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Facebook Web Design to Adopt Larger Text and Photos

posted on June 5, 2012

While there are still many, many shortcomings of Facebook’s mobile experience, the move to larger photos has made it easier to be updated on what is going on with the folks in your life.

It’s been a good move for Facebook which could use some good news these days since its stock has slid southward nearly 30% since its ‘legendary’ IPO of a few short weeks ago.

Now Facebook will be rolling out the bigger picture plus bigger text look for the web version of the service. Maybe staring at screens all day is speeding the need for larger print versions of even the latest and greatest in the tech space? Not likely but it’s kind of humorous to consider.

TechCrunch reports

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Majority of Shoppers Plan to Buy Online for Father’s Day

posted on June 4, 2012

Father’s Day is two weeks away and folks are out shopping. Lucky for you, 56% of them will be scouring online sources for the perfect gift.

PriceGrabber’s 2012 Father’s Day Shopping survey shows smooth sailing ahead for shopping sons, daughters and wives. 70% said they were planning to spend about the same amount they spend on mom, for her special day and for the majority of folks, that’s under $100.

While many consumers will be shopping online, only 2% said they’d be using a mobile device to do it, which is surprisingly low.

How will they decide where to shop? 59% said they’d be influenced by free shipping, 48% wanted to see price cuts and 36% would be swayed by a coupon.

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Study Shows Return Policy Can Make or Break the Sale

posted on June 4, 2012

Last week, I accidentally bought two copies of the same book on Amazon.com. It happened because I had pre-ordered the book, forgot, then ordered it when it came out. As soon as I got both books, I logged on to Amazon and followed the, fairly easy, instructions on how to return the book and was told no problem, but I’d have to pay for the return shipping because it was my mistake.

Insert unhappy shopper here.

According to a new study from comScore, the return policy is one of the key components for online shoppers.

63% of those surveyed said they look at the retailer’s return policy before buying. What are they looking for? Hassle-free returns  — something they desperately want, but say they aren’t getting.

But before they can return an item, they have to receive it, and that’s another area of concern.

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Trackur’s Social Media Monitoring Dashboard Gets a Sexy Facelift

posted on June 4, 2012

Just because Trackur is one of the largest and most talked about social media monitoring tools on the web, that doesn’t mean the company has been resting on its laurels.

You may have noticed that I’ve been somewhat of an absentee landlord here at Marketing Pilgrim, but there’s good reason for that. Today, Trackur announces its brand new user interface…and it’s sexy and it knows it!

For the past 6 months, we have been hard at work coming up with a new UI that would take Trackur’s social media monitoring dashboard to the next level. We wanted it to remain simple and quick to use, but at the same time, we wanted to push the design dial all the way up to 11! ;-)

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Marketing Pilgrim Welcomes Our New Email Marketing Sponsor: AWeber

posted on June 4, 2012

We are very happy to announce the addition of AWeber as Marketing Pilgrim’s Email Marketing Channel Sponsor.

AWeber provides best of breed email marketing and social marketing services to bloggers, organizations and companies of all shapes and sizes. Serving over 115,000 customers, AWeber has over 15 years of experience in the space and that expertise is passed on to it’s customers.

If you are looking for an email marketing provider that will help move the needle forward for your business try out AWeber’s easy-to-use email software today for 30 days for just $1!

If you think it might be a good idea to connect with AWeber (we certainly think it is!) you can check out their blog, Like AWeber on Facebook, follow them on Twitter or even catch up with them on Google+!

We are excited to welcome AWeber to the Marketing Pilgrim sponsor family. If you would like to join AWeber, HubSpot and Trackur to our growing list of channel sponsors, contact us today!

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Insights Into the Modern CMO

posted on June 4, 2012

We recently had the privilege to conduct an e-mail interview with Christine Moorman of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business which is one of the top business schools in the United States. Christine is a professor at the university but she is also the head of the CMO Survey. We here at Marketing Pilgrim look forward to the findings of the survey each February and August.

A lot happens in the world of marketing and, in particular, of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) position. Today’s CMO is faced with more marketing and communications options than ever before as well as greater responsibility to justify the activities of marketing initiatives with proven ROI measurements. No easy task at all.

We asked Christine a few questions that help to put the role of the CMO into sharper focus.

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Daily Twitter Users Double, but Adoption is Still Slow

posted on June 1, 2012

New research from Pew shows that Twitter hasn’t gained many users over the past year, but the users they have are now Tweeting more often.

The total number of users represents only about 15% of the adult, online population. Last year, Pew clocked this number at 13%, growth that’s hardly worth mentioning.

On the other hand, daily usage numbers (those who use Twitter on a “typical day”) have doubled since last year, and quadrupled since 2010. Don’t get too excited, though, because that number is only 8% of the online population.

I find these numbers to be odd and depressing. I’m a big Twitter fan and it seems to me that everyone I deal with has a Twitter account. I suppose that’s because my circles generally include techy people, marketing people, entertainment industry folks and writers. Maybe if I hung around with a different kind of a crowd, Twitter wouldn’t be as prominent.