Mad 4 Blog

Women are responsible for 85% of buying power. In fact, American women spend about seven trillion dollars per year. So if you think you do not need to dedicate time and money to address women in particular with your products and services, then you might as well be throwing money out the window.

Mad 4 Marketing can put those dollars to better use by devising advertising tactics specifically geared toward women. As a woman-owned and women-run marketing agency with an eye on the trends of gendered buying, we believe we know a thing or two about marketing to women. Here are just a few helpful tips:

Market to Women in a Modern World

One commonly made mistake is when companies assume that marketing to women means separating them according to attributes that were outdated about a century ago. Obviously, women are not black-and-white cookie-cutters of one another—and they should never be pandered to as stereotypes. Remember, women aren’t all mothers and housewives. Even though they make purchasing decisions for men and children, they have their own unique standards and don’t want to be addressed as conduits to the men and children in their lives. In fact, treating all women like Susie Homemaker can actually dissuade a female audience from working with your business. Women don’t just want kitchen appliances and pink products and handsome male models. When you market to modern women, you have to keep in mind relevant, recent analytics about what women are responding to in advertising and how they think about their purchasing power. Relying on research rather than creating a caricature of your female audience is essential.

Think About How to Market to Women – Not What

There is no need to market different products to men than to women. Assuming that a woman wants a silver minivan while men want a blue sports car means that you are alienating large segments of the population. Instead, marketing must simply speak in a certain way to its intended audience. The fact is that women communicate differently than men. Within creative, women want to see organization; for example, they are more likely to buy from a website that is easy to use than their male counterparts, who may linger longer on a less-organized site. Women also like strong, appealing visual design and are more affected by aesthetics than men, who may zero in on the product specs. Contrarily, women like to know about value rather than attributes. Most importantly, women want to build a relationship with your brand. Creating an ongoing bond—such as through membership or rewards for return business—may encourage the female buyer.

Since its inception in 1992, Mad 4 Marketing has focused on keeping the female perspective in mind, and we consider ourselves experts in marketing to women. The company devotes ongoing energy and resources to understanding how women think about buying and investing. Contact Mad 4 Marketing to learn how our insight about marketing to women can help your business grow like MAD.

When the economy got slammed, big businesses had to evaluate their budget and seek ways to trim expenses. One of the major ways that companies discovered they could save money was by reducing or eliminating their internal marketing staff and instead outsourcing this work to independent agencies such as Mad 4 Marketing.

Why Companies Choose to Outsource
The main reason that this option eliminates cost is because marketing is not a piecemeal endeavor. For any of the components to work successfully, marketing departments must offer comprehensive services. But when companies sustain a full-time, fully staffed internal marketing department, it can be extremely expensive to maintain. By outsourcing to a self-sustaining agency, business can rely on quality performance right when they need it.

Familiarity is another important perk to employing an outside marketing agency. Some companies choose to collect bids and hire freelancers each time they endeavor a new marketing action. Although you may save money by continuously seeking the cheapest options, specialists won’t have a thorough grasp of your business, brand or boundaries. If you use website developers, you’ll need to start all over again when you’d like to run a radio commercial. If you place an ad in the newspaper, you may need to find an entirely new agency when you want to rent a billboard. This strategy won’t benefit your business.

Eliminate the hassle by connecting with one agency that can provide all of the resources, connections and talent to composite any kind of campaign. Your frequent, return business allows them to understand your company, its history of marketing and all of your ultimate advertising goals. Every time you need anything at all, you can just pick up the phone and connect to a friendly and familiar voice, someone who you already trust to stay right on top of your unique business marketing needs. But your business won’t have to shoulder the ongoing operations and finances of an internal marketing department.

Why Mad 4 Marketing
Mad 4 Marketing is an ideal solution for the ongoing advertising needs of large and small businesses because we believe in and practice a concept called 360º Marketing. This means that we don’t just use isolated mediums to reach your audience. We make it our priority to understand what makes each brand unique and how to best approach its clientele. Then we creatively conceptualize campaigns that will reach out from several touch points to insightfully impact your audience.

We offer print, radio, television and nontraditional marketing (such as guerilla and viral marketing). Our interactive department can put your company online, encourage potential customers to visit your site and track responsiveness once you’re live. By utilizing all of these available outlets, your message fixes in the minds of its recipients.

Skyline Trade Show Tips offers helpful studies, suggestions and guidelines for optimal performance at trade shows. One article explains how you can have fun when presenting at trade shows. Although frequent trade show attendees may find the process rote, there are still a few ways to keep trade shows upbeat and exciting. Here are just a few tips from Skyline, expounded upon by Mad 4 Marketing. Because after 18 years in business, we certainly have a history with trade shows!

