Customer Relationship Management: Three’s Company

Yesterday we wrote about Increasing Customer Lifetime Value and customer relationship management goes hand in hand with this topic. The goal here is to improve customer service and in turn, improve relationships with the brand audience.  CMR uses technology, practices and strategies to manage and analyze customer interaction as well as their data throughout their lifetime as your customer. It allows insights into past purchases, customer data and interaction history to deeper understand your audience. There are three main types of CMR: operational, analytical and collaborative.

1. Operational: main purpose is to generate leads, create contacts with their info and capture all details about the client in order to provide quality service throughout their lifetime. Focuses on automation and uses tech to do so in most cases.

   1. Sales automation: automate sales process through acquiring new customers and deal with them by organizing their information. This helps meet their needs more efficiently.

   2. Marketing automation: helps find the best way to advertise product/service to potential customers and concerned with campaign management. Will help decide which channels are best to reach your audience.

   3. Service automation: designed to help support customers to increase satisfaction.

2. Analytical: data analysis from multiple touchpoints of customer journey, in order to gain insights about customers in order to better serve them.

   1. Gather data from different channels

   2. Customer acquisition and retention

   3. Profiling customer personas

   4. Attribution

3. Collaborative:  establishes communication from various places related in your organization or those your brand works with closely. This will help streamline workflow since it helps everyone get on the same page.

   1. Enhances interactions between departments

   2. Document management

   3. Channel management

It’s important to understand the brand’s goals when deciding which CRM strategy is best or maybe all of them. Using these will help increase customer retention through a deeper understanding of your customer as well as increased communication within the company about the audience. The more you understand your audience, the better you can serve them. Since personalization is now the norm, this is a must for your brand to create relationships that will last a long time with your customers.

BFF’s Forever: Increasing Customer Lifetime Value

What is customer lifetime value anyway? It’s how much net profit one customer can generate for your brand over time. it’s common sense that a brand wants to keep their customers for a long time. Customer loyalty plays an important role in revenue and word of mouth marketing. So, how do you keep your customers for the long haul? Here are some of our tips to improve your customer lifetime value.

1.     Feature your customers in your content: this will keep your audience engaged and let them know that you appreciate them!

2.     Take your audience’s advice: create polls & surveys to find out what they want. Keep an eye on impressions on social media, comments, reviews, etc. Collect and implement. Again, they will feel heard and appreciated on top of receiving what they asked for.

3.     Personalize! People spend more money on brands that personalize their experience and about 81% of people expect it anyhow.

4.     Great customer service: offer 24/7 service if you can. Make sure that each person on every channel can help them instead of sending them somewhere else to solve their problems.

5.     Give your audience something that others don’t! provide incredible value. Not through discounts but your product/service. Be more convenient than other brands and make quality your top priority. If you have a customer centric approach with their needs at the heart of your brand, it should ensure the right decisions that will keep them around.

Valuing your customers, whether it’s a B2B or B2C situation, will show that you have them at the top of mind when making decisions. They will feel heard, seen and their loyalty to you in return will skyrocket.

Competitive Positioning Strategy

In what ways does your brand stand out from all the others? What’s the value of choosing your brand over your competitors? Competitive positioning is a marketing strategy the refers to how the brand will do just that. The goal of the competitive positioning strategy is not only to increase sales but can guide your brand with purpose. So, in what ways can your brand make itself stand out?

1.     Excellence /Value

2.     Leadership

3.     Niche

4.     Customer service

The benefits really speak for themselves when winning over your customers through positioning but how do you create a good strategy to do so? Here are some point to help you get started.

1.     Study the competition: see how they perform, what are they lacking that you can offer? Perform SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)

2.     Market research: can help understand size, scope and demographics.

3.     Define your goal: What are the company short and long-term goals? Decide what your brand goal is and this will help the positioning strategy.

4.     Map it out: we mean this literally actually. Create a perceptual graph with two axis and four quadrants. Each line represents an attribute. Remember those x, y axis graphs you used back in algebra. It’s like that. No number though thankfully. Let’s look at an example. One line is for quality and the other price. The positive axis for quality is high quality. The positive for price is high pricing. The negative portion of the axis for quality is equal to low quality and the negative for price would be for low pricing. You can do this to find holes in your particular market niche.

