Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

How to Plan Your Marketing Budget for Next Year

Posted by Zari Chipman

In November and December, one of the most frequently asked questions I get is how to plan your marketing budget for the next year. Most SMBs I see plan their marketing budget in one of two ways:

    1. Use Last Year’s Budget (give or take a little)
    2. There is No Budget (approve things as they come up)

While “doing what you’ve always done” or “figuring out as you go” may be your current method, there are several budgeting methods that are more effective:

    1. Based on ROI Data and Goals
    2. Based on a Marketing Plan (outlined activities and their costs)
    3. Percentage of Revenue
    4. Using a prior year’s budget

Let’s dig into each method to see which one might make the most sense for your business.

Budgeting Based on ROI Data and Goals

Ideally, you will know how much money you need to put into your marketing to get expected results. Using that data, you can set your marketing budget to match your target growth plans. The challenge with this method is that most SMBs do not have concrete data on which to base those decisions. This data is only possible after you have set up detailed tracking mechanisms to understand your return on investment (ROI) for various marketing activities. The process can take about a year to spin up, test and optimize.

Using a Marketing Plan

Without historical data, the next best option is to base your budget on a marketing plan. What are the planned activities that you will be implementing over the next year to help meet your goals, and what will they cost? You should also be looking at the expected results and target ROI of these activities. Starting with a plan is great, but without measuring the outcome and effect on your goals to understand your ROI isn’t much more efficient than using last year’s budget and hoping for the best.

Percentage of Revenue

If you don’t have historical data or a marketing plan, I would suggest looking for some industry benchmarks.  Almost every industry will have information on marketing budgets as a percentage of revenue. Be warned, most business owners who are operating without a marketing budget will balk when they see the recommended number. Look at it as a target.

Using the Prior Year’s Marketing Budget

Using a prior year’s budget as a starting place will only work if the following conditions are true:

    1. none of the marketing expenses will change from year to year
    2. none of the platforms, mediums, or tactics you are using will need to adjust
    3. you are hitting your growth goals consistently
    4. and you don’t require any infrastructure changes (branding updates, major website changes, new products, or sales materials)

I haven’t seen very many companies that can just coast with the same marketing from year to year, but this is the most common budgeting practice that I see in use, probably because it is the easy button approach. The problem is that the results usually follow suit – not that remarkable.

What’s Next?

While this article may help you determine which method to use, putting together a marketing plan and creating a marketing budget requires significant industry expertise. Without that experience, these activities can be daunting for most business owners. Even among businesses with $15-50 million in annual revenue, most don’t have any marketing leadership on their team. This probably accounts for why it’s rare for most SMBs to have a concrete marketing plan or budget. It’s wise to enlist some expert help if you want to be confident in your marketing plan. You can find marketing consultants and fractional CMOs who can help you.

We Develop Marketing Plans

Do you need help with a marketing plan or budget? Over the past 25 years, we have developed nearly 100 marketing plans and have experts ready to help you set up your marketing program. Explore our website for more information and join our mailing list for monthly tips, tools, and workshops on Marketing for CEO’s.

The Top 20 Software Tools Your Marketing Team Needs

Posted by Lara August

Are You Providing Your Marketing Team With The Tools They Need?
I’m often shocked to see how some marketers are being forced to use free tools and workarounds to get their job done. It makes me wonder if the owners or managers understand the difficulties they are creating for their team. In this article I highlight the top 20 software tools your marketing team needs, along with some of the alternative tools and workarounds that I see people using.

Tools the Entire Marketing Team Needs
These first few tools are things that the entire marketing team should have access to, regardless of their role.

1. Password Management Tool
At this point everyone should be well-versed in the need for secure passwords, which a password management tool can help with, but there are additional benefits of a password management system. If you need to manage access to various accounts for several team members or share passwords among your team, this is the easiest way to do it. I’m not going to lie – these are a major production to get set up, but it’s a game changer once you do. 1Password is a great tool for teams.

2. Project Management Software
If you have more than one marketing employee or multiple freelancers, whoever manages them will need a way allocate work, track progress, ensure deadlines and balance the workload. While it’s possible to function without one, having a project management system will ensure that you are getting the maximum potential out of the resources that you have. Some of the more common tools used by in-house teams are: Monday.com, Asana, Trello and Jira.

3. 4. 5. Word Processing, Spreadsheets and Presentations
Your whole team will probably need a Microsoft subscription for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, but Google’s collaboration features seem to have them gaining ground among SMBs. We are actually seeing an increase in teams using a combination of both Microsoft and Google.Excel and PowerPoint still reign for their more advanced features.

Tools for Your Designers
A tool alone will not make a great designer (that will require design theory education and several years of experience), but the right tool in trained hands will definitely lead to increased productivity. People expected to produce compelling visual designs will need the best-in-class tools.

6. 7. 8. Page Layout, Illustration and PhotoEditing

The Adobe Suite (for Professionals)
There is no replacement for the Adobe Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign). These programs have been the industry standard for almost 4 decades. They are incredibly complex to learn and take years to master. Designers early in their career should focus on mastering these programs, and businesses should provide them with access to the best tools available and training to get the most out of them. This requires both a financial and time commitment, but both the company and the designer’s career will benefit from the decision.

Canva (for Everyone Else)
What about Canva? Canva is a web-based platform that is currently a top choice for amateur designers, non-designers and micro-businesses with small staff and limited budgets. They have a free version with loads of templates that have fueled the tool’s growth. To use your own custom-branded graphics within Canva, you will need to upgrade to a paid account, and serious designers will find the software very limited compared to Adobe products.

9. Font Libraries
Many people don’t realize that fonts require licenses. Even the free fonts require a license agreement (when you download them, you are agreeing to their terms, which may prohibit you from modifying and selling the font, for example.) While the volume of free fonts has grown, many of the most enduring, highest quality fonts are still protected, and to use them you will need either individual licenses or a subscription. Adobe has made it very convenient to access their font library as part of the creative cloud subscription. If you aren’t using Adobe products or you are looking to purchase individual fonts, look to popular sites like FontShop, MyFonts and FontSpring.

10. Stock Art Subscriptions
Most teams who regularly produce content will need access to graphics that they have permission to use. Denying your team access to a stock art library will most likely lead to them using images that they do not have permission to use. Stock art companies have made this easier with affordable subscriptions that you can scale to the quantity you need on an ongoing basis. Outside of the Adobe platform, some of the top stock art sites are: iStock, Getty Images and Envato.

Tools for Social Media Managers
Social Media Managers have some specific tools they need for scheduling and collaboration, but they will also need access to the same suite of design tools as designers and video editors to be visually effective. They may be able to generate content using photos and video taken from their phones, but they will not have the ability to truly manage a professional brand online without more advanced graphics and editing tools.

11. Social Scheduling and Reporting Tools
To produce a regular schedule of content for multiple social media channels is challenging. As a result, there have been tools to help with this for almost as long as the social channels have existed. Some of the features include planners, advance scheduling, reporting, listening, and approval workflows, to name just a few. HootSuite and Sprout Social are the industry leaders.

12. Graphics Editors for Social Media
I have referred to these tools as graphic editors and not graphic creation tools. Due to the speed and volume of what is required for the production of day to day social media posts, most people now turn to basic graphics editors instead of the using the Adobe suite. Canva has become increasingly popular. The paid version allows you to upload brand elements, and I’m going to make a case for this instead of Adobe’s competing product, Express (formerly called Spark). Spark used to be part of the subscription plan, but they have recently made a free version of Express, probably to address Canva’s free growth. I will advocate for Canva here in terms of features and ease of use for a non-designer meeting to spit our quick social posts.

Tools for Digital & Marketing Team Members
The following tools may be used by internal team members or you may have the activities outsourced to specialized companies (SEO, for example, is commonly outsourced to the high level of specialized knowledge required to be successful). I always recommend getting tools set up in your company name wherever possible, so that you always have access to your own historical data. Some vendors will not allow this, so you should always ask before engaging.

13. SEO Management Tool
Basic analytics tools will show you top search phrases, but if you are actively trying to get listed for specific words, you will need a tool to monitor the keyword rankings and their movement up and down over time, and that will require a reporting tool. If your team is devoting any amount of effort to SEO, these tools are a requirement to assess performance. Here are some of the more popular SEO tools: SEM Rush and Moz. You will also find plugins and tools available that are specific to the website platform that you are using.

14. Analytics Tool
Google Analytics is very powerful, and I would still recommend setting up the basic tracking code on EVERY website for use with integrations with other tools, but I’m going to have a hard time advocating for use of the tool that has become so difficult. The latest version requires so much training and set up that it’s going to be difficult for anyone who isn’t in a full-time role at an agency or web firm to use. For small in-house teams wearing lots of hats, you will probably want something easier. This article has a great list of alternatives.

15. Email Marketing Platform
Sending mass emails directly from your email inboxes runs the risk of having your corporate emails accounts shut down for spam violations. Using a third party email platform will minimize that risk and also provides a additional tracking, reporting and management tools (not to mention better looking emails.) Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Emma… take your pick. They are all affordable and easy to use.

16. Client Database / CRM
Salesforce is the 800lb gorilla, but there are other smaller companies who have great platforms. HubSpot has great introductory offers, in addition to offering a marketing automation platform (see below), but pricing is based on list size, and it becomes very expensive for large lists after the introductory period ends. If you have a sales team, they will likely make the decision on which CRM is used, but the marketing team will need access to be able to effectively collaborate. They will need to set up workflows and run reports on leads and leads by source.

17. Marketing Automation Tool
Marketing automation can be beneficial for businesses that need automated follow up with prospects, especially over longer buying cycles. They can either be freestanding tools or work in conjunction with a CRM to help track the effectiveness of email and digital campaigns, and also to send automated campaigns based on the prospect’s point in the sales cycle and interactions with your marketing campaigns and sales team. Hubspot is widely used, but SalesForce users will likely stick to Pardot, which is native to the SalesForce platform. There are others, such as ActiveCampaign, all of which have different feature sets.

18. IP Tracking (for B2B sales)
IP tracking tools provide data on companies that are visiting your website. This can be essential for sales-driven B2B businesses with long sales cycles to better understand the consideration and decision-making activities of their prospects. IP tracking can also help provide an extra layer of data to validate marketing efforts, allowing you to track specific users from campaigns through to their behaviors on your website. Our favorite lead tracker is LeadFeeder by Dealfront.

19. Survey Tool
Surveys can be powerful tools for both market research and measuring client satisfaction. I am seeing Google Forms used more frequently for surveys, but this all dumps into a basic spreadsheet. People familiar with data analysis and survey design will want a tool with more advanced segmenting capabilities. Survey Monkey provides a simple and affordable platform that still packs some punch.

Tools for Video Producers
The term video production has taken on new meaning with the rise of smart phone usage for social media-quality video editing, but for the purpose of this article, let’s assume I’m talking about higher end requirements.

20. Video Editing
High quality video files are very large. As a result, advanced video editing requires not just specialized software, but also specialized processing power and increased storage. If your company is making a commitment to in-house video production, you will want to invest in the right equipment and tools to help your team. There is no bigger waste of time than waiting for a video to render on an underpowered device. Adobe Premier and Final Cut are the industry standard for video editing.

What do you consider essential? Have I forgotten something or is there something you use that I haven’t mentioned? Please share your thoughts.

Do you need help setting up your internal marketing department or hiring for marketing roles? Tap into our 25+ years of expertise with our fractional CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) service.

What is a CMO and Why Do You Need One?

