Category: Insights

Categories
Banking FinTech Insights
fintech marketing scaled 1
fintech marketing scaled 1

In an age of aggressive fintech marketing and consumer uncertainly, banks need to work harder to deliver innovative solutions and marketing messages.

Tight budgets, changing consumer behavior, disrupted markets, and fierce competition from aggressive fintech marketing companies forced rapid transformation across the financial industry. Of course, the coronavirus pandemic encouraged banking to accelerate some of these trends in effort to maintain their relevance and respond to disruption.

Four progressive bank marketing examples 

According to The Financial Brand, a successful financial services marketing agency would urge today’s banks to focus on customer experience, new media, and results-oriented efforts. To gain some inspiration, consider a few of the best examples from across the fintech and banking sector.

1. Encourage customers to save more

Acorns offers an example of a fintech company that grew its business by letting savers invest in stocks by transferring round-ups from purchases to their investment accounts. To use this program, Acorns investors have to register their bank accounts, so Acorns can track spending and withdraw the right sum.

As an example, spending $37.50 on takeout food with a registered checking or debit account would result in moving .50 to the Acorns investment account. Even though a father-son team started this company in 2012, it already manages over $1.2 billion in investments. This supports the idea that saving cents at a time makes financial sense for the company’s customers and of course, its owners.

Since Bank of America already had customers with checking accounts, they emulated some of Acorn’s ideas with their Keep the Change® program. Current checking account holders didn’t have to do anything but spend money in order to grow their savings.

Even if this program averages saving just a dollar a day, over the course of a few years, the balance can easily grow to hundreds of even thousands of dollars. With an interest-bearing savings account, savings can compound and grow even faster. As savings and interest returns grow, many customers will feel encouraged to save even more.

In particular, this kind of program tends to appeal to younger adults. This gives Bank of America a chance to invest in the financial stability and loyalty of long-term customers. At the same time, the bank benefits by encouraging the growth of their deposits through innovative fintech marketing.

2. Offer struggling customers crisis relief

In particular, banks should know that some of their customers may face unusual struggles during the pandemic. Very often, offering resources to tide these people over for a few months works out better for both the customer and the banks  than generating more defaults and losing customers.

As an example the Capital Good Fund offers reasonably low-interest loans for up to $1,500 with deferred payments and interest for three months. If the crisis continues, the finance company may extend deferrals too, though they were originally planned with 15-month payoffs in mind.

Even though offering loans to distressed customers might appear risky, the relatively small size of the loans can minimize risk and generate plenty of good will. Discover, HSBC, and other finance companies have their own versions of skip-a-payment programs to help tide over struggling customers.

3. Connect and teach

Some savvy banks have found a great way to add valuable content to their social platforms while improving customer experience. As one example, Queensborough National Bank developed a program they call IQ University. Topics include credit, investing, budgeting, and homeownership. Material like this can help inform customers and provide plenty of useful, engaging content for blogs and social sites.

As another example, other banks found that socializing on such established networks as Facebook did not help them reach younger customers as well as they would like. To support this idea, recent studies found that younger adults and older teens may gravitate to Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube as much or more than Facebook. Before making an investment in fintech marketing for financial services, it’s important use the platforms that are most likely to have already attracted the target market.

4. Use video testimonials

Testimonials help because they give businesses a chance to connect with new customers by letting current customers tell their stories. Instead of just having text testimonials, The Bank of Elk River produced a video that recounted the story of how their bank helped a family purchase a home.

The American Banker’s Association even recognized the video with an award. More than that, viewers could hardly help but feel touched by the heartwarming story and perhaps, imagine having a similar experience of their own.

A financial services marketing agency should put people first

Even without a global pandemic, customers probably don’t care that much about a bank’s bottom line. They want to work with financial companies that appear to understand their goals and problems. An experienced financial services marketing agency can help research both prospective and current customers to find innovative solutions and of course, the best marketing platforms to connect on.

Categories
Branding Environments Insights
environmental branding scaled 1
environmental branding scaled 1

An environmental branding agency turns physical space into a positive experience for customers and employees, thus enhancing experience and connections.

Discussions about branding tend to focus upon the graphics, colors, and fonts used in packaging and advertising. After all, these contact points might create that all-important first impression — or sometimes, even the only impression. At the same time, many companies still do serve people in person, either in their store, restaurant, office, or other physical space.

