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Posts Tagged ‘Integrated Web Strategy’



Sarah Trees

02/25/2010

Get the word out with CoveritLive
07:01 pm by Sarah Trees


In today’s world, users want the breaking news at their fingertips, and CoveritLive (CiL) is the latest software application that makes this possible. Whether you’re a political candidate hosting a Q&A session or a news station covering the President’s State of the Union, CoveritLive can get the word out to your audience. CiL was built to handle multiple users at once – and by multiple I mean in the hundreds of thousands. But that is not the only amazing feature; here are a few of others:

  • Stream live video
  • On the fly translations
  • Reader Comment API – client’s can setup their own chat application and reader can comment from mobile phones or external chat rooms
  • RSS feeds – provide readers with writer and event feeds
  • Moderators or Writers can cover their event from their iPhone, Blackberry or smartphone
  • Publish up to 12 Twitter Accounts
  • Invite up to 25 panelists to provide commentary
  • Integrate 3rd party software like YouTube, WordPress, Twitter
  • Branded templates – Viewer window templates allow you to add your logo
  • News Flash and Scoreboards
  • Manage readers comments
  • Create a Media Library
  • Embed Large photos
  • Deploy Quick Polls for your readers
  • Advertise

What would be the cost for such a cool tool? You’d be surprised at how inexpensive this software is. There are three different pricing structures: Basic, Ad Supported and Subscription. The basic package is free of charge  and there aren’t any ads and up to 5,000 unique readers a month are allowed to view your live event. Ad Supported is also free, but serves ads, and after 45 days revenue sharing is possible. The last package is a one-year subscription, which contains no advertising and costs $400 per month.

Here are a couple of examples of companies that utilize CoveritLive:

PhilliesNation
General Motors
NBA – The Boston Celtics
CBC National Post

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Jessica Carlson

02/03/2010

2.2 million “HAITI” texts to 90999 later…
01:44 pm by Jessica Carlson

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One of the most catastrophic natural disasters in recent history has been met with more than $22 million in $5 and $10 text-message donations, an unprecedented show of charitable giving made possible by the ease of small-scale mobile donations. And beyond these times of need, micro-support is gaining traction as a straightforward, accessible way for everyday people to support the causes they believe in, finance promising new businesses, and make their creative visions a reality in small, easy steps. – AdAge

Years ago, during a time of need such as this, most would have directed people online to make quick, easy and secure donations to help provide support. Raising funds online has now become the norm, and as many politicians, political groups and non-profits have demonstrated that it can lead to unprecedented success. However, taking that trend of pervasive, efficient donation campaigns to the next level is doing so via text messages.

The devastating situation in Haiti has demonstrated the widespread effect that a text message donation campaign can have on mass support and charitable giving. Many are attributing the huge success of the campaign to the fact that the barrier to entry is so low; most can afford to lump on an extra $5 to $10 to their phone bill, especially for a cause that they believe strongly in, and it takes all of thirty seconds to donate. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

As the AdAge article points out making micro-donations easily accessible, especially via mobile phones, opens completely new doors to reaching new and diverse audiences. And, with over 75 percent of the US population using cell phones, it only makes sense to take it to the mobile playing field.

Photo: The U.S. Army

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Jessica Carlson

01/12/2010

Raising #240tons of food during the holidays
01:18 pm by Jessica Carlson

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With unemployment and poverty at all time highs, IWS took to Twitter during the holidays to help raise awareness of the demand placed upon food banks during the past particularly trying year. The holiday campaign, dubbed “Tweets of Hope,” inspired Twitter users to retweet a simple message and $2 would be donated to the Association of Arizona Food Banks (AAFB) and Share Our Strength.

The campaign generated over 2,000 retweets, and has generated close to 200,000 impressions. Despite being slightly shy of reaching the goal of 2,500 tweets, IWS delivered a $5,000 check to both AAFB and Share Our Strength. The $10,000 donation to the two charities will help provide 240 tons of food, or 140,000 meals in Arizona and the Washington, D.C area.

At IWS, we’ve always strongly believed that we all have a responsibility to do more good. Max Fose, president, says he believes that, “…We all have a responsibility to give back. We’re fortunate enough to be in a position that we can, but even if we weren’t, we would do whatever we could.”

While social media is still somewhat in it’s infancy, is an excellent platform for charitable contribution campaigns. Social media, as a platform, is a lot more effective in generating widespread exposure and motivating the masses to participate, since activity is generally more visible. When people recognize that a large group is pushing an initiative forward, they become even more likely to participate. As opposed to ads and email marketing, it has the ability to showcase in a much more meaningful fashion just who is behind this cause and how many people are supporting it.

Want to be a part of future campaigns? Be sure to follow us on Twitter.

photo2Kelly Watson delivering another $5,000 check to Share Our Strength in Washington, D.C.

