Posted by Chris Knipper on Mon, Jun 28, 2010 @ 07:06 AM
From an estimated $4.5 billion last year, inbound marketing on social media networks is expected to grow to $38 billion by 2015, according to a new report released by Borrell Associates, Inc., a Virginia media research and consulting firm. Last year more than $1.5 million local U.S. business owners employed social networks in their inbound marketing campaigns, accounting for half of marketing spending. Facebook pages were the most popular new marketing stratagem, but blogs, Twitter, calls to action, specially designed landing pages and website redesign were also popular choices for building and strengthening Internet marketing campaigns.
The power of inbound marketing platforms to build brand recognition both locally and nationwide, deliver advertising and promotional messages quickly, and nurture positive customer relations is quickly usurping marketing budget funds previously reserved for more traditional forms of advertising. Over the past two years, inbound marketing on social networks has been closing the advertising gap, steadily creeping up on traditional print, television, radio, direct mail and telephone advertising. Spending marketing dollars on social networks is even giving proven Internet advertising techniques like email campaigns a run for their money.
By 2012 Borrell analysts predict that social network-based inbound marketing will draw even with traditional marketing strategies and quickly jump ahead. Marketing budgets for inbound advertising on social networks are expected to grow dramatically as businesses capitalize on our increasingly connected society. This year alone, inbound marketing spending on social networks is expected to jump 68% to $7.5 billion, capturing 11 cents of every online marketing dollar spent. In five years, Borrell predicts that one-third of all online marketing expenditures will be for inbound marketing on social networking sites.
Promotional campaigns, which are particularly suited to the immediacy and interaction of social network sites, are predicted to make the biggest gains in inbound marketing. In 2009, Borrell says online advertising captured 88% of social network marketing spending. Increasing emphasis on social network promotions is expected to drop online advertising expenditures to 50% this year and a mere 36% by 2015.
It's the ability to fine tune profiling engines on social networking sites such as Facebook that is driving the marketing stampede to inbound marketing. Profiling engines allow businesses to target online promotions and advertising to specific audiences by gender, age, relationship status, education level, profession, recreational preferences, hobbies -- actually, any measurable characteristic. That's a huge advantage no other advertising media can offer.
Photo credit: wallyg
Posted by Chris Knipper on Mon, May 24, 2010 @ 11:32 AM
At its outset, many characterized social media marketing as frivolous and the latest certain to be short-lived web trend. But like radio, television and the Internet, all in their early days also considered upstarts with questionable staying power, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have proven their effectiveness to build brands, attract customers, drive sales and develop business-customer relationships. In our increasingly computer-driven world, social media marketing is not merely here to stay but the fastest, brightest path to the future.
Many progressive business owners today are dabbling in social media marketing. They may experiment with a short-term Twitter campaign to build excitement prior to a new product launch. Or they may launch a Facebook fan page to target a new demographic for an established product. The real benefits of social media marketing, however, are not in its occasional use for individual campaigns but in total immersion that integrates social media campaign strategies with every aspect of your company's overall marketing plan.
The long-term benefits of an effective broad-scope social media marketing campaign can't be measured in days or weeks. Time and a little expert massaging are needed to derive maximum and continuing benefit from social media marketing. Certainly, short-term benefits can be measured by metrics that track website traffic, blog sharing, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, Delicious bookmarks, Digg links, referrals and links. Google spiders now crawl social networking sites like Twitter for inclusion in page ranking scores, providing additional data. But the real value derived from these analytic results is in their use to tweak social media marketing campaigns to improve their effectiveness.
The true test of social media marketing performance is its long-term impact on sales, profits, customer retention and customer satisfaction -- benefits that may build slowly and can only be effectively measured over time. Of course, compared to traditional print, television and radio advertising, social media marketing results occur at light speed. The relative speed of social media marketing allows business owners to aim, refine and benefit from their marketing dollars faster and more effectively than ever before.
Photo Credit: NASA
What is your social media marketing strategy? We can help.
Posted by Chris Knipper on Mon, Dec 21, 2009 @ 07:00 AM
Though direct mail pieces are historically considered relatively low-conversion marketing initiatives, powerful direct mail design can make all the difference between an effective campaign and a dud.
Develop Your Message
Direct mail design allows for creativity. In fact, it depends upon innovation to be effective. However, your audience should still recognize that the direct mail is coming from you or, more importantly, that your brand or message is not being diluted or obscured for the sake of a one-time mailer.
This means that the basics of your brand, such as logo, tagline or other core messaging, should be present even if they’re not at the forefront. A direct mail piece should be unique, but you’re making too much of an investment on any major direct mail initiative to be wholly experimental. Determine your message and goals first, rather than winging it.
Working Within a Budget
Direct mail design is largely dependent on your available campaign budget, but even a small budget need not constrain your messaging. Postcards and fliers, for example, are both low-budget options, but they might not speak to the presence or prestige of your brand.
So, when using these or similar forms of inexpensive, direct mail pieces, it’s all the more important to have a talented designer on hand since you don’t want the mailings to look cheap or unprofessional. That might cause more harm to your brand than good.
