Best Valentine’s Day Marketing Ideas

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Derrith Lambka 1 Comment

So, what’s the best marketing ideas you’ve seen for Valentine’s Day?

Senior assisted living services company Emeritus ran a contest:  Grandma’s Worst Date Ever and gave away gift cards to get people to share their stories.  Clever idea.  Some pretty funny stories I’m sure will come out of this and fun for the people who enter and don’t win as well just remembering their worst date ever or Grandma’s story about her worst date.  Hope it wasn’t with Grandpa.

Some good press for Someecards that focuses on edgier humor “with a surprising truth” according to the story about them in The Wall Street Journal.  They apparently have an e-card that reads:  “Happy early Valentine’s Day to someone who should already be planning the greatest night of my life.”  These ecards may be great to post on Facebook along with something else related to your business.

Family Fun Magazine has a ton of great ideas of fun things to do and make for Valentine’s Day.  Some of these ideas even an adult would love!

PSPrint.com, the online printing company, has lots of articles and ideas about Valentine’s Day marketing ideas.

Please share the best marketing ideas you are seeing and we’ll add those to the MarketingZone.com article:  Valentine’s Day Marketing Ideas

Gift Giving Ideas for Retailers – how to help customers give gifts other people will love.

So, what do you have to share about great Valentine’s Day marketing ideas?

 

Marketing Advice, Seasonal Maketing Ideas

Social Media Explained in a Photo

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Derrith Lambka 1 Comment

Posted on Facebook.  It’s so spot on don’t you think?

Credit to Doug Ray posted on Instagram Photos

About Marketing, Social Media

So, was it worth $3.5 million for an ad on the Super Bowl?

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Derrith Lambka Leave a comment

What Super Bowl ads do you…

Recall?  That’s Ad Effectiveness Hurdle #1.

Ad Effectiveness Hurdle #2 – was the ad likeable?  Many ads are recalled and talked about in a negative way.  Those advertisers then paid $3.5 million dollars to irritate customers and prospects.  (They should have pre-tested their ad.)

Ad Effectiveness Hurdle #3 – can you remember the brand name of the company or product/service that sponsored (paid for) the ad?  Or was the ad funny but not well linked to help you recall the ad and the brand  who paid for it?

Ad Effectiveness Hurdle #4 – of the ads that you can recall with the proper brand sponsor, what message did you take away after seeing the ad?  Was that message persuasive enough to get you to change your mind about something?  Reinforce or remind you about something positive about a brand?  Was there a “why buy” message that stuck with you?

Ad Effectiveness Hurdle #5 – Did the ad get you to do something (like visit a website, click on a QR code or seek out the opinion of someone you respect to ask about the product/service/company)?

The toughest test:

What ads that ran on the Super Bowl can you say you’d check “all of the above”?

  1. Recall
  2. Recall in a positive way
  3. Properly link the ad to the name of the company paying for the ad
  4. Remember the message or key point of the ad
  5. Changed or reinforced (positively) your perception(s) about the brand being advertised
  6. Influenced you to do something to learn more
  7. Influenced you to buy

That would be a totally effective ad!

Unfortunately most ads, even ads on the Super Bowl, don’t accomplish all that.  Many ads are funny or memorable but they’re not persuasive.  You might remember the celebrity in the ad or the joke and maybe you remember what product/service/company was being advertised.  David Ogilvy’s belief, “It’s not creative unless it sells” is still totally relevant.  The very best advertising drives brand awareness and preference and purchase. That’s a very, very hard job to do in a 30-second spot.

EXTRA CREDIT:  Ads that “go viral” and create buzz where millions of people seek out the ad on YouTube and/or share a link to the ad.  Ads that David Letterman talks about in a positive way.  Those ads should get “extra credit.”  They get free air time and more exposure than just 30 seconds on the Super Bowl.

So, with all that as your criteria for a “great ad” on the Super Bowl, what ads met the highest standards from the advertiser’s point of view who shelled out $3.5 million dollars for media placement for one 30-second spot? 