An environmental branding agency ensures their clients keep or maintain their branding in the spaces where they greet their customers, employees, and investors. In fact, in-person contact with a brand gives these organizations a chance to truly make an even strong, emotional connection. Yet, businesses often overlook this kind of branding.

With that in mind, explore the importance of environmental branding and how it may exceed the capabilities of some commercial interior design firms.

What is environmental branding?

Some interior design firms offer environmental design as a service. In general, environmental design refers to improving people’s experience by making spaces more comfortable, navigable, or even exciting. According to HubSpot, this discipline can incorporate principals from architectural, landscape, graphic, and industrial design, and of course, marketing.

Thus, environmental branding serves as an important aspect of environmental design. To incorporate branding into the design, environmental graphic design firms might employ some graphical brand elements; however, to ensure a positive, overall experience, they may also choose complimentary fixtures, paint, textures, furniture, and signs.

This all serves to make the spaces more usable and functional, both from the standpoint of visitors and employees who use the space and from the perspective of marketers who want to improve their brand image.

Examples to illustrate the impact of environmental branding

It’s easiest to parse out exactly how environmental branding works by offering examples. Buchanan Design, an environmental branding agency, worked with a healthcare company called Imaging Healthcare Specialists. They also helped develop graphics for an established law firm, Higgs Fletcher & Mack.

Environmental branding agency work for healthcare

Initially, this company’s offices looked very clinical and functional, as patients might expect in a medical imaging clinic. While the original space served a purpose, it did nothing to help the organization stand out from its competitors or offer any extra value to patients.

Buchanan added wayfinder signs and graphics throughout the clinic to make it more navigable and distinctive. Most important, every office now includes its own Info Center to help promote all of the company’s brands and community outreach efforts. During the process, the environmental branding team also worked with construction and architectural teams to ensure a cohesive effort.

Environmental graphic design work for a law firm

As another example, they included an image gallery in the lobby of a law firm. As one of the biggest and oldest law firms in San Diego, the partners wanted to communicate their company culture, values, and history to clients and employees. To accomplish this, design agency installed large, colorful graphics with the pictures, names, and functions of everybody who worked for them.

Except for showing the firm’s founders separately at the end, nobody else had any special position in the display. This effort helped show off the firm in its historical context. Just as important, it introduced people to their staff and emphasized that every employee served an important function that contributed to success.

Don’t miss the chance to use physical space for environmental branding

So many companies miss the opportunity to use their own physical space to improve connections with customers and reinforce their brand identity. Perhaps they overlooked the positive impact this effort can produce or even worse, simply worked with commercial interior design firms that neglected to suggest it. Done well, environmental branding will help improve brand positioning and even more, turn a company’s spaces into places that customers and employees look forward to entering.

Categories
Insights Marketing/Business
2021 marketing trends scaled 1
2021 marketing trends scaled 1

In 2021, top advertising agencies should encourage clients to remain agile, put customers and employees first, value trust, and get creative.

A Deloitte Insights paper prefaced its own vision for 2021 marketing trends by first recounting some history. They observed that past crises tended to spark new innovations and shift perceptions of value. As examples, they mentioned the telephone became popular during the flu pandemic in 1918, and the Cold War sparked the rise of TV. By the 1960s, TV broadcast so much of the turmoil surrounding the Vietnam War and civil rights that people’s perception of these conflicts shifted.

Of course, these historical innovations and attitude changes dramatically changed the way businesses operated and marketed. Today’s crisis centers on the coronavirus pandemic. Is it possible to develop some insight into the innovations and perceptual shifts that will come out of this crisis in order to craft marketing plans for 2021?

Expected shifts for 2021 marketing trends

It’s a lot easier use hindsight to spot such dramatic changes as the point when phones and TV sets grew popular than to figure out exactly how people will remember 2020 in 50 or 100 years. During the 1918 pandemic, some people predicted that their great-grandchildren might have flying cars within a century, which did not happen; however, they didn’t expect autonomous vehicles, which multiple manufacturers have already tested.

Perhaps the difficultly with even objectively measuring the present explains why nobody can predict the future with 100-percent certainty. Deloitte Insights might have found a solution though when they chose to look at companies that flourished during 2020. They examined how these successful businesses and their customers reacted to market disruption to better understand the the most important characteristics companies will probably need to thrive in 2021.

