According to Entrepreneur.com, one in four commercial emails doesn’t make it to the inbox and is either shunted to spam folders or blocked altogether. Just a few months earlier, that number was one in five. The trend is leaning away from email marketers.

With that said, it is possible to run a successful email marketing campaign by following these steps;

1. Where Are You Sending From? It’s important to take this question into account when beginning your marketing campaign. Are you simply using your free Yahoo or Gmail account or are you using a paid-for service such as Constant Contact? This will affect how your email is received by the recipient’s email program.

2. Where Are Your Email Addresses From? One of the most important aspects to consider is where you got your email list from. Are these people who opted-in through your website or an affiliate site? Are these people Friends or Fans on Facebook or any other social network? Did you buy the list? One of the biggest mistakes that business owners make early on is to buy email lists from unknown sources. These lists, even as ‘genuine’ as the seller makes them out to be, are no doubt riddled with fake email addresses and spam traps. These lists will also more than likely include emails to individuals who never opted-in, thus they are more likely to label your email as spam.

3. How is Your Email Reputation? Spam filters on every email program will take a close look at the email address that you’re using to determine how safe and reliable you are. If you’ve sent out many emails in the past that have been labeled spam, email programs will automatically send you to the spam folder and you’re recipient will never see what you have to say. Email programs can go as far as seeing the IP address of the computer you’re sending from, so even if you do utilize a different email address for this ‘clean’ campaign, your IP address could give you away.

4. Are you Using Spam Keywords? Email programs will also take notice of what words you are using in the title of your email, as well as the content of your email. Such keywords that will set off email program’s spam filters are best price, call free, dear friend, compare rates, free offer, free preview, marketing solutions, money, trial offer, and more. Be specific with your email title and avoid ‘selling’ your product to aggressively.

5. Do You Need Help From Marketing Professionals? Sending commercial emails in a targeted email campaign takes experience, know-how and consistency. If you are running these campaigns on your own it will take a great deal of dedication and commitment, as well as the tools to get it done right.

While using tools such as Constant Contact, MailChimp or iContact can greatly improve your success rate, nothing will work quite as well as having an expert run the campaign for you, design an email layout, avoid using ‘trigger’ words and get your email opened by each recipient. If you’re looking for a professional to take over for you, contact us today.

 

Integration is not simply slapping a common tagline onto all your ads, using a single color palette, or force-fitting a message that’s suited for one medium into another (great television commercials rarely translate well to outdoor billboards, which in turn are very different from online banners). – BusinessWeek.com

Fragmentation

Fragmentation is the ability to break down your audience into smaller segments based on income, sex, school, location, shopping preferences, and much more, and marketing to those segments on ‘fragmented’ mediums such as mobile apps, mobile websites, video, TV, print, radio, billboards, and much more. The paths to advertise a product or service has fragmented into hundreds of advertising possibilities, each medium needing a specific marketing plan and goal and targeting a specific segment of audience.

This can indeed take a tool on your marketing budget, as the Business Week article suggests, but it can also give you the greatest advantage to target a specifically segmented audience with highly effective advertisements that speak to that person’s interests.

Fragmentation and Brand Messaging

A crucial factor to remember with fragmentation is to remain consistent with all advertising. Whether you are targeting women who shop at Target on Saturdays to men who play golf on Sunday mornings, while you’re advertisement should be highly targeted it should also remain consistent to your brand message. Your brand message should be woven into every single aspect of every single campaign you run, no matter how fragmented.

Integrated Advertising

This is where an expert Scottsdale marketing firm should be counseled, as integrated advertising should be handled by professionals. Integration involves lacing every single advertising opportunity with a consistent brand message, from that ad you placed in a mobile app to hit women at Target on Saturday to the ad you placed on the golf course of the men for Sunday morning. No matter how fragmented your advertising becomes, a seamless integration of your brand message is paramount.

Long-Term Integration

When you embark on this journey to integrate all of your advertising, consistency in brand messaging is not the only key element; time, dedication, perseverance, and a relentless commitment to your brand message will make or break this form of marketing.