Posted by Lara August

What is a CMO? 
CMO stands for Chief Marketing Officer. They are a member of the C-suite and report directly to the CEO or COO.

What is the function of a CMO?
The CMO participates in top-level strategy and planning as part of the executive team. They are responsible for the brand, positioning, marketing and advertising.

They are in charge of critical top-level KPIs for the organization

  • generating awareness
  • generating leads
  • improving lead quality
  • shortening the sales cycle
  • reducing the cost of acquisition

They are responsible for

  • developing a marketing plan and budget to help the business meet its goals
  • monitoring your competition to make sure that your positioning isn’t slipping
  • keeping your branding and messaging relevant to your audience
  • researching and setting pricing for the company’s products and services
  • launching campaigns for new products, services, geographic locations
  • overseeing specialized vendor areas such as media buying, PR, SEO, and more
  • supporting the sales team with collateral, event marketing, drop campaigns, demos, and more
  • recruiting, hiring and growing your marketing team
  • developing tools, systems and processes to run marketing
  • and so much more…

What is the background of a CMO?
CMOs can come from a variety of educational backgrounds. They will typically have an undergraduate degree in business, marketing or something related. Many will have an MBA or Masters degree in marketing. They will definitely have 10+ years of experience in a variety of roles where they have had the responsibility to develop marketing plans, build the marketing team and oversee the marketing vendors.

Why do you need a CMO?
In short – they are the major force behind the awareness creation and growth of the business. You may ask, “Isn’t everyone focused on the growth of the business? What about the CEO, the COO, the VP of Sales?” It’s possible to operate a company without a CMO, and many small companies do. However, you won’t find a middle market company without one. Most small businesses are missing this dedicated person with a specialized background and education who is focused 100% on the growth of the business.

The most common thing we see in smaller organizations is a VP of Sales and Marketing. While this combined title may require oversight of both sales and marketing departments, the background and experience of the person leading is typically coming up through the the sales career path. They rarely have the experience to effectively lead effective marketing campaigns, run a marketing department or to update branding and customer experience.

How can you find a CMO?
You can hire a full-time CMO, but if your organization isn’t in a position to bring someone on full-time, there are other ways to gain the marketing guidance and experience that your organization needs. Here are some ways to grow your marketing without hiring a CMO:

  • Fractional CMOs (part-time availability)
  • Create an Advisory Board
  • Industry Peers may share Marketing Insights
  • Consultants – Hourly or Project-Basis
  • Give a Marketing Director Opportunity, Access and Training

Do you need help?
Robot Creative has been providing fractional CMO services for more than 25 years and has created hundreds of marketing plans. If you are looking for marketing help, please reach out for a consultation.

Tips for Working with Writers

Posted by Lara August

I recently had a client ask for advice on working with writers. If you are considering hiring a copywriter (either freelance or in-house), here are some leadership pointers to help you get the most out of the engagement:

Review Portfolios Carefully
Make sure you find a writer who has experience in two things: writing the same types of content and writing for the same types of audience. A consumer-focused retail blog is very different from a technical B2B white paper or an email campaign series to onboard a software client.

Manage Your Brand
To ensure brand consistency across all of your company messaging, you should establish brand voice and tone guidelines. These guidelines should be documented and include examples. This can start simple and evolve as you gain experience. Things that you correct or edit out can be added to the guidelines.

Share Your Marketing Plan
You should have a marketing plan and goals that you can clearly communicate to your writer. In particular, the audience and your differentiators will need to be clearly communicated to a writer. Also, don’t underestimate the importance of sharing the big picture with them.

Develop an Editorial Calendar
It helps to establish an editorial calendar, at least on a quarterly basis, so that everyone is on the same page about what is going to happen and when. This can also help with big picture thinking as a writer gets to know you and sees what is on the horizon.

Establish a Workflow and Timelines
You will want to establish a workflow and timelines for expectations on what the process will be. For example, working backward from the publish dates on the editorial calendar – do you need 1 week for a rough draft, one week for your review and 2-3 days for final revisions? If you have employees these timelines are under your control. With external vendors you need to work with them to establish timelines and make sure that they feel they can commit to them.

Get Clarity on Pricing and Estimates
You will want to clarify how long it takes to write certain kinds of content. Sharing clear examples in advance will help make this estimating process more accurate. Will this be a fixed budget or will it be hourly, and what is the hourly rate? Will it include a certain number of rounds of revisions? What would trigger a change order or cause the project to go over the initial estimate?

It Gets Better with Repetition
Working with the same writer will ensure consistency and help shorter the learning curve for the writer so that things get better over time. If you work with a freelance platform or service and change writers frequently, you may feel like you are starting over with each piece which it might suck the life out of you from a management perspective.

Evaluating the Process
It’s a true pleasure to work with gifted and experienced writers. They don’t procrastinate, they add tremendous value to the process and make your organization shine. Working with a poor fit or inexperienced writer can mean the quite the opposite. While you will probably always need to provide some feedback and revisions, you should know by the very first draft whether they are elevating the process or if you will need to pull the project across the finish line yourself. Look for the writer who lightens the load.

If you are looking for help identifying a copywriter please let me know. I can help establish voice and tone guidelines, screen candidates and you set your engagement up for success. 

Top 20 Ways CEOs Wreck Their Marketing

Posted by Lara August

Over the past 25 years, I have had a front-row seat to some of the biggest marketing mistakes that business owners and managers have made. Sometimes, it’s well-intentioned. Sometimes, it’s ill-informed. Sometimes, it’s downright meddlesome. Check out this list to see if you catch yourself saying any of these phrases.

1. Well, I like… or I don’t like…
It may not be about what the owner likes if the owner doesn’t match the buyer profile. Basing marketing decisions on personal preference and not really understanding the audience profiles, preferences and behavioral traits is a common mistake.

2. I just heard/saw/read… or What about Tik Tok?
We see some business owners change on a dime every time they read a new book or hear a new podcast. We often see this come down as an order backed by very little experience and lacking judgment. We definitely encourage all questions and challenges from the owner, but I would recommend you at least have a discussion to make sure that the decisions make sense in the context of the marketing plan!

3. We have worked with Judy (radio sales rep) a long time.
Sometimes long-term relationships with sales and media reps can lead to a lapse in judgment and complacency on the marketing front. It makes sense to measure success against third-party benchmarks and regularly re-evaluate your strategy.

4. What about a billboard? or We really need a billboard.
Some people really want to see their logo (or face) giant on a billboard or in outdoor advertising. Owners should challenge themselves to evaluate the marketing goal they are trying to achieve and only run billboards as part of a multi-pronged campaign with clear tracking available through other channels or point of sale.

5. Everyone is a potential customer, or We don’t want to turn away business, or I don’t want to lose out on… 
Marketing to a specific group is the equivalent of using the right lure to catch a specific kind of fish. It can make all the difference. It doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to catch any other fish that decide to bite. Fear of positioning and clearly speaking to specific audiences can lead to a lack of connection with any audience.

6. I “know” who our customer is, I “think” what they really want is, or I “believe” we are about 60% x and 40% y.
We see a lot of off-the-cuff responses to really critical questions. Many small businesses fail to use concrete data to make important decisions. Sometimes the questions haven’t ever been asked. The data is often challenging to pull or requires manual clean up or re-coding. The analysis may give you a one-time snapshot, but ideally it will be the beginning of a new infrastructure to help better manage your business moving forward.

7. Lisa (Marketing Director) can’t take us to the next level… 
We see shocking expectations from owners about what their solo in-house marketing person should be capable of. A single person should not be expected to design, write, plan, budget, analyze, promote and lead your organization to success, especially if you aren’t providing: ongoing education/training opportunities, time to participate in industry trade organizations/peer groups and the option to enlist additional experts/resources.

8. David (Marketing Coordinator/Manager) thinks we need to be focusing on Twitter followers.
Sometimes, we see owners taking the advice of the internal marketing person even when that team member lacks the experience to be developing the strategy. Owners may not hear the advice and recommendations of other experts because they don’t want to upset the internal team. It’s important to make sure that you are always evaluating the mediums you select based on the target audience profiles.

9. We are really a sales-driven organization, and advertising hasn’t ever really worked for us.
For some businesses who have had success with direct sales, there is often a misunderstanding about how marketing activities can provide awareness and generate warm leads, data and credibility to convert leads faster, sales support to shorten the sales cycle, aid retention, etc.

10. We don’t really have a plan… or We don’t really have a marketing budget… 
It’s surprising how many businesses are lacking a marketing plan and don’t even have a line item for a marketing budget. It’s real hard to improve your marketing program when you don’t have it documented or have a way to compare year-over-year performance.

11. Well last year we spent about 220K… 
The majority of established businesses are simply running off of last year’s budget as a framework for the marketing decision-making instead of basing the marketing plan on a strategy that is expected to generate results.

12. We have always… 
Many business owners cling to antiquated marketing methods because that’s how the business was originally built, or something that worked in the past even if it is no longer working. Meanwhile, competitors and startups are capturing market share with modernized methods and tactics.

13. I know my friend Johnny (business owner) got great results from… 
We hear a lot of owners who think that a program a fellow business owner bragged about is 100% accurate and will work for them as well. They cling to the idea of a silver bullet despite the businesses, audiences and positioning being entirely different.

14. They always think the owner is always the best spokesperson… 
There are some owners who make the perfect spokesperson for the business. There are others who do not resonate with the audience, don’t realize it and don’t seek useful feedback. Owner-spokespeople should use impartial methods to solicit feedback from the target audience to ensure they are resonating.

15. I know, but… or What you have to understand is… 
Sometimes business owners don’t heed the advice of experts or internal team members. These CEOs are usually struggling, unable to clearly process the information from the expert, struggling to trust, and not willing to listen with an open mind. If you find yourself using these phrases with experts, take a deep breath and practice listening.

16. We are known for our quality, or We have the best customer service in the industry.
Our follow-up question is always, “why?” or “how so?” A lack of differentiation is a typical problem among small companies. It takes work to fully understand the competitive landscape and to authentically position your company to appeal to specific audience(s), but it will lead to more effective marketing and sales.

17. I saw the XYZ company is doing…
Some small businesses focus too much on the competition, playing follow the leader or reacting to their advertising. Instead, they should be developing their own unique positioning and memorable branding.

18. We don’t really have any competitors… 
Sure you don’t… Even the status quo and complacency are competitors to be addressed.

19. We can’t change the logo…
Failure to do a regular brand audit to ensure that the branding/positioning is appealing to the target customer and unique among the competition will catch up with you eventually.

20. We hear all the time… 
Using anecdotal information to make critical business decisions instead of surveying your audience to make sure that you are using a data-driven approach. Yes, the squeaky wheel on social media needs a response, but it would be a mistake to adjust your entire business to appease them.

Are you guilty of any of these?
If any of these phrases sound familiar, I would encourage you to take a 10,000-foot view to try to identify where the behavior is coming from. It is most likely a mindset that is rooted in a past experience or belief that may or may not be accurate or informed.

When in doubt, solicit advice from a business advisor that you can trust to deliver impartial and even ruthless feedback. Your business (and your marketing team in particular) will thank you.

7 Ways to Level Up Your Marketing Team

Posted by Lara August

SMB leaders are continually looking for ways to level up their marketing. They often turn to the latest expert, a bestselling book or a new platform, but the best way to level up might be by investing in your current team. There are some concrete actions you can take right now to give your marketing team an injection of new ideas and energy.

