Sign-Up.to - Survey Shows Small Businesses Missing Out Through Online Marketing Overload

London, UK (PRWEB) September 28, 2011

Small businesses are being overwhelmed by the number of digital direct marketing channels now available to them. In a recent survey conducted by Sign-Up.to, 79% of respondents felt that they weren?t making full use of the online marketing channels available to them.

With customer attention becoming ever more fragmented, it?s harder than ever for small businesses to make the best use of the different online channels with the limited resources they have available.

In the last few years the choice of digital direct marketing channels has exploded, with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, SMS, mobile and email marketing all having a role to play, not to mention the many more niche channels now available.

Different customers prefer different channels and different messages suit different mediums - but managing such a large range of options demands more time from marketers, leaving many unable to benefit from the full potential that a truly integrated marketing approach can provide.

To help businesses realise the full potential of their online marketing, Sign-Up.to have just released a new version of their online marketing platform. The brand new release enables marketers to completely manage their email, mobile, Facebook and Twitter marketing from a single login.

As well as email newsletters and 2-way SMS marketing, the online service now includes a complete social media CRM, with Facebook page and Twitter stream management tools that make it easy for marketers to identify and engage with their customers through multiple channels and view in-depth analytics that help them identify key customers and winning strategies.

Sign-Up.to?s CEO, Matt McNeill, said ?We?ve seen the opportunities for businesses to engage with their customers online grow dramatically in the last few years, but this has demanded more time and resources from marketers - something that?s often hard to find in the current economic climate. We wanted to make it easy for small businesses to be able to reap the benefits from using multiple online marketing channels in an integrated way, so we?ve invested heavily in producing what we think is the simplest, most accountable way for them to do that.?

?With a single login, businesses can now take control of their online marketing.?

More details and a free 14 day trial of the service are available from http://www.sign-up.to

About Sign-Up.to

Sign-Up.to is an award winning provider of cloud-based tools and services for social, mobile and email marketing. Founded in 2003 the company services thousands of clients worldwide, from small businesses to global corporations.

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Find More Way Sms 2 Press Releases

White Paper from Unidesk Shows How to Cost-Justify Virtual Desktops, Make VDI the Easy Choice over Buying More PCs

Marlborough, Mass. (PRWEB) December 14, 2011

A free white paper from Unidesk Corporation available at http://www.unidesk.com/opex-white-paper shows how Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) projects can now be justified through real operational cost savings. Until recently, broad VDI adoption has been stalled by high capital costs and management complexity, despite the compelling security, mobility, and device flexibility advantages of centralizing desktops on data center servers. "Desktop OpEx Savings: the Key to Cost-Justifying VDI" explains how new desktop layering technology designed specifically for VDI changes the economics, and makes replacing more PCs with Citrix? XenDesktop?, VMware View? and other VDI brokering platforms an easy choice.

The white paper takes an in-depth look at the costs of Microsoft Windows? gold image management, application delivery, and desktop support within physical PC environments, typical VDI environments, and VDI environments managed by Unidesk? management software for VDI. The findings show that physical PCs are very expensive to manage on an annual basis, while typical VDI reduces operational costs, but not enough to offset the capital costs of additional infrastructure. Unidesk, however, gives VDI the clear cost advantage over buying new PCs.

Using per incident desktop support costs from industry analyst Gartner? and other standard metrics, the white paper shows how annual desktop OpEx for 500 desktops can be reduced from an estimated $ 187,940 in a physical PC environment to $ 118,400 in a typical VDI environment, to a low of just $ 22,880 in a Unidesk-managed VDI environment. The white paper findings are substantiated by customer profiles on the State of Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities, the City of Kent, Wash., and Menlo College. Also included are the formulae used to derive the findings, so IT professionals can calculate their own savings based on their unique cost models and experiences.

"It?s well-known that physical PCs have a high TCO, but our customers continuously tell us they have trouble building the business case for VDI," said Tom Rose, Unidesk Chief Marketing Officer. "Through this white paper, IT professionals will learn how to calculate how much time they?re really spending on Patch Tuesday, application delivery, and desktop support. Then, they?ll see how to translate efficiency improvements in each of these areas into real cost savings that will make it much easier for them to cost-justify their VDI projects.?

With desktop layering technology, Unidesk-managed VDI eliminates the root causes of gold image proliferation, so IT administrators only have a single gold image of Microsoft Windows to patch and update on every ?Patch Tuesday,? regardless of how different their desktops are, or how many desktop pools they have. Packaging applications with Unidesk is markedly faster and simpler than virtualizing applications or using legacy electronic software distribution tools, making application delivery much more efficient. Finally, more desktop support calls can be remediated through end user self-service or Level 1 technical support in a Unidesk-managed VDI environment, eliminating escalations to costlier Level 2 and 3 IT staff resources.

