Tag Archives: Marketing and Advertising

September 16, 2014 · 10:54 am

Can You Trust Your Customers?

It’s not news to any of you who are paying attention to media but we’re at a tipping point.

1898 advertising poster

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The cracks in the traditional patterns of media consumption have widened to a point where the foundations of those patterns are falling down. Need proof? How about this morning’s piece is the Wall Street Journal:

Hopes that TV advertising will rebound this fall are beginning to dim. TV networks have been banking on a surge in ad spending in coming weeks, ever since an anemic second quarter reported by media companies and a weaker-than-expected “upfront” advance ad-sales market for the new season. The new season doesn’t kick off until next week but already sentiment is starting to change. On Monday, Jeffries analyst John Janedis lowered his estimates for advertising revenue growth in the second half of the year for most of the biggest media companies

Or this from Kantar Media:

“Four of the nation’s five biggest advertisers,” including Procter & Gamble and AT&T, “cut ad spending on traditional media and online display in the first half of the year.”

So now what?

Millennials spend 30 percent of their time with content created by their peers. This means they’re spending more time with peer-created content than traditional media combined (print, TV, and radio).  Nielsen’s most recent study indicates that Americans aged 18-24 watched a weekly average of 19 hours of traditional TV during Q2 2014. That was a substantial 2-and-a-half-hour drop-off from Q2 2013, which in turn had been down by an hour from the year before.  Spending more heavily in those channels isn’t going to happen.  The impact of most digital display is negligible.  Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

The answer might just be in the audience itself.  Putting consumers and their messages about the brand front and center – probably through social channels – might just be the way forward.  That’s where is the audience is spending time and the messages are from trusted sources.  As Nielsen found:

Word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family, often referred to as earned advertising, are still the most influential, as 84 percent of global respondents across 58 countries to the Nielsen online survey said this source was the most trustworthy

The real question is do you trust your consumers enough to hand over your brand?  Can you get on board with them creating content that you’ll push for them?  Are you willing to provide tools – images, logos, whatever – or to promote the products that consumers choose, not those slated for promotion in the marketing plan?

Interesting times.  What’s your take?

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September 9, 2014 · 12:42 pm

Stand By Me

Every once in a while something happens that restores my faith in how smart businesses deal with their customers.

Wüsthof

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today is such a day and the company is the folks at Wusthof.  Let me relate the particulars and hopefully it brings a smile to your face as it did to mine.  More importantly, hopefully there is a business point that’s helpful in your business.

As you might know if you read the screed, I like to cook.  One very important part of the effort for me is having sharp knives.  Over time I’ve actually convinced the other cooks in my home that keeping the knives sharp makes cooking easier and accidents less likely.  While the knives get honed all the time, every so often they get a real, professional sharpening.  Today was one of those days.

The Mrs. took many of the knives in our collection to the local Wusthof outlet which does sharpening.  Most of our knives are that brand and we’ve been assembling the collection for the last 20+ years.  She gave them to the salesperson who looked them over and said that she wouldn’t sharpen some of them since the handles were beginning to crack and they ought to be replaced.  Since we never put knives in the dishwasher this must have been from normal use (although frankly I never noticed anything).

This is where my faith was restored.  The salesperson informed my wife that Wusthof stands by their knives and she was going to replace all the ones in question.  For free.  After having the remaining knives sharpened, my wife walked out with 5 new knives – easily worth a few hundred dollars – and a shocked smile on her face.  She never asked to have them replaced – we never even noticed anything was amiss other than they needed sharpening.

What is the official knife of me?  What brand will I be recommending?  Duh.  But this is how customers should be treated, whether it’s a high-end knife or something else.  Brand loyalty is a two-way street.  It’s earned before it’s given and you have to stand with the customer, not oppose them.  To any of you who will be receiving gifts from me in the near future, expect something sharp.  To those of you trying to create fans, you can use all the social tools and run all the ads you want.  Nothing can do so as well as one customer having an amazing experience and telling the world about how great your brand is.

Got it?

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September 2, 2014 · 11:36 am

Mistakes You’re Making With Content

Now that the summer is over (I’ll wait while you boo), many marketing teams are getting back to work.

Collection of Marteting books

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One area that is on many of their minds is content marketing.  I’m a fan when it’s done right and unfortunately it’s increasingly rare that brands are going down that path in a way I admire.  Let me explain.

As the folks as the Content Marketing Institute say:

Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

Putting aside how and why there is already an “institute” for something so relatively new, I like that definition because it emphasizes what’s missing in much of what’s being produced – value.  As an aside, the fact that it only implies a customer-centric view is a shortcoming but I guess that if you’re focusing on “valuable” you must focus on the recipient’s view and not your own.

That’s the first mistake many companies make.   This isn’t advertising, folks.  Yes, potential customers are after information but they are trying to make intelligent, informed decisions.  Done properly, good content marketing fills that needs and helps them to do so.  Done badly, it’s another ad they toss and ignore.

We all know people on social media who overshare.  I don’t mean that in the Too Much Information sense (no, I don’t care what you had for breakfast) but in the 100 posts a day sense.  They share or retweet damn near everything that crosses into their stream.  Bad content marketers make the same mistake.  Sure, you’re just trying to be helpful but you need to strike a balance between helpful and annoying.  When you have something useful to say, by all means say it.  When you’re just publishing to make noise, think again.

Finally, one tenet of creating any kind of content is to write what you know.  Companies who make cars shouldn’t be giving out recipes unless they’re hiring noted chefs to write them and publishing them is a way that makes sense:  here is how to use your new Model X for tailgating and here is some great recipes to help you to do so.  You can’t be all things to all people.  Be a resource in your areas of expertise and avoid all the others.  Your audience will thank you.

Oh – one last thing.  Do NOT hide an ad as a piece of research or a white paper.  I’ve written about that elsewhere so I won’t belabor the point.  Be transparent.  Be real.  Add value.  Don’t be sneaky.  Your thoughts?

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