 Ultimately, you started your brand because you knew there was something lacking in your field so finding your niche shouldn’t be too difficult. Mapping out a plan to get others to believe in your dream is another story. It will take planning and time. Make sure to set deadline and goal dates to stay on track. It’s also very motivating for you and your team to see achievement. Happy planning.

Billboard Advertising

Sometimes it seems like our devices can actually read our minds instead of just hear us and send us targeted ads. The other day I was thinking about how much it would cost to advertise on a billboard and if it would even be worth it, as I drove from New Jersey on the Walt Whitman bridge back to Philly. There are tons of billboards as you drive across and I’ll be honest, they do catch my eye. They’re creative and attention grabbing. Not to mention, absolutely massive in size. Shortly after this thought crossed my mind, I got an email from my daily HubSpot with their weekly blogs. Low and behold, there was an article there all about billboard advertising. The web strikes again to read my thoughts and slightly terrify me. Just kidding. But seriously, it turns out this type of marketing isn’t dead. Far from it really. “32% of people like them and 9% like them a lot,” according to a 2022 Statista dataset. Another study from Solomon Partners in the HubSpot blog shows that, when it comes to out of home ads, 86% of people remember printed ads and 84% remember digital.” These are the highest of all types of advertising, which included: T.V. (linear & streaming), audio (podcast & radio), online (mobile & desktop), OOH (print & digital, and lastly, just print ads alone.

There are many benefits to billboard advertising it turns out. It allows brands to target very specific locations to increase brand awareness in that area. There’s also a guarantee that eyes will be on your ad. I know I’m guilty of clicking out of every digital ad that gets in the way of what I’m doing on the web. They’re annoying sometimes. It can help your brand get more exposure and diversify your audience. Oh yea, and they’re up 24/7 for the allotted time frame. Apparently, billboard ads contribute to impulse purchases. For some reason 68% of people make impulse buys while driving (True Impact Media). Who knew right? So, now for that second question. How cost effective is billboard advertising?

There are a few factors to consider when adding up the costs of billboard advertising. Location, demographics of the area, circulation of traffic and impression numbers. These things considered, it can cost roughly $850 for a month. If you’re looking at a rural area it could be as cheap as $250/month. The most expensive places, such as times square could be around $50K.

Impressions are calculate based on:

1.     Circulation of the area

2.     Actual size of the board

3.     How closely it’s placed to the road

4.     Visibility

5.     Traffic speed by the board

So, with all of these factors considered in pricing and benefits, is it worth it? Well, we think so but it will depend on your brand industry. For example, a lot of people learn about local events, insurance, law, etc. if you’re a local venue or business it’s very worth it for your brand. ROI on billboard advertising in general is about 40%, which is actually a little low for advertising standards of 10:1 ratio. You can do the math on those numbers but it isn’t great. There will be many factors to consider when deciding whether or not your brand will benefit from billboard ads. All the information above should be considered as well as your reasoning.

Stress Awareness Month: Managing Stress at Work

April is national stress awareness month. We wanted to support that through our blog this week. Stress has many negative impacts on the human body, such as headaches, high blood pressure, skin conditions, anxiety, depression, and many more. These are just a few of a long list. Chronic stress can have impactful conditions that last a lifetime. It’s very important to know how to deal with stress properly to avoid chronic conditions caused from stress in your life. There are many reasons why stress can arise at work including low pay, work that’s not engaging, excessive overloads and overall lack of support to name a few. It’s crucial to understand ways to manage this properly.

1.     Know your stressors: do you know what is stressing you out at work? How can you avoid these situations or change them? How did you respond? Try keeping a journal if you’re not sure to identify the underlying reasons.

2.     Watch how you respond: now you know what is bothering you at work so how do you cope? Do you go have drinks and eat junk food or do you go burn off your frustrations at the gym? Healthy coping mechanisms are important. Going to the gym, yoga, read. Healthy body = healthy mind.

