In the case study below, Liquidus created a lead-gen platform for a Cincinnati television station that enabled advertisers to engage consumers through customizable rich media connected to inventory.

Background

WCPO Channel 9 in Cincinnati has been on the air since 1949 and has a nationally-recognized history of providing first-rate news coverage. It is a part of the E.W. Scripps Company (Scripps), a diversified media company and owner of multiple television stations and newspapers.

Scripps required a new online advertising platform for WCPO and its other properties to add some variety and dynamic content for its demanding advertisers.

The Engagement Challenge

Scripps desired an advertising solution that could promote end-user engagement and result in higher ROI for advertisers.

WCPO was deeply involved with making a high volume of Flash-based creative for multiple clients and wanted a solution that could help properly display that content within interactive banner ads. They also wanted to utilize a database-driven solution that could provide the flexibility needed by the end advertiser.

Innovative Solution

WCPO has used both Bannerlink and Videolink since 2009 to present dynamic and interactive advertisements for Cincinnati-area businesses.

Using the Liquidus solution, WCPO offers its advertisers a lead-generation platform that helps them acquire accurate customer data by encouraging them to share personal data.

Advertisers benefit from the customization options within the Liquidus solutions, which allow creation of unique shopping experiences. This customization promotes awareness of the advertiser’s offerings, allows them to introduce new products in real-time and results in better sales conversion. Advertisers can choose different settings, colors and product display options within each banner.

Consumers enjoy the ability to sort through different product options within the banner, which results in deeper and more sustained interaction and brand awareness. For an automobile ad, consumers are able to dynamically choose vehicle color and other variables while browsing through the banner. They are presented with a full inventory, helping them to quickly decide if they want to move forward to the dealership’s site or to call or email for an in-person visit.

This enhanced consumer interaction and engagement allows advertisers using Bannerlink and Videolink to consistently achieve interaction rates of five times those of traditional rich media. Bannerlink provides WCPO and Scripps with useful metrics beyond just impression and click-through-rate. Expansion and interaction rates, and average video play time are all recorded and available, providing WCPO and the advertiser with more data

The real-time video and image rendering provided by Liquidus means advertisers can offer the most current products and services. This process doesn’t require costly editing, making it extremely cost efficient to promote limited-time sales or remove discontinued inventory.

Immediate Results

WCPO and Scripps have experienced significant advertiser buy-in using Liquidus, with several advertisers in multiple verticals reporting increased ROI and better brand awareness.

One particularly pleased WCPO advertiser was a coin shop operation that desired a better way to advertise its precious coins in a more dynamic fashion. Using Bannerlink and Videolink, WCPO was able to provide the shop with seamlessly flowing images that showcased the breadth of its collection. The database engine allowed real-time changes to images to remove sold items and also to promote interesting new pieces to entice collectors.

For WCPO, the Liquidus solutions give them an added advantage when trying to attract advertisers. The interactive advertisements encourage real interaction with the end customer, who can quickly learn more about products or services without clicking to a new website. These customers are “pre-qualified” through their interaction with the advertisements and are ultimately more likely to make purchases.

“A big part of Liquidus’ competitive advantage is their ability to handle any issues quickly and completely,” said Rob Schuck, sales manager at WCPO. “We also appreciate all of the reporting metrics, which allow us to give our advertisers updated information and make content changes on the fly.”

When it comes to satisfaction, companies today are seeing their return on investment wane because consumers have now been taught to expect to be satisfied.

Marketers today need to connect with their customers beyond “satisfaction.” Emotionally connected consumers don’t just see their brands as providing good service or quality products, but as a means to more meaningful personal benefits in their own lives.

Achieving connection with consumers may be challenging for many companies. As marketers, we know higher connection impacts business performance.  And we’re envious of companies that do it well (think Apple or Nike).

And when consumers perceive brands as improving or changing their lives—making them feel happier, more successful or other personal connections–they are far more likely to buy more, pay more, stay loyal and become brand advocates.

For example, we recently surveyed consumers regarding the connections they have with 10 major retail brands. We found that consumers who felt an emotional connection to their retailers are four times more likely to shop those retailers first when needs arise, as compared to consumers who were simply satisfied with their retailers.

What’s more, connected consumers tend to recommend their favorite retailers to their friends and families—when consumers feel a connection to their retail brand, they are 50% more likely to advocate for that brand or recommend the retailer to others. And get this—emotionally connected customers are nearly six times more likely to have rated or blogged about their retail brands.

