double POSITIVE Marketing Group, Inc.

Hello again! Last week, we rolled out MobilePositive and gave a hint or two at what we’re up to. If you read that first post, you’d know that our new platform connects Advertisers with Consumers on the mobile web in a very meaningful and aligned way–driving heaps of quality inbound calls to our clients, daily. You would also know that I promised a follow up to that post explaining the timing of this rollout.

Thus, the title (or, question) of today’s contribution: Why mobile; why now?

Because it’s time. And, because before now, it wasn’t. Seriously.

If you’ve attended LeadsCon, Ad:Tech, Affiliate Summit or any other performance marketing event in the past four years, you’ve surely heard the hype on mobile. For years now, soapboxes at major industry shows have been occupied by folks signaling the ‘year of mobile.’ They blogged. They tweeted. They spammed us all on LinkedIn. Some of these zealots even went so far as to don QR-coded T-Shirts that were color coordinated to match their converse sneakers. Indeed, active were the hypesters.

And yet, despite all the hoopla, they were wrong. That’s right – flat wrong. At least in the context of the Cost-per-Lead media ecosystem. Mobile has been unworkable and unnecessaryuntil fairly recently. It’s taken Publishers, Advertisers, Networks and Consumers time to find the right way to play. We just weren’t ready, yet. Mostly, this was on the consumers and the publishers. It’s taken adoption rates skyrocketing, Apple’s stock booming, the Android market maturing, bandwidth levels rising and a whole host of other factors to get consumers ready for this at scale. For mobile publishers, the question has never been if – it’s been how and when. As in, ‘how and when can I make as much money selling leads as I do selling impressions and clicks.’ These groups needed to converge and align. It took help, muscle and risk. And, again, time. But now, it’s clear to me that it’s happening: mobile lead generation is alive and growing.

Ok. Before we get too far, I’m coming clean: I get the irony. In writing the above, one could argue that I’m now guilty of the same soapboxing I’ve just poked fun at. The argument is pretty linear, actually: I just said the people who announced the era of mobile lead-gen were wrong. And yet this post’s thesis is that the era of mobile lead-gen is, in fact, now here. Thin ice, right? Totally. Except I’ve got the in-house data to support this, and I see the interest on the advertiser side mounting: we introduce a new major advertiser to the mobile web weekly.

Last month, MobilePositive facilitated over 25,000 inbound phone calls to our early advertiser clients. These were direct, net-new customers, each happily dialing in. And, a considerably high number of them bought the services our clients were selling. These advertisers include leading brands in the Education, Mortgage, Insurance, Home Services and Identity Protection vertical markets. So far, the proof is the campaign performance. We see cost-per-sale figures that consistently perform on target and our budgets are growing. The publishers are happy, too. Both sides (buyers and sellers) see long-standing, steady campaign growth and an exciting new mix of partnerships as a big part of the upside to mobile.

So, why mobile? And, why now? Because – like I said, it’s time.

That’s all for today, gang. Thanks for reading. Next week, we’ll get more tactical with a piece on why publishers should love the pay-per-call format.

Hey, everybody – JT Benton here.  I oversee DoublePositive’s new mobile marketing division, which we’re calling MobilePositive.  While it’s true that I’m a rookie at DP, I’m certainly no stranger to the world of performance marketing.

I’ll be blogging here fairly frequently.  I’m excited to share with you a bit about our growing work in mobile, how we plan to add value and show first-hand how easily the mobile web can drive alignment in a performance marketing format.  I’ll also make it a consistent point to emphasize that this growth comes from a very solid foundation of connecting sales teams with live, interested customers on the phone.  Indeed, I think it’s fitting that game-changing mobile marketing developments would come from the industry leader in delivering LIVE Hot Transfers.

I’ll spend most of my ‘air time’ describing our mobile product offerings and musing on the industry on large.  The mobile web is quickly transforming the way advertisers connect with consumers, and MobilePositive is helping to lead the charge.  As such, we’re learning a lot – and I have every intention of sharing these learnings with the reader along the way.  With major Advertisers in the mortgage, EDU and insurance verticals already participating, our platform is driving tens of thousands of inbound calls monthly.  We see lots of data, and we talk about this stuff all day.  Just ask my wife.

So please, dig in.  Follow us, and share with others that there’s a new player in mobile.  And, don’t miss next Tuesday’s followup: Why mobile; why now?

