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Audience Branding Consumer Insights Creative & Production Identity Marketing/Business Media & Analytics Media Planning and Buying Public Relations Qualitative Research Quantitative Research Website Development

If you’re a small to mid-sized business owner, you almost certainly don’t have enough time in the day to get everything finished to your satisfaction. Often, the day-to-day operational demands that come with running a business make it difficult to focus on the broader strategic picture — something that is essential for growth.

In order to create a truly high-performance enterprise, it’s sometimes necessary to contract with outside agencies for help with key creative and technical tasks. By working with a trusted agency, business owners don’t have to work outside the limits of their own expertise and have more time to focus on their own high-value tasks.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the most important services offered by today’s top creative agencies.

Marketing research

In order to validate their hypotheses, marketers need to collect hard data, and this comes in form of data collected by a marketing research agency. This research may occur through focus groups and brand awareness studies.

Many brands partner with a marketing research agency to help complete these tasks and conduct primary market research. By working with a consumer insight agency or focus group research company, brands can gather the kind of data that helps identify the strengths and weaknesses of their products and services, while also better understanding their target market.

Additionally, a usability testing company can help a company determine how an intended audience interfaces with a product or service, while Florida research companies specializing in market data can assist with consumer profile services and qualitative research services. This gives their clients a broader picture of who their audience is, and how those audiences are responding to products, services and marketing campaigns.

Creative services

Creative work is the heart of effective marketing and branding. Whether it’s print advertising, sales materials design, collateral design or annual report design, creative work is the conduit through which audiences and brands connect.

Most small to mid-sized businesses don’t have the budget or expertise to deploy an in-house creative team. That’s not an insurmountable hurdle, however; by contracting with a copywriting company, outdoor marketing agency, tradeshow display company or packaging design agency, brands can realize their creative vision and better connect with their customers.

Digital marketing

We’ve reached a point where the terms “marketing” and “digital marketing” are almost interchangeable. Most of us live, work, communicate and play online — which means that businesses need to do their utmost to connect with people in the digital realm.

This is accomplished by the following techniques such as email and content marketing and various forms of pay-per-click marketing services or display advertising services. By working with a digital marketing consultant, a content marketing agency or an email marketing agency, brands can help ensure that they reap the rewards of a digital approach.

A new and critically important trend is voice technology. Given the staggering adoption numbers for smart speakers and digital assistants, forward-thinking brands should also consider pursuing voice development services from an Alexa app company or a top Florida digital marketing company.

Strategy

Great marketing campaigns all begin with a smart, overarching strategy. This strategy should encompass everything a business does in terms of marketing creation and distribution, including various content types and channels.

Marketing data analysis conducted by a marketing strategy agency can play a key role in this process, as it provides a sound foundation on which to build campaigns and test assumptions. Businesses may also wish to focus on more niche areas by employing an audience segmentation consultant or social media strategy company, both of which can play an integral role in helping brands identify and engage with ideal audiences for their products and services.

Today, a comprehensive marketing strategy must cover a wide variety of channels, reflecting the nature of how audiences live, work and consume content today. This means that working with a multi-channel marketing company that specializes in this kind of approach is often a smart idea.

Media buying

When it comes to good marketing, distribution is just as important as creation. You can have the most compelling campaign in the world, but if nobody sees it, what good does it do?

That’s where media buying enters the equation. The right media strategy services or media planning agency can help ensure that your marketing content gains maximum exposure through every relevant channel, including print and TV.

Digital, too, is an important piece of the media puzzle. A digital media buying agency that specializes in this channel can help ensure your campaign gains traction, while an attribution modeling company can provide you with measurable data that confirms whether or not particular marketing or advertising approach is effective.

In today’s changing world, it’s also important to ensure that your media campaigns reflect the viewpoints of all consumers, which means that it makes sense to work with a multicultural marketing agency that has the perspective to connect with all audiences.

Web development services

Maintaining fully-functional websites with smooth and intuitive user experiences should be a key priority for just about any business. Websites serve as the public face of a business and also often play an important role in generating revenue. If a business can’t be trusted to offer the public a professional and reliable website, prospective customers may wonder about the quality of the products and services they will receive.

However, not every business is equipped to maintain a reliable, user-friendly digital presence. In such cases, it makes sense to partner with a web design company or website development company that can handle every aspect of creating and maintaining digital properties. Additionally, a good content management company can help ensure that businesses place high in organic search rankings by following the principles of search engine optimization and content marketing.

Continuity is also critically important, as downtime can result in lost revenue and angry customers. An Orlando web development firm offering website maintenance services can help local businesses ensure that their digital properties suffer from minimal technical interruptions.

By partnering with top Florida web design consultants, local businesses can ensure that their online presence serves the needs of their customers, while also attracting new business thanks to the compelling design and reliable functionality.