Guess the Hottest Booth Trend
Before entering your trade show, everyone on your team should pick a trend that they predict will be the hottest trade show trend. You can bet on types of candy being handed out or the most popular colors used in trade show displays. There are endless variations! To make your bids, you’ll be forced to consider previous trade show experiences. This will help you get into the right mindset to attend, while allowing you to reflect on prior experiences. In turn, this can help you brainstorm your own unique ways to stand out from the crowd. Once everyone has submitted their bid, you can spend the day figuring out the most popular trade show trends. One person will be declared the winner! And you’ll also gain plenty of notes about the hottest and most successful trade show trends.

Add Key Words to Conversations
Skyline suggests playing a word game where you challenge your co-workers and fellow booth staffers to interject silly or obscure words into conversations with visitors. Mad 4 Marketing thought of a way to improve upon this game. Before attending a trade show, itemize your company’s key messaging. This can be anything from a business slogan to power words that are relevant to your industry, such as “customer satisfaction” or “first in service.” Each time someone on your team uses one of the phrases in conversation, they can collect a point or cross their phrase off a bingo chart. Whoever wins receives a prize!

Count Engagement Timing
This game can be played two ways. You can walk down the center of an aisle at a trade show and count how many steps you can take before someone makes the effort to directly address you. Or, you can approach a booth and begin to pick up pamphlets or fiddle with the display while counting how long it takes for a staffer to come speak to you. The biggest advantage to trade shows is the ability to engage with your colleagues and customers. This game allows you to learn the tricks and techniques of other businesses while figuring out what will and won’t work for your own company in the future.

Ask the Hard Questions
At a trade show, it may be fun to visit rival booths and ask them questions such as ‘What are your business weaknesses?’ and ‘Why are you better than your competitors?’ (You can even interject your own company name for the second one!) Being able to freely engage with the competition is an advantage you should never pass up. This is your opportunity to find out everything you can about the companies with whom you compete–often, under the cloak of anonymity. Just be prepared to have your own answers in case they turn this fun little game back on you!

Typically, when companies are putting together a campaign to pull in new business, they want their brand to be at the forefront of their efforts. They not only strive to promote their iconography and key messaging, but also want to provide plenty of “about us” details so that potential clients or customers can make an informed buying decision. This is especially true for new or rebranded companies trying to step into the public spotlight.

However, in many cases there is a cost for this kind of dedicated brand promotion. And it is often the expense of conversion. Although you may accomplish the brand awareness that you set out to achieve, it doesn’t mean that you’ll convince each informed viewer to buy your product or services. This vital element of marketing is too often overlooked when companies are busy emphasizing their own self-promotion. When doing so, it’s important to ensure that all copy and materials relate information to incentives.

A key strategy for smart marketing is noting that your audience never wants to be told what to think. Instead of stating who you are and why you’re the greatest at what you do, you’ll want to help potential buyers come to such conclusions on their own—simply by explaining how your products and services can help them. Smart marketing actually ties these two concepts together; for example, pointing out what sets you apart from your competition while simultaneously explaining why the customer wants or needs it. Tell them what you can do to solve a problem or make their lives a little easier in terms of cost, quality, special services, etc.

You must ensure that each selling point addresses the consumer perspective, targeting any perceived concerns or interests from this point of view. Once you drive home how the customer will benefit, a strong call to action should seal the deal. And then you can tell them how to access more information. By then, if you’ve done your job right, they will be more than willing to find out more about your company by calling or visiting your website. All you need to do is point them in the right direction.

With a comprehensive marketing campaign that points out your company’s strengths while highlighting features that are relevant to the desires and needs of your audience, you will successfully achieve both brand awareness and customer acquisition.

Want to keep your business relevant with modern marketing? You don’t have to be a super-savvy website guru to do it. But there is one trick you must master: Balance.
Balance is the key to building a strong, successful advertising campaign now and in the future—no matter how the face of media may change. While everyone else is scrambling to keep up with the latest trends, you can build a solid and multi-dimensional campaign that will withstand the latest fads. Here are 5 ways to stay current and stand out:

1) Balance targeted, consistent messaging with multiple approaches.
Hit the same audience over and over with the same message—but from different sources. It’s not enough to use online analytics to geo-target web users without matching that data with local print and/or broadcast ads. Surrounding your prospects on all sides not only enhances brand awareness, but creates an aura of accessibility. Point-blank exposure then graduates into familiarity, leaving room for relationship growth in the future.

2) Balance traditional and non-traditional media.
Break up a series of weekly magazine fliers with a guy in a gorilla suit outside your door. Attention-grabbing techniques create a buzz which can be followed up by more conventional means of communication. Or use out-of-home opportunities (such as a billboard or bus stop ad) to remind passersby of an ad seen earlier on TV. By employing both classic and alternative tactics, you can appeal to more markets. Going all one way or all the other may create an unbalanced tone for your brand—or worse, you may miss out on one audience entirely.