If you’re interested in learning more about fragmentation and integration in advertising and marketing, give us a call!

 

The Message is the Messenger

Sometimes it’s not what’s getting said, but who’s saying it. WE know this is true in many areas of life, from politics to entertainment. But a recent Forbes article, tied closely to a study conducted by the Huffington Post, associates the message response more with the messenger themselves, rather than the medium. Let’s simplify this a bit…

People in advertising, or ‘advertising people’ as Forbes says, have become their own medium. On Facebook, advertising people, not to be confused with advertisers, post photos first, break stories through blogs first, share interesting ideas first, and get the ball rolling before anyone else. Advertising people have literally become their own ‘bonafide medium,’ according to Forbes.

People in advertising, such as our family here at Quaintise, tend to have large social circles on social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter. They tend to be trend setters in terms of fashion, music and food. They aren’t afraid to speak their mind, and can be incredibly creative when doing so. And, most importantly of all, they share, share, share information that spreads like wildfire on social media. It’s not so much the message that advertising people are sharing, but the simple fact that they are sharing it makes it important.

How This Affects Your Marketing Campaigns

Of course, you’re wondering what this has to do with your business marketing plans and social media campaigns. If you haven’t figured it out already, advertising people have great influence. Social media marketing works greatly through influence that generates engagement that ultimately increases brand growth.

Your goal is to ‘reach and inspire’ these advertising people, according to Forbes. These advertising people have connections, have influence, and one Share of your content onto their Wall can literally mean endless possibilities in terms of audience reach. Create something unique, creative, and rousing, then push it out to any advertising people you are aware of on Facebook.

Guess what, we’re advertising people right here in Scottsdale! Need help reaching your audience on TV, in print, on the radio, the web or social media? We can help!

 

Advertising History

This year marks the 71st anniversary of the very first TV commercial. Even as mobile marketing and Internet marketing has become a whole new medium of advertising for Scottsdale marketing firms, TV still holds a very large piece of the advertising pie.

Even as we live in the Internet Age, where mobile devices and social media make real-time advertising a reality, the average American adult still spends about 15 hours a week watching TV, and more than 40% of U.S. advertising is spent on TV commercials. Whether that’s because TV spots have become so lucrative, especially during the Super Bowl and other popular events where 30 seconds could cost you a few million dollars, or because TV ads are still very influential, advertisers are still more willing to spend a bigger portion of their advertising budget on TV.

The History of Fragmentation

Fragmentation in advertising is paramount. If you are advertising to the masses in hopes that you can outplay the numbers game, you’ve got another thing coming. Fragmentation involves the ability to target an audience so selectively that even where they are, according to their GPS on their mobile device, and what they are buying at that very moment influences the ad that they will see when they ‘check in’ to a specific location. Fragmenting your audience allows for extremely segmented and targeted advertising, something that TV advertising is not capable of doing.

With the advent of Cable TV in the 1980’s, TV audiences did become segmented slightly to where Scottsdale marketing firms could target an audience based on specific TV show demographics. For example, advertisers knew that a certain demographic watched The Oprah Show, so they would run specifically created ads for that segment of their audience.

However, today, even as U.S. adults watch 15 hours of TV a week, they are watching more and more TV through ‘commercial free’ mediums, such as pre-recorded TV where they can forward through commercials or 3rd-party apps on SmartTV’s where there are no commercials. This is where Internet advertising steps in, and print advertising comes back into the picture with specialized magazines targeting extremely segmented audiences.

Internet Advertising Possibilities

More recently, advertising and targeting specific audiences has migrated to the Internet, where capturing an Internet users web history, mobile locations, and click-through history allows for real-time marketing as consumers move from site to site. Behavioral targeting via the Internet, though highly contested and controversial, has become the next generation of fragmenting and segmenting your audience for advertising.