DoublePositive Makes Key Hires to Expedite Growth and Broaden Service Offerings

It’s all about the people at DoublePositive Marketing Group, Inc., the undoubted leader in live telephone transfers and online marketing. And now, it’s all about MORE people. The company strengthened its online marketing team recently by making some key executive hires from powerhouses like AOL/Advertising.com and One-to-One Global, as well as others with deep experience in the space.

The recent hires—and their ability to deliver superior performance-based services—broaden the company’s industry reach and position the company to service new customers formerly unable to take advantage of live telephone transfers. Search engine marketing, display advertising, mobile marketing and advertising, and social media advertising round out the company’s online services suite.

Trent Walter, DoublePositive’s new vice president of national sales and former director of regional sales for AOL/Advertising.com, is enthusiastic about the offering. “Our technology is designed for real-time advertising. And, unlike others, our system, by design, aims to satisfy the performance goals of the advertiser, not the publishers or the networks.”
JT Benton, DoublePositive’s new vice president of mobile marketing, adds “we are committed to making a serious impact on the mobile web. Our mobile marketing division has a simple, vital mission: connect advertisers, publishers, and consumers on the mobile web. We will add value to every inquiry.”

Two years ago the company committed to the online marketing space, and soon after hired Paul DiDonno, current vice president at DoublePositive and former strategy manager at AOL/Advertising.com, to manage their flagship education account. Brian Tomasette, current vice president of media products at DoublePositive and former director of product sales and agency partnerships at AOL/Advertising.com, was hired shortly after DiDonno.

“I came to DoublePositive to continue my passion for performance marketing in the education space, and for the people,” says DiDonno. “The (then) small team, everyone passionate about what they did, trusting each other, and everyone working for one goal—we made serious progress in a short amount of time.”

“It was an amazing opportunity to apply my experience and knowledge in online marketing. In the last two years, we have developed technology that surveys the marketplace, scores and optimizes bids based on our client’s performance goals, and then automatically adjusts those bids based on performance. That’s industry leading, and we continue to innovate.”

To support these initiatives, account management, delivery, media analysts, quality assurance, and sales teams are all in place lead by the industry’s most experienced and staffed with dozens of the industry’s brightest.

“We are really excited,” says Tomasette. “We are creating the future of online advertising, and are armed with all of the tools and people to make it something memorable.”

When you’re hot, you’re hot, and DoublePositive is definitely hot.

First, we’re growing at a torrid pace.  That’s why we decided to bring both our DP East and DP West teams to LeadsCon East in New York last week.  Hopefully you got a chance to meet more of our talented people who are setting the industry on fire.

Second, we were happy to be in a position to underwrite LeadsCon East as Lead Sponsor this year.  DoublePositive has had a hot hand, and this is one small way we were able to give back to the community.

Third, to really spice things up, we brought our own hot sauce to the event.  It was a special fiery concoction that was brewed just for us.  We passed out 250 bottles in New York.  Yes, that’s me on the label.  Hot stuff, I know.

Are you tough enough to take the heat?  Can you handle all that Live Hot Transfers flavor?  If you were one of the fortunate (or unfortunate!) ones to pick up a bottle, let us know if your tongue survived.  And check back soon because I expect to have a few more posts about LeadsCon.

Back in February, in my post How to Strengthen Contact Rates , I told you guys about the new inbound-outbound service DoublePositive had recently launched.

As I mentioned at the time, our contact rate is historically about 50% – but early this year, we saw that rate dipping.  We knew the problem had to do with smart phones and the personal firewall they create.  According to the most recent Nielsen report, as of December 2010, 31% of cell phone users in the United States are smartphone users.

Show of hands.  If I called you on your smart phone right now, and you didn’t recognize the number, would you answer?

Probably not.  Over 90% of consumers would ignore an unknown number, according to an informal survey I ran on Facebook.  But those same consumers said they probably would call back if the caller tried to reach them more than once.  Wouldn’t you?

Our new inbound call-back service was born.

So, are they calling us back?

It’s still very early, and so far, we’ve limited our test to mortgage leads.  But I can tell you definitively that we’ve seen a lot of call-backs.  And when they call, one of two things is happening.  Either they hang up right away (“Oh, it’s ABC Mortgage.  I don’t feel like talking to them right now”), or they stay on the phone because they are interested in speaking with a representative.  Those in the second category are transferring at 70%, a very high rate.

