Great article this week from Hubspot on how to get started with mobile marketing.

Since I’ve been dabbling in it myself, I can see that these 4 steps are the real deal:

1. Get Comfortable with Your Own Mobile Device
2. Set Up Your Mobile Website
3. Create a QR Code Promotion
4. Create a Mobile Display Ad

If you’ve used a QR code as a smartphone owner, more often than not if it’s a URL you click the link to go to the landing page. Then you realize too late that it’s just a standard web page on your mobile browser.

That is not good.

In fact, it’s actively annoying. The display is too small, and if you zoom to be able to read it, navigation is a beast.

Step #1 is a shortcut to understand the user experience, but #2 is the biggest key. Even if it’s just for the landing page, it is crucial to have a mobile-compatible version.

Now, this may be oversimplifying the process, but you have to start somewhere.

What’s your strategy for getting mobile to access those 271 million mobile subscribers?

Amy Taggart is the Marketing Manager for Interactive Financial Marketing Group

Taking a look around to see what 2012 could look like, and there are articles coming out of the woodwork on what will be happening in online marketing over the next twelve months.

Here’s a list of several that caught my eye this week:

• “7 Social Media & SEO Tactics Business Will Adopt in 2012” – great insight into how social media will figure in as a means for marketers to expand their reach.
• “31 Pro Tips for a Successful, Satisfying, and Insanely Profitable 2012” – a collection of quotes from some of the brightest names in marketing thought leadership, including Chris Brogan, Hugh MacLeod and Dan Zarrella. My favorite quote is the first from Leo Babauta: “Don’t mistake busy-ness for effectiveness.”
• “5 Social Media Rules You Learned in Kindergarten” – You know this stuff. This article shows you how it applies to your interactions on Twitter, Facebook and the like. Remember to “use your indoor voice” and not make it just about you.

And this article deserves its own separate entry:

• “Everything Marketers Need to Know About SOPA” – bookmark this one. There are bills in process right now in the House and Senate that could undermine social media as we know it by removing users’ ability to post and share content on sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Amy Taggart is the Marketing Manager for Interactive Financial Marketing Group

Love me some Hubspot. They always have such interesting blog posts.

This week I got sucked into reading “25 Eye-Popping Internet Marketing Statistics for 2012.”

How can you pass up a title like that?

According to their numbers, mobile marketing is going to be key for 2012, with 11 of the 25 offered “eye-poppers” pertaining to that category. My favorite? “Mobile internet users will reach 113.9 million in 2012, up 17.1% from 97.3 million in 2011.”

We have a joke saying around here: “The Internet is going to be huge.” With more than 3/4 of the total US population online in 2012 (another eye-popper), we can check that one off the list.  According to this article, it looks like we should amend that to say “The Mobile Internet is going to be huge.” And even more so this year.

Even better, “88.1% of US internet users ages 14+ will browse or research products online in 2012.” We knew the numbers had to be huge – see Google’s ZMOT push – but that is amazing.

Which of course raises the question(s): what are you doing to make sure that you’re ready for all those eyeballs? Are your websites optimized so that they can find you? Are they mobile-ready?

If not, it’s a good time to start! Going forward, we’ll cover some best practices. Stay tuned!

Amy Taggart is the Marketing Manager for Interactive Financial Marketing Group

New Year’s celebrations are always bittersweet. Full of remembrances of the year just past and hope for the next, which is part of why we traditionally sing “Auld Lang Syne”, a song that celebrates endings and new beginnings.

This year it’s a little different here at IFMG, one of our bright spots is moving on. A little more bitter in with the sweet.

Rosa Luciano has been here since June 2010 as a contractor. She came in to help us out while one of our own was deployed with the Army in Iraq. During the past 18 months, she has worked diligently with me and the rest of the team on programs designed to push us into the modern world of social media and expand our interaction and reach.

The good news is that our employee is back safely from serving overseas. The bad news is that it means that we can’t keep Rosa.