Time and money for training
Training is going to seem obvious, but you need to be proactive about planning it, because it isn’t just going to magically happen. Investing in training will help young marketers learn from more experienced professionals and will help seasoned marketers stay abreast of the ever-evolving technology and tools. Each year, I recommend you do these three things:

1. Identify critical training needs
2. Determine a specific budget for training
3. Actually put dates on the calendar or block it off by quarter

Formal training can range from $3500 or more to attend a conference to $50-250 for an online course. There are also tons of free resources on the internet for people who are good at self-based training (not everyone is good at this, and not all free training on the internet is good…so beware!)

Training courses can also differ significantly in their time commitments. They might be over the course of a three-day weekend, every Tuesday night for months or a one-hour lunch and learn.

The training may include intermittent assessments, final exams, projects and even certifications. If you are working with a new employee, I would recommend finding training that has an assessment component to evaluate how well they respond to these opportunities.

I like people to be excited about their training, so I coach them on specific company goals or needs, but then have them do their own research to identify training opportunities. I ask them to find a variety of options in terms of both time commitment and cost. This empowers them to take control of their own advancement and leads to a higher level of commitment. I listen for enthusiasm or sparks when they go over the options. More than once that has swayed me to buy into longer or more expensive programs.

Training isn’t the only way to help your team grow and develop. There are several additional ways to get help by simply encouraging staff participation in certain types of “outside” activities.

Industry trade organization membership
Industry trade organizations are also great resources for your marketing teams. They usually include monthly meetings with timely topics and educational speakers, the opportunity to build a peer network to share ideas and challenges, competitions and awards to help benchmark and level up, as well as leadership opportunities.

There are too many organizations to list here, so I’ll just start with the ones that I participated in when I was starting out: American Advertising Federation (AdFed), American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), and American Marketing Association (AMA). These are large, national organizations with local chapters. You will also find smaller, local groups that vary from place to place.

It is also worth looking into industry-specific groups, some of which may have marketing-specific opportunities.

Mentorship
Mentors are another great way to help your team grow professionally. While mentor relationships can be a naturally evolving arrangement, there is a lot that business owners can do to encourage staff members to find a mentor.

To begin, talk to your employees about mentorship, what it means, and how it works. Describe any mentor relationships that have helped you grow and evolve in your career. Then encourage or aid them in identifying possible mentors and allow them time to meet with their mentors on a monthly basis.

You can help your marketing team look for mentors both within the company and outside the company. An internal mentorship can help a new or less experienced person get to know your company, your culture, your brand, your operation and your team. They don’t need to be in the same department. There is great value in helping someone ramp up quickly. If your team is large enough to have junior and senior roles, providing a junior team member with a senior team member (who is not the direct manager) can help them more quickly advance in their role-specific skills.

External mentorship becomes more valuable at higher manager and director levels because it helps your middle management leaders gain access to outside perspectives. It provides them with a sounding board to talk through the more challenging aspects of management, as well as a seasoned second opinion on tactics and programs.

Peer groups & meetups
There are a variety of industry-specific, design-specific and marketing-specific peer groups. They typically meet monthly and have anywhere from 6-12 members. If you can’t find a local group in your area, you may be able to find one online that offers virtual meetings.

This places your people in a group of peers to share challenges and grow. It helps them build a network and provides an extended team to share tools, training, tactics, and experience. Over the years, I have solved numerous business challenges with a quick email or slack message to one of my peer groups.

Meetups vary in their attendance from one to the next, and attendance isn’t mandatory, so you won’t have an instant network the way you would with a peer group, but for a personable person with interpersonal skills, meetups can be a great way to develop their own peer network.

Peer groups vary in cost depending largely on the host organization. Meetups are typically free or very affordable. The gift of time to attend these is critical from employers.

Encouragement to volunteer on a nonprofit marketing committee or board
For mid-level marketing employees, another great opportunity to develop leadership skills and gain extra experience is to serve on a nonprofit board or committee. Marketing and communications committees are regularly seeking volunteers, so these opportunities abound.

By encouraging this participation, which may require time during business hours, you can strengthen a corporate relationship with a nonprofit that you support as a business, or you could allow the employee to serve an organization that is deeply meaningful to them personally. Either way, you are strengthening important bonds both with your employee and the community.

At the board level, your employees will gain a front-row seat to the interworking of an organization from finance to HR to marketing and strategy they will have the opportunity to expand their leadership skills, preparing them for deeper levels of participation in your business.

With committee-level participation, your employees will have the chance to develop peer connections and will also typically have more hands-on tactical opportunities. If they have limited work experience, this can help them grow exponentially. They can get double the hands-on experience, expand their skillset, refine existing skills and have twice the data and reporting to compare and contrast. They will also be learning from their peers on the committee.

Budget to hire experts
With limited budgets, it can seem like a good idea to keep as much as possible in-house. If you have a seasoned team or can devote time to learning and experimenting, this can work out just fine. However, if you need results quickly, give your team permission to work with outside experts. They will get a front-row seat to the processes and tools. They will get the chance to interact with people who they can learn from.

Permission to experiment and fail
This last one is hard. As a business owner, you NEED to have an expectation of results, but new marketers experience a learning curve before they can consistently return repeatable results. They will need to have coaching to continually test, evaluate and improve their performance. Starting out, consistent management is key to their growth.

Once marketers have solid experience, they should be able to operate more independently. They should also be able to clearly communicate whether initiatives should have predictable outcomes (and what they are) or whether there will be a trial or testing period. Owners should be able to manage risk during testing periods with clear up-front communication. If you can establish some agreed-upon budgets, benchmarks and review periods, everyone should start and remain on the same page.

How many of these opportunities are you providing to your marketing team? Are you investing in their growth and seeing a return? Do you have creative ways you are inspiring your teams and helping them advance? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

About Robot Creative
Robot Creative provides fractional CMO services, marketing plans, branding, an outsourced marketing team and consulting advice to small and mid-sized companies. If you are looking for leadership or staff augmentation, please reach out for a consultation.

About Lara August
Lara August is the Founder and CEO of Robot Creative. She writes, speaks and consults with clients to improve their branding, marketing and marketing team development with the ultimate goal of business growth.

Understanding Different Marketing Roles: CMO, Marketing Director and Marketing Manager

Posted by Lara August

I see business owners confused about what to expect from people in different marketing roles. Most often they are complaining that there is a deficit in some area of their performance, when really, they are doing a fantastic job given their educational level and experience.

Here is an overview of what different levels of marketing staffing typically look like, along with their salary ranges and a simple explanation of the various expectations you should have for each level.

CMO – Chief Marketing Officer

$100,000 – 160,000+ annual salary

  • The C means participation at the leadership level
  • Entrepreneurial contribution at the highest level of company goal setting
  • Peer to other departments at the leadership level
  • Should not require management
  • 20+ years of experience
  • Background in both marketing and business
  • Got there by doing high level consulting, by investing in significant education (MBA), working with a startup or by amassing experience through job switching
  • This title, and even this position, is rare within companies under 50M in revenue. Less than 12% have a CMO.

Marketing Director

$75,000-130,000 annual salary

  • Requires big picture input from the leadership level on company vision and goals
  • Manages others, but also requires management and performance feedback
  • 10+ years of experience
  • Develops plans and marketing budgets
  • Runs programs
  • Can do several different aspects of the work (depending on background, might be more into data, writing or graphics)
  • Often worked their way up from a manager level within the same company
  • May have switched jobs and companies a few times, amassing education and experience

Marketing Manager (various titles… these are the doers)

$45,000-75,000 annual salary

What to expect:

  • Requires management and mentorship from an experienced marketer
  • Can run select programs based on specific training and experience
  • Often focused or specialized in one or two of these areas: social media, SEO, Google Ads, email marketing, content marketing, graphic design, copywriting, etc.

Do not expect them to:

  • be GREAT at more than one thing
  • be GOOD at more than two things
  • succeed without additional training and mentorship
  • develop a marketing plan
  • develop a marketing budget
  • manage people – they manage marketing activities
  • contribute at the leadership or strategy level

The most common frustration that we see from business owners is disappointment with their marketing managers. They are often expected to be operating at the director level or higher, but don’t have the training or experience to be able to contribute at those levels… yet! Use these general guidelines as a framework to fairly evaluate your marketing staff, and please love on your marketing team for their capabilities — not their shortcomings, especially if it’s your expectations that are not set correctly.

In my next post, I will share concrete steps that you can take as a leader to help your small marketing team advance.

How Do you Start an Online Presence?

Posted by robot

We get asked all the time, “how do we get started with an online presence?” We hear this from new businesses, established businesses, nonprofit organizations, and even individual experts or thought leaders hoping to develop their personal brand online. This article walks through the basic steps to building an online presence and helps provide strategies for managing an online presence.

Set up the infrastructure first

Website
It goes without saying, you are going to need a website. There are very few organizations that can get by without one, but the level of effort applied to the website should depend on the audience and how they are likely to interact with the organization via the website.

There are a wide range of technology options to consider:

  • Simple and affordable DIY web site builders (Squarespace & Wix)
  • Easy ecommerce (Shopify & Squarespace)
  • Fully custom websites (WordPress)

Some website pointers:

  • Choose an easy to spell and memorable URL
  • Make sure the website is SEO-ready, fast-loading & mobile-friendly
  • Set up a Google Analytics account & submit the sitemap through Google Search Console

Social Media Platforms
It’s important to focus on the platforms that are frequently used by your audiences. You may have more than one audience and they might use different social media platforms and engage in very different ways! Start small with just a few channels—what you can afford and can manage.

You will probably also need to set up paid advertising accounts in each social channel you plan to use. Organic business reach is very limited for businesses on social media with the current algorithms, and you will need to pay to run ads to specific audiences. This is another reason to carefully consider how many audiences you will go after and how many channels you intend to use.

Review & Referral Sites
For some types of businesses (restaurants, hospitality, homes services, etc.), reviews are a critical step in the consumer decision-making process and should be given as much consideration as the company website. It may even be the place that your potential customers go first. If you aren’t sure which review sites you should be considering, google “____insert your industry____ review” and see what comes up. This is what your potential customers are doing when they are researching.

What You will need to get set up online

You will want to ensure that you are communicating a consistent message and positioning to your audience across all of your online channels. If you are adding new channels or doing a review of your online reputation, take a minute to step back and review all of your sites for consistency.

Branding
To get a solid presence set up online, you will need branding. This includes several visual components such as logos, colors, fonts and graphics as well as a basic description of the business.

Products & Services Descriptions
Additionally, most online sites will have the option for you to include products and/or services descriptions and related imagery.

Photos & Video
In addition to photos, video is now widely supported on almost every platform, and with reason – they tend to preform very well.

Following those simple steps will help you build the infrastructure to get started with your online presence, but just because you build it does not mean people will come to these sites. You will also need some ongoing strategies to drive people back to your online properties.

Ongoing Marketing Activities to Build an Online Presence

There are lots of marketing strategies to drive awareness, engagement and visitors to your online properties on an ongoing basis. You should select your marketing activities based on your specific audiences, goals and budgets.  Here is a list of some of the most common online strategies that can be used to create visibility for your organization.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
If there are people actively searching for your organization, or even more generally for your products and services, you will want to take some time to do some basic search engine optimization, which you may also hear referred to as organic search and SEO. This requires a website to be SEO friendly from a technical standpoint, and to follow best practices for the use of specific keywords and copy length on each page. This type of SEO setup would require researching the most commonly used search phrases, comparing that to the content on your site, updating site content to better match the keyword data and creating new content based on key search phrase that will appeal to both your intended audience and the search engines. This tactic requires some up-front work and ongoing adjustment as search patterns shift, but if you can put in the time for regular content creation, this tactic will pay off over time.

