Posts filed under ‘Social Media’
Acumium Welcomes Leadership and Vision To Its Team
Acumium has new blood in its office. And he’s full of online marketing and leadership experience.
Just recently, Acumium hired Christopher Uschan for a strategic leadership position in Sales and Marketing . Chris brings character and high energy along with his strategic vision, online marketing and social media experience, industry leadership and some great stories about his past-college and pro hockey career.
The addition of Christopher brings a wealth of resources to our team and we are excited to enhance our online offerings in part by his new role in the organization. Our recent announcement of his employment shares more information about Chris and his former experiences.
Acumium Names Christopher Uschan VP of Sales and Marketing
Madison, WI (PRWEB) April 24, 2012
Acumium, a solution provider who helps businesses grow online through their content management and eCommerce platforms is pleased to announce the addition of Christopher Uschan as VP of Sales and Marketing to the leadership team.
Despite being new to Acumium, Uschan is no stranger to providing online solutions to organizations. He brings 15 years of experience and leadership that encompass technical product development, content marketing, branding, online communities, social media and business development. In his new role, Christopher will lead the sales and marketing initiatives while co-leading Acumium’s online marketing services (AcumiumEngage) for its clients with Jyll Rademacher (COO).
“We are excited to have Chris on our team,” says Dan Costello, Founder and CEO of Acumium. “Chris’ marketing experiences in helping his former company grow from an offline brand to a well-known online brand within the association industry will be an asset in growing Acumium’s online brand. His leadership around online marketing allows us to further expand our services and help our client base grow their business online.”
Uschan, who earned his B.B.A. in Management Information Systems from the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire started his career with Omnipress, a leader of print and online publishing for associations. As the Director of Marketing, Uschan pioneered his former company from traditional printing to an array of online services, making them a major national supplier. He also co-founded and lead Engage365, an online community for event professionals.
Jyll Rademacher, COO of Acumium indicates, “Chris is a very energetic and entrepreneurial marketer who brings great ideas to every situation.” She continues to say, “He is a charismatic leader with high standards for success which will be good for our internal growth as well driving advancements in our services and platforms our customers use daily.”
In addition to Uschan, Acumium has recently added a few others to their team. This includes PHP and Dot Net developers to support the growth and client needs of their online eCommerce platforms. Acumium also added an internet marketing specialist to strengthen their online marketing services – Helping their clients research, optimize and grow their online businesses.
“Acumium is a great company who helps businesses advance online. To be a part of this team, helping our clients grow, is an exciting next step in my career,” says Uschan.
As you can see, though Christopher may be new to the organization he has long surpassed the rookie status of his career. We are excited with this strategic hire and look forward to his leadership, online marketing knowledge, social media experience and his vision when looking at additional ways to help you grow your business online – the right way.
How are you looking to grow your online business?
Register Your .XXX Domain(s)
Protect your website from .xxx domains by registering your domain name today.
Since December 6, the .xxx domains have been offered for general availability to domain names registering on a first-come-first-served basis. If you have not yet registered your domain name, there is a chance an unwanted party will or has already registered your domain name. You’ve worked hard to earn your company’s reputation and by registering your trademarks and domain names, you help protect your company’s intellectual property.
General availability allows companies to submit domain names in hopes of registering the domain for their own use, and in order to protect their domains from misuse by an unwanted third-party. Although there is no guarantee that your domain name will be available, you will have the ability to register an approved domain name for 10 years. In addition, you can also decide what website URL you would like the page to be redirected to.
Acumium understands .xxx domain registry details and is able to help you protect your company’s integrity by submitting your requests for registry.
If you would like us to help you, contact us today. Acumium’s cost structure to register your domain name(s) is dependent on the number of domains to register and the length of time you would like the .xxx domain(s) registered. The pricing structure per domain name is:
- 1 year – $115
- 2-4 years – $100 per year
- 5-10 years – $95 per year
To submit your information, if you have any questions or need further clarification, please contact Blake Hoffmann at sales@acumium.com or by calling 608-310-9700 x521.
Related articles
- Don’t Get Caught With Your Pants Down: Protect Your Trademarks From .xxx Domains (acumium.wordpress.com)
- Protect Your Trademark From Being Registered in the .XXX Grab (tacticalip.com)
- .XXX Domains: Registration, Brand Protection Now Underway (news.dice.com)
Measuring Success: A/B Testing with ProClip USA
In our last blog, we talked about why it’s important to set up A/B Tests to track changes and visitor behavior. This week we focus on how to create personalized tests and we take an in-depth look at a successful case study for ProClip USA; the exclusive North American distributor of ProClip in-vehicle mounting solutions.
If you have ever test driven a car, chances are you drove the model with all the bells and whistles. Car models all start out the same way, with the basics, and then features are added: air conditioning, sun roof, leather interior and automatic windows. The point is that multiple versions of one model of car exist, save for a few variables. This is a great way to understand A/B testing. By changing a variable in your split tests, you can track consumer behavior which in turn helps you build a race track to your own success.
ProClip’s car mount products are custom fit for each vehicle model and for numerous mobile devices, from iPads to GPS devices. Their customer base is broad, servicing original equipment manufacturers, vehicle dealers, police and emergency vehicles, sales and delivery, leasing companies, construction industries and the average consumer. ProClip’s car mount products are made to service a large customer base in the United States and as part of the effort to increase sales, ProClip and Acumium set up an email blast with an A/B test earlier this year to figure out whether or not an email blast which included a discount offer would drive more sales than one that did not.
One of the first things ProClip did was determine who would receive the emails. Thousands of customers were selected to receive the email, based on their past purchases of iPad/iPhone/iPod ProClip Mounts. Half of the list would receive a typical ad (the “control”) encouraging the consumer to click on the ad with a 10% discount. The other half would receive the variables; the exact same ad encouraging the consumer to click on the ad, but with no 10% discount.
