Mad 4 Blog

Last week, we introduced the concept of emerging adulthood as defined and extrapolated upon in a New York Times article by Robin Marantz Henig. The term was created by psychology professor Jeffrey Jensen Arnett to describe the extended growing-up process that’s undergone by today’s youth between late teen years until about age 30.

This week we ask: How does all of this relate to marketing?

Well, of course marketers are always keen to target their most responsive audiences. By defining and addressing key demographics, communication can be established and long-term relationships can begin to develop. By being among the first to acknowledge and identify this life stage, marketers can smartly adapt campaigns to speak directly to emerging adults, rather than lump them into an adulthood group with those over 18 and younger than 45.

Originally surmised by psychologist Kenneth Kensington in the 1960s, and confirmed today by Arnett’s findings, characteristics of the late teens to late twenties age group include: “pervasive ambivalence toward self and society,” “the feeling of absolute freedom, of living in a world of pure possibilities” and “enormous value placed upon change, transformation and movement.” Taking into consideration the unique traits, behaviors and needs that define this niche group, marketers can best speak to emerging adults on their own terms.

And it isn’t like scientists discovered an over-the-hill life stage for those aged 45-55. This new class of individuals is just out of high school or college, and marketers who get a grasp on emerging adulthood have the chance to severely impact overall success in terms of brand relationships. Because generations are also now living longer than ever before, securing a bond with customers and clients while they’re in their youth means potential connections for at least another half-century–if not more.

This is especially underscored by the fact that emerging adulthood is being significantly defined by the 20-somethings perspective on their life’s direction, ambitions and their own personal future–and by reaching them in this forming, malleable state, it gives marketers a lot more room and flexibility to begin conversations than with another age group–which, when younger, may change several times before picking one path…or may, when older, be fixed on one path or idea and refuse to budge at all.

Of course, it needs to be said that “emerging adult” has not yet entered the psychological or sociological vernacular; in fact, several scientists contest that it can’t be considered a valid life stage until it’s ubiquitous, a necessary status that all persons must pass through to become adults–regardless of background, economy, generation and other variables. But for the smart marketer, keeping an eye on such trends that are, well, emerging, is just one way to keep understanding and serving your audience—while getting an edge on the competition. And while we’re talking about staying ahead of the curve, may we at Mad 4 Marketing be the first to progressively suggest the nickname “e-dult”?

So, we’ve already discussed a few reasons and ways to monitor audience responsiveness. But once you’ve got yourself set up in that regard, there’s a more advanced step that you should implement. And that’s creating a customer profile (or set of profiles) by which to base your next campaign strategies. This is just one way to analyze and then apply the information that you’re collecting in an organized and practical way.

This step comes into play once enough data is collected to start drawing parallels and noticing trend-based patterns (perhaps six months to one year after you start). What you’ll want to do is come up with one baseline model–or preferably, a few model types–based on how customers/clients/audiences are buying and using your products or services. Depending on your business and how divisions fall among those who interact with it, you can create very generic models–such as female/male–or create entire baseline characters, such as the buyer who is under 30 years of age but married with a household income of more than $100,000. Or individuals who shop before 5pm. Or some other kind of category that is unique to your business and exhibited in repeat behaviors.

This will also depend on what kind of information you can derive from the types of marketing you’re monitoring and analyzing. Using as many stats and demographics as you have access to can lead to more tedious but more beneficial profiling overall. Tracking should also take into account the beginning, middle and late stages of each model type’s interaction with your brand. You definitely want to acknowledge ways that behaviors change with time and figure out why. Then you can incorporate how you’d like to ideally see relationships develop–based on realistic, data-backed prospects.

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.

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.

Your website may serve as a full-service e-commerce interface through which you sell products and services. Or it may simply be a place where people can learn more about your business. Either way, viral marketing can help you increase website traffic––and therefore brand awareness and sales––at a very low cost, with minimal effort.

What is Viral Marketing?
The phrase ‘viral marketing’ refers to almost any means of using word-of-mouth campaigning to pass along your message. Typically, marketers target individuals or groups who are likely to pass along or share a given campaign message. For example, a funny YouTube video is likely to be shared with friends and it is easily forwarded to colleagues; therefore, putting your business message in this format and getting it out to people who are likely to share it with others can create a big buzz for your brand with little effort. In many cases, key message sharers may even be given incentive for their efforts. Many contests which are hosted online offer extra entries or added prizes for fellow bloggers or website owners who use their own forum to promote the contest.

How Can Viral Marketing Promote My Website?
By making your website the centerpiece of your viral marketing campaign, all of your advertising efforts will have one single call to action: visit us online. Although it can be coupled with other media to really strengthen your campaign, online viral marketing is key for websites because viewers of your message will be able to click straight through to your web address once they’ve interacted with your ad. Once your audience is at your website, they can further engage with your brand or even complete transactions.