Branding

In order to be successful in a highly competitive landscape, businesses need a way to differentiate their products and services — and that’s where the art of branding comes into the picture. Branding agency services and brand naming services help companies establish compelling brands by developing product names, packaging, and other key design elements. For example, a business may choose to hire a logo design company as part of its overall branding strategy.

A brand story agency can also help businesses create a compelling brand narrative, one that communicates the values and vision of an enterprise to its audience. Brand messaging services can also help a company convey their value proposition to consumers while communicating a message that inspires, intrigues and motivates potential customers.

Branding, when done properly, should inform how a business communicates on every level. Hiring a brand strategy firm, or devising a brand style guide, can help brands ensure that their public-facing content maintains a consistent brand voice. Meanwhile, the practice of brand positioning defines precisely how the products and services a business sells differ from that of its competitors.

When looking at creating a new branding approach from the ground up, companies will often seek out the help of a brand strategy firm. These are full-service agencies that can help with all aspects of a new branding program, or the rebrand of an existing company, product or service.

Video production and marketing

Roughly a decade ago, businesses were in scramble mode to accommodate society’s shift to mobile devices. Within a very short period of time, the smartphone and tablet transformed with the way people live, work and consume content. Today, we’re experiencing another major shift, this time centered around video.

Because people (particularly younger demographics) prefer consuming video over other formats, the creation of marketing and promotional videos has become an essential marketing service.  By partnering with a video production company or video editing company, brands can reach new audiences and deliver the type of compelling content that leads to successful marketing campaigns.

Social media platforms, of course, are a powerful distribution channel for video content. By working with a social media video company, brands can leverage the expertise of these agencies and greatly increase the reach and engagement of their video-focused social campaigns.

For businesses seeking top video production, Florida is an ideal place to be located. Along with sunny weather and beautiful scenery, Florida is home to some of the world’s best creative agencies. This means that brands in the market for a corporate video production company to lead their latest campaign are perfectly situated.

Social marketing

Social media marketing services are one of the fastest-growing agency marketing offerings. That’s for good reason: The reach and power of social media are greater than ever, and social media advertising services are subsequently in high demand.

Yet while the right social strategy can pay enormous dividends, many businesses simply lack the experience and expertise to execute a high-level social media marketing campaign. In such cases, these businesses should strongly consider working with a social content agency or social media management company.

These agencies have the specialist skill to create high-performance social marketing campaigns that gain serious engagement among users. Social media can be a powerful (and cost-effective) amplifier for a brand. Yet without the right strategy, even the best content will be ignored.

To ensure that all company social media services are on point, businesses without an internal team of experts should strongly consider working with an agency, one well-versed in search optimization and audience-building techniques.

Influencer marketing

One only has to glance at Instagram today to see the power of influencer marketing in action. Social media influencers and brands have formed a symbiotic and mutually profitable relationship, as popular platform users use their followings and personal brands to highlight sponsored brand products.

Yet cracking the code of this emerging world of influencers isn’t always easy for established brands, many of which lack social media expertise. An influencer marketing agency (sometimes called an “influencer management agency” can help fill this shortcoming by pairing brands with the right influencers.

Most brands find influencer marketing to be highly effective, as it connects their products and services with people who have dedicated and highly motivated online followings. This is one reason why working with an influencer marketing strategy agency has become so popular in recent years.

Public relations

The work of a public relations agency is primarily centered on two objectives: Ensuring positive press and public perception, and getting a brand’s message out into the public sphere. A company may choose to do this by scheduling interviews, sending out press releases and other such services.

Because public relations is vitally important work, it often makes sense for businesses to use an outside agency with specialist skills. A media relations agency can help ensure harmonious interaction with the press, while a crisis communications company can step into the breach and manage public perceptions during a period of turbulence.

Press release services and media training services are two other functions often filled by a public relations agency. Businesses seeking help with such tasks can reach out to a Florida PR agency, or an Orlando PR company, for assistance.

The takeaway

The range of services offered by creative agencies has grown significantly. Today, a full-service Florida marketing agency can help businesses with all of the services listed above, allowing its owners to free up much-needed time — and benefit from the deep experience and specialist skill offered by modern marketing experts.

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Creative & Production Media & Analytics Media Analysis & Measurement Media Planning and Buying Website Development

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, and with the European Union implementing its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws, Facebook has made changes to its user privacy policy. While the Cambridge Analytica situation was more related to the mishandling of data by app developers, the policy changes have gone beyond app integrations to address bigger privacy concerns that many Facebook users have had for a long time. This has forced most digital media buying agencies into strategy adjustments for their clients.

Many marketers are panic-stricken, asking themselves: “How will this affect my business marketing activities?” But fear not, as a top Florida advertising agency, we pride ourselves on being intuitive and proactive when it comes to helping our clients understand and navigate changes like this in their industry. In other words, we’ve got your back!

