The digital environment is quite cluttered these days and becoming more so. Consumers benefit from access to a massive amount of information literally available at their fingertips—and often being pushed to them by marketers yelling “pick me, me, me.” But with so much activity in the digital environment, sometimes it takes a different approach to stand out: Continue reading “Zigging When They Zag: The Potential of Traditional Marketing Communication”
Tag: marketing communication
How Behavioral Science Principles Can Turbocharge Your Marketing Success
For years, behavioral sciences have been applied to marketing, both consciously and unconsciously. Even when marketers aren’t explicitly tapping into their knowledge of psychology, sociology, etc., they are often thinking in terms of how to satisfy the needs of a potential customer to: belong, to look attractive to the opposite sex, to demonstrate status, to feel as though they are providing for their family, etc. These are all fundamental drivers of human behavior. When we shape our marketing efforts to satisfy those needs, we are guided by the behavioral sciences, whether we know it or not. Continue reading “How Behavioral Science Principles Can Turbocharge Your Marketing Success”
Best Blogging Practices
By Linda Pophal
Blogging can seem like a big commitment and, to a certain degree, it is. After all, you don’t want to start a blog without committing to posting to it regularly. But the time and effort don’t have to be overwhelming. I started this blog in February 2009 and have been posting to it regularly ever since. Over the past few years, I’ve been posting a couple of times a week.
I have five tips for those wanting to start a blog, or do a better job of managing an existing blog: Continue reading “Best Blogging Practices”
Content Curation – Getting it Right
There has, perhaps, never been a time when the old saying “content is king” was more true than it is today. Why? Because the concept of “content marketing” is taking the world by storm. Marketers have embraced the opportunity to share content with their audiences through a variety of channels including websites, blog posts, social media whitepapers and more.
The big challenge: Continuing to create content that will connect with an audience and connect them to some action–even if that action is simply feeling favorably about an organization and its products or services or considering someone a “thought leader.” Continue reading “Content Curation – Getting it Right”
What’s The Best Way to Advertise to (Insert Group Name of Your Choice)?
It seems like just about every week I see a question on social media, or coming through various media feeds that I monitor, asking something like: “What’s the best way to market to millennials?” or “What’s the best way to market to Baby Boomers?” or “What’s the best way to market to mothers?” or…insert any group you can think of.
While I do believe that any question is a valid question, and this one obviously must resonate with many, the question itself points to what would be my key recommendation: Continue reading “What’s The Best Way to Advertise to (Insert Group Name of Your Choice)?”
The Power – and Importance of – Verisimilitude
When I first learned the skill of copywriting several years ago I was fortunate enough to learn from one of the masters – Herschell Gordon Lewis. He had a concept that has stuck with me since then, partly because I like the word and partly because I like what the word means from a marketing standpoint. Verisimilitude. Continue reading “The Power – and Importance of – Verisimilitude”
The C-Suite is Asking the “Wrong” Questions – Really???
Communication folks – ever feel like you’re bumping your head against the wall trying to get “them” to “get it”? Maybe it’s time to take a step back, do a brutally honest self-assessment and consider that maybe, just maybe, you aren’t getting it! Continue reading “The C-Suite is Asking the “Wrong” Questions – Really???”
Is Social Media a Job, or Part of a Bigger Picture?
I found a recent reporter’s question intriguing: “Is social media a field of expertise in and of itself? Or will it eventually become subsumed into pretty much everything?”
My belief: ultimately, social media expertise will relate to the field of communications in the same way that graphic design, video, media relations, etc., currently fit under that umbrella.
Social media represents opportunities for communicating with an audience, but that communication does not occur in a vacuum – to be effective it needs to be part of a coordinated communication approach designed to reach some specific target audience with some specific objective. Expertise in using these tools will be important for communicators and there will likely always be a need for tactically oriented roles that focus on this area (just as, particularly in larger organizations or agencies, there continues to be the need for those who specialize in print, broadcast, web development, etc.). Continue reading “Is Social Media a Job, or Part of a Bigger Picture?”
Narrowing Your Audience: Be Clear to Connect
One of the key decisions that communicators must make is how to segment their audience. Segmenting is basically dividing the overall audience into groups–or segments–that share commonalities so that they can be targeted more specifically. For instance, if you’re a health care organization, you could segment your audience into: women and men. You might further segment the women into audiences of: women of child-bearing age, pre-menopausal women, menopausal women, elderly women. Even among these audiences there might be some need to further segment.
There are (at least) two key points to consider about segmentation:
Continue reading “Narrowing Your Audience: Be Clear to Connect”
Should You Outsource Your Marketing Function?
I was interviewed recently by a reporter with Inc. Magazine about the prevalence and value of outsourcing the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) role. It’s a topic that I definitely have an opinion about–one that may seem to be at cross-purposes with my own self interests. As a marketing communication consultant I’ve actually served in the role of an “outsourced CMO” on a couple of occasions. In one instance, the client was looking for not only my assistance with current marketing efforts, but my recommendations for how they should proceed in the future — should they continue to outsource this function, or should they hire someone to handle their marketing efforts on staff?
Continue reading “Should You Outsource Your Marketing Function?”