Latest Posts

GFLCVB ‘Mild to Wild’ Campaign Earns Top Award

Created and developed by Starmark, the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau’s (GFLCVB) GLBT mobile site, “Mild to Wild,” earned a “Best of Class” award from the National Association for County Information Officers (NACIO). The site also garnered a Gold ADDY award this past March from the Advertising Federation of Greater Fort Lauderdale. “Mild to Wild” allows visitors to select whether they want their day be “mild,” “medium” or “wild.” The site then randomly generates four activities to be enjoyed from day into night. The user can “remix” their outcome and generate new random choices as often as he or she likes. Mild to Wild mobile also features an accommodations guide — including gay-owned and gay-friendly accommodations — and Foursquare™ check-in offers. And since this is a mobile website, it will work on any web-enabled cell phone. Try the site now at sunny.org/mildtowild.

CVB_MildToWild_Iphone

Starmark Commits to MMA Code of Ethics for Mobile Marketing

As thought leaders in the world of ever-expanding mobile marketing strategy, Starmark is not only committed to the success of our clients but to the success of our clients’ mobile marketing programs. Which is why, Starmark is leading the way through their compliance with the Mobile Marketing Association’s Code of Ethics. What are these code of ethics? Generally speaking, we need to remember that we must allow customers to be in complete control of their destiny, reward them in some way, and reassure them that we take their privacy very seriously. Learn more about the do’s and don’ts of Mobile Marketing below. (more…)

Tagging Facebook Photos with Your Brand = Ultimate Product Placement

Facebook has more photos on it than all the other photo services combined, adding up to 100,000,000 new photos per day. With the simplicity of adding photos, including in real time from mobile devices, the ability to “tag” them with your friends, and the notifications it sends to those friends, makes photo sharing a huge success on the platform. (more…)

Transform print ads into hard-selling multimedia presentations

Republished from South Florida Business Journal

Some people call them QR codes, others scan tags. However, the category name is mobile barcodes – icons you can place in your print ads that will allow smartphone users to “scan” and view a video or a Web page on their device.

“There’s a ‘wow’ factor in being able to wave your phone over something like you would a magic wand and pick up a video or another page in cyberspace,” said Francine Mason, VP of communications with the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.

However, in addition to the ‘wow,’ mobile barcodes are a tremendous convenience for a prospect that wants to know more about the intriguing message in a brochure or an ad, turning the selling opportunity to a multimedia presentation in split seconds.

Mason shows an example of how the mobile barcodes turn into entertaining videos in the Greater Fort Lauderdale Vacation Planner brochure on her BlackBerry. From baby turtles hatching on the beach to a world of butterflies or underwater scuba diving scenes, South Florida’s sunny lifestyle is revealed through a merger of printed pages and mobile device.

Another convenience factor: An advertiser can offer a viewer real-time content. So, if the barcode resides in a brochure or directory, the viewer sees updated content without needing to reprint the brochure.

All in all, mobile barcodes save time, money and create additional value for advertisers and the consumers they target.

Retailers can also find value in putting mobile barcodes on mall posters, bus benches, table tents or anyplace people may be waiting and have a few seconds to scan for more information.

There are many new ideas that will be designed to continually surprise prospects over the next year, as more and more marketers use these barcodes to increase the value and performance of their materials.

What is even more special is the opportunity to know where in the world the content is viewed. With mobile barcodes, analytics provide a world map which points out where and when the barcodes are being viewed. A brochure given out in New York City may find its way to Hong Kong. The old saying “all business is local” can now be matched with “all business is global.” Because of privacy laws, the analytics programs don’t report who was scanning, only where and what was being scanned.

“We attend international trade shows,” Mason says. “With mobile barcodes on our brochure pages, we can pinpoint where people are reading these, giving us good feedback on our brochure value and the value of specific trade shows for promoting greater Fort Lauderdale.”

The CVB has even put mobile barcodes in train stations in England, she said.

These hardworking barcodes are also very economical to use. Creating one multiplies the value of the ad or brochure by giving the promotion another dimension.

Mobile barcodes can be created for both color and black-and-white applications.

