Importance of Mobile Optimization

We assume that your brand wants to reach every consumer that it can! If this is true, then your business must adopt a mindset that has the mobile experience in the forefront. In our previous article we talked about how different generations require different marketing techniques. Many of these reasons are due to technological preferences across generations. According to the HubSpot State of U.S. Consumer Trends, 56% of people surveyed stated that they use their mobile phones for searches and 44% of those people discover new products through these mobile searches. You’re probably reading this article on your phone right now aren’t you? It’s important that whatever your brand is putting out there not only looks great on desktop format but also on a smartphone. The more user-friendly things are the more likely they are to stay and discover what your brand has to offer them. It should be noted that mobile optimization and mobile friendly are not the same. Mobile friendly will display on smaller screens but mobile optimization will actually reformat itself for a mobile device. Websites should not only be clean but simple to navigate as well. Improving your brands mobile optimization of its website, newsletters, etc. will get you higher search engine rankings, increased positive audience experiences and in turn, more business.

Email Marketing: Avoiding the Spam Folder

Spam filters are a great invention! It saves you from looking at unwanted emails constantly. However, as a brand or business owner, it can be a tough challenge to bypass in order to make sure your newsletters and other forms of email marketing are getting through. Spam filters work by using certain methods to identify potential red flags, such as checking the IP address against a black list of known spammers, deceptive subject lines and content within the email. These are all good things but when it comes to your marketing campaigns not so much. So, what are some solid ways to keep your emails out of the spam folders? Here are some of our tips.

1. Avoid spam triggers by:

   1. Always using an unsubscribe button

   2. Avoiding subject lines with all caps or exclamation points

   3. Staying away from attachments

   4. Adding too many images

2. Proof read people! Phishing emails tend to be laden with grammatical errors and can send your email to the spam folder if it contains to many typos.

3. Always get permission. This one goes without saying but let us reiterate. Make sure that your newsletter email list is full of people who have consented to receive them.

4. Email your subscribers regularly. This will help the spam checker to weed you out as a real person and not spam since your regularly sending emails to their addresses.

5. Whitelist your emails. All this means is that your recipients will add your email address to their contact list. Then, the spam checker will tell your emails to go into their inbox instead of the graveyard.

6. Use spam checkers. This system helps assist you in checking your emails for potential spam-like content. GlockApps and Mailmeteor are two great systems.

We hope this helps you on your email marketing journey. “41.5% of brands state that email marketing is critical to business success,” according to Litmus and we couldn’t agree more. Here at Locomotive we are always looking for more ways to improve our marketing and grateful to share our findings.

How Generational Difference Effect Marketing Strategies

A generation is a group of people born around the same time. There are differences between the values, beliefs and opinions between each group. For marketing and advertising, we deal with Boomers, Gen. X, Millennials, and Gen Z as of today. Here are some interesting differences in the way that generations deal with commerce.

• Gen Z often discover new products on social media but would prefer to purchase in store according to State of Consumer Trends Report.

• However, that being said, Gen X and Millennials prefer retail stores and internet searches to discover new products. Although,51% of Millennials discover new products on social media as well. Gen X prefers retail stores for new product discovery (HubSpot).

  Gen X will research a product to death to avoid regretting their purchases (Salesfloor).

• All three generations say price as the most important motivator for brand loyalty and purchases (Data Axle).

• 82% of Millennials say word-of-mouth is key influencer of purchasing decisions (Salesfloor).

This is only the tip of the iceberg for how generational differences can affect the way your brand will have to tailor the marketing and advertising experiences. To properly understand what motivates your target market you must first identify what it is and then research what motivates them.

Creative Ways to Advertise

Did you know that it typically takes 5-7 brand interactions before a consumer remember the brand? (Start Up Bonsai) We’ve written articles in the past on how to make your advertisements stand out from the crowd with the use of Interactive Advertising. We’ve also talked about what contributes to the effectiveness of an advertisement. Creativity will always win in advertising campaigns so why should the way that you advertise be any different? Not only should the advertisements themselves stand out, the way that you advertise should as well. Here are some creative and not so creative, but tried and tested, ideas to get you started.