3.     R&R: it’s important to get enough sleep at night in order to tackle your professional day. You have to also disconnect from your job somehow. May this be putting your phone on “do not disturb”, meditating, zoning out and watching some T.V. to not think about work here and there. Taking a hike and spending time with family outside of work can also help you get good recovery time to recharge your mind and body.

These are just a few ways to learn how to cope with stressors in your professional life. There are many more such as talking to your supervisor, setting work boundaries and finding support with family or even therapists. The happier and healthier you are, the better you will perform on the job. Not only this, you will increase the longevity of your mind, body and quality of life.

Tips for Teamwork

We already know that collaboration is effective in fostering creativity at the workplace but what are some ways to promote good teamwork? We recently read an interesting article written by Rob Schwartz on teamwork that inspired this blog. It’s interesting to think that the one thing that makes humans stand out from other animals is our ability to cooperate in large groups. This is why we are at the top of the food chain. So what elements make a successful team? Here are some key elements that we believe help create a successful team.

1.     Listen: active listening is so important. When someone else is talking are you just thinking and waiting for them to finish to blurt out what you have to say? Or, are you actually listening and processing their words? You can’t properly communicate with one another unless you have the ability to do this!

2.      Clearly define roles and goals: knowing who will do what and why will take out any confusion when working in groups. It helps them stay on task and work efficiently toward the goals set by the team.

3.     Make decisions together: do not make decisions alone and speak for the whole. It’s important that everyone opinion is considered and each member of the group feels heard. This builds trust as you get to know each other on a deeper level.

4.     Celebrate differences: not all of us think the same and we may disagree on many things. This is honestly a beautiful thing. How boring would the world be if we all had the same thoughts and ideas. This is how creative innovation comes about. Different approaches from different viewpoints makes for a great team collaboration.

5.     Promote creativity: this is crucial for a successful team to be creative in their approach to problems within the business. Therefore, the person above them should encourage creative perspectives. 

While some groups put in teams may just hit it off and have a smooth work flow, others may not. While we wish the first scenario for you, it’s important to have ways to help your company teams be successful if they are having difficulties. Research shows that having a collaborative team leads to better outcomes, the team members are more likely to take calculated risks leading to innovative ideas, and finally, increased job satisfaction with reduced work stress. Teamwork really does make the dream work!

Marketing to Older Populations

Did you know that older generations 50-years and above make up 51% of consumer spending? They also spend more time online than most people think. They are not much different than other groups to market to honestly, but they do have some qualities that differ and it will require some adjustments on the brands marketing strategy. Since they take up half of the consumer spending it’s important you get it right or you’re losing out on some big moola. Here are some ways to ensure that your senior marketing strategy will not be lost.

1.     Use language they understand: don’t use catchy, trendy jargon when trying to market to them. They won’t understand it and they won’t care. They just want to know how your product/service is going to improve their life or solve a problem they have.

2.     Make it easy: although a large portion of seniors are online that doesn’t mean they’re really tech savvy. Confusing choices when making purchases online or even while scrolling your website is a great way to frustrate and lose them. Make the process easy and clear.

3.     Personalization is a must: these groups of individuals remember a time when buying was between the merchant and the customer personally. They like to be regarded as an individual. Not only should your message speak to their age group, if you can get a person on the phone with them or name them directly in emails that’s even better.

4.     This generation is LOYAL AF: they are very unlikely to change brands if you get there first. Research shows that actually, “90% of seniors will keep you as their digital go-to if you provide them with their informational needs first“ (Search Engine Journal).

5.     Use multichannel marketing: although this generation is online they still respond well to offline marketing efforts, such as catalogs, T.V. commercials, billboards, etc.

These are our top five but there are so many more ways to effectively market to the senior populations. It should also be noted that there are different categories of seniors and each must be treated slightly different. There is the group of 50-62, 63-74 and 75 and over. Now, everywhere you look these will be divided slightly differently but as long as they’re similar the grouping won’t matter much if it’s a year or two off. This makes sense though if you think about it, you won’t market to your mom the same way you would market to your grandmother, right? Exactly. If your brand involves selling to the senior population it will require a competent amount of research into the best marketing strategies in order to reach them.