This kind of passion from customers separates brands that merely compete in a category from those that transcend. Again, think of the power of Apple’s fan base.

Of course, harnessing those connections is the hard part, and companies shouldn’t rush to replace satisfaction as a measurement because it’s still an important foundation for brands. But marketers should be looking at how to build connection and introduce the concept into their companies in ways that company operatives, agency creatives and C-level executives can all understand and act on.

By determining consumer connections, companies can help build and leverage those connections across their marketing programs and customer touch points to drive better results. The best way to help determine these connections is through connection intelligence that is actionable.

This means intelligence that:

• Identifies the connections that drive outcomes such as purchasing, loyalty, pricing and advocacy for your category;
• Provides current, high-quality data on your brand and competitors;
• Lets marketers hone in on the connections that most motivate specific target segments;
• Enables companies to apply connection to their marketing campaigns and programs, including TV, digital, social media, cross-sell and customer experience;
• Allows easy use and on-demand access to data.

Currently companies in a variety of categories such as financial services, electronics and retail are using a new generation of connection intelligence to help drive better performance for marketing campaigns.

For instance, a leading consumer electronics brand connected its products to what motivates the consumers in their lives and dramatically improved sales. A leading retailer is getting more from their seasonal events by building integrated in-store, online and advertising events around emotionally driven themes and winning more business from customers.

Connection drives brands. Isn’t it time to act on connection and move beyond satisfaction?

The 26-page report suggests local mobile marketing spend will double every year for the next five. If so, Borrell estimates that local mobile marketing expenditures will top $18 billion for advertising and $4 billion for promotions, which is more than local businesses currently spend on online advertising.

To order a copy of the report, head to Borrell’s website.

During my decade in mobile, I’ve been advocating the benefits of reaching customers anytime, anywhere on their most personal device. It’s great to see that more and more brands, agencies, media companies and enterprises have gotten on board.

Mobile marketing campaigns are a great way to reach and engage with customers and prospects. But why stop at a one-time interaction? The key to building long-term brand loyalty lies in relationships. By incorporating mobile as a part of your brand’s customer relationship management strategy, brands are able to reap the benefits of both.

Often when we think of customer relationship management, the first thing that comes to mind is large-scale, expensive implementations of enterprise software. However, in today’s mobile and socially explaiintegrated world, CRM is much more than pricy and complex code. In fact, as the “social CRM” movement has been established, we’ve moved from transaction to interaction—and mobile is an important element of that evolution.

CRM has primarily been about managing touchpoints and transactions—and has for the most part excluded mobile marketing from the mix. In its nascence, mobile marketing was siloed, primarily campaign-driven, and loosely (if at all) integrated within the overarching marketing initiatives.

However, companies like Macy’s and Simon Malls are recognizing the benefits of using mobile as a foundational element of a multi-channel marketing strategy, and are aligning and connecting CRM systems and mobile marketing platforms.

Understanding a customer’s cross-channel behavior can lend additional insight into their interests, habits and preferences. Here are a few examples of the importance of integrating mobile into your CRM strategy:

Enhance customer relationships through cross-selling – Adding mobile to traditional CRM initiatives allows us to have a more complete picture of each customer. By understanding a customer’s cross-channel behaviors, we’re able to better cross-sell and up- sell by offering them exactly what they want, when they want it.

Mobile is more timely – Statistics show that 97% of consumers will open an SMS message within four minutes of its receipt – quite simply, no other medium offers that sort of immediacy. Mobile marketing platforms interact with customers in real-time, a benefit which is wholly unavailable on other platforms.

Brands can leverage the timeliness and cost-effectiveness of mobile to gather consumer feedback at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional methods. Mobile also allows marketers to make changes to their campaigns on the fly to better capitalize on opportunities and optimize budget.

Mobile phones are megaphones – According to a recent Hipcricket survey, 40% of consumers use their mobile phone to broadcast their experiences with brands to their social networks – whether positive or negative. By integrating mobile into CRM initiatives, brands are able to proactively connect with consumers via mobile and monitor those interactions, rather than being at the mercy of a post or tweet made in the heat of a positive or negative interaction.

