Author Archives: Jake

Using Normalcy to Identify With Your Audience

Remember how Seinfeld was categorized as a “show about nothing” and that alone seemed to make it a popular sitcom among the masses? Perhaps it was because, aside from the comedic twists and nearly everything Kramer was involved in, it was a show about normal people in normal (and often awkward) situations.

This sounds very boring at the start, but it can work. Even in advertising.

madden-nfl-13-coverEA Sports proved this last year when they launched a campaign for Madden 13. The campaign was a simple one: NFL star Ray Lewis and much-loved comedic actor Paul Rudd were portrayed as best friends and long-time Madden rivals. The commercial became fairly popular and were amusing in a way that is hard to explain.

But let’s try to explain it. What made these ads work?

Well, it’s no secret that the Madden series of games tend to attract a male audience that includes men in their 40s. Ten years ago, this may have seemed bizarre, but the Madden franchise has sort of rewritten those rules. The commercials acknowledge this by having two grown men sitting in a couch and zoning out in front of a video game.

Cool points are also added when you consider the fact that these two well-known men—stars, if you will—are no different than any other Madden player.  There is smack-talking and good humored insults galore.

The entire set-up is a way to relate to the target demographic. The ads identified with the audience using two famous figures that most of that demographic probably knew. Would the ad have worked if Ray Lewis had have been dumped and another comedic actor had been used instead? It’s hard to say. Paul Rudd insulting a man of Ray Lewis’ stature is funny in and of itself.

Sure, the impact of the ad was likely missed on older generations but that’s not the point. Madden knows it’s likely not going to get the over 50 crowd or the teen girls that are playing Dance Dance Revolution.

The ads worked because they knew their target audience intimately. And rather than assault them with brazen football images and taglines, they instead offered them an almost intimate portrayal of two grown men enjoying multiple games of Madden.

In the world of branding, the ability to identify with your target demographic in such a way is invaluable. If your company can begin to tap into this sort of magic, you’re definitely on the right track.

Are You Talking About Yourself Too Much? (Keeping YOU out of the conversation).

balloonWhen you are building a brand, you may find yourself in conversations where it is very hard to not focus the entire discussion around you.  It’s understandable; you’re excited about your business, the ideas you have for it, and the bright future you have planned.

Honestly, if you have just started your business, a lot of people will forgive this. It’s endearing that you’re so excited and optimistic. But it’s endearing in the way that a cute puppy keeps licking your face…after a while it becomes irritating and gross.

So as you begin to immerse yourself in environments where there are a good number of other small business representatives, make sure you keep a lid on the abundance of me-me-me attitude that you have stored up. In fact, if you really want to build your network and engage in useful conversations, you need to direct the conversation to the other person. This shows that you not only respect them, but that you are interested in learning more about the industry as well.

This is not to say that there isn’t a time and a place to pitch people on your business or your brand. In fact, when you time these things right, it can be quite effective. There are a few common rules when it comes to talking about yourself and your brand in the company of others—especially your competitors.

  • Never use a sales approach as the driving force of any conversation.
  • Never speak ill of your competition or their lack of success. This makes you seem petty and like a mill for gossip.
  • Only speak at length about your business if you are asked. In speaking, try to tie your story into the lives and/or businesses of those that are listening.
  • Don’t give yourself too much credit.
  • If you insist on trying to “sell” people on your brand, discuss it strategically. Bait them with a tease and then leave them hanging.

The fact of the matter is that there is an actual art to conversation. Philosophers knew this and modern lawyers live by it. In business, we have to approach conversations differently, especially for those of us that feel that we always have something to prove.

So long as you can keep integrity and humility at the forefront of your mind (and business) you will never alienate potential customers or network partners due to something foolish that comes out of your mouth.

What Not To Do When Getting Involved in Mobile Marketing

MobileMarketingAs a small business, if you haven’t already implemented mobile marketing into your plan of attack, you’re already falling behind. You’re missing out on incredible opportunities to reach out and interact with your audience in new and exciting ways.

Of course, it’s never too late to start.  There are some very innovated ways to get in touch with your target audience and mobile marketing is providing them in new ways every day.

