Brand and Capture

The Case FOR Social Media in Business

I'm going to play Junior Attorney for a couple of minutes and argue the case for making social media an important part of your business plan. Tomorrow, I will argue the case against. Then we'll put it to the jury.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury,

Why should your company embrace social media as part of your overall strategy and daily activities?

Your Customers Have Changed Their Preferences. So Should You.

Buyers feel empowered now. They want dialog with you and with their peers about you. They don't want your marketing message; they want useful content. They don't want your mass marketing blasts; they want to find you when and where it's convenient. These things are all possible via social media. They are difficult without social media.

Social Media Is Becoming a Preferred Mode of Business Communication.

Remember e-mail? That was a pretty big deal as it started to catch on. It's still with us, but more and more, it's about Facebook and Twitter. It's about staying connected more often and with less overhead. Think e-mail without the in-box. Social media is rapidly gaining ground as a preferred tool for business collaboration and research as well. I learned just about everything I know about social media via blogs and Twitter and Facebook. We will still want face-to-face, telephone and e-mail for more formal, private communication, but everything else is social these days.

Social Media Can Make or Break You.

You can generate more qualified leads and increase sales by leveraging social media. You can enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty by staying in touch with them more regularly and without the hassle of telephone or the delay of e-mail. You can make a big splash by going viral with a great piece of content. On the flip side, you can monitor what people are saying about your brand and engage them where they are. You can avoid problems by testing the waters before releasing the official version. You can even perform market research without hiring a market research company. If you're not at least monitoring social media, you may be missing serious negative publicity that's circulating about you right now. You're missing an opportunity to set the record straight, which can lead to a PR disaster.

Social Media Can Save You Money.

No, it's not cheap. There's a big investment in manpower and training to do social media right. You can realize cost savings by reallocating marketing and communications budgets. Instead of paying for an expensive TV ad with no shelf life, you can invest in people who do social media. These people will keep the benefits coming for years to come. You can also save on customer service by creating real-time channels for customer interaction with little or no software and infrastructure costs. It's also possible to improve productivity and morale by enabling your staff to collaborate both within and outside the corporate walls.

Tomorrow: The Case AGAINST Social Media

Are you convinced?

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Print Marketing RockStar? How do the "deals" affect your brand?

It’s common to be lead down the road of “Savings”, a “Great Deal”, and “A Discounted Price”.  And why not take advantage of these great discounts, particularly since the newspapers are hurting these days?  Because -- you can sacrifice the quality of your brand by simply seizing these great deals as they fly by and not putting the appropriate strategy into the decision-making. 

I won’t place blame on anyone for doing this, but this rationale can be a major distraction.  It takes your eye off the prize, which is making an investment in your brand as a long-term asset.   A “great deal” is tempting, but it requires completed strategy, concepts, and artwork within a very short period of time, and most importantly, consistency in your branding.   And unless you can afford an on-call strategy/design team, you’ll end up accepting a reactionary concept because it was fast… and cheap!

Yes, there is great value in print advertising, even more so when integrated with a thoughtful campaign.  So here are a few basics to leave you with when considering your next print campaign:

Design and Copy
A larger ad might attract attention at first, but a well-designed ad will attract viewers and compel them to focus in more closely on your message.  By contrast, something sloppy, unprofessional or ugly will likely be glanced over or laughed off.

Positioning and Size
The location and size of your newspaper ad design is obviously dependent on the sources availability and your budget.  From an advertiser's standpoint, certain spots may be more or less ideal depending on the particular publication in question.   

As a general rule, consider at least slight redesigns to an ad if it is going to be either particularly large or particularly small.  A redesign might make sense to maximize the investment of a large advertisement, while a redesign for a small ad might be essential for all parts of the ad to be seen and understood.   

Color
With any color choice, it’s worth considering the papers where the advertisement will run.  If competing ads include a predominance of pictures and vivid colors, a more subdued color scheme might stand out.  The opposite also applies, of course. 

So, should you go for the "Great Deals",  Yes or No?  The answer is - "It depends".  Are you going to have a print ad strategy that works, or are you going to just chase the deals  -  in this economy, the time is right for you to be a Print Ad RockStar?

Business Influences on Web Design for 2010

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:

1. Web Design Trends for 2010
   
2. Designers Predict Design Trends for 2010 - Part I
3. 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?

Improve your marketing campaigns and branding (follow up)

In a previous post on the subject of improving your marketing campaigns and branding, graphic examples were requested.  We try to respond to all requests, so here is a follow up to the original post that includes a few references and examples that have inspired our creative team...