If you are using Facebook advertising, you probably use custom audiences or the Facebook Pixel to help you with targeting the proper audiences. As of earlier this year, there are changes you must follow in the way you collect data. New Facebook rules require you to comply with the following 4 actions:

1. Get explicit consent from each person in your database to track and remarket to them through Facebook.

There are a number of ways to do this including sending a mass email to everyone for whom you have contact information and asking that they reply with their consent.  From there, you must remove those who deny consent or don’t reply from your database. Yes, that involves some work, but you have to do it to be in compliance.

2. Make it clear to all website visitors going forward that you are collecting data.

Many companies today use what is commonly referred to as a “cookie banner” to allow people to accept or decline cookies. You might also seek consent as part of an email list sign-up process. You’ll want to discuss these needs with your web development company.

3. Make it easy for users to reject cookies and withdraw their consent at any time.

For those who change their mind about allowing you to track them, you must have a way to erase all of their data. Of course, the easier that is to do, the less time your team will have to spend doing it. So, coming up with an efficient process is key!

4. Be prepared to notify users of a data breach.

If hackers get unauthorized access to data in your possession, you must notify everyone whose data is potentially compromised within 72 hours. That isn’t going to be a fun note to send out, but doing it helps protect your customers from the hackers and helps your reputation in the long run.

How does this affect the value of Facebook as a marketing platform?

No question about it… marketers need user data to target and reach the right audience on Facebook, and the new rules will mean that less data is going to be available. This digital media buying agency definitely feels your pain!

Should you quit the platform? No, we’re not recommending that. But, it’s important to give some thought to how your strategy needs to evolve. Should you shift some resources to another platform? Temporarily cut back on your Facebook spend to see how things shake out? There’s a lot of questions!

As an experienced digital media buying agency, we can help you understand how the new focus on data privacy will affect your marketing efforts. Contact us today and let’s talk about getting you into — or keeping you in — compliance.

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Conversion Optimization Media & Analytics Media Planning and Buying

If a person from the year 2005 were to visit us today, they’d find that most things in our daily lives hadn’t changed dramatically over 13 years.
Until they decided to watch a film or a television show, of course. Then they’d realize the way people consume content has been radically altered in a brief span of time.

In 2005, you didn’t watch a movie on Netflix — you watched a movie from Netflix (and only after waiting two days for it to arrive in the mail). If you wanted to watch your favorite TV show, you had to view it live or record it. Hulu didn’t exist, and the very idea of video-on-demand was in its infancy.

Now, just a bit more than a decade later, a video store is all but extinct. The idea of a snail-mailed subscription DVD service seems quaint and faintly ridiculous. We watch what we want, when we want, on the device we want.

In other words, we watch Over-the-Top (OTT) media — and that’s something with profound implications for marketers.

Cable vs. OTT

Over-the-Top is a term to describe the process by which content is streamed directly to consumers over the Internet by media services. Much like cable technology revolutionized broadcast media by greatly expanding the viewing choices available to consumers, OTT media has transformed modern viewing habits.

Instead of the need for a conventional cable or satellite over the top box, OTT media streams directly to the viewer, bypassing television and telecommunication platforms that have historically acted as distributors of video content. Today’s most popular forms of OTT media include subscription-based services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video.

In addition to offering content created by TV networks and film studios, these OTT platforms also create significant amounts of original material, making them full-fledged competitors to traditional content creators and distributors.

Why OTT media is critical for today’s marketers and advertisers 

This profound change in viewing habits, content creation, and distribution models hasn’t gone unnoticed by marketers and advertisers. Today, eight-in-ten U.S. homes have an OTT subscription, according to a PwC study, while emerging markets are embracing OTT at an even faster rate. Additionally, Ericsson projects that 75% of all mobile traffic will be dedicated to video streaming by 2023.

OTT media is particularly popular with younger people, who subscribe to OTT services at even higher rates than the general public. As society grows younger and more tech-oriented, marketers are changing their media buying habits and designing campaigns optimized for OTT.

In years past, marketers were hamstrung by single screens and a limited pool of content. Today, content is available on multiple devices and programming options have never been greater.

OTT media platforms have led the way in using data analytics to accurately gauge what their viewers are interested in seeing. This has resulted in a proliferation of new films and series that are focused on niche audiences who have been historically underrepresented on broadcast networks and cable. Because this content is targeted and deeply relevant, viewers tend to be hyper-engaged — music to the ears of marketers and advertisers.

The OTT model also allows for more control of how and where ad content is displayed, and how ROI is tracked — all key considerations for a multi-platform campaign.

How multi-platform campaigns can derive maximum benefits from OTT media

Recently there have been studies undertaken to gauge the effectiveness of multi-platform OTT advertising. The results are compelling: According to a joint study by market research firm Kantar Millward Brown and Hulu, OTT significantly outperformed in terms of ad performance.

In cross-platform testing, OTT and mobile were the most successful in terms of reaching key ad objectives. Overall, among PC, mobile and OTT distribution, OTT ranked highest in aided awareness and brand favorability, while mobile ranked highest in purchase intent.