The cost to pay the celebrity and produce the ad is then an additional cost so the real cost to the advertiser may be closer to $3.8 or $4.0 million dollars.  Yikes.  You have to sell a lot of soda, insurance, cars or hamburgers to make up the cost of paying for that advertising.

What ads do you think were the best ROI for the advertisers? 

Learn more about Effective Advertising

 

 

About Marketing, Advertising, Branding, Market Research, Marketing Advice, Marketing Effectiveness and ROI, Marketing Trends & Buzz

Brand Positioning: how to gain a competitive edge for your business

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Derrith Lambka Leave a comment

According to Simon Sinek, author and TED conference contributor,  “People don’t buy what you do.  They buy why you do it.” 

He challenges you to ask why you do what you do (beyond making money) – What’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why do you get out of bed in the morning and why should anyone care?

He calls it the Golden Circle:

why -> how -> what.

This idea is relevant to profit businesses and also to non-profit organizations.

Simon says most organizations think first about what they do and then move to how they do it and then finally to why they do it.   His insight for brand positioning is that leaders think differently.  They focus on why they do what they do or the core purpose of their company purpose or positioning.

This is one of the most thought-provoking videos related to brand positioning and marketing that I’ve ever seen.  Watch it!  It will inspire you.  It will help you create a better company and better brand positioning, better marketing, better advertising.

Listen to and watch him here on YouTube.  I had a total aha moment watching it.  Hope you do too.

Then check out the how-to guides on MarketingZone on brand positioning

Thanks to Teri Kaslow, Executive Director of Research & Decision Science at Deluxe Corporation, for pointing it out to me.

About Marketing, Branding, Marketing Advice, Marketing Effectiveness and ROI, Marketing Strategies, Marketing Success Stories, Marketing Techniques, Marketing Trends & Buzz, Positioning, Small Business Marketing, Start-ups

Trade Show Tips for Exhibitors

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Derrith Lambka Leave a comment

I went to the Auto Show this weekend.  Picked up some great trade show tips for exhibitors.  Here’s an idea you can leverage from Hyundai…

Run a contest.  Add laptops or kiosks where people can enter their contact information (name, email address, phone number) along with permission to contact them after the trade show through email.  Great way to build your email list.  Give people an incentive to share their contact information by promoting a contest.

Hyundai had six kiosks set up in their booth where people could type in their name, email address and phone number to enter a drawing for several give-aways of 37 Apple gift cards for $500 and a chance to win a Hyundai car.

As I was leaving the show I got this email from them on my phone…thought I’d won something…no, it was just a marketing email but I opened it and looked at it.  Good way for them to instantly reinforce their brand messaging.  I didn’t get an email from any other company at the show so they gained a competitive edge and more share of mind.

Hyundai also offered a special deal for show attendees in the email.  I think they were the only company at the auto show that asked for contact information this way.  What I didn’t like was having to answer several screens of questions like, “When are you planning to buy a car?”  I think the customer experience would have been better if they’d asked the minimal information they needed (name, email address, permission to contact, phone number optional to share).  Then if someone gave them their phone number they’d know they wanted to be called.  They could then, over the next few weeks, send me emails and learn more about me to enhance their customer profile on me.

Get more Tips on National Trade Shows & Events and share your ideas for what’s worked and what hasn’t for you as someone attending a national trade show or event or as someone paying to exhibit.

How to Collect and Save Customer Information

Customer Information & Databases, Email Marketing, Mailing and Email Lists, Marketing Advice, Marketing Techniques, Trade Shows and Events

Small Business Marketing: Self-Publish a Book NOW

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Derrith Lambka Leave a comment

Great article and advice in this blog post about why entrepreneurs should self-publish a book now to create a brand-name for themselves.

Why Every Entrepreneur Should Self-Publish a Book by James Altucher, an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur. He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written 6 books on investing.