1.     Magazines. This type of advertising is one of the oldest. Ads began in newspapers so this is similar. This can cost your brand anywhere from $500-$20K depending on which publication it is as well as the placement within the magazine. Ads in the back are typically better so they are going to cost your brand more. Cost will also be affected by the size and colors you choose.

2.     Sponsor local city maps. This one is a bit old school but tested to work. This will work especially well if your brand is located in a tourist destination.

3.     Use the space creatively. Put an ad on the celling of a building. On the floor or the staircase. Use the space creatively to draw attention to the campaign.

4.     Swag. Everyone loves free stuff and it helps your brand advertise. Think pens, tee shirts, reusable water bottles, stickers, bottle openers, etc. Keep costs low by ordering early, buying in bulk, shopping around for the best deals and also negotiate pricing.

5.     Vehicle wraps. We’ve all seen the bus side ads. It’s dynamic since the vehicle is always in motion. Many people will see the ad but make sure that it legible to read in motion. This type of advertising is also a bit costly ranging anywhere from $3K-5K. That being said, this type of ad generates 2.5x’s more attention than static billboards according to Sign Post. You can easily find companies in your area that specialize in vehicle wraps with a simple Google search. 

6.     Banner Ads. Banner ads are a great way to get your brand to the eyes of those that potentially are interested in what you have to offer. These are placed on specific websites that have similar interest to your business through publishers. This can help grow your audience big time. They should be animated to get the viewers’ attention immediately. Costs of this type of advertising varies. Some do 50cents per 1,000 impressions. Meaning that it will be displayed 1,000 times. Some charge one-time fees for a specified span of time.

These are some fun ways to mix up the ways that your brand is advertising. Not only should your advertisement be creatively sound, the way that you choose to advertise that campaign should be as well. We hope this helps give you some ideas to add diversity to your advertising strategies.

Friday Favorite 7/22

Food gives us all the feels. It taps into all of our senses and invokes emotional responses. A restauranteur in Philadelphia has opened a one of a kind restaurant, Feeladelphia. Inspired by Philly cream cheese, the menu is curated by Jeramiah Stone and Fabian Von Hauske Valtierra. They want the guests to “order feelings, not food” in the first of its kind dine-out experience. The advertising campaign shows the chef creating a dish with cream cheese and finishes with text that says, “A restaurant where you don’t order food. You order feelings.” This ad was created by Gut Miami in partnership with Philadelphia Cream Cheese.

Desktop Posting Guide

Did you know that you can post to Instagram from your desktop computer? Yea, neither did we! We recently learned that this was an option so we thought we’d share a quick tutorial on how to do it. It’s basically the same as from your phone but the video quality is better. Sometimes when posting from your phone the quality of the video decreases. Ok to create a post from your desktop first click the add button on Instagram. It will prompt you do select from your computer. Select the photo or video you want. You can change the aspect ratio as well as do a carousel. Click next. It will then prompt you to choose the cover photo if using a video. You can then trim your video as well here and turn the sound on or off. If using a video, edit and click next. Finally, here is where you can add your caption, hashtags and location. Do this and you’re ready to post! Sharing from your desktop can be easier sometimes and you can avoid any decline in video quality. Happy posting!

Consumer Attitudes Toward Brands

Consumer attitudes play a large role in consumer behavior and their decision-making processes. Consumer attitudes are a composite of their beliefs, feelings and behavioral intentions toward your business. Beliefs are composed of past experiences to develop an attitude toward something. Sometimes feelings are based on beliefs people have, but can also be independent of it. Lastly, intention is what the consumer intends to do with respect to your product or service. Of course, all brands want consumers to have a positive attitude for their business. Some studies showed that consumers may change their attributes toward an existing product/service if exposed to new ones that reinforce positivity. Measuring consumer attitudes can be difficult because they can have conflicting beliefs and feelings about one thing at the same time. However, surveys can be done in order to get an idea of consumer’s attitudes for your brand. It can help your brand make future decisions on products and/or services and improve attitudes toward your brand.

