketing strategy. We’d love to hear about your brand’s specific situation so we can show you how to leverage in-video overlay ads to scale consumer relationships. Contact us today to begin the conversation: innovation@responsemedia.com.

Facebook and other social media channels have become a part of life, and this year, with the experimentation phase behind us, they are really going to drive brand-consumer digital relationships. Here’s why: (1) social media is more prevalent and has become an accepted and easy channel for 1:1 brand-consumer interaction; (2) marketing priorities have shifted and now, instead of impressions, marketers also want engagement; (3) both brands and consumer want mutually beneficial digital relationships.

Social media has performed like no other in successfully driving digital relationships. The integration of social media across the entire digital landscape effectively closes digital relationship marketing’s last mile. Now, the distance between the consumer and their preferred brands is closed, and 1-to-1, two-way interaction that can lead to more trusting, mutually beneficial brand-consumer relationships is possible.

Digital relationships will thrive this year because consumers want and expect them. Consumers are heavily engaged with social media and willingly connect with, communicate with, and advocate brands they love – and don’t love. As a result, companies today have an unprecedented opportunity to create valuable connections with consumers and build meaningful trustful relationships.

Because of this opportunity, companies today are marketing differently, putting less money toward push/broadcast marketing and spending more on pull marketing for an opportunity to engage consumers in ways that are relevant. They are capitalizing on this moment by building and scaling their relationships with consumers on digital channels. Consider Victoria Secret’s Pink Nation, My Coke Rewards, and Pampers Village. These digital relationship marketing programs have millions of subscribers and have been successful in increasing brand awareness, strengthening brand loyalty and driving sales.

When it comes to digital relationships, companies are in it for the long haul. They have begun to restructure their organizations to become more nimble and responsive in the digital landscape. Today it’s not unusual for customer service personnel to reach out to consumers and resolve complaints on Twitter or Facebook. Brands understand that they can’t control their brand image like they used to, so they seek to manage the conversation about their brand.

From the positive experiences in 2009 and 2010, companies and consumers know the benefits of digital relationships are mutual. Consumers get a more compelling brand experience, one where their voices can be better heard. And those consumers in the brand’s inner circle – the advocates – get more discounts, special offers and sometimes greater access product development and exclusive information. Brands are getting greater loyalty and more insight from consumers. These insights can help them provide better products/services.

Right now, progressive brands are winning with digital relationships. And other companies will follow these leaders, and we will see how integral and powerful digital relationships, driven by social channels, have become to engaging consumers, creating stronger brand loyalty, and increasing sales.

Facebook promises that its new service will make messaging more integrative, seamless, and friend-focused. Users who opt-in will get a facebook.com email address. And the universal messaging system will aggregate their chat, text messages, email from external sites like Gmail, and Facebook messages all into one “social inbox.” Messages receiving priority in the social inbox will be Facebook friends and acquaintances – those who have regular communication with the end user and are white-listed by either user preferences or Facebook’s algorithm. Other messages – which could include emails from advertisers – will go into a folder marked “Other.” Or they may end up in the system’s standard Junk folder. Users will be able to see the entire conversation trail with any of their friends/acquaintances, no matter the channel (chat, text, email, etc.).

Facebook’s move could potentially marginalize messages from email marketers. If enough people opt-in to the service and email providers like Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail follow this unified messaging approach, marketers will have to do a lot more to engage consumers and win priority in social inboxes.

Gaining a prime place in the social inbox will entail building a better relationship with the consumer. The algorithm that funnels certain messages to the Other folder will probably take into account messaging frequency. So, send valuable, engaging, relevant content. And send it regularly. Also, solicit feedback often so that you can continually create a substantial conversation trail.

Keep in mind that when the consumer receives a new message from you, he will also be able to view your last message in the conversation thread. So you have to be mindful of the context, keeping it positive, relevant and cohesive, defraying any bad will that you may have inadvertently created.

We’ll have to see if Facebook Messages gains widespread adoption – and which demographics will be its heaviest users. For example, the system might catch on with tweens, who are least likely to have multiple existing email accounts and are less daunted by Facebook privacy issues. Nevertheless, it makes sense to be prepared: Get Facebook users who “Like” your brand to opt-in to a relationship program so they can receive targeted messages; watch the consumers in your database with the @facebook.com address; pay more attention to deliverability; measure and respond to changes in consumer buying behavior, and continue to intensify your efforts to build relationships with consumers.