OTT also plays an important role in preventing potential ad fatigue generated by a multi-platform campaign with high ad frequency. The aforementioned study showed little to no decline in an ad’s effectiveness even after up to nine OTT media exposures.

Ultimately, the case for greater OTT focus in a multi-platform campaign comes down to a few key factors. First, advertisers need to reach people where they are — and OTT media is quickly becoming the default mode of content consumption, as traditional TV providers are losing millions of subscribers each year.

Second, the tools available to create OTT strategies and measure their effectiveness are becoming ever more refined. Today, marketers can identify campaign targets via demographic segments across multiple platforms. The ROI from ad campaigns can be quantified by the use of measurement tools that show how OTT ads perform relative to other platforms.

Taken together, all of this information helps marketers reach an informed understanding about how to optimize their campaigns and allocate their advertising spend.

BIGEYE and OTT

At BIGEYE, we’re proud to be a technology-forward marketing agency. We have the expertise and the tools to help you create the kind of compelling multi-platform campaigns that generate real, measurable results.

We believe that OTT media is going to be an essential part of successful campaigns moving forward — and we encourage you to look for the next in our series of articles about getting the most from OTT strategies.

Contact our media buying experts today to incorporate OTT media into your next campaign!

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Media & Analytics Media Planning and Buying

No business can survive without one, key ingredient: customers. Bringing in new customers — formally known as “user acquisition” — should be one of your company’s most important (and lucrative) business goals. User acquisition is a blanket term used to describe interconnected activities, such as content creation, media buying, conversion funnel analysis, marketing automation, and SEO efforts. Whether your goal is more app users, site visitors, or sales, the user acquisition process is built upon the same, systematic process.
At BIGEYE, we believe in educating our customers on how to take their user acquisition efforts as far as they can, on their own, before stepping in to take things to the next level. In that spirit, here are four tools our team recommends to help you create more sustainable pipelines that won’t take your team more than ten minutes to implement. You can also visit our services page to learn how we can partner together on your acquisition strategy.

1. Understand why your user acquisition cost is so important

Before you do anything else, start by understanding your user acquisition cost (UAC). This figure represents the amount of money your company spends attracting new users. Your goal is to make that cost as low as humanly possible while still being effective. When measuring against the lifetime value of your customers (CLV), a good benchmark is 3:1 value to cost. Stay on target by designating a percentage of your current year’s CLV and only spend that amount. If you find yourself burning through your budget, it’s time to assess whether your user acquisition tactics are effective and seek out areas for optimization.

2. Give your content a facelift

Blog posts naturally sink to the bottom of your website architecture as time passes, but that doesn’t make your content (or keywords inside) less valuable. Repurposing your best material gives you the opportunity to re-promote highly effective or potentially viral content via social media, generate new backlinks as your audience expands, and direct crawler attention to desired search terms. And no, this isn’t cheating. Consider HubSpot, which generates over 250 blog posts each month. They regularly refresh great content that is valuable to their target audience. And so should you.

3. Don’t let low hanging fruit get in the way of user acquisition

All the work you put into leveraging content to bring in new users won’t matter if those users can’t find your site. Start with low hanging fruit. Look for crawler errors and 404 pages, check your site speed, and delete outdated content. Reference your target keywords against the metadata on your pages, then do a competitive analysis to make sure you have the budget and content to compete on them. While these activities may not seem directly linked to a strong user acquisition strategy, we’d argue that they are the foundation of effective SEO, customer discovery, and entry into your marketing funnel – making them critically important. Through this process, site tech debt will decrease and you can begin building more nuanced keywords and linking strategies, rather than focusing on clean up. This will help new customers easily find your site and navigate to the information they need, on the right platform, at the right time.

4. Boost your email user acquisition in one easy step

Boost your leads by buying lists from complementary brands. A personalized welcome email creates early engagement with your brand, while relevant and consistent content makes your emails a delight rather than a delete. Even if your email open rate is strong, there’s still room to improve (unless you’re at 100%). Double your effectiveness by sending an email, then resending thatsame email – with a different subject – to only the individuals who didn’t open the first email. By changing the subject and resending the origianl email you can boost your email open rates by 20 – 30% with a simple click of a button.

When you’re ready, we’ll be here waiting to kick things up a notch. Feel free to reach out to our team with success stories, questions or if the time has come to take your user acquisition to the next level.

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Media & Analytics Media Planning and Buying

The most successful brands, apps, and websites connect to their audience in ways that fit seamlessly into consumers lifestyles by bridging rich content — like multi-channel video and highly personalized posts — across platforms and devices. A sparkling example of multi-platform marketing comes from startup darling Rent the Runway (RTR), which lets users rent clothes for special occasions. The brand boasts an Apple App Store rating of 4.8, 6 million users, and over $100 million in revenue.
To achieve these impressive stats, RTR creates unique content for each platform that lets users navigate their purchases, engage with the RTR community, and share special moments: a true lifestyle brand. Until this fall, marketers have had a difficult time quantifying how important multi-channel video content – like that featured on RTR – can be. But Nielsen just changed that by adding Facebook, Hulu, and YouTube video views to their standard media publishing metrics.

