The Marion Group - Houston Interactive Agency

MARION Integrated Marketing is Finalist in 2013 AMA Houston Crystal Awards

Sandra Bledsoe — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:45:32 +0000

MARION Integrated Marketing is pleased to announce our selection as finalists in the 2013 American Marketing Association Houston Crystal Awards in three separate categories:

Best Logo Design/Corporate Identity
Best Company or Organization Brochure
Best Business to Consumer Website

The Crystal Awards are presented by AMA Houston to recognize the city’s best marketing work. We are very honored to be a finalist and we hope we win in all three categories! The awards gala will be held on May 23, 2013 at 6:00 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Houston.

The finalists’ entries will be on display followed by a seated dinner and program when the winners are announced. Our team is keeping our fingers crossed for a big win!

For a complete list of this year’s Crystal Awards Finalists, please click here.

Join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook.

Marion Wins Printing Industries of the Gulf Coast Graphics Excellence Award

Sandra Bledsoe — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:47:35 +0000

Lynton Ellisor, Valleris Nguyen, Tim Tully, and Damon Vance

MARION Integrated Marketing was awarded a 2013 Graphics Excellence Award by Printing Industries of the Gulf Coast. The award was presented at SWP’s 2013 Crawfish Boil, where we ate mudbugs and had a great time. This annual event was held at the SWP facility in West Houston, and MARION is grateful to receive this honor.

35% Email Open Rate on Mobile Email and Growing | Mobile Marketing

admin — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:52:23 +0000

These days, it’s not just executives that are checking their email every few minutes. Everyone with an iPhone or Android device is doing the same. It seems as though people spend more time using their mobile devices for everything but talking on the phone. As smartphones become more common, it is hard to imagine not having your email with you wherever you go. Mobile email marketing is a great approach companies can take to engage new customers.

The email intelligence company, Return Path, reports that 18% of emails that hit people’s inboxes come from marketers. About 35% of email is opened on mobile devices, and is expected to rise to 50% in as little as 12 months. With statistics like that it is a no brainer to think the time is right to take advantage of mobile email marketing. Companies now have the capability to reach out to a potential customer right on their smartphone.

In order to maximize the customer conversion potential, companies need to think about the total mobile experience when designing a mobile email marketing campaign. Any links out from an email to a company Web site need to point to a mobile version of the page. The customer cannot be taken out of the mobile world.

Most smartphones will automatically dial a number from an email if a user presses and holds the number. A small detail like making sure that number is in plain text, rather than an image, is easily overlooked.

The same goes for a physical address. Most smartphones will open the address in a map when pressed. Making sure the address appears near the top of the email, and then again at the bottom is very important.

So how would a company know when the time is right to think about something like mobile email marketing? Typically, if 10% of traffic to a B2B site is received through the mobile version of the page, they are a natural fit for mobile marketing.

At MARION, we can ensure your mobile Web design gives your customers the best possible user experience. We can also develop a solid email strategy to help spread your message.

Source : Direct Marketing News

Our Five Favorite Free Apps

Sandra Bledsoe — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:20:42 +0000

The latest data reports that consumers spend more time on mobile devices than any other medium, surpassing TV, web, and radio. Furthermore, the average consumer actively uses 6.5 apps throughout a 30-day period. So which apps are worth your time? We’ve put together a list of our five favorite free mobile apps that you should seriously consider trying out.

Amazon Kindle. Available for both Apple and Android, this app puts over a million books at your fingertips.

Dropbox offers cloud-based storage that allows you to access your files from all your computers, iPhone, iPad, Android device, and even the Dropbox website. (We also use it as an ad hoc music service, streaming our audio files right from the app). Available for Apple and Android.

Evernote. A fantastic write it now, save it later, and overall remember everything app. Use it to take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists and record voice reminders. Available for Apple and Android.

Robin. A personal assistant app and challenger to Apple’s Siri. Designed to be used hands-free, you can ask Robin for GPS directions, local places, real-time parking, traffic info, gas prices, weather, your Twitter news, and much more. Available for Android only.

Spotify is a streaming music service featuring millions of songs from all the major studios. It charges users $9.99 per month to have access to its premium service on mobile devices (the web-based service is free), but mobile users can stream free personalized internet radio stations based on their preferences. Available for Apple and Android.

What are your favorite apps? Join the conversation on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

YouTube Now Watched by 15 Percent of People on the Planet

Sandra Bledsoe — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 20:43:11 +0000

YouTube, the world’s largest online video-sharing platform, recently announced that it now has more than a billion unique users every single month. That translates to nearly 15% of all the people on the planet, and an astonishing 50% of internet users worldwide!

For a bit of perspective, PSY (the South Korean rapper) and Madonna would have to repeat their Madison Square Garden performance in front of a packed house 200,000 times in order to reach the same number of people that YouTube reaches in a single month. That’s a lot of Gagnam Style!

Get your video on YouTube with our Video Production Services. Request a Quote today!