Often online marketing budgets fall into two camps: direct response and branding. The purpose of direct response is pretty obvious – to make money at a return that is aligned with the business’s goals. The other camp – branding – I’m kind of convinced is always a waste of money (at least the conventional idea […]
How Important Is The Release Date?
Release it all at once or slowly over time? How much effort and money should be invested at the onset? How much buzz a new product needs at the start depends on a combination of how good it is and how long the product will be relevant. The longer you can stretch out the release […]
Online Marketing Moving Towards Passivity
Online marketing has been positioned from the beginning as a much more interactive marketing medium than TV. As the web becomes more of a constant thing in our lives will our interactions with it become more passive like TV and thus change the way we market online? Online marketers have always stuck their noses up […]
No Better Time For Starting Something New
Social Media is a one to one medium that gives brands a unique opportunity to be very customer focused. Not only is individual connection what the web is built for, individual connection is what we as humans most desire. But many brands still only see online advertising through the lense of scale – using Facebook […]
How To Choose The Right Vendor, Agency or Consultant
I think the rule of thumb for choosing a vendor, agency or consultant, is whether or not they will leave you off better than when they found you. And this is not just in terms of increased sales or other KPIs. As they increase sales are they also increasing the competency of your organization so […]
In Between Brand Advertising and Direct Response Advertising
There have been two main points of view with marketing a new product: Elevate The Brand vs. Sell The Product or Go To Market vs. Go To Customer. Elevating the brand is the sexy side of marketing. These are TV commercials, YouTube homepage takeovers and big interactive social engagement plays. All of these initiatives are […]
Triple Threat To Retailers
I haven’t been in a shopping mall for over a year (except for last November when my wife was overdue and we walked in circles inside the mall in hopes that it would induce labor (it didn’t work, she was two weeks late)). So, I’m not big on shopping but I have to believe that […]
Why Does Advertising Cost So Much?
There are up to three expenses when doing any kind of advertising campaign. 1. The cost of the creative. Paying the photographer or graphic designer to create the ad or paying the video production company to film and edit your commercial. 2. The cost of the media. Once the ad is made you have to […]
Why Do Advertisers Spend So Much On Print?
The chart below shows the over-investment in print and the under-investment in mobile and web compared to the relative time consumers spend with those mediums. Flurry points out a few reasons why mobile is so under-invested in, including the fact that agencies and brands have yet to adjust to the unprecedented speed of adoption of […]
More Sophisticated Sales Are Still Just Sales
Loyalty is when people are willing to turn down a better product or a better price and continue doing business with you. Repeat business is easily won, loyalty is not. Manipulations like sales, discounts, rebates and limited time offers cause repeat business, not loyalty, and are an addiction. There is no question that these manipulations […]