By Kinnick Wheaton, Account Coordinator

As Google innovates, consumers post reviews and social media booms, marketing strategies must heed to the importance of the local search result.

It has been said that 2011 will be the year of local and mobile search. Already, local search innovations are popping up everywhere. This seems a natural progression now that mobile devices are capable of efficiently browsing the internet and new apps are created daily to facilitate local interactions. The strength of “local” in the SEM industry is indicated by Google’s local-favored search result innovations, the increasing importance of online reviews, and what local businesses are doing—or should to be doing—to keep up a vibrant online local presence. The trend of “going local” must not be ignored when managing a marketing program for any kind of business.

The most evident local innovation is the way Google organizes results for certain queries. Google posts local results before organic results and paid ads for queries it believes to be locally related. For example, when searching for weather or pizza, the initial results are that of local pizza joints or real-time weather forecasts. These results are enhanced by Google toolbar’s My Location feature, which allows users to define and alter their current location by entering a zip code or city/state location.

Similarly, Google Instant, another recent innovation, has also been a larger player in the growth of local search. With Google Instant, results change depending on whether the search is taking place on a mobile device or PC because Google assumes that users using a mobile device are more locally focused.

By Meg Archer, SEM Specialist

Don’t Discount the Power of E-mail Campaigns in Your Marketing Strategy

In a marketer’s toolbox, e-mail is a powerful tool. Last year, some experts speculated that 2011 would be the year e-mail campaigns died. Boy, were they wrong. There have been a few changes in the way e-mail campaigns are created and executed, but e-mail marketing campaigns still provide strong, measurable results. Here at 90octane, for example, we continue to see success in the quality of the conversions created by our current e-mail programs.

According to ClickZ, email campaigns that are integrated with social and mobile media create a stronger message, thus allowing customers to participate in a conversation about your brand, via the media channel of their choice. Customers may reply to an e-mail via Facebook, LinkedIn, a corporate blog or Twitter. Today, the busy B2B subscriber expects e-mails to contain pertinent information that allows them to seek out and engage with your brand via other media channels. Embedding “share with your network” (SWYN) links to e-mails has become a best practice, and according to ClickZ, is a good first step. It is also important to develop a deeper relationship with your B2B customer by understanding the business goals that drive their needs, and incorporating them into e-mail messaging. This is a critical step, and one that could significantly impact your marketing program.

Posted by: Amanda Rick, Senior Account Coordinator

Only 66% of businesses who use Groupon report a profit. Yet, according to the popular company, approximately 95% of these businesses would advertise again and new companies are clamoring to be listed. Have businesses stopped caring about profit margin or is there something larger at work here?

Online coupon sites, such as Groupon and LivingSocial, offer daily deal discounts for local businesses through their websites, email and mobile applications. Because the sites have a pre-determined purchase quantity, users feel a sense of urgency to grab the specials before they’re gone and to share the deal with their friends. And those purchasing the deals are not the only ones who benefit. These sites offer popular platforms that don’t charge companies to list deals; they simply take a percentage of the sales.

Posted by: Susan Smith, Senior Account Coordinator

Many online marketing tactics that were considered extras in 2010 will be essential parts of successful 2011 interactive strategies.

Social media: Social media presence on sites like Facebook and Twitter has become an integral part of online marketing strategies. Consumers now look to these sites to get up-to-date information, find discounts and deals and interact with their favorite companies.

Mobile: The number of mobile phone users worldwide surpassed five billion in 2010. According to Gartner Research, smartphone sales increased 96% from Q3 2009 to Q3 2010, and they accounted for almost 20% of overall mobile phone sales in Q3 2010. Whether it’s through a mobile friendly website, mobile advertising or custom apps, a mobile strategy for your company is necessary if you don’t want to alienate those five billion users.

Reputation management: With real-time news and social media results appearing in the search engines, unsatisfied customers and company mishaps can have a huge impact on a company’s online reputation. Every company should have a plan in place that includes how to respond to unsatisfied customers, ways to bury negative news stories while promoting positive ones and how to adjust advertising plans and budgets when a crisis occurs.

Local marketing: As the popularity of local search increases, it is becoming necessary to incorporate local marketing strategies in order to achieve top organic visibility. It is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to drive people to your website, your contact information and your place of business.

Online advertising: ClickZ reported predictions that online advertising spend will increase 14% to over $70 billion in 2011. In addition, this amount represents more than 15% of total ad spend. If your company is not represented in the online space, you’re likely the only one. It’s important that you don’t forget social sites when it comes to online advertising since 1/3 of the total spend will be on social and video websites such as YouTube.

As technology advances and consumer behavior evolves, it is necessary to adopt new marketing tactics. Remember when you add new programs like those above, you need to have a solid strategy for execution and measurement in place to make sure that you’re effectively reaching your target audience and advancing your 2011 business goals.

Posted by: Amanda Rick, Account Coordinator

Knowing that the one constant in online marketing is change, 90octane’s Account Coordinators decided to take a minute to reflect on 2010 and hypothesize about the year ahead. Only time will tell if our 2011 speculations will become a reality.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the majority of our predictions focus around hot topics at the end of 2010 – social and mobile marketing.

Posted by: Amanda Rick, Account Coordinator

Members of the 90octane team attended the University of Colorado’s October Smart Lunch, where guest speaker Dave Morin, a CU grad and early member of the Facebook team, spoke about the evolution of social media and the ways it will continue to change in the future.

Morin began his presentation by taking attendees through a brief history of communication, pointing specifically to how the Internet and social media have allowed for accelerated growth in this area. This set the stage for the remainder of the presentation by putting emphasis on the idea that change will continue, and quickly, so we must open our minds to the possibility of new ideas.