Objectives & Goals

What is the difference between a goal and an objective and how can the two work together? Well, let’s start by defining each one. A goal is long-term and typically a broader outcome whereas an objective is short-term and more specific. An objective can help a brand achieve a goal. They are different but objectives can assist goals if used correctly. So, what are the main differences between goals and objectives? Well, let’s take a quick look.

1.     Goals are higher in order than objectives since they have a broader outcome, where objectives will help attain the whole goal.

2.     Objectives are narrower in specific tasks and goals are broader.

3.     Objectives are also more specific than goals. For example, the goal of the brand is to become carbon neutral. This is broad. Objective will help us achieve how we get there. An objective would be to reduce carbon footprint in the quarter by 15%.

4.     Timeframe is longer for goals and shorter for objectives.

5.     Language describing goals tends to be more conceptual and language used for objectives is more creative.

6.     Goals are harder to measure where goals tend to be more tangible.

There are big benefits to setting goals for you brand. It will give your team a direction, help set priorities, motivate everyone to act, and help the brand achieve full potential. Objectives, on the other hand, can help measure progress toward that goal, give short-term sense of achievement, assist in making difficult decisions and confirm confidence in strategy toward your goals. We have all heard of ways to help set good goals, such as the SMART model but what about setting good objectives? Here are a couple of things to consider when setting objectives to help your brand achieve its goals.

1.     Select measurable KPI’s

2.     Set up different sets of objectives

3.     Refine them through feedback and analysis before setting

4.     Make sure they align with overall goals of the brand

5.     They should also follow the SMART model

6.     Describe desired outcome instead of actions and work backwards

A good example of an objective would be to cut down on production costs by 15% in a year. Now, your team will have to work backwards to determine what actions they can take to do this. This could be in conjunction with your brand goal of increasing revenue by the end of the year. By reducing the production costs your revenue will increase as a result of decreased spending. Another objective would be to increase sales through some type of short-term measure. Both of these objectives would feed into the company’s overall goal to increase revenue by the end of the year. Goals won’t work without objectives but objectives alone won't allow your brand to reach its full potential. Using both together will ensure that your brand reaches new heights.

Expanding Creativity Through UGC

Advertising is creativity at its core. Those who think otherwise probably shouldn’t be in this business. Think about it, ads are a creation of creativity that extract an emotional response from the viewers. It’s that emotional response that makes UGC ads stand out from the rest. Their authenticity has the power to provoke stronger emotional connections to the content that real people made that is now being shown in the ad. We are here to argue that using UGC in your campaigns can actually increase your creative power. For example, we get the brief that you send for specific content you’re looking for. Your brand has an idea for a great commercial using UGC found content. We then start searching for the content that fits within the parameters. However, sometimes we come across a gem that may not fit into that box. We will pitch it to your team anyway because sometimes it’s worth a shot. Your team falls in love with the video and decides to take a new approach to the UGC ad. The organic content that someone created just shifted your creative process that you may not have otherwise thought of. Playing around with ideas is the heart of creativity. This is how original ideas come about. UGC is kind of way to collaborate different creative ideas through the creativity of those who created the content. This can expand the team’s creative juices with fresh ideas to come up with new ones for their campaigns. We’ve seen it happen and when it does, the campaigns are one of a kind.  

LOV Movement Fundraiser 2023

Today we’re taking a different take on our blog article in order to promote a good cause. The LOV Movement is a non-profit organization that focuses on love, oneness, and virtue to help real people in underdeveloped communities all over the world. Last year they held their first fundraising event that helped to build a school in the Giotto slum of Kenya for the local children. Here they sponsor fresh, clean drinking water and food. Their mission is to improve lives, and embody them with opportunities such as a higher education. In Los Angeles, they provide food every week to the skid row homeless population as well as water and clothing. 100% of their profits secured go back into service resources for these communities. They are driven through grassroots actions to maximize the value of your dollar. Their next fundraising event will be help May 6th in Santa Clarita from 6-10pm. You can purchase a ticket to attend or sponsor the event HERE. We’re happy to be a sponsor of this event as well as their inaugural fundraiser last year. We will also be attending the event so we hope to see you all there!