With this relatively new data and a mindfulness of past history, Deloitte uncovered some likely marketing trends that can help a marketing strategy agency forecast new trends and develop sensible plans.

1. Purpose: All kinds of organizations need to set their business goals around why they exist and who they exist for. Businesses that stay tuned to and communicate their sense of purpose tend to flourish during the toughest times.

2. Agility: Businesses that could react swiftly to a rapidly changing environment maintained an unsurprising advantage.  Meanwhile, other companies struggled with pandemic restrictions, shortages, and changing behavior. Sometimes, companies suffered because they communicated the wrong message for the times and alienated their customers.

3. Experiences: Companies did a better job of enhancing their brand positions by putting the experiences of their customers and workforce over efficiency.

4. Trust: With all of the uncertainty generated by a global pandemic, customers demonstrated that they had little patience with businesses that did not deliver on their promises.

5. Participation: These days, businesses have cemented relationships with famously loyal customers by giving them a voice. They give customers a voice in the products they deliver and how they deliver them in order to better serve them.

6. Integration: More than ever, companies broke out of their shells to form new partnerships with other businesses and public ecosystems. For instance, some businesses needed to rely upon other businesses to make deliveries or even take orders.

7. Talent: A creative marketing agency should not just deploy talent but consider that talent pool a competitive advantage over less inspired brands. Very often, businesses needed to rely upon creative solutions to urgent problems during 2020.

How top marketing agencies use predicted trends to position their clients

It’s fair to evaluate the most innovative, successful companies to anticipate the direction that most businesses will move in next year. If there’s one thing 2020 taught businesses, it’s that even the most successful companies could not predict the future.

Barely anybody talked about a global pandemic in January. By March, few people talked about anything else. Still, some companies kept themselves agile enough to cope with all of the issues while remaining focused upon the market they needed to connect with and serve.

For instance, when some customers did not want to enter the stores, the stores responded by offering deliveries and curbside pickup. If some restaurants lacked the capacity to deliver, they partnered with services that did or supplied pre-packaged meals that nearby grocery stores sold as a convenience. These businesses adapted and found new partners.

In response to such issues as social distancing and supply chain problems, good organizations developed creative solutions, communicated transparently with customers and employees, and also, valued these people enough to consider their needs and sensitivities over just their bottom line.

Categories
Conversion Optimization Insights Media & Analytics
cro optimization
cro optimization

The perfect call to action should enhance the website’s marketing message, tell people exactly what they’ll get, and prompt them to take the desired action.

After spending a tremendous amount of time researching audiences, designing a user interface, and planning a content strategy, so many marketers and website developers slap in the call-to-action button at the last minute, almost as an afterthought.

Yet, Michael Aagaard of Unbounce referred to the call to action, or CTA, as the vital tipping point between a website bounce and a conversion. During a time when conversion rate optimization can make the difference between profits and losses, it’s important to make certain that the CTA tips in the company’s favor.

10 great CTA button alternatives to “Learn More”

Move beyond the old standbys like “Learn More,” “Continue Reading,” or even worse, “Click Here” to propel website visitors to the next stage of the buyer’s journey. The biggest problem with these kinds of CTAs is that they’re overdone, vague, and not very engaging. Look at some better alternatives for CTA button texts.

1. “Sign Up”

It’s annoying to click a “Learn More” button only to get presented with a signup form. If marketers want to encourage people to enroll, they should transparently urge their website visitors to do just that. Even better, make sure to emphasize what benefits the visitor will enjoywhen they do enroll.

2. “Try It for Free”

“Free” always makes the list of motivating marketing terms. Prospects might not feel ready to buy something. It’s much less risky to try something for free. “Try it for Free” makes a good introduction for a free trial or demo or of course, a completely free service. It’s fine to replace “it” with the actual name of whatever the visitor is signing up for.

3. “Subscribe”

Like the previous suggestion, subscriptions don’t make visitors commit to a purchase. At the same time, an email subscription provides businesses a chance to nurture leads with more content. If space permits, make it clear what the subscription offers.

4. “Get Started Now”

After promoting a product or service as fast and simple, a phrase like “Get Started Now” provides the right mix of encouragement and urgency.

