27 January 2015
Archives: 15 December 14 | 6 January 15 | 13 January 15 | 20 January 2015
Sure, it's funny, but . . .
There have been some entertaining Super Bowl commercials over the years. And some very touching spots. And some that really made me laugh. And some I will never forget.
But here are the real questions: Which ones delivered great ROII? Which ones moved product? Which ones drove website traffic?
It's easy to find what the critics think about the ads, but much harder to find how effective they were in achieving company goals. That's your assignment this week!
As always, email me with ideas, suggestions, concerns or complaints!
“An ad can be funny, cute, viral, likeable, watchable, etc.,” writes Peter Daboll, CEO ofAce Metrix. “But if a consumer doesn't get anything out of it but a laugh, it's just not effective.”
Three Key Digital Marketing Skills Students Do Not
learn in College
If you’ve interviewed marketing candidates straight out of college, you’ve likely noticed a surprising trend. These rising young professionals may be sharp, thoughtful digital natives—but all too often, they don’t have the online marketing skills required in today’s marketplace. The reason? University marketing departments are behind the curve.
The center of gravity for much of the marketing world has moved online. In my firm’s area of specialty, professional services, the landscape has changed quickly from one of brochures and direct mail to online content marketing and social mediacampaigns. In a study of more than 1,000 professional services purchasers, we found that more than 80% of buyers look to a firm’s website to check them out, making websites the most commonly used resource for initial purchasing evaluations.
Most businesses recognize that the rules are different than they were only a handful of years ago. But it’s increasingly clear that colleges haven’t caught up with the rapid pace of transformation online, and students are paying the price.
competition.
What Studetns Learn and What They Lack
Typically, university marketing programs offer courses in topics like marketing analytics, quantitative analysis, marketing research techniques, and marketing management. These are useful skills, but they often haven’t been recontextualized for a fast-moving world of digital marketing.
Read the entire article here
How To Buy A Super Bowl Commercial For $700: These Guys Did It.
Want to get your product or company some nice, fat international exposure, but don’t have $4.5 million for a Super Bowl commercial? Well, get out a map of the U.S. and choose a nice little hamlet, and make that commercial a regional one.
Vox Media is doing just that, placing an ad in the Super Bowl lineup for considerably less than NBC’s national rate. That’s because the spot, for The Verge (their tech news site), is only being shown in Helena, Montana — population 30,000. Cost? $700.
It’s an experiment for Vox, and a pretty smart marketing strategy. At first they “accidentally” released it on YouTube, took it down, and now it’s back up. It’s also on their own website, and it’s already getting widely noticed. Here it is:
Kind of broad, and the standard viewer may not remember the subject. But repeated viewings can fix that.
This strategy is by no means new. Remember the Will Ferrell commercials for Old Milwaukee which ran during the Super Bowl in 2012 and 2013, but only in one market? That was North Platte, Nebraska, which is the second-smallest TV market in the nation
Read the entire article here.
Here's How Social Media Marketing Will Change in 2015
Eight years ago I began my career as a social media marketer. To give this time frame some context, the year was 2007. Myspace was king, as was Digg, both of which are totally obscure today. Facebook was on the rise, Twitter was virtually unknown and Instagram, Google+, Snapchat, Pinterest and Vine didn't exist.
It's also important to note that when I say I'm a "social media marketer," it's important to emphasize that I began my career working with a credible and reputable agency, which is a far-cry from the fly-by-night so-called 'social media guru's' who run around the Internet these days prophesying about things they have no experience in.
In the 8 years since I've started my career, I've seen social media marketing change quite a bit, but I have yet to see any of the big changes that will take place this year.
In 2015, social media marketing will change in a major way.
Here's how you will need to adjust your strategy to stay ahead of the game:
1. Forget the Following:
For the past eight years, businesses have been enticed by social media sites to build their audiences on their platforms. Facebook was the first to roll out an ad platform that allowed page admins to advertise their pages to attract more fans. On a more organic level, many businesses, blogs and personal brands have built their followings through years of shareable content and consistent posting. This all sounds like a perfect recipe for success right? In the end you reap the reward of thousands or millions of fans you can leverage to share and spread your content for free. Here's the problem... This no longer works and hasn't worked for years, yet marketers, agencies and businesses are continuing down this terrible bridge to nowhere. It no longer works because social media feeds are crowded more now than ever before. More users have joined as well as businesses, so your ability to compete for attention is now at an all-time low. That being said, don't waste your time building your following anymore. While it's still important, keep these efforts in the back of your mind because you're not going to get the organic reach you once did years ago.
Read the entire article here.