Salience Effect: Beyond Brand Salience

Salience is something that has been used for years in marketing techniques. The salience bias is when people tend to focus on items or information that is more noteworthy or unique than those that don’t grab attention. This makes sense if you think about it. With bottles on the shelf that all look the same, your attention will immediately go to the bottle that stands out like a sore thumb. This is great news for brands because that means being unique will help your revenue and reputation. You do this by advertising your product/service as standing out from competition through offering something that they lack and/or design your product so it is visually striking. So, why does this happen? Let’s take a closer look. It arises from contrast between things and their surroundings. It develops as a result of psychological cognitive ease as we become accustomed to our day to day interactions. Think about it like this, you don’t pay attention to the smells around you until you smell something that brings you back to your childhood. It can also come up as something draws us toward a specific aspect of the world. This can be apparent with someone who works in the advertising world and notices catchy and creative ads on billboards while driving. Someone who isn’t in the industry probably wouldn’t notice them unless they’re very striking. No matter what industry you are in, it’s important that you grab the attention of the consumer immediately. Be the brand that stands out as unique from all the rest to harness the power of the salience effect.

Know Your Worth: Value Propositions

We’ve all heard the saying, “Know your worth,” but how can you actually apply this in the business world? Well, one answer could be creating a solid value proposition. A value proposition summarizes why customers should choose your product or service. It will highlight the ways that you stand out from your competition and how that can benefit your customer. A great value proposition is specific, focuses on the problem(s) it solves for the customers and should be front and center on your site. Here are some of our tips to writing a good value proposition.

1.     Use your customers voice: how would your customers describe your brand? How does it improve their lives?

2.     Speak clearly: keep it concise with a few sentences highlighting the product, who should buy it, how it will solve and when it solves their problem and finally, why they should buy it from you and not someone else. Answering these questions will create a solid proposition for your audience.

It seems like a short list but there is a lot of work to be done in these two steps. Identifying your audience voice may require gathering information from them in order to better understand how they feel about you. Once you start to write it, it’s important to answer the questions listed above in bullet point two. This can also take some deeper diving to understand what the answers are and then how to convey them as efficiently as possible. The home page on our Locomotive website is a good example of a value proposition.  We clearly state who we are, what we do and how our business works. This pulls the reader in to diver further down the site for more information on our services. Although our services are catered more to a B2B the concept is the same for any brand.

Anchoring Heuristic in Marketing

As we know by now, psychology plays a critical role in marketing and advertising. Anchoring bias or anchoring heuristic is one of these cognitive characteristics that can be applied to marketing strategies. The anchoring bias describes our human tendency to favor the first piece of information offered about something when making decisions. It is then difficult to part from this once you’ve made up your mind, despite the fact that other options may be more beneficial. Let’s look at an example to further explain how this works. Let’s say that you just went shopping and the first car was a set price. Now everywhere you go look, you refuse to go any higher than this number. This is the base price that has been anchored in your mind. Side note: there are internal and external factors that affect how one uses the anchor based on prior knowledge beliefs, etc. A person’s self-confidence or lack thereof in this case will be more vulnerable to the effect. This type of anchoring bias can be used as a marketing technique for brands.

1.     Higher initial pricing:

2.     Offer packages of services/products at different pricing levels

3.     Persuasive language

4.     Highlight benefits of product/service

Brands should make sure to use social proof when using the anchoring effect. This will establish that others have purchased and believe in the product/service. This will really embed the anchor in their mind. It can help your brand increase sales and let’s be honest, you will get what your business is worth. The anchoring effect can be a very useful tool.