What does that mean to lead buyers and lead sellers?

It means we are improving the performance of your leads.  Keep in mind, those call-backs are consumers we previously never would have been able to contact.

As a result of this early success, we decided to roll out our call-back service across all verticals.  Our new test group is 80% of all the leads we are dialing on, and we are holding 20% back as a control group.  I will share the results as soon as comparative data becomes available.

Meantime, we’re still asking ourselves, what else can we do to get people to call us back?

Local versus 800

At LeadsCon in Vegas last month, DoublePositive partner Joey Liner spoke on a panel with Ken Krogue, President of InsideSales.com, a dialer manufacturer.  Ken confirmed what DoublePositive had long suspected.  He said that InsideSales.com had seen a nice uplift in performance by displaying local numbers to consumers, instead of 800 numbers.

In our experience, this seemed true.  Prior the conference, we had conducted another informal survey on Facebook.  We asked, would you be more likely to answer the phone if the caller was a local number versus an 800 number?  Again, over 90% of consumers told us they would be more likely to answer a local number, because it might be someone they know.

DoublePositive decided to test this theory.  We reached out to one of our key clients in the mortgage industry, and will perform a test on the leads we dial on their behalf.  The expectation is that using local numbers will increase our contact and transfer rates.  We’ll let you know how it goes.

Needs evolve.  Buying habits change.  The important thing for all of us is to keep innovating.  Stay ahead of the curve, and you’ll be ready for where the market takes you next.

Your turn.  What are you doing to get consumers to call you back?

Last month I wrote about the “perfect storm” for lead buyers. Like most storms, it didn’t last long.

Here we are, about a month later, and the refi market is shrinking fast. There are fewer and fewer people looking to refinance or able to refinance. As a result, the few leads that are available are sold more times.

Some of our clients and partners here at DoublePositive were seeing their transfer rates dip. They called us to say, “What’s going on?”

Rather than blame the economy (where does that get you?), we turned the question on ourselves. Are we doing everything we can to get as many new transfers over to our clients as possible? We already knew the leads were being sold the maximum amount of times, and speed-to-lead was no longer the secret sauce. We needed a new recipe that would allow us to contact more people.

Today I’ll share with you the first part of our answer, which we’re very excited about: our new inbound call-back service.

“You say outbound, I say inbound.”

Historically, when we call the consumer, they answer the phone 50% of the time – but lately that contact rate is dipping. Part of the problem now is, more consumers are using their cell phones as their primary phone number. They hide behind a personal firewall, screening their calls, especially numbers they don’t recognize. We had to find another way to reach them.

And so we followed a hunch. We assumed that consumers, if they saw the same number flashing in their caller ID a couple times, would wonder who is trying to reach them, and call the number back. To test this theory, and prove that we could get more consumers to answer their phones or call us back, we developed inbound call-back technology.

Here’s how it works:

1. DoublePositive (Call Center A) outbound dials on an online inquiry
2. Consumer does not answer the phone
3. Consumer calls back phone number on their Caller ID (phone number provided by RingRevenue)
4. Consumer routed to an IVR (also provided to us by RingRevenue)
5. Consumer can either choose to speak with our client or can be added to our DNC
6. Consumer chooses to speak to our client. Call routed to DoublePositive Inbound Call Center (Call Center B)
7. DoublePositive agent answers call, confirms interest and transfers call to client
8. Call Center B sends disposition in real time through DoublePositive to Call Center A and the lead is immediately marked as transfer and removed from the queue

To learn more about RingRevenue, our partner in providing inbound call-back services, check out the press release.

Lead buyers benefit from this solution, because not only are we the first to reach their leads with our outbound calling, but we’ve also found a way to capture those who are screening their calls and get them to call us back, improving transfer rates.

Lead sellers benefit because this service ultimately improves the performance of their leads. In a perfect world, we will contact more leads and transfer more borrowers to the lender. Ideally, lenders will convert more of those leads to loans, and will buy more leads. Win-win-win.

Statistically speaking, it’s still early, but the initial data indicates a slight rise in contact rates. It appears to be working. Week over week, more and more people are calling us back.