Track Your Interactions
A well-designed direct mail campaign should yield some immediate feedback from your audience. Direct mail pieces should be designed with feedback in mind. In other words, does the design facilitate comments, reactions, questions, discussions or otherwise call the reader to action? Plus, no matter how basic or complex your design, are these actions easily trackable?
With a direct email campaign, many online interactions can be traced. Offline direct mailers can refer potential clients to your website, thereby also yielding a trackable response.
What are your experiences with direct mail marketing? Do you think it's old-school and irrelevant?
Posted by John McTigue on Sat, Dec 05, 2009 @ 07:50 AM
It's always fun to wrap up a year with predictions for the next. I'll let the designers weigh in on their predictions for web design in 2010, and I've listed some good blogs to check out below. Maybe I can even perturb our designers into responding with their ideas. My spin is on business influences. How does marketing strategy impact web design in this day and age? Here are some trends I'm seeing.
First, as promised, some great blogs on web design trends:
- Web Design Trends for 2010
- Designers Predict Design Trends for 2010 - Part I
- Web design trends for 2010
Business Influences
Inbound Marketing
We're all about inbound marketing strategy here, so let's start with that as an influence. The general goal is to improve brand awareness, web traffic and lead conversion. Your website becomes a "hub" for blog readers and their comments, for new leads interested in your offers, and for existing customers wanting to know what's new and sexy. From a design perspective, you need to deliver all of this, or at least easy access, on the home page, preferably above the fold. So what happens if you devote a ton of screen real estate to huge text, image sliders and other macro design elements? You end up having to push all the SEO and lead gathering stuff off the screen. Not good. Remember the old mantra that you have a second or two to convince the visitor to stay and interact with you. If they're spending those precious seconds gazing at your cool art and not doing something productive (for you), then you lose, plain and simple. My spin? Look for smaller design elements that focus your attention on calls-to-action and other interactive features. There will still be plenty of art-for-art's-sake, but not on the successful business sites.
Blogs
Blogs are fast becoming the core of websites. In more and more cases, blogs will be the website itself, with other tabs and links as subservient sections. Clever banner and layout designs will mark the best blog sites, but never to the exclusion of blog content. In blogs, content is definitely King, and anything you do to distract visitors from reading is a recipe for failure. Look for designers to think more about incorporating design into the content of blogs and less about the "wrapper" around a blog.
The Merger of Print and Web
This was a hot trend last year, and it will no doubt continue. Websites look more and more like magazines (and vice versa to some extent). In this case I think Web can learn from Print. The front cover of most magazines are perfect studies in marketing know-how. They're laid out to capture your attention and compel you to drill down. Once you see that great headline, you're headed for the article's page number, not browsing around casually. That's how website home pages should work, and in 2010 they will continue the march towards the magazine front cover.
What do you think? Where are we going in web design in 2010?
Posted by John McTigue on Wed, Nov 18, 2009 @ 06:54 AM
So we're constantly badmouthing outbound marketing and pushing inbound marketing. You know what I'm talking about - the relentless TV ads, direct mail and spam that gets delivered to your door 24/7. It's not all bad though. Some of it makes us laugh, and the rest, well...
The Good
OK, so it's not the e-Trade baby in the picture. You want me to get sued? You know the ad(s) - unbelievably funny. Kid talks smack with fellow golfer after a serious "Skins Beat-Down". "Dude, grab the reins. Get some analytics..." I howl every time I see that ad. I'm a total sucker for the talking baby gimmic. No, I don't use e-Trade, not since 9-11, but what the heck, this is advertising money well spent. Bring the ads, e-Trade.
The Bad
People who finish each other's sentences in TV ads drive me nuts. IBM does this all the time, as does Microsoft. C'mon man! Do something original. And Apple, OK we get that PC's suck. Why not show us some good stuff from your new Mac's or at least do something different. These ads hurt my head and make me wish I had a TIVO.
The Ugly
Every since the founding days of Nigeria I've been getting these e-mails asking me to open a bank account for some guy who supposedly lives there and can't do it himself. OK fine, I did that once, so why am I still getting these e-mails? I'm beginning to think it might be a scam.
Marketing Take-Away
If you're going to do outbound marketing, at least make it clever!
What are your favorite outbound marketing good, and ugly nominees? Maybe we should have a poll, or like me are you sick and tired of polls too?
Posted by John McTigue on Sun, Sep 20, 2009 @ 08:30 AM
OK, it's simple. You want to rank on certain keywords, put them in your blog or page title. In our case, we want to improve our Google ranking on the phrase "advertising agency cleveland". As of this writing, we are ranked #87, which isn't great. We have lots of competition, but how can we do better?
How to improve our ranking on Advertising Agency Cleveland
Yes, it's cheesy to put the keywords in the title without some kind of context. Yes, Google will actually penalize you if you don't follow-up with an article related to those keywords. So write a clever article about the subject and include your keywords in headings (see above) and image "alt" tags (see image).- Be realistic - do your keywords actually describe what you do? Yes, we are an advertising agency based in the Cleveland, OH area. Check.