5. “Give Us a Try”

Instead of using “us,” the button might use the brand name. Either way, this phrase works well after promoting the sort of good experience that the business provides. By asking visitors to just try, it won’t sound like asking for too much of a commmitment.

6. “See Our Work”

Sometimes, the CTA really does need to encourage the viewer to learn more by viewing a gallery of pictures, a list of case studies, or demo videos. If that’s true, a phrase like “See Our Work” provides a more accurate description. Otherwise, it’s fine to make the text more specific by describing exactly what the viewer will see.

7. “Join”

It’s possible to get a little more more precise or even clever with a “Join” button. As an example, Panthera promotes the conservation of big cats, and they label their subscription form with “Join the Pride.” As an alternative, “Join Us” offers instant relationship building.

8. “Send Me Deals Now”

If the page promotes a subscription that includes notifications about deals or specials, cement the message with a CTA button that reinforce its value. Obviously, if the page offers price quotes, the button could say “Send My Free Quote Now.” If the CTA promotes something of value, let people know about it.

9. “Save Now”

As an alternative to a “Buy” button, why not use the CTA to promote the reason that the website visitor would want to buy? If the promotion doesn’t include a discount, use the CTA to empahsize quality, uniqueness, or whatever special qualities customers will find most important.

10. The personalized CTA

Amazon, Netflix, and many other popular websites perform so well because they personalize a lot of their content. Similarly, HubSpot found that personalized CTA buttons perform over 200 percent better than static ones. They tested against single CTAs and different CTA buttons for more than one offer.

For their example:

  • For visitors who had not interacted with the site before, they offered memberships to HubSpot Academy.  This provides online classes where people can learn about marketing.
  • For visitors who had already taken the courses, they offered access to a marketing tool.

This takes a bit more coding. Still, the investment in CRO marketing may prove worth the investment. As an example, if somebody’s already logged into a website, it hardly makes sense to offer them a chance to “Join for Free.” In that case, it’s time to coax them into making a purchase.

How to craft the perfect CTA button text

Emphasize the benefits while letting people know exactly what they’ll get by taking action. This tactic will prompt action and never risk disappointing website viewers. In order to tune results, conduct some testing to see which ideas perform the best.

Categories
Conversion Optimization Insights Media & Analytics Uncategorized
conversion rate optimization
conversion rate optimization

In an age of complex, multi-channel marketing, conversion rate optimization can offer quick ROI improvements without a large investment.

Online sellers generally think of their shopping cart as the bottom of their sales funnel. The problem is, according to information gathered by BigCommerce, is that the funnel’s not only expensive — it’s also leaky. In the U.S. alone, marketers spend over $20 billion to drive visitors to their shopping carts and enjoy, on average, just a 2.68 percent conversion rate.

One of the biggest leaks commonly occurs right there at the bottom of the funnel. That’s when potential customers abandon their shopping carts. For instance, BigCommerce found that average businesses suffer an abandonment rate of close to 70 percent. On the positive side, at least a high abandonment rate can narrow down the problem to one point in the marketing funnel. In other words, the position of the problem can also offer some clues to finding actionable insights.

With that in mind, consider some conversion rate optimization tips to reduce cart abandonment and recoup more of that marketing investment.

Use a CRO marketing perspective to reduce abandoned shopping carts

CRO simply refers to conversion rate optimization. To find a shopping cart’s own abandonment rate, simply compare the number of purchase to the number of filled shopping carts. As an example, one purchase for every three filled shopping carts equals an abandonment rate of 67 percent, which is just about average. Businesses should start out by calculating their own rates, so they can have a handy metric to gauge improvement.

Six tested tactics to reduce cart abandonment rates

Few companies can completely eliminate shopping cart abandonment. At the same time, even moving the needle just a few percentage points can dramatically improve revenues and profits. Better yet, better conversion rate optimization generally doesn’t require a large investment and may even employ tools and information that businesses already have.

1. Make total costs more transparent

Online shoppers may arrive at an eCommerce site because they saw promotion that advertised a great deal. Very often, they can only see shipping, taxes, handling, and extra costs after they’ve already added items to their cart for viewing. Businesses should not assume that customers will hit the buy button just because they’ve already gone to the effort to fill up their shopping cart.

Even worse, consumers may feel tricked and less likely to revisit the seller again. Some businesses have thrived by offering free or discounted shipping with minimum orders. Not only does this promote transparency, it even encourages customers to make larger orders.