The cool part, to me, is how synchronized our two call center operations are. Though they are in different parts of the country, our centers are talking to the consumer and communicating with each other seamlessly, in real time. As a result, we are poised to contact more people and transfer more calls.

Check back soon because we have more to come. DoublePositive is rolling out a suite of innovative products in the coming weeks. In the meantime, please let us know what you think of our inbound call-back concept, in the comments below.

Before you get your knickers in a bunch I have to tell you that I don’t hate Google. I love Google. Sure, DoublePositive runs its systems on a Microsoft platform. Sure, we process millions of leads per month and capture hundreds of gigs of data on a weekly basis – all on a Microsoft foundation that is rock solid. But that doesn’t mean I am a Microsoft activist. Nor am I an Apple fanboi (yes, it is spelled with an ‘i’). Yes, I own an iPhone, and an iPod, and an AppleTV, and a Macbook, but not that craptastic Airport Express. In fact, as a technologist I love all these companies. But I love Google a little bit more. ;) I love the story, I love the logo, I love their clothing line, and I love the breadth of the work they do. However, Google is having their lunch eaten…by Amazon.

Amazon? I never saw any book sales on Google’s balance sheet? Oh, so you must be talking about Amazon’s announcement of its public release of the all-new and improved A9 platform for consumer use. I kid, I kid. Ok seriously, what I am talking about is that Amazon is kicking Google’s butt in one particular market. And that is the mindshare and market of software developers.

Sometime in the mid-2000’s someone at Amazon realized that the tools and processes they use internally could be valuable to the developer and business community. Starting with the release of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk in 2007 Amazon AWS was born. Ever since, Amazon has been on a tear, releasing valuable developer service after valuable developer service. At the same time (circa 1980) Google mashups were all the rage. Everyone wanted to have a Google maps mashup (ok, fine, it only feels like 30 years ago). Since then, however, Google for the developer community has been stagnant. Between that stupid ‘by invite only’ setup, and a series of Google mishaps (Google Wave, Google Voice Search, Google Phone, no cloud computing, etc.) Google is losing the battle for the mind of the business software developer. There is no way I can possibly present a full analysis on the two companies with respect to their developer mindshare strategy without writing a book. Instead, here is my non-comprehensive and biased comparison chart:

Amazon Services vs. Google Services

A lot of what you see above may not be important to you or your business. But that’s not the issue. The issue here is that Amazon has first mover advantages in almost all of the areas listed above. At first I thought most of the Amazon advantages only applied to small or nimble companies like DoublePositive. However, the more CIOs I talk to, the more are using Amazon. Cloud Computing and large-scale storage are not fun to implement nor are they easy to manage. Lots and lots of companies, big and small are willing to pay a premium just to offload the headache. Additionally, Amazon is churning out high quality services at a rate that Google cant match. Google is stuck in perpetual beta mode and can’t get out of its own way. So what does all this mean for Google and Amazon? I don’t know. I do know that everyone I talk to is jumping on the Amazon bandwagon as fast as they possibly can. From the largest of companies to the newest of startups, Amazon is taking more and more developer mindshare. What I do know is that Amazon is transforming itself into the go to business partner for growing and nimble business while Google is continuing down the path of B2C dominance. Can the two coexist peacefully? Will their paths converge and turn into a battle for the ages? How does Microsoft fit into this picture? It’s going to be a great story to watch. I need some popcorn.

P.S. Here are some projects that we implemented using Amazon:

1. Large scale file management (hundreds of millions of files)
2. DNS
3. Geographical load balancing
4. Data Cubing
5. Quality Control on repetitive tasks
6. B2B database building
7. System backups
8. Image tagging
9. Transcription Services

Press release on RingRevenue’s site

Partnership allows lead buyers to generate more voice leads, minimize consumer contact time, maximize consumer contact, and improve ROI.

Santa Barbara, CA (February 15, 2011) – Today, RingRevenue, the leader in call performance marketing and DoublePositive Marketing Group, specializing in LIVE Hot Transfers, formally announced their partnership to deliver high-quality, live voice leads to national lead buyers in higher education, insurance and financial services. Since launching a series of call performance marketing campaigns with selected customers in late 2010, the partnership has already generated thousands of inbound live voice leads.

