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Invest in content – not ads – to drive good traffic.

March 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Traditional retail marketing, in this case before internet marketing, mostly focused on driving people in to a store and building brand awareness. Except for the ‘display window’ in the stores, external channels were pretty much the only alternative to bring people into the stores. The options where limited to TV, radio, Newspapers, direct mail and other print media.  And thus it was for these channels the ‘marketing’ budget was set.

Nowadays retails stores exist both online and offline and especially online the rules for where traffic is coming from have changed. Yet many are still working with it like they used to and so are the budgets. Money is spent on driving traffic with advertisement and little is spent on creating a platform that will generate traffic. We are stuck in an old mindset.

A website can drive it’s own traffic by have relevant and good content. This because people will link, like, share and talk about it. If you have good content people will spread the word. This will generate links into your site, which will create more ’doors’ into it. This is an option that you did not have in a traditional store, you could not open more doors to the shop and have more people entre, the entrances and the diplay window was limited. Thus other types for marketing and mentions were necessary and you could only wait and hope that they would work. No wonder people spent so much money on marketing.

Today I would say that much of the marketing budget is spent on activities that do not generate half the traffic that good content would. Yet we are terrified to change or move budgets to invest in what will generate more traffic in the long run.

Think about it yourself. What is your favorite website? Many might say facebook. Why? Because the content is interesting (the content created by your friends, about their life). Yeah, but we are not facebook you might think. Then let me ask you this, think about your favorite webshop. Why is it your favorite? Why do you keep coming back? I bet it is because the content is good and relevant for you. Now, how many times do you go back because you’ve seen an ad for it? Not that many? No, you go back because you are in the mood, you want to see if there is anything new or perhaps only to waste some time. Regardless, it is not the ads that make you come back, it is the content.

So why? Tell me why? Do we spend so much more money on advertising than we do on content? 

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The communication balance – what is too little and what is too much?

June 29, 2010 By 1 Comment

Sometimes there is a thin line between communicating two little and two much. Below, I will share to common situations online where this is particularly evident; with opt-in/confirmations and with newsletter lists.

 Opt-ins and confirmations

Nowadays we are used to getting some kind of confirmation when we sign up for a service, a newsletter or what it might be. An opt-in och something else.  we don’t get this confirmation, regardless of what it is for, many of us begins to question if we did it all right. Did I really order that service or not?

On the other hand, if there are to many steps, email we might refer to them as this time, we get annoyed. We feel “spammed.” For example, if you opt-ed in for a service and then receives a thank you email with no more useful information than that. This might be received a spam instead of the second confirmation that it was intended as. For some services it might be necessary to have a double opt-in, or some other type of double confirmation.

The suggestion here, seems to be, what ever confirmation/opt-in that brings some kind of value for the receiver is granted. Could be more security or a easier adaptation to the service.

Newsletter lists

From experience I rarely sign up for newsletters before I now what I will receive. For example a company who says “product info, new etc” but not gives any indication on how many times they send them, I would never accept. Mostly, because many companies seem to have problems with the “unsubscribe” button. The same goes for companies who offer a whole list of newsletters that they have for different subjects.

However, a few weeks ago, I tired one of those lists and signed up for a few newsletters that I found interesting. BIG MISTAKE! It turned out that each of the newsletters is delivered once or more per day, which was never said in the list. Which means that I now barley even check the box that they comes to, because I want to start reading but it is too overwhelming.

Conclusions

Ask your subscribers what they think works and don’t work with your communication. This way they will feel more included, and you limit the changes for you to be viewed as a spammer or that they feel like you fooled them. Be honest and share! But not to much ;)

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Bravissimo Use Their Customers As Models

March 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

One type of marketing technique that really interest me, and which I even consider writing my thesis about, is how you can use current events and issues to market your business. I been talking about this in a post about Ikea, and how they promoted their business with the message Obama sent the public: change.

