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.

Posted by: Grant Garcia, Marketing Coordinator

Historically, email has been a great way to effectively maintain customer contact, while also providing useful industry news and resources. However, because online marketing is evolving and becoming more competitive, inboxes are overflowing with messages that are poorly targeted and irrelevant to users. How, then, do you get your message to rise above the clutter? Incorporating social media and mobile marketing into your email programs can enhance contact with customers at different touch points, while also encouraging interaction.

Companies are utilizing social media calls to action within their email marketing campaigns but are lagging in the implementation of mobile-optimized email. Business emails often include the “Like us on Facebook” or “Follow us on Twitter” buttons, but that’s not enough. According to a recent eROI survey, 63% of marketers say that they’re not even measuring the use of mobile devices for email subscribers. In the same survey, nearly 15% of marketers said that optimizing email marketing for mobile is not important. These statistics are frightening considering that 70 million smartphones are currently in use, with predictions that they will overtake traditional phones within the next 12 months, according to Technewsworld.com.

The Online Marketing Summit‘s 23-city tour made a stop in Denver this year. 90octane’s Brooke Caesar spoke at the conference and various staff members attended sessions that covered topics such as social media, search, email, demand generation, usability and integrated marketing efforts. Keep reading for some key takeaways from the June 23rd conference.

Posted by: Sean Voorhies, Project Manager

As online and mobile marketing continue to converge, the opportunity for cross-medium campaign interaction is growing. Bertolli’s sponsorship of ads within the ‘Today Recipes’ iPhone application is a prime example of how such a campaign can be executed.

Bertolli’s ad featuring the chance to win a culinary vacation is showcased next to one of the application’s recipes. Once a user clicks on it, he or she is taken to a landing page with minimal registration and the opportunity to opt-in to receive future Bertolli email communications. As the technology advances, users will be able to complete the form without leaving the ‘Today Recipes’ app itself.

With high session times and an average click-through-rate of 3%, campaigns like this – that serve to better the user experience while furthering marketers’ objectives – are proving to be a recipe for success and a tough combination to beat.

Read more: Mobile Marketer

Posted by: Kerry Houchin, Project Manager

According to ClickZ, there are more than 270 million mobile subscribers in the United States and 96% of mobile phones are SMS compatible. Imagine how many customers you could reach using a targeted, 140-character text message. Think about your own mobile habits. Chances are you have your phone with you and turned on a vast majority of the time. If you have a smartphone, it’s likely you have an alert set up for inbound texts, but not for inbound emails. So, when is it best to deliver the message via SMS and when should you stick with email?