Mad 4 Blog

Continuing a trend of using members’ profile information for such purposes as targeted advertising, Facebook is now taking those analytics and applying them to a user-friendly new tool: targeted searches. It’s known as Graph Search.

Yesterday, Facebook revealed that it’s now in beta testing for an internal search option that allows users to receive results according to the preferences of their friends and family members. For example, it will give you results based on what your “friends” have “liked” — and those results will then be ranked according to the opinions of your closest confidantes first, which is gauged by how much you’ve interacted with them. Results are also ranked according to how many of your top friends collectively have “liked” certain pages, places, photos and similar content.

The Wall Street Journal quotes these as sample search phrases:

• “Music that people who like Mitt Romney like.”
• “Movies my friends in San Francisco like.”
• “Photos my friends took in the 1990s.”
• “Friends of friends who are men and single in Palo Alto.”
• “Languages my friends from college speak.”

That not only means website results, but also photos and business pages. For marketers, this news is important because it would mean that if a business page has a high amount of “likes” within a certain community, then when anyone in that community searches for related content, the business page would be boosted to the top of the search results list on Facebook. Ultimately, it’s an algorithm that rewards popularity and loyalty, which is perfect for social media marketing.

The remaining results will come organically from Microsoft’s search engine, Bing! This could be a bold move for Bing! to come into closer competition with top-ranking search engine, Google. Google has similarly tried to incorporate search engine results with social media through its Google+ services.

You can sign up for the wait list to receive a Graph Search beta invite starting this week.

Last week we started to talk about how receiving feedback is one of the easiest and most essential parts of getting the most from your marketing efforts. The phrasing of the word “feedback” makes people think of this step as something that comes after a point of contact with your target audience – but in actuality, it’s an ongoing process that should be enforced at the beginning, middle and end of your marketing strategy. We’ve already covered the “before,” so this week we’re looking at “during” and “after.”

1. During: Engagement. “How did you hear about us?” Point of sale is a great time to engage customers and learn more about why they chose you and what they think of their experience — right when they’re in the midst of it. This is a great time to learn how your “before” tactics have paid off, by learning how people heard about you and whether there was a significant impact from your attempts to reach out in advance. People may also have a fresher idea of what they liked or didn’t like about interacting with your brand.

In our example from last week, an ice cream stand is opening at the park. Your company has already reached out to learn what people would like from a neighborhood ice cream stand and to let them know about the launch. At this event, learn if your ice cream stand is what they were thinking and what else they would add to enhance their experience. Make them feel like they are valued customers who are part of the dialogue and offer incentives to come back again. One trick is to hand out an extended survey about the company (its location, hours, flavors, customer service) and entice customers to fill it out by offering a coupon or free cone. These surveys may come with a customer’s name and contact information to further build a relationship and send out special offers.

2. After: Follow-up. Once your campaign has been launched, or after a time-sensitive endeavor has been completed, it’s important to know whom it reached and how they responded. Different media allows for different ways of doing this — obviously, for example, online efforts prove the most measurable in terms of clicks and views. But even traditional marketing techniques can be measured by sourcing those involved on how they felt when they encountered your business.

Let’s look at the ice cream stand example: Following a successful launch that was highly promoted and well-attended, the company may want to use some of the information that was collected at the event to reach out to attendees and ask what they thought after the fact, such as whether they’ve been back since then and if they’ve formed any new impressions about the brand since the stand opened.

Starting this month and continuing over the next few weeks, Google AdWords is introducing some changes that are meant to make it even easier to use the popular website-promoting and ad-placement tool. As ever, the latest slew of updates targets two critical factors: becoming more accurate and becoming more user-friendly.

The primary adjustment is to its secretive algorithm, which determines how to rank and analyze certain keywords in order to match and rank content.

For starters, AdWords will now allow advertisers to place ads based on more specific keywords. Instead of trying to match content using less descriptive means, marketers can choose the narrowest and most niche keywords so that their creative appears only next to extremely specific phrases and articles. And, of course, they’ll be able to track how certain keywords fare as compared to others in order to determine what those designations should be. Google is calling this option “next-gen keyword contextual targeting.”

And it’s important to note that this upgrade is coming along with a new and easy to use display grid that makes it simple to manage and monitor these campaigns.

In terms of targeting and tweaking campaigns, Google will be releasing a visualization aid that shows marketers how their campaign is faring on a grid that will help them quickly locate and assess the information they’ve collected. This graphic map plugs into analytics data and can be reorganized according to specific features that are an individual advertiser’s top priorities, such as keyword, location or topic. The Google AdWords visualization aid provides a bird’s eye view of trends, clusters and other historical data.