2. Offer more payment options

Not every customer wants to use a credit card for online purchases. Some may prefer a digital wallet, debit card, or even a draft from a checking account. Many businesses have also optimized conversions by offering financing plans for big-ticket items, like TV sets and bicycles. Some customers may even prefer to split a payment between methods, and most local stores allow this.

In any case, offering flexible options for payments generally leads to quick conversion rate optimization. In contrast, retailers that only accept one payment method will probably lose business to more flexible competitors. 

3. Exit popups

At the least, an exit popup might gather information about the reason a customer decided not to commit to their purchase. At best, they might offer a promotional discount on the price or shipping. The popup might also display an offer to enroll in a loyalty program which will provide customers with future incentives. This will also benefit the business by adding more people to their subscriber list. 

4. Followup emails

Less intrusive than popups but somewhat less likely to get viewed, emails can also help recover abandoned shopping carts. As with exit popups, businesses can use this form of communication to offer discounts, especially in return for information about the reason the customer abandoned the shopping cart in the first place.

5. Employ social proof

Testimonials from satisfied customers, links to third-party reviews, and ratings from such business sites as the BBB can also prompt customers to complete their purchase. Social proof can help build customer confidence because it gives customers and other independent parties the chance to tell their own stories about a business.

6. Earn customer trust

Search Engine Land called Amazon’s ability to earn customer trust its true competitive advantage. Not only do consumers rely upon Amazon’s transparency, refund policy, and customer service, a majority of them trust this large retailer to protect their privacy and personal data.

Some steps that any eCommerce step should take to build a trusting relationship with customers include:

  • Clear refund and return policies
  • Responsive customer service, perhaps including chat boxes customers can use during their purchase
  • Transparent prices and other costs
  • Communication of privacy protection and data use policies
  • Other trust symbols, like security and compliance logos

Why start optimizing conversions by reducing shopping cart abandonment rates?

The list above addresses common reasons why customers abandon shopping carts. Still, some other causes might include an unintentionally difficult or complex checkout process or consumers arriving at an early stage of their buying process. That’s why businesses may also want to conduct some A/B testing with various processes and collect customer feedback.

Still, on the positive side, most companies have complex, multi-channel marketing plans. At least, isolating conversion optimization problems at the shopping cart stage means the customers have traveled pretty far along the funnel. This stage offers a narrow focus and a good place to earn some quick gains in sales.

Categories
Audience Consumer Journey Mapping Digital Targeting Services Insights Media & Analytics Real Time Monitoring & Tracking
Agency Blog
Agency Blog

Advertising is all about making a product or service known and this service is usually accomplished by the individual himself or by a marketing agency. Having the passion and creative talent to build and manage an advertising agency is one thing, however to stay in business; you have to learn how to market your advertising agency as well, not just your clients.

The first thing in marketing your business is to make sure that you plan and develop ways to reach your target audience, which is usually companies and businesses that will want to advertise their products or services by using your expertise in advertising. Though you will often use networking and different media such as radio, television and the internet, your efforts will usually work best if you create space for yourself in a particular advertising medium by specializing in one or two advertising media and by developing a presence in this area.

For example, if you are running an ad agency in Orlando or a marketing agency in Florida, you will want to focus primarily on businesses in Orlando. You can even narrow down your search to only radio networks, television networks or internet advertising depending on your expertise.

Your business needs to have a unique identity. You need to give it a name and a description that sets it apart from other advertising agencies. You should try to describe yourself in a way that sets you apart as unique and professional, and communicate how advertising with you will bring more value to your customers just by adding themselves to your network. Be creative!

While in this process, you also have to identify who your potential client is and in doing so you will easily know where to locate them and engage with them either directly or indirectly to learn more about your business and to take interest in your offers.

For marketing efforts that are localized, as in the case of Orlando ad agencies as mentioned in the example above, localizing your marketing efforts does make sense. However if your company is looking to reach a worldwide audience, and also planning to go international, then you do not have to leave any avenues untouched. The larger you are able to spread your net, the greater the possibility of catching new business. You should be positioned to try satellite television, magazines, newspapers, radio, social media, and even other non-traditional media.

However, you will need to research each medium appropriately in order to find out where your target population is and then focus on this niche for maximum effect so you dowaste your resources.