Key reason he says to self-publish now:  “Advances are going to zero. Book publishers are getting more and more squeezed by declining booksellers so they, in turn, have to squeeze the writers. Because of so much free content on the Internet, the value per unit of content is going to zero unless you are already an established name-brand author.”

What he shares about marketing books, “Marketing. Publishers claim they do a lot of marketing for you. That’s laughable. I’ll give you a very specific story. When I published with Penguin they then met with a friend of mine whose book they wanted to publish. They didn’t realize she was my friend. She asked them, “what marketing did you do for James Altucher’s book”. They said, “well, we got him a review in The Financial Times and we got a segment about his book on CNBC and an excerpt in thestreet.com”

Here’s what’s so funny. I had a weekly column in The Financial Times. I WROTE my own review. As a joke. For CNBC, I had a weekly segment on CNBC. So naturally I spoke about my book during my regular segment. And for thestreet.com excerpt, I had just sold my last company to thestreet.com. So instead of doing my usual article for them I did an excerpt. In other words, the publisher did NOTHING, but took credit for EVERYTHING. Ultimately, authors (unless you are Stephen King, etc) have to do their own marketing for books. The first question publishers ask, even, before they look at your proposal is, “How big is your platform?” They want to know how you can market the book and if they can make money on just your own marketing efforts.”

Ready to self-publish a book or eBook?

How-to Guides from MarketingZone.com to help you with that:

Blogs and Blogging, How To Marketing, Innovative Marketing Ideas, Marketing Advice, Marketing Strategies, PR Public Relations, Printing, Promotions for Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Writing for Marketing

Small business marketing: Selling to small businesses?

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Derrith Lambka Leave a comment

Insights about small business customers from a Fortune 10 Big company product marketing manager now working as a small business SEO/SEM/lead generation marketing consultant.

All (established) small businesses work with marketing consultants in a very predictable pattern of:

1.   “I need a website”

2.   “I need traffic to my website”

3.   “I need to convert that traffic into sales”

Small business is local.  The Inc 500 companies don’t get that.  They talk about “small business” and SMB like it’s one huge market they can go after with a mass marketing program.  They need local roots and connections for anything to work. 

Lots of small businesses spend money on search advertising and then are frustrated that the money didn’t convert into paying customers/clients.

Most successful small businesses can’t or won’t set up a database and CRM system themselves.  And they really shouldn’t do it themselves – they’ll make more money doing what they are in business for, not figuring out a CRM software system and how to set up a marketing campaign to generate leads.

The successful businesses – and there are plenty of them – want to find someone they can pay (and trust) to configure it for them.  They want it set up and working. 

Compared to big companies, small businesses aren’t very good at project management and really appreciate someone setting out a roadmap of step 1, step 2, step 3 for them once things are set up.  They’re willing to pay for strategic advice and set-up for marketing services.”

Get more insights about small business customers and how to target your marketing to be most relevant to them.

Small business owner who doesn’t want to do marketing yourself?

About Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Targeting Your Marketing

Small Business Marketing. Starting a new business?

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Derrith Lambka Leave a comment

QUESTION:  What do you think is more challenging aspect of owning a small business—getting it up and running, or trying to grow and operate it at the same time?

Launching a new business is like having your first child.  You have so much to learn and figure out: what to name your business; how to get a logo, website, business cards created; what to say to explain what you do or offer; what your pricing and offers will be; and how to attract new customers.  Money is tight so you’re also trying to do a lot yourself and figure out how to spend your money wisely.  Just like with having your first baby, you don’t know or recognize all the brands and suppliers offering baby-related products/services.  Same applies to marketing products/suppliers.  Who is trustworthy?   Who can help you?  How much do things cost?   How do you save time and money on marketing your new business?  What marketing techniques work to attract new customers and what doesn’t work?

We’ve organized all the relevant marketing how-to guides for start-ups here.   This is credible, practical how-to advice to help you get everything done!

What else is challenging?

Figuring out what’s the best return on your time and money for marketing.