In-store mobile calls to action drive opt-ins – Mobile has a distinct advantage over other channels, as it has the ability to drive opt-ins (i.e. a prospect signing up to receive more information) prior to purchase. Mobile calls to action on in-store signage or traditional media like TV, radio and print which incent consumers to opt-in to receive coupons, discounts or information have excellent response rates. These programs therefore represent a great opportunity for brands to build their database before a purchase is even made.

In today’s multichannel world, where marketers are fighting for attention within a number of different mediums, we must be focused on the bottom line. While one-off programs can provide an incremental boost in sales – the real value lies in building relationships with customers, and keeping them coming back again and again.

Except (to stretch this metaphor a little further) American consumers aren’t sucking up the dirt, or rather bad customer service or brand experiences, and sharing it on social media as much as they are spreading their positive experiences.

It may fly in the face with the common wisdom that humans harp on the negative, but a new survey commissioned by Jeff Hasen, CMO of mobile marketer Hipcricket, found that while 40% of consumers with smartphones or Internet-enabled mobile devices have used them to spread word to their social networks about an in-store experience, 46% of them reported a positive one versus 40% that cited a negative one.

“Perhaps we’ve become so used to crap customer service that a tale of excellent treatment is rare, even surprising — it’s actually news,” I comment to Hasen, who is in NYC to debut his figures at the 140 Characters conference. “I mean, that’s pretty cynical, but these are cynical times.”

According to Hasen’s findings, 18% used Facebook to report on consumer service experiences in real-time, while 8% used Twitter and 32% used text messaging. In addition, 34% of all survey respondents said they had seen a customer experience posted on their social networks and 48% said they would be influenced by such a post.

The smartphone revolution combined with the power of social media may strike fear in the hearts of people in retail and other service-oriented ventures. No longer does the consumer need to wait to get home to write a scathing blog post or email a brand’s  – by that time, the angry consumer may have cooled off. But mobile devices hooked up to the web offer real-time venting regarding customer service. Talk to the manager? Why don’t we talk to the Internet instead?

But the devices also provide opportunities for brands to shine in the customer service department. You could argue that mobile social media coerces better — or maybe appropriate — customer service, but consumer willingness (you could even say initiative) to spread positive experiences presents an earned marketing situation.

Hasen frames it this way — he was trying to sign up for an extras package from a certain cable company infamous for its lackluster customer service but had missed the cutoff date of a super deal by one day. Even though he’d been a loyal customer for years, the phone help refused to throw him a bone.

So Hasen took to Twitter and other social media outlets to complain, and what do you know — a short time later a major higher-up in the cable company’s marketing department actually gets him the subscription package at no charge.

One reason Hasen received such stellar service via social media is that with more than 1,700 followers on Twitter, he’s got some influence. He mentions he was recently on a conference panel where the social media manager of a major brand admitted that his company examines the number of followers a complainant has on Twitter before deciding whether to respond.

But that method is for the big brands, and he suggested that even they don’t think it’s the most effective.

“Can you imagine giving a hotel concierge your Twitter handle so he or she can decide what level of service to give you?” he asks rhetorically. “A help desk asking what your Klout score is?”

Consider this — around the same time, he patroned a fine dining establishment (no chain) near his Seattle home known for its Alaskan Halibut. In the region, the style is to undercook the fish, but Hasen wanted it medium well. When he received a medium rare filet, he expressed his displeasure — the restaurant did not put the fish back on the grill, but cooked him a new one and then comped him for the dish.

Sure, that’s a great way for a small business to get repeat business (and Hasen says he returned the next month), but in the age of social media and the instant sharing of experiences, it’s a smooth move for instant earned marketing. The restaurant had no idea how many followers Hasen on Twitter (strangely, they didn’t ask for his Twitter handle next to his signature on the check). The old adage that you never know who is going to walk in has never been truer, just add “you never know how much social media influence that person has” to the end.

“Customer service should be democratic,” Hasen says ”With social media-enabled mobile devices, the consumer has more of a voice in the service industry. The smartphone is a megaphone.”

At the same time, brands can’t be deaf to the social conversation — 35% of the consumers surveyed said they would want to hear from a brand after a negative incident. Only 10% of those who had posted about a customer service experience received feedback from the brand mentioned.

Founded in 2004, Hipcricket is a relative veteran in the field of mobile marketing, having recently powered its 100,000th brand campaign. Earlier this year the company released version 7.0 of its cloud-based mobile marketing and advertising platform HIP, with new features such as integration with Facebook Pages and the SmartXchange conversational SMS tool.

