Marketing Technology for Growth

Coca-Cola shook things up in the marketing world this week with the announcement of their new campaign, "The Ahh Effect." This completely digital campaign utilizes social and mobile technology to reach teens who are constantly on their smartphones. Watch Chris and Spencer chat about the "Ahh" campaign and its potential effects in this special break room edition of the Marketing Technology Minute.

I’ve written and thought a fair bit over the past year about the impact of social local mobile (SoLoMo) on consumer behavior and business marketing. Only after employing SoLoMo best practices to narrowly avert a plumbing crisis in my home did I fully realize its value. For those of you looking for a real world example of SoLoMo in action, I submit my own personal case study.

A lot of people out there seem to think that larger, more complex websites cannot possibly benefit from a responsive web design, or RWD. Well I am here to tell you that is simply not true. Responsive web design can be used as a tool to help any type of website become more usable across device sizes. No matter what kind of site you have, you need to realize that your customer is no longer always behind a desktop. Sure mobile apps are useful, but managing two separate websites, or a website and a native app, can be time consuming. Here I explore eleven brands in the financial industry that prove RWD can work for much more than just small businesses and blogging sites. 

1. Gateway Bank of Mesa, AZ

Gateway Bank in Arizona was one of the first financial institutions to implement a responsive web design. I think this is a great example of how a traditional brand, like a bank, can use modern design to really connect with its customers. This responsive site uses good content hierarchy to show users the most important content elements regardless of screen size. I also appreciate that the links remain obvious and easy to click at the smallest screen. Overall, I think the effect is modern and conveys this bank's uniqueness. 

Coming to you live from the Windy City, Sean and Jacey recap their experience at Mobile Camp Chicago 2013. The day-long event held at the Harrington College of Design brought together Designers, Developers, and anyone else interested in leveling-up their mobile skills to discuss some of the latest trends in mobile and responsive web design. Watch to see what we learned from industry experts! 

The other day I came across two articles that, when taken together, aptly underscore the fickle and sometimes outright contradictory nature of marketing data: In-Store Gets the Cold Shoulder, as More Women Favor Web Buying, and We Love Amazon, But Going to the Store Matters Most. After reading both headlines, I was left asking one simple but profound question: “well, which one is it?” In fact, the contrast between the two only got starker as I read on…

Is responsive web design just a trend that will disappear in a few months when web designers move on to the next fad? Absolutely not! We believe that RWD is here to stay. Jacey and Spencer venture outside on yet another snowy spring day to discuss why responsive web design is so great and why, we at SyneCore, believe it is the future of web design.

Mobile-first responsive web design means much more than just considering layouts, imagery, and media queries. In reality, mobile-first design is all about content. Content is king as they say, and this is especially true when it comes to responsive web design. However, a dangerous trend is emerging as RWD evolves: the act of hiding content as a screen size shrinks. Those who do this might say a mobile-sized version of a website can have less information than a desktop site because a person accessing it from his or her mobile device must be "mobile." Right? Actually this couldn’t be further from the truth. Assuming that a user is mobile simply because he or she is accessing a website from a certain proximity and/or from a certain type of device is an extremely narrow way to think about web design. 

In today’s digital economy, your business website must do more than just look good. As your brand’s virtual sales rep, Internet storefront, and online distribution hub, your website must convert on a number of levels, enticing would-be prospects, nurturing new leads, and servicing existing customers.

This past week has been a busy time for SoLoMo app Foursquare. On April 10^th, the company unveiled a new version of the app which takes full advantage of Foursquare’s trove of user data by highlighting its local discovery search function and offering personalized recommendations that take into account user location and past check-in behavior. The very next day, CEO Denis Crowley announced that Foursquare had secured $41 million dollars in additional funding. The day after that, Ad Age came out with an article revealing Foursquare is developing a new ad product which will leverage users’ location and behavioral data and sell it to businesses that want to create targeted ads on other platforms. These changes, coupled with the fact that the company already has 33 million users who have registered a whopping 3.5 Billion check-ins, suggests to me that businesses will want to incorporate Foursquare into their digital marketing sooner rather than later.

I spend a good deal of time looking at websites that have been developed using a responsive web design (RWD). Often, many of the websites using RWD are agency sites or personal blogs, and sometimes it seems like a RWD design might only be practical for the more creative type of website. However, this is simply not true. Every type of website can benefit from using a responsive web design to allow web visitors to access the same site and content no matter what kind of device they are using. As a snapshot of an industry segment doing as much, here are 10 examples of ecommerce B2C businesses using responsive web design.