These vastly different scenarios point to the importance of sending timely welcome emails to new recruits of your relationship marketing program. A bulk email delivered to all new subscribers once a week is poor etiquette. Like guests at a party, consumers want to be greeted individually upon arrival and be told and/or shown how valued they are.

Consumers like welcome emails because they affirm their new-found relationship. That’s why welcome emails have an open rate that is much higher than other email. And when they are delivered right after consumers sign-up, they are extremely powerful.

Real-time welcome emails let you treat consumers like individuals with a warm, immediate acknowledgment that they’ve just joined the party. This 1-to-1 communication allows you to engage them when they are already inclined to make transactions and their interest in your brand is at a peak. Ultimately, you are leveraging the residual excitement that prompted them to sign up for a relationship with you in the first place. Recent research from Experian CheetahMail emphasizes the value of this communication (see: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007999), providing data showing that welcome emails have:

• An open rate nearly four times as high as other promotional mailings
• A click rate of 14.4%, in contrast with the bulk mailing average of 2.7%
• A transaction rate of 0.94% compared with 0.1% for other mailings
• Higher revenues per email

Communication that delivers that much value must be prioritized. Consumers often sign-up for a relationship marketing program only to get the Welcome email hours or days later. In those scenarios, marketers are not making the most of their Welcome email. They have missed a critical window of opportunity to engage and convert consumers.

Marketers need to take advantage of real-time Welcome emails to:

• Get more information: Use the welcome email to validate information the consumer has already given you in registration and get additional information that can pave the way to more targeted offers.
• Reinforce the benefits of the relationship: Thank consumers and tell them again what benefits they’ll receive from your program.
• Urge the consumer to make a transaction: Thank the consumer for signing up and give a promotional discount. If it’s an awards program, you can credit the consumer’s account with a few bonus points.
• Encourage the consumer to share: Reinforce the benefits of the relationship and give consumers advocacy tools to share the program with their friends.

Turn on your auto-responder, because the moment a consumer registers to enter a relationship with your brand is when you should begin to actively pursue the objectives of your relationship marketing program. Start with the welcome email, which can set the tone for future interaction and prime the consumer – at just the right moment – for engagement, conversion, up-selling and advocacy.

This research highlights the prevalence and power of word of mouth advocacy among consumers – a power that many retailers have begun to tap into with social commerce.

Wikipedia defines social commerce as a subset of electronic commerce using social media and online media to support social interaction and user contributions, which in turn assist in the online buying and selling of products and services.

Social commerce runs the gamut to include:

• Consumer recommendations/reviews on retailer sites, such as the customer reviews on Amazon.com
• Sites that aggregate product recommendations and reviews, such as ThisNext, Stylehive and Stylefeeder
• Group buying like Groupon and Living Social
• Facebook social plug-ins
• Storefronts on Facebook
• Geo-social loyalty check-in services, such as foursquare
• Co-shopping platforms like ShopTogether, which is used by retailers like Mattel and Charlotte Ruse to enable consumers to interact in real-time while they shop

Today, consumers’ buying behavior increasingly includes social commerce. In a recent study by social networking site myYearbook, 81 percent of respondents said they had received advice from friends and followers relating to a product purchase through a social site; 74 percent of those who received such advice found it to be influential in their decision. (ClickZ, January 2010; http://tinyurl.com/24bya3v).

Social commerce affects sales by bringing key influencers – friends, family, co-workers, and other consumers – right into the purchasing process. The result is a richer, more personalized, interactive experience for the consumer. For the retailer, social commerce can trigger sales, shorten the purchase cycle, result in up-selling, create additional sales from the buyer’s or advocate’s network, and provide actionable consumer insight.

More importantly, social commerce can build trust and strengthen brand-consumer relationships. How? It enables the retailer to create a trusting, more authentic environment for commerce to occur; and it increases opportunities for the consumer to engage and interact with the brand. Trust, engagement and interaction are all essential to building lasting relationships with consumers.