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Q Ltd ASX Media Release: Sale and Purchase of Digital Marketing Business

March 26th, 2012

On Friday 23rd March 2012 Q Ltd (ASX:QXQ) and Beyond D Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Beyond International Ltd (ASX:BYI), entered into an agreement that proposes the sale of all Q Ltd’s digital marketing operations and assets to entities controlled by Beyond International Ltd. The proposed sale is the culmination of a review undertaken by the Q Ltd board of directors to assess the most appropriate action to be taken to create value for shareholders.

Under the Sale Agreement, Q Ltd (parent company of 3Di) will receive up to approximately $3.25 million for the underlying assets,
comprising:
- Approximately $1,500,000 in cash on completion;
- Up to $500,000 subject to verification of the level of net financial assets transferred to the Buyer;
- Up to approximately $500,000 subject to the trade debtors transferred to the Buyer being collected; and
- Up to $750,000 of deferred consideration subject to the business achieving an agreed EBIT target for the financial year ending 30 June 2013.
The sale is subject to obtaining the shareholder approval of Q Ltd and other conditions usual for a transaction of this type. An Extraordinary General Meeting of the shareholders of Q Ltd  will be called to vote on the proposed sale. The Directors have unanimously indicated that they intend to vote in favour of the Resolution and recommend that Shareholders vote in favour of the Resolution.
Jon Ostler, Q Ltd CEO stated that “I’m very pleased that we have a proposal that meets the needs of our shareholders while providing employment and growth opportunities for all the employees across our digital  operations”. Jon went on “the proposed sale will also allow the operations to accelerate innovations in digital services and digital media assets offering clients more choice, capability and ultimately results.”
Beyond International Ltd is a leading producer and distributor of television and digital content, head quartered in Sydney. Beyond is a solid fixture in the Australian media landscape and has produced over three thousand hours of television programs for broadcast internationally including Beyond Tomorrow and MythBusters.
Once the sale is completed the acquired operations and assets will be headed up by Jon Ostler and will form a new Digital Division within the Beyond group of companies. The Beyond Group is well funded and reported half year revenue of $44m and pre-tax profits of $4.5m (July 2011 to Dec 2011).
Mikael Borglund, CEO, Beyond International Limited said “As stated at our November AGM Beyond intends to seek opportunities to increase its digital capabilities and activities as we take the Group forward into a digital future. This proposed acquisition will provide Beyond with access to a diverse range of digital expertise, IP and assets covering digital strategy, creative, development, marketing and media”.
Q Ltd , All enquiries should be direct to:
Jon Ostler
CEO, Q Ltd
Tel: 02 9339 6750
Paul G Choiselat
Executive Chairman, Q Ltd
Mob:  0414 232 143
Beyond International Ltd All enquiries should be direct to:
Robert Milne,
Company Secretary, Beyond International Limited
Tel: 02 9437 2000
Print
Beyond logo

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72% Increase in video ad spend by 2012

November 1st, 2011

Easy-Online-Video-Tips-101-Reasons-Online-Video

Interactive marketing spending in the US will more than triple over the next five years, reaching $61 billion by 2012, according to a new Forrester Research, Inc. A recent report expects that a maturing perspective about interactive channels coupled with technology advances will eventually lead to interactive technologies infusing all marketing efforts, and the interactive marketing organization will dissolve.

The Forrester forecast is based in part on a survey of 344 interactive marketing professionals and their budget decisions affecting display ads, search, email marketing, online video, and emerging media (social, mobile, and advergaming). Forrester’s breakdown of spending includes the following:

  • Search marketing will triple in five years. Mainstream marketers’ aggressive use of search marketing will grow the category at a CAGR of 26 percent to $25 billion by 2012 due to the increasing costs of paid search, additional spending on optimization tools and services, and international expansion.
  • Display advertising will reach $14 billion by 2012. Display ads will be a key factor in the interactive marketing budget by having an essential supporting role for all interactive campaigns.
  • Services and integration — not volume — will drive email marketing growth. Spending will focus on improving email relevancy with analytics and data management, and will grow to more than $4 billion by 2012.
  • Online video ads will significantly increase. Growing consumer adoption of online video will result in a dramatic 72 percent increase in online video ad spending to $7.1 billion by 2012. More customer-centric online video applications will increase the medium’s appeal for consumers and marketers.
  • Social media will drive emerging channels to $10 billion by 2012. Mainstream adoption will boost spending in emerging channels such as social media, mobile, game marketing, widgets, podcasts, and RSS. Spending on social media alone will grow to $6.9 billion as marketers understand how to use and measure this channel.
  • Mobile marketing will grow to $2.8 billion. As consumers become increasingly tied to personal computing handsets, they’ll want to extend their mobile utility to accommodate transactions. This transition will drive mobile marketing to grow to $2.8 billion by 2012.

3dinteractive’s Head of Digital Media, Jaysen Du Plessis recently explored trends in the Australian market. Online display advertising on a whole is up 17% from Q1 to Q2, with advertising spend for the first half of 2011 valued at $39.8 million (AUD).

Video Advertising grew a whopping 32.6% in the 6 months, representing 12.6% of the overall advertising display revenues.

B&T online display

3dinteractive is an accredited member of the Internet Advertising Sales Houses of Australia (IASH) which recognises best practice among online advertising sales houses in Australia.

Speak with a member of our team about getting the most out of your online advertising spend or more on the trend in online video on

Australia: 1300 806 986 or email us on info@3dinteractive.com.au

New Zealand: 09 920 1755 or email us on info@3dinteractive.co.nz

iash_logo

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IAB Best Practice Series: Online Video Advertising

November 1st, 2011

OnlineVideoAds

#1 Getting Started – Length & Quality

The International Advertising Bureau (IABUK) has recently set out a new set of best practices in regards to online video advertising so we thought with the extensive growth in the area you should know about what they had to say. We’ll post a series of top tips that you need to know about online video display advertising.

Video Content

On the internet there are different types of video clips and programmes, known as video content. You must think about the audience you would like to reach, and the type of video content you will advertise around to reach them. Consider two important aspects:

QUALITY AND LENGTH

The quality and length of video content will affect how receptive a consumer is to advertising in the same way as TV or written web pages. With online video, the higher the quality or the longer the clip, the more receptive a consumer will be to advertising. Think about what you want to achieve, short ads or different formats can be effective for your particular objectives.

What types of video are consumers engaging with?

The below tables show what types of video people watch, why they watch it and how they watch it. It is categorised as three types of video content called snippets, boutique and programmes and film.

table1a_4431

Why are they watching it?

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How are they watching it?

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Quality

Obviously, advertising around higher quality, professionally produced boutique, programme and film content will come at a premium cost because they have greater brand association and a large number of people from certain demographics will return regularly.

People that choose to watch high quality content will be more receptive to advertising. For instance, if someone chooses to watch a professionally produced episode of Lost on Channel 4’s website, they will be more receptive to an advert break at the beginning, middle and end of the programme, largely because they are used to it on TV.

Equally, if it’s the world premiere of the latest music video from the Kings of Leon or Lady Gaga, people will be more willing to sit through a short advert to watch it. If someone clicks to watch a home made clip on YouTube, they may be less likely to accept lengthy advertising beforehand because it doesn’t seem worth the wait.

You will be able to judge quality based on your own knowledge of the content, and on information provided by publishers and agencies.