“We know the most valuable scenario is having the consumer on the phone from the start when their interest level is the highest and they are the most likely to convert to a paying customer,” says Brian Tomasette, Vice President of Media Products for DoublePositive. “Our partnership with RingRevenue allows us to deliver even more value to our customers by increasing the return on their advertising spend. Using RingRevenue, we’re able to include unique phone numbers in every advertisement. By doing so we are able to more accurately measure the effectiveness of those ad placements and we consistently see contact and conversion rate improvements on those ads and lead forms that include phone numbers.”

While marketers pay millions of dollars each year for leads and lead generation form completions, what they really want is customers. “The inherent challenge with lead forms is that consumers are at their peak interest level when they fill out the form, but the minute they hit the submit button they are on to something else and their interest level begins to decline,” adds Tomasette. The combination of inbound and outbound hot transfers allows a lead buyer to drastically minimize consumer contact time and maximize contact percentage, one of top metrics in lead value.

With RingRevenue’s call performance marketing solution, DoublePositive leverages strategic media placements and partnerships with publishers to drive inbound phone calls to unique toll-free phone numbers that connect consumers to agents in DoublePositive’s call center. The combination of RingRevenue’s call quality filtering technology and DoublePositive’s live agents qualifies the caller, confirms their interest and connects them live to the advertiser’s sales representatives.

“DoublePositive, like RingRevenue, is built on the premise that having the consumer directly on the phone is of great value to the advertiser,” says Jason Spievak, CEO of RingRevenue. “The combination of our technology and their call center’s qualification and live transfer process ensures that advertisers are delivered a high volume of quality voice leads that are ready to become customers.”

“We looked at a lot of call tracking vendors in our search to find the right partner. RingRevenue has a leadership team with a proven track record in both telephony and performance marketing, which is very important to us,” says Tomasette. “Off the shelf, the RingRevenue platform comes fully equipped with all of the lead generation tools we need: call ROI by keyword search tracking, instant access to promotional phone numbers, advanced call routing, creative services, great real time reporting and more. We knew we could easily get up and running right away and stay focused on delivering value to our clients. Our advertisers are already seeing the benefit in the form of new customers, increases in quality leads and expanded distribution.”

Both companies will be attending LeadsCon Las Vegas 2011 March 1-2, the premier conference for the online lead generation industry. DoublePositive is a Gold Sponsor of the event and can be heard talking about the power of phone calls in the panel session: All About The Call – From Speed to Lead to Call Center Effectiveness, on March 1.

About RingRevenue

RingRevenue improves every marketing campaign with better quality leads, higher conversions and increased ROI. By tapping the power of the phone, RingRevenue’s patent-pending call performance marketing platform captures and converts more high-value customers. RingRevenue’s comprehensive tracking and analytics consistently increase revenues from mobile, print and other “offline” media while also improving the performance of online campaigns such as search, email and display. RingRevenue powers many of the leading performance marketing networks and agencies. To learn more about RingRevenue or to request a demo, please visit ringrevenue.com or call 866-943-6426.

About DoublePositive

DoublePositive Marketing Group, Inc. bridges the “last mile” of converting traditional (data-only) leads into sales. DoublePositive has evolved the model of lead generation to provide sales professionals with a live, qualified, and interested consumer, along with the consumer’s data, all in real time. DoublePositive primarily serves clients and lead providers in the mortgage leads, online education enrollment leads, and insurance leads industries. To learn more visit: www.doublepositive.com.

If you are thinking about getting one of those new 3D flat screens, you may want to think again. Those that are currently available require special eyeglasses to achieve 3D effect. It is kind of awkward and reminds me of the first TVs (like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KVN-49) with tiny screen and big water-filled lens (like a fish bowl) in front of it to magnify the picture. Future 3D displays may be as far from these first 3D panels as current flat panel TVs are from TV sets of 60 years ago.

In the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences professor Nasser Peyghambarian and his team are developing holographic display capable to create real 3D images visible without any special devices. Principles of holography are well known in optics, and stationary holograms are nothing new, but here scientists managed to create a device which is capable to “re-write” the holographic image using specially designed polymer film. For now, they can update the picture once in a couple of seconds, but they are confident that refresh rate may be improved. There are a lot of scientific and engineering problems that have to be resolved before this technology become commercially viable, but even in its current state it is very impressive. More details can be found here: http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-holograms-science-fiction-reality-video.html.