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Jessica Carlson

01/06/2010

With great risk comes great reward
12:28 pm by Jessica Carlson

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Starting off the new year on the right foot, our own Max Fose was featured on the cover of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce’s Impact Magazine. In the article about three successful valley entrepreneurs, Fose tells the story of how IWS was born.

After working with Senator John McCain throughout the 1990’s, Fose, who had inherited an entrepreneurial spirit from his father, took a gamble on entering the political arena, specifically creating and mobilizing advocates and supporters all within the online realm.

When asked what kept him motivated to forge his own path, he says, “I’ve always loved setting my own pace, betting on myself, investing in myself.” And, it’s definitely paid off. Marking the new year, IWS has hired five new employees and expanded into a new office. In his own words, he says that, “there’s a direct correlation between the harder you work, the greater your success.” And, anyone who knows him will tell you that he’s one of the hardest working people that he’s met. And as a true beacon for the right kind of entrepreneurship, he’s incredibly passionate about what he does and securing record-breaking results for clients. If you ask him, he’ll tell you that, “For the past 10 years I’ve never thought of going into the office as a job.”

To learn more about IWS and to read the full article, check out Impact Magazine.

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Jessica Carlson

12/09/2009

The Nanci Fund: A Case Study in Building Communities for Good
01:12 pm by Jessica Carlson

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“You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result.” – Ghandi

The Reasoners, a now family of five, have much to be thankful for this holiday season. You see, a few months ago, Craig and his wife, Leeann, were entrenched in the Columbian legal system, attempting to adopt twelve-year-old Nanci Parra.

They met the young girl at an orphanage in Columbia while visiting the children they were adopting – Brayan, age 13, and his little sister, Tatiana, age 8. The adoption process, should have lasted only a month, but due to special circumstances, Craig had to stay in Columbia for four months, allowing him and the family to bond with the shy and sweet, yet blossoming young girl. Both Brayan and Tatiana made it safe and sound to the Reasoners’ home in Phoenix, Arizona. But the thought of Nanci could not escape the new family.

Working with IWS on a pro-bono basis, the Reasoners decided to create an online village that could help pay for the expenses to give Nanci a home and a better life. The generous supporters helped Craig and Leeann bring her home, and they recently finished up the final stages of paperwork and they have all safely made it back to Nanci’s new home. Their adoption costs for all three children was expensive, but thanks to supporters, they were provided with some relief in the cost to give Nanci a home.

At IWS, we’ve always strongly believed that we all have a responsibility to do more good. Max Fose says he often takes on pro bono work because he believes that, “…We all have a responsibility to give back. We’re fortunate enough to be in a position that we can, but even if we weren’t, we would do whatever we could.”

To find out more please visit the Nanci Fund. To find out what we else we’re doing to help the community this holiday season, be sure to follow us on Twitter.

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Sarah Trees

11/06/2009

Simple Email Marketing Tips



05:13 pm by Sarah Trees

According to Forrester Research, by the year 2014 interactive marketing, will hit almost $55 billion in the US. It’s expected to grow from 12% of overall ad spend in 2009 to 21% over the next five years. What does this mean? More and more companies are adjusting their ad budget to spend less on traditional advertising, like print ads and billboards, and going online to market their company. One simple way to do this is through email marketing. Here are 6 questions you should be asking yourself when starting an email-marketing program:

1. What is the primary purpose of the emails that your company sends?

If your company is using emails to send out monthly newsletters consider expanding your message to action-oriented emails. Poll your readers to find out what messages and/or offers they would be interested in learning more about.

2. How are your company’s emails deployed?

Sending emails out manually through your Outlook or any individual email account can make you and your company look like amateurs, not to mention that you could even be sending your customers viruses. Use a third party online marketing tool specifically designed to send emails, such as Lyris, Activate Direct, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor. These systems offer features to track open rates, click throughs, and can even integrate other applications your company may be using like a customer relationship manager (CRM).

3. How does your company design and manage email assets?

Designing emails from scratch each time you want to deploy an email can be very time-consuming, utilize a template approach. Users may lose interest if you continue to use the same template over time so design a series of templates for your email campaign.

4. Does your company utilize landing pages for your email campaigns?

There is a balance of marketers that feel implementing individual landing pages is far too time consuming, but they could not be more wrong. Directing all traffic to one specific place eliminates the ability to effectively traffic the success of your campaign. It can also be frustrating for your user if they get to a page and the page is not specific to the email they received. The most effective landing page uses a combination of the offer, making the user feel the offer is unique to them and include a call to action.

5. Does your company test offers, lists, subject lines or creative?

Your company should constantly be testing email communications to your readers. This will allow you to refine your message(s) and get rid of poor performing campaigns or programs along with segmenting your list of users. Select a percentage of your database like 10-20% and test a two different messages or offers, even test the subject line within these messages.

