Posts Tagged ‘Campaigns’

Use Your Product to Sell Your Product

Friday, January 6th, 2012

If you’ve got a great product or service, what’s the best way to market and sell it?

By letting customers try it out!

Lighthouse Carwash does this whenever they open a new car wash. For the first few days, all the washes are free. It helps them build a customer base by showing just how great the service is.

Busken Bakery in Cincinnati does the same with their business catering service. Their flyer promoting the service is pretty nice:

But it isn’t nearly as enticing as the free dozen donuts that accompanies it:

Who wouldn’t trust this bakery to cater their next business breakfast after tasting these delicious donuts? (My apologies to anyone dieting this January.)

Not only does giving samples allow customers to experience your product, it’s a much more cost-effective marketing effort than almost any other tactic. For instance, compare the cost of a free car wash or dozen donuts to the price of a radio commercial.

When you’ve got a great product you can sample, your customers get a delightful experience, and your business stays in the marketing budget. See why it’s the best?

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Posted in Advertising, Customer Experience, Marketing, Selling, word-of-mouth marketing | No Comments »

Customers See Through Marketing “Tactics”

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

Some marketing professionals seem to think marketing is all about “pulling one over” on customers with their clever tactics. The trouble with this philosophy (besides being ethically problematic, of course) is that it just doesn’t work. Marketers aren’t smarter than customers, and they can’t trick customers. And sometimes customers are actually smarter than the marketing experts.

My good friend Laura Poland (who is a photographer, not a marketer) recently showed some serious marketing smarts. She told me how she caught on to Covergirl’s marketing tactics. A TV commercial claimed their Outlast Lipstain is the #1 selling lipstain. She speculates, “What is a lipstain? They’ve created a new category! My thinking is they’re the only ‘lipstain.’” She’s not very far off with her analysis. They are number one because they are almost the only one, with few competitors. A quick check of the Covergirl website shows the product isn’t very well-received, either– it only receives 3 of 5 stars from reviewers.

This example of a photographer picking apart a marketing campaign isn’t isolated. Everyday, customers evaluate your marketing messages for trustworthiness and believability. If they catch a whiff of “tactics,” their skepticism will keep them from buying from you. The best approach is to be honest with your marketing and sell a product you are proud to promote.

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Posted in Advertising, Branding, Customer Experience, Philosophy | No Comments »

Small Business Marketing Podcast: Facebook Advertising

Friday, April 15th, 2011

Facebook advertising is receiving a lot of buzz with small businesses lately (probably because Facebook launched a direct mail campaign targeted at small businesses). If you received this mailing, you know the Facebook talking points – they have 500 million users that you can target by location, age and interests.

But is Facebook advertising right for your business? To learn more about the possibilities, listen to my Facebook Advertising podcast. I share specific examples of when Facebook advertising works and when it doesn’t.

Listen or download below:

Facebook Advertising

Download the Facebook Advertising MP3 file here. (5.6 MB)

This segment first aired during “Getting Down to Business” on Alaska’s Fox News Talk 1020.

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Posted in Advertising, Internet, Marketing Podcasts, Social Networking | 1 Comment »

Why isn’t my marketing working?

Friday, March 25th, 2011

A Facebook follower recently asked, “What can I do when an advertising or marketing campaign isn’t working?” There are several reasons a marketing campaign might fail. Here are several common ones:

  • You aren’t marketing to the right customers. The first step of any successful marketing campaign is to accurately identify the people who will buy your product or service. For instance, a private elementary school may teach children, but it shouldn’t advertise to children. Parents are the decision-makers.
  • Place – You aren’t marketing to customers where they go for information about your product or service. Think like a customer. Where do they go to learn about your product or to buy it? No one is going to buy life insurance from a mall kiosk, no matter how many thousands of people walk past each day. Even if 50% of the passersby are in the market for life insurance, you just don’t buy it at the mall.
  • Timing – You aren’t marketing to customers at the right time. This could be the time of day, day of the week or season of the year. Imagine a florist marketing Valentine’s bouquets in March. It would be ridiculous – no one wants to buy them after Valentine’s Day.
  • Message – Your marketing message isn’t meaningful to your customers. Many marketers make the mistake of developing messages that appeal to their company instead of to the customer. Your message should address what is important to your customer. Why do customers want to buy from you?

Your next question might be, “How do I know which reason to address?” To learn the reason your marketing isn’t working, look at the results of your marketing efforts, such as calls, clicks or impressions. If you don’t have any results at all, you probably have a problem of marketing in the wrong place. If you are getting some results, but not closing sales, you might be marketing to the wrong customers.

To determine if your timing or message is off, you need to think like a customer – when are they looking? what messages are meaningful to them? If you can, ask some existing customers what they think. Most of the time, customers are glad to share their opinions to help you out. Ask them how and when they heard about you and what they like about your products or services. Use this information to craft messages that would appeal to them and potential customers like them.

It can certainly be tricky to determine why your marketing isn’t working and how to fix it. I find these problems very interesting and would be glad to talk to you about your marketing. Just call or email me: Amanda Cullen, 513.833.4203, amanda@zooinajungle.com

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Posted in Advertising, Branding, Customer Experience, Customers, Marketing Theory | No Comments »

PPC Advertising Online

Friday, March 18th, 2011

Pay-per-click advertising with Google, Bing and Facebook

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising online can be a very cost-effective addition to marketing plans – most of us know that. But the world of PPC advertising is expanding into new opportunities. Lately, many business owners have asked me about different kinds of PPC advertising, with questions like, “What about Facebook?” or “Is Bing worth it?” It seems time for me to publicly address some of these questions for my readers.