What do you think of these updates? And what other changes do you think AdWords still needs to stay at the top of its game in an increasingly competitive Web marketing world?

Last week we started discussing the ways you can build your personal brand. First you want to discover the traits about yourself that you wish to turn into your dominant brand characteristics. Then you want to define those by using words and phrases that tie into your overall message. That’s what will trickle down through your connections in personal and professional spheres (which do impact one another). Here are two more important steps to consider when you’re creating a personal brand:

3. Disseminate your personal brand. Now it’s time to spread your message. The easiest way to do this is online. You should create strong, professional profiles on public social media pages, like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. These are the personas that people will interact with the most, whether they’re your friends or someone who’s just Googled your name. Having your own website and using smaller, industry-specific outlets is also immensely important. But potential clients and customers will likely find your more casual, generic profiles first – so it’s important that these still reflect your personal brand. Your Twitter account might have nothing to do with your job as a birthday clown, but you can still describe yourself as having a good sense of humor and friendly nature – or similar concepts that tie back to your key points. This is your first point of contact with your potential audience, and it’s often your chance to make a first impression. So make sure it’s a great one that can be backed up in person and through other job-related resources.

4. Dominate your personal brand. Now that your brand exists and is out there in the world, it’s your job to maintain and improve it. You need to make sure that you keep pushing to reach the height of your industry. You should look into what your competitors are doing and define what would help you become a stronger presence, especially to those without intimate knowledge of who any of your are. What measurements can you use? For example, you might want more name recognition with your potential customers, a high rating from an accreditation agency or to have the No. 1 best-selling product in your field. You want to put yourself out there in the world, in person and online. This means creating Web content and seeking opportunities to have stories developed about you, so that you seem like a bigger brand when someone is looking for someone like you by searching around online. You also want to meet people and network in order to have more references who can speak about your presence and talents. Work with as many people as possible and always remember to leave a positive impression while backing up the attributes of your personal brand.

Bar codes used to affect you only while you stood in checkout lines at apparel retailers or grocery stores. But now you’ve seen funny new versions them on advertising from flyers in your mailbox to billboards on your drive home. So what’s the purpose of adding bar codes to print advertisements? The following questions and answers provide an overview.

1. What Are QR Codes?

Those funny square-shaped bar codes you’re seeing everywhere are actually Quick Response codes (you may have noticed an absence of actual bars, unlike the ones you scan at Whole Foods). They’re named this because a smartphone can quickly scan the square and access a wealth of information about the product. This means that no matter how big your ad is or how much text you provide, one fast scan provides your prospective buyer with nearly unlimited data about your company, offer or product.

2. How Are They Used?

There are many ways you can take advantage of this new marketing tactic. In fact, creative uses for QR codes are being imagined every day. For example, someone can scan your unique code and come up with a coupon for purchasing your goods. Or they can access a video describing your services. Or the code can automatically pull up directions from where the user is standing to your nearest location. Your options are almost limitless; the real challenge is determining what tactic’s best to represent your brand and what will intrigue your audience enough to get them to whip out their mobile phone to learn more.

3. How Can They Improve My Marketing?

On top of just looking like a cutting-edge, in-the-know company, there are tangible benefits to using QR codes in your marketing campaign. The primary selling point is that when users scan your ad, you can also collect information. You can learn which ad placements are engaging viewers the most. Is it the code you placed in the newspaper or the one at the bus stop by your office? Are people then using the code, data or offer that’s extended via your QR code link? You can record this data and apply it toward further marketing endeavors with even stronger success rates each time. This measurability is paramount to long-term success with your marketing strategy. With QR codes, you get the same highly analytical data about your placement and performance that you’ve come to value from online advertising.

Looking for ways to build QR codes into your marketing campaign for improved measurability and a stronger relationship with your clients/consumers? Contact us to go over your options, including strategy and pricing. And check back next week for Part 2 of our Q&A for QR Codes.

Last week, we discussed Personalization within the framework of your business. Today, we’re identifying ways to personalize your services for customers/clients. This means treating those you’re contacting as if they’re your only audience (not one of a large group) while showing them that you appreciate their business – even if they haven’t elected to use you yet. Top ways to build a relationship in this respect are learning all about the person you’re addressing and then utilizing personal info (names, preferences) to tailor your advertising to them. And then, once they choose to use you, you can also tailor their experience to fulfill their expectations as well.