Granfluencers: Breaking Down Barriers of Age

Look out Gen Z there’s a new influencer on the rise and they’re some experienced competition. It’s your grandparents! We know you’re probably shocked to hear this but as social shifts happen people want to see more authentic content that less edited. Your grandma has an up on ya’ here because she probably doesn’t even know how to do those things. People want new voices as well as diversified ones. The boomer generation is perfect for this since they honestly don’t give a s#$% what other people think and are comfortable being who they are. Granfluencer was the name coined by whom we do not know but it’s cute. They create content that not only is authentic, it is warm and wholesome. It’s inspiring people all over the world to YOLO proving that age is only how many times you’ve taken a trip around the sun. They’re just like the younger generation dating, traveling and living it up. Granfluencer, Loni Pike is a 57-year-old who stated, “You don’t have to fear age. I’m the same person at 57 that I was at 25. I just have more tattoos and I drive a better car.” This is the kind of mentality the world needs so we can see why the rise of the Granfluencer is upon us. We love this and hope to get to work with some in the near future!

Earth Month 2023

The theme of this year’s Earth month is “Invest in Our Planet.” This directive is targeting everyone from individuals at home to business at the workplace. We’re going to focus on the latter for the purpose of this article. We want to participate in Earth month this year through raising awareness of ways to be greener in business practices. Here is a short list of some tips to help get you get started.

1.     Choose sustainable suppliers: these products use less energy and produce less waste. These types of suppliers are more common than they used to be so it’s not hard to find them. They may cost a little bit more but it’s worth it to do your part!

2.     Use energy efficient office equipment: energy star certified is the way to go. Not only will it save you money using less energy, it will help create less CO2 emissions.

3.     Video meetings over in person: it’s now possible to meet with people over zoom or some other meeting interface. There’s no reason why meetings can’t all be done this way to save the company money and save the planet

4.     Offer hybrid work options: it’s no secret since the pandemic that hybrid work lowers the carbon footprint of businesses around the world. Less commuting means less vehicles on the road, which means less CO2 in the air.

5.     Rethink paper: recycle office waste. Landfills are a huge part of the methane gas production that contributes to CO2 problems. If you recycle paper that means less trees are cut down and in turn, less CO2 production in the process of manufacturing it. Also, rethink if you really need to print something and take notes on a computer.

6.     Give reusable merch to your employees: make brand merch that your employees can reuse, such as grocery bags and water bottles.

7.     Have fun contests: do a Verdura Venerdi (That means veggie Fridays in Italian) or Meatless Mondays. Offer a prize or provide the meal yourself.

There are many benefits to increasing awareness at your business on climate change and ways to help reduce the effects through daily acts. Sustainable business is no longer the option as consumers want to support brands that take hard stances on difficult topics, such as climate change. They will only support those businesses who talk the talk and walk the walk. Will your brand be at the forefront of the green movement?

AI & Copyright Laws

Artificial intelligence is the hottest topic right now. There are so many questions surrounding the technology that can create art, text, and even advertisement scripts based on certain actors’ personas. One thing that not a lot of people have talked about are the issues surrounding AI creations and copyright laws. Since it’s such a new territory these waters haven’t really been explored yet but there is some buzz starting to circulate around it. Think about this, AI is trained to search massive data pools that surround the parameters it’s given to create something. These works are from real people in the real world. Plagiarism is a concern when writing essays, so why wouldn’t copyright laws apply as well?  People are starting to look into the ownership of AI generated works and whether or not AI should be references the sources and/or getting permission in some cases. There is a lawsuit that was filed in 2022 from three artists suing an AI generator for using their art for a digital collage tool without permission. The argument is that the fair use doctrine says it can be used for “research” purposes without permission. There is also the question of AI generated works and who owns the copyright to that. A lot of jurisdictions state that anything not created by a human cannot be protected by copyright laws. Spain and Germany follow this currently. This could cause problems for business, however, because they could be used by anyone. Companies won’t spend a lot of time and effort putting work into AI generated works if just anyone can come along and steal them. Should the copyright laws include those programmers, etc. who help create the AI work? We think not. That’s like saying the pen is the creator and not the writer. Should computers be given the same rights as humans when it comes to copyright laws? The future of AI will determine the next steps, which seems not that far off. Perhaps granting the person who made the AI possible as the UK is already doing seems the most realistic approach for the time being.  It’s mind blowing to think that what we thought of as the very far sci-fy version of reality 20 years ago is now the truth of our world.