Length

On the internet, very short video content (clips of usually 1 – 3 minutes) is extremely popular, forming the bulk of video consumed. Advertising around this short form content must be approached differently to long form content (programmes usually 15 – 60 minutes). Like quality, you will be able to find out more information from publishers and agencies. Rules to consider for length:

table4_4468

Come back to see the next instalment in the series: #2 Video with other media

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What’s Hot: TPN Leads

October 31st, 2011

glossy-burning-fire-flame

TPN Leads is a proven comprehensive lead generation service encompassing unique media, marketing services and technology. TPN Leads generates a constant stream of prequalified warm new business leads. TPNs flexible toolkit allows it to meet the requirements of a wide range of clients and industries whether B2C or B2B. Our expert team can advise on which solution is right for you. TPN Leads is suitable for any company looking to generate demand and drive new business. TPN Leads can be used to generate;

- Email sales leads
- Email newsletter registrations
- Prospect Engagement (lead nurturing)
- Tele-sales leads
- Postal Direct Marketing leads

All these leads are prequalified and opt-in; they have positively chosen to engage with you.

TPN Co-reg Network

One of the most popular media options TPN provides is Co-registration. “Co-reg” involves asking known users if they would like to be contacted by an advertiser about a specific offer or product. If they opt in then their details are automatically sent from the website displaying the ad to the 3rd party advertiser. TPN manages a network of Co-reg partners supported by TPNs unique co-reg ad server. TPN is delivering tens of thousands of sales leads and registrations every month. Advertisers simply pay per lead, typically between $2.00 and $15.00 depending on the type of lead required.

TPN Lead Nurturing System

Co-reg is very popular with telesales and DM marketers. However we have found that many other marketers are missing out on the opportunities offered by co-reg as they do not have a system or team to follow-up with all the leads it generates each day. TPN has developed a solution to this problem with its Lead Nurturing System.

Lead Nurturing is a form of Marketing Automation where the system delivers a series of email communications to the prospect depending on a predefined schedule. It can also send messages based on specific ‘trigger events’. These communications can be used to automatically engage with prospects, to further prequalify them and to even convert them online.  Online Reporting capabilities also allow the hottest leads to be identified and followed up.

Through its partners TPN can provide expert communication strategy, creative design and email copy writing. Typical communication strategies include;

- Simple download, link delivered via email
- Simple welcome email and subscription to a regular e-newsletter
- Sequence of emails; welcome, checkout Blog, Facebook, Twitter and an Offer
- Sequence of improving offers until online conversion occurs
- Sequence of product feature highlights
- Sequence of case studies
- Sequence of ‘useful tips’
- Full free e-learning course

These are normally delivered over a period of days or weeks.

To further extend engagement trigger events can be configured. For example by capturing the prospect’s date of birth, individual birthday offers can be automatically sent. Or downloads can be used to trigger an automatic follow-up after a defined number of days.

TPN Performance Media

Although Co-reg is a powerful and popular marketing tool which offers a guaranteed cost per lead, it is best suited to a long term ongoing campaign designed to deliver a constant stream of leads at a moderate rate. As there is often a need to increase the volume of leads over a specific period, or simply to generate as many leads as possible as fast as possible, we find a lot of co-reg clients also augment their co-reg campaign with performance media campaigns. These are purchased on a Cost Per Click basis, typically paying $1.00 to $3.00 per click (or $3 CPM). TPN operates extensive Email and Display performance networks offering marketers instant access to a flood of new business leads.

TPN Lead Capture & Score System

When buying traffic to drive lead generation one of the most critical factors is the prospect capture system used to turn clicks into qualified leads. Again, we found that many clients did not have a sufficiently effective lead capture approach and so we have developed a range of solutions to

maximise conversion rates and hence the campaigns Return on Investment. TPN offers an advanced lead capture form system which supports lead scoring based on answers given, as well as live feeds to 3rd party CRM systems like SalesForce and the TPN Lead Nurturing System. This intelligent form system can also be enhanced by commissioning a new Landing page or running an online promotion. 3di can arrange both of these from our market leading partners.