Examples of some great campaigns and branding:

• Here are few great ads honored at the 2009 Clio advertising awards

• Another interesting resource is the Spike's Top 10 Super Bowl Commercials of 2009

• Here are the best ads from the MetaCafe from June 2009

One of my recent favorites is the TV commercial for the new iPod Nano, which features a built-in video camera.

From Apple's website, the color palette and simplicity of the web banner ad shown above is a good example of a modern approach, and complements the TV Commercial.  And, even though the dancing, music and colors in the TV commercial may seem targeted toward a younger demographic, they are consistent with the product's core brand that resonates with fast, fun, and easy.

If you are looking for Print Ads, check out:

• Best Creative, Clever (Some Funny) Print Ads

• 33 Creative and Humorous Guinness Print Advertisements

These examples of effective branding from other industries might be exactly what’s missing in your own. 

It's OK to reevaluate your message and mix in promotions that are fun and entertaining.  Here is a financial ad that most audiences would define as conservative and right to the point.  It is important to stay consistent with the brand's defined colors, messages, and core brand proposition. 

But how can you differentiate your campaign?  In the next example, the same client is inspired to promote something fun for their members.  With their core brand characteristics being built around providingquality financial services to working families in the local area, they chose to promote a new local baseball team - the Lake Erie Crushers, with a ticket give-away campaign.  

They randomly placed coupons for free game tickets in all of their ATMs.  Photos of the winners were then added and shared with Fans on the credit union Facebook Fan Page. Photos don't haveto be perfect or edited to add to Facebook Fan Pages - just sincere.  It makes your campaign "real" and gains trust from your customers.You can be transparent and remain consistentwith your brand, while also adding some fun and interactivity between your brand and your customers.

Improving Your Branding with Social Media

While the latest media or technological trend is tempting to attack on your own, experienced branding experts should help guide you and offer suggestions that are consistent with your overall marketing strategy.

Graphic design, social media, outbound marketing and inbound marketing should all reinforce your core message - not distract from it.

I hope you found these examples to be interesting and inspirational!

Blending Brand Marketing and Inbound Marketing

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?
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Ghost Blogging and Free Speech - A Two Way Mirror

The recent $15 million dollar lawsuit filed against Google has sparked much debate about whether you have the right to write whatever you want and be able to remain anonymous. Should a ghost blogger have no expectation of being revealed or being held accountable for content they put on the internet? In this case, Rosemary Port, an anonymous blogger who called Vogue model Liskula Cohena “skank” among other things, is launching a $15 million lawsuit against Google for disclosing her identity.

It’s interesting to point out that for a long time public opinions (editorials), whether right or wrong have been published in printed newspapers.   It’s not often that you hear about these papers getting sued for revealing the identity of the authors.  Why?  Because it doesn’t usually happen due to the fact the authors' names are included in the articles. 

It you want to be critical, or in some cases like this, just mean, you may think that you can hide your identity.  But you can't beat the power of the public internet.  It will find out about you and you’ll probably get what you deserve.  Rosemary Port already claims that all the publicity is taking away from her personal privacy.   It's hard to feel sorry for someone who puts out this type of negative content to the public and thinks there will be no accountability.  And when she is unhappy with the results, what does she do - file a lawsuit.

 This case brings more attention to a topic that is certainly not going to go away.  Overall it should help educate anyone who adds content to the internet to take pride in what they say and remember that the internet is open to the public and it’s a two-way mirror.  The more aware of this everyone gets the better the content and experience of using the internet will be.

How Inbound Marketing changed more than our company's marketing

After getting into the whole Inbound vs. Outbound marketing approach I noticed how the ideas behind Inbound Marketing started to filter into other aspects of running our business. With Inbound Marketing you do less and spend less on some types of advertising such as direct mail, radio, TV, or Print.  And with Inbound Marketing you spend more time actually doing what you enjoy.

So how did these Inbound Marketing ideas influence other ways we run our business?

1.     You do less.  With Inbound Marketing you do less of the same marketing methods – trade shows, print ads, phone book ads, TV and radio.  In our office, we started doing less internal meetings and less in-person meetings with our clients and vendors.  Some of those meetings now occur using WebEx and require much less time.  And many have just been eliminated in response to the question - Why have those meetings at all?