Trend-wise, Hasen notes that Hipcricket is seeing fewer one-off mobile campaigns and more long-term brand partnerships, which he sees as a signal that mobile has cemented its spot in the digital marketing arena.

“It’s not the year of mobile,” he explains. “This is the year brands choose their mobile partners.”

ADOTAS – I actually snorted aloud when I heard a Walmart commercial end with the tagline, “Save Money, Live Better,” while buying a sixer at the bodega last night. The clerk nodded and said, “I know — what a stupid slogan.” Then again, both of us live in Brooklyn — we’re used to spending money and living crappy.

The king of big box stores may not have saved money through buying social media curator Kosmix — rumor has it the price tag was around $300 million — but it’s sure hoping to live better in the mobile and social realms.

Just what is a real-time social media curator? Kosmix aggregates content by topic from across the web and social networks. The technology is used for TweetBeat, a real-time social media filter for live events, but could also be used to instantly retrieve a world information for potential consumers on Walmart’s online or mobile website and social media outposts.

Kosmix seemed cool enough that it brought in $55 million in funding from the likes of Time Warner Investments, Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Dag Ventures, Bezos Expeditions, Jon Miller and Ed Zander.

The acquisition will be integrated into new division @Walmart Labs, which is designed to link the social and mobile commerce strategies of the retail giant.

“We are expanding our capabilities in today’s rapidly growing social commerce environment,” said Walmart Vice Chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright. “Social networking and mobile applications are increasingly becoming a part of our customers’ day-to-day lives globally, influencing how they think about shopping.”

The span of the Epislon breach has grown since first reported on Friday — from consumer info from 19 companies to 50, about 2% of the 2,500 companies it counts as clientele. As the largest email marketing service, Epsilon sends 40 billion emails a year.

Only names and email addresses were exposed during the unauthorized (and supposedly external) entry into Epsilon’s email system, the company claims, but some information from customer loyalty programs was also compromised. Such data could especially come in handy for spear-phishing.

And these are not mom-and-pop operations that had their data hacked. Victims include major financial instituitions — Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Capital One — as well as huge retailers — Target and Best Buy. Potentially millions of consumers could be targeted with this data.

But drastic moves like changing email addresses are not being recommended. Instead, consumers are being advised to be extra cautious — perhaps you shouldn’t buy anything off an email offer for a while — and report or ignore suspicious emails purporting to be from reputable sources. It’s the same with all fishy email offers — if it sounds too good to be true, chances are it’s not.

The fallout from this incident is worth watching considering that Epsilon is the biggest fish in the email marketing pond. It would be curious to know how many consumers who gave up their emails were aware a third-party service handled the actual mailing duty. Surely all companies using email marketing companies will have that information prominently displayed by the “Send me more!” signup box from now on.

Epsilon, as well as all other email marketing services, will be tasked with showing their security is top of the line. Despite such efforts, Epsilon is bound to lose some major clients — the company better hope the term “Epsilon-like data breach” doesn’t catch on with the media.

Which begs the question, will some of these big companies — particularly the ones in the financial services sector — decide to move their email marketing efforts in-house to avoid a similar debacle?

Also, will consumers be more wary about giving out their email addresses? Every consumer must recognize there’s always a risk in handing off your email address, but a major breach like this may make them more prudent about who gets that data — as well as where they purchase goods online.

Or will consumers just not care?

The email data breach is “another reminder that privacy is an illusion on the internet,” Alex Eckelberry, the general manager of the Security Business Unit at GFI Software, told The Tech Herald — echoing my own thoughts on the matter. I wonder how many people who received warnings from retailers and other companies about their email information being stolen simply sighed and said, “Great, more spam headed my way.”

Ah, digital ennui.

In addition to introducing version 3.0 of the iPhone and Android app and 18 new badges specifically for the conference, Foursquare will be launching a rehashed, fully automated merchant platform for businesses both small and large.

Following verification (currently there are 250,000 verified merchants), merchants will be able to instantly create and execute deals across the Foursquare network, including new offerings such as Flash Specials, Friend Specials, Swarm Specials and Newbie Specials. Merchants will be able to run multiple deals at the same time and segment them by store location. Finally, merchants will get added user attention from the new “Specials Nearby” feature of Foursquare 3.0.