There are two major players in the mobile barcode space: Microsoft Tag and Quick Response (QR) codes. Both require users to first download an app on their smartphone.

The QR code is an open-source standard that allows anyone to make a code or code reader. While this is being adopted by government organizations and can have its advantages, it can also have disadvantages.

First, the code itself is only part of the equation. You need an app to read it. And because it’s open source, there are many apps out there – and some are not as reliable as others. We have found that if a user scans a barcode and it fails to read, they think it’s an issue with the barcode, even though it may be an issue with a poorly written app. Plus, for tracking and metrics with QR codes, a third-party system is required.

The Microsoft Tag has not been around as long as QR codes, so there is less adoption right now. However, since the technology is also newer, it is a 3-D color barcode.

Microsoft wrote app that reads its barcode, and there is only one app reader that has versions for all mobile devices. This makes it very easy for a user to try a barcode for the first time. (Go to gettag.mobi from any smartphone, and it will detect and present the appropriate download version for that phone). Microsoft includes a reporting suite that has all kinds of data and analytics, so third-party integration is not needed.

Microsoft will most likely be the easiest and most reliable choice for testing a mobile barcode campaign. Government contractors/vendors or companies, which currently have a system that integrates a QR code, may continue to choose QR.

Very much like Adobe Acrobat PDFs, the technology may eventually be adopted and added to all mobile operating systems.

The user who wants multimedia sales presentations at the fingertips of prospects everyday will find mobile barcoding a cost-effective option.

Don’t set it and forget it – Social’s Greatest Mantra

Many businesses are still gun-shy when it comes to amplifying their marketing reach with social media. The excuses are many, and some are valid:

  • I’m too small to need social media.
  • It’s going to take too much time that I don’t have.
  • What if someone says they don’t like my product/services?
  • I just don’t see how ‘tweeting’ is going to make me money.
  • I already advertise.

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10 Steps to the Perfect Visual Brand Identity

Your logo is your company’s first impression to the world. Take the time to ensure it adequately represents who you are and what you promise.

  • Make sure your logo “reads” (meaning you can recognize what it is) on everything from a billboard to a postage stamp. It must also be flexible so it can be read clearly online, in video and on a mobile device.
  • Make sure your agency or design firm provides a black and white version, a greyscale version, a color version, vertical orientation, horizontal orientation and inverted (on black) execution; and the colors should be listed as CYMK and RGB. If you’re an established company, insist on spending the extra money and creating a ‘brand standards manual’ as well to make sure no one abuses your logo.

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Dan Estes Remembered

Dan L. Estes, co-founder of Starmark, Inc., 1978 in Chicago, and Starmark International, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was a self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur” and boater. In all, he started over 25 companies and owned nearly as many boats, including several sports yachts ranging in size from 40′ – 50′.

He worked tirelessly at everything he did and was admittedly compulsive about organization and the design quality of his working and living environments, which are always uniquely functional and beautiful.
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9 Reasons to use Google Site Search

There are many ways to add that little search box onto your site, most CMSs have that function built in. But there can be some advantages of using the Google search box over what you have built in.

Before you begin, be aware that there are two different options for the Google search box, one is called Google Custom Search, and the other is Google Site Search. (more…)

Starmark Takes Green Personally

Each year at Starmark, we encourage our employees to pledge to reduce either their individual carbon footprint or the carbon footprint of their entire family in honor of Earth Day. Once again, I am proud to say that this year we had 100 percent participation! (more…)

5 things to consider before you test social coupons

Social coupons — deeply discounted offers without the scissors and ink stained fingers. With the success of LivingSocial and Groupon, social coupon sites are popping up all over. (more…)

Get your organization ready for the Social Web


Social Media Policies

You hear a lot of companies doing their best to jump on board constructing “social media policies” (SMP). SMPs provide the foundation that you must not only hire from, but mandate how anyone within your company who uses social media tools interacts in this environment. (more…)

Mobile Advertisting Effectiveness

With mobile ad spending on the rise, largely due to the increasing smartphone and tablet usage, so to is the effectiveness of mobile ads which are now beginning to outperform their online display counterparts. (more…)