Google PPC

Google PPC advertising is the must-have for any online advertising strategy. Google enjoys 65.4% market share of internet searches. Being on the page when your customer is searching for your product is incredibly valuable. To learn more about the general benefits of PPC advertising, read my article “Building Your Website Traffic.”

Bing and Yahoo! PPC

Microsoft manages the search results and PPC advertising for both Bing and Yahoo! through its Microsoft AdCenter. In February, Bing had 13.6% market share for online search, and Yahoo! had 16.1%. Combined, the search engines represent 29.7% of all internet searches. It is worthwhile to advertise to 30% of your customer base, and the strategies used for Google PPC advertising will apply to Bing and Yahoo!.

In my experience, you will face less competition advertising with Bing and Yahoo!, for two reasons. 1. Fewer businesses think of devoting marketing resources to these search engines. 2.The Microsoft AdCenter is difficult to use, and its reporting is much less intuitive than Google’s.

Facebook PPC

Facebook is a relatively new player in the PPC advertising arena, and their approach is quite different from the search engines’ way of advertising. First of all, you don’t have to pay per click; you can pay per impression. Paying for impressions is more traditional marketing language, so I believe Facebook offers the option to make marketers more comfortable. PPC advertising is attractive because you only pay when someone shows interest in your ad – not just if it showed on the screen. Here are some other ways Facebook advertising is different:

  • Demographics instead of search. Facebook users aren’t searching for what they seek. Instead they list interests, post updates and engage in conversations. Facebook uses this demographic information to display ads they think might interest the user. Facebook allows advertisers quite a bit of granularity in choosing demographics like age, geographic location, sex and relationship status. Search engines simply don’t have all of this information.
  • Interests instead of keywords. With a search engine, finding perfect keywords is crucial to a successful PPC campaign. But with Facebook advertising, it’s all about likes and interests. As an advertiser, you identify the interests of the people you would like to reach, and Facebook makes suggestions, as shown in the picture below:
  • Facebook page instead of your website. You can send visitors to your Facebook page instead of your website.  I recommend creating and maintaining a page for your business if you are going to advertise on Facebook. Facebook users like to stay on the site, and you will receive more value from your ads if a visitor “likes” your page and receives your regular updates. It’s important to regularly update your business page, so people stay interested (but don’t update it too frequently, or people will “hide” you!). Many marketers might balk at sending visitors to their Facebook page instead of their website- don’t we want to increase our website stats? Website stats are important, but only because we hope to turn visitors into customers. The best way to turn Facebook users into customers is by engaging them on the site they visit every day.
  • Ads and pages have to be associated with a personal profile. You need to set up a profile in order to set up a business page in order to set up an ad directing people to that page. Don’t blame me for the complexity; blame Facebook.

Do you have more questions about PPC advertising online? Send me an email – amanda@zooinajungle.com

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Posted in Advertising, Customers, Pay Per Click Advertising, Social Networking | 6 Comments »

Marketing Podcast: How to Get Customers to Call

Friday, February 18th, 2011

In this marketing podcast, I delve deeper into the subject of Getting Customers to Call. For many businesses, getting customers to call is a crucial step in the sales process. However, they don’t distinguish between a motivation to buy and a motivation to call. Listen to the podcast to learn more about how to motivate customers, along with tactical tips and strategies.

Listen or download below:

How to Get Customers to Call

Download the Getting Customers to Call MP3 file here. (5.4 MB)

This segment first aired during “Getting Down to Business” on Alaska’s Fox News Talk 1020.

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Posted in Customers, Marketing Podcasts, Selling | 2 Comments »

Campaign “Marketing”

Friday, October 15th, 2010

If marketing communication involves informing and persuading customers with compelling messages, then I hesitate to call campaign activities “marketing.” Every election season, as my mailbox fills with postcards, I’m left to wonder, “Who makes these ads?” If any company bombarded people with such amateur attempts, they would go out of business. Political advertisements, whether they be print, radio or TV, seem almost calculated to insult the intelligence and discernment of the electorate.

Candidates I like and plan to vote for send me cringe-worthy pieces. A friend of mine even decided to vote for the opponent after receiving one such careless postcard. With all their campaign contributions, can candidates really only afford marketing hacks?

At least all the advertising carnage can be amusing. Here’s a round-up of some of the worst campaign advertising I’ve encountered this year:

The voters of San Francisco as the hapless bunch from Wizard of Oz. Complete with Nancy Pelosi as a the witch (Watch the video here).

Florida Congressman Ron Klein’s campaign sent out a mailer with challenger Allen West’s social security number on it (not pictured for obvious reasons).

And here’s a lovely pair from New York’s gubernatorial race.

It appears New Yorkers have a choice between a pig and a reformed mud wrestler. Thanks, candidates, that really clears up your positions on bad Photoshop skills.

Have you seen any examples of good campaign advertising? Please send them to me. Though be warned – I might not believe you.

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Posted in Advertising, Marketing Theory | No Comments »

Creative Marketing Campaigns for Small Business Podcast

Friday, November 20th, 2009

Dave Weatherholt invited me on his show, “Getting Down to Business” to talk about creative marketing ideas for small business. What’s the most creative thing I could think to say?

“Every experience a customer has with you, they consider that marketing.”

Talk about room for creativity! If everything is marketing, then everything needs to be designed with your customer in mind.

During the show, I did offer listeners some creative marketing campaign ideas, while advising all small businesses to create a good strategy before embarking on creative promotions. Dave and I also discussed effective small business marketing campaigns and the reason for their success.

Download the advertising and promotions for small business MP3 file here. (13.38MB)

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Posted in Marketing, Marketing Podcasts, Small Business | No Comments »