Marketing & Advertising

We recently posted about the Google Local Business Center and how it can help your small business get found through a location-based search. Why is that important? A comScore survey found that 20% of all searches on Google are related to location.

Google has rolled out changes to this service as well as sponsored “tags” to keep your business listed in the Google 7 Pack. What you once knew as the “Google Local Business Center” is now referred to as “Google Places.” Additionally, those who are currently listed in Google Places can take advantage of a new feature called Tags.

Google rolled out the new advertising stream – similar to AdWords – for local businesses. This feature is geared for local businesses throughout the U.S. who wants to beef up their listings on Google and Google Maps.

If you’re running a local business and you have placed listings on Google, you can enhance your listing with a yellow “tag” emphasizing specific information about your business such as a coupon, video, website, menu, reservations, photos and even custom messages.

Getting this yellow tag to appear on your Google listings is not free though. You would have to pay a flat monthly fee of $25. The tags will not affect your listings’ rank and Google will clearly indicated which parts of the search results are sponsored when you’re local business is displayed. Check out an example of how local business tags are displayed in the sample below.

It’s just another effort by Google to create a very simple advertising vehicle for local businesses.

There are greeting cards that play music or smell like your favorite scent when you open them. Now, there are cards you can eat – sort of. American Greetings has come out with its new line of Tasties.

Each Tasty comes with a flavored, edible strip inside the card. The flavors include cupcakes, doughnuts and margaritas. Dissolvable flavor strips for the recipient to eat.

The possibilities of this could become a trend for many commercial printers. We have worked with a few that already use scented inks, and its only a matter of time until a printer near you applies this technology of taste!

With news that postage rates are going to increase once again. The print industry will need to contiune to look for new ways to entice design firms and others to continue printing their mailing pieces.

We have seen some pretty amazing innovations in the print industry already. A few of which that are combining print and digital media. Augmented Reality and RFID are a couple modernizations creating new experiences for consumers. However, those still appeal to the same senses, this innovation by American Greetings has added the sense of taste to the printing world.

My question to you is, will you try it?

Check out the newest sensory experience in the card aisle and get that cupcake taste without all that cupcake and calories!

If you are like me, the topic of the ruptured BP Oil pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico, and the resulting damage to land and sea in the region is a painfully frustrating one! The news media reported recently that the oil spewing from the ruptured line is now on par with the Exxon Valdez spill every 8 days! So every week is like another Valdez spill over, and over.

On one hand, we should be very thankful that in all the years of off-shore oil drilling, that such an accident has not happened. But this single event may easily make-up for all those that never occurred (sadly). Now two months into the constant stream of oil, we only hear news of more oil expected and the damage it is causing.

Should it really be that hard to plug a leak? A lot of people are asking that same question.

Where are most people looking to for answers? Online. From web pages, to blogs, to Facebook and Twitter accounts, the world is angry about the spill, and they have plenty to say!

So, how does a wealthy company like BP go about trying to minimize the PR damage, and deal with the litany of accusations of an angry world? One way that BP has tried to deal with it is by purchasing ad words from top search engines Google and Yahoo!. Take a look at this search for the term “Oil Spill” The first Sponsored Link directs you to BP’s website to show progress of what they are doing to control the spill and to direct information seekers to the company’s official website. BP has received flak from many critics, do you see this as unethical?

On any search site, you will see two types of results, either a sponsored link, which are considered as paid advertisment, or an organic link, which is the popular result that users typically lean towards using.

Most people searching online for a term, are used to seeing the results that show up at the top of the search results pages, often with a colored background or down the right column of the search result. Those are the paid advertisements.

Do users have to pay for them? No. If you find a paid advertisement link, and you take the link to the site, only the company who placed the ‘ad’ pays for it. The other search results are simply a matter of either popular results that other users are tending to choose, or may be sites, blogs, or businesses who are aware of the keywords that users are looking for, and use them in their content effectively.

Today, you can make sure your online promotions are targeting keywords that users are looking for. Almost every search will come back with over a thousand results. Are you really going to search each one for the best deal? Naturally I either go with the top paid ad, or the top results from the non-paid ads. My time is limited and I am too busy to spend hours looking for the ideal vendor. I just want to look at the product, and order right away.

If you did your homework, and make sure your business advertises its products with the keywords that your customers are looking for, then you will be found! If you don’t understand internet keywords, and are not sure how to use them, you might have a great site, but users will never find you because you are not talking their ‘language’. So making sure you can use keywords effectively is hugely important in your website content. If you can’t, then working with a business who does understand them and can assist you is very beneficial.

The other option is going with online advertising. Here, you still are making sure you use the most popular keywords for your desired search results, but you are not just using them in your site, you are paying for the rights to deliver YOUR content to users who type in terms that match your product. But note, prices for paid ads can vary depending on the amount of competition is willing to pay for those same keywords.

So you decided to purchase ad words, the most common paid advertisement is cost-per-click (CPC). CPC bids determine the amount you’re willing to pay for each time someone clicks on your ad when it shows up on the search results. In general, a higher CPC bid can allow your ad to show at a higher position on the page. Your bid amount is combined with your Quality Score to determine your ad’s position on the page. Learn more below.

The other frequently used online advertisement is cost-per-impression (CPM). Which is when each time someone searches for your keyword and your advertisement loads in the search results, the search engines counts that loading as one impression.

Most companies like Google or Yahoo! sell keywords based on user clicking on ads using specific term in a paid search result. So you know that the very customer you are trying to connect with is actually looking for you!