Complementary Services

Landing Page Design

Our partners are experts in persuasion architecture and usability, designing landing pages offering unrivalled conversion rates. A dedicated campaign or product landing page will always outperform a standard website page as it can be designed with conversion optimisation at its heart, and typically has a single minded focus on conversion. www.MarketUnited.com

Great Promotions

For competition based lead generation programs we operate one of Australia’s most sophisticated and trusted promotions platforms www.GreatPromotions.com

Get in touch with our team to speak about pricing and service options to suit your campaign objectives.

info@3dinteractive.com.au

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Featured Site: Morningstar

October 25th, 2011

top_logo

Morningstar is a trusted and reliable resource for investors. It offers unique investment tools and is an ideal to reach a highly sought after and valuable market. Morningstar has built up a trust with their members through free and paid membership.

Morningstar.com.au’s content includes investment data, research and independent analysis, Morningstar Rating and Style Boxes. New investors get started with educational articles while seasoned investors appreciate the depth of data, Online Portfolio Tracking, and proprietary Analytical Tools. A full–time team of investment and Web experts pack the site with a growing collection of daily editorials, real–time news, feature stories, and independent data that keeps investors on top of their stock and fund investments.

morningstar 1morningstar2morningstar3

Contact our team to find out more about pricing options and out extensive list of partner sites on info@3dinteractive.com.au

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Marketing automation… so what is it?

October 25th, 2011

Can_factory_workers_stamping_out_end_discs,_published_1909 Marketing Automation helps marketing departments to cut down the repetitive and time consuming task of email marketing. Specifying criteria and outcomes for tasks and processes using specific email software, which is then interpreted, stored and executed, increases efficiency and reduces human error.

There are three categories of software:

Marketing Intelligence uses tracking codes in social media, email and webpages to track the behavior of anyone interested in a product or service to gain a measure of intent. It can record which social media group or thread they followed, which link was clicked on in an email or which search term was used to access a website. Multiple link analysis can then track buyer behavior – following links and multiple threads related to product A but not B will show an interest only in A. This allows more accurately targeted response and the development of a nurturing program specifically targeted towards their interest and vertical market. Due to its interactive nature this has been described as Marketing Automation 2.0.

Marketing Automation has a focus on lead generation with targeted marketing programs to drive awareness and interest in a company’s products and/or services and nurture leads from first interest through to sale. Commonly used in business-to-business(B2B), business-to-government(B2G), or longer sales cycle business-to-consumer(B2C) sales cycles, Marketing Automation involves multiple areas of marketing and is really the marriage of email marketing technology coupled with a structured sales process as delineated by a CRM program.

Advanced Workflow Automation encompasses automation of internal marketing processes. These includes budgeting and planning, workflow and approvals, the marketing calendar, internal collaboration, digital asset creation and management and essentially everything that supports the operational efficiency of the internal marketing function. Typically these systems require a CRM or COM administrator to set up a complex series of rules to trigger action items for internal sales and marketing professionals to manually process (designing files, sending letters, sending email campaigns). This type of system increases marketers ability to deliver relevant content to relevant individuals at relevant times.

Key Functions of Marketing Automation

In order to effectively aid marketers in fully understanding customers and subsequently developing a strategic marketing plan, marketing automation tools (MAT) are designed to perform three key tasks:

  • Development and analysis of marketing campaigns and customers
  • Management of marketing campaigns
  • Appropriate customer data organization and storage

Fully developed marketing automation systems provide information across all phases of the marketing process, including:

  • Demand Generation
  • Lead Management
  • Lead Scoring
  • Lead Nurturing
  • Lead Generation
  • Campaign Analysis
  • Lead Qualification
  • Sales Effectiveness

Speak to our team about marketing automation and lead generation techniques for your next campaign at Australia: info@3dinteractive.com.au or New Zealand: info@3dinteractive.co.nz

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Need Survey Data Now?

October 25th, 2011

fresh-cassandramitchell

We’ve just loaded 70,000 fresh people into our database! This database is rich in self-reported behavioral & demographic variables and has virtually been untapped.