- Be realistic - do you have any hope of ranking on your keywords? OK, we're starting at 87, so there is hope. If we tried to rank on "advertising agency" alone, forget about it. The cool thing is, as we start to improve our ranking on the long-tail keywords "advertising agency cleveland", we also improve our chances with "advertising agency". Maybe someday...
- Lather, rinse, repeat. One blog isn't going to drive thousands of visitors to your keyword rich page. Do it repeatedly, but keep it subtle. Don't try the same (some might say stupid) tactic that we used for this blog every time. Move your keywords around in the title and blog, try different word order and monitor results. As you track your keywords and page views you can see what combinations work best.
Let's see how we do. I will monitor our progress in ranking on these keywords and add them to the comments periodically, so stay tuned.
How does your website stack up against your competitors?
Click here for a free report.
Posted by John McTigue on Wed, Sep 09, 2009 @ 09:04 AM
Inbound marketing is rapidly gaining popularity as a relatively inexpensive means to improve lead conversion rates and increase sales. Faced with marketing budget decisions for next year, many business owners wonder whether or not to completely replace traditional brand marketing methods with blogs, social media and search engine optimization. In many cases it makes sense to blend inbound and outbound marketing, when the strengths of one support the weaknesses of the other. Here are some examples.
Example 1 – Entering a New Market
Let’s say you’ve recently committed to an inbound marketing campaign with the business goal of improving web traffic by 200% and sales by 20%. You’re focusing your campaign on several counties, some of which are suburban, while others are more rural. The question is how will local residents find your blog and social media presence in the first place? Currently, if people search for local businesses in your market, your site isn’t listed. That’s one of the objectives of the inbound marketing campaign. How do you get them to follow you on Twitter and Facebook if they can’t find your site? Try some good old-fashioned brand marketing. Place some attractive billboards around the counties at key intersections announcing a promotional offer and direct people to a well-designed landing page to capture leads and announce your blogs and social networking venues. Try a short radio spot with the same pitch. E-mail your announcement to your current contact list and let them know about your new site, blog and community spirit.
Example 2 – Rolling Out a New Product or Service
Advertising is still one of the best ways to get peoples’ attention. Over time consumers grow weary of the same old intrusive ads blanketing the media, but for a quick impact to draw attention to a new product or service, there’s nothing like it. Get the buzz started with some clever “coming soon” ads to whet viewers’ appetites. If possible, target a special date that doesn’t conflict with some other popular event. Give people sneak previews via your web site, blog and social media – but don’t forget to capture your leads via landing pages! When the roll-out date arrives, throw a party of some kind, online or at a public place. Offer special promotions and prizes. Get them enrolled in your community sites and signed up for your RSS feeds. Reel in as many leads as possible and make sure they become loyal followers through your follow-up inbound marketing campaign.
Example 3 – Giving Back to the Community
Start by getting involved with local or national community outreach programs or charities. Offer your marketing (or other) expertise as a way of helping them reach their goals. Become a thought leader. Give free talks and webinars where you cite your own company’s efforts to get found online and capture leads. The main benefit will be helping struggling businesses and charities in your area, but you will also meet business leaders and potential clients. Word of mouth is still (and will always be) the most successful form of marketing. As you meet people and get the word out, don’t forget to invite them to join your online conversations via blogs and social media. You will start to build a strong following that trusts your judgment and is far more likely to do business with you.
How does your website stack up against your competitors?
Click here for a free report.
Posted by John McTigue on Fri, Aug 28, 2009 @ 08:25 AM
It sure seems that way. A year ago a survey of CMO's revealed that 2/3 were planning to reduce their advertising budgets and move resources into digital/interactive. If anything, the economy in 2009 has made life even tougher for traditional ad agencies. What's going on here?
- We're evolving: Consumers are driving the marketplace, not advertising and marketing executives. We demand quality and consistency from brands, and our trust must be earned. Brands must re-tool themselves as reliable, effective, safe and economical. We don't go for fluff much anymore.
- Advertising has become a dirty word: It has become, literally, a necessary evil to support content on the various media. Consumers still respond to advertising when it's clever or heart-warming, but it doesn't drive them to buy like it used to. Some forms of advertising, like pop-up ads on the Web, are universally hated and drive people away from brands.
- The company/agency relationship has soured: As businesses of all sizes become more familiar with inbound marketing and other strategies with measurable results, they are less willing to pay monthly retainers for undefined services and poorly established goals. This trend is seen across all types of consulting. Executives want to know what you're going to do, when, and how much it's going to cost. And they want measurable ROI on top of that.
- We're going social, and it's not just a trend: Everybody knows how fast social networking is growing, but many (if not most) marketing executives still think this trend will fizzle eventually, and we'll be back to business as usual. Don't count on it. What's driving Web 2.0 and social networking is (again) cultural evolution. We don't want direct mail and TV ads and e-mail spam. We want discussion and tips and recommendations from real people we meet in real life and online. We will not be satisfied with going back to the old ways, even if the technologies change. Twitter and Facebook may go away someday, but something even more social will replace them.
What's your experience with ad/marketing agencies these days?
Want the scoop on Inbound Marketing? Download our free Inbound Marketer's Handbook!