Mad 4 Blog

Think it’s time to cut back your budget for marketing? Think again.
In a tough economy, it’s more important than ever to strategically market your business.

Across the nation, large and small businesses are looking for ways to trim unnecessary expenditures from their budget. For many, this might mean erroneously reducing or eliminating marketing budgets. In reality, it’s more important than ever to put your company ‘out there’ in order to flourish in tough economic times. Here are a few ways to advertise without breaking the bank:

Consistent Branding and 360-Degree Marketing
The most important aspect of marketing in a hard economy is to build and retain customer relationships. With so many messages bombarding prospective clients on a daily basis, you want your services and products to stand out at the forefront. The first way to do this is to keep your brand prevalent and accessible; this can be done with a strong branding message that stays in front of your audience. Your message should accurately reflect your unique services, and be consistent across various advertising touch points—from advertising to point-of-sale to customer service. You will want branding to make you recognizable and transparent across all marketing mediums: print ads, interactive, broadcast, logo iconography. As you connect to your audience through a 360-degree campaign–which may involve both traditional and nontraditional advertising tactics–your business will retain a powerful presence within customers’ minds as they make purchasing decisions.

Nontraditional Marketing Tactics
Alternative marketing is one way to boost your bottom line on a small budget. Rather than launch expensive mass media campaigns, you may actually make a bigger impact with pinpoint strategies. For example, grassroots marketing often involves using highly targeted outlets—such as ads displayed in shopping plazas or community newsletters—to connect with audiences on an intimate level. Your business can focus on creating messages that address the core group of individuals who are most likely to need your services. This can lead to a greater return on investment than bigger, traditional campaigns. A billboard that reaches a thousand eyes might equal 20 sales—but so might shaking 20 hands at an event where you interact with your audience—and it’s much more meaningful and cost-effective. Rather than reach as many sets of eyes and ears as possible, by using precise analytics to target and address your audience, you are given able to speak directly to your client base in a more personalized way. This builds brand loyalty and establishes a line of communication—which will not only benefit your business in the short-term, but have a lasting effect for years to come.

Interactive Marketing Strategies
Utilizing web marketing to maintain an online presence doesn’t have to be a budget-breaking endeavor. You can harness the power of the Internet on a limited budget by getting acquainted with blogging, e-mail marketing and free analytic tools. Once you’ve established a home base for your business online, all you have to do is give readers a reason to stop by and see what you’re all about. Hosting a blog on your website lets you speak directly to your industry peers and prospective customers, while managing your message. A blog can tie together e-mail marketing, web advertising and social media messages. Creating fresh content on a regular basis is also an affordable way to improve your page rank and increase traffic to your site. You can watch viewership climb by utilizing Google Analytics, a free online interface that automatically tracks and graphs your website’s unique visitors, daily traffic and other relevant data. Seeing how readers locate and use your website will help you understand how your audience thinks. Then you can continue to invest in cost-effective advertising techniques, such as e-newsletters, to encourage repeat visits and stay connected with your customers.

Picture the bright ambiance of a hospital waiting room.  There are a handful of individuals seated awaiting the low pitched call of a nurse into the doctor’s sterile office.  Most of the patients look toward their cell phones, some making wistful swipes with their fingers while others type feverishly.  They share a common goal.  Finding alternative health information, diagnoses, and help online using their smart phones.  Cell phones contain the World Wide Web in a compact device.  The mobile internet has a whopping 2.1 million users.  Experts believe by 2012 more individuals will use mobile internet than those that use computers.  How many Healthcare providers or businesses actually use this medium? Out of 115 health systems 19% have a mobile websites while 43% have plans but have not initiated action.  A mobile website is simplified with content and links that make it easier and faster for users to use on their mobile phones.  These sites are cheap and efficient costing on average of 4,000$ and 62 internal hours to make.  So what is keeping so many healthcare centers from having a mobile site?  They believe it isn’t a priority for a healthcare center to have a one.  Many hospitals computer technicians engage in planning strategies, and documenting visits. To free up enough time for something, to them is not at the top of the totem pole, could be applied to other necessities needed for their prosperity online.

Building a website for mobile users is NOT a painstaking process.  When created correctly it can enhance web strategy, and broaden your patient base bringing your brand name to a higher level.  It accentuates your marketing activities and creates another outlet for marketing strategy.  Cell phones have become a virus only curable by harnessing its potency.  Marketing strategies push forward. Mobile websites are here to stay.

Smart, sleek, compact, and inventive. No, we’re not describing the brand new Porsche Roadster. These words illustrate a new advertising medium: hospital mobile marketing.  Cell phones are an extension of human existence, like the high rise buildings, Tivo, and the computer.  They are personal assistants that fit in the palm of your hand with access to the internet, email, and countless other online applications.  They let you call a distant cousin in Europe in South Florida while on public transit.  They connect you to a world outside your own.

We at Mad 4 Marketing have seen the potential of this innovative market and realize that even in recessionary times such as these, cell phones that were once luxuries have become a necessity.  Everyone has one.  We believe campaigns that reflect the importance of mobile marketing are crucial.  Imagine receiving a mobile Starbucks coupon through your Gmail account on your iPhone.  Or an email from the Express clothing store stating there is a huge sale this week.  Jiffy Lube utilized a mobile coupon promotion and had a fifty percent rate of customer redemption. Mobile marketing is used to sell products successfully in all kinds of industries.  Whether you are marketing and education, healthcare, financial services or any other number of services start putting mobile marketing initiatives on your radar….or the to do list on your cell phone.