Marketing Advice, Start-ups

Guest Blogging for SCORE, the government’s agency to help small businesses

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Derrith Lambka Leave a comment

I’m the guest blogger today for SCORE, the government’s organization to help small businesses with 7 Tips for Marketing Your Business.  They asked the questions and I answered them.  They call this “Expert Answers.”

http://www.score.org/resources/expertanswers/seven-tips-marketing-business

Are you writing a blog?  Please join the conversation to share your advice and get advice from others.  We’re better together sharing our collective knowledge and experiences about what works and what doesn’t with blogging.  On MarketingZone we start the conversation by sharing what we know and then continually update our how-to guides so they keep getting better and better.

MarketingZone How-to Guides on Blogging

  1. Blog marketing – If you are investing the time to write a blog, you want to do everything you can to attract as many readers as possible who will be interested in the topics you are writing about.  Get tips on blog marketing.
  2. How to promote your blog – for new blogs
  3. Promote blog – for established blogs
  4. How to Make Money Blogging

It’s a lot of work to write a blog and a lot of work to market a blog.  Perhaps you want to focus on writing the blog and hire a freelancer to take on the responsibilities to market and promote your blog?  Authors of books often hire publicists to do the promotion job for them.  If you want to create a very successful blogging reputation, you may want to hire someone with expertise in promoting blogs.

 

About Marketing, Blogs and Blogging

Small Business Marketing Strategy: Don’t do what everyone else is doing…

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Derrith Lambka Leave a comment

Interesting to see what the financial experts say about the outlook for the printing industry.  This is from Jim Corridore at Standard & Poore’s January 14, 2012 stock report.

“Our fundamental outlook for the commercial printing sub-industry for the next 12 months is neutral. Growth in the general printing industry is dependent to a large extent on the performance of the U.S. economy, and we think any meaningful improvement in the economy could help the shares. We expect digital publishing content, delivered via e-books and other electronic storage means and via web-based delivery, to continue to grow as a medium in light of improved devices and delivery methods being available. Additionally, we see e-mails, online video placement and the web continuing to replace pamphlets, inserts and direct mail catalogs as a means of advertising.”

A smart marketing strategy may be to not do what everyone else is doing. 

Daniel Boone (yes, that’s his real name) at Deluxe Corporation, had this great insight, “Social media has become like Pee Wee soccer where all the kids flock to the ball.” 

Better soccer players – and smarter marketers – do this:

  1. They fan out.  The players and their soccer coaches want the players positioned throughout the field and within the strike zone.  Each player has a job to do and role to play to move the ball down the field.  Soccer coaches don’t want all their players collapsing in on the ball.  Then there’s no one to kick the ball out to.  Smart marketers understand the role all the different marketing techniques play and use them all.  They don’t put all their focus, time and money on one marketing technique.  Social media is the latest “new thing” that the media is buzzing about.  Sure, try social media but know that you may have a competitive edge if you choose to send direct mail postcards because there will be fewer companies using that marketing technique since so many people are spending so much time working on getting Facebook fans and writing pithy Twitter posts.  That will mean you will get more “share of time” with someone when they are sorting through their mail.
  2. Smart soccer players look for the open player.  In marketing this is looking at what marketing techniques everyone isn’t using.  What’s not “buzzworthy” these days in marketing?  Direct mail.  Brochures.  Faxes.  Maybe those are all “open players” that would give you a competitive edge if you used them because your marketing message would stand out.
  3. Smart soccer players position themselves where to ball is going next.  In hockey the advice is, “Skate to where the puck is going.”  Same goes for marketing.  Where will your customers be most open to hearing your message and find it relevant so they’ll act on it?  That could be eBooks, online video customer testimonials…who knows what else.

Food for thought.  What’s your thinking on how to gain a competitive edge with your  small business marketing strategy?

About Marketing, Direct Mail Marketing, Innovative Marketing Ideas, Marketing Advice, Marketing Strategies, Marketing Techniques, Marketing Trends & Buzz, Printing, Small Business Marketing