Starbucks testing the mobile marketing waters with two new iPhone apps. The first is informational, with location and calorie information.  The second takes the mobile concept a whole lot farther.  It is an attempt to migrate the Starbucks gift card from the customer’s wallet to their phone, using a barcode.  While the app is still a test, the possibilities are huge, both for Starbucks and for other businesses considering mobile marketing.

The first goal of any website is to create visitors. Without traffic to your website, there is no way to get potential customers to learn about your product or service in an online environment in which you control the message.

Since traffic to your website is so crucial, you’re probably trying to figure out new ways to get people to visit you online. New research has found one way. A blog. A recent study by HubSpot shows that businesses that blog get 55% more website visitors than those that do not have a blog. The results of this study makes one thing clear, businesses that blog are likely to have far better marketing results online than businesses that don’t.

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Marketing through a mobile device has picked up rapidly lately. However, mobile marketing can refer to one of two different categories. First, the most recently emerging category would be marketing though mobile cell phone devices. SMS and mobile email have paved way for a new category of mobile marketing.

Secondly, mobile marketing can traditionally be categorized as any type of marketing that is not stationary, such as moving billboards, flying messaging, and other such types. These types of mobile marketing have taken back seat to more emerging technologies like SMS mobile marketing.

Over the past few years SMS has become a legitimate advertising channel. SMS initially received negative media coverage for being a new form of spam as some advertisers purchased lists and sent unsolicited content to consumer’s phones; however, as guidelines are put in place by the mobile operators, SMS has become the most popular branch of the Mobile Marketing industry with several 100 million advertising SMS sent out every month.

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Blogging is one of the best tools a company has when building out their online presence. Web blogging allows you to get instant information out to your audience while positioning yourself as an expert in the field. As more and more companies create blogs for their companies, there has been a trend of this kind of ‘corporate blogging’.

Corporate blogging is used by a company to produce and support a blog to achieve business objectives and to be known with their services. Corporate blogging can give a lot of advantages and purposes in a business setting. A blog can be a place for discussion which is about the issues that are work-related.

Corporate blogging can serve as an atmosphere to encourage internal and corporate communication. Small-scale discussions can turn out to be virtual meetings where people can read insights and what is currently happening.

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Social media is new, and like everything new there is criticism about it’s legitimacy. A lot of people advocate against social media, claiming it is simply a flute. Since social media is often tied to a younger generation, often thought as simply kids; however, these ‘kids’ are apart of a generation that has accepted and adopted social media.

One thing that should be realized about social media is that even though those consuming it may still be young, they are opening an opportunity to market in a new way that is much different than before. By investing into social media now, you keep your business alive for the next 10 years by creating a social media presence early.

Even if social media doesn’t take out as expected, you are still diversifying your marketing mix. At the very least, you will will be able to grab a larger reach through social media. Also, by investing now, you will be doing so at a cheaper cost.

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