SEO is not for everyone, however. You may be in a heavily saturated market that makes it hard to rise in the search engine listings, or you may even be in an industry that is new or has very little search volume. In those cases, you will need to use some of the other tactics listed below.

Paid Search Marketing
If you are in a highly saturated industry for organic search, you may be able to use paid search advertising to rise to the top of the search results. Paid search bypasses the need to optimize your site for organic search and can help you appear at the top of the search results as soon as you turn your ads on. However, if your site is not optimized for the keywords you’re buying, your performance may be less than what you would like. We almost always recommend combining your paid search and organic search efforts to make sure they are aligned and work well together.

Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is a very broad term used to cover a whole lot of ground. Digital marketing involves placing ads or content in front of people to create awareness and drive interest back to your properties. Unlike with search, in digital marketing you are targeting people based on a variety of triggers even if they aren’t actively looking for what you are selling. A few examples: Google Display ads, social media advertising, streaming audio/video advertising, native content placement, etc.

Content Marketing
Content marketing is a great opportunity for businesses who have the ability to generate new pages on their website on an ongoing basis. Most commonly, this takes on the form of newsroom posts, blogs, videos or other resources. Most content marketing programs involve the creation of this content as well as shares on social channels and in email marketing. It might also include an ongoing SEO strategy to optimize each new page of content that is created.

PR / Earned Media Strategy
Using PR and earned media mentions can be a great way to create visibility for your organization. When popular and high-ranking sites post articles that mention you and your business and link back to your website, you have a two-fold benefit. You will be reaching a new audience through the publication, and you will receive “cool” points from Google (also known as building backlinks to boost your page authority in technical marketing jargon).

Email Marketing
If you have a clearly defined list of people that you have permission to email, this is a very affordable way to create regular engagement and traffic back to your website and any of your digital properties. Almost any organization capable of collecting emails with permission should develop this strategy, because unlike the other mentioned tactics, it is 100% under your control, and the costs are practically free. An email marketing strategy includes two parts: 1) growing the list and 2) creating engaging and meaningful content that your audience want to receive.

Social Media
Social media can be a great way to drive ongoing awareness, engagement and traffic to your various online properties. This requires ongoing posting on a regular basis. The guidelines on frequency will vary by industry and audience. Done really well, social media will also include engagement strategies to interact with your audience, monitor competitors and your own reputation. Also, as previously mentioned, for most organizations an effective social media strategy will also require ongoing paid advertising.

Review Management
Last but not least, those review sites you set up will require monitoring and responses. If customers are happy, you should be thanking them for their business and harnessing the power of their positive words. If they are unhappy, quickly responding to any issues is important. Most platforms allow the complainers to adjust their reviews once an issue has been settled. Even if that is not possible, the world will see your attempts to quickly remedy the situation.

Every business, nonprofit and brand is different. A solid marketing plan can help identify the best audiences and market opportunities, which will in turn guide the infrastructure decisions and marketing tactics. Contact us if you need help establishing an online presence. We have more than 25 years of experience helping businesses grow and hit their goals.

What is GA4, and What Does it Mean for your Business?

Posted by Mandy

Whether you’re savvy with Google Analytics yourself, or you’ve delegated your website analysis, it’s important to understand how Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will affect your website reporting. GA4 is a new version of Google Analytics that launched in October 2021 in anticipation of the previous version (Universal Analytics) being discontinued in July 2023. If you’re wondering why this matters, it’s because when Google sunsets the former platform next summer, all your historical website data will be erased. So, if you haven’t already transitioned your analytics to GA4, we’ve got the cliff’s notes on what’s changing, why it’s important and what to do now to be ready for next year. And yes, you need to get ready now… don’t let it sneak up on you.

What is Different in GA4?

  •  Say “Goodbye” to Old Data

    As of July 2023, Universal Analytics (UA) will quit collecting data on your site and you will have access to your historical data for only six months thereafter. That’s why Google recommends you do a backup of at least fourteen months’ worth of data before July 2023. So, if you’re wanting to compare site engagement during an annual promotional campaign to data from years past, you’ll want to make sure you have those backups. (Instructions on backing up data can be found here.)

  • Tracking Traffic Differently

    Universal Analytics tracks traffic by session. In other words, if I come to your website by clicking on a social post, then go to another website to check my email, but come back to your site by typing in your web address in the URL, those site visits are counted as two separate sessions. GA4 uses “event-based” tracking. In GA4, those two website visits would be combined into one session with separate events. This means your session numbers will look much lower, but inevitably your engagement rates will be much higher. This presents a challenge in comparing data between UA and GA4. They are like comparing apples to oranges. That’s why it’s recommended you go ahead and start using GA4 Google Analytics alongside Universal Analytics for the next year to generate side-by-side reports. This gives you and your team the chance to learn how to interpret the data for an entire year before relying solely on the new platform.

  • Customer Journey Intel

    Event tracking in GA4 is also going to give us a much better picture of the user experience and customer journey while on our sites. There are various types of events that will be tracked. Each tells part of the overall story of how a user got to your website and what they did once they got there.

    • Automatically Tracked Events

      To make things easier, Google set up GA4 to track things like clicks, downloads, first visit to a web page, page scroll and so on. These are extremely useful and the fact that you don’t have to have your web developer add various tags on numerous pages throughout your site to capture these more standard events is a time and money saver.

    • Enhanced Measurement Events

      If you want to take tracking further, with GA4, you can. There are enhanced measurements. For example, you can track more than a page scroll, like the percentage of the page that was scrolled. These give a more complete picture of the customer experience.

    • Recommended Events

      Google has listed some suggested events for businesses or organizations based on common website needs for specific verticals. For instance, e-commerce sites have a list of recommended events like “add-to-cart” and “refund” or “generate lead.” These recommendations can be found in the events report.

    • Custom Events

      Despite the upgrade in pre-established event tracking that Google is introducing, you still might want to track something unique and Google still allows this within custom events. For instance, if you want to track when a person makes a “donation” to your organization, which is different than a standard e-commerce purchase, that would require a custom event. Visit here to learn how to set up custom events.

  • Ramped Up Security

    With online security and personal privacy concerns, GA4 makes it easier to stay in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). With GA4, IP addresses are anonymous (called IP Masking), relying on artificial intelligence (IA) to infer geography and context based on past behavior. While IP Masking is an opt-in feature in Universal Analytics, it’s now mandatory with GA4.

  • App and Web in One

    A big advantage of GA4 is the consolidation of analytics profiles. If you have an app and a website, in Universal Analytics, you have to track them separately. In GA4, they are tracked together. So, if someone clicks from your site to your app and then buys something, that entire customer journey is tracked within one analytics profile.

Why does the Google Analytics Change Matter to Your Business?

You may wonder why any of these changes matter. The truth is, if you don’t consider your website a part of your marketing strategy, then this really won’t change much for you. However, if you rely on your site to play a role in gaining new customers, leads or sales, the switch to GA4 is critical. Understanding who comes to your website, how they get there and how they engage with your site are all important steps in assessing how well your website supports your goals.

What Do You Need to Do Now?

  1. Your next steps should include setting up your GA4 account alongside your current Universal Analytics account. Thankfully, the initial setup for GA4 isn’t too complicated. It’s only taken us a few minutes to do this for each of our customers. There might be a little more time to set up any custom events if you require those to track what you need. Otherwise, you can connect GA4 to your Google Ads and Tag Manager accounts seamlessly. You can find complete instructions here.
  2. Next, you will want to download backups of your data (instructions here).
  3. Be sure to finish migrating your conversion goals and set up event tracking and audience groups.
  4. Finally, play around with the reporting templates and see how the new platform shows insights compared to Universal Analytics reporting.

If you need help transitioning to GA4 or setting up custom reports, or want an independent review of your website and its current state of performance and tracking setup, contact us today.

What does #BlackLivesMatter mean to your business?

Posted by Lara August

I called and texted clients last week to ask what they were planning to do to address the movement that was triggered by the death of George Floyd, who was killed by police while in custody in Minneapolis on May 25th. While most had discussed current events with their leadership teams, very few had decided to take any direct action. I don’t believe it was out of apathy. I believe it was because they just didn’t know what to do.

Some of the responses were:

  • “We are just trying to get through the coronavirus.”
  • “We don’t take political positions as a business.”
  • “I don’t see how this relates to our company.”
  • “I don’t think that as company there is anything that we should do.”
  • “I am very concerned and acting personally.”

Many asked me what I saw other businesses doing and I thought this was as worthy list of information to spread further. There are lots of things you should consider doing internally and externally.

It Does Affect YOUR Business
If you are feeling paralyzed as a business leader, and if you are struggling with whether this issue affects your company or not, know that it does affect you if:

  • You have customers
  • You have employees
  • You have vendors
  • You work with human beings

While police brutality may not feel like a business issue, racial discrimination and human rights are issues to all citizens of this country, and we have reached a critical boiling over point as a nation. If your business is made up of people, or works with people, your silence will be interpreted one way or another. Whether you assign credit or blame to social media, to millennials or to the media, our new reality is one of action.

Take Care of Your People
Consider the effects that current events might be having on your employees. Check in with your Black employees to see how they are coping. But also consider that you don’t know who might be affected by these events based on the color of their skin alone – close friends and family may be affected. Check in with all of your employees. If you have an HR person, company or team, they should have access to mental health resources and be able to address struggles. If the emotional part of this hasn’t reached you yet, consider that it might be affecting attendance and performance and just do the right thing.

Want to take that further?

  • Create a facilitated discussion group to help people talk about their feelings.
  • Create a committee to propose ways to get team members involved.
  • Hire an expert to help educate your leadership team.

Then Look Closer at Your Organization
I would personally love to see businesses making tough calls to choose human rights over profits, but if profits is the language you want to speak, you might still consider the transparency that has been created with Glassdoor, Indeed and LinkedIn. It’s not just public companies that are under scrutiny for their hiring, promotion and pay equity right now.

  • Do you need to change your recruiting practices?
  • Do you need to work on more diversity among your leadership teams?
  • Do you need to address pay equity within your company?

It’s a great time to reflect on where you are and to use it as a baseline. From this point, do you intend to do anything better or differently? Do you feel strongly enough to put a stake in the ground and set some goals? Maybe a committee of employees particularly close to the cause can help you turn that into a reality.

Should You Take Further Action?
While most business leaders can see the need for internal action, many wonder if they should be taking additional public action. If you checked in with your team, you probably already know the answer to this question. If you just aren’t sure what you can do, here are some ideas:

It’s easy to make donations to credible organizations who are affecting change, and some people feel that seems meaningless, but it’s not. They need support, and if you aren’t sure how to get started, you can do a lot to help what is already well underway.

  • Match employee contributions to those causes.
  • If you have political influence, you can use it.
  • If you can vote with your dollars, your contracts, who you choose to work with as clients, or how you invest, you may be able to create change through financial pressure.
  • Take a public stand. We have seen an inspiring wave of companies confessing their lack of diversity, committing to plans, and supporting organizations who will affect change.

Should You Message Externally?
While the action you are taking internally and externally will have the most direct impact, consider making your plans public. Your message won’t be lost in the massive outcry… it will join in the chorus. It will also strengthen your leadership position with your workforce and customers. If you are committing to significant change, this will add a layer of accountability.

I am not a huge fan of copying and pasting messages, and would love to see each company use their own unique voice and speak to their audience in the appropriate tone, but that can be easier said than done. There is a lot of eloquent messaging out there, that authors would love to see shared. Ask their permission. Give them credit. Include a link. It’s the message that matters right now as much as the voice.