3) Balance analytics/research with creative (be smart but stand out).
Many companies rely on number-crunching and perfectly placed ads to carry their message into the right market. But all the visibility in the world won’t help if you don’t have the compelling concepts and engaging visuals to back up your brand and catch the eye of potential clients. In the increasingly competitive world of marketing, it’s more important than ever to complement strategy with creativity when building a successful campaign.

4) Balance customer retention with customer acquisition.
All of your amazing, cutting-edge advertising across varied media with perfect placement and alluring creative won’t help if your message is simply aimed at new clientele. It’s important that you reward prior and current business with gratuity and acknowledgement, and devote a large portion of your advertising budget to customer retention. It’s much harder to woo a client once they’ve moved on than it is to nurture an existing relationship. Remember: satisfied clients have friends–and so do dissatisfied clients.

5) Balance accessibility/transparency with alluring content that draws return.
Everyone knows how important it is to be straightforward in today’s market. Potential customers expect businesses to be highly visible and transparent about products, services and goals. This is especially true of social media, where accessibility is paramount. However, putting it all out there doesn’t mean that your business shouldn’t have a hint of mystery and allure. Teasers about future deals and further information are a classic that will remain consistent even in the advancing world of marketing.

Creating a brand isn’t all about research, analytics and strategy. In fact, defining your brand is a lot like creating a persona or character. This can be a daunting task if you let it, but it can also be a satisfying process—and it might even be fun. The most important aspect to keep in mind is that your brand has to be a three-dimensional, complex character with a fully developed personality. No one likes one-note characters, no matter how attractive the note. Once you’ve identified the characteristics of your brand, it makes the process of promoting your business and expanding brand awareness that much easier.

Here are some helpful characterization notes for brand development:

• Own all strengths and weaknesses. You won’t do your brand any justice if you only identify positive traits and pretend it has zero flaws. No company, product or service is perfect—and trying to sell yours as such can come off as static or insincere to an impartial audience. Acknowledging flaws is also the only way to improve upon areas of weakness before your brand hits the market. Only by fully exploring all of your brand’s good and bad traits internally can you create outgoing campaigns that truly do your brand justice and highlight its assets. Over time, you will learn new flaws and eliminate others—this process signifies your brand’s maturation, which is easier to identify and accomplish if you start out by admitting your brand’s complete character.

• Stand out from the competition. Another important set of traits are those that set your brand apart—what makes your brand unique. Even if they aren’t the most important facts you’d like to convey about your product or service, they may be the most compelling. Qualities that make your brand special are the very things that will catch audience attention and leave a lasting impression. Most companies are not offering a completely novel concept or product, but instead are tasked with demonstrating why their option is a better choice than all alternatives. The best way to make this argument is by including—if not featuring—all interesting and unusual facts when promoting your brand.

• Put together a spec sheet. Once you’ve identified all of the strengths and weaknesses and special qualities of your brand, characteristics should be organized in an easy-to-reference fact sheet. One of the most important aspects of advertising is maintaining a consistent image for your brand, and an organized fact sheet will help you keep tabs on key messaging over time. Much like a ‘cheat sheet’ this chart will allow current and future promoters of your brand to get a quick, clear overview at a glance. If you’ve successfully created a comprehensive brand, there will be many different ways to interpret and expose different aspects through creative campaigns—and this chart will serve as a concise and complete foundation. It can also be modified in the future as the brand grows and matures.

In today’s economy, traditional mass media advertising (newspapers, TV, radio) may not be within your budget. A grassroots approach—using alternative media and promotional tactics—is the perfect way to make a big impact with your campaign. The grassroots approach might even be the most strategic way to get your business noticed, because it largely relies on thinking outside of the box.

We explain how nontraditional marketing was used to promote a unique client: Satori, the first eco-friendly apartment rental community in Fort Lauderdale. Which of these strategies might you use to make a big impact with a limited budget?

#1: Be Creative with Media
With a small portion of the budget allotted for print advertising, placement decisions had to be very strategic. By running ads in community newsletters and local niche magazines (especially issues focused on eco-features), targeted readers were informed of all the unique ‘green’ amenities at Satori.

Taking advantage of roadside space at the construction site to flaunt colorful, billboard-sized signage further increased awareness and name recognition.

#2: Interact with the Community
To complement the apartment rental community’s Zen theme, pedi-cabs (also known as “rickshaws”) were hired to give free rides at special events, like the Las Olas Art Festival. The cabs–and drivers!–were branded with Satori graphics, and riders were provided information and handouts. Not only did this improve local brand awareness, but the free rides extended good will throughout the community.

Satori was also advised to make strategic decisions to sponsor local events, such as an eco-friendly exhibit at the Museum of Discovery and Science and a membership meeting of the Gay & Lesbian Community Center, which was hosted on-site at the leasing center.

