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The media channel loved by online businesses…

07 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, Branding, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Media, PPC

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

advertising, branding, digital marketing, direct marketing, media

It’s not really surprising to experienced marketers, but given the bias in coverage for the digital media channels, it’s worth reviewing.

Let’s have a quick look at Kitty, the presenter for Progressive Insurance in Australia. She’s constantly on TV reminding us that because Progressive is online, they can save us money on insurance.

Kitty

Multinational marketers have always taken ideas around the world to save money on marketing production costs. Strangely this sometimes upsets the local creative teams because they cannot create “original” ideas.

Sometimes the marketers clone the talent if they feel it suits the market. For example, Kitty is the love-child of Flo from Progressive Insurance in the US.

Flo

Here are a couple more matching images:

kitty 2

Flo 2

The campaign appears to be working well in Australia, most likely because it worked in the USA first.

These images come from television ads, or commercials, depending upon where you live. And these TV ads are the primary channel for attracting new customers to Progressive’s online store. Online channels are secondary.

In fact, most of the world’s largest digital brands and online retailers use television to attract customers. One reason is the expensive cost of online marketing to generate leads.

Insurers, like travel agents and other generic categories, have to pay a small fortune per click to get a lead, let alone a conversion. That’s why any marketer worth their salt knows they cannot rely on a single channel or technology platform to acquire customers. Marketers have to constantly test different media, offers and executions.

cost per click

Here are some other digital brands using television to grow their business in different markets around the planet:

  • Youi
  • The Iconic
  • boohoo
  • Google
  • Amazon
  • Even Facebook has advertised on TV, though more a branding exercise.

So here’s some advice if you want to succeed with your marketing in the digital world:

If your digital marketing expert does not recommend you use analogue as well as digital media channels to get people to your website, fire them! They  are wasting your time and your shareholder’s money.

If you are attending an industry-run digital marketing training course that ignores showing you how to use the proven offline channels to get prospects online, ask for your money back, or at least a discount. These course providers are obviously scamming you so they can make money.

I recently saw an assignment for a digital marketing certificate course. It asked students to prepare a digital marketing strategy to launch a new product. But digital doesn’t include emailing your customers or using offline media, like TV or press, to generate leads.

Your customers use online and offline media, so you should too. If this sounds like a bit of a broken record, hopefully it will get through to those who keep ignoring it.

I’m off to the analogue world to teach Advertising Principles at university. We’re covering media channels – all of them – so there’s hope yet…

 

 

 

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Google does it (again), maybe you should too…

18 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, BIG DATA, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Direct Marketing, Marketing, PPC, SEM & SEO, Social Media

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

branding, digital marketing, direct marketing, Google, marketing, PPC, press advertising

I run a seminar called “Google does it why don’t you…“. In it, I reveal how Google is one of the world’s largest users of direct mail to acquire new customers. Read more here.

Hilariously (or more likely sadly) it sometimes upsets delegates when I reveal the truth. They get p****d off that Google uses proven media channels to promote its business, not just digital channels. They thought the seminar was going to unmask some amazo digi-secrets they can steal.

Well the seminar does share secrets. It reveals that to succeed with marketing in the digital world, you must not just focus narrowly on the digital channels. You risk losing your business if you rely solely on digital. Like Google, you should use a range of different media to grow your business – here’s an example:

Google Red 9300

Google – one of the world’s largest users of direct mail to grow business

To the detriment of the marketing industry, too many marketers have become digi-lemmings (following fashion rather than function) in the pursuit of what’s good for their career, rather than their brands. John Hancock’s brilliant essay – The marketer stripped bare and our nude future – explains it well.

So Google’s latest campaign in Australia should come as no surprise. Here’s one of the full page colour press ads (that’s FPC to use marketing jargon) now running in local suburban newspapers. That’s right folks – Google is running local newspaper advertisements – not a digital platform in sight.

press ad

Google’s FPC local press ads

The campaign is also on bus-sides and posters. And not that long ago Google also ran newspaper ads promoting Adwords. And in an amazing use of commonsense, the ads use sales language to convince prospects to buy. None of this comfy content, written in the vain hope you will read the warm fuzzies and be inspired to open your wallet as a result. Google asks for orders.

google-print-ad

So if Google is using the proven media channels and techniques as well as digital channels, why have most marketers chosen to dump what works, in favour for what in many cases, is yet to prove its worth?