Don’t Be Afraid
I’ve heard some people express fear of retaliation, of losing customers and of alienating themselves from what might be a sizable demographic in Texas. Even incredibly conservative political leaders and media have denounced the murder of George Floyd. You don’t need to condone protests, destruction of businesses or looting to take a stand for equality and human rights. Which way do you see this issue heading? Which side of it do you want your business to be on?

It’s Not Too Late
While social media did see waves of immediate responses and action plans from companies across the country, you are not too late. Your commitment to change and your plans for action will become a lasting part of your company messaging. Many businesses, especially smaller ones struggling with coronavirus-induced challenges will need time to deliberate internally, to develop thoughtful plans and to take action. This isn’t a last week thing. Please keep the momentum going at a pace you can sustain.

Need Help?
We are not experts on the subject of diversity and inclusion. We are a small business and a work in progress, like so many others. However, if we can connect you to resources or help you with your company’s messaging, we would be thrilled to help. Give us a call.

In a Digital World, Does Direct Mail Still Work?

Posted by Mandy

Gaining customers starts with awareness. Even though the Metropolitan Methodist Hospital is one of the more well-known hospital systems in San Antonio, their Emergency Room facility at the Quarry Market Shopping Center was relatively new, and residents didn’t always remember where they were located. So, the hospital reached out to Robot Creative for help with an awareness campaign.

The challenge was to get word out to the families living around the Quarry Market about the full-service ER right in their neighborhood. To do this, we presented a plan that included digital marketing blended with traditional forms of advertising like community outreach and direct mail.

According to a research by the Data and Marketing Association conducted in 2018, direct to consumer advertising has a response rate ranging between 5% for prospect lists (possible customers) and 9% for house lists (current customers). Physically handling a post card can create a different response than seeing an ad on a screen. According to stats quoted by the USPS, a majority of consumers feel mail is more personal than the internet and prefer it as the format for unsolicited information on unfamiliar companies.

Knowing that the tactile effect of a physical mailer was likely to have a good response rate, we developed several campaigns featuring hyper-local content that would appeal to our target audience.

  1. Post Cards – We designed and sent post card series to family households in the targeted region around the ER. These included information on the location of the facility as well as a brief description about services and unique qualities of that facility. There were two series, one with designs that featured local students/parents and one with prominent residents from the area. This gave readers familiar faces with which to identify and engage. We also included static and variable maps, showing each household’s unique directions from their location to the ER. This personalized and local experience made these mailers more relevant for residents in the area. Imagery from each campaign was utilized in both social and print advertising during the same time frame, increasing frequency and reach on the selected audience.
  1. Magazines – We also created a special magazine, In the Loop, to specifically reach new residents who recently moved into the same neighborhoods. These magazines gave a more in-depth overview of the Metropolitan Methodist Hospital and Quarry ER, still including information like location, but also education on preventative care and when to visit the ER versus an urgent care center or a full-service hospital.MMEC In The Loop Magazine

Compared to their peers within the system, the patient count at the Quarry ER increased 18% in the first year of this effort, while the system average declined. This proved that awareness campaigns utilizing a multi-touch point approach can and do work for B2C marketing.

Need more customers coming into your location? Contact us today to develop a winning strategy.

Six Things You Need to Know Right Now About Google Ads

Posted by Lana Harris

Advertising on Google is Changing. Here’s What You Need To Know.

Earlier this summer, Google announced that it was going to consolidate and rebrand its various advertising products. Gone would be Google AdWords and Google DoubleClick. In their place, one unified platform: Google Ads. Given the scope of the advertising behemoth’s current product lineup, the move probably makes sense. After all, Google advertising has changed dramatically since AdWords was first introduced way back in 2000 (yeah, 18 years ago).

The company needed a brand that accurately reflected its robust offering, which now includes search, display, map, video, in-app, and more. But that wasn’t the only big news to come out of Mountain View. In addition to the modified moniker, the tech giant has some pretty big things up its sleeve. Let’s jump in.

 

  1. Responsive Search Ads

Google’s push toward machine learning has made its way to search in the form of responsive search ads. With responsive ads, you’ll provide 15 headlines and four descriptions. From there, Google will test different permutations of headline and description to identify the optimal combinations.

The concept has some marketers scratching their heads. To be sure, it flips the traditional headline/body content model in the way that it pairs content without respect to context, but it’s really only a technical change. You’ll still need to write engaging content, now you just need to make sure that each line can stand on its own.

The exciting thing about responsive search is how it will learn to serve the best message to searchers based on the keywords they search for, the device they use, their past browsing behavior, and other signals. While responsive search hasn’t been rolled out universally, the format is poised to make a big splash during the second half of 2018 and beyond.

 

  1. Three Headlines. Two Descriptions.

Responsive ads weren’t the only change to Google’s flagship advertising platform. In late August, search introduced a third 30-character headline and a second 90-character description. It all adds up to this: You now have more space to tell your story.

There’s just one catch: The third headline and the second description won’t appear on 100 percent of search impressions. What does that mean for marketers? Not a whole lot, but you will want to make sure that this bonus space doesn’t contain critical content.

By the same token, however, you definitely don’t want to ignore this change. Marketers who don’t take advantage of the new headline space will have their URL displayed in place of a third headline. This looks weird, of course, because the URL is already listed below the headline in Search ads. Take heed. Write new headlines.

 

  1. Smart Campaigns

Not every business has a marketing department. Not every business has a website. But almost every business can benefit from Google Ads in some way. Enter Google Smart Campaigns.

Smart Campaigns will be the default campaign type for new advertisers in Google Ads. Built on the same technology as Google’s other entry-level advertising solution, AdWords Express, Smart Campaigns are almost entirely automated. From messaging to delivery, Smart Campaigns attempt to provide a turnkey advertising management experience based on the product or service being advertised and the goal the advertiser sets (i.e. calls, visits, form submissions).

Like Mailchimp and others before it, Smart Campaigns also ventures into the world of turnkey landing pages. Designed to simplify the development process, these landing pages use machine learning to pull information about your offering directly from the ad, and match that information to your on-page creative. Because Google will host both the ad and the landing page, conversion tracking is built-in to the experience.

Sounds like a slam dunk, right? Well, it’s not quite that simple. All that convenience comes at a price. Sure, Smart Campaigns will get you up and running quickly. They’ll even take care of a lot of the technical work. But who’s manning the ship? How do you know if you’re getting the right clicks? How do you know if you’re paying too much? Google’s assumptions will probably get you results. They will definitely spend your money.

Interested in quickly testing landing page variations? Check out Google Optimize, a slightly more involved, but significantly more comprehensive solution. With just a bit of code, Google Optimize allows you to A/B test headlines, contact forms, and more. And what will all this testing get you? Higher conversion rates.

 

  1. Mobile Speed Score (It’s Not Just For SEO!)

First, let’s state the obvious: Page speed can have a dramatic impact on your conversion rate. After all, isn’t that why Google gave us PageSpeed Insights?

Sure, but wouldn’t it be nice to view that data without leaving the Google Ads platform? Now you can! Google recently announced the introduction of Mobile Landing Page Speed Score column on the Landing Pages page within Google Ads. This tool scores landing pages for speed on a ten-point scale.

What’s more? The tool takes ad performance into account when ascribing a score, and it does so based on a number of factors, including the relationship between page speed and the potential conversion rate.

So why does this matter? Previously, understanding a site’s speed required a tedious back-and-forth process: Read a report in analytics, look for benchmarks, make adjustments to the page, and see if your performance improves. Rinse and repeat. With Google’s Mobile Landing Page Speed Score, you can view your performance directly through Google Ads.

 

  1. Video and Video Advertising on the Rise 

Last year, TechCrunch reported that more than a billion hours of video are watched on YouTube every day. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Add to that the fact that 64 percent of users are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video and you’ve got a pretty convincing case to jump on the video bandwagon.

So it comes as no surprise that Google is expanding its TrueView YouTube advertising platform. What’s TrueView? You know those video ads that run before the videos you want to see? Those are TrueView in-stream ads. What about those video ads that show up in YouTube search results? Those are TrueView discovery ads.

Okay, so what’s changing? Last spring Google announced a new TrueView bidding strategy called TrueView for reach, which basically combines in-stream ads with a CPM bidding strategy (cost per thousand impressions). So why does that matter? CPM can be a more cost-efficient way to hit prospects with your video content. Also of note, Google is introducing a TrueView for action, which allows marketers to place headline and call-to-action overlays on their video content.

Also of note to video marketers, Google recently introduced a smart-bidding strategy called Maximize Lift. Powered by machine learning, Maximize Lift automatically adjusts bids to maximize the impact video ads have on brand perception throughout the consumer journey. The information on this is still a bit vague, but it sounds a bit like an automated bidding strategy designed to increase frequency among those viewers most likely to take action.

What does all this mean for marketers? Well, if you haven’t already considered how video can play into your marketing strategy, it’s probably time to do so.

 

  1. Lead Ads On YouTube

Ads drive website visits and website visits drive leads, right? Well, that’s one way to do it, but now there’s another way: Lead ads. Think about it this way: Simplify the lead generation process by relocating the contact form from a landing page to the site of the advertising impression. Then, tie in with the platform serving that impression—Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.—to simplify the fulfillment process via pre-populated forms.

While this may fly in the face of the traditional “get them to the website” thinking, anyone who’s run lead ads on Facebook or LinkedIn already knows that they can significantly increase lead capture rates. So it’s been a little baffling that Google didn’t have a comparable offering. Late to the party or not, Google is currently testing lead ads on YouTube, and a wider release is expected later this fall.

 

Done dabbling? If you’ve tried Google Ads but want to take your digital marketing to the next level, contact our team of digital marketing experts to get started today!

 

Akimbo — Zeroing in on Cost of Acquisition

Posted by Lana Harris

Akimbo Card is a prepaid debit card service developed for family budgeting. When Akimbo came to us, they were looking for strategy and creative that would not only improve app downloads and card activations but also maximize ad spend to the right audiences in order to lower cost of acquisition of new registrants. To solve this problem, we developed app, search, display and social ads targeting three unique audiences and tested for click-through rate, cost per click and cost per acquisition. With weekly campaign management, messaging revisions and audience adjustments, we were able to increase enrollments by more than 150% while lowering cost of acquisition by nearly 50%.

 “The Robot Creative team has been fantastic to work with. They iterate quickly to maximize your marketing budget, and have lowered our customer acquisition cost by nearly 50%,” said Houston Frost, Akimbo Senior VP of Corporate Development and Prepaid Products.

 

Four Tools to Help Flip the B2B Lead Generation Model

Posted by Lana Harris

In years past, the goal of the digital marketer was to drive web traffic. Prevailing wisdom taught us that an increase in traffic would lead to an increase in the number of contact form submissions. It was a passive strategy at its core: Build a campaign and wait for the leads to come rolling in. As Tom Petty aptly reminds us, however, the waiting is the hardest part.

But imagine if your web traffic visitors were real people walking into a retail store. Would you ignore them until they walked up to the counter? Of course not. You would approach them and offer your assistance. Today’s blog will look at four tools that give you the ability to approach your site visitors in the same way.

 

IP Tracking:

As the name implies, IP tracking tools examine the IP addresses of inbound web traffic to determine the owner of the visiting network. In other words, they tell you what companies are visiting your site. Sounds cool, right? We thought so too, and after we piloted IP tracking with one of our IT clients, we immediately saw its potential for lead generation across all B2B categories.