However, like any form of advertising, there are some bad ways to approach mobile marketing. So before you start working things out and getting involved, be sure you’re not going to be doing any of the following:

  • Do not assume that all mobile devices will see your content the same. What looks great on an iPhone doesn’t look the same on an Android. You need to make sure that your efforts are obtainable by multiple devices.
  • Do not make the mistake of making the same marketing approach for PC users and mobile device users. By doing this, you drastically limit your options. Part of the fun of mobile marketing is the interactivity (people posting pictures, entering real-time contests etc.). When you take this away by taking a PC-based approach, you’re defeating the purpose of mobile marketing.
  • If you’re going to step into the mobile arena, be sure that your website is compatible with mobile devices. When users interact with your mobile ads only to find an old and out of date website that doesn’t display properly on their screen, you could lose potential customers and get a very negative word of mouth reputation.
  • Don’t put the time, money, and effort into mobile marketing if you’re not ready to offer specials, discounts, and coupons. Part of the benefits of mobile marketing is the ability to offer these things to your customers in unique ways. This is a great way to spread your message and to have new people hear about your company.

Sometimes it is better to know what not to do when venturing into something new. If you can avoid these mobile marketing mistakes, you’ll be caught up and enjoying the fruits in no time!

 

In It For the Laughs: How to Effectively Use Comedy in Advertising

Personality obviously plays a large part in building a brand, whatever your personality may be, it needs to be reflected in your brand. If you try to fake it, clever consumers are going to see right through you.

The key here is to remain genuine and play to your strengths…especially if you’re funny.

Year by year, the number of companies that find success in placing humor in their ads grows substantially. The reasoning behind this is that funny materials tends to grab a consumer’s attention quickly and is much more memorable than traditional ads.

The tricky part is to make it work. Humor in advertising is harder than it looks. There are so many different kinds of humor out there that you have to really know your audience in order to make humor work. For instance, if you’re trying to draw in an older audience (say, over 50), you’re probably not going to have results with awkward humor. Similarly, if you’re trying to gain momentum in a family market,

P and G Old SpiceThe great thing about humorous ads in today’s market is that they have the potential to go viral online. Just ask Old Spice about this. During their “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign, their YouTube channel was one of the most visited on the site for nearly a month. More than that, Old Spice sales skyrocketed by 108% in the month following the campaign’s launch.

So what’s the tricky thing about placing humor in an ad?  You have to create a message that supports your ad while being carried by the humor—that is, one can’t detract from the other. If you have a hilarious ad but no substance for your product, you have failed. Alternatively, if you have gotten the point of your ad across but the comedy has fallen flat, you have a failure on your hands.

Lastly, if you want comedy in your advertising but aren’t exactly the funniest person out there, this is the time you might want to hire a writer. Make sure you do a reference check to make sure they have dealt with comedic writing before hiring them on.

 

Consider These Small Changes Before You Consider Rebranding

From time to time, all of us get a little tired of the “same old-same old” approach to business. This can be dangerous for business owners that are overambitious because it could cause them to question their branding efforts. Since re-branding is one of the most dangerous things a company can do when it is not absolutely necessary, it is usually not a great idea to tread into those dangerous waters.

So what do you do if you feel like you need to change up your marketing efforts for your small business?

There are multiple ways to shake things up. Any changes you make should be to keep you current and interesting while also helping to spread the word about your brand.  If you want to put a fresh foot forward, you can start by taking some of the following steps:

creative-business-cards-Rachel-GoetzmanGive Your Business Cards a Facelift: Take a second to do a Google search for “creative business cards.” Take another few seconds to pick your jaw up from the floor. A business card is often the first (and last) impression a client is going to get from you, especially if you have met them at a networking event. Make sure your business card is current, modern, and unique. Do what you can to make your business card stand out from the rest without sacrificing your own vision and brand identity.

Switch Up Your Promotional Products: Cheap pens and tacky desk calendars aren’t going to cut it. When you head out to a networking event, you want to have promotional items that will really grab people’s attention. If you can get people that have no interest in your industry or business to come by just to see your give-away products, you’re doing it right. And yes, you can get creative without getting expensive. Think long and hard about inexpensive conveniences or novelty items within your industry and see if you can turn those into a promotional product.

Go Digital: Look around your office and find any promotional materials that you only have in paper format. These can be brochures, fliers, resumes, case studies, even business cards. Make high quality digital copies of them and make them available for download on your website. This creates ease of access for clients and can cut down on e-mail traffic and waiting times in the long run.