Advertising Audio & Sonic Branding

Did you know that it only takes 0.146 seconds for a human to hear and interpret a sound?!? (Business News Daily) When we think of advertising, the first thing that comes to mind is visual, but the sounds in an ad can make or break it. Certain sounds can connect with your audience on an emotional level. Something further, sonic branding is a sound that is associated with your brand. Think of the Netflix sound when it launches. All of you reading this can hear it in your mind right now huh? We can too. Another way to use sound is in a retail environment and is probably the most common. Let’s dive into each a little deeper.

In Store Audio

1.     What type of emotion do you want to inspire? Calm, excited, secure? This will create the emotional state of your customers while they’re shopping in your store.

2.     Do you want them to stay a while or get in and get out? Most stores want people to stay unless they’re fast food or high turnover shops. If you want consumers to stay slower music is best. They stay longer. They spend more money. If in and out is what you want then fast paced music with upbeat tempo.

3.     Are you selecting music that your target audience would listen to? You want to ensure that your audience likes what they are hearing. Dive a little into your target audience. What is their demographic? When were they born? This will give you an idea of what kind of music to play.

Sonic Branding

1.     Keep the sound simple. Just a few tones that last a few seconds. It should be a musical mnemonic pattern that is easy to remember and listen too.

2.     Make your audience feel something. Create a sound that conveys the right emotional response. Think of sounds that you often hear such as the sound when you upload something on LinkedIn. It’s oddly satisfying. There’s a reason for this.

3.     Don’t plagiarize. Stand out and be unique with your tonal voice. Not only is this copyright infringement, it’s lazy.

Sounds in Advertisements

1.     Again, know the brand audience. What is the product for? Is it fitness or a massage? This will greatly effect the sounds you want to use in your ads.

2.     Consider the platform. Looping sounds do better on social media since it tends to disrupt the user less. This will also determine which music can go on your ads. You need to have proper clearance for copyright purposes.

3.     Create with mobile in mind. Most people will watch digital ads on their phones. So, unless your ad is running on Hulu as a commercial, you want to pick tracks that don’t have a lot of heavy bass.

4.     Sound effects might be needed. Sometimes an added sound effect might be needed to emphasize a key point in your ad. Don’t forget to use these to bring attention to the points of visual interest.

5.     Get the mix right. Most ads have voice over. It’s important that the music and/or sound effects don’t overpower this. Obviously, this will be done by an editing professional but should always be checked before going live.

Sound can be a very powerful tool in advertising that is quite often overlooked. It can be used to enhance certain aspects of your ads or as a tactic to keep customers in your store longer. Our favorite though, is sonic branding and how it can be just as memorable as a visual logo if not more. Sounds tend to get stuck in our heads because it takes less attention to recognize them while visuals require us to focus our vision from whatever we may already be doing to something else. Also, if you get it right people will remember your sonic branding for years to come!

Marketing Attribution

Let’s be real, no one likes wasting their money! Well, maybe those who have it to waste. But most of us will do anything to save a buck in our personal and business lives. Marketing attribution is a technique that does just that in the business world. Marketing attribution evaluates areas of brand marketing strategies during the consumers path to purchase to see what leads to a purchase and what doesn’t. This allows for the brand to allocate more resources to those strategies that lead to revenue and back off on those that don’t. Thus, saving the company more money and ultimately, bring more in. The benefits are pretty obvious in order to optimize resources and budgets. There are a few different models that a brand can follow:

1.     First touch: this assumes that the consumer chose to purchase after seeing the initial ad they encountered. It could be the first time they visited your website or engaged with your brand on social media.

2.     Last touch: as the name implies, this model uses the final touchpoint that leads to a sale.

3.     Linear: this model considers all contributing channels in the buyer journey and considers all interactions equal.

4.     Lead conversion touch: this helps pinpoint the exact moment that a person decides to make the purchase.

5.     Multi-touch: can help the brand understand how all interactions work together. Can allow for tracking of the exact moment that lead to conversion of consumer.