Going online can easily bring you to a worldwide audience, and to keep in touch, you will need to be constantly supplying keywords and new content. Spread your reaches by sharing in advertising networks where you can put your adverts on certain networks and pay a commission or post links and adverts on certain networks who in return will also post adverts on your site. You can also work through social media platforms to create links and make new customers.

Are you in need of a comprehensive approach to determine which solutions best meet the needs of your clientele? Contact our advertising agency’s team of strategists to identify your perfect marketing mix.

Categories
Insights Uncategorized
cropped Adrian Press Release Blog revised 1200x600 c default
cropped Adrian Press Release Blog revised 1200x600 c default

ORLANDO, FL (October 18, 2019) – Bigeye (www.bigeyeagency.com), an audience-focused, creative-driven, full-service advertising agency, has added industry veteran Adrian Tennant to its executive team as Vice President, Insights. Before joining Bigeye, Tennant served as Vice President / Director of Digital Strategy for marketing agency 22squared, and as Chief Experience Officer / Director of Research at Blue Kite Insight, an advertising and user experience startup he co-founded.

“Adrian’s expertise in audience research and using data to inform and inspire creative ideas and then test and validate them with audiences segmented in near real-time is unmatched in our industry,” said Justin Ramb, Bigeye’s President. “He has a tremendous record of success in helping leading companies reach consumers more effectively, and his skill and experience in the area of insights-led strategy are a perfect fit for what we do at Bigeye. We’re thrilled to have him join the team.” 

With nearly 20 years of experience in audience research, marketing strategy, creative design, video production, and media buying and placement, Bigeye works with local, regional, and national companies in a wide variety of industries.

“Today’s digital ecosystem provides an unprecedented opportunity to embrace data to help clients achieve exceptional results,” said Tennant. “The agency’s leadership has a clear vision for Bigeye’s future—one that places consumer insights and data analytics at the heart of every engagement. I’m excited about how the use of behavioral and attitudinal insights will continue to enable Bigeye clients to achieve their business objectives and demonstrate the agency’s leadership in this field.”

About Bigeye

Located in Orlando, Florida, Bigeye is an audience-focused, creative-driven, full-service advertising agency that crafts deeply compelling brand experiences and the strategies that ensure they reach the right people, in the right place, at the right time. The Bigeye team of creative directors, copywriters, artists, programmers and account managers works closely with clients to better understand the needs of their consumers and deliver measurable results.

Categories
Creative & Production Insights Website Development
The Myth of the Page Fold 1200x600 c default
The Myth of the Page Fold 1200x600 c default

What is the fold? This is a reference to the upper half, or above the fold, of the front page of a newspaper which is considered to be premium space.

Continue reading “The Myth of the Page Fold, and what you need to know”
Categories
Adaptable Creative Creative & Production Insights
Honeysuckle A Bright Idea for Print in 2011 1200x600 c default
Honeysuckle A Bright Idea for Print in 2011 1200x600 c default

For those who saw The Devil Wears Prada (c’mon boys, you know you loved it), believe Miranda Priestly when she tells Andy:
“That sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually Cerulean … That blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room.”

In 2000, Pantone LLC, the world’s leading color authority, decided Cerulean would be the color of the year. It made its way through fashion shows, interior decorations and graphic designs. No doubt, we caught a glimpse of Cerulean every day in the year 2000, whether in passing on a billboard, in the Target Home Furnishings section, or in Macy’s clothing department. Pantone’s Color of the Year affects our daily lives. Ms. Priestly was right (she just forgot to mention that Pantone plays an influential role in the colors designers incorporate into their pieces), so why not embrace it?

Over the past 10 years, Pantone has chosen colors like Fuchsia Rose (2001), Aqua Sky (2003) and Sand Dollar (2006) as the colors of the years—each varying in only pinks, blues and yellows, oddly enough. So it comes as no surprise that 2011’s choice is none other than the vibrant, rosy-colored Honeysuckle. That’s right, we said rosy. We thought Honeysuckle was an orangey-yellow, too.

According to Pantone, Honeysuckle’s dynamic red and pink tones encourage us to push beyond the escape and “meet the exhaustive challenges that have become part of [our] everyday lives.” It’s vibrant and uplifting, sure to bring confidence and liveliness back into our world; and it’s about time. Get ready to see Honeysuckle in weddings, bedspreads, commercials and so much more. Pops of this playful pink are about to start showing up everywhere, so how are you going to utilize it?

