Archive for July, 2019

No-Cost, Low-Cost Ways to Boost Your Brand

Tuesday, July 30th, 2019

We’ve previously discussed the challenges many companies face when trying to calculate an ROI on their marketing efforts. For small and medium-sized businesses, this can make it difficult to justify increasing spend on marketing efforts.

But, just because you feel like you can’t spend more money on marketing doesn’t mean you can’t invest in your brand. (more…)

Papa John’s Takes a Dip; Shaq Comes to the Rescue in More Ways Than One

Thursday, July 25th, 2019

Having a real person associated with your brand can help your company connect with consumers on a personal level. It can also bring negative publicity from the actions or statements of those spokespeople. While it might be harder for audiences to connect personally with the Trix Bunny or Pillsbury Dough Boy, neither is likely to be in the news for making offensive statements or getting arrested.

That can’t be said for real-life figureheads or spokespeople.

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The Promise and Perils of Performance Marketing

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2019

market research, marketing researchOne of the challenges for — and criticisms of — the marketing function is that it’s often difficult to calculate an ROI on a company’s marketing efforts. For example, how does a soft drink or beer company determine whether or not their multi-million-dollar Super Bowl ad was worth the investment? How can they tell whether a customer made a purchase based on that ad as opposed to a purchase they were going to make anyway? Not an easy task.

And yet both employers and clients want (and deserve) to know if their marketing investments are paying off for them. Fortunately the measurement game these days is often much more straightforward than in the past.  (more…)

Goby the Trash Fish and Nudge Marketing

Thursday, July 11th, 2019

Behavioral economics is the study of how and why consumers do not always act rationally —rational behavior is one of the fundamental assumptions underlying classical economics. Behavioral economics helps explain things like why consumers make impulse purchases and incorrectly value goods and services. Two of my favorite behavioral economists are Dan Ariely and Steven D. Levitt, authors of Predictably Irrational and Freakonomics, respectively–two books I highly recommend.

Nudge marketing is a key form of behavioral economics. It involves providing subtle “nudges” to guide human behavior in ways that serve marketers’ needs. Here we take a look at some interesting examples of how elements of behavioral economics can be put to work in the field of marketing.

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Tips for Using Content Calendars

Tuesday, July 9th, 2019

Social media marketing is an inexpensive and effective way to engage with your target market and position yourself as a thought leader. But to make it an effective tool, you need to be diligent in keeping your content up-to-date and post regularly. An infrequently-updated blog or social media page with stale posts can actually do more harm than good to your brand and engagement efforts. But many small business owners struggle to find the time to keep their social media profile up to date.

One solution to this is to use a content calendar.

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