Author Archives: Tom Gray

Social Media Networking: The Formula for Success

Posted on January 27, 2009 by Tom Gray

I recently made a presentation on social media marketing where I presented the following as the formula for social media marketing success… P4 + V = Vx Where the components of the social networking equation equal: P = passion, the … Continue reading →

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OpenTable – Very Nice Post Event Marketing Follow up

Posted on June 17, 2008 by Tom Gray

Whether you sell products or services you can steal a page from OpenTable.com‘s approach on how to follow up with your customers. OpenTable is the leader in providing online restaurant reservations. They do an excellent job on the front end … Continue reading →

Posted in Calls To Action, Customer Retention, Marketing | Tagged , | View Comments

Learn as You Go – The “McBlini’s” Lesson

Posted on June 16, 2008 by Tom Gray

Time magazine (June 16, 2008) has an interesting article about a fast food restaurant in Russia which, in the last 10 years, has grown to be the 4th largest fast food chain in the country and the only home-grown entry … Continue reading →

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Sizing Up the Blogosphere or “How Big is It?

Posted on January 11, 2008 by Tom Gray

I originally reported the following data on the growth of the blogosphere as part of a post I was writing about a year and 1/2 ago. As sometimes happens, it got stuck in draft world and I never completed it. … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Building Traffic, Calls To Action, Internet, Marketing | Tagged , , , , | View Comments

Getting Your E-mail Audience to Click-through to Your Landing Page

Posted on October 18, 2007 by Tom Gray

According to research cited by the folks at MailDogManager.com “…the words “Click to continue” generated 50% more click-throughs than either “Continue to article” or “Read more.”“ Of course that may mean that only 2 people clicked on “Read more” while … Continue reading →

Posted in Calls To Action, Conversion, Email Marketing, Testing | View Comments

Most Important Factors in Getting E-mails Opened

Posted on October 16, 2007 by Tom Gray

Marketing Sherpa gives us an early peek (available free until 10/23/07) at the critical factors that will boost your email open and click-through rates according to a report to be released later this week by MailerMailer.com: What’s the most critical … Continue reading →

Posted in Email Marketing, Email Metrics, Ezines | View Comments

Use Text Based Emails if Your Audience is Highly Mobile

Posted on September 26, 2007 by Tom Gray

I’m a big fan of html based emails and I’ve yet to be convinced by others or my own experience that text-based messages — even in the age of spam filters and other corporate and personal electronic chastity belts designed … Continue reading →

Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing | View Comments

Local Search to Become a Focus

Posted on September 26, 2007 by Tom Gray

Well, I’m back after a bit of a hiatus devoted to vacationing on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. If you’ve never been–we hadn’t–I can’t recommend it enough and if you have been …. GO BACK! My blogging suffered as … Continue reading →

Posted in Local Search | View Comments

One Hundred (and Seven) Ways to Get Your Email Blocked

Posted on August 28, 2007 by Tom Gray

Marketing Profs published an article by Jordan Ayen of SubscriberMail that lists the one hundred sure fire words and phrases guaranteed to get your emails blocked if you use them in your subject line (and often in the body of … Continue reading →

Posted in Email Marketing, Ezines, Humor (?), Oops | View Comments