#3: Expand the “Dot Com”
The ad agency’s web development team utilized SEO tactics, blogging and a controlled pay-per-click campaign to achieve weekly site visits of over 500 unique visitors–generating an average of 50 leads per week for Satori. Today, the website ranks on the first two pages of Google with over 200 keywords.

#4: Befriend Technology
Website functionality was then expanded to include an interactive touch-screen display. This cutting-edge feature allowed potential renters to select floor plans by defining their own criteria, and then acquire real-time rates and availability. They could also click to explore local points of interest.

Mobile marketing was employed to boost awareness. Ads encouraged viewers to text a special code word to #34343 to get directions to the leasing center and updates about upcoming promotions. The code word changed for each campaign  so the response could be tracked and measured. The big sell was that each text automatically qualified its sender to win six months of free rent!

But did these creative grassroots tactics drive traffic to the leasing center? Ultimately, the campaign created enough buzz to keep Satori top-of-mind for Fort Lauderdale’s new lessees. Residents were ready and eager to move in when the property opened this month.

Satori’s success makes it obvious: you don’t need a giant budget to market your business–just an open mind, and big ideas.

We are happy to announce that Mad 4 Marketing has its own page on Twitter: twitter.com/Mad4MarketingFL. Please “follow us” on Twitter to get the latest updates on marketing trends, education and news.

Opening up a Twitter account can really help you build inbound links to your web site. An inbound link is a link to your site that is generated from websites on a different domain other than your own. Google will rank your site higher based on the number of people who want to send traffic to your site. Thus, Google views your site as a credible resource for content.

As you continue posting relevant information to your profile, you will earn respect in your particular industry. People will begin to see you as a trusted source of industry specific content. It is also a great place for networking among business leaders in your local community as well as across the country.

Not sure what Twitter is yet?  View our blog entry titled, “Make your brand come to life with Twitter.”

Many companies are taking advantage of the ever popular and free of charge social media mountain known as Twitter.  Although Twitter is not exactly the Mount Everest known as Facebook, it is approaching Appalachian heights with its ecosystem of microblogging.

So what is Twitter?  People sign up for an account, obtain followers and create a network of Twitterers to follow.  On the web site, Twitter asks, “What are you doing?”  In response someone will “tweet” a message and all of their followers automatically receive it on their computers or cell phones. These followers can forward or “retweet” the message to their followers.  Thus creating a viral message in the matter of minutes.

Average users can post links to news articles, updates to their everyday life or recommend or bash a brand name.  In the case of companies, they can post ¬special offers or fares, recipes, news updates, public and media relations articles, polls, customer service advice… the list goes on. Among some of the most popular brands using Twitter frequently are Comcast, Southwest Airlines, Popeyes Chicken, the NBA and all major media companies (FOX, CNN, ESPN, etc.).

This social media tool allows companies to engage with their customers directly and makes their brand appear more human.  This type of communication engages customers, which helps to encourage brand loyalty.  If a user complains about a particular brand, a ‘brand evangelist’ can immediately respond with advice or an apology from the company.

So what are you waiting for?  Ask Mad 4 Marketing about some Twitter-worthy ideas and messages that can elevate your brand above the rest.

The best asset in a bad economy is an existing customer database, which can be maintained and built through email marketing. Mad 4 Marketing has obtained some of the best practices for effectively using email marketing.

Email is great for conversion and retention marketing, but not that good for acquisition. It should be used as a marketing medium for people already in the prospect cycle.

Because people get so many emails everyday, the content of your email should be valuable.  You do not want your message to get lost in the shuffle. The quality of the message and relevance is very important. People will unsubscribe after 1-2 irrelevant messages. Also, emailing too often can cause the user to consider your emails irrelevant. Good eMarketers get more information from their list to determine what the user is interested in and then provide appropriate information to segmented portions of their list.

Once you successfully get the user’s contact information, do not wait too long to contact them. Because people’s attention spans are so short, you should send them an immediate thank you email. You do not want to fall out of top of their mind.

Another good practice is to engage the user with interesting tidbits and then take the user to your website. Also, personalize the email, so they are less likely to unsubscribe.

There are many advantages to using email marketing.  Below is a list of the top advantages:

• Contact Database: Most e-blasts contain a form to capture the user’s contact information. This information is sent to a database providing an active contact list in which advertisers can continue or begin sending more communication to the user.

• Low Cost: Email marketing is less expensive than other traditional media such as print, TV and radio.

• Tracking: You can directly track exactly how many people have read or taken an action by clicking through on your email, which gives you a precise return on investment.

• Green: Since email marketing does not require paper, it is safer for the environment than printed direct mail.

Please contact Mad 4 Marketing to discuss new and innovative ways we are using email marketing to increase sales and brand awareness for our many clients.