6. Does your company test to optimize deliverability, as well as frequency, and days in which email deployment is most effective?

Deliverability is important information for every successful email program. The time and frequency of email deployment can also be a factor in the success of your deliverability. What works for one company may not work for yours. The only way to truly know what works for you is to test, after all isn’t email marketing a game of “trial and error”? Having conclusive results will help you refine your email campaign and build a more effective outcome.

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Max Fose

10/15/2009

10 Years for IWS
06:41 pm by Max Fose

At the end of this year, IWS will celebrate our 10th birthday.  

I have been thinking a lot about the last ten years in business — our clients, the people who have worked here to help make IWS successful, the ups and downs of running a business, our content management system that is 2nd to none, being proud when our clients are successful and the terrible feeling of “what else could we have done” when they are not. 

I remember flying back into DC and freezing as I stood at the BWI train station about two months after the tragedy of September 11; just about broke, and not being sure if IWS was going to be able to pay our bills. The mail wasn’t moving, client’s budgets were non-existent, and the world had been changed.  

I have also been thinking about the impact we have had over the years. We communicate hundreds of millions of messages a year for our clients.  Just this year alone we have helped facilitate over 600,000 contacts to Congress and I am confident that nearly every voter in Arizona has been touched by what IWS has produced. 

We have made a difference and will continue to do so. 

We have also tried to make a difference by giving back. This includes supporting groups like Make-A-Wish, Esperanca, COAR, the Arizona Food Banks, ADL and March of Dimes.  

I am proud that IWS is able to support these organizations. 

So what’s next? 

First, IWS is taking care of business by continuing to be a strategic partner with our clients.  Providing the very best service to our clients is and always will be our number one priority. 

Second, even though about 30 percent of our current business is online general marketing, we are focusing on expanding more into this area and have built the infrastructure to do so. 

Third, IWS continues to expand our reach with the addition of the Fluent – a full service online marketing agency, and JoyCom – a traditional public affairs firm. 

Finally, if I could give an online toast to everyone reading this post it would be this: 

To our clients who hire us, our mentors who have guided us along, our friends who sent us business – we thank you for your trust, your wisdom and your friendship.  We wouldn’t be here without you and we sincerely thank you.  Here’s to another 10 years!

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Jessica Carlson

10/09/2009

YouTube celebrates 1 billion views per day, so we have some tips
01:16 pm by Jessica Carlson

youtubelogoHead over to YouTube right now and you’ll see just how excited they are about reaching this huge milestone. While it might seem like only a minor change to modify their logo, if you check out the file name, “logo_holy_crap_1bn_a_day,” it’s clear to see that they’re just as impressed as most of us are. So in honor of their 365 billion views a year from here on out, we decided to provide some tips on how to become the next big YouTuber, or at least to ensure that your videos are being seen by a larger audience than your mom.

  • Be entertaining. While some people check out YouTube to catch up on the latest news in the world, the majority of visitors are there to get a laugh, be surprised or feel some other sort of emotion aside from boredom. Whether you’re a politician or a company, it’s important to get at least a few videos up that showcase your sense of humor and personality.
  • Collaborate. The likes of Carl’s Jr. and Intel have all used the power of YouTube users with a much bigger audience than them. Find out who’s huge on YouTube and is relevant to your audience and reach out to them asking to make a video about your organization or company (but, most of them won’t do this for free, so stock up on schwag or prepare to shell out their rent for the month). This will not only give people a fresh perspective of your organization, but it will most likely reach an entirely new audience. Can’t find anyone that fits with your organization? Than reach out to your existing audience and promote user generated content, so it’s not always about you.
  • Optimize your content. Many videos are found via search, so make sure that you’re utilizing appropriate and related keywords. Also, take advantage of other tools YouTube offers, such as adding other videos as video responses to your latest video and providing links to your other relevant networks in the sidebar.
  • Send your videos to your mother. In order to increase views and attempt to go viral, you have to start sharing your content, and not always with just your preexisting audience. Send videos that are worthy of spreading to people within your network and encourage them to share with their networks. Include your latest video’s link in your email signature. Pitch your videos to bloggers, asking that they blog about your organization and include an embedded video.

 

These are just a few simple tips that can help you increase your views and grow your audience. While, you might not get a billion views per day like our friends at YouTube, you’ll definitely watch your success increase.

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Max Fose

09/01/2009

Paul McKay Returns to IWS
10:40 am by Max Fose

Today is a great day at IWS as we welcome back Paul McKay.

Paul worked with us for over six years before taking a “sabbatical” to run the interactive division of a D.C. based public affairs firm. He returns with over 14 years of public affairs and interactive experience.

Paul will be returning to the firm as a Partner and can be reached at 202-251-2570 or Paul@workwithiws.com.

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