Today I stumbled upon another example of this. I saw the advertising material for the lingerie brand Bravissimo, who focuses on underwear for women with bigger breasts. They use real women in and not just any women but their actual customers. These women are curvy, healthy looking women and thought they have been styled and look gorgeous they really are real women.

Of course the use of these models helps positioning the brand towards a certain audience which is what they are looking for. But more importantly, in this case, it diverts us from the size zero ideal and show how great women look when they have curves. This means that the brand Bravissimo takes up the battle against the sick ideals which the fashion industry promotes.

Other brands have done similar things before, but Bravissimo actually let their customers apply for the opportunity to model for the brand. This shows that these women are not only models but actually customers who like the brand and enjoy the products. This makes the campaign and the message of it even more genuine.

Because of the message and pictures of these gorgeous real woman, the brand have got even more publicity than they would in another campaign. But hopefully, they have also contributed to preventing the issues with teenagers that the size zero ideal creates.

Go Bravissimo!

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: , ,

A Traditional Promotion That’s Buzz-Worthy

January 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I guess these pictures says more than all my words, but I’m still going to talk about it a bit.

This campaign is a contest to win an Alfa Romeo, which you can participate in if you shop in the Woluwe Shopping Mall in Brussels. (or at least with my beginner French it is.)

This is a Social Campaign based on traditional marketing, and here is why:

  • Eye-catching. The uniqueness of it, made people stop for a second and look at it. Most people, myself one of them, also took a few pictures, to pass on.
  • Buzz –able. Because of the look of it, people will tell their friends about it. Perhaps they will show them a picture and tell them what it is for. Thus, people will know about the campaign by word and might visit the mall because of it.

Now, if you log on to their website you can clearly see that this mall does not usually work with social media marketing, or any kind of active online marketing. They simply have a website where you can get information about what their open hours are, and what stores they have.

However, with a campaign like this (and hopefully, similar ideas in the future) their own social media efforts will not be as needed, as the visitors will do it for them.

Thus, this is successful way of making traditional marketing social!

You might say that this can happened with anything that is “out of the box.” Because, this is what we do nowadays, we share what we see through technology. Still, it is more difficult to convince people to spread your marketing message, than just any message.

What do you think? Do you have any other examples?

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A Traditional Promotion That's Buzz-Worthy

January 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I guess these pictures says more than all my words, but I’m still going to talk about it a bit.

This campaign is a contest to win an Alfa Romeo, which you can participate in if you shop in the Woluwe Shopping Mall in Brussels. (or at least with my beginner French it is.)

This is a Social Campaign based on traditional marketing, and here is why:

  • Eye-catching. The uniqueness of it, made people stop for a second and look at it. Most people, myself one of them, also took a few pictures, to pass on.
  • Buzz –able. Because of the look of it, people will tell their friends about it. Perhaps they will show them a picture and tell them what it is for. Thus, people will know about the campaign by word and might visit the mall because of it.

Now, if you log on to their website you can clearly see that this mall does not usually work with social media marketing, or any kind of active online marketing. They simply have a website where you can get information about what their open hours are, and what stores they have.

However, with a campaign like this (and hopefully, similar ideas in the future) their own social media efforts will not be as needed, as the visitors will do it for them.

Thus, this is successful way of making traditional marketing social!

You might say that this can happened with anything that is “out of the box.” Because, this is what we do nowadays, we share what we see through technology. Still, it is more difficult to convince people to spread your marketing message, than just any message.

What do you think? Do you have any other examples?

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: , , ,

4 improvements that would make SAS unbeatable

October 13, 2009 By 2 Comments

First, I have to make it clear; I like SAS as an airline. I fly with them often and I am a Eurobonus member. I feel very safe when flying with them and think that I can count on them for being on time. During all my years of flying SAS I think they have been delayed around three times, and that is a very good result considering my amount of travelling.

However, there are a few areas in which they definitely could improve. If they had all these following requests I would probably choice to only fly SAS, but because they do not I fly with other carriers sometimes.