Behavioral targeting gives Scottsdale marketing firms the ability to place a higher percentage of audience-specific ads in places where people can see them, yielding a higher percentage click-through rate. When advertisers are able to utilize behavioral targeting via the Internet, ads are more likely to be personally relevant to the specific audience, unlike TV advertising where no matter how segmented they appear to be, you are still advertising to the masses. With behavioral advertising, you can literally advertise to a handful of people based on their behavioral preferences.

Product Placement History

During the height of TV advertising, the audience had literally no ability to avoid commercials. Not only could they not forward through commercials as they can now, because entire TV shows were sponsored by a single advertiser, the advertisements were literally within the production of the show. This Ted Bates school of thought in advertising basically held the belief that the audience didn’t have to like the ads, they just had to remember the ad. So as advertisers sponsored entire shows, consumers were hit with campaigns of repetition and bombardment and there was really nothing they could do about it except for turn off the TV and choose not to watch their favorite shows.

Over time as TV costs grew, those sponsored shows turned into sponsored ads in 15 to 30-second spots, and with the advent of DVR’s and 3rd-party apps many of those commercials today aren’t even seen. So advertisers had to think of a new way to engage their audience without annoying them with commercials that would only be forwarded and ignored; thus the product placement ads.

Sponsorship of video games, sporting events, music events, and much more have become quite common place, so much so that we often forget about the advertising involved and just know that Kyle Busch drives the M&M’s car (sponsored by Mars Snackfood US) and NFL jerseys are made by Nike.

Today’s ‘off-internet’ advertising has become so intertwined with the events or programs that in many cases the sponsor literally becomes the star and the aspect of the event that is remembered, which is exactly what they want. The audience is more likely to say “hey remember that race we went to where everything was Red Bull,” or “hey remember that concert we went to with all of the Chevy trucks at the entrance.”

Engaging The Audience

Advertising, in every form that it takes in the 21st century, is about engaging with the segmented audience. While TV commercial spots are still effective, it’s no longer the only course and must be integrated with other forms of advertising in order to sufficiently engage the audience on all levels and all segments.

For example, when Old Spice ran it’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign they integrated it with every aspect of marketing, from video (Youtube) to print (men’s magazines) to social media (huge Facebook campaign) and TV spots. They even ran a huge PR campaign in which news shows began talking about Old Spice, thus promoting the brand from all levels. It became a viral sensation and one of the most effective marketing campaigns of all time.

One of the reasons that the Old Spice campaign was so successful was simply because it engaged with the audience, thus encouraging user involvement and ultimately ‘user generated content’ where the marketing campaign had a life all its own in the hands of the consumer. User and/or consumer generated content is when the consumer takes your brand, remarkably keeps to the brand message, and runs with their own ideas and, ultimately, does the advertising for the product.

With the history of advertising being organically grown, twisting and turning to meet the desires of the audience as well as utilizing the latest technologies, it pays to have an expert on your side. Contact us today for more information.

 

Not too far off into the future, we all will be connected to the entire world at every second of the day. Today, it’s through our mobile phones. In the future, as Google sees it, our connections might be through interactive mobile glasses that keep us connected to absolutely everything at every moment of the day.

But for today, let’s take a moment to look at what mobile marketing techniques will be huge over the next few years.

Augmented Reality – This is becoming bigger and bigger with every passing day, thanks to improvements in technology allowing some very creative minds design some very interactive advertisements. Augmented reality is the idea of interacting with the ‘live’ world through your mobile device. For example, Hallmark incorporates augmented reality into many of their greeting cards, where you can simply place your mobile phone camera over an area of the greeting card to witness an animation on your phone that corresponds with the very card you’re holding.

Starbucks incorporated augmented reality recently into their Valentine’s Day marketing, where by simply pointing your mobile phone camera over a special Valentine’s Day cup would create some very interactive animations.

How can you use augmented reality in your mobile marketing plans?