The digital emperor’s new clothes are starting to be seen for what they are.

So if you are using a digi-spruiker who is foolishly directing you to only promote your business in digital channels, please save them from their folly. Fire them and send them on a 101 Marketing Course. They’ll thank you for it eventually.

After all, what’s “Good for the Google” has to be “Good for the Gullible”….

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If Google does it…why don’t you?

18 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Direct Marketing, Marketing, PPC, Social Media

≈ 4 Comments

Thank you to all those who provided advice for my friends living next door to “Australia’s Next Top Model” – I will keep you informed of the situation should anything interesting occur…

I’d like to ask you a couple of questions if I may – pretend you are attending one of my seminars and virtually raise your hands to answer.

Who wants more email in their inbox? My guess is very few would like more, yet most would like to know how to make their email messages work better for them – but that’s another day.

Do you have a secretary or personal assistant? If you’re typical of my audiences of marketing executives and business owners, the majority of you no longer have that luxury.

Can you type at least 120 words per minute like a secretary can? Probably not. Can you even type efficiently – or do you do the hunt-n-peck with a couple of digits?

You probably have a smart phone or even a tablet computer on which you manage your business emails? Ironically, these are referred to as ‘productivity tools‘.

What is the latest time of night you’ve checked your email? In bed? For many of you, the answer will be like that Eric Clapton song – ‘After Midnight’.

Do you do type your own correspondence and do your own email and digital document filing? I assume most do – after all, you have nobody to delegate these tasks to any more.

So consider the situation – you are now working longer hours for your company, working at home after-hours almost every day, using a communication channel that you’d rather use less of, inefficiently typing and filing your own correspondence and yet this is supposed to be ‘productive‘.

It appears to me that this is only productive for your employer.

I’m not having a shot by the way – I’m as guilty as all of us. I’m just painting a picture.

Another question – who opens their own business mail? In most organisations and businesses, apart from those who have a mail room or a receptionist who opens the mail, individual executives now open their own mail. There’s no longer a gatekeeper. Everyone has a letter opener – now that’s a productivity tool:)

Letter opener

This is why there has never been a better time than the digital age to use direct mail to communicate (or ‘engage‘ to use the appropriate buzzword) with your customers and prospects.

And if you use mail with in-built web-keys like this self-mailer produced by Kyp (www.kyp.com) you will get excellent results, all measurable in real-time via a web-based dashboard.

Kyp Pico

So what does this all have to do with Google?

Well here’s another question – what brand is now one of the world’s largest users of direct mail for customer acquisition?

Hint – see the headline of this post. The answer of course is, Google. They are prolific users of direct mail, linked to specific landing pages, with different offer and format tests. Here are a couple of examples.

Google Red 9300

Google Green 9301

Google knows that if you limit yourself to online media channels (many of which are unproven) you are putting your business at risk and missing enormous opportunities that exist using the proven media channels.

The purpose of your marketing is to acquire and retain customers profitably. In the digital age many marketers have had some sort of brain snap. They have dumped channels that have always, and still, work really well – and rushed blindly to digital channels. Yet many digital channels do not work as well, or have yet to prove themselves. It’s frightening. Why follow fashion at the expense of profit?

Direct mail continues to deliver excellent results. Even more-so now, as there is less clutter in the channel. If you have stopped using direct mail and migrated all your budget to online channels and reduced the budget you allow for acquiring and keeping a customer, you may be risking your business. And that’s not good for productivity – or profitability.

So I suggest you ask yourself the question: “If Google does it, why don’t you?”

Then start using the proven channels. You can then test the online channels to see if they are worth the investment. Well, that’s what Google does.

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