Spring Has Sprung (And So Should You)

by Steve Badertscher

While enjoying a cup of coffee on my patio yesterday, I really was in awe of the beauty that can be seen in all of God’s creation. It was evident in every direction I turned.

Living on a wooded lot, the first thing I noticed was that the trees are filling in and budding. My rapidly growing grass is currently a thick, lush green. Even the dandelions seem to have some redeeming qualities these days. It also seemed as if the animals have a little more pep in their step as the squirrels scurry from branch to branch and the birds serenade them with warbling reminiscent of a Disney movie soundtrack.

Beyond just recounting what a beautiful evening it was, it also reinforced that now is the perfect time to capture outdoor marketing communications visuals.

Our agency will be shooting footage over the next couple of weeks for a video we are creating to promote Marion, Ohio. This is the prime time of the year in the Midwest for capturing nature at its best. There will be a window between now and mid-June when the grass will be lush green, the skies will be crystal blue (when it’s not raining!) and most every flowering plant will be colorful and in bloom.

So if you have old photos of your facilities that need to be updated due to an expansion, now would be the time to schedule shooting new images, whether you need video or stills. Or if the most current annual report photo of your plant has a parking lot full of cars produced pre-1970, now might be a good time to remedy that for the future.

Also, if you need to update outdoor video footage for your training or product videos, shooting now while the grass isn’t brown, the trees aren’t bare or the snow isn’t flying (been there, done that) leaves a much better impression of your company.

Spring has officially sprung, and you should too. Schedule that outdoor video or photo shoot today. This current window of great scenery is something you should take full advantage of.

Flickr Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/booleansplit/

A (New) Case For Direct Mail

by Steve Fodor

Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere, you’ve experienced the explosion of e-mail and mobile marketing. It’s revolutionized marketers’ abilities to cost-efficiently communicate with more customers, create conversations and engage with a brand’s target audience.

But, to quote an old cliché, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you see every problem as a nail.”

I still love direct mail for what it can do…and for what e-mail and mobile marketing cannot do (yet, anyway.)

Here are a few (and certainly by no means all) considerations for making direct mail part of your marketing mix:

· Recipients can take more time. How aggravating is it to open an e-mail and see that it’s a l-o-n-g one? If you have a technical or highly involved sale, direct mail can deliver a “complex” story in a more passive environment than an e-mail in-box. Adding a personalized letter with related elements (brochure, white paper, DVD, etc.) can increase readership as much as 45%.

· Credibility. Spam has made even so-called “junk” mail from the post office more credible. Privacy issues and fear of opening or responding are less prevalent with direct mail. Credibility is vital if you’re marketing a high-end/high-ticket product.

· Human beings are tactile creatures. Direct mail allows you to touch, feel and interact with the medium. Paper stocks and certain type fonts can create a “feeling,” or ambience, for your brand. Adding a dimensional feature to direct mail can elevate its perceived importance. You’re curious to see if there’s something “good” in there. This can be especially relevant if your selling proposition is based on emotional appeal. And the more senses we humans use to process information, the more likely we are to remember that information.

I could go on and on about the pros and cons of direct mail vs. e-mail. The point is, think about what you’re selling, the brand impression you need to make and what you require from a medium to deliver your message in a creative and memorable way. Let that drive your media selection. Not just cost per exposure.

Send me an e-mail if you agree.

Flickr Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/powerbooktrance/

What It Means To Be A "Big" Advertising Agency Brand

by Steve Fodor.

I’ve worked in the advertising business for over 20 years now. During that time, I’ve worked for big agencies in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. I’ve worked for agencies that handled major consumer brands and positioned themselves as “one-stop shops” and that have won countless creative awards.

I used to think that “bigger was always better” and you had to be in a big city to be “big-time” in advertising and marketing.

But I see the world differently today. I’ve come to realize that what you stand for is far more important than how big you are or how many accolades hang on your wall.
Twenty years ago, I never thought that I would end up working for an ad agency in, of all places, Marion, Ohio. Marion is a Midwestern manufacturing town. We’re going through some “rust belt” changes. It’s not a big city by any means. The people are nice and have humble values. And I work for a smaller agency now that does one thing: Business-to-business, industrial marketing. We’ve even been recognized six times as a “Top U.S. agency” by Business-To-Business magazine.

I guess in today’s world, it really doesn’t matter how big you are or where you’re located. It matters more that you know what you’re good at and that you make it your mission to work hard and do the best you can. It matters that you have fun at what you do, that you like the people you work with and that you share common values.

Dare I say it: Size doesn’t really matter (sorry, Viagra). What matters is that people respect you because you respect them and that you go to work every day with the intent of doing your best at what you’re good at. That’s your brand, after all.

It took me twenty years to realize that.

Flickr Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/a2gemma/

Spending Limits Are Like Speed Limits

by Steve Badertscher

When asking your agency to develop the most cost-effective marketing communications campaign, the most critical word in that request is cost. As we like to say around here, “We are very good at what we do, but we’re not very good at guessing.” Let me explain.