According to Inc.com, the market for augmented reality in the U.S. alone is expected to hit $350 million in 2014. To be successful with augmented reality, you absolutely must get creative. Take Esquire Magazine, for example, who’s augmented reality advertising campaign includes taking a ‘virtual photo’ with a supermodel as you check in to certain Barnes and Noble locations. Genius, right?

See the video below for an example of how Disney is using augmented reality in their advertising. How can you creatively integrate this type of marketing into your future marketing plans?

Disney Augmented Reality in Times Square

Flexible Brands for Consumer-Controlled Media

How flexible is your brand? How trusted is your brand? In the near future, the consumer will literally control its experience with your brand. Augmented reality is a great example of this, but consumer-controlled media will mean that your advertising, your brand, will be in the hands of the consumer. They will decide how they want to engage with your brand, creating their own media instead of simply consuming the media you’ve created for them.

This is nothing new, and has been a part of marketing for years. In fact, MarketingWeek.com published a report on consumer-created media way back in 2009, warning brands how important this form of advertising will become. By understanding your fans, segmenting your fans, and engaging with them on a more personal level, you can stay both true to your brand message while allowing the consumer all of the power.

There really is no limit to what you can do with your brand when it comes to mobile marketing. These are but two examples of what the future has to hold, and the future is now. If you have any questions about what marketing strategies you should be using, feel free to contact us today.

If you want your employees to be engaged in their work, creative in their ideas, and productive on all levels, they need to feel like they’re not at work. Whether you’re running a 5 star hotel or a local medical practice, when your employees are happy, your guests and clients are happy.

Google Offices

The proof to the theory that creative office spaces lead to productivity came just a few months ago, in January of 1012, when a research found that “giving employees input into the design of their workspace can improve productivity by as much as 32 percent. Any positive changes can improve productivity by up to 17 percent,” according to Business2Community.com.

Google Offices

Many business owners still cling to the old adage that distractions are no good for productivity. I mean, why would Google have a slide, bean bags, an aquarium room and flashy colors all over the place if it did nothing but create distractions from work and create unproductive employees. Google is one of the most power companies in the world, and it’s employees are some of the happiest because of these distractions.

Facebook Office Space

Some of the most successful businesses of the past few years such as Google, Pixa, Apple, Facebook and Redbull are well known for having highly creative and unique work environments.

Pixar Offices

As a small business, there are things that you can do to increase productivity through creative spaces. For example, ask your employees what they think of their office space. Ask them about everything, from the color of the carpet to the lighting and art on the walls. The smallest details can make the biggest difference.

Pixar Offices

Consider the following ideas for creating a more productive work space for your employees:

• Adding color – Have an expert out to talk about color choices and the moods that they elicit.

• Adding furniture – Think unique furniture, modern and bright.

• Adding ‘zones’ – Old school thinking might consider zones to be the ‘conference room’ or the ‘front desk.’ But in a creative, unique work space that generates productivity, these zones would be idea-generating hubs where light-heartedness and fun rule.

• Notice the Details – Everything, from the pens and pencils that you use, to the binders and staplers matter. Everyone has the boring, black staplers. Why not do something different?

Don’t forget about the white boards! In any environment or industry, whiteboards are your greatest asset. Use them, encourage your employees to use them. Have fun with them. Having a fun, creative, unique work space for you employees truly can make your business more successful.

 

Understanding Social Media Medical Marketing

Many medical professionals avoid social media at all costs. There’s uncertainty in social media, a misunderstanding of its ultimate purpose, and a fear that one disgruntled patient can break an entire brand. Understanding social media’s purpose in medical marketing is the first step that many physicians and healthcare professionals need to take. The second is finding a marketing firm that can engage on a professional level with your patients.

According to the recent study, of 1,600 individuals who were surveyed, 45% “said information found through social media would affect their decision to get a second medical opinion and 34% said it would affect their decision about taking a specific medication.”

And it’s not surprising that consumers have very high expectations in terms of responsiveness from their physicians. Seventy-two-percent of those surveyed “said they would like assistance in scheduling doctor appointments through social media and nearly half of those said they would expect a response within a few hours.”