In addition to telling us which companies are visiting a site, IP tracking ties in with Google Analytics to identify the individual pages that a company viewed and how they got to those pages (ie. organic vs. specific paid campaigns). Armed with this information, our clients’ sales teams can now send personalized outreach emails to company decision makers about relevant products or services.

Ready to get started? We recommend an IP tracking solution called Leadfeeder.  While there are a number of platforms on the market, we like Leadfeeder for its easy setup, useful integrations and straightforward reporting.

 

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation sounds complicated, but it’s actually quite simple. Essentially, it is a process of simplifying tasks like social posts, emails, etc. For B2B clients, marketing automation can leverage a customer’s CRM to streamline email outreach through the CRM or integrations with third-party tools like MailChimp.

Combined with IP tracking and a little bit of research, marketing automation can open up some amazing possibilities. For example, you might create a series of emails that go out to decision makers at companies visiting your website. These emails can be tailored to the product or service that a particular company was investigating. Within these emails you might include a link to register for an upcoming webinar, download a case study or white paper, or connect with the sales team to schedule a one-on-one demo or consultation.

Marketing automation can also help you understand why visitors aren’t filling out a contact form. If a lead downloaded a free tool but hasn’t taken further action, you can send a series of tips and reminders about the benefits of the tool. This can help remind a lead to take the next action or get in touch if they have questions about how to use the tool.

At the end of the day, the goal of marketing automation is to move leads and contacts down the sales funnel toward a buying decision without taxing sales reps to do more outreach on luke-warm leads.

 

Live Chat

Live chat has evolved to become an increasingly useful tool in the B2B marketer’s playbook. In addition to giving site visitors the opportunity to ask questions without ever leaving their browser, today’s live chat solutions can be combined with inbound call/text campaigns that give potential customers the ability to communicate with you how and when they are most comfortable. Going a step further, many tools allow you to proactively start a conversation with site visitors, allowing you to initiate calls or emails, schedule demos and capture leads even faster.

Worried about after-hours staffing? Many live chat services allow you to turn your chat into a lead gen tool when your in-house team has logged out. There are outsourced service providers who offer an answering service to take messages, or the chat can be used to capture initial questions and prompt the site visitor to leave a message for future reply. Your inbound team will then be able to come in each morning and respond to leads that self-generated overnight.

 

Remarketing

In today’s over-saturated, multi-screen media environment, it’s difficult to break through to your target audience. But what if we focus on the ones that are already visiting your website? Remarketing allows you to tag site visitors, or visitors to a particular landing page, and then follow them around the web with digital display advertising.

If someone visits your website, looks at a few pages and then leaves without filling out a contact form, remarketing can help stick ads in front of them while they’re browsing other sites. Like the couch that follows you around the web after you looked at the IKEA site, you can remind these potential leads about your services, increasing the likelihood of return site traffic and contact form submission.

Focusing a portion of your advertising budget on potential customers that have previously visited your site results in higher conversion rates to lead capture, some studies showing a doubling effect.

 

There Is No Magic Bullet

It’s about building smart, layered, marketing campaigns to increase the delivery of relevant content to your target audience when they are in a buying mindset. Try a few of these ideas out and we promise, your sales team will thank you.

 

Want to learn more? Contact us today for a consultation on our outsourced marketing solutions for B2B businesses.

Jumping In or Just Dipping Your Toe Into Digital?

Posted by Lana Harris

Are you ready to jump in or still wondering how to get started with digital advertising? Are you trying to evaluate whether it should be a more important focus in your marketing plan? With the incredible amount of data for targeting and reporting ROI, digital advertising is easily scalable to increase sales and generate new leads.

With so many mediums to run ads on, it is important to understand each medium and the benefits of going digital. Defined as any kind of marketing that is digitally displayed, common types include:

  • Social Ads
  • Desktop and Mobile Display Ads
  • Search Ads (Google, Yahoo/Bing)
  • Email Marketing
  • Interest-based Gmail Ads
  • Streaming Radio Ads
  • Video Advertising
  • In-Game & In-App Advertising
  • Influencer Marketing
  • SMS and OTT Messaging

No matter what platform, network or medium you choose, the benefits of digital advertising over traditional media are readily apparent.

1.    Audience Micro-Targeting

Go beyond geographic and demographic targeting. From interest-based targeting to placements on sites your audience likes to retargeting, audience segmenting options for digital advertising are truly powerful and unlike other forms of traditional advertising. If you want to reach graduates of UTSA who have pet frogs and drive Mini Coopers, we can probably do that.

2.    Sleuth-Like Tracking

If you can’t measure results of a campaign, how can you determine success? Using pixels, custom URLS and tracking codes, digital advertising can provide crystal-clear clarity into campaign ROI. No need to collect returned postcards or rely on the front desk to ask, “How did you hear about us?”

3.    Real-Time Updates

Unlike most forms of traditional advertising (i.e. direct mail, print, billboards), digital advertising allows for easier optimization over time and at a much lower cost. As you track performance, you can optimize campaigns by adjusting bids, testing new headline copy and updating ad placements. There is no need to wait for the next issue and no cost to “reprint vinyl.”

Setting Your Campaign Up For Success

Many of our clients own mid-sized businesses and don’t have unlimited advertising budgets. When every dollar counts, digital advertising proves to be more flexible, provides a better ROI and demonstrates more reliable tracking mechanisms than traditional mediums. Are you ready to try digital advertising? Let’s talk >

Is Influencer Marketing Right for You?

Posted by Lana Harris

How to Find Customers in a Digital World

Social media connects the world and has become such a large part of our everyday lives. It only makes sense that it is the first  place people go for recommendations, advice and endorsements. Enter the social media influencer, also known as Bloggers, Vloggers, YouTubers and Instagrammers. With the right strategy, tapping into these influencers can help drive your brand message to a large group of potential buyers. Do you know how to put influencer marketing to work to meet your goals?

Here are some of the top benefits of working with Influencers.

1.    Connect with an Engaged Audience

The best influencers know their audience and what makes them tick. If you are trying to reach a niche audience, working with an influencer can get your company or product in front of tough-to-find or tough-to-engage audiences with already established credibility. Influencers exist for all kinds of topics and industries, from mommy bloggers to financial experts to IT gurus, and more.

2.    Build Trust with Your Audience

There is an authenticity to influencer marketing unlike other tactics. It’s not the brand speaking to the audience, it is someone that your audience is looking to for information and that they have put their trust in. Aligning with these influencers adds an authenticity to your brand that is harder to come by with purely brand-generated content and advertising.

3.    Enhance a Content Marketing Strategy

For B2B companies, the sales cycle can sometimes last anywhere from 6 to 18 months, with multiple touch points and opportunities to win over a potential buyer. A good content marketing strategy hits each of those touch points with tailored messaging mapped to specific points in the customer journey. Incorporating an Influencer strategy into this process can help add credibility with trusted subject matter experts speaking to the benefits of your product.

4.    Cut Through the Noise of Digital

According to Business Insider, Ad Blocker usage grew by over 30% in 2016. Between this increase, the lack of transparency into ad performance from the major platforms and the increasing competition for real estate in the news feed, finding alternate ways to reach your target audience is now more important than ever.

5.    Capture Higher-Quality Leads

If you’re reaching 11 million people and generating 100 leads but only 2 end up as closed sales, are you finding the right people? Better-targeted audiences, trusted recommendations and higher engagement rates all can help lead to higher quality leads from an Influencer Marketing program compared to other digital and traditional marketing tactics.

As with any new initiative, outlining a plan with clear goals and measurable objectives is the first step to building a successful Influencer Marketing Program. Think this is the right solution for you? Have questions about getting started? Let us help >

How is Your Brand Adapting to the Latest Facebook “Fake News” Changes?

Posted by Lana Harris

Did you notice a change this month in how your posts look on Facebook? If you typically adjust the copy and images on web links when you post to Facebook, and are noticing those options are no longer there, then you’ve been caught in the crossfire of Facebook’s war on fake news.

How it Used to Work
When you posted a link to your website on Facebook, you had an option to change the photos and text for the post if you didn’t like what popped up. Unfortunately people abused this feature leading to all sorts of misleading images and “click-bait” style headlines being attached to news articles and other content,. That is what we now know as Fake News.

How it Works Now
Now Facebook auto-generates the headline and copy from the web page or article, without the option to manually change them. However, that doesn’t mean your content strategy is dead. There are steps you can take to get current and work within Facebook’s new system.

What You Can Do
Facebook pulls the information for the posts you create much the same way that Google does when your site shows up in search results. And just like you can optimize your site for search engines, you can optimize the appearance of your links on social media.

There is code that can be added to the back end of your web site to tell Facebook (and other social platforms) which copy and image to use. This code can be preset for the entire website (for example, to pull the top image, or to pull the logo). Or it can be customized on each page, by specifying which image you would like used from a particular page or post (it could be the top image, one from a gallery or one further down the page).

The same kinds of options exist for the copy. You may want to pull in the page title or the headline or the subhead or the first paragraph. Or maybe you want to be able to specify it from page to page.

You have the control to do this, but it isn’t something that you will do through Facebook, it’s something that you will do by updating the code on your website.

Facebook is Just the Start
Facebook led the charge against fake news and they know its affecting legitimate businesses.

“By removing the ability to customize link metadata (i.e. headline, description, image) from all link sharing entry points on Facebook, we are eliminating a channel that has been abused to post false news. We also understand that many publishers have workflows that rely on overwriting link preview metadata to customize how their content appears to audiences on Facebook. We’re committed to a solution that supports them.”
-Facebook Developer Blog

But it’s only a matter of time until other social media platforms like LinkedIn or even Pinterest start putting in these types of restrictions to fight against the spread of fake news. So now’s the time to adjust your strategy . Don’t get caught with bad images and copy on your social links.

Not Sure if This Will Affect Your Business?

  • Do you promote content from your site such as blog posts, news articles or key pages?
  • Do you use paid social advertising to direct traffic to your website?
  • Do you have events that you share or promote via social media?
  • Do you have a social media strategy, or plan to build one in the future?
  • Do you use PR services that promote your company in the news?
  • Do you or any key members of your business write guest Op-Eds, blogs or other pieces of content for other sites?
  • Do other people or businesses regularly link to your website on social media?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then your business is going to be affected by these changes.

Need Help?
Whether you’re building a new website, or just managing your current one, you should always have a knowledgeable web partner. Firms which aren’t used to providing technical website updates might not know how to make the back end changes that you’ll need to stay up to date with this changing landscape, or how to give the level of control you need from page to page.

If you need any help with your website or social media marketing, please contact us for more information.

What Instagram’s Update Means for Businesses

Posted by robot

Instagram has become one of the most widely used social media platforms since its launch in 2010. It boasts 400 million monthly active users and 59% of adults check Instagram daily, making it one of the most valuable platforms to reach highly engaged audiences. Those statistics are what make their latest change so very painful to businesses.

This month, Instagram announced that it is changing its algorithm, citing that you “don’t see the posts you might care about the most.” If it sounds awfully similar to Facebook’s algorithm change in January 2015, that’s because Facebook, which bought Instagram in April 2012, is the driving force behind this transition. The net result will be a dramatic shift in the role businesses play on social media. Most notably, there will be a larger focus on monetized posts from businesses using these social platforms.

A Brief History

In 2015, Facebook changed the way that posts would appear in social media news feeds in order to “improve the user experience.” This move is now referred to as Reach Apocalypse, due to the devastating effects that it had for businesses. When Facebook said they wanted to improve the user experience, they really meant that Facebook was going to make businesses disappear from users’ timelines. It didn’t matter how many fans your organization had. Your reach was gone and was never coming back. That is, unless you were willing to pay for it.

