Thoughts on Marketing
Social Media
Also known as inbound advertising, it is activities a company will join within the audience. As a company’s brand is discussed, the company or its agent can join in as a contributor, not a dominating partner, or they may be shut out. The public controls the messaging in social media.
The Value of QR Codes
0290 days
QR codes are a fun new outlet for creative talent. I know, people complain about the fact that the user must have a smartphone with a scanner and know how to use it, and it only works with mobile. Your laptop is unlikely to have a scanner on it.
But if your audience is smart phone friendly, it is a really cool tool to have available. I think that is true because making it effective demands some imagination.
For those who don’t know, QR codes are barcodes that are read both horizontally and vertically, unlike traditional bar codes that read only one way. Because they are read in two directions, they contain a large amount of information, and are used to send those who scan the code to a URL.
I will tell you right now, that if you are sending people to your website’s home page with your QR code, stop reading and stop working in marketing. The value of a QR code is where you send the audience. It has to be somewhere that enhances what the audience was experiencing as they came across the code. So if you make bottled water, place a QR code on the back of the water, so your audience is taken to a place that explains or demonstrates the value of your bottled water over tap water and over your competitors. Give them an instant value.
Here are some other ideas for using QR codes:
1. On your front window. Lets say people love the warm rolls from your bakery in the morning. Offer a QR code in the window that takes them to your twitter feed and let them know that you will tweet each morning the moment those rolls come out of the oven.
2. On the back of your running team Tee shirt. During the race, other racers can scan your shirt as they run. It can take them to a place that shows a fun and inspiring video of the course, the cause the race is run for, your team, etc. It is an audience that has a bit of time on its hands.
3. The hole you sponsor at a golf outing. It can be a preview of the hole, show where the traps are, and how best to approach the green.
4. As a decoration on the cake at your next company anniversary. You have done the logo before, so this is unique. It can link to a special video of your team celebrating.
5. In your corporate video. You can interrupt the video with a QR code that will take the viewer to a related site as you explain your product offerings. Many in your audience may not need additional background info, but those who do can stop the video as their smartphone brings up the new URL. They can continue the video once the side presentation ends. The your multi-media presentation will not soon be forgotten.
Bonus Suggestion:
5. On your headstone. You heard right. Visitors can scan the code that will take them on a slideshow of your life so they remember that it is a person not a grave. Go ahead and write a Go-Daddy URL into your will now.
The point is, it QR codes are not necessarily successful or unsuccessful as a tool. It is a matter of what you can come up with as a way to use them that counts.
Unsure About Social Media? Then Your Problem is Strategy
0301 days
Your audience is never as widely defined as you think. Your success depends on it being narrow.
There continues to be a lot of attention paid to social media. If you are not sure if social media is right for your company, your problems go deeper than whether your answer is yes or no. Despite the fact that social media requires a whole new way of looking at your relationship with customers (it is a conversation that the audience controls, not you just sending out a message you hope they receive), the fact is, it is just a medium. Just a tactic.
If you are unsure of its value to your company, that means your marketing strategy is not clear to you. When you understand your strategy, decisions on tactics and media almost make themselves. To see if your strategy is clear, answer these three questions.
- Think of your two closest competitors. What sets you apart from them?
- Create a profile of your primary audience?
- What is it about your company that makes you the best choice for that audience?
Now your score. Which is your longest answer? It should be question 2. You should be able to give an instant and fast answer to questions one and three. No more than two sentences should be necessary to state your brand promise, and it should roll off your tongue as easily as does your own name. But defining your audience should take more of an explanation, because a lot of things distinguish them from the overall audience of those who use a product like the one you offer. If you make tool kits for instance, they may be for automotive professionals, roofers, handymen, single women, do-it-yourselfers or those not handy at all. Your tool kits might be packaged for easy apartment storage, for accessibility from a pickup truck, etc. Meaning that despite the fact that most people need tools, yours are best suited for some very specific group of people.
Are the answers to question 1 and three the same? They should be. What makes your offering unique should come as an automatic answer to any question of that type. What makes you different from your competitors should be as easy to identify as that which sets you apart in the eyes of your audience. After all, how you appear in the eyes of your primary audience is all that counts.
Once you understand your audience, and your place among them, forming a strong message and delivering it is easy. You can make a strong case for or against the use of various media as long as you make your brand the priority.
Tipper_Is_Mad
0725 days
In Better Days
Tragedy plus time equals comedy. What has to balance is level of tragedy and the level of time. If you are a fan of Tipper and Al Gore, you may think a twitter account that picks on their parting a bit might be premature. If you are not such a big fan, you may have laughed immediately. The fact that you are either one or the other pretty much proves that you can’t please everyone.
To wait until it is clearly safe to make jokes will mean you are too late to the party. You will miss the novelty of the situation. To be too early means offending some, but making others laugh. If laughter is your goal, your only real choice is to be too early, and alienate some. To wait means to disappear.
Same with your targeting. Don’t be afraid to identify a target audience, even though it alienates a large group. If you appeal to youth, but still offer families a value, play loud music, be abrasive with graphics, and understand that families will end up walking away. By focusing on a single segment to the exclusion of others, you will succeed. That segment is almost always large enough to support you.
Follow Tipper_Is_Mad on twitter, and see what I mean.
Social Media…Tried and True Marketing Repackaged
0774 days
South Beach's string of art deco hotels had it before social media did.
The difference between traditional advertising and social media are about as profound as I have experienced as new media during my career. If only because of the way it asks marketers to think.
In my career, I’ve experienced the revolution of computers dominating all aspects of advertising, from analysis, to creative services, print production, you name it.
I have also witnessed as variable digital marketing has pushed its way past buyers used to a certain cost per piece, creative directors now responsible for what data is available, and response rates that jump from 2% to 12%, only to find that the new standard was higher.
Like all those other revolutions, social media really doesn’t introduce anything new. It just forces you to think differently about things we already know.
First, Social media is a conversation where the audience dominates, not like outbound advertising where you can spend enough money to be heard by whoever you want to be heard by.
The same thing has happened forever in many industries. Have you seen areas dominated by furniture stores, car dealers, restaurants or nightclubs? You’ll notice that like businesses often seem to congregate in the same area.
So when you shop for a bedroom set, you walk from one store to the next. Window shop here, walk through the showroom there. You’ll choose where you will buy. You’ll find the sales person you like, the offerings you appreciate, and the best deals on the block. But it is all on your terms, and they all know their competition is right next door, so they treat you as if they really want your business.
The same is true with social media. They’ll stop by as long as you are more useful to them than the guy next door. In this case, next door can be a continent away, and what they are looking for is not an immediate purchase, it is information. You have to provide that to be considered credible and in their circle. It buys you a storefront on the right street, where you can now entice passers by to stop in and talk. Just know that as soon as they are no longer engaged, they’ll move on.
It doesn’t mean you failed or that the sale is lost. They are entirely likely to come back when what you offer is what they now want. At least now they know you. That is more important in the long run than having the lowest price and making the short-term sale.
Social media is nothing new in marketing. You just have to recognize where you have seen it before.
