“An eight-week campaign for mobile media—which could be a combination of mobile display and text messaging—we’re probably talking about $250,000 to $300,000.”

Mr. Moorhead goes on to itemize the metrics used to measure success and discuss ROI as ‘Return on Innovation’ as an alternative to the traditional concept. We particularly agree with another statement of his that puts mobile “in the middle of the media ecosystem” as a connector between other digital and traditional marketing channels. Read full article here: Cost and ROI for Mobile Campaigns

Understanding how mobile can work as an advertising vehicle or marketing channel will depend on you business. If trends continue mobile will need to be a part of your 2011 digital strategy.

“About 72% of college-bound high school seniors found a school’s homepage by searching online”

As a result NYU has put paid search at the center of their digital market strategy saying… “NYU runs between 50 and 70 campaigns simultaneously, focusing on specific keywords like bioethics, cinema studies, playing the double bass, dentistry or dramatic writing, as well as marketing for geography. Each campaign initially gets between 20 and 30 keywords. Croce-Galis reviews all campaigns every three days.”

And results that show… “About 85% of applicants who applying to NYU’s MFA programs come from Google ads”.

It great to see higher ed institutions using the digital medium so successfully to draw in prospective students. For more details read the full article from MediaPost at:

NYU Back To School: Higher Ed Search Terms Rise 42%

Digital Coupons Top Newspaper Printed Ten to One

“Nearly half of all adults (47%) go online with a laptop using a Wi-Fi connection or mobile broadband card (up from the 39% who did so as of April 2009) while 40% of adults use the internet, email or instant messaging on a mobile phone (up from the 32% of Americans who did this in 2009). This means that 59% of adults now access the internet wirelessly using a laptop or cell phone.”

For the full story visit Mobile Access 2010: Summary of Findings

Top activities for mobile and wifi laptop users include taking pictures and sending text messages. Could this finally be the year for mobile? We think so!

This is a big decision and should be driven by data. But few publishers who have made the leap from free to pay record or release the impact on their business. Until now. The UK Times not only made the switch but is publishing their experiment and the effects of this decision on traffic and revenue.

It’s still early but here’s an excerpt of where they are from Experian:

So, its still early days, but the conclusion so far seems to be this: since it forced users to register in order to view its content, the Times has lost market share. However, this decline has clearly not been catastrophic and none of the paper’s rivals has particularly benefitted. Yet. The real test will come when people actually have to pay rather than simply register to view the Times’ content. When that happens we will of course provide some more analysis, so keep an eye on the blog and our Twitter feed for updates.

Read more at: Times paywall: initial data and analysis

Now comScore didn’t include the extended content networks held by the two giants and the revenue generated by Facebook is not quite there yet but we predict digital marketers will see this news and add Facebook as a pillar of their digital media plan. We can’t wait to see what happen’s next…

Wall Street Journal: Facebook Makes gains in Web Ads
Social Media Today: Facebook is Now the Leading Publisher of Web Display Ads

Recently Pew Research Center posted a finding that adults in the U.S. living with chronic disease are more likely to participate in online discussion but much less likely to actually have internet access. In fact, 81% do not have the ability to easily go online…

U.S. adults living with chronic disease are significantly less likely than healthy adults to have access to the internet (62% vs. 81%). The internet access gap creates an online health information gap. However, lack of internet access, not lack of interest in the topic, is the primary reason for the difference. Once online, having a chronic disease increases the probability that someone will take advantage of social media to share what they know and learn from their peers.

When other demographic factors are held constant, having a chronic disease significantly increases an internet user’s likelihood to say they work on a blog or contribute to an online discussion, a listserv, or other online group forum that helps people with personal issues or health problems.

Read the full article: Chronic Disease and the Internet

We’re always interested in understanding audiences and their motivations online. When thinking about your clients and customers it’s important to consider not only their desires in engaging with you but the barriers that might stand in their way.

Looking at the rest of the list reminds us to begin to think about our taxes.