So don’t even think about rebranding. Start with these three steps and then see what else you can do to give your company a facelift without altering it completely.

 

Using Videos To Grow Your Business and Multiply Your Audience

Video_CameraIf you ever find yourself getting tired of writing copy over and over again to promote your business or to keep your blog up to date, you might want to consider switching to video. Most people tend to think that venturing into video as a means of spreading their message can be timely and expensive.

However, with the use of web cams and simple software, anyone fresh off the street can learn how to create a video from their computer in a surprisingly short period of time.

There are a ton of benefits to using video as part of your marketing scheme. First and foremost, by placing a face to your brand and speaking about topics within the industry, video makes you seem like more of an authority within your industry. It also makes you seem much more credible than by simply writing blog posts.

Also, when you start using videos as part of your message, your audience has a whole new way to engage with you. In a video, they can see your energy, passion, and enthusiasm for the topic being discussed. They can also get a sense of your professionalism.

Speaking of professionalism, there are a few key traits that a video will communicate to your audience that a basic copy won’t. Because of that, keep the following three things in mind as you venture into video:

Be Brief: The one similarity between video and copy is that if either is too long, you’re going to lose your audience’s attention. Keep it brief. Try to keep any videos you use to share your message to under three minutes.

Give a Reason: Don’t just post the video and hope your target audience agrees with what you say. Share your reason for posting the video. Let them know about your motivations for sharing the information and why you think it is important to them as well.

The Call to Action: End every video with a call to action, whether it be visiting your website or blog or visiting your place of business. You can also ask them to leave a comment or to share the video with their friends.

Once you get the hang of making a video, you’ll start to quickly see how it pays off. Like writing copy, keep your videos fresh and interesting and your audience will continue to grow.

How Your Small Business Can Avoid Costly PR Mistakes

 

If you’re a small business just starting out, the chances of being able to afford a reputable PR company are likely slim to none.  Still, there are several PR practices that you can see to yourself—practices that can truly make you stand out on your own until you can afford professional PR services.

Many of these lean more towards social media common sense rather than actual PR methods. They are all very doable as long as you set aside the time and effort.

  • First of all, don’t expect news outlets to beg to write about you just because you’ve opened up for business. What about your business is news worthy? What is it about your services that people are going to want to know about right away?
  • If you are truly going to try to handle PR duties on your own, then be consistent. Simply sending out a poorly planned press release from time to time isn’t going to cut it. PR is something you’ll need to integrate into your daily business model.
  • Pre-planning is great, but don’t set traps for yourself; if you get too caught up in the sort of business you want to be rather than the sort of business you currently are, you are setting yourself up for failure from the start.
  • It’s also great to dream big…but don’t let that trip you up. Most of the time, you’ll have much more success focusing on local markets for your niche rather than querying larger well known publications. Don’t start out with delusions of grandeur; start where you know you can generate interest and success and then slowly start climbing that ladder.
  • While no one likes to think about the worst, it is in your best interest to come up with some sort of crisis management plan. Any mistake or failure—no matter ow small—can cause huge catastrophic headaches later on. Prepare for these worst case scenarios from the start so they won’t catch you unguarded later on.

PR can be a tricky business. That’s why there are firms and agencies out there ready to help you But with a level head and the desire to present yourself professionally, you should be able to handle the basics just fine until you can afford the services of an actual PR agency.

 

Simple Brainstorming Strategies for Creating New Content

list-postCreating intriguing content can become pretty hectic and tiresome, especially if you are trying to churn it out daily. If your business has a copywriter, this really isn’t your place to worry; the content creation is up to them.

However, if you’re a small business that doesn’t have the budget for a full-time writer, chances are that you are creating content for your blog or other social media platforms all by yourself. We all gets writer’s block—even novelists that get paid the big bucks are afflicted with it. So here are three basic strategies to use to make sure you always have room for new creative ideas that you can turn into fresh content for your business.

Keep All of Your Ideas

Ideas come to us at all times of the day: in the shower, at dinner, while nodding off to sleep, while trapped in rush hour traffic. If you’re in the content-making business, keep an ideas list. You can use a notepad and pen, an audio capture app on your phone, or just save one-sentence jots on your computer. By keeping ideas stored away like nuts for the winter, you’re likely to never run out of material for content.