When we are asked to develop a media plan for a new marketing communications program for example, one of the most important things to establish is a realistic budget. When given a budget figure at the outset, our account manager, creative director and media planner use it as a parameter when brainstorming creative media strategies, from which they subsequently develop a formal proposal that works within that agreed upon amount to present to the client. We don’t like surprises and neither do our clients.

We approach media planning, much like the other disciplines of our business, with a “get the most bang for your buck” perspective. In other words, we spend our client’s money the way we’d spend our own…very frugally. What we all want to avoid is spending several days developing what is thought to be a very effective plan utilizing every dollar to its fullest, only to find out when presenting it to the client that they only have a fraction of the proposed budget amount to work with.

With that being said, we think the best way to approach establishing (and communicating) budget limits with your agency is to think of them as “spending limits.” And spending limits are similar to speed limits.

For example, if you want someone to travel 25 miles per hour in your neighborhood, don’t post a speed limit sign that reads 35 mph with the hope that drivers realize children live in the area and will travel 25 mph. And consequently, drivers (read: agencies) shouldn’t ignore a speed limit stating 25 mph because they would much rather be driving 35 mph to get where they’re going faster. Another thing we like to say around here is, “Say what you mean and mean what you say.”

Post the limits. Obey the limits!

It really is that simple with communicating budgets, too.

Flickr Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/

Position is Important in Poker -- How about B2B E-Advertising? (Part 3)

by Brad Smith

There’s an important factor to consider before placing a B2B electronic banner ad – the same factor you should consider before placing a bet in a poker game. Position.

In poker, position is king. If you’re the last to act -- the last person to make the decision to fold, call or raise -- you’re in the strongest position. By the betting choices your opponents make, every other player at the table has to communicate to you something about the value of their hand before the action gets to you. I like to play from the best position.

When placing a B2B electronic banner ad, you also have to consider position. Is your ad at the top of the electronic newsletter, in the middle or the bottom? Are you on the B2B trade publication’s Web site homepage, or on an interior “subject” page (example – the “trailer” page of a “trucking” Web site)?

Is the top the best performing position? How about a top vertical leaderboard on the side? Remember, with B2B e-advertising you can measure performance in the number of times a prospect clicked on your banner ad.

Do the positions at the top of the screen get the most attention and readership? Apparently not – in the recent campaign we’ve been tracking for one of our clients, the highest responses, in two separate markets, have been from trade publication e-newsletters – and our ad has been at the bottom or middle positions. In both cases, these ads have been positioned below the electronic “fold” so to speak. If your results have been similar or different, I’d like to hear from you.

Flickr Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wrote/

Do B2B Banner Ad Results Mirror the Value of the Trade Publication Host? (Part 2)

by Brad Smith

As I covered in my last blog, we recently ran some electronic banner ads for a client, not to only sell more product, but also to learn more about the effectiveness of this relatively new B2B media option. We tracked the Web site hits that came from each banner ad we ran.

And in the back of my mind, I was thinking the tracking results could shed some light on the perceived reader value of the publications involved. After all, the “content” used on a B2B magazine’s Web site or e-newsletter often comes from the magazine itself, and is often put together by the same journalists.

Here’s an example of the results in one market segment served by three magazines. The numbers evaluation – circulation to key audiences and ad rates – is fairly close on these books. The more subjective comparison is the value of the editorial to our key audiences. (And since the content is the reason our client's prospects read the magazine in the first place, you could argue this is the key criteria. And a better way to gauge media value than artificial and often nebulous ad space rates.)

Publication 1 e-newsletter – 80 hits
Publication 2 Web site – 30 hits
Publication 3 Web site and e-newsletter – 0 hits

Guess who isn’t going to be on the media schedule next year? Think this is a fair evaluation method of a trade magazine’s perceived editorial value?

Key Words: Evaluation method of a trade magazine’s perceived editorial value. Tracking website hits from banner ads, Do B2B Banner Ad Results Mirror the Value of the Trade Publication Host.

Flickr Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenore-m/

A New Adage to Guide B2B Banner Ad Placement (Part 1)

by Brad Smith

Copy:
My Mom’s favorite adage is “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Well, here’s my new adage for B2B banner advertising – “It’s not what you say, it’s where you say it.”

We recently created an electronic ad campaign for a client as one of several vehicles to help introduce a revolutionary new product. Since seeing is believing, we wanted to drive traffic to the client's Web site to view a video of the product in action.

The side benefit to this was linking each electronic ad to a separate Web landing page. Of course these were actually multiple identical versions of the same page, set up solely for the purpose of measuring the hits or “click-thrus” from each banner ad.

Banner ads were placed on B2B publication Web sites and in the opt-in e-newsletters many trade publications offer. This was repeated in three different market segments.

The results of tracking after two months – of all the click-thrus received, 82% came from the e-newsletters.

Are you surprised? Are you seeing the same or different results? Let me know.

Flickr Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/orangeacid/