Forbes is reporting that transparency will become the most important tool of marketing.
This venerable publication points out the obvious: Consumers are going to continue to exert power and influence. But, surprisingly – at least to us at MPAZ – the idea of radical transparency is something that few brands are taking advantage of now, and most brands will fight.
They insist going forward in 2015 and beyond the best brands won’t be those with the best stories, or sort of made up fictional stories, but those that will give an accurate and real time picture of what they are doing in the interest of the consumer, at any given time.
Our view is this serves as a challenge we must all take to heart.
It’s been said, “two heads are better than one.”
Never has this proven more true than when it comes to planning a marketing campaign.
While having a colleague within your company to bounce things off of can be useful, tapping the expertise of a knowledgeable and objective adviser from “outside” can be crucial, paying for itself many times over.
When it comes to marketing plans, take advantage of advice – and some creativity – from a source with an experienced, independent point of view.
Have you hugged your marketing agency lately?
That taboo word is . . . words.
At least it sometimes seems that way to us. All the talk these days seems to be centered on the media, as in “conventional media”, “social media”, “multimedia”, “the new media” and the like. It’s as though we’ve forgotten that the building blocks for marketing communication are words; as in the effective use of them to deliver a marketing message that induces the desired action.
Contrary to what apparently is popular belief, the media isn’t the message . . . the message is the message.
How consumers prefer to receive marketing messages
Consumers prefer to receive marketing messages, special offers, and coupons from brands via email more than any other communication channel, according to a recent report from Message Systems.
Here’s the specific percentages:
Email 31.79
Phone 29.43
Other 22.46
Online Chat 9.41
Social Media 6.92
My personal addition to this would be, regardless of the medium chosen – keep it brief.
Those of us who rely on creativity in serving our clients must first have the “mental energy” to be creative in thought and action. It’s really no different for you in your business.
The foundation of energy – physical or mental – is rest. Don’t be afraid to take a little extra time off to rest and, even, have a little fun this Thanksgiving. Fill up your tank with renewed energy and you’ll be a better source of what ever it is you are paid to produce.
Almost everyone (93%) campaigns by email these days. This can be very effective inasmuch as frequency in marketing communication is important. But surface direct mail is far from being a sideshow with knowledgeable marketers (69% utilize it). If you automatically use email newsletters because they’re relatively cheap, think again. Two–thirds of marketers still get great results from the envelope. If you’re not, you may be missing a trick.
They work because, to your prospect, it’s apparent that you’ve put in more care and effort to reach them. That extra effort is what gives “traditional” media its added oomph–typically 10–100 times that of a plain–vanilla emailing. If you’ve got a special message to convey, consider getting “beneath the surface” – not away from it.
Our new Refresh! surface–plus–online campaign is a particularly good example of this. Ask me why.
A recent report based on 62,000 email newsletter campaigns indicated the following suggestions for increasing click–thru rates:
Send on Mondays or Tuesdays.
Avoid weekends (though, curiously, Sundays scored the best click–thru percentages).
Send out between 8 a.m. and noon (rates peak–out at 10 a.m., and decline slowly thereafter).
Limit subject line to from 4 to 15 characters (though 16–27 characters didn’t score badly).
My best advice for stimulating opening rates has to do with content. It is: send relevant, helpful messages, as opposed to blatant selling blasts. In other words, send “ham” – not spam!
Strike three.
Get your hand off my knee.
You’re overdrawn.
Your horse won.
Yes.
No.
You have the account.
Walk.
Don’t walk.
Mother’s dead.
Basic events require simple language, whereas idiosyncratically euphuistic eccentricities are the promulgators of triturable obfuscation.
What did you do last night? Enter into a meaningful romantic involvement . . . or fall in love?
What did you have for breakfast this morning? The upper part of a hog’s hind leg with two oval bodies encased in a shell laid by a female bird . . . or ham and eggs?
A great American theatrical producer once said, ”If you can’t write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don’t have a clear idea.”
For clear writing, you need not engage a celebrated, widely recognized, overwhelmingly gifted word–smith and grammarian . . . simply call Allan Starr.
It seems like there’s a lot of “me-too” marketing going on, whether it be on the strategy or the tactical side. This happens when the collective “we” see a strategy or tactic we like, and adopt it with no regard to it being a good fit – or not.
As one critic put it, “there’s a lot of gray out there.”
Marketing communication is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Do some self-analysis before merely copying an approach that may look promising at first glance.
Oversimplified definitions of these two disciplines is:
- Advertising is selling what you have.
- Marketing is having what will sell.
As this suggests, it is critical to have a lineup of products and services that fits the needs of your key prospects. Otherwise, a sale made can be little more than an opportunity – for an ongoing and mutually beneficial relationship – wasted.
Of course, it is crucial to position your products and services effectively through advertising and other forms of marketing communication. It’s best to have an ongoing, unified campaign that does justice to your offerings.
To come up short in the promotional effort would be like “hiding your light under a bushel basket.”