1. Create personality templates. From the beginning, you don’t necessarily know enough about a person’s preferences to specifically aim your marketing tactics toward him or her. But you can begin by looking at an overview of demographics from previous sales and beginning to come up with profiles about the kind of people who are using your business. You can break this info down into core categories and then target your marketing toward them. For example, Customer A is a Caucasian unmarried male aged 18-35; Customer B is a middle-aged woman with children or grandchildren who she often considers when buying products or services. You can start multiple campaigns that speak to these people as specifically as possible, which is a way of personalizing your marketing without yet having individual information.
2. Learn all about your audience. The next thing you want to do is gather as much information as possible from the people who are most likely to use your products or services. You should always have a newsletter/mailing list form on your website so that those who are interested can pass you their data. You can hold a sweepstakes that asks candidates to fill out info about themselves, conduct anonymous polling or solicit voluntary info at point of sale. Ask Mad 4 Marketing about other techniques to gather information and apply it toward your advertising efforts.
3. Personalize all forms of contact. Once you have a person’s specific information – based not only on info they’ve provided about themselves but also analytics of their interactions with your brand – you should begin directing your marketing to them specifically. E-mails should incorporate their names. Flyers and mailers should reflect their previous interactions with you and direct them to similar items they might like or need. Be sure to remind them of what they liked in the past about your company. And continuously ask for feedback to learn more about what you can do to improve their experience with your company.

Next week our three-part series concludes with some tips about Transparency.

Before you’re ready to start marketing your business, you need a plan. Marketing plans don’t require you to have formal knowledge of marketing (that’s where the pros come in), but they help you assess your needs prior to working with an agency. They help you focus on short- and long-term goals, and they provide a foundation for ongoing marketing work that can build on past efforts and help you monitor how well you succeed at achieving your pre-established objectives. They can also be adapted as your business grows in accordance with its size, changing needs and levels of advertising engagement.

Here are the basic steps to get started (adaptable to your select business needs):

• Determine specifically what your mission is (marketing a new project, establishing a brand, creating an overall strategy for ongoing, sequential efforts) and define your product (goods, services, etc.) in a way that makes sense both for your internal purposes and to potential clients and customers or investors and regulators you may wish to or be required to share it with.

• Analyze your current strengths and weaknesses in the business overall as of when you’re ready to launch your marketing initiative as well as with any pre-existing marketing projects (design Strengths, Weaknesses, Objectives, Threats (SWOT) chart; more on this another time); also look into the current climate for your industry both locally and nationwide.

• Create a nuanced financial budget both for your present agenda and including a 5-year plan; also consider your resources in terms of employees and time.

• Brainstorm ways to grow your marketing over time, with realistic limitations and expectations, such as conducting research into competitors’ stats for foundational data or speculating future reports once analytics begin to come in (especially useful if you’re a new business getting started, under new management or rebranding).

• Establish predetermined benchmarks. How will you define success? How can you measure if you’re meeting your objectives? Finding ways to qualify and rate your journey will be instrumental in helping you push ahead and outdo your preceding efforts.

• Consider breaking down the overall report into multiple areas to best create teams and target techniques for achieving your objectives – especially in terms of marketing widely varying products/services or creating multiple campaigns for the same singular objective.

Are you a small-business owner or entrepreneur ready to start building out your marketing plan? Ask how Mad 4 Marketing can set you up for present and future success.

In light of recent online security breaches – including the unresolved shutdown of Sony gaming systems throughout Asia after a recent hack attack – some advocates are pushing harder than ever to protect Web users’ privacy. This includes forcing advertisers to ask for permission before they can implement tracking cookies and other means of gathering and storing personal information.

Despite recent implementation of a similar policy in Europe, American marketers may not have to fear that this type of legislation will come to our shores anytime soon. And that’s because of an effort that’s recently been launched that asks website visitors to voluntarily opt out of info-gathering – and the fact that they’re not using it.

A recent AdAge article shows that an “Ad Option Icon,” which directs those who click on it to ways that they can opt out of information-gathering, is not widely used by those who encounter it. Of those who do follow through on the icon, only 10% complete the steps to turn off tracking and protect their information.

But that may be because they don’t fully understand what’s at risk or how the icon should be used, mistaking it for another ad rather than a helpful tool. With only 60 advertisers currently trying out the icon, it may simply not be familiar enough to set a precedent in terms of reactionary behavior. However, the founder of the Digital Advertising Alliance attests that 300 marketing companies should be signed on soon – spreading the word and increasing the validity of the trials.

Despite concerns that current online ad consumers seem largely dismissive of the opt-out availability, the same audience base may come to use or even expect it once they’re more exposed to the concept. Experts expect that as the trend grows and legislation formalizes to meet it, more and more online advertisers will participate and thereby promote the concept, brand and logo. After all – isn’t that their specialty?

