When I did marketing for one of the riverboat casinos in the Chicago area I was told a lot of excuses for why a particular day didn’t draw as many people as they wanted. Some of my favorites were. “No buddy wants to go the casino in the winter. It’s cold and snowy. People just want to stay in.” “No one wants to come out in the spring.” “Kids are still in school and they want to be outside after being cooped up inside all winter.” “People don’t go to the casino in the summer. They want to be outside…
Read MoreArchive for the ‘Search Engine Marketing’ Category
Combining Social and Physical Media
A few articles back, I talked a bit about packaging and how you can tie all your different social media sites together to make them even stronger. Some companies have taken things to the next level by packaging everything together, including their print and online ads. Particularly, companies like Kraft Foods and Pepsi have started using social media to boost their print campaigns and vice versa. It’s a great thing because it calls attention to their social media while giving them a unique marketing campaign.
There are some drawbacks to using your social media along with your print media. Well,…
Read MoreAvoid Sponsored Ads and Stay Cost Effective with Social Media
One thing I’ve said repeatedly on here is that social media is virtually cost free. You can do the same things that major companies do without having a major company budget. In a lot of ways social media has evened the playing field but just like the movie theaters where they’ve put ads before and sometimes during the movies. Some companies will find a way to spend money to get their message heard louder instead of working smarter. So it’s no surprise that Facebook and Twitter took advantage of this and offered paid ads and promotional spots to people who…
Read MoreUsing Social Media to Augment Your Direct Mail Marketing Campaign
Up until now I’ve pretty much always focused on social media and digital advertising. I’ve done a little bit with direct mail over the years, but until recently I never really used it in a cross-media promotion. A lot of marketing professionals see direct mail as a dying medium and instead focus exclusively on digital marketing. As I’ve tried to illustrate over the last two weeks the best campaigns are ones that can seamlessly work in all forms of media, including direct mail. Old Spice has made extensive use of direct mailers over the years to much success. The fact…
Read MoreUsing Demographic Research for Search Engine Optimization
Last week we talked about how demographic advertising can be implemented into your ad materials to cover a large base audience. Including those ideas in your advertising materials is one thing, but actually using them in Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing is completely different. Applying demographics in advertising is a matter of knowing the types of people you want to reach as well as understanding their general habits. Using demographics to enhance your SEO is similar, you just need to think about the sort of things your audience searches for and tailor your website accordingly. There are a…
Read MoreMyths and Misconceptions about Digital Advertising
There is so much information on the Internet that it can be hard to separate what is substantial and what are the mad ramblings of a 12 year old on his parents’ computer. It’s not surprising that amongst the photoshoped pictures of Bigfoot, fake celebrity deaths, and fan-made film trailers, there is a lot of misinformation that becomes commonly thought of as fact. This is especially true when it comes to subjects like advertising where lots of people have strong opinions and are willing to share them. (I’ve had more than a few people tell me “Advertising doesn’t work on…
Read MoreUsing Search Engine Marketing For Local Advertising
When I was working as a freelance copywriter for a particular ad agency a few years back, we worked with an office supply company in California. This company had a great looking website that I would guess cost them a solid $20,000. The only problem was that no one was going to it. No one was going to it because no one could find it. No one could find it because the name of the company was…Office Supplies. That name, along with being a good subject for an old time comedy routine, is a really bad name for a company…
Read MoreSocial (social) Media (media) Echo (echo)
I have growing doubts in this the advent of social media that this constant production of, and then echo after, of information rattling around the corridors of the Internet is an entirely positive thing.
Could an animal survive and thrive if it had extremely sensitive ears but couldn’t discern where the sounds were coming from? Perceiving the sound is only part of the equation. Answering the follow up questions in a split second is the other part. Where did the sound come from? When did it occur? What made it? Should I take action?
I’m sharing this observation because it seems like…
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