Neilsen adds multi-channel video to their performance

Nielsen Holdings is considered the gold-standard in performance management in the United States. Nielsen tracks what customers buy, where they buy it, what ads influenced their purchase, and how content impacts consumer experience. Specifically, Neilsen’s Watch let’s marketing agencies and media publishers like BIGEYE measure what and where video content is being consumed. Nielsen has revolutionized performance management with this change, and we are excited to tell you why your business will benefit.

Finally! – Accuracy measuring multi-channel video

Big and small brands look to agency partners to help them craft the perfect multi-channel marketing spend. The seeming witchcraft of choosing how much to invest in a video campaign, a PPC advertisement, and native search optimization is one part art and one part science that most companies simply don’t have the bandwidth for. Accurate measurement and channel ratings – delivered by performance management companies like Nielsen – help agencies make accurate decisions to optimize plan efficiency.

Neilsen’s new digital content ratings are good for publishers and advertisers alike. It showcases how much streaming video content is consumed, informing agency publishers about how their audience is finding and responding to their content so they can improve their creative strategy and corresponding spend. It also supports a fairer marketing landscape. As Nielsen SVP of Product Leadership, Jessica Hogue explains in a corporate blog post, this new measurement provides “a more consistent and transparent view [that] ensures a level playing field with access to the same information across content creators, advertisers, and platforms.”

A more holistic view of cross-channel marketing Hold on to your hats and advertisements – the hottest and most talked about multi-channel video trend of 2018 will surprise you.

Nielsen’s new ratings also allow agencies to formulate a more complete picture of how cross-channel content works together. As an example, understanding the true count of a multi-channel video might allow a content-centric brand such as Buzzfeed to invest more deeply in content creation for one channel versus another, or focus their optimization efforts around a particularly valuable audience segment. In a related press release, Edwin Wong, VP of Research and Insights at BuzzFeed, agrees that “with this new tool at our disposal, we are able to have a clearer view of BuzzFeed’s true reach,” which broadens the traditionally narrow view of how content performs on a given channel.

Anything that allows for more accurately tracked content across channels is a win for us. When backed by a name like Nielsen and their outstanding methodology, you really can’t go wrong. For more information on how your current cross-channel marketing mix is performing or what new insights you might be able to learn from Nielsen’s latest tricks of the trade, reach out to one of our strategy specialists for a free consultation.

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Media & Analytics Media Planning and Buying

Okay, let’s get this out of the way right up front. Sometimes, we can be biased. Yes, we love our team of Orlando marketing experts. And yes, we are partial to the smart, passionate, digital-obsessed account executives that make our agency unique. But with absolutely no bias whatsoever: advertising agencies – in general – are always going to be better at media buying than the alternative. That includes working with dedicated media buying agencies and any DIY ad spends you had planned for the quarter. Before the rebuttals come rolling in, let us explain why.

REASON 1: PLANNING MAKES PERFECT END-TO-END MEDIA BUYING EXPERIENCES

The key ingredient for a perfect media buying experience starts and ends with good planning. While media buying agencies have deep vertical knowledge of the buying process and dedicate their time cultivating relationships with ad placement services, advertising agencies bring a critical breadth that rounds out the marketing experience. Because advertising agencies hire specialists dedicated to media buying, and search engine optimization, and social media management, and creative services all media purchases are grounded against your holistic business strategy. Specifically, advertising agencies align your media spend against your key goals and any other marketing mechanisms supporting these needs. This includes cross-channel audience research, balanced spending, and clear analysis and fine tuning as campaigns go live and generate data and results. Planning your spend across channels, rather than creating piecemeal marketing experiences as they pop up, ensures your marketing dollars are being distributed evenly and put toward the best use — but most importantly, that they are all working together.

REASON 2: ADVERTISING AGENCIES ARE A ONE STOP MEDIA BUYING SHOP

Show me the money. Give me the best bang for your buck. However you want to say it, you can rest assured that you are getting the best value possible when you invest in an advertising agency to support your media buying needs. Similarly to media buying firms, ad agencies will always get you the best rates on your placement because they have the luxury to buy ad spots in bulk (something individual or small business owners cannot do). In addition to that, advertising agencies oversee the entire advertising lifecycle, making the media buying, creation, and placement experience a one-stop shop. This is especially important for businesses that don’t have a dedicated creative team or who are growing faster than their existing team can support. Advertising agencies reduce strain on your current team without adding more middle men than necessary when you have contacts for each piece of the marketing mix. 

