“Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are.”

“Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are.”

                 -- ancient proverb

Below you will find four of my favorite reads – out of a library that is way too large to be sensible… 

 

Selling the Invisible – Harry Beckwith

Selling the Invisible is pure analog in a digital world.  It remains my favorite book of all time and I have given away hundreds of copies over the years.  Originally published in 1977, it is a marketing classic.  When I taught a marketing class for new franchisees at Tuffy Auto Service Centers, it was required reading.  I gave everyone who attended a copy.  I still read this book each year and continue to discover new ideas that can be applied to business today.  I believe the longest chapter is 4 pages.  Among his gems, “Too often, service sucks.”  Before you launch a marketing campaign, fix your service.  “Bad news, you are competing with Walt Disney.” (Page 8)   Be sure to read, “A Butterfly Named Roger” (page 11).  “Life is Like High School” (page 51).  “Brands and the Baby-Sitter” page 163.  Better yet, it is only 250 small pages.  Read it all. 

Contagious: Why Thinks Catch On - Jonah Berger

What makes things popular?  Jonah Berger looks at why people talk about some ideas and products but not others.  He looks beyond advertising and focuses on what gets consumers talking.  Look at Social Currency (page 29) – we share things that make us look good.  Learn why a cheesesteak costs $100 and is a best seller (page 2).  How Kit Kat used coffee as a trigger to boost sales (page 81).  Social proof (page 128) and why the line at a restaurant reaches around the block… 

A/BTesting: The Most Powerful Way to Turn Clicks Into Customers - Dan Siroker andPete Koomen

You see this book advertised a lot on Linked In.  I was exposed to it by ChrisTiutan at Optimizely.  Dan and Pete are the co-founders of Optimizely and wrote the book.  A/B Testing gives you a lot of ideas and case studies on how the smallest changes on your web site can yield amazing results.  Test and measure.  I find that the concept really embodies a way of thinking that applies outside of web sites, and is really a commentary on how marketers should not take anything for granted.  Test and measure other marketing decisions.  You never know when a change of a single term from “Submit” to “Support” means millions of dollars (page 61). 

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - Malcolm Gladwell.

 

Actually anything by Gladwell is a great read.  I also like David & Goliath, The Tipping Point (Troy and I were talking about The Tipping Point earlier this week.), What the Dog Saw and Outliers.  “Blink is a book about those first two seconds.”  The first two seconds is when many of us make our decision.  Gladwell shares stories that quantify this intellectual/emotional reaction and explains how most of the time we are….  You will have to read it to find the answer. 

Enjoy the weekend.

Go Broncos.

 

 

“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.” ~ Jonathan Swift

Take These Predictions to Las Vegas and Win a Fortune!

 

New year, new research.  Here is the outlook for spending on advertising in San Antonio for 2014 and beyond.  This information is derived from Borrell Research .  Borrell tracks local market spending in more than a 100 business segments and projects advertising and promotional spending levels for each of these segments down to the local market.  They are best known for tracking digital spending.  If you would like to see this data on a single business segment (health, education, tourism, retail, etc.), just let me know and I will send it right over.  These numbers represent Local spending only – advertising dollars generated and spent in San Antonio.

Total Spending By Medium In Millions

 

At a glance, the trends for most mediums shows modest growth over the three years projected. 

·       By 2006, Cable TV, Cinema, Local TV, Newspapers and Out of Home show growth over 2013.

·       Direct Mail, Directories, Other Print and Radio show decreases in spending. 

·       Telemarketing remains flat over the four years.

The largest growing category is undeniably Online.  Where is the online growth coming from?

Online Spending in Millions

 

·       The two growth categories are in Targeted Display and Online Video.

·       Email and Search are showing signs of declined spending.

·       Static Display is in a free fall.

Think NSA

There are several factors contributing to the growth in these two categories.  Our ability to target ads today is unprecedented.  Combine geography with demographics, behavior, and site content with ad insertion at the content level.  Does your client fix roofs?  Their ad can run next to an article on storm damage.  Also “Hands down, search ads beat display ads in click through rates (CTRs).”  Display ads are simply more visually appealing than simple text ads and offer more rich media flexibility.

Video advertising will increase for two important reasons.  First, the targeting available for video now mimics the targeting you achieve with Targeted Display.  Not only can you target consumers by geography, demographics, behavior and site content, you now can target consumers based on story content.  An ad for The Children’s Hospital of San Antonio can run as a pre-roll video in front of a story driven by keywords and phrases – like The Top Three Ways to Baby Proof Your Home. 

Another powerful factor in the growth for Video advertising is the cost benefit.  Retailers are looking at Online Video as a way to move displaced TV dollars because of rising TV rates in the market.  As the rates increase throughout the year, they are faced with fewer spots at higher rates.  Now there are viable online options to keep that money in the market working for them, with some added benefits.  Online video targeting is increasingly more accurate.  Since tracking is online and almost instantaneous, you know the spot was watched and are not at the mercy of ratings (estimates) and postings (history from the previous quarter).  If a spot’s performance isn’t meeting expectations, we can move the ad to a web site that is working better.  This week.  And unlike broadcast advertising, the online nature, with the click through option, allows you to develop creative ideas that would not work on air, but are powerful motivators to encourage online behavior.  “Click on my head now to save $5!”