The following is an editorial blog by Stuart Dornfield. All comments and opposing views are welcome.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that restaurants in an attempt to get more families to dine out are “scrambling to counter a tendency by recession-pinched parents to leave their children at home when they go out to eat.”  Case in point, this past summer The Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Chang’s China Bistro added their first-ever kids’ menus. And while P.F. Chang’s had previously offered some kids’ items that servers would suggest to parents, Chief Operating Officer Rick Tasman commented that “not having an actual children’s menu made parents feel like their kids weren’t welcome.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am in no way suggesting that restaurants who cater to families shouldn’t continue to make kids and their parents feel welcome with better and healthier menu items for children. Nor am I suggesting that there aren’t plenty of restaurants that already do that.
My question is this: How much does a restaurant risk losing its core audience of adults seeking an adult-only dining experience if it erodes its brand experience by pandering to families with kids? Certainly, I welcome opposing opinions, but I do not want to drink and dine across from tables filled with albeit screaming kids. When my wife and I are looking for a relaxing and upscale dining experience at P. F. Chang’s, Cheesecake, or any of a number of adult restaurants serving liquor and wine, I don’t expect to see kids running around tables, or hear babies crying.
I recognize that P.F. Chang’s 6.8% decline due to fewer customers is a concern. But perhaps they should look at other ways to increase their profitability other than eroding the brand experience for their core adult customers.
Imagine Starbuck’s offering a kid’s menu and installing a video game arcade in their coffee shops to increase parent/kid visits and incremental sales. Not.
The Wall Street Journal reports that a study last month by market research firm Mintel International Group found that parents are “looking for healthier alternatives to the standard kids’ fare of chicken fingers, grilled cheese sandwiches and macaroni and cheese.” I applaud that. But the answer is not to turn adult-oriented restaurants into kid-friendly restaurants because they already offer healthier meals, but rather, to encourage parents to challenge family restaurants to offer healthier menu items for kids.
Seriously Mr. Restaurant CEO, if the average size of a group dining out with kids pushes the bill up by an average of $8, is it worth $8 to lose adult customers who don’t want to dine with babies and kids? Short-sighted thinking? You bet. When profits drive a brand to change who and what they are and the brand experience changes with it, that’s when the CMO or the CEO needs to say “wait a minute…this is not who we are.“
According to Maria Caranfa, Mintel’s director of menu insights, “restaurants don’t want the reason for people not coming to be because they don’t offer kid-friendly food.” Well I submit, how about adults not coming because you’ve changed your focus to a kid-friendly dining experience!
While I can understand Denny’s Chief Executive Nelson Marchioli’s saying “people with kids are uncertain of the economy, so they don’t need any discouragement from the industry from dining out,”  I also think adults without kids don’t need any discouragement either.

If anyone still has doubts about the emergence of mobile marketing, it’s probably only because they don’t yet own an iPhone, the most advanced and efficient handheld web browser on the market today. The latest application for the iPhone is a feature which allows users to deposit their paper checks to the bank without visiting an ATM. They can automatically send the money to their bank account and access those funds without getting off the couch.

USAA, a private bank based in Texas, noticed that users were being prevented from realizing an entirely virtual, wireless banking lifestyle. Even if you were trying to live a more eco-friendly paper-free banking lifestyle, when someone handed you a check, you’d be forced to make a trip to a brick-and-mortar bank to complete the deposit. Now that extra errand might be a thing of the past. USAA’s newest application allows iPhone users to take a photo of the front and back of their check and send it straight to the bank for immediate remote processing.

Between online banking, automated bill pay and PayPal, people are increasingly moving their business to online venues. From paying the electric bill–to buying a car–to ordering movie tickets–to getting this season’s must-have wardrobe staple before it even hits the racks–digital fund transfer is now a staple of modern life. Even the food service industry has been making the move to online purveyorship. Have you tried ordering a pizza or groceries online yet? It’s the wave of the future. With just a few clicks, dinner is on the table. Online shopping, billing and banking are practically outdating wallets. And cell phones are quickly catching up—they not only reflect the same services through web access alone, but offer even faster and more direct applications, platforms and interfaces which streamline the mobile experience.

With handheld mobile devices providing more and more solutions for day-to-day tasks, it’s obvious to draw a connection to mobile marketing. Once upon a time, the mindset was that great marketing should make a big impact and reach broad audiences; think television commercials. Then came the computer, and marketers rallied to target much narrower audiences and address them more personally. Once again, the next giant leap for marketing isn’t about going bigger, but rather going smaller; small enough to fit in someone’s pocket or the palm of their hand. Now, audiences can be addressed anywhere.

As applications like virtual check depositing become mainstay, mobile devices may prove themselves to be the most viewed, most visited, most familiar space to connect with your consumer base. Now is the time to get ahead of the curve and explore mobile marketing opportunities. Ask how Mad 4 Marketing can help you reach untapped markets with focused, creative mobile marketing campaigns.