Which Social Media Channels are Best for Brands

According to Statista the leading social media platform for brand marketers is Facebook at 93%, with Instagram coming in second at 78%. Even if you’re a content creator, you want to get more engagement and turn followers into customers. We couldn’t agree more with this statistic. Let’s think about why this is. Look at YouTube for example. Sure, you can monetize to make money here but, you can only engage with your followers if they leave comments on your videos. You can’t really build a relationship with your audience. What about TikTok? Oh man, do we have lots of thoughts on this platform. It’s great for viral videos but you don’t really get served content from people that you follow. It’ good for discovering new content creators but not so much for building good connections with your current followers. Aside from this, it’s important for content creators to know that anything filmed within the TikTok platform is the property of TikTok and that the creators do not actually own the rights to those videos. Furthermore, if a creator films inside the app, they cannot monetize their content in any way.  Personally, we believe that it’s best to generate revenue from your followers on Instagram because there are so many ways to connect with them through all their different features. The algorithm on this platform is also set up to give you more of the content from the people and brands that you love. It’s important to having a multifaceted approach to social media marketing. Using stories, feed, live, reels, polls, etc. this keeps your audience engaged and it will build stronger relationships with them.

Customer Acquisition Guide

If you’re in the business industry we’re sure you’ve heard of customer acquisition but just in case you might be a newer start up let us clarify it for you. It is the process of finding and guiding customer to buy from your business in a way that is measurable and repeatable. This happens in 6 stages: awareness, interest, consideration, intent, evaluation and finally purchase. Awareness and interest fall under the umbrella of leads. Consideration, intent and evaluation fall under prospect. Those who purchase are then your customers. To get started you need to calculate your customer acquisition cost (CAC). This is done by dividing the total cost of marketing spend by the number of new customers attained. There are certain industry averages that you can find on any Google search to get an idea of what yours should be. You must take steps before you get started to understand what your ideal customer is. If you don’t know ask yourself these questions. What you do customers accomplish with your service? What are their demographics? What benefit(s) does your product/service offer? Where do your customers source their information from? (This question will help you decide which channels your marketing strategies will be focused on.) Why would they not buy your product? When does the ideal customer make purchases? Now that you have an idea of how to identify your target market you must identify your business goals and decide which strategies you can use to obtain new customers. Here is a short list of some types of strategies you can consider.

1.     Influencer advertising/marketing

2.     Content marketing. UGC (sourced content) marketing/advertising

3.     Social media advertising/marketing

4.     Email marketing

5.     SEO

6.     Traditional paid advertising

7.     Referral programs

This quick guide is a way to help you get started with your customer acquisition for your business but isn’t a fully comprehensive guide. It’s important that your brand do the research in order to decide what the best plan may be. Once you have a strategy and have implemented it we’re sure you will get the results desired. However, getting new customers is only half of the battle. Keeping them is the other half. Customer retention is just as important. We will write another article in the near future on ways to ensure that once you have grabbed your audience’s attention, you keep them.

Friday Fun Fave 7/15/22

This week we turn to a print ad campaign that is nostalgic in its own way. This ad was illustrated by Aspire Doors, UK and showcases the first products of certain brands, such as Nintendo. It was shared on Media Samosa’s Instagram feed. It was surprising to see what many firsts that every day household name brands created first. Sony’s was a rice cooker created in Japan in 1946. Nokia created toilet paper in Finland in 1865. Take a quick look to see how these iconic brands began.

Top Reasons to Adopt UGC Into Your Advertising Strategy

It’s no secret that we love user generated content pieces. We’ll scream it to the mountain tops and swear by its effectiveness. We’ve written articles on the cost effectiveness of UGC, building brand trust with UGC and overall UGC statistics for making our case. But…just in case you aren’t sold yet, we’ve decided to put a list together to show you just why you should incorporate it into your advertising if you haven’t already.

1.     Increased customer engagement. People are more likely to share content created with UGC. Millennials share more UGC as well. There is a “28% increased engagement rate when UGC and product videos merge” (Comscore). 

2.     Brands are focusing on UGC. 16% of brands have an effective UGC marketing strategy already and 86% of companies understand the importance of it according to an article in Taggbox.

3.     Increases return visitors. Digital Information World Brands claims that brands featuring UGC on their sites have a 20% return rate.