To learn how to quantify the OpEx savings potential of Unidesk-managed VDI, download "Desktop OpEx Savings: the Key to Cost-Justifying VDI" at http://www.unidesk.com/opex-white-paper.

About Unidesk

Unidesk Corporation (http://www.unidesk.com) enables customers to centralize more desktops on data center servers and realize the full potential of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Unidesk? desktop management software for VDI is the easiest way to create, patch, personalize, and support VMware vSphere-hosted desktops and deliver applications for organizations with diverse user requirements. By using Unidesk?s patent-pending desktop layering technology with Citrix? XenDesktop?, VMware View? and other VDI access solutions, customers can expand VDI to more users, reduce desktop operations costs up to 30%, cut VDI storage costs up to 70%, and foster a more productive, agile workforce. Unidesk Corp. is a privately-held company with headquarters in Marlborough, Mass, USA

Unidesk? is a registered trademark of Unidesk Corporation. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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Related Call Ops Press Releases

Credit Union Members Spent 15% More in 2011 Holiday Season; Study by CO-OP Financial Services and Saylent Technologies Shows Robust Growth in Purchase Activity

Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. and Franklin, Mass. (PRWEB) January 17, 2012

Shoppers who belong to credit unions spent 15% more and made 15% more transactions during the peak holiday shopping season in 2011 than in 2010, according to an analysis by CO-OP Financial Services and Saylent Technologies, a provider of payment intelligence solutions.

?This month-long holiday spending surge among credit union members is even higher than Black Friday sales growth among the same group, which we found grew 8.1% year over year,? said Stan Hollen, President/CEO, CO-OP Financial Services. ?This robust sales activity mirrors the powerful momentum of the credit union movement overall.?

The holiday sales analysis is based on more than 71.9 million transactions representing $ 2.8 billion in spending made between November 25 and December 25, 2011. Drawn from debit card transactions across 563 credit unions processed by CO-OP Financial Services, the year-over-year comparison was performed through an advanced analytics solution, CO-OP Total Revelation?, powered by Saylent Technologies, and was conducted by Saylent?s Insight360? consulting team.

?Our analysis revealed a remarkable 10% increase in the number of debit cards in use during the holiday season, the result of a burgeoning consumer interest in credit unions,? said Tyson Nargassans, President and CEO of Saylent Technologies. ?The CO-OP Total Revelation solution provides detailed payment intelligence that helps card issuers uncover hidden opportunities and insights to better serve their expanding roster of members.?

The analysis spanned 30 days of spending activity among the credit union members both at brick-and-mortar establishments and on the Internet. Some of the key highlights:

???? ?Tis the season for politics: The end of 2011 saw a spike in political contributions, up 513% over the same time last year, as the U.S. Presidential campaign season went into full swing.
????Holiday cheer: Tavern and alcoholic beverage purveyors toasted the end of the year with a 48% increase in sales.
????A season of giving: Contributions to charitable and social service organizations were up 38% year over year.
????Stocking up: Buying clubs and shopping services bulked up with a 125% sales increase.
????Popular gifts: Among the merchandise categories showing strongest gains were leather goods (up 42%), records and CDs (up 42%), flowers and nursery stock (up 40%), bicycles (up 22%), computer software (up 21%), books (up 21%), candy and nuts (up 18%), and pets (up 17%).

For more information on CO-OP Total Revelation, visit http://www.co-opfs.org.

About Saylent Technologies, Inc.

Saylent Technologies, based in Franklin, Mass., develops payment intelligence solutions that help organizations understand and capitalize on payment behaviors. Employing innovative analytics and segmentation techniques, Saylent?s Card360? solution identifies card usage patterns by cardholder, targets underperforming or at-risk segments, and enables corresponding marketing programs and metrics. Saylent?s Account360? solution provides a holistic perspective on customers across all payment types, enabling financial institutions to understand and shift customer behaviors and increase share-of-wallet. Saylent?s Insight360? consulting services help clients speed time to value with expert analysis and customized marketing services. For more information, please visit http://www.saylent.com or call (508) 570-2161.

About CO-OP Financial Services

Based in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., and founded in 1981, CO-OP Financial Services is the industry leader in access and convenience products for credit unions. CO-OP Financial Services connects credit union members to their accounts through network, payment processing, e-commerce, shared branching and call center services. With more than 3,000 credit union members, 30 million cardholders, 28,000 surcharge-free ATMs, 4,400 shared branch locations and more than two billion annual transactions, CO-OP Financial Services offers the tools, counsel and leadership to help credit unions prosper. To learn more, visit http://www.co-opfs.org.

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