Social Media Advertising

In order to get reach from Facebook and Instagram now, businesses have to buy advertising. That isn’t very surprising. At the end of the day, Facebook and Instagram have been providing businesses with a very valuable FREE service, and now they would like to turn a profit.

Social media advertising isn’t a tough sell. Businesses have had a taste of how well it works, and advertising on social media platforms is relatively inexpensive compared to other mediums. Add that to the ability to target audiences based on their interests, behaviors and connections, and social media advertising becomes one of the most effective advertising tools in a marketer’s arsenal.

Social media advertising also includes all of the same “like,” “share” and “comment” buttons as a regular social post, so you can still engage with your fans and they can still engage with you. In other words, organic reach isn’t entirely dead. It just requires a paid promotion, or to use Facebook’s term, “boost” to get the post seen in the first place.

Pay Up or Get Out

As the world of social media rapidly evolves, and the mediums turn into multi-billion dollar enterprises, it seems that paid advertising becomes an integral part of their revenue model. Quality social media content is still as important as ever for engagement, but paying to play is now a mandatory part of the game.

Do you need help with your company’s social media presence?

Learn more about our social media and marketing services and schedule a consultation today.

Measure Ad Performance with the Right Metrics

Posted by robot

Metrics_eblastHow do you know if your advertising is working?

Determining the effectiveness of your advertising can be tricky. Advertising reports typically focus on reach and impressions, but do these numbers actually mean anything for your business? Does your advertising address your business goals?

Determine your business goals first

Having a large number of impressions can be great if your goal is to generate awareness. Let’s say, however, that you want to grow your sales. Measuring impressions is like counting how many people walk by your store, whether or not they come in and purchase anything.

In order to measure the effectiveness of your advertising, you have to first define your business goals. Your business goals can span from gaining new customers to upselling existing customers to educating about a cause. Once you have clear goals, then you can find the best tracking method.

Start tracking

No matter your ad spend or method of advertising, you can implement some form of tracking to measure results.

Digital advertising offers infinite methods of tracking, from simple Google Analytics tools to more complex, customizable options. These analytics allow you to see what happens beyond the click – including how long visitors stay on your site, how many pages they view and whether they submit a contact form. You can track these results back to the individual ad or ad platform.

If you are using more traditional advertising methods, consider using tactics such as redeemable coupons or unique tracking phone numbers.

At the very least, keep a post-it note handy and tally up every time someone mentions your ad. Most CRM (customer resource management) software allows you to track sales or customers back to your advertising. This might mean that you have to train your staff to ask every customer how they heard about your company, but this will help you find out which forms of advertising are working.

Compare your results to your expenses

The last piece of this puzzle is the tracking of your expenses. Don’t throw everything into one general advertising budget. Itemize your advertising spend for every activity using a CRM software or by working with your accounting office. You can’t fully evaluate your ad performance if you don’t take your spend into account.

Review your results!

All of this work amounts to nothing if you don’t review the results on a regular basis. Evaluating these numbers monthly, quarterly or annually will help you make more educated decisions on where to invest your advertising dollars. Plan to make changes and optimize your approach with the ads and platforms that are performing best.

Ready to leave impressions behind and start focusing on the metrics that show results?

At Robot Creative, we understand the importance of advertising for results. Our team will help you identify the metrics that make sense for your business. Contact us today to schedule an initial consultation today.

Can Anyone Hear You on Facebook Anymore?

Posted by robot

Facebook_eblastFacebook pages for businesses just became websites.

That’s right. Facebook used to be a great way to be seen. Getting large numbers of page likes once meant that anything you posted would be seen. Facebook was great for business.

However, Facebook changed its visibility algorithm.  Now, whether your page has 10 likes or 10,000 likes, very few people will ever see any of your posts or updates. Users will not see updates from businesses unless they turn notifications on for them (which is hard for a casual user to find and must be done for each individual page that a user chooses to follow).

If you don’t want your Facebook page to become obsolete, here are a few ways to gain some of your reach back.

Buy your reach.

While posts are out, ads are in. Advertising on Facebook allows you to buy back that reach you lost when Facebook changed its policies. Facebook ads allow you to:

  • Promote your page’s social posts.
  • Target people based on their behaviors, likes and demographics.
  • Advertise to people who are similar to your current followers.
  • Advertise affordably. Throw $50 at it – you’ll be surprised how far that goes.

Find your cheerleaders.

These are your super-fans, the ones who love your business so much that they can’t help but talk about it. They’ve already noticed that your page has disappeared from their newsfeeds and have chosen to receive notifications from your page. Find ways to get them to share your content and to encourage their friends to do the same.

Make them come back.

Give your followers a reason to check your page regularly, whether they turn on their notifications or not.  Post contests, coupons, offers and event details to your Facebook page. Come up with something compelling, useful and beneficial to keep them coming back for more.

Become your business’ ambassador.

Facebook’s algorithm prevents businesses from appearing in newsfeeds, but people’s updates have not disappeared. You and your employees can share your business page, news, press releases and updates from your personal pages. You could even post in groups for more specialized targeting.

Turn it into a customer service hub.

Encourage activity on your Facebook page by turning it into a customer service support center.  Ask for people to check in and leave reviews so you can engage with them. Your reach will grow by getting people to your page to submit reviews.

Use your physical space and other media to drive traffic to your Facebook page.

Direct customers to your Facebook page using in-store advertising and signage, links from your company website or other online advertising. All roads to your Facebook page are good roads to your Facebook page.

Get endorsements.

Your new viewers can come from other pages’ viewers. News outlets, partners, vendors, non-profits and organizations can share their reach with you – all you have to do is have them share your posts or mention you in a post (with a link to your page). If they have super-fans, their fans could easily become yours.

Facebook pages for businesses might not be what they once were, but that doesn’t mean that they are obsolete or useless. They can be quite helpful as a part of your overall marketing strategy. As Facebook evolves and changes, so must our strategies.

Need help with your advertising and marketing strategies?

Learn more about our advertising and marketing services and contact us for a consultation today.

Responsive Emails – Adapting to Your Mobile Audience

Posted by robot

Responsive_emailby CJ Wolfe

Once upon a time, email was predominately a desktop experience. With mobile devices becoming the standard choice for retrieving online information, it would be wise to assume that traditional email will also evolve.

So where does email fit into the ever-growing portable online presence? Consider these eye-opening statistics:

  • 48% of total email opens occurred on a mobile phone or tablet in Q2 2014 (Experian’s Quarterly Email Benchmarking Report)
  • 30% of consumers now read their email exclusively on mobile devices (Yesmail “Email Compass: The Mobile Effect”, 2013)
  • Mobile email opens have grown by 180% in three years (Campaign Monitor, Email Interaction Across Mobile and Desktop (Q1 2014)
  • Checking email has become a key part of mobile device users’ daily routine. In fact, 91% of consumers check their email at least once per day on their smartphones, making it the most used functionality (ExactTarget Mobile Behavior Report, 2014).
  • Check out more stats and a great infographic>>

As email tools and applications continue adapting to our existing online universe, the types of content they can interpret and decipher is always expanding. One method that has caught traction in the past few years when it comes to company email marketing is the implementation of responsive emails.

What’s a Responsive Email?

Like responsive websites, responsive emails adapt to the devices that they are viewed on – with the goal of providing users with a less cluttered and more ideal online experience.

Attributes of a responsive email include:

  • Layouts that can change from multi-column to single-column on the fly
  • Font sizes that change depending on the size of the screen
  • Elements that can be hidden or shown depending on the platform on which the email is viewed (image-based buttons, for example)
  • Bigger buttons that are farther apart, making larger “tap targets”

 

With recent statistics, it’s safe to conclude that incorporating the usage of responsive emails is no longer optional. Many email marketers state that they are using responsive design in company materials to meet their clients growing mobile needs.

Is it time you started using responsive emails to communicate with your growing mobile audience?

It’s Not Social Media – It’s Social Advertising

Posted by kris@robotcreative.com

Social_results

Social Advertising is Rapidly Expanding and Evolving
All of the social mediums are rapidly expanding their advertising offerings. The start-up goal of most mediums to expand a user base and deliver a solid experience has now evolved into a market that is trying to monetize itself. Advertising is the vehicle that social media sites are using to pay back their investors. That’s great news for marketers and businesses.

You don’t need to have a social presence to advertise!
That’s right, you don’t need to have an engaging twitter account or manage a Facebook page to be using social media as an advertising platform. Ads that show in your target customers’ news feeds can link back to your website or to other locations. There’s no need to maintain a dynamic social presence for an ad to be effective. If that’s holding you back – think again.

The Major Mediums at a Glance
Facebook has the longest-standing, and most robust social advertising platform. It has great targeting options and fantastic analytics. Their platform is so intense that they have even created an “advanced advertising” offering, which includes look-alike audience profiling and re-marketing, among other things.

LinkedIn and Twitter have offered the ability to pay to promote posts / tweets for some time. Twitter is taking it to new levels. They recently launched a robust set of additions to their offerings which include: more sophisticated audience management (including look-alike targeting), graphic buttons which encourage click throughs (buy now or learn more), and twitter cards, which can include rich media to give tweets more impact.

Instagram and Pinterest have been running pilot programs with large advertisers, and both tease marketers with holding pages.

Excellent Targeting
Each medium has its own strengths in terms of targeting. Facebook has robust demographics and geo-targeting, but the ability to target based on interests and other liked pages offers deeper psychographic targeting than most list service companies have even been able to provide.

LinkedIn’s combination of geo-targeting + industry + job title allows precise targeting of professionals that is invaluable to B2Bs. We are finding an ability to reach specific groups that we have never been able to target effectively through print or other mediums. The closest opportunities in the past have been trade shows or other trade publications, and the costs of social ads are minuscule in comparison.

Minimal Costs for Serious Reach
Which brings us to the price, which cannot be beat. We have reached 20,000 with $20 on some accounts. We have seen the dramatic reach that can be achieved, so a common recommendation of ours is to “throw $100 at it” and see what happens. These results are not unusual for social advertising…for now.

Not Likely to Last
Which brings us to the sad reality that these prices are not likely to last. The marketplace is immature. It can be compared to the early days of AdWords. As businesses and advertisers gradually tested and moved budgets over to the AdWords platform, there was a period of a few years where the ROI on AdWords was just incredible for many advertisers. The market has since matured, the major players have all established their footing and those deals are hard to come by. As marketers make a mad dash to get their customers set up with social advertising, there will be a fleeting period during which some businesses could really get incredible results at rock bottom prices.

Interested in learning more about what social media can do for you?
Contact Robot Creative for more information.

Understanding Geomarketing: Geofences vs. Beacons

Posted by robot

geolocationYou’ve probably heard of using IP addresses to target your audience by physical location…and maybe you pushed out your message to someone who actively checked in to your space on Foursquare or Facebook. Mostly due to ever-changing mobile technology, “Geomarketing”, or targeting your audiences based on geographic location, is one of the most quickly evolving trends in marketing.

The idea of geomarketing isn’t new. For years, marketers have been able to purchase mailing lists and/or set up pay-per-click online campaigns based on zip codes or a radius around a specific geographic location. What’s different about recent innovations is the ability to message directly to consumers on their personal mobile devices based on their proximity to a physical location.

This type of mobile-based geomarketing technology takes several forms and can be used for countless applications, from pushing coupons or product information to helping a customer find his/her way around a retail location.