The possibility to:

• Make multi-destination bookings. On the SAS website you can only book return flights to the same destination as you came from. For example if I fly from Stockholm to London I cannot book the return flight to Copenhagen on that same booking. If I want to fly like that I have to make two separate one-way bookings. This is obviously time-consuming and annoying since I cannot see my whole flight plan as I book it.

• Bring extra baggage for a fee. If you want to check in two pieces of luggage in economy class you cannot pay for the extra luggage as a second piece. Instead you have to pay per extra kilo. The price per kilo is about 70 SEK, which mean that if I bring a bag of ten kilos I might pay more for that bag than for the actual flight ticket. This is definitely a problem for those who move abroad to study or work for a longer period of time and want to bring some extra baggage, especially for those who study online who are already short on cash.

• Eat for free on-board. When I began flying SAS, they always offered a complementary meal onboard the airplane. A few years later they stopped offering a free meal after ten o’clock, but kept the complementary breakfast on the morning flights. Today they charge for all food in the economy class (even on international flights through Europe), and since you cannot preorder you never know what will be available. And if you have happened to be a vegetarian or vegan you better bring your own food since there are meal alternatives for you. Personally I would definitely pay more for the ticket if I could get food onboard, at least in the morning, since I usually do not have time to eat before you leave for the airport if you fly out early. If it is too expensive to do this, at least offer the possibility to order food when you book your ticket.

• Get help with Eurobonus via SAS. A while ago my Eurobonus card stopped working and I had to order a new one. As I realized this while I was at the airport I went to the SAS customer care only to find out that they could not help me and that I would have to call or contact Eurobonus online. Fine I thought and did that later, but when I think about it, I would have been much more pleased with the SAS customer service if they would have helped me issue a new card. Because for me as a customer I see Eurobonus as a service from SAS. If I perceived it that way should the system work that way as well?

I know that SAS is famous for keeping the flights on-time and for their work on making flying more environmentally friendly, and I would really like to see them succeed with the last one. But imagine how much more money they could spend on these goals if all their flights where full since customers enjoyed flying with them so much? Customers first, always!

Anyway, SAS I love to fly with you, but making this changes would make me choice your airline everytime!

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IKEA Let The Customers Spread The Word Via Facebook

October 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I am usually impressed by how IKEA manage to keep their advertising and marketing very current so they play on what is actually going on in the world. Like their metro adds in Washington DC, around the 2009 election.

metro1metro 2

Pictures by buschap

A few days ago I found this new Swedish campaign where they use let people invite their friends to a breakfast at IKEA, via Facebook.

bild3

The ad read: “Invite your best Facebook-friend to breakfast. Click here”
then it switch to a picture of two Facebook user and breakfast

bild4

and it says “Cris treated Anton to breakfast at IKEA. ten SEK/two people. (Two for the price of one.)”

If you click on the ad you get to a Facebook application that they have built for this. The application allows you to invite your friend to breakfast by posting an invitation to your friends wall as well as an invitation to use the application. And of course you can write a personal message along with the invitation if you want to.

People often talk about building viral marketing campaigns. That means that the message you want to send is spread trough social networks and the internet by the users through word of mouth. I think this IKEA campaign is a great example of a successful viral campaign as people benefit from it.

Ten SEK is a bit more than one dollar, and who would not want to have breakfast for that amount with a friend. Also I think Ikeas is often a place where you go as to with your family, by expanding that to a place where you go shopping with your friends, the number of visits to IKEA will increase per person.

Thus this marketing campaign is not only spread by the customers, the customers are also reminding one another that IKEA, is a place where you could take your friend just because its it pleasant to meet.

Can you see other benefits with the campaign that you want to share? Or can you find a disadvantage to share?

If you want to see more examples of IKEA check out these pictures

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Learn current creative marketing with two tips from Swedish ICA

September 30, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Today people have other habits then they used to have, especially the small daily stuff is changing. With new tools and technology we do things differently, have you adapted your marketing campaign to that? The Swedish food store ICA surely has and here is a great example from this summer:

ica-reklam

Take a photo of the ad with your phone camera or any other device you may carry!