REASON 3: BEYOND MEDIA BUYING PARTNERS

In a world with increasingly transactional business relationships, having a trusted advertising agency can be a breath of fresh air. When you work with a firm like our Orlando advertising agency, we make it our responsibility to get to know your brand, your team, and become engrained in your culture. In this way, advertising agencies become extensions of your own organization. Consider us a second line of defense or a toolbox of sharpened knives ready to cut into your toughest marketing problems — no matter what they may be. Yes, our Orlando marketing agency would be happy to be your media buying partner, but we’d also be so much more more. Advertising agencies zoom out from the campaign at hand to look at your customers’ lifecycle, your promotional calendar, media relations, and digital footprint. Together, we can stay on top of the latest marketing trends and brainstorm innovative new campaigns that will break through the marketing clutter.

 

If you’re sensing a similar theme building from our last two reasons, then we consider our work here done. We think of these three concepts as the marketing world’s “Goldilocks rule.” We’re not too specialized (like a media buying agency), and not too broad (like your team may have to be to support your business needs) … We’re just right. Learn more about how our advertising agency can uniquely complement your business needs by clicking here to explore some of our other business partnerships.

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Media & Analytics Media Planning and Buying

Millennials – in particular 30-something year olds with growing disposable income and mature media usage patterns – are one of the largest and most critical consumer subsets. Understanding how to attract them starts with understanding that millennials have a distinct media usage pattern that differs from their predecessors and will likely differ from the next generation.
Millennials who are making meaningful purchases in the current consumer market are what we like to call “digital natives.” That means they grew up with computers and the Internet. That said, 30-something year olds can probably still remember a time when they needed to look up directions instead of relying on their smartphones and GPS, or turned to their friends for referrals rather than hitting Google and Yelp for the most up-to-date business reviews.

The result is that millennials with the most purchasing power (read: yes, older) have a distinct media usage pattern that blends some of the most digital-savvy habits of Generation Y and Z with more traditional habits inherited from Generation X and the Baby Boomers. Cracking the millennial media usage pattern helps your business target and engage this critically important consumer subset by targeting your spend where they are most likely spending their time.

The mobile media usage pattern:

Let’s start with where to find them. More than 70% of all millennials have a smartphone. 30-somethings are no exception. However, as ultra-rich tablets, such as the iPad Pro, are hitting the market, these tech-savvy gadget lovers are turning in their laptops and desktops for more streamlined options that fit their jet-set blend of work-life-balance and remote connectivity. It goes without saying that all millennials are connecting to the Internet in some way, shape, or form. At the same time, older millennials are still purchasing paid television subscriptions (as opposed to strictly streaming options such as Netflix and Hulu), newspaper subscriptions, and print books. Your media planning should take into consideration the value of a heavy emphasis on mobile and tablet-ready trends without completely abandoning traditional media outlets. We recommend a 60% – 70% digital spend compared to traditional media in most cases. If you’re unsure where your product or service fits into this balance, our team of digital experts are available to guide you in the media planning process. 

Business meets pleasure:

One important trend to note is that the average millennial media usage pattern often blends business with pleasure. While millennials are surfing Facebook, they may also be scanning for news headlines and updates. While they are Snapchatting their friends, they may be sending clips from the most recent presidential debates. This important media usage pattern suggests that millennials use their personal experiences to choose their business partners. Unlike Generation X, which typically drew a staunch line between their work life and their personal life, millennials want to invest in brands and business counterparts that speak to them on a personal level. Let your media mix help them make this decision by humanizing your marketing campaigns. Yes, it is always important to earnestly communicate the value and trustworthiness of your brand – but don’t forget to showcase what makes you human along the way. For example, Square does a great job of striking this balance. While showing how their hardware can transform a smartphone into a point of sale system, complete with top-of-the-line security and speed, they feature small, local (often quirky) businesses such as candy makers or regional photographers. These campaigns speak to the millennial media pattern by blending business and pleasure seamlessly.

Cracking emerging media usage patterns:

Don’t be afraid to explore emerging media trends. 30-something millennials may still enjoy a great Super bowl commercial, but they are usually early adopters of new media trends and eagerly incorporate new technology into their media usage pattern. That’s right, we’re telling you it’s okay to jump on the Pokemon Go craze, explore how augmented reality and 3D mapping could elevate your media mix, and to keep an eye out for new trends. Our Orlando marketing agency has the inside track on emerging digital tools and we can help you craft something that will keep your business on the cutting edge of your millennial audience’s interests. Click here to check out our case studies and some ideas we’ve used to help other businesses like you.

Planning a perfect media mix for the millennial audience starts with understanding that their media usage pattern is a one-of-a-kind balancing act of golden-age advertising techniques and futuristic digital trends. The result has generated some of the most fun and innovative marketing we’ve ever done and we are excited to share this unique experience with you.

