2010 April | Brandtailers

Archive for April, 2010

Apr

If Your Website is Your Best Sales Tool, What’s it Worth?

by Brandtailers

Imagine that you’re moving your company to a new office space. You have the opportunity to let it say everything about you that you want your customers, business associates, and vendors to know. You spend time with an expert contractor coordinating improvements. You work on room designs with a space planning specialist. You use your IT guru to ensure your computers, phones, etc. will operate effortlessly. You do this because when it’s finished you’ll have work space that not only helps your company’s productivity, but also defines your brand for every visitor to see.

Now, replace this office space design process with your website development process. These days, there’s not much difference. You’re just replacing tangible brick and mortar with virtual space. But if you consider which of these walls and roofs more people visit, you’ve figured out the true value of your website.

So back up for a moment and ask yourself, “How much am I willing to pay for experts who know how to turn a cookie-cutter office space into my company’s brand?” Chances are good you’re willing to pay more than a few dollars. So, why, when your website is your opportunity to show your unique brand, would you settle for one that has nothing unique?

Interesting paradox, huh? Websites are much less expensive to build than they were just a few short years ago, but if you want to make yours stand out, to represent your brand and do a big part your selling for you, you’re going to have to pay for some real experts. Not just programmers who know html, php and css, but designers and brand strategists who know how to represent your best assets online. And writers who know how to take the hundreds of keywords necessary to help your site show up well in search results, and incorporate them into enticing content that flows seamlessly.

Websites like this are not just necessary for e-commerce businesses, they’re imperative for any business that wants to take advantage of the wonderful benefits the web has to offer your brand. It’s a new way of thinking, isn’t it?

Tags: digital agency, website development, website fees
Posted in Marketing Strategy Research, Marketing Technology, Retail Marketing | Leave a Comment »

4 Responses to “If Your Website is Your Best Sales Tool, What’s it Worth?”

Daniel P. Mitchell says:

May 25, 2010 at 11:14 am

Makes perfect sense. But unfortunately today’s business is being run from the bottom line backwards. Thus the key motivator is cheap and cookie cutter is cheap. Now creative solutions will have way more impact because so much competition is still scared. You certainly nailed the truth. Truly good luck and persistence in selling it to your clients. Dan
Bertram Dandrow says:

June 15, 2010 at 12:28 pm

Hi thanks to you for the last post.
Aaron Weiner, CPM, CCIM, LEED AP says:

June 21, 2010 at 9:44 am

I think you meant paradox, not parody!
Brandtailers says:

June 21, 2010 at 9:52 am

Oh my gosh you’re right! Thanks for the catch Aaron

Apr

Does Online Media Offer Lower Production Costs?

by Brandtailers

Clients often ask us how much it costs to produce an online video ad. Their initial thought is that, because the media is usually free, the production cost should be lower. Sorry. There’s no correlation.

Think about the process of inbound vs. outbound marketing for a moment. Outbound marketing includes traditional advertising. Intrude. Repeat. Intrude. Repeat. You didn’t ask to see the ad, but it’s going to be pushed in front of you anyway in the hopes that you will like it, remember it, and respond to it. Oh sure, the option is usually there to fast forward past it on TV, push the button on the radio, or flip right past it in print. But, you at least get a glimpse of it before you make that choice. A glimpse you didn’t ask for. A glimpse that cost the advertiser a lot of money.

But inbound marketing is different. Inbound marketing puts the exposure responsibility on the consumer. This is why it’s often called “viral”. It’s based on making something so compelling that people will not only see it and share it, but also search for it. Quite the opposite of traditional media, eh? This viral effort often requires spectacular creative that comes in the form of incredible production, or just a brilliant simple idea.

Does that mean it always has to cost a lot? Not always. Like we said, it’s about the idea more than the production (see Levi’s successful viral video campaign that cost less than $10,000). But usually the few successes in the online viral world have involved substantial production costs.

Take the Evian Roller Babies ad above. When totaling its US and international versions, it just surpassed 100,000,000 views online, making it the most viewed television ad in online history. In comparison, this year’s Super Bowl had 106,000,000 viewers and the average 30-second spot cost was a little over $3,000,000 dollars, and that’s before any creative production. Media costs for Evian’s 100,000,000 viewers? Zero.

But when you find out the production costs for this spot were well over $1,000,000, you realize the cost of the ad production has nothing to do with the media on which it airs. In fact, in addition to the message needing to be even more impactful online for the viewer to become your media distributor, the beauty and curse of online ads is they’re not limited to :30 seconds. And those of us in the production world know, with TV spots, the longer they are the more they cost to produce. Ouch.