Color can affect us both physically and emotionally, according to Kate Smith from Sensationalcolor.com. Vibrant pinks like Honeysuckle can increase blood pressure and encourage action and confidence. It’s the color of happiness, often reminding women of the lightheartedness of their youth, according to TK person. We see pink as an international symbol of hope in the fight against breast cancer. But it’s not just a feminine color. The Japanese associate the color with masculinity, symbolizing fallen Samurai of the past in the annual blooming of the cherry blossom trees. Any chance you’re craving sweets after all this pink talk? It’s been said to do that too.

In search of a color palette to best represent your brand? Our creative team possesses the expertise to assist you in finding your perfect match – contact us today to schedule a consultation!

Categories
Content Marketing Creative & Production Digital Targeting Services Insights Integrated Media Media & Analytics Media Planning and Buying Paid Search Paid Social Video Production
What to Expect in 2011 – Part I
What to Expect in 2011 – Part I

If 2010 was up for a marketing superlative, it would definitely be voted “Most Likely to Succeed.” This past year, we saw the launch of the iPad, the expansion of the Facebook “Like” button to other popular websites and the rise of singer-songwriter Justin Bieber, who can thank YouTube for the fact that he can now retire at age 16. But while 2010 focused on finding new, bigger and better vehicles to market products and services, 2011 will focus on tying them all together. Gunning for the “Best-All-Around” title, 2011 will be the year that we see businesses weave online, print, broadcast, mobile, and social media initiatives together into a greater marketing plan to achieve bigger goals. And the leaders of the pack will be those who recognize this need to take a step back and see the bigger picture. Read on to find out more about Covenant’s projections for 2011, and how big-picture thinking could lead to a big ROI.

1. Video

In the next three years, 90 percent of the Internet will be video, according to Cisco Systems. Video has become a powerful way to talk directly to your target audience and build upon or strengthen the relationship they’ve already established with your brand. Video can also be repurposed on multiple platforms, from your company’s website to its Facebook Fan page. Your customers can even share the videos with their friends and family by reposting links or by embedding the video itself onto other Web pages. And the unique thing about video is that it can still be viewed years after it is initially posted.

There are many ways that video can be utilized on the Web to not only promote your brand, but also to establish it as the go-to resource in your industry. If you’re a healthcare facility, add a five-minute tutorial on tips to avoid the flu before cold season (such as washing your hands, just like Mom always said). If you’re a homebuilder, show short clips of a remodeled cabinet you did, with before and after shots. The idea is to think of a topic that will interest your customers, and then hire a professional to do the work. While flip cameras are great for taping your grandma doing the electric slide at your cousin’s wedding, they won’t deliver the same professional look and feel that a production company can. In order to effectively position your products and services in your marketplace, it’s crucial to get the right message, sound and light in place before you start rolling.

2. Digital Marketing

The last time someone in our office used a phone book was to get to the last Sweet’N Low packet on a hard-to-reach shelf. And we would venture to say the same is true for many of our clients (unless they prefer Splenda). More often than not, consumers are looking online to gather information and pricing for the products or services they need. Therefore, companies will need to move their rates, discount packages, services, and offerings where their customers are looking for it: online.

In addition to making it easier for your customers to include you in their budget for the upcoming year, it’s also more important now than ever to include digital media in your own. With new channels and capabilities being developed daily on the Internet, websites are becoming far more complex than the five-page, static HTML pages they once were. They’re incorporating instant messaging, applications, video, podcasting, gaming, blogs, social networking, and dynamically generated content pulled by an RSS feed from other sites. All of these separate initiatives are great to keep your audience coming back for more, but this year, business leaders will need to develop an overall digital marketing plan to play out how each initiative will work together to achieve their company’s greater goals.

3. Social Media

By now, even old-school business executives that were once hesitant about jumping into the social media pool are taking the plunge. It’s no longer a question of whether or not you have social media, but rather how you decide to utilize it, and whether or not those initiatives have resulted in an ROI. Offering free giveaways or coupons to people who “Like” you on Facebook is a great way to build your audience in the beginning stages. But after you get their attention, it’s just as important to keep it there. This will happen by engaging your customer through relevant—and frequent—posts, messages, photos, videos, and other offerings. It’s also important to include a call-to-action in order to drive traffic where you want it to go, such as sharing a link to a new product or service featured on your company website. This year, expect to see more in the realm of Social Listening Research and Influencer Marketing, which allow you to analyze your target audience members to better understand your customers and their needs.