4.     High impact. People spend more time watching UGC than produced content and it has a higher impact on the viewers.

Do you believe us now? We hope we’ve made you a believer as we fully trust what UGC has to offer in the advertising space. Contact us now for your consultation to get started! 

Neilson Global Marketing Report 2022

The 2022 global annual marketing report was released recently. This report surveys marketers across various industries in media globally to understand the behaviors with data. Here are the key pain point take aways from the report.

1. Expected budget changes:

   1. High increase of social media to 53% of budget

   2. 50% increase of display online/mobile budget

   3. 49% increase of video on online/mobile

   4. 37% increase on OTT-TC/connected-TV

2. Top marketing objectives:

   1. Brand awareness as most important

   2. Customer acquisition falling in second

   3. Customer retention third most important

   4. Customer advocacy

   5. Competitor conquest

   6. Churn reduction last

3. Beliefs on what positively influences campaign performance:

   1. Audience targeting comes in at the top

   2. Ad creative second

   3. Audience reach is third

   4. Data quality

   5. Personalization

4. Importance of diversity and CSR initiatives:

   1. 67% of DEI in marketing efforts

   2. 65% in content where ads are purchased

   3. 65% in vendor selection

   4. 68% in marketing effort as a company

   5. 68% environmental and social governance in marketing efforts

Brand awareness efforts, social media spend increases, DEI/CSR initiative importance and audience targeting are the ley take aways from the report. To read the full report click HERE.

National Malala Day 2022

We thought today we would take a break from all the data driven articles we’ve been writing and give a moment of appreciation to Malala Yousafzai. She was a women’s right’s activist in Pakistan and the youngest woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. As the daughter of a lower middle-class educator, she fought for woman’s right to education. She was educated by her father at home who was also an educational activist. Sadly, she was assassinated by the Taliban at the young age of 24 because of her activism efforts. Read more about Malala’s story and donate to the cause. 

Trending Video Marketing Investments

As we always say here at Locomotive, video content is King! It continues to be the top way to market to brand audiences. However, there are so many different styles of video marketing to consider now, so what types are brands investing in this year? Here is a quick list of our top three trending video marketing styles that brands are investing in.

1.     Short-form video. According to HubSpot, 58% of marketers use short form videos. Out of all video types this one provides the best ROI. Short form generally means anything under a few minutes. It should also be noted that the average engagement for short-form videos is around 50% (Wistia).

2.     Social media video. 93% of social media marketers say that it’s a vital component of their strategies and 85% of consumers say they want more videos on social from brands according to  Sprout Social. Give the people what they want and watch your return on investment increase.

3.     Long-form video. Long form video can be anywhere from 3-6 minutes long. One would think that longer videos see less engagement but that’s up for debate. YouTube is a great example of where longer form videos excel with a high ROI. Long form video creation has increased by 446% for videos between 30-60 minutes long and 228% for videos between 5-30 minutes long (Wistia).

Video marketing will always be the top way to achieve and retaining a successful marketing strategy for your brand. If your brand isn’t already investing in the power of these video marketing tools listed above, get on it quick. Staying up to date with current trends will keep you at the top of your game! And remember, User-Generated Content reigns.

Friday Fave 7/8/22

We know we’ve been doing a lot of blogs lately on women. With women’s rights issues in American now how could we not? Sorry not sorry but we promise that next week we will switch it up for you. This week’s campaign favorite is on beer. The history of beer that is and how women were involved in bringing it to the United States. Without women there would be no beer! Let’s face it, without women there wouldn’t be a lot of things. These “Ale Wives” ran the beer industry in the beginning. The infamous, Mary Lisle, began running a successful brewery in Philadelphia and was the first woman to do so. According to  Miller Light, women only run 7.5% of the beer industry today. What’s going on ladies? Our hope is that this changes in the near future! But for now, let’s keep supporting the women that in the industry and thank them for bringing this delicious beverage into our lives. Shout out to  Triple Bottom Brewing. This current Philly local, female owned & operated brewery, is keeping the Mary Lisle tradition alive. This advertisement was done by DDB Chicagoalongside Alma Agency.