The best part is that even non-conversion visits can help you strengthen your website’s presence, because increased traffic to your page and more interaction with it will make it rank higher organically in a search engine, such as Google. When your rank rises, your website will be even easier to search and locate for people who are specifically interested in what you have to offer. This begins a cycle of increased traffic begetting increased traffic, which will ultimately impact your website’s success. Because such little cost is needed in the first place to initiate a viral marketing campaign (compared to other online marketing tactics such as a pay-per-click campaign) it’s easy to achieve high ROI.

What Comes Next?
Viral marketing campaigns may occur organically. Sometimes a website becomes an overnight sensation with very little work on the part of its owners. But that’s not something you can rely on when planning to put your business online. One of the best things about viral marketing is the fact that it’s completely accessible to everyone, and you don’t even need a ton of insider information to kick off your campaign. All you need to do is create an easy-to-use website, and then utilize social media tools that you probably already know, such as business-relevant discussion forums and Facebook.

However, to ensure that your efforts have a huge effect, you may want to consider a professional viral marketing team. These experts can help you come up with the unique creative needed for this kind of campaign to launch. Viral marketers are also familiar with a myriad of potential vantage points from which to target and approach your audience, to keep your message moving. This team of professionals can not only determine where your efforts will have the biggest impact, but they can also help you collect and analyze the results of your campaign. By tracking responsiveness and user data, you can sharpen and hone your viral marketing strategies. This will enable you to build even stronger platforms in the future.

Curious to learn more about viral marketing? Ask Mad 4 Marketing how we can help you create a buzz about your business without breaking the bank.

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.

In 2010 it’s time to ask: why isn’t the face of your business on Facebook?

True, Facebook has been around as a social networking site for students since 2004. But rather than become an outdated tool over the years, Facebook has been expanding its services to better enable professionals to use the popular website for interacting with clients and colleagues. And it’s not just about marketing to the college-age kids who were Facebook’s original audience—though they remain its main demographic. In 2009, adults between the ages of 25 and 34 doubled by the month, while adults between 35-54 years of age demonstrated a growth rate of 276.4% in presence over six months in the first half of the year. In fact, Facebook was increasingly utilized for adult marketing as soon as the website opened enrollment to all adult age groups in 2006. And it’s been taking off as a popular marketing platform ever since.

The relevance of Facebook is that it’s all-in-one social media marketing. It’s a quick and easy way to let prospective customers know what’s new with your business, in real time. You can reach out to interested individuals anywhere in the country—or anywhere in the world. And you can immediately receive their thoughts and feedback about your announcements, products or services. Whether you’re courting new clients or keeping in touch with existing contacts, Facebook is a casual and convenient way to communicate via words, pictures, links and multimedia. It’s easy to get started and easy to use, and your consumer base is already built in. Plus, there are several ways to get involved.

The first way to get involved with Facebook is to create an account. Although accounts are reserved for individuals (rather than businesses), an account for your company can be started by an employee, or a dummy account name can be used to represent the company name. This account will allow your representative to link directly to friends, post status updates and shared pictures. This account can also be used to fan pages, join groups and leave commentary on other relevant pages of Facebook.

Then you’ll want to create a ‘Group’ and/or ‘Fan Page’ for your business or product. The difference between these two options is that a group is a static page that other users can join, which doesn’t give companies the option of communicating directly and freely with its members. However, every time someone joins this group, Facebook will tell all of their friends that they are a member, which may bring about brand awareness and inspire others to join. The group’s homepage can provide further information about what your company does, and allows you to contact members directly through their inbox.

However, a fan page may be even more pertinent to businesses joining Facebook because this page allows you to advertise your brand’s identity while also sending out messages and updates to those who are interested in your services. Notifications will be shown to a user’s friends when they ‘become a fan’ of your page. Messages are sent out as live feeds, rather than as messages which stay in someone’s inbox until it has been read. However, fan pages can be accessed by non-Facebook members or those who aren’t logged into their account, so these may be more accessible than group pages overall.

Furthermore, you may wish to purchase advertising directly on Facebook. Though pricing remains competitive for space on this popular website, advertising on Facebook pages is popular because it allows buyers to tailor viewings to certain age groups, geographic locations, personal interests–or any of the other information that users supply when they join Facebook. This means that none of your advertising dollars will go to waste, because you are able to specifically target the audience who will most likely be interested in your company’s services.

Last but not least, complementary advertising campaigns (such as any coinciding print advertising you do) should feature elements that promote your Facebook page and encourage fellow Facebook users to become friends with your main account, join your group or become a fan of your business through its unique page. Your presence and pages become a hub which interested parties can easily access from a site where they are already likely to traffic and be active, which means you’ll have a leg up on expansive, dynamic marketing when you put your business on Facebook.