Providing an opt-out option that’s widely used and understood may be beneficial to Internet advertisers in the future, since it may bypass the need for opt-in policies – which would undoubtedly limit marketers’ means of gathering and analyzing traffic and demographic information.

As we discussed last week, many companies are warming up to the idea of incorporating strong social media strategies into their overall marketing campaigns. In some cases, this calls for hiring a team to consult with you and establish your presence on the Web. In others, an Internet-savvy intern may be able to take care of establishing your online agenda and putting your brand on the social media map.

Regardless of your route, if you’ve been considering social media, you may want to first sit down and talk to an advertising specialist about what approaches are best for your business. Many marketers may try to convince you that you need to dive in with an active account in every area of social media; but that’s not necessarily true for everyone. And although social media marketing can be extremely low-cost, it does involve effort and manpower – since the key to this tactic is the human engagement aspect, with regular updates and an ongoing dialogue. To avoid excess costs and be sure your effort is going to have significant payoff, here are a few considerations to get you started:

Identify your goals. Why are you considering social media marketing? Is it because you feel like it’s something you’re supposed to do – or that it’s something that will bring your business to the next level? Consider how your website is currently used by clients or customers. Is this a significant lead for new business or just a way to post your information online? If you have a blog, take into account whether or not you already have an active audience who posts comments and seems engaged with the content.

Assign a budget. Starting a Facebook, YouTube or Twitter account may be free, but operating costs aren’t. If you want to earn trust from those who care about online interactivity, you may need to hire staff to tweet, blog and update throughout the day. If you’re building a first-time Web presence, you may need to buy an AdWords account to drive traffic. You may want to keep up with analytics to determine if you’re garnering the attention you desire. Before getting started, consider what you can afford to invest.

Check back next week for part 2, with even more social media marketing tips from Mad 4 Marketing.

It always makes sense to ask successfully acquired clients and customers how they came to hear about your business. By carefully comparing how well each of your advertising efforts performs, you can bulldoze past a lot of trial-and-error and simply direct your budget toward what works, both in quantitative and qualitative units. For example, if no one’s seen that ad in the newspaper but everyone heard about you from a friend or relative, you may wish to pull your print ads and focus on buzz-generating word-of-mouth campaigns–or even reward former patrons for referring a friend. And if you’re reaching a higher caliber of clientele via brochure than billboard, you’ll certainly want to bring your message down to the smaller scale, which can also cut back cost.

These days, tracking is everything when it comes to building successful campaigns. Online, it’s perfectly easy to determine how a person landed on your page; analytics mark each click-through by its referring links, search engine source, browser type and even the viewer’s physical location—it’s not only effortless, but also automatically built into most website content management systems. But even online there’s always more you can do; when it comes to e-commerce, many shopping outlets utilize codes. Asking buyers to enter a code before they take advantage of a sale helps marketers to track which sales and campaigns were more successful than others, and to help determine if shoppers heard about it from a newsletter, referral or ad. This is why you might see several usable codes available for the same sale, depending on where you hear about it.

In what other ways can coding and tracking be used in your business endeavors? Mad 4 Marketing recently posted job listings on several career search websites. But each posting required us to pay a fee, and since we weren’t sure which websites or which wording would be most successful for attracting the best new teammate, we decided to generate a few different ads. We asked job candidates on each board and posting to reply with a different subject line. This took a little more time and thought, but we were able to see from where we were getting hits, and what kind of prospective employees were nipping the bait. After the first week we cut our ad placement (and cost!) in half and only used phrasing that was clearly expressing our desires to the most qualified candidates.

Another example is Satori’s text message campaign. In 2008, we used a lot of on-the-scene guerrilla marketing to advertise for the newly opening apartment rental community in Fort Lauderdale. We wanted to reach out to those who already lived in and loved the surrounding area of South Florida. At each event (such as street fairs, art shows and the boat parade), we advertised the chance to win six months’ free rent by texting a code to a given phone number. At each event, the code differed. That way, we could see which community event had directed the most participants to our giveaway, as well as which regions or crowds were most interested in Satori. This information turned out to be extremely valuable in later marketing endeavors, such as choosing local ad placement.

The bottom line is that tracking efforts are a smart investment in the future. It means looking past today’s brochure or even tomorrow’s website, toward next year’s entire marketing strategy. Tracking provides you with the tools to always understand and surpass prior tactics–and no matter what, this means that you will ultimately succeed.