2.     You pay less. With Inbound Marketing you reduce your media buying and spend less.  In our office, we spent less on client lunches, less on travel expenses, and less on employees by not committing resources to constantly go to every networking event and chasing every remotely possible sales lead.

3.     You spend more time doing what you enjoy.  With Outbound Marketing you have to worry with every large media buy and campaign and wonder whether you are going to get a positive ROI.  Your job may even depend on it.   With Inbound Marketing, with every new blog post, digital asset, and social media engagement effort, you are creating followers and winning friends, fans, and customers.   In our office I am noticing a decrease in the amount of effort we are putting into dreaming up the next big campaign idea, whether for our clients or ourselves.  Instead, we are more often developing plans for a longer-term marketing strategy, sometimes, contrary to our client’s requests.   And just because it is a more secure longer-term plan, it doesn’t mean less ROI.  But it certainly means we are spending more time doing what we enjoy.

For a FREE handbook about Inbound Marketing – click here

Is Print Advertising Dead? Measure the Results.

Is print advertising dead?  Measure the results. As a marketing strategist I am faced with this question on a weekly, if not daily basis.  Should you be adjusting your marketing mix and putting more of your marketing budget into Internet advertising and less into print?

After 18 years of industry experience, the last thing I want to hear from our clients is --- “I really don’t think that ad you just ran for us generated any new business”.  That is always a humbling experience and a sign that it is time to investigate a new marketing mix.

And what exactly is Internet advertising?

Ask a handful of people in the industry that question and you will get variations in response such as - web site banners ads, blogs, search engine optimization, email marketing, social networking, You Tube videos, etc.  Here at Kuno Creative we try to take an integrated approach now commonly referred to as Inbound Marketing.  All these terms are pretty much consistent with the Wikipedia definition.   But for a busy marketing director or business owner, it’s information overload and it changes by the minute.  So what is the answer?  My response is --- it depends.  It depends on how you plan to measure the results.  And it depends on your willingness to invest the amount of time and effort necessary to make your Inbound Marketing a success.  And ironically, the main competition to print advertising - Internet advertising - often presents opportunities to measure these results.

No matter how big or small your business may be, you have to have a strategy to measure your marketing.  No one gets a free pass and escapes paying these dues.  Even Google last month decided to discontinue its little-known, “Print Ads” program that was an early and heavily-promoted example of Google's ambitions to broker offline ads using the same auction system that has proven to be so effective in their online search advertising.  They measured the results and it didn’t work.  But that doesn’t mean they are abandoning print.  Involved with over 800 newspapers, magazines and other print advertising venues, Google Print Ads Director Spencer Spinnell in a recent blog said Google will continue to work with newspaper publishers to grow and monetize their online audiences.

Is it possible to measure the results of every type of ad that goes in a newspaper?  Some ads are general branding-type ads while other ads have a clear call to action – visit this web site, call this phone number, bring in this coupon, etc.  To me, measuring the results depends on the type of ad.  What we really should be measuring is the progress we are making across several categories.  And this begins with defining what the goals and milestones of your marketing are in the short and long-term so you can create the categories to begin with.  This is where the time and effort come in.

It is truly sad how many small to medium-sized business owners will have a bad month or quarter, and then pick up the phone and call their local newspaper and/or ad agency and say “I need to get something in the paper right away, business is slow”.   In many instances what is not being planned for are the finer details, such as the marketing strategy and the process of measurement. 

Does the ad refer to an out-of-date web page?  Does the ad take into consideration the current economic climate or the mind-set our your target audience?  Is that ad consistent with your goals and milestones in both the short and long-term?    Without considering these other variables, simply running an ad that includes your business name, and states that you will be having a major sale until next Friday will most likely be setting yourself up for disappointment.

 

On a positive note, I recently attended an annual shareholders meeting for one our clients in the financial sector, and I was pleased to hear how they bucked the trend of the dire economic climate and increased assets, equity loans, auto loans, and made a profit.  Of course, I’d like to think it was because the quality of the creative and strategic services we have been providing them with over the past three years, but I’d rather credit their leadership and the fact that they have a sound business model and marketing strategy.  I bring this up to make the point that most of the marketing we did for them was still in print and outdoor.  It’s working.  

So, do I think print is dead?  The answer is No.  We still do numerous, successful print advertising campaigns each month.  I hope to continuously share examples of how we integrate print and Internet advertising for some of our clients here in this blog and welcome questions, input and examples of similar scenarios.