Now you know the future of advertising in San Antonio.  Book it!

The Power of Storytelling

Years ago I learned the first step to solving a problem to assign blame…   At least it seems that way in many organizations. 

When a campaign doesn’t achieve the anticipated results, who is to blame?

Usually the argument comes down to Targeting versus Creative.  Today I want to look at the creative side of the equation.  Typically I spend my time talking about the targeting side of digital marketing, but the Creative side of a campaign is equally important.  It is one of the reasons I am a big proponent of A/B testing.  Launch with two or three versions of the creative and let the consumer vote on which one is most effective, then optimize towards the results. 

One of my favorite campaigns goes back to my days at Hickory Farms.  It embodied the very essence of storytelling.  Three spots for the upcoming Christmas season focused on storytelling.  We felt that story telling was the very best method for explaining why a Hickory Farms gift was different from all the other gifting choices available at the holiday season.   It was not Hickory Farms versus Harry & David, but Hickory Farms versus the mall!

The spots were beautifully done (we spent more than a million dollars creating them) and each one was shot on location.  For our Sweet Elegance chocolates we took you to the factory and showed the ladies hand dipping each piece…  For the preserves spot we took you to a farm in Michigan where the blueberries were grown and picked by hand before being transformed into Hickory Farms Blueberry Preserves…  Beautiful work.  (I wonder what Jack Bancer is doing now.)  Beautiful results. 

Recently while scouring the web I came across a great article - How to Use the Persuasive Power of Mini-Stories in Your Sales Copy and it reminded me of the power of great storytelling in advertising.  “Stories are spellbinding and persuasive because the reader experiences a different world. Jeremy Dean explains that when we’re transported to another world, we’re less likely to notice when something doesn’t quite match up with our own experiences. We’re less likely to question what’s happening in a story. Moreover, our barriers to sales messages go down because the messages slip under the radar. We don’t notice we’re being sold something when we are engaged in a story.”

Hickory Farms sells chocolates?  Preserves?  Coffee?  I thought they were the meat and cheese place.

Here are a few of the key points…

1. Increase Desire to Own Your Product

Research has shown that when people hold a product in their hands, their desire to own it increases.  Story telling is a way to get the consumer to “hold your product”.

2. Persuade by Appealing to the Senses

When you read sensory words – like stinky or sweet, sparkling or rough – the areas of your brain that light up are different from those that are affected when you read non-sensory words – like bad, nice, or good. Even when you are just reading, your brain acts as if you actually smell a sweet aroma, feel a rough texture, or see a sparkling diamond.

3. Make a Boring Product More Fascinating

In the 1920s, copywriter Claude Hopkins was appointed to help Schlitz gain market share. Hopkins suggested that Schlitz tell consumers the detailed story of how water used for Schlitz beer is purified. This purification process is nothing special. Every beer company uses it. But Schlitz stood out because it was the only company telling the story…

4. Add Personality to Strengthen Your Brand

The copywriters at The J Peterman Company excel in telling mini-stories:  I was browsing in a Paris antique shop one winter afternoon when a fitted leather train case caught my eye.  It contained silver-handled brushes, boot hooks, a straight razor, several silver-stoppered glass bottles…  One bottle was different. Encased in yew-wood, with a handwritten date: 1903.  Inside the bottle, there was still the faint, intriguing aroma of a gentleman’s cologne. A “prescription” cologne, custom-made for a rich traveler a century ago.

More great tips in the article.  Enjoy! 

Is TV Still King?

Is TV Still King? 

This question, in various forms, gets asked of me a lot.  Perhaps because I work for a TV station.  In the Digital Sales Department.  The answer..
Yes.
No.
It depends.  If TV advertising works for you, then it is king.  If not... 

"The very best marketing comes from observing consumer behavior and inserting your message into their behavior."

There is no doubt that TV advertising allows tremendous reach in a market.  If broad reach (geographically and compositionally) is a primary concern, then TV can work for you.  Few mediums allow for the reach of TV at such a low CPM. 

However one of the downsides of TV advertising is that frequently an advertiser is paying for reach that is of little importance to them.  For example:  If you sell a product that is 100% consumed by women, then many of the programs reached by television have an element of waste - men watching the programming you are buying.

TV spots can be targeted. Research exists that show the make up of the individuals who watch the show.  However, most TV is priced based on ratings points at the Household (HH) level.  So if the news is priced at $100 per point and the show is 50%/50% M/F, what is your CPP (Cost Per Point) for the female portion of the audience? 

$200.  Just because you only sell to the female audience, you still incur the cost of reaching the male portion of the overall audience.  You reach half the population for the same price that a business is charged that sells to both males and females.