It’s also not surprising that the demographic of these social media users is largely between the ages of 18 to 24, of which an amazing 80% said “they were likely to share health information through social media and nearly 90% said they would trust the information they found there.”

How To Engage With Patients on Social Media

The numbers don’t lie; people crave medical information and opinions specifically from their physicians on social media. But here’s the rub; medical professionals need to make this a priority in their marketing plans. If the majority of young people are making healthcare decisions based on advice they see on Facebook and Twitter, it stands to reason that you need to be giving them the right advice.

Engaging with your patients on Facebook and Twitter, as well as finding new patients on these social media platforms, involves the following:

• Dedication to consistency

• Commitment to providing accurate information in a compassionate way

• Complete transparency to generate trust

• Commitment to answering questions quickly and empathetically

• Office guidelines for every employee who has access to the Facebook account

• Plans in place to handle disgruntled patients immediately and effectively

• Creative ways to engage patients through contests, content, videos and live Q&A

Engaging with your patients on social media is not difficult, but it does take an understanding of what the Facebook patients want, what they’re looking for, and how you can give that to them. If these numbers are new to you, give us a call today to discuss how Facebook is something that you absolutely need to add to your medical marketing plans.

 

Mobile Advertising

As more and more individuals choose smart phones over cell phones, whether by choice or necessity, this mobile platform is quickly becoming one of the most popular advertising mediums available. In 2010, businesses spent $641 million on mobile advertising. Just last year that number jumped to $1.6 billion…that’s billion with a ‘B.’ That’s a remarkable jump, constituting a 149 percent increase.

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau report, overall internet advertising rose by roughly 22 percent to $31.7 billion. Search-related, mobile advertising led the way in terms of money spent. These would be mostly sponsored ads that show in search results. The second most common advertising was banner and display ads showing on mobile apps and games.

Mobile advertising is growing quickly for many reasons. According to a New York Times interview with David Silverman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, “By combining some of the best features of the Internet, along with portability and location-based technology, mobile advertising is enabling marketers to deliver timely, targeted, relevant and local advertisements in a manner that was not previously possible.”

Location-Based Advertising

One of the greatest benefits to mobile advertising that allows Scottsdale advertising firms amazing insight into audience demographics is location-based advertising. In fact, this form of advertising is so popular that many mobile developers are getting 3.8 times more funding for ad impressions that include location data, according to Gigaom.com.

From a local perspective, this information is paramount in terms of understanding an audience. With location-based advertising, publishers can target their audience as they are literally walking past a business, inside of a shopping mall, or down the street. By providing extremely targeted offers, coupons, and deals that include only that individual’s local stores, advertisers can key into that person’s connection with their hometown.

By marketing within apps, searches, and more, Scottsdale advertising firms can geo-target their specific audience and offer location-based specials and deals. It’s quite remarkable when you stop to think about it.

Boosting Mobile Speeds

Many providers are now offering 4G coverage, basically providing faster downloads and internet results. Google is also aiming to improve its search speed. However, these companies are not ingeniously generating faster mobile web speed to make the customer happy, they are doing it to make more money, of course.

According to BusinessWeek.com, Google aims to ‘use faster mobile internet access to unlock billions of dollars in additional e-commerce and online advertising. When people are waiting for pages to load, they aren’t shopping or viewing ads. That’s hampering everyone from giant Internet companies to local businesses trying to reach customers.’

The article goes on to say that Forrester estimates a faster web connection and download speed could increase ‘mobile-commerce sales in the U.S. by 10 percent, or about $600 million a year.’

In the end, there are many advertising platforms that are available for Arizona businesses. It takes an expert advertising firm to know which mediums will work the best for your business. Contact us today for more information.

Marketing Agency in Arizona

While it’s preferred that you turn to the experts to help you market your medical offices or hotel, there are some small changes that you can make to your marketing efforts that will reap large rewards. These changes are details that every marketing agency in Arizona will complete in the initial steps of your marketing plan, when the foundation is being laid for the rest of your marketing process. They are simple, yet often overlooked details.