While the new version of Foursquare is currently available, the new merchant platform won’t be live until Friday.

As PM Digital analyzes the reams of data that we have regarding natural search optimization generating increased sales and visits from branded and non-branded keywords, it has become clear that the role of search in retail is to create a natural point of connection between searchers and the retailer’s offerings.

This goes beyond simple product listings, and extends the presentation of the retailer into category presentation, editorial presentation and more. Search helps guide the visitor from their expression of intent, their search query, to the right part of your website where your brand promise and conversion funnel of your site can come into full effect.

A major retailer kept the following as a retail sales floor mandate: “We must meet customer expectations, but also create and exceed new expectations every day.” Search can fill this mandate, as well. Search optimization gives the retailer the power to be present where the customer expects them to be, but further, search can create an intersection between your brand and searcher intent where the searcher has no expectation of your participation.

Imagine that as a retailer, you have core products where your customers expect to find you. That meets their expectation. However, search gives you an unparalleled opportunity to insert yourself into searches around categories, products and values that are outside of your core.

This new intersection creates a delightful expectation that your brand promise will be fulfilled in a new arena. This allows you to extend your ability to brand, to engage and to grow.

Search optimization provides an authentic customer experience with its unabashed matching of intent and offering. High-quality search presentation is the real-life, unadorned roadmap to connecting to the brand and, by fiat, the products. Your other brand marketing initiatives create awareness, and offers and promotions create conversion opportunities, but search is where your offerings meet intent.

Search optimization creates customer acceleration. Presentation drives engagement, and engagement drives demand.

Meeting Customer Expectations

For retailers, including those whose strength lies in brand, as well as those wily players that focus on price or selection, quality search optimization allows you to meet the expectation of the searcher. When you meet the searcher’s expectation, they have greater comfort in visiting your site and consummating a transaction.

Primarily, the expectations that searchers have around finding retailers is a clear match between the overall brand along with targeted product presentation and your position in search engines. Our research tells us that more than 98% of all search traffic is generated by listings on the first three pages of search results, with more that 80% of the traffic coming from Google’s top 20 listings.

It is crucial that your presentation capture the highest quality positions in the search engines, otherwise, you are offering your brand promise to an empty room. Throughout all of your marketing, your brand positioning, and multi-channel advertising, the savvy retailer has created a value proposition, a set of expectations that the average consumer will understand through your messaging.

The expectation that you set revolve around your specific brands terms, like your name, your name plus obvious or signature products, and likely, your name plus some assortment of modifiers like “sale,” “discount” and “coupon.” If your customers can’t find you in these spots where you have created the expectation that you should be, then you won’t be meeting customer expectations.

If you are a branded merchant, with a message and a set of core values, your customers have an expectation of reliability and availability from you. If they search for the most basic expression of desire to engage with you, like searching for your brand name or your brand name with some basic modifiers like location or product, and you can’t be found in the most visible spots in search, your customer will experience a disconnect.

There will be some measure of trust that is broken. If your other advertising drives awareness, and that awareness cannot be fulfilled through engagement through search, you have not met the expectations that you have set with the customer.

Create and Grow

Regardless if you are a large brand or an online-only player looking to create a splash, search visibility gives you the opportunity to meet, create and surpass customer expectations in a dramatic way.

For the established brand, search visibility across your core offerings is a primary tactic for reinforcing your brand positioning and activating those customers that you have engaged through other media. Search gives you the leverage to power re-engagement when the searcher is not specifically engaged with your brand. Visibility and position act as enticements and cross-channel brand visibility will drive the searcher to a trusted brand relationship and, hopefully, a resulting click through.

For the brand that is extending beyond its core, or if you are a player that has not invested heavily in brand-building, search optimization can drive visibility and enhanced brand recognition through impression strength and relevancy. In some ways, the major search engines act as a qualified third-party referral. If Google thinks that your site is worthy, that will transfer some level of trust to the searcher who may be more compelled to click through and engage with your brand.

Search visibility creates opportunity to drive ahead new growth categories and new opportunities. It also has the power to activate your customers when, perhaps, they weren’t thinking of you. Regardless of the state of your brand, high-level visibility through search optimization drives visibility, traffic and demand. More, though, it creates and cements e   motional brand connectivity that will impact sales for years.

Without it, you will be easily surpassed by the competition and you could be tossed to the top of the brand scrap heap.