Advertising Predictions 2022

2021 was a great rebound year for advertising after the catastrophic one that preceded. Now that some of the dust has settled, we’ve been seeing inflation; interest rates increasing at sizable rates and stocks dropping significantly. A recession is now predicted and feared to be here sooner than later. But what does that mean for the advertising industry? Let’s look at some history for some insight. According to AdAage, U.S. advertising spending decreased for the previous four recessions back to 1991. However, the really rough recessions before that, the kind that were “marked by periods of double-digit inflation,” advertising spend actually increased. For example, ad spend during the recession of 2009 was down -10.2% and the following year it increased to 8.8%. So, how do we know which will happen this year and the one following? Well, we don’t but we can speculate. At Locomotive we are optimistic. We expect a slight decline but not a full halt. We also believe we will see another large increase in digital marketing, just as we did in the midst of the 2020 pandemic with sourced content. Why, do you ask? Well, for one, it’s more cost efficient. With the rising cost of goods and services, agencies can use their budgets more efficiently with advertisements that utilize user generated content. Publicis Group’s, Zenith, expects internet ad spending to increase to 71% by 2024. Zenith also predicts overall ad spend to decrease this year to 11.6% from 18.7% in 2021. With that being said, it’s expected it to continue to drop in 2023 then begin rising again in 2024 with smaller gaps between overall advertising spend and internet ad spends.

Sorry! We know we just threw a lot of stats at you. It’s important to look at the past trends in order to predict what may be ahead. In summary, we expect internet advertising budgets to increase greatly. We predict that will inherently increase the number of agencies that utilize UGC content in their campaigns. We expect this, in part, due to increased budgeting caused by inflation.  The efficiency through using sourced content campaigns helps advertisers get better bang for their buck! It’s more cost effective.  We do expect this year to slow down, and most likely the following, but we have high hopes that it will slowly begin to increase again and we will see the trends from the earlier major recessions before 1991.  

Connecting Authentically with Black Americans

Do you know the difference between race and ethnicity? A lot of people are unaware that there is a difference between the two. Race is the division of different groups of people based on physical characteristics, such as skin color, eyes, etc. Ethnicity is a social group of people that share a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, etc. For this reason, African American is no longer an accepted term for people of color. Actually, 1 in 10 Black Americans are foreign born from many countries around the world and therefore, black is a more inclusive, widely accepted term now. Brands are now actively pursuing to reach their Black consumer market more than ever before. It is very important to be able to connect with Black audiences on an authentic level while remaining respectful to their culture and communities. We’ve gathered a list of ways to do just that. Although, not extensive, it will help you get started.

1. Cultural immersion. Do research. Hire experts to guide your choices. Using social media channels to gather information on things that are trending within that group can also provide good insight.

2. Avoid stereotypes & microaggressions. A microaggression is a back-handed compliment that feeds into a stereotype. For example, referencing that it is amazing that all Black Americans are good sprinters. Avoiding stereotypes all together is very important. Let go of any preconceived ideas that may exist in order to remain open to view the world through the lense of different cultures.

3. Know that systemic racism is real and understand it. Look up the “school-to-prison” pipeline if you’ve never heard of this. We’re sure you have but just in case… it states that boys of color are systematically disciplined more harshly. They also receive less support through counseling and police are more likely to be called on students of color that misbehave. This raises the risk of incarceration for these children. “60% of incarcerated people, are people of color,” according to a research study on systemic racism by Health Affairs. This is only one small example of systemic racism among many. Knowing that this is real and how it causes harm/trauma to the Black community will be essential to connecting.  

4. Remember that people are multifaceted. Again, this also implies DO NOT stereotype. Understand that Black cultures (as well as other cultures) consist of many types of people. Doctors, engineers, teachers, etc. They can often be disproportionately portrayed as entertainers, criminals, you get the idea. Also, intersectionality exists for everyone, including you and I. Really anyone for that matter. For example, a woman also follows a certain religion, she falls within a particular income bracket and a certain nationality. Therefore, sexuality, income, citizenship and ability all must be considered.

This is just a couple of main points, of many, that will help brand connect with their Black communities. It is in no way considered to be a comprehensive guide but mainly a starting point. If your brand was looking for help on ways to connect with their Black audiences we hope this helps. Personal connections are key to understanding all of your audiences and should be considered top priority.