6.     Time decay: focuses on more recent interactions. It gives weight to each purchase touchpoint differently. It will help understanding in which channels are pushing customers toward a purchase.

7.     Position based (U-shaped): it’s broken up like this, 40% at the first interaction, 40% at the final and 20% to the other touchpoints.

8.     Custom: most complex. Gives ability to assign their own touchpoint weights. Very accurate but also hard to set up.

So, how do you know which model to use for your brand? Well, the answer is in your marketing goals. First, ask yourself, what type of sales cycles does your brand use and how long does it run? How much is digital and which channels are used? Now, it’s time to figure out what you want to know. What’s the goal of your current marketing campaign and what type of campaigns have you been using? Here is a short list of questions to consider when choosing an attribution model:

1.     Can you get insights throughout the campaign to optimize or only at the end?

2.     Are you trying to understand how your marketing effort can generate leads?

3.     Are you assessing your marketing strategy?

Picking the right model isn’t an easy process so care should be taken to know what it is that you want to measure. Don’t rush this process so you can align to with your unique marketing strategies and goals.

Programmatic SEO

We all know that high SEO is important for your brand but what is programmatic SEO? Even if you’ve never heard of it, it is quite common practice in the digital space. Instead of spilling a definition at you, let’s look at an example of programmatic SEO and work our way backwards. Imagine you do a web search on best restaurants in (city) and when the results come back with a TripAdvisor page in at least the top 3. The reason for this is that they have a page for almost everything travel related anywhere in the world. They have to create thousands of landing pages in order to increase their SEO ranking. This is programmatic SEO in a nutshell. It is building a database of thousands of pages that are connected to a template in order to rank higher in Google’s search query. They all use similar, long-structure keywords. Brands can use this to write the content and publish for them instead of having to it all manually. So, how do you implement programmatic SEO? Here is a quick tips list to get you started.

1.     Choose your head terms: this is the overall broad categories. Advertising, advertising agency, content agency would be an example of some we would use. These will have a large search volume.

2.     Figure out what the modifier keywords are: Primary: found content agency, user-generated content agency. Secondary: advertising: user-generated content, found content, sourced content.

3.     Put them all together: it’s not uncommon to have 100K keywords.

4.     Do competitive analysis: what keywords and long for modifiers are your competition showing up on with Google search?

5.     Build the landing pages: they will all be a similar template but slightly unique. It’s important for the algorithm so it sees it as a unique value for visitors on each page.

Every brand can benefit from programmatic SEO, because every brand should have an online presence, no matter the size of the company. We live in a digital world, so improving your brand’s SEO will allow it to reach more people, make your site more attractive and the ROI on programmatic SEO is very high. It can also require much less time to achieve results.

Autism Awareness Month

April is autism awareness month and we recently saw a wonderfully done ad stating that girls are 3x’s less likely to be diagnosed with autism. Autism is a spectrum disorder and is a condition related to brain development that impacts how a person perceives and socializes with others. Although there is no cure for this, early diagnosis and treatment can make a huge difference in the lives of those that have it. It’s important to understanding the early signs that can change a child’s life. Some symptoms include:

1.     Reduced eye contact

2.     Lack of response to their name

3.     Sudden withdrawn or aggressive behavior

4.     Loss of language skills they’ve already acquired

5.     Difficulty learning

6.     Some have very high intelligence and learn quickly, yet have trouble communicating

There are many other signs, so it’s important to do adequate research. There are also some patterns of behavior such as:

1.     Repetitive movements

2.     Doing activities that cause self-harm (banging head or biting)

3.     Becomes annoyed with change in routines

4.     Coordination problems

5.     Fascinated with details of objects without understanding its overall function

6.     Unusually sensitive to light, sound or touch

7.     Fixates on objects with unusual intensity

While the causes of autism spectrum disorder is not known, there are plenty of treatment options. Early diagnosis will improve behavioral patterns and social interactions. Children will never “outgrow” autism spectrum disorder but they can learn to function well in society with it if caught at an early age.