“I-I-I wanna rock and roll all night…. And party every day! I-I-…” Oh, sorry wrong KISS. The KISS principle stands for, “Keep it Simple Stupid,” and was designed to keep designs and/or systems as simple as possible. It’s used in many fields from science to marketing and advertising. Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Dynamic Marketing
Markets are always changing and evolving, so why wouldn’t your marketing strategies do the same? Dynamic marketing is a strategy that maximizes customer data to create relevant, personalized, and flexible. There are 5 pillars of the dynamic marketing strategy. They are:
1. Personalization: We’ve stressed the importance of this in every aspect of your business. Customers expect this now. It is the norm. Tailor-made messages guarantee that your audience will be satisfied.
SEO & Voice Optimization
“Siri, look up the weather today… Alexa, find me the best-rated recent horror books.” The list of questions that we verbally ask our devices can get long really fast. We now live in a world that is synchronous with smart technology that ten years ago we would have said was impossible. Hell, we even ask our T.V.s to find specific shows for us now. It’s easy and convenient. That being said, we should preface this entire article by saying that typing a search and voice search are not the same. The main difference is that when people ask a question they usually speak more naturally, using long keywords.
5 Years on the Rails
Happy birthday to us! We absolutely cannot believe that it has been half a decade already on the tracks together. We’ve officially turned five years old and couldn’t be more excited about the years to come. We would like to thank all of our partners for trusting us with their UGC advertising campaigns. You helped us turn a dream into a reality. Thank you to all of our employees, especially those who have been with us since day one! You all are the cogs in the machine that makes this company run efficiently with all of your hard work. Lastly, big thanks to all the content creators out there!
Copywriting 101
Copywriting is the heart of good advertising and marketing. Copywriters are those who write headlines to get the viewer to take a particular action. They try to influence the audience with their work. There are a few different types of copywriters, such as social media, brand, SEO, and/or insight but what makes a good copywriter? Here are some things that good copywriting should embody.
Tips to Help You Calm Nerves Before Giving a Big Presentation
We recently wrote an article with some tips to become a better public speaker, which is very important in business. But, no matter how many times you have given a big presentation, your nerves most likely won’t go anywhere. This is a good thing. It means that you care. You want it to go well. That said, sometimes the anxiety can cause you to bomb or affect your confidence. So, how do you calm your nerves down before presenting? Here are some ways to help curb the nervousness that comes along with public speaking.
1. Focus on deep breathing: Take deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. A good 4-second count in and out as you breathe. This helps regulate your heart rate, blood pressure, and stress. You can do this before, during, and after speaking.
VUCA: Finding Order in Chaos
Que “Barbie Girl” song voice, “I’m a VUCA girl… in a VUCA world.” VUCA is chaos but what does it mean and how do we bring order to the mess? This concept came about to help us understand the complexities of the world around us concerning uncertainty, rapid changes, disruption, flux in the markets, etc. It seems uncontrollable right? Well, wrong. VUCA helps bring order to the chaos. The acronym stands for volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Let’s break each one down and see how one can use this as a guideline in a chaotic world.
Conversational Marketing
With the rise of A.I. communication styles from brand to consumer are evolving. We’ve all been on the line with a Chatbot at one time or another and this is exactly what conversational marketing is all about. Conversational marketing is a type of marketing that engages customers in real-time conversations with a two-way communication channel. It makes sense to think that speaking with customers and not at them is a more effective way to gain new leads. This style of communication has been leading to improved results in conversion rates because it helps humanize the customer experience. Among these, there are other benefits as well, such as:
1. Increased engagement
Agile Marketing
Agile marketing is a fairly new concept and wasn’t introduced until 2012. It’s a strategy that prioritizes high-value projects and concentrates all resources on them. The team(s) then work in short, intense bursts to complete goals, assess their impacts, and work toward getting better results next time. At the core of this method, its values are:
· Reacting to change instead of following a plan
· Rapid repetitions over larger campaigns
· Rapid repetitions over larger campaigns
· Testing data and validated learning instead of “rules”
· People and interactions over large audiences
· Customer-focused instead of hierarchy
Informational Social Influence
Monkey see. Monkey do, as the saying goes. Turns out that this might not be far from the truth. People tend to conform to what others are doing or saying if they perceive them as a source of accurate information. Humans like to be right, so they look to others who are considered experts in their respective fields to understand something deeper. This typically occurs when someone is unsure of something or lacks knowledge in a particular area. Informational social influence is associated with the internalization of said ideas adopted by the expert
Tailored Advertising
Think of your brand as a personal tailor for each customer of your audience. Your brand voice should remain consistent but customizable to communication style depending on your audience. Think of it like this, you’re selling the same suit but have to tailor that suit to fit each person differently. Same messages but different deliveries based on a particular group’s interests, perspectives, and backgrounds. Here are some tips to help you tailor your advertising efforts.