This probably does not make too much sense for you since it’s in Swedish, so let me explain. The headline says “For a successful crayfish party, take a picture of the recipe below.” Not only does it have great timing with the season for crayfish, but they have played on the fact that most people in Sweden have a cell phone with a camera with them all the time, and thus they can easily take a photo of the ad and leave their recipe worries behind.

I love this idea because it is simple yet productive and it makes you think, what a great idea, who came up with that? And once again ICA is in your thoughts.

Another ICA idea that has been running for quite some time now is the ICA TV-Series look-a-like commercial. Every week they show a 30 sec episode reputedly during the tv-commercials where they promote the week’s special offers.

Here is an example but unfortunately I could only find them in Swedish:

It might be difficult to understand the charm of the series if you cannot understand the language. However, think of it as another TV-show with characters a plot maybe without the cliffhanger but you still want some more. The shows probably made people pay more attention to the ICA commercial because of the creative and non-boring way to market. Perhaps a few people even sat through the commercials, which they usually zap.

People have even started a facebook group to show their support:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54895982228&ref=search&sid=719435876.2371695270..1

And on ICA’s website you can see the episodes you missed:
http://www.ica.se/FrontServlet?s=butiker&state=reklamfilmer_ny&showMenu=butiker_3

There are still a lot of things that could be improved with ICA’s marketing that still feels old and not as current as these two examples. However these two examples show that they are one of the most creative firms on marketing in Sweden and I would for sure like to work for them!

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What do you do when you read a RT Tweet?

July 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

From a marketing perspective you can see a RT on Twitter as spreading the word mouth to mouth. So if many people does it, I becomes a bit of a viral campaign that is growing by other peoples work.

What I’m wondering is if the text in the Tweet is that get the attention, what is it spreading, or if the person actually tweeting get’s in on the marketing campaign too. (If I may call it that)

Let’s say that you see a Tweet marked RT.

• Do you pay any attention to the Twitterer who sent if originally and consider following this person?

• Or do you only think that this have to be a good tweet and if there is a link is probably worth following?

Please share your thought about this, I’m curious, am I missing something?

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Pick a path and stick with it!

March 29, 2009 By 2 Comments

I have been looking at different career alternatives recently as I am leaving my temporary position in Washington D.C. in the end of April. Thinking about the different opportunities I have, and how they might affect my career I began comparing it with marketing. It’s kind of like choosing your niche.

I can either focus on a very small segment and become an expert of it or I can choose to not take a niche and try to do everything. If I chose to become and expert I will work to become the first choice in my area and the one you ask for expertise. That might close a few doors but it might also open a lot of others. If I don’t choice a niche can be a somewhat good at a lot of things, but rarely the one that is needed for a specific task.

Thinking about it like this make me realise the difference, in my perspective it is more about what I do than where I do it. Thus in if I was a business I would rather focus on service than location.

I would not say that it is a bad thing to keep doors open when you are choosing your career, but if you do, you have to explain to yourself why you keep them open. Trying to apply for jobs in all different fields just because you are afraid that you wont get a job in your preferred category, might actually make things harder. Think about it, if you write 10 applications for the same kind of position, I think the last letter will be a lot better than the last of ten for different kind of jobs. You cannot be good at everything, so pick your path.

For me I have realised what I want to do, but don’t have a big preference on where to do it. Preferably I would stay in D.C. but as long as I am working with the things I like, I think I could work from anywhere around the world. You might not be that flexible, but have some desire to try a new position in you industry or work category, and that might be enough. You are sticking to what you know and are profiling yourself as got at that.

My guess is that this is mostly a problem for younger people with less experience. Since we don’t have a ton of experience in anything, it is easier for us to try to do something else just because there might be a possibility there even though it is not what we want to do. I don’t believe in that kind of thinking even though I am tempted to. Stick to what you want to do even in hard times and you will reach your goals!

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