Two of the main forms of geomarketing that you will probably experience soon, if you haven’t already, are geofencing and beacons. Both of these technologies use a wireless signal to pinpoint a person’s proximity to a particular location, such as a retail store, but there are important distinctions between the technologies and how they can be used.

Geofencing
Geofencing is the practice of establishing an electronic perimeter around a specific geographic point using GPS technology, which requires satellites and cell phone towers to communicate with mobile devices. When a potential customer enters or leaves this perimeter, the geofence triggers an action, such as a timely text message or promotion alert sent directly to the customer’s mobile device.

For a geofence to work, customers must download an app, install it and opt in to receive notifications. There are common apps that can be set up to use geofences, or businesses can set up and promote proprietary apps. Because of their reliance on GPS, geofences work best outdoors and are less accurate than beacons for pinpointing a person’s exact location.

Beacons
Beacons are an evolved form of geofencing. The main difference between geofencing and beacons is that beacons use bluetooth technology rather than GPS to determine a person’s proximity to a specific location. This has several implications:

  • There are many different types of beacons available from popular brands, including Motorola, Google and Apple, and they all work a little differently. They usually require hardware (beacons) that must to be installed at the location, but in some cases, like Apple’s iBeacon, they can be built into existing devices. The beacon communicates through an app that customers must install on their devices and allow to receive notifications.
  • Beacons allow a very accurate estimation of where a customer is located – within inches. A retailer could use this technology to provide messages directly to a customer shopping in a particular aisle or standing in front of a particular display – think coupons, product reviews or click-to-buy. The retailer could also help lead a customer to a particular item within a store.
  • Because beacons are small, battery powered devices themselves, they are portable and can be used as a mobile geofence. They could be placed on a moving object, such as a bus or a cab.
  • Beacons allow a business to track a person’s activity as he or she moves in or around a space. Creepy as that sounds, it’s not so different from web analytics (marketers have been tracking customers’ movement through websites for years). Businesses can learn a lot from this type of data, including where, when and how to display messages and what messages resonate best with customers.

Interested in learning more about what geomarketing can do for your business?
Contact Robot Creative for more information.

Social Media Project Highlight: Mama Margie’s Mexican Cafe

Posted by robot

To help popular fast-casual Mexican food restaurant, Mama Margie’s, grow and engage their social following, Robot Creative developed and implemented a social strategy that encourages sharing, two-way conversations and fan-created content.

  • Mama’s Favorites Campaign — With this ongoing campaign, photos posted by fans on Instagram are selected and shared on the Mama Margie’s official Facebook page. By cross-promoting the official Instagram account and Facebook page, the campaign has dramatically increased engagement in both channels while also providing a wealth of fan-generated content.
  • Facebook-specific flash deals reward shares and comments with extreme offers available only for a very limited-time. On April Fools’ Day, a Facebook post claiming that the restaurant was considering dropping a popular menu item (bean and cheese tacos) exploded with 371 comments and 60 shares. A follow up post explained the joke and offered bean and cheese tacos at $0.50 each, nearly half off the regular price, for that day only. The follow up post also received 57 comments and 166 shares.
  • Regular monitoring and response engages followers in conversations. Tweets from official Mama Margie’s Twitter account strive for a “sassy mama” voice, increasing the “share-ability” of the communication with a little humor.
  • In-store promotion drives social media campaigns further, with table tents that encourage users to share photos and experiences on social media.
  • Paid Facebook advertising also plays a role in the overall approach, helping to grow followers and promote posts to people not already connected to Mama Margie’s.

As a result of these tactics over the first six months of implementation, Mama Margie’s Twitter following grew 99% and Instagram following grew 332%. In addition, Facebook content reached over 1.5 million people, Mama Margie’s was mentioned directly in over 250 tweets and Instagram hashtag engagement increased by 41%.

Changes to Facebook Ratings and Reviews Are Critical to All Businesses, Especially Restaurants

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Recent changes to Facebook timelines affected all business pages. On the desktop version, the right-hand sidebar and buttons across the top of the page have been removed. Facebook also added new features that have the power to make a profound impact on businesses.

Ratings Are Now Prominent
One change that could make or break some businesses, especially restaurants, is the new location of the business rating. A large star-rating system is now located immediately under the business logo on the desktop version, and permanently ordered first in the list of the lefthand sidebar items. In fact, it’s probably the first thing most people notice. A hover over the star-ratings on the desktop version shows an instant breakdown of how many reviews have contributed to each number of stars, and the number of likes and visits lie immediately below.

Reviews Can Not Be Ignored
A permanent reviews section now lives in the left-hand column on the desktop version as well. While that module can be moved down the page by moving other sections up (such as photos or apps), it can not be removed. One click on ratings links to a full page of reviews.

Yelp, TripAdvisor and Foursquare Get Bumped
The reviews page has an area where restaurants can tie in links to Yelp, TripAdvisor and Foursquare. Most restaurants had those review sites pulled in to the previous layouts prominently through the app tabs across the top of the page. One click on the tab would open a full page of reviews. By including those links smaller off to the right on the Facebook reviews page, they are essentially pushed aside, with Facebook’s reviews taking center stage. With the prominence of these reviews on the Facebook page, it is unlikely that many users will ever venture off to the other sites.

Mobile – Ratings Could Make or Break
On the mobile app, the map, phone hours and menu have moved to the most prominent position just below the header, but the ratings come next, followed by the likes, check-ins and reviews. You can’t change this order, and those ratings and reviews become unavoidable.

 

All if this is good news for some businesses, but potentially damaging for others, especially restaurants. Maintenance of Facebook reviews for many restaurants has been ad hoc, especially compared with the effort dedicated to Yelp and TripAdvisor. With the new prominence of these reviews, it will need to become a core part of the social media program.

Cultivating Interest and Sales for Hunting in a Farmer's World

Posted by robot

HIAFW_bookBusiness advisor and author John F. Dini released Hunting in a Farmer’s World in 2013 to the acclaim of critics and business owners nationwide. With its unique insight into the minds of entrepreneurs, the ground-breaking business book has received numerous awards and top reviews from some of the nation’s greatest business authors and experts.

Robot Creative contributed to the brand development and launch of the book, producing the book’s cover design, graphic illustrations used throughout the interior pages, a responsive website design with a lead capture strategy and a social media approach that includes community development and paid social advertising.

The website promotes the book and, through social media integration, builds a community of “hunters”. The site’s features include:

  • A lead capture strategy
  • An interactive quiz for users to gauge where they fall on the farmer/hunter spectrum (and share their results via social media)
  • Story sharing for the hunter community – users can share their own stories and read about the experiences of their peers
  • Incredible testimonials from respected business leaders like Seth Godin, Marty Zwelling and Gino Wickman
  • Excerpts from the book

Hunting in a Farmer’s World has proven to resonate deeply with entrepreneurs. Robot’s marketing and promotional efforts aim to capture that enthusiasm, transform readers into loyal members of the “hunting community” and encourage them to share the book with others.

 

 

Cultivating Interest and Sales for Hunting in a Farmer’s World

Posted by robot

HIAFW_bookBusiness advisor and author John F. Dini released Hunting in a Farmer’s World in 2013 to the acclaim of critics and business owners nationwide. With its unique insight into the minds of entrepreneurs, the ground-breaking business book has received numerous awards and top reviews from some of the nation’s greatest business authors and experts.

Robot Creative contributed to the brand development and launch of the book, producing the book’s cover design, graphic illustrations used throughout the interior pages, a responsive website design with a lead capture strategy and a social media approach that includes community development and paid social advertising.

The website promotes the book and, through social media integration, builds a community of “hunters”. The site’s features include:

  • A lead capture strategy
  • An interactive quiz for users to gauge where they fall on the farmer/hunter spectrum (and share their results via social media)
  • Story sharing for the hunter community – users can share their own stories and read about the experiences of their peers
  • Incredible testimonials from respected business leaders like Seth Godin, Marty Zwelling and Gino Wickman
  • Excerpts from the book

Hunting in a Farmer’s World has proven to resonate deeply with entrepreneurs. Robot’s marketing and promotional efforts aim to capture that enthusiasm, transform readers into loyal members of the “hunting community” and encourage them to share the book with others.

 

 

Branding Goes Through The Roof

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Roof Monitor™, a revolutionary product for the roofing industry, reached out to Robot Creative to create a cohesive, memorable brand and marketing approach for their product launch.

Brand Strategy
As a new technology, one of the main goals of the product launch was education. It was critical for Roof Monitor’s target market to quickly understand the product and its benefits. A straightforward and memorable name combined with a descriptive tagline immediately convey the message behind the product and its purpose. Robot reinforced the distinctive color and shape of the Roof Monitor sensors in every aspect of the design for the brand, from the logo to the illustrations to the infographics used in collateral materials.

Website and Social Media
Robot developed a responsive website to tell the Roof Monitor story that seamlessly transitions from a desktop computer to a tablet or other mobile device. Additionally, Robot established a foundation for Roof Monitor’s online social media platforms, including strategy, graphics and initial post design for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Product Launch
The product launch coincided with a major industry trade show. Robot Creative provided event strategy, designed graphics for a 20’x20′ island exhibit and developed related collateral materials.  Specialty invitations enticed industry leaders to an exclusive preview dinner, and social media countdowns created buzz leading up to the event. A feature article was timed for release in one of the industry’s most prominent trade publications in the weeks following the launch event.

Music Festival Promotion Design: Die Nacht Der Clubs

Posted by robot

Robot recently designed the promotional materials for Die Nacht Der Clubs (Night of the Clubs), a music festival in Hamburg, Germany, for which participants buy bus tickets that take them to up to 25 local music clubs. We designed the logo, posters, flyers, stickers, admission tickets, web banners and landing page.

This festival is unique in that there isn’t just one genre of music or club included in the lineup. Clubs and music styles at the 25 venues include punk, techno, house, metal and even jazz. It’s a full sampling of the great variety of bands that these clubs showcase, and Die Nacht Der Clubs is a single event that brings them all together. The client was looking for an overall clean look that didn’t lean towards any one of the music styles.

So if you happen to be in Hamburg on May 9th, buy a ticket, hop on a bus and enjoy some great music and a variety of local clubs. Tell them Robot sent you!

Don’t Be A 5-Second Site: How To Write For The Web

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Upcoming Marketing Mastery Series Presentation for the American Marketing Association (AMA) San Antonio Chapter
Presented by Brittany Tradup
Marketing Director, Robot Creative

How much time do you really spend reading a single web page? Odds are, you haven’t read one in years. If you are like most users, you probably scan a web page in 30 seconds or less with a purpose, looking for specific content. If you don’t find it quickly, you move on. Reading on a screen or monitor is very different from reading a printed piece, so web writing needs to be approached differently.

  • Write real website content that will engage users and get them to take action
  • Review best practices for search-engine friendly content to get users to your site
  • Understand what customers want from your site and make it easy for them to find what they need

DATE: Thursday, February 6th, 2014
TIME: 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
LOCATION:
TriPoint – Meeting Room 1
3233 N St Mary’s St
San Antonio, TX 78212
Register Now

COST*
AMA Members – $15 (with member-only promo code)
AMA Nonmembers/Guests – $20
AMA Student Members – $15 (with member-only promo code)

Walk-ins accepted on a first-come/first serve basis. Additional $5 at the door. VISA, MasterCard and American Express accepted.

* Attendees registering as members are subject to verification. All memberships must be current and in good standing, or will be subject to the non-member fee. Late Cancellation and No-Show Policy in effect.

RSVP by Monday, February 3rd, 5 p.m.

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