You’re familiar with her work if you’re reading this blog, have visited our Carloanco blog, or are subscribed to any of our three Twitter feeds (CarloanCo, InteractiveFMG, Carloan). You’ve read her writing if you’ve subscribed to our Carloan.com dealer or consumer newsletters. If you’re following our Carloan Facebook presence for consumers, she launched and maintained that for us.

She’s had a strong influence on how we’ve entered these communication channels, and as her manager, I have nothing but praise for how she’s helped us in her time here.

We wish her all the best…and want to help her land her next role.

If you’re looking for someone in the Richmond area who has expertise in social media (blogging, Twitter, Facebook), websites, email marketing, marketing communications and a lot more, get in touch with her. Send her a message via Twitter using her handle, @RozaLuciano, or check out her LinkedIn profile.

And to show you her A game, she’s even got a mobile-compatible QR code for her LinkedIn Profile:

We’re really sad to see her go, but so excited to see what she does next!

Amy Taggart is the Marketing Manager for Interactive Financial Marketing Group

Interactive Financial Marketing Group Announces New Additions to Management Team

Fresh Talent Brings Over 35 Years of Experience Working in Auto Retail, F&I

RICHMOND, Va. – August 10, 2011 – Interactive Financial Marketing Group (IFMG), a division of Dominion Enterprises, today announced that it has added two automotive industry veterans to its company leadership in a move that augments its ability to support its dealer partners.

Nicole Diamond joins IFMG as Dealer Relationship Manager, taking over special financing for Interactive Financial Acceptance (IFA).  Diamond has spent 16-plus years in consumer and automotive finance where she supported car dealers through both prime and subprime lending. As a result, she is well-versed in F&I process and will be focused on offering dealers situational lending in the 26 states that IFA covers.

Chris Smith comes to IFMG as its National Sales Manager for the Carloan.com Dealer Network. He brings nearly 20 years of experience in sales management, with the majority of it in running a regional automotive sales operation. Smith’s primary area of focus will be working with Carloan.com dealers to maximize the success of their marketing programs.

“These additions to our team add to our strong heritage of serving the dealer community,” said Tom Feary, General Manager of IFMG. “Nicole and Chris have been in the trenches as dealers or with dealers for most of their careers.  We expect a high contribution towards the superior service that our industry demands.”

About Interactive Financial Marketing Group:

Interactive Financial Marketing Group (IFMG) is a pioneer in lead generation, validation and management services for the automotive industry.  By focusing on innovative approaches to lead generation since its inception in 1989, IFMG has developed a family of brands that includes hundreds of the most recognized Internet addresses and vanity phone numbers such as Carloan.com, Autoloan.com, 1-800-CAR-LOAN® and 1-800-AUTO-LOAN®.

Interactive Financial Marketing Group is a division of Dominion Enterprises. For more company information, contact IFMG at 800-222-8374 or visit www.interactivefmg.com. For more information about IFMG products and services, visit www.carloanco.com.

About Interactive Financial Acceptance:

Through its network of dealers and lenders in 26 states, Interactive Financial Acceptance (IFA) has the resources necessary to facilitate situational lending for customers who might otherwise be unable to find an automotive loan. Based in Richmond, Virginia, IFA is a division of Dominion Enterprises. For more information on lending guidelines and rates by state, visit www.ifalending.com or call (866) 229-5744.

About Dominion Enterprises

Dominion Enterprises is a leading marketing services company serving the automotive, enthusiast and commercial vehicle, real estate, apartment rental, travel and employment industries. The company’s businesses provide a comprehensive suite of technology-based marketing solutions including Internet advertising, lead generation, CRM, website design and hosting, and data management services. The company has more than 60 market-leading websites reaching more than 20.9 million unique visitors monthly, and more than 280 magazines with a weekly circulation of 2.4 million. Headquartered in Norfolk, Va., the company has 3,300 employees in more than 186 offices nationwide. For more information, visit www.dominionenterprises.com.

###

Amy Taggart is the Marketing Manager for Interactive Financial Marketing Group