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Media & Analytics Media Planning and Buying

Over the past few weeks, we’ve shared a few posts on media buying and CPM campaigns and how to decode digital marketing jargon. In each post, we’ve mentioned that partnering with your local Orlando marketing agency can help you get better rates and ensure your ads are targeted in the right way when starting a new campaign. Today, we want to delve a little deeper into some of the serious reasons why it’s so important to partner with a trusted marketing agency before forging a new relationship with a media vendor.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, CATCH ME UP:

Last month, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) released an investigative report on media buying firms that shook the trust of agency-client partnerships across the nation. Over the past seven months, the ANA has delved into whispers that media buying firms were accepting rebates and kickbacks as great as 20% from large, media supply corporations in exchange for placing their clients’ ads through designated outlets. Instead of championing their clients’ best interests, these firms fell prey to the same temptation that led commission-based financial analysts to ruin right before the recession in 2008.

In essence, media agencies would accept money from their clients intended for a media spend, and then receive a portion of that money back from their media supplier if they reached a certain volume of ad sales or placements. This encouraged media firms to sell more (perhaps unnecessary) ads and inflate the price of their placement services. To disguise this practice, media suppliers and agencies used a variety of convoluted schemes to diffuse the appearance of a direct kickback, including offshoring the rebate, hiding the supplier-to-agency price points, and more. To read the full ANA report, click here.

HOW TO HANDLE MEDIA BUYING MOVING FORWARD:

Despite being somewhat shocking (especially to the average consumer), this report shed light on a long-held industry suspicion and paved the way for reform. The ANA will begin making recommendations and contract restructuring mandates in the coming months that will limit this behavior and realign agencies with their clients by promoting transparency and punishing illegal incentive plans moving forward.

Major media buying houses have the opportunity to come forward with their own suggestions, and a healthy dialogue both refuting and supporting the investigation is underway. The conversation finally frees agencies big and small to address the issue head on and make changes that will support the growth of their agencies while protecting the customers.

Media buying has not slowed down… if anything, the importance of a strong digital advertising strategy is more defensible than ever before as more and more business shifts to the online channel. The solution isn’t shying away from media spends, but rather putting checks and balances in place that will protect our customers. It’s also important to educate businesses to do their due diligence before partnering with a media buying firm or trying to conduct media purchases on their own without skilled representation. 

WHAT WE THINK ABOUT THE MEDIA BUYING SCANDAL:

As your Orlando digital marketing agency, we believe it is our duty to represent our clients’ interests. We have met our fair share of exemplary media suppliers and have asked the tough questions that help us forge partnerships with only the best suppliers and most direct vendors. As your agency, we stand behind this investigation and stand behind your needs as you continue to choose us to represent your media buying campaigns. We can, indeed, negotiate better rates and placement for our customers in many instances… but it is never at the expense of your trust.

If you are ever in doubt about your past media purchases or want to learn more about how we can protect you from this type of non-transparent business practice, reach out to our team for a comprehensive deep-dive into the gold-standard of media buying practices and the types of questions you should ask before your next paid media spend.

Together, we can do much more.

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Audience Audience Segmentation Banking Consumer Insights Conversion Optimization Media & Analytics Media Analysis & Measurement Media Planning and Buying

As featured in an earlier blog post, millennials represent 92 million in the United States and are reaping the benefits of improved financial conditions after bouncing back from the recession hit. These young adults are ripe for new banking relationships and considering new bank products to suit their needs, such as checking and savings accounts. This is the perfect time to convert them into new banking customers but how does one do that with one of the most fickle generations?
Establishing a well-planned conversion marketing strategy is key to success realization. There are numerous formulas and methodologies from which to choose. At BIGEYE, we use a proprietary model called the BIGEYE Conversion Matrix™ (BCM). It starts with preparing your data set, followed by activating your conversion optimization program and unlike other methodologies out there, works with both online and offline conversions.

BIGEYE Conversion Matrix
BIGEYE Conversion Matrix

Here’s how a conversion marketing program may look like for a bank:

Audience data insight

It’s important to not only know your audience but to immerse yourself in understanding them. For example, millennials were born into technology, the Internet, read blogs, and are practically tethered to their mobile devices. It’s also important to note that these young adults are not especially brand loyal and highly influenced by their peers.

Market and audience segmentation

In addition to pulling demographic, psychographic, ethnographic, and technographic insight on your audience, one must also consider the target market(s) and segment the audience into more groups. For example, your branches may be located between a couple of neighborhoods and your audience may be a mix of individuals and companies. The approach toward attracting one segment may be significantly different than the other.

Program KPIs, goals, and objectives

One of the most important stages of establishing your BCM data set is defining your vision for success realization. What are the key performance indicators, goals, and objectives? How will you measure success? Most likely the answer will contain a number of items such as number of new accounts opened, number of bank products upsold to existing bank customers, in-branch appointments booked, number of live chat sessions, branch and ATM location look-ups, etc.