LinkedIn, a professional networking website, will also continue to be a social media platform to watch in 2011, with more than 12 million small-business leaders on its site, according to its blog last year. It’s become a huge resource for finding a job, finding a job candidate or making a connection with a potential business partner.

4. Multi-channel and Integrated Marketing

It’s great to market your company across different mediums, from online, print and broadcast to mobile applications and social media platforms. But if the vehicles you’re using to promote your brand don’t cross promote one another, you’re missing out on a lot of business opportunities you could have had if they did. For example, this can take the form of a billboard with a QR code (barcode readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera phones), print advertising with a mobile phone SMS call to action, or a link on a company website that redirects to its Facebook page to “Like” them. It should always come full circle. You want to engage your audience to interact with you and your brand, not just hit them once with a well-designed piece that leaves them thinking, “OK great, but now what?”

It simply isn’t enough to just do a newspaper advertisement or buy a radio spot anymore. It must be integrated into multiple platforms and, consequentially, be strongly branded to your company on those platforms. This will change the role of your audience members from recipients to participants.

5. Personalized Marketing

You may have already noticed this on Facebook, but in 2011, expect to see more websites with personalization capabilities. This means that if you frequently visit a website, it will track the keywords you search for and post and store this information in its database to customize what’s displayed on the site the next time you visit. It not only determines what’s displayed based on the keywords you search, but also by the pages you visit within the site and, for first time visitors, even the referring URL that linked you to the site.

With the astronomical growth of Groupon and LivingSocial in the past two years, smart startup companies are starting to use geo-location capabilities to drive foot traffic to their local businesses. This acceleration would largely be driven by discovery via location-based social experience sharing. The explosive growth of Instagram is also an early sign of this experience-sharing trend, and we will witness a whole lot more in the coming year.

6. Print

This just in: print is not dead. Print has reinvented itself more times than Cher and Madonna combined and, like their careers, it thrives by changing its look to stay relevant. In an “all-about-me” marketplace, printers have learned that in order to stay in touch with consumers, they have to get personal. Literally. Data-driven print (also known as 1:1 printing, variable data or personalized printing) is continuously growing in popularity and often involves strategically placing a customer’s name onto an already printed piece.

For example, vacation timeshares may put a customer’s name on the back of a white robe hanging in the closet of a bedroom. A sports clothing brand might put a customer’s name on the back of a football jersey. The options are endless, and it’s a great way to get creative and grab your audience members’ attention by reaching out to them by name.

7. SEO

Ah, the ever-elusive concept of Search Engine Optimization. In recent years, the most common question we get from clients is hands down, “What can we do to become No. 1 in Google’s search results?” This isn’t surprising to us since your customers, like you, are probably using search engines as their primary means to find the information they are looking for. But the answer is much more complex than the reason behind the question. Although there are definitely ways that marketing professionals can help improve your SEO through keywords, tags and content, there is no silver bullet for getting the No. 1 spot. With the introduction of new search engines such as Bing in the U.S., Baidu in China and Yandex in Russia, Google’s not the only player in the search engine game anymore. In addition, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are also becoming popular resources for searching, making it even more difficult to solve the equation to get to the No. 1 spot. In 2011, look for things to get even more complex as search engines advance, mobile phone searches get thrown into the mix and geo-location searches also become a factor in where you fall in search result listings.

Even if there isn’t a foolproof formula to guarantee your ranking, there are certainly ways to improve your SEO. Marketing experts have conducted plenty of research in this realm and can advise you of small things you can do to make a big impact in the long run.

In conclusion, the key to a successful year in marketing will be to engage your audience, be strategic in your initiatives, customize your offerings and keep your overall goal in mind. But if all else fails, post a really funny video of your cat sneezing on YouTube and watch the TV interviews, book deals, magazine covers, and sports drink sponsorships just roll in.

In need of a little guidance in order to continue on the right foot? Contact our team of marketing experts today to develop the perfect approach for your brand in 2011 – and beyond!