Buzzworthy: Ways to Create Hype for Your Product Launch
“Nearly 30,000 new products are introduced each year, and 95% of them fail,” according to Harvard Business Professor, Clayton Christensen. Look at Apple. When they release a new product, they don’t focus on the specs of the new product. Instead, they focus on the emotion of how it will affect the people who purchase it and how it fits into their lives to make it more convenient. That being said, big companies like Apple can afford to make mistakes if their new product launches, whereas smaller startups do not have this luxury. That’s why it’s extremely important to take proper steps to hype up your product launch. There are a lot of ways to create buzzworthy talk about your new product but we’re only going to list a few of our top favorites.
Labor Day Fun Facts
We’ve written about the history of Labor Day in the past, so this year we thought we’d throw some fun facts at you on the holiday. Here is a quick list of fun facts about Labor Day.
1. Oregon was the first state to declare Labor Day an official holiday in 1887
2. Labor Day is considered the unofficial NFL season kick-off
Agency Case Studies
The proof is in the pudding as they say. We recently sat down and crunched some numbers for a client and were excited to see the data on some of our projects so we wanted to share it. Not to toot our own horn, but we’re very proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish. Here are the results of a few of our favorite and most successful campaigns we’ve done in the recent year, so you can see for yourself.
UBER
The goal of this campaign was to showcase their employees living their work/life balance that’s different from other careers. They choose their hours and take time off when they want. Uber and their respective agency needed 22 videos of people showing what it was like getting ready for their current jobs in a humorous way.
Radio Advertising
Did video really kill the radio star? Is radio advertising still an effective tool with all of the streaming services, social media platforms, and podcasts available now? Let’s take a look at some stats first. “The average American listens to 1 hour and 39 minutes of radio daily,” according to research done by online Market Splash. That’s a surprising number but it demonstrates that people are still listening to the radio. There are some pros and cons, as with anything, to using radio advertising.
Presentation in Business: Become a Champ at Public Speaking
Did you know that, “About 77% of people have a fear of public speaking,” according to Cross River Therapy Group. Why is having good presentation skills important in business? Well, it can mean the difference between getting a new client, sharing knowledge efficiently with the team, and/or it will improve the impact of your message through a self-assured and grounded persona. Here are some reasons why it is vital in business.
Stand Out Advertising: How to Embrace Your Uniqueness
Trends come and go but good advertising lasts forever. We read a great article yesterday on the benefits of standing out from the crowd in the ad business or any business. We couldn’t agree more that it’s easy to go with the flow and just be like everyone else. The hard thing to do is be different and creativity should be wary of consensus. So, as humans how do we step into our uniqueness and let that shine through in a world that attempts to stifle it? Here are some steps you can take to embrace your one-of-a-kind self.
Data Storytelling
We’ve talked about good storytelling in past articles but what is data storytelling? Well, it’s just what it sounds like. It’s the usage of contextualized data collected by a business to craft a story that will be presented to your audience. They typically use infographics, visualizations, interactive maps, and articles. Just like any style of storytelling, data storytelling relies on engaging and informative narratives that can take very complex information and put it into laymen’s terms for the public. This is one of the benefits of data storytelling along with the ability to help brands understand their data and make good decisions going forward. Here are a few other reasons why data storytelling could be right for your business.
Celebrity Endorsement Advertising
Just one endorsement can spell an increase in sales by 4% almost immediately, according to Social Media Week. People idolize celebs and that’s no secret, so when brands use celebrities for their ads people are more interested in that product/service. These ads usually generate a lot of attention. Here are some reasons to use celebrity endorsement in your brand ads.
Business Strategy vs. Business Tactic
Strategy: an action plan that you will take to achieve a final goal. These are set to help businesses figure out what their long-term goals are. Tactic: individual steps taken to help the business achieve the end goal. These two work synonymously together to help a brand reach its goals. Both are necessary for brand success. How do you know if you have a good strategy and a good tactics plan?