The 10% discount email ad looked like this:
Not seen here: The bottom of the ad contained text that would allow a potential customer to opt out of the mailing list. The ad was basic and informative and offered clients a discounted rate. It did well when it came to click-throughs and conversions.
Overall, the results were fairly successful. 38.4% of the mailing list actually opened the email to look at it, with 23.7% of those actually clicking on the ad to open the website. Of the participants, 81.8% were new clickers (past customers who had never participated in an email campaign before) and 18.2% were active participants in the past. Overall, the total percentage of potential clients who clicked the ad registered around 9.1%. By tracking these click-throughs and customers on the back-end, ProClip was eventually able to determine a conversion rate per opened email of 2.6% with a 10.8% conversion rate for active clicking participants. In addition, we were able to determine what products were wielding the highest clicks; invaluable information.
The true test was the second half of the email blast with the ad variables. If you had to guess, which ad do you think would do better: the ad with the 10% discount or without the 10% discount?
The second ad without the discount looked like this:
The overall percentage of people who clicked on this ad was 10.7% compared to 9.1% from the 10% off ad, but more surprising were the unique email opens: an impressive 47.9% compared to the first email’s 38.4%! Are you surprised by the results? Could you have imagined the ad without the discounted rate would out-perform the first test of emails? Before we begin to analyze the email results, the overall conversion rate of sales were actually 161% higher with the discount than with the control group.
When offering a discount, the profitability is always a concern and can be a debatable cost-to-benefit discussion. We compared the two tests and found a 166% increase in orders from the 10% discount but only a 6.3% decrease in average order value. This means that although ProClip offered 10% off, the average purchase was 3.7% higher than those without the 10% offer. This information is very interesting when deciding the benefit of sales in comparison to a percentage discount, because even though you are lowering profit margins with a discounted product, it may be worth the discount overall. In this case the 6.3% order discount value was worth the 161% increase in generated sales.
Consumer behavior can be unpredictable, but A/B testing is the simplest and fastest approach to testing the success of changes. Who would have guessed that there would be higher participation without an offer, but a higher conversion rate with an offer?
A/B testing can be applied in a variety of ways than email blasts. A great example is a graphic display A/B test from Anne Holland’s visual test: http://whichtestwon.com/webster-bank-direct-mail-test. The test asks the viewer to look at two web pages and discern which one yielded the highest results in an A/B test based on the graphics alone:
What do your instincts tell you at first glance? The actual test results revealed Version B to be the better of the two, with 37% more prospects convinced to open business checking accounts with Webster Bank as a result. Holland writes, “According to age-old, direct marketing best practices, adding offer choices usually kills response rates. So, we love this test because it proves sometimes testing ‘worst practices’ is worthwhile!” Webster Bank’s success with their multiple-offer letter and ProClip’s success with their non-discounted ad show the best way to get to know your consumer is to test.
Creating your own A/B test should not be intimidating. The best thing you can do to start is arm yourself with knowledge and have an idea about how long it will take to run a test before you move on. You want to repeat variations when possible and create impeccable tracking methods. Like Anne Holland suggests, think outside the box when it comes to “best practices” of marketing.
Chances are you wouldn’t buy a new car without test driving it, right? Your ultimate goal in measuring success is to create a better experience for your consumers and drive results.
Please feel free to get in touch with us as we continue this ongoing series on Measuring Success. Have you performed an A/B test with surprising results? How do you track your conversions? Let us know!
Related articles
- Measuring Success: An Introduction to Testing (acumium.wordpress.com)
- 5 Ways to Improve Email Marketing-Based Lead Generation (acumium.wordpress.com)
3 Reasons Why Google+ for Business Could Replace Other Social Media
- 82% have a Facebook page
- 67% have a LinkedIn profile
- 66% have a Twitter account
Though many companies are on social media platforms, most are not effectively leveraging social media for a number of reasons: lack of know-how; not enough time or resources; plain old fear of what might happen. With the introduction of Google+, businesses will need to understand social media resources more than before. So how is the inevitable addition of Google+ business pages going to be any different?
Well for one reason, Google brings some maturity to the game. They’ve learned some valuable lessons on their own (Google Buzz snafu, hint hint) and are able to build on what’s working, thanks to the other social media platforms successes. The key lesson learned was to take time and listen to the the virtual community and create a collaborative platform. This could ultimately drive businesses to choose Google+ over the others, unlike the failed Google Buzz. However, which social media platform you pursue should depend on where your target customers are, although with the rapid adoption of Google+ by end users, we all may have to make that decision sooner than later.
Benefits of Google+ to Businesses:
1. Better “Find-ability” – Google+ content can be indexed by search engines if you allow it to.
Unlike closed networks such as Facebook, you can mark posts as “public”. Just as in any case with SEO, your posts must contain enough content so Google’s algorithm deems your content to be unique.
2. Broader “Reach-ability” – Your posts can be broadcast to all of your contacts despite their membership with Google+. Again, unlike closed networks, your network isn’t limited to only those who belong to Google+. Your posts can be circulated via email to those who haven’t signed up.
3. Richer “Connect-ability” – Free video conferencing! Face it, pictures are worth more than 1000 words and what a better way to connect than through video. Google+ hangouts allow up to 10 people to chat face-to-face and even share content. The limit on attendees does hamper your ability to hold larger webinars or press conferences, but is another useful option to bring people in multiple locations together.
Tip: Get ready and start prepping for the full business-focused launch with a simple step: Add + 1 to your website. To learn how visit:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/
For additional help and social media best practices, contact Acumium at 608-310-9700.
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