So with that said, BP purchasing ad words, the links are, in all fairness, labeled as “sponsored” but we’re pretty interested to know your take. Do you think it will help or hurt their current PR situation?

We look to our achievements to our continued success as an agency. It has been shaping into another stellar year of graphic design, and it’s always great to see our work and our staff recognized.

Two great events – on the same day last week – honored our marketing communications and service towards our clients.

Nick attended the IABC Bronze Quill Awards. Like last year, the event combined both IABC Dayton and IABC Greater Cincinnati chapters. A keynote by James Czar and some lively entertainment provided an energetic award ceremony. Professionals were recognized with awards of Excellence and Merit; each category representing the highest level of accomplishment in business communications. The winning entries reflected the combined areas’ outstanding accomplishments in planning, execution and measurement.

Our work with Terrain SIM and Antioch University McGregor was recognized for the Award of Excellence in the Marketing Communications category of the Communication Management division. With the University’s goal of raising enrollment for the Fall semester, we conducted marketing research and used a variety of multimedia to execute the brand messaging. Messaging was represented graphically for the many facets of the campaign that included an email campaign, direct mail, social networks, and promotional items. With the effective marketing campaign approach, we exceeded the enrollment goal by nearly 10%.

Here’s a full list of Bronze Quill winners. Congratulations to all the entries!

That same evening Roger attended the Greater Dayton Advertising Association’s Mercury Awards. A ceremony honoring advertising professionals in sales and support roles.

Joyce Jones was nominated as the Best Print/Specialty Buyer. She’s that friendly voice you hear from Bing that takes our creative work and helps get the message out there. Without her production skills, quality assurance, and communication management, we’d have a hard time handling the efficient process and control point to deliver qualified product.

A list of the honorees and winners for this year.

Now that we tooted our own horn. Back to the daily task at hand, to produce award-winning marketing communications, with a friendly smile on our face.

We have been working more and more with designing email newsletters for clients. Every time we do a new campaign for one of them, I’m striving to help them reach the full potential of their email lists and the one question I often hear is: “How can I improve my open rate?” As I have noticed many of them achieving excellent open rates that are beating industry standards, I figure it couldn’t hurt to use the content I send as an email to our clients to help those just looking for tips.

There are a number of ways to measure the success of email marketing. The fact that it is so measurable in so many different ways is one of the greatest strengths of using this medium. But because blog posts can get long-winded, we’ll stick with the open rates.

Email marketing has the power to help you sell products and services but you can’t get any results if your emails aren’t read, and your emails can’t be read if they aren’t opened. Ergo, your open rate is incredibly important. It’s the first step in the journey to email marketing success. If people don’t even open your emails, you’ll never accomplish your goal, whether that goal is to stimulate a conversation, to educate, to create brand awareness, to promote, or to invite.

First, what is an open rate and how is it calculated? An open rate is intended to show the percentage of individuals who actually opened your email and looked at it. Many things can affect your open rate, things you may not be able to control, such as:

The source of your list.

Purchased lists tend to have lower open rates than a list of your clients, customers, vendors, etc. Make sure to clean your list of any bounced emails or unreachable accounts to keep things fresh.

Your audience.

Whether you have a campaign for business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C), open rates can vary between them and various industries.

Your email format.

As a rule, email delivery systems can only track open rates on HTML emails. People who get your email in plain-text format will not be counted in your open rate, but may, in fact, have opened your email.

The email platform used by your readers.

When your email is viewed in the preview pane of a platform like Microsoft Outlook or Entourage, it will be counted as an open. If your readers use a Web-based email reader like Hotmail or Gmail, they usually have to click on the ‘from’ field or subject line to open the email. This is counted as an open.

So back to the question: How can I improve my open rate? There are things you do have control over that can help you increase your open rate:

Use a recognizable “From” name.

Make sure you use a “From” name and address that includes your name, company, product, or service name – whichever the recipient will know best. When you repeatedly brand the “From” line like this over time, you assure the recipient that the email is coming from a reliable and trusted source and builds familiarity and credibility. It may be the only name they see in their inbox, so don’t send your newsletter from sales@mycompany.com. The funniest address I ever got was an institution – that will remain anonymous – from nobody@______.com. I was quick to unsubscribe because it didn’t feel personable to me.

Grab them with the “Subject” line.

Make sure the subject is short and to the point, no more than 5-8 words, and state a clear benefit to opening the email. Make sure the subject line does not look like spam. You do not want to use any unnecessary punctuation, all capitals, or have your email come across as a trick or gimmick. Remember, the first thing the recipient is going to see is who it is from and the subject line.Personally, I received a plethora of marketing emails one afternoon. I was overwhelmed and decided to delete most and open a couple, the main factor that determined which ones I opened were that of the subject line caught me as relevant to me. But that leads me into my next point.

Consider your delivery day and time.

Constant Contact is one of the services we use and they offer some insight into this:

Tuesday through Thursday were considered to be the best performing days. Recent surveys indicate Monday may be the new favorite. Because the volume of email sent is highest between 10am and 2pm, your emails may have a greater chance of being seen from 8am – 10am or 4pm – 6pm.

Most importantly, know your readers and adjust your subject line to them. In most industry standards, men prefer subject lines that communicate news or compelling information, while women prefer discount offers, but before you go with my word on this, leverage market research to fine-tune your subject line. Email is an ongoing conversation, be sure to incorporate ways your recipient can keep the conversation evolving.

I hope these little tidbits help as you reach the marketing effectiveness of your email campaigns.