1. Add a Custom Email Signature – One of the simplest and easiest things that you can do to increase communication and awareness is to add a custom signature to all of your emails. No matter what email platform you use, whether it’s Outlook or Gmail, they all have options for you to add a custom signature. You’ll want links to your most important social accounts, probably Facebook, Twitter and/or LinkedIn, as well as your phone number, website address, and physical address. Don’t overcrowd the signature, but include images over text and consider placing of each social button.
2. Get Local – Take advantage of free sites such as Foursquare, Google Places and even Facebook Places to connect on a more local level with your audience. If nothing else, make sure you have a Google Places page. This free listing, if updated properly, will give you instant access to everyone searching for your services in the local area. Not only is this free, it takes but a few minutes to set up by including your address, phone number, website, some photos and some key categories.
3. Establish Yourself as an Expert – While this one is completely free, it might take a bit longer than the rest. However, when considering your limited marketing budget, this is something that is extremely important. You can establish yourself as an expert by setting time aside each day to answer questions on Yahoo Answers, or provide useful information on Twitter and Facebook. You can write a How-To blog or a DIY blog to post directly onto your website. You can enter local forums or comment on blogs. Off-internet, in the real world, you can join a networking group or speak at local events to simply provide information. You’re not ‘selling’ your business, but you’re establishing yourself as an expert in the business by providing useful information. Take every advantage and opportunity to do this step because by establishing yourself as an expert in your particular industry you will gain trust, increase brand awareness, and increase results.
4. Business Cards – This might sound cliché and old-fashioned, but business cards are still the way to go. As you establish yourself as an expert, make sure that you always have business cards on hand. Don’t push them out like a used car salesman, but if someone asks and is interested, you have them available at all times. Use these to your advantage. Make sure they have useful information, as well as any promotions or sales you are currently having at your business.
5. Test and Monitor Results – As with any aspect of marketing, you need to keep a close eye on marketing results. If you’ve gotten your business a Google Places page, check out the stats on that page every once in a while to see how things are going. If you are out there establishing yourself as an expert, keep a close eye on which functions you’ve attended that have driven the most calls to your business. There are also ways to track who has clicked on each URL within your email signature, to see how effective different signatures are.

While letting the experts at a marketing agency in Arizona do the work for you is suggested, these simple and affordable steps can make a big difference in your marketing strategy. If it seems like you’re just not making a splash, give us a call.

What Marketing Firms in Arizona Can Take Away from Food Truck Startups

Whether you live in New York, LA, or Phoenix, the ‘chuck wagon’ or food truck is a new staple in our lunchtime routines. It wasn’t always this way, however. How did the ‘roach coach’ turn into the most popular lunch scene in the nation? Branding, marketing, and creativity; the same principles that can apply to any marketing plan in any industry.

• Asking the Right Questions – Before doing anything as a startup, you need to ask the right questions. For example, as we learned in a recent FastCompany.com article, food truck startups need to ask about health regulation codes and municipal boundaries. As a startup, what regulations do you need to abide by? What city codes will affect your operation? What signage laws are there in your area? Will you be able to market your brand affectively in the town, city or neighborhood that you’ve chosen?
• Understanding Collaboration and Partnership – Often times, startups do not utilize their surrounding businesses. For example, food trucks are more likely to team up and collaborate with businesses for promotion and parking. You can utilize this technique when starting a new business by offering joint promotions. By positioning yourself with another well-established business, you can work together to increase profits on both ends.
• Building Relationships with Suppliers – No matter what business you’re in, whether it’s healthcare or hotel, business relationships mean everything. Whether you get linens from one supplier or food for the hotel restaurant from another local supplier, the best thing that you can do for your business is to manage those relationships successfully.
• Employee Relationships – Another aspect of a successful startup is selecting the right people to ‘start up’ with you.

Getting started with a brand new business can be scary. Talk to our marketing experts at Quaintise for a little branding help.