Metrics and benchmarking

Once your KPIs, goals and objectives are defined, it’s important that a form of measurement and benchmarks are set. You may feel that your conversion marketing program is successful but in order to prove your instincts in quantitative terms, you will need to run your result data through the metrics.

CRM planning

Using the right customer relationship management tool and setting it up effectively will ensure that every conversion is organized for future action to be taken. By spending some time planning your CRM strategy, your bank can build an ongoing email marketing program and alert your customer service representatives of a customer inquiry.

SEM planning

Finally, the success of your conversions is tied in part to the quality of traffic your website and/or landing pages receive. A carefully designed search engine marketing program that integrates organic with paid search strategies, will help drive the exact audience you are seeking to convert.

Running your conversion marketing program

How To Develop a Successful Bank Conversion Marketing Program


Once your BCM Data Set is complete, you are ready to launch your program. For new accounts, you may wish to set up dedicated landing pages that are custom designed to provide content specific to the audience segment you wish to attract and the product or offering you wish to feature. One of your landing pages might feature your small business checking account products with clear call-to-action (CTA) messaging directing the user on how to take action. Another landing page might focus specifically on your “no fee” checking account products with a clearly stated “Apply Now” CTA button.

Once your landing pages are created and your SEM program is pointing to them, you will want to test multiple versions of each page to maximize your conversion performance potential.

How To Develop a Successful Bank Conversion Marketing Program

Some of the elements you can test are as follows:

Color – Does the blue button perform better than the red one?

Copy – Are there certain words that resonate more with your audience than others?
Images – Is the photograph you’re using showing someone that is too old or too young? Maybe it’s not the correct ethnicity or the activity of the subject is all wrong.

Content Positioning – Does the user have to scroll down to far to find the CTA button or form? If so, consider trying a version of the page that brings that more prominently above the fold.

As your bank introduces new products, features, branch locations, etc., you will want to make updates to your program so that they correspond accordingly. The more targeted, relevant, and tested your program is, the more conversions you will receive.

In search of additional ways to establish – and maximize – you bank’s conversion marketing program? Contact our team of experts today to devise an innovative approach that both attracts and retains profitable customers.

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Media & Analytics Media Planning and Buying

There’s an old episode of the hit television show The Office where the now infamous boss, Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell), hires his nephew to work for Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. Rather than providing any sort of value to the company and the employees therein, Scott’s nephew becomes a burden, creating more problems than he solves. Between his lack of experience and lack of competency, he’s simply not qualified for the position.
When I hear that a business owner has hired a nephew, or a cousin, or a family friend to run social media for the company, I think of this episode. Sure, it seems like a good idea — where else are you going to find such cheap labor? And, if people as young as 10 are on social media, how hard can it be? Well, that’s a lot like saying that anyone who owns a television set should write for TV. The reality is that knowing social media and understanding how it can impact your marketing efforts takes passion, commitment, and most importantly, an educated strategy.

First, assessing a candidate to implement your social media program starts with the knowledge that even people who use these platforms on a daily basis may not posses a complete understanding. For instance, people who have been on social media since 2005 are likely to have never used a Facebook brand page, purchased an ad on LinkedIn or built-up a 10,000 person following on Twitter.

In many cases, and much like that fateful episode of The Office, hiring an inexperienced person to do your social media management may cause more harm than good. [quote]Your novice social media manager could be so focused on getting “likes” and shares that he or she employs methods that are actually detrimental to building a loyal audience within your target market.[/quote] For example, I’ve seen people buy “likes” and use shady Facebook Ad strategies to drive traffic to their sites, only to find that these inflated follower counts are full of people who really don’t care about your product and aren’t interested in engaging.

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What kind of impact do you want your social media to have? BIGEYE can help create a kith and kin connection with your audience. Contact us today, and we will share our recommendations to set up your business for success!

Also, when it comes to social media, there’s the lingering question of legal issues. For instance, many people don’t know that according to rules defined by many social networking sites, brands running contests are obligated to use specific language and provide contest rules to ensure they’re not misleading the public (that’s the “no purchase necessary” language you hear in most sweepstakes offers). Companies that skimp on engaging a professional to do this type of work for them on social media put themselves at risk of lawsuits when they hire people who aren’t trained in these matters.

Even those users who have large followings and a strong understanding of social media don’t necessarily know about tracking metrics. And, likely can’t tell you how to use social media listening tools like Engagor, SocialMention and FollowerWonk to increase engagement. As you can see, there’s a lot more to running successful social media than just posting a photo to Facebook or writing a funny caption that your two best friends “like.”

Across the board, most businesses will benefit from working with seasoned professionals who know and fully understand audience engagement. If you are considering hiring a family member or friend to run social media for your business, our Orlando advertising agency wants you to be sure you ask them the right questions to ensure they’re qualified. Remember that social media is, at its core, a strategy for developing trusted relationships with your audience. Leaving this in the hands of your nephew is, put quite simply, a “Michael Scott mistake.”