Variables include:
Date of Birth
Presence and age of kids
Income
Car type
Hobbies & interests
Charity donors
Insurance renewals

So, send your briefs to our team!

Get in touch for more details on info@3dinteractive.com.au or 1300 806 986.

Posted in > Data(List) Marketing, AU | No Comments »

What’s Hot: The new Facebook and what it means for brands

September 29th, 2011

FB timeline image

Last week Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a pretty radical overhaul of some of Facebook’s features, at the social networking site’s annual F8 conference in San Francisco

As predicted, the changes – some of which have already been rolled out -  are being met with a mixed reaction from its users – some delighted, others upset at big changes to the appearance of timelines and addition of new features.

Already some changes to the look of the newsfeed have been rolled out. The most immediately obvious change has been the addition of the ticker timeline on the right hand side of a user’s newsfeed, which now feeds constantly updated information on friend’s activities on the site in real time. “Facebook is trying to make the newsfeed less noisy,” explains Jesse Noyes, corporate reporter at Eloqua. “Smaller activities, like a friend commenting on another friend’s status update, will be condensed in the ticker, while bigger events, such as posting a photo, will get better real estate,” she adds.

“This is a potential plus for brands that can cut through the noise by posting high quality content. People who “like” a brand might see published content in the less noisy space, but only if the brand is strategic about what they push out. Plain old status updates won’t be enough. Brands who aren’t judicious and smart will likely end up relegated to the ticker, where it will be harder to be seen,” Noyes warns.

“For those with the ability to harness this data and marry it with creative and interactive campaigns, targeting and engaging users via this somewhere untamed medium has just become a little bit easier. While there are undoubtedly a number of privacy debates on the horizon, the next year will prove interesting as we see the real marketing potential this development offers [as it] takes shape.”

Other updates to Facebook’s social graph too look set to offer brands a huge amount of scope to engage more deeply with consumers. In due course, users will be able to go far beyond “liking” a brand or its content. So for example we’ll begin to see that “Tom is drinking at Starbucks” or “Lisa is shopping at ASOS”.

“Soon developers will be able to turn any verb into a button,” says Simon Quance, head of Sixth Sense social media. “Some have predicted potentially unwelcome over-sharing to follow, with yet more trivial information showing up in newsfeeds.

However, marketers may be able to manage this function carefully and foster an increased sense of proximity to a brand or amplify its values using the right term. That said, long term consistency in the use of any term adopted will be key, so changes should be considered carefully.”

One of the biggest opportunities for brands on Facebook in the immediate future could lie in the development of integrated apps. According to Noyes, Spotify and Nike are already creating apps to fit into users’ timelines and tickers – making it easier for users to share services that their peers are using. “That’s a potential boon for any brands, especially app savvy brands [that are] prepared to create high quality apps, understand how Facebook fans are using your service and producing content that entertains,” she says.

With all of these rich new features – and we’ve not even touched on the fact that users will soon be able download music, TV and news content while logged into Facebook (thanks to deals with Spotify, the Guardian and more) – it is obvious that Facebook wants to become a one-stop internet shop.

All the more reason then for brands to keep on top of its rapid changes.

adapted from article by Claire Weekes, senior reporter, UTalkMarketing, 28th September 2011

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Top 5 Mobile Advertising Trends to Watch

September 29th, 2011

mobile-advertising2By now we have all realised the importance that mobile advertising plays (we hope!). With the insanely fast adoption of tablets and mobile devices still growing and advertisers expected to increase their spend in this medium even more next year, what are the trends in this space to watch out for?

1. SMS – it’s still important.

SMS is one of the most popular communication methods in the world. The rise of text messaging can be attributed to its low cost and ease of use. If you have a cell phone, you have the capability to text — no downloads or installations needed. And with the advent of unlimited messaging plans, texting has become the mobile communication option of choice for cell phone-toting teens, beating out e-mail, and phone conversations.
source: Comscore 2010 US Mobile Subscriber Market report

So what about the effectiveness?