Want to get a better Cost Per Point?  Make sure your sales rep runs a ranker report that shows you the very best shows for hitting your target audience.

If your target audience is a very narrow, focused consumer sub-set (left handed, coffee drinker within two miles of your shop), there are other alternatives.  Alternatives will be explored in a future post.

Digital Set to Surpass TV in Time Spent withUS Media

Average time spent with digital media per day will surpass TV viewing time for the first time this year…
Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Digital-Set-Surpass-TV-Time-Spent-with-US-Media/1010096#LfxMXHwZ90PeyI2y.99

10 Surprising Social Media Statistics...

Here is an article I found on TheNextWeb.com that is a fun and informative!

10 surprising social media statistics that might make you rethink your social strategy

Highlights:

·       The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 54-64 year age bracket

·       189 million Facebook Users are “mobile only”

·       You Tube reaches more US adults age 18-34 than any cable network

·       Every second two new members join Linked In

·       Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web

·       Linked In Has  lower percentage of active users than Pinterest, Google+, Twitter and Facebook

·       93% of marketers use social media for business

·       25% of smartphone owners ages 18-44 say they can’t recall the last time their smartphone wasn’t next to them

·       Even though 62% of marketers blog or plan to blog, only 9% of US marketing companies employ a full time blogger

·       25% of Facebook users don’t bother with privacy settings

Enjoy and here’s to a successful 2014.

 

Smartphones accounted for nearly twice as much traffic as tablets, but tablets produced twice the sales volume of phones.

A quick look at the 4th Quarter...  The following article appeared today on DMNews.com and was written by Al Urbanski. 

News Byte: Online Sellers Had a Mobile Little Christmas

Next year NORAD may well have to be enlisted to track mobile-enabled holiday purchases, which soared as high as Santa's sleigh in 2013. Here are highlights from the final holiday online scorecard from IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark.

• Mobile traffic on commerce sites leaped 40% over 2012, accounting for nearly 35% of all online traffic. Nearly 17% of all online purchases were made via mobile devices, buoyed by a 46% rise in activity.
• Smartphones accounted for nearly twice as much traffic as tablets, but tablets produced twice the sales volume of phones. Tablets drove 11.5% of online sales with average orders of $118.09 to $104.72 for mobile phones.
• iOS-operated devices were the Apples of e-coms' eyes during the holidays, driving 12.7% of sales compared to a mere 2.6% for Androids.
• Overall Q4 online sales rose by 10.2% over 2012, making digital purchasing the star of the season in the face of overall retail increases in the 2% to 3% range, according to several trackers.

TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

TVI s Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It 

Above is a link to a very compelling article.  According to Jim Edwards, TV is dying.  However, I believe it would be more accurate to say that the medium of TV is wounded. Content remains King.  A large portion of what we are witnessing is the migration of the medium.  The content is being consumed, it is the manner in which it is being consumed that is changing.

For example, while the overall ratings are declining on traditional viewing, theamount of time spent daily viewing DVRs has risen from 16 minutes per day in 2009 to 26 minutes per day in 2013.  “I am still going to watch Modern Family.  I am just doing it when it is convenient to me.” 

Here are a few highlights from the report:

·       Media stock analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson recently noted, "The pay-TV industry has reported its worst 12-month stretch ever." All the major TV providers lost a collective 113,000 subscribers in Q3 2013. That doesn't sound like a huge deal — but it includes internet subscribers, too.

·       Time Warner lost 306,000 TV subscribers in Q3.

·       Cable TV ratings are sinking.  Looking at the most recent 14 quarters, cable ratings have declined over the prior year in 11 quarters.

·       Primetime U.S. Network Ratings are declining.

·       Ratings for some major TV events are in decline.  World Series and NBA to name two.

·       Nearly 5 million cable subscribers have gone elsewhere in the last 5 years.

·       It used to be that up to 500,000 new subscriptions would be added across all companies in any given quarter. But now, cable and internet companies are lucky if they get any new subscribers at all.

·       …  People are giving up on cable TV as a standalone product, and the market is shifting in favor of telco companies like AT&T and Verizon who offer TV as a package with high-speed internet access

·       One macro-economic factor behind the decline is that fewer houses actually have TV.  These charts, from Citi Research, show that the total "Nielsen TV Universe" — the number of people who watch TV — is declining

·       Fewer households have TV because they are watching video on mobile devices instead

·       Tablets are stealing prime time, the period we used to devote to TV.

·       … Cable TV revenues are still rising because companies are charging the dwindling number of customers more in subscription fees. According to analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson, those higher prices are "part of the problem" that pushes out poor subscribers — losing the TV business even more eyeballs:

·       Free wifi — at work, in coffee shops, and on campuses — is making it easier for consumers to get the shows, movies and videos they want without subscribing to any kind of cable or broadband service

“The very best marketing comes from observing consumer behavior and inserting your message into their behavior.”  The change in the consumer’s viewing habits is one of the reasons digital marketing is so compelling.