Digital Marketing Trends 2022

Trending

Trending

Now that we’re at the end of the pandemic we can thankfully say that overall, this year been increasingly better than the previous two. Don’t you agree? Although we’re well into the summer, we’ve put together a quick list of things that are expected to be trending all year. They’ve been gaining steam and aren’t going anywhere. Here are our top 5.

1.     Influencer marketing. This one takes a top seat! Many sources say that influencer marketing is here to stay and not only that, it’s growing every year. People trust people more than they trust brands. We’ve known this for years. It’s why we do what we do. Harness the power of influencers to connect and engage with your audience. It will increase your sales, ROI and build trust between the brand and consumers. Watch this video to understand how to choose the right influencers for your brand.

2.     Organic content. At Locomotive we can’t stress this one enough. We thrive on organic, user generated content. We source all of our content with real humans to see what organic emotional responses our videos invoke for our campaigns with agencies.  Organic content improves the algorithm and according to Forbes, this is now everything!

3.     Humanized Marketing. The previous bullet brings us to our next trend of humanized marketing. It’s less about buttoned down professionalism now and more about conversational outlooks. People want to be treated like people. They don’t want to be sold anything and they want personalization.

4.     Live streams. According to Hubspot, “52% of marketers who invested in live streaming said it performed better than expected.” If you’re not live streaming for your brand, it is considered a BIG social media mistake. Make sure to take advantage of engaging with your customers in real-time to get feedback.

5.     Responsible Marketing. Being conscious with the environment in mind as well as socioeconomic issues. This includes diversity and transparency. Consumers want to support brands that aligns with their own values. Especially Gen Z.

These are only a few of the top digital marketing trends that are expected to be important this year. Staying up to date with current trends in the digital world will keep your business thriving. 2022 has been an interesting year so far in terms of economy and social issues but we’re optimistic that we will all finish out this year better than we began!

Happy 4th of July

It was July 4th of 1776 when Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. It’s been quite some time since then but every year we all celebrate the independence of our nation. How did it all begin? Why did it all begin? Well, “taxation without representation” started a rebellion that would last 10 years. Richard Henry Lee stated the famous words that, “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” Basically, the colonies wanted independence from the taxed imposed by Great Britain. This was the beginning of the drafting of the United States Constitution. July 1st was technically the date that Thomas Jefferson completed the document and 12 of 13 colonies voted. 9 in favor, 2 against (PA & SC), Delaware was undecided and New York abstained. Therefore, the Declaration of Independence was officially voted in on July 2nd 1776. However, the date that Second Continental Congress voted independence from Great Britain was July 4th to finalize it for approval.

            You probably knew all that to be honest. But… did you know that the first party celebrating Independence Day was the year after as a spontaneous thing in Philly at the Library of Congress? During this time, people set off fireworks, lit candles in their windows, decorated military vessels on the Delaware River shot off rounds and families-built bonfires to celebrate their freedom from Britain. Oh, and of course booze. Lots of booze. Apparently, some things never change. Here are some quick and fun facts about this momentous holiday.

• Thomas Jefferson designed his own portable writing desk to pen the Declaration of Independence.

• The two youngest people to sign the Declaration Independence were Thomas Lynch Jr and Edward Turledge at 26 years old.

To read more interesting facts on Military.com. We hope you have a great holiday celebrating with loved ones today! We know we all are here at Locomotive.

Friday Fun Fave 7/1/22

This week’s Friday favorite isn’t very fun but in light of recent events of the overturning of Roe vs Wade, we though it appropriate to choose one that shed some light on what this may mean for American women. Planned Parenthood did an ad predicting the “Dark Storm” of the Supreme Court decision. The ad background has the news reporting abortion rights and recent decisions of the Supreme Court as the narrator states, “we’ve all felt this storm coming. It’s been building for a long time.” After this the narrator states that, “Together we’re a force of nature!” as women take to the streets protesting. “We’re built for this. We don’t stand by, we walk into the storm and turn its raw force into something transformative!” It’s a powerful campaign that promotes action! We stand behind their “ Bans Off Our Bodies” movement! This link is where you can find resources on how to support abortion moving forward. This compelling advertisement was created by Virtue Worldwide.