The average CTR for text messaging is 14.06%, while the average conversion rate is 8.22%. E-mail brings in an average CTR of 6.64% and an average conversion rate of about 1.73%, and Internet display doesn’t even hit the radar with an average CTR of 0.76% and average conversion rate of 4.43%, according to the Direct Marketing Association’s 2010 Response Rate Trend Report.

According to digital trend publication Mashable, The response rates that marketers experience via texting campaigns are definitely attractive. These high action rates are probably due to the fact that texting is an opt-in marketing channel, in which consumers actively seek out information and sign-up for updates.
mashable.com  August 2010

2. Rich Media

Google has recently acquired some mobile advertising platforms and according to Mashable, we’re going to see a lot of development around rich media in the coming year.

“engagement rates in mobile blow away the best of online rich media, and engagement times in mobile rival those of television [advertising].” … engagement rates as high as 33% on rich media ads, with rates consistently hitting above 20%. At the low end of the spectrum, simple, expandable ads reach 6-7% engagement rates, which is still high when compared to other advertising options in mobile and online. These rates are “unheard of in the online world,” mashable.com 20 August 2010

3. Mobile Sites vs. Mobile Apps

One of the biggest decisions for mobile marketers this year is whether they should build a mobile site or app — or both. And for advertisers, the question is whether to advertise on mobile sites, apps, or both.

But there is a bigger question here on where mobile is going. With Google betting on mobile web and search as the future, and Apple taking the app route, it is still not clear which platform consumers will prefer in coming years. Because of this fragmented mobile browsing experience, developing either can seem like a huge commitment to marketers, especially since mobile spending currently makes up less than 5% of marketing budgets in many organizations. Lets continue to track the developments in this space over 2012.

4. Geo-Loco

We’re looking forward to the evolution of location-centric mobile apps, and in terms of advertising, we’re excited to see how advertisers will utilize them. We’ve already seen a healthy usage of the popular location-based checkin app Foursquare by many brands, especially newspapers, magazines and other publishers. For advertisers, marketing within apps is as easy as creating an ad-campaign targeted to a specific audience and brands are seeing CTRs of 15%. Again more developments to come.

5. Mobile Video is on the up and UP

With the explosion of Internet video consumption, it is predicted that mobile video will also be largely adopted in the coming year. Additionally with the roll out of the NBN, many predictive stats tell the story of video’s increasing importance.

By 2013, some even believe that video will be so widely adopted that it will be a significant driver of mobile data usage — occupying an estimated 66% of mobile traffic, Cisco forecasts.

With video taking an increasingly important role in the mobile market, advertisers should keep their eyes open for opportunities to try out new advertising options.

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Featured Partner: Eco Daily

September 28th, 2011

Eco Daily provides ‘clever green savings’ via daily group buying deals to our extensive membership base of over 500,000 members subscribed to Great Sites – our leading membership portal.

Great Daily Deals, available on Great Sites, aggregates the latest deals from a range of popular group buying and discount websites, including EcoDaily.com.au, which means that members only need to visit the one destination to view all the deals available

Tim Langdon, director of Carbon Market Pty Ltd, which owns EcoDaily, EcoVoice and EcoNews, said that now people could not only strive to be green but potentially save money at the same time with the development of the group buy website EcoDaily.

He said the development of the EcoDaily.com.au group buy website would ensure that there’s a steady steam of clever green savings available.

“Doing the right thing by the environment can also mean doing the right thing by your wallet,” Mr Langdon said.

“Some people think that choosing the green option is the more expensive and in many instances that may be correct.”

The EcoDaily group buy website aims to reduce this dilemma and offer ‘clever green savings’ at generous savings to the recommended retail price, Mr Langdon added.

As well as aggregating all of the deals into a single site Great Daily Deals also automatically categorises deals, allowing members to cut through the clutter and only view the deals most relevant to them.

For information on affiliates opportunities please get in touch with our team on info@3dinteractive.com.au

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