MCOMM Elements - Web Services

WEB SERVICES ::
Developing an Integrated ONLINE Marketing Strategy

Web 2.0 functionality is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. The evolution of this perceived second generation of Web development and design has given the Internet community the ability to create social-networking sites, brought about the evolution of viral marketing, delivered expanded utilization of video-sharing and blog forums that facilitate the exchange of information and ideas that was not thought possible less than a generation ago.

The Basics

In technical terms, Web Services is a distributed computing technology that offers interaction and collaboration among vendors and customers, with the vision of providing ubiquitous computing. The basic components of Web Services use a platform comprised of XML (or Extensible Markup Language), and HTTP (html). All the standard Web Services work using the following components:
• SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
• UDDI (Universal Description, Discover and Integration)
• WSDL (Web Services Description Language)

In plain language, please!
Okay, so that's all fine and good, but what does it mean for me, you say? Simply stated, Web Services allows for interoperability of web-based applications and/or functions via the Internet or over a network. Examples include: RSS feeds, displaying photos from your flicker photo gallery, or embedded code for widgets to display contextual content, images or video. (See: Web Services Gallery — below)

But simply implementing this functionality is not enough. For organizations to be successful "on the Web," they need an Integrated ONLINE Marketing Solutions Strategy that effectively leverages the basic components of today's Internet world.

INTEGRATED ONLINE MARKETING SOLUTIONS ::
Web » Email » Social » Mobile

Creating an effective ONLINE Marketing Strategy involves a best practices approach that integrates Web, Email, Social and Mobile platforms to effectively communicate with customers, membership, constituents and/or stakeholders.

Web Development ::
Creating an ONLINE Presence

An organizational website is your ONLINE HOME where your customers, membership, constituents and/or stakeholders can find out information about what you have to offer, and hopefully, are of interest to them. In a sense, it is the ultimate destination where all ONLINE Marketing Channels lead to.

But how you convey this information is just as important as what information you are providing, so when designing and implementing your website there are several important questions one needs to keep in mind:
• Does the information on your website adhere to your Organizational Strategic Plan?
• Is the information on your website organized in a manner that makes it easy for visitors to find (navigate) what they are looking for?
• Are you properly utilizing available technology that not only provides access to this information but enhances the user experience?
• And, more importantly, have you properly tested your site to ensure functional consistency across multiple browser platforms?

We can help you solve these and other questions as well as develop a web presence that is creative yet functional for your organization. For more information visit our Web Projects section.

Email Marketing ::
Cost-Effective » Fast » Personal

As far as marketing tools go, email is the most cost-effective available, enabling you to reach people who have actually given you permission to communicate with them and, as a result, are more likely to pay attention to your messages and respond to your calls-to-action.

Simply stated, email plays a critical role in the relationship between brands and consumers. It allows brands to reach out to consumers via a channel that is both personal and fast — and email campaign reaction by recipients can almost be instantaneous. Through utilization of numerous online tools you can also measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns and track your ROI. For more info about developing Online and Offline Marketing Channels visit our Integrated Communications section.

Social Media ::
Communicate » Engage » Build Consensus —
Creating a Conversation about YOUR Brand!

The development and implementation of an effective Social Media Strategy allows organizations a better means of creating a conversation. By communicating to customers, membership, constituents and/or stakeholders you are engaging them to interact with your brand and become involved in issues as well as help to build consensus and formulate policy.

Besides email, social media has shown a powerful ability to engage customers but integration is the key marketing challenge facing organizations when trying to understand, let alone implement, a Social Media Strategy. Reaping the rewards of integration comes by integrating your messages across multiple channels and devices — social, mobile and email as well as leveraging cloud technologies such as YouTube (video) and flickr (photos). Ask us how we can develop an effective Social Media Strategy for your organization. Find out more about: Social Media Best Practices..

Mobile Marketing ::
Extending the Email/Social Media Channels

Designing campaigns for mobile users is becoming essential. And if you're using social media, you're already a mobile marketer. But with an estimated 70 million people sending emails from their phone every month, the challenge for organizations is to make sure their messages don't get lost in the shuffle. Additionally, organizations need to understand the parameters around mobile devices — the way messages view differently on different devices (i.e., desktop computers vs. tablets vs. smartphones) . Considerations for more effective mobile marketing include:
• Offering a text option as an alternative to HTML
• Being more concise. For example: For the subject line, as little as 15 characters may be viewable.
• Leverage pre-headers. The space at the top of your message is a great place for text links with key offers
• Removing images. Images can make a newsletter attractive, but viewing on a cell phone causes longer loading times.
• Test for every platform. Test on different cell phones to make sure it displays correctly.

There are also other considerations to be made:
• Mobile Web - scripting to re-direct mobile users to mobile-friendly content
• QR (Quick Response) Codes that integrates print materials with online content
• Location-based Marketing that can be utilized as part of your Mobile Marketing Strategy.

WEB SERVICES:: Overview

Functional • Contextual • Innovative... Actionable

FUNCTIONAL:: Technology that Delivers

TECHNOLOGY THAT DELIVERS across the enterprise — functional design that meets operational needs, and creative design that implenents the strategic initiatives of an organization.

CONTEXTUAL:: Customized Content Management Platform

Our CUSTOMIZED CONTENT MANAGEMENT (CCM) PLATFORM allows organizations to "take control of their content" by developing tailor-made, data driven web systems that permit authorized users to access back office applications via any web browser to create/edit their website content. This controlled content can include contextual (basic text), images and video that is accessed using a simple html editor.

For more information about our CCM Platform, please visit the Web Projects section of this website.

INNOVATIVE:: Integrated ONLINE Marketing Solutions

INTEGRATED ONLINE MARKETING SOLUTIONS is characterized as facilitating communication via the coordination of multiple marketing channels. The advent of social media is part of our continual quest to reach out and connect with people. When it comes to reaching out to customers, membership, constituents or stakeholders, you not only need to connect but you need to do it often. There's simply no time to let your brand slip from their minds, and by developing an Integrating Online Marketing Solutions Strategy you will make your brand sticky in your customers' minds.

ACTIONABLE:: Connecting 4 Success

Connecting 4 Success is not a static endeavor —the business environment is constantly changing. To measure these changes an organization needs a dynamic approach to measure its marketing initiatives strengths and weaknesses.

MCOMM Strategic Consulting develops actionable strategies that allow organizations to track statistics related to each initiative, which can include: number of click-throughs, number of social media followers generated, amount of traffic to your website and blog that comes from social media, number and quality of backlinks that point to your website and blog, etc. The proper implementation of analytical tools will help to effectively measure an organization's online marketing efforts.

Let MCOMM Strategic Consulting develop, design and implement web strategies that are functional, contextual, innovative and actionable through an Integrated ONLINE Marketing Strategy for your organization.

Web Services Gallery

RSS Feeds::

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.