Don’t Restrict Your Thinking

There’s no rule that says our best thinking has to come from behind a desk or in a conference room with others. Some people get their best ideas while vegging out on the couch. Others find that a nice morning jog tends to get the creative juices flowing. Try a few different things—a drive through the country or reading the newspaper for instance—and stick with that seems to work for you.

Don’t Ruin Writing With a Schedule

This one is dangerous for you super-organized types. But try not to plan your writing. By boxing creativity into a tiny space on a planner, you restrict yourself tremendously. If you get the urge to write in the morning, do it. If you wake up at 2:00 in the morning and have to get that idea down, get out of bed and go to the computer. Do not take the fun and creativity out of creating content by crippling it with your schedule.

How about you? Are there any tips of the trade you use for creating content for your business?

Consumers Leaning Towards Family-Owned Businesses

One might think that in today’s competitive business landscape, the keys to most success would lie in conquering the market or quickly implementing the latest technologies. While both of these factors are certainly first in most business owners’ minds, there is one other factor that seems to be a huge deal for consumers.

This is a factor that really doesn’t get much attention but, if recent studies are any indication, it will start gaining traction very soon.

These studies suggest very heavily that consumers will almost always choose a family-owned brand over another regardless of the other brand’s success and history.  These same studies indicate that consumers tend to view family-owned companies in a much stronger positive light.

So if you do own and operate a family-owned business, what might be the best way to communicate that fact without coming off as too sappy?  Generally, adding something as simple as “family owned and operated” in taglines and marketing copy does the trick. In smaller cities, this can be highly effective in radio ads.

bisselllogoOn the bigger stage, we can see where this has worked recently with cleaning product company Bissell.  The Bissell brand has been run by the Bissell family for 137 years and has recently started including Cathy Bissell, the wife of the current company CEO. The ad also features the family’s two dogs because…well, who doesn’t like dogs?

The advantage here is that Bissell is communicating honesty and a sense of averageness to the consumer.

Another company that has recently caught on to this effective trend is Wendy’s. Wendy Thomas, daughter of Dave Thomas and the individuals the chain was named after, recently started to appear in Wendy’s ads again for the first time in 40 years.

Perhaps consumers tend to lean towards family-owned companies because they prefer to spend their money on companies that have family values rather than larger, faceless businesses. The “Main Street in America” quality is gaining popularity as of late as opposed to larger corporate brands and this preference for family-owned businesses reinforces that.

For those of you that are not a family-owned business, your marketing efforts can still be swerved to meet the needs of families. What can be done to your current efforts to make this change effectively?

Why Some Small Business are Turning to Tumblr

Small businesses have a lot of social media platforms to choose from. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogspot, WordPress, Google+, and the two or three that popped into existence in the time it took you to read this sentence.

TumblrAnother social media tool outlet that continues to gain popularity with small businesses is Tumblr. At first glance to an untrained eye, Tumblr would be no different than a Blogspot or WordPress blog. In a few case, the platforms are very similar. But with Tumblr, ease of access and the ability to targtet a demographic audience is much easier.

At its heart, Tumblr is actually much more than a simple blogging platform. It serves as something of a community that lets users share content while interacting with others that share their same interests. If you cater to a certain demographic, it is much easier to find people that would be interested in your services or products on Tumblr than any other blogging platform. It’s almost like Twitter without the character limit, but so much more.

Tumblr seems to be able to work magic based in simple images. For instance, if you own a bakery and post simple pictures of cakes that weren’t even made in your bakery, that image can catch attention quickly and get shared with hundreds or thousands of other Tumblr sites. In the matter of a day or so, you can go from a handful of followers to thousands.

The platform also allows businesses to communicate special offers and sales to customers or potential clients in a way that is almost conversational and far removed from the spam-like language that is often found on Twitter and Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, the Dashboard feature on Tumblr functions very much like Facebook’s popular news feed. It lets you stay up to date with what your followers are doing, reading, watching, and so on. This allows for more interactivity among users. For small businesses, when used correctly, this could be used as a huge advantage. It allows you to stay abreast of developing trend without wasting tons of time.

So if you haven’t given Tumblr a chance, it’s certainly worth trying. Even if it’s not a platform you feel you can master, it’s important to have your toes in as many social media pools as possible.