Just now, after almost a year of online exposure, Evian is taking this ad to traditional television in markets like New York, LA, London and Paris. Will their traditional media exposure pay off as well as their viral campaign did? Time will only tell. But we, the media world, will all be watching.

Tags: inbound marketing, Social Media, viral, You Tube
Posted in Brand Management | Brandtailing, Marketing, Social Media | Leave a Comment »

Apr

How Can Geotargeting Help Your Business?

by Brandtailers

Facebook is diving into the Geotargeting world. Google already has multiple tools tied to this technology. Foursquare and Gowalla are the current internet hotties, mostly because the strength of their location-based API’s are so intriguing. But what does this mean and why should you care? Well, for one thing, it takes the vastness of the internet and localizes it for business and personal use.

Case in point. You’re driving around an area looking for an interesting restaurant. You’d love to have a library of options at your fingertips but too many choices, especially irrelevant ones, are just as useless as none at all. So you push one simple button on your mobile phone and maybe add in the price range you’re looking for. And, oh, you’re in the mood for Thai food. As Emeril would say, BAM! You have the top options right there on your mobile phone, along with reviews. But that’s only the beginning. You also see who you know that’s eating there right now, how long the wait is, and what the specials are for that evening. And because your phone knows where you ate last night, last week, last month, it gives you a comparison in terms of how much you spent, and how many people who ate at the other places you ate at also ate at the restaurant options currently showing on your mobile phone.

This is a basic Geotargeting service that’s been around for a few years now. In the tech world it’s no longer a big deal. But the most important part of this technology is just now being realized, as people become more and more overwhelmed with the vast amount of information available to them (usually for free) online. When it comes to needing/doing things locally, this takes the online world and narrows it down to something as small as a neighborhood block.

Stop for a moment and think about how that can help your business. This technology not only allows them to find you, but you to find them. Hmmm…. Opportunity? We think so.

Tags: Facebook, foursquare, geo-targeting, gowalla, smartphone
Posted in Consumer Behavior, Marketing Technology, Social Media | Leave a Comment »

7 Responses to “How Can Geotargeting Help Your Business?”

Brandon Yanofsky says:

April 15, 2010 at 11:48 am

This opens a door into a whole new area of marketing. I couldn’t see how a local business could use non-traditional media before, but this changes everything.

And as a consumer, it will finally be easy to decide on a restaurant with friends.
Tyson F. Gautreaux says:

April 24, 2010 at 3:55 am

I totally agree with Barbara’s comment. Thanks for sharing such an informative article with all of us. I’ve bookmarked your blog will come back for a re-read again. Keep up the great work.
B Mews says:

May 25, 2010 at 8:48 am

What about businesses besides restaurants? I agree the web is great for eateries, but what about retail?
Score orange county says:

May 25, 2010 at 8:52 am

Being present in consumers’ mindset is a constant opportunity for businesses. So far only big brands have really embraced and leveraged location based targeting.
It would be interesting to see what are the field experiences you have witnessed for smaller businesses. How this new geo targeting will impact branding and marketing budget?

@score114
Brandtailers says:

May 25, 2010 at 8:57 am

B Mews you are definitely right. Retail stores can benefit from geo-targeting just as much as restaurants can. It seems to be most popular in the restaurant business right now, but I agree that it will become quite popular with retail stores as well.
Brandtailers says:

May 25, 2010 at 9:03 am

Score orange county – We are currently seeing a slow adoption to geo-targeting from (surprising enough) automotive dealerships. Many of our clients’ customers have “checked in” to the dealership when they have come in for service for for a new car purchase. But it will be interesting to see what other small business make use of this service as well.
Veronica Brothwell says:

May 29, 2010 at 3:29 am

This is a great article and so true! I have seen some of the positive results as my friends, that are frequenters of the service, get rewarded at places they check into most at. I’m excited to see how other businesses that adopt the service will implement it.

As a consumer my only concern is how much the almighty Google knows about me, but have learned to just come to terms with it as I’m not about to give up Facebook, Twitter or the rest of my online addictions.

Apr

Can You Make Bad Online Reviews Go Away?

by Brandtailers

We get asked all the time how bad and/or false reviews and comments can be taken off Google’s search page results. Sad to say, most of the time they can’t.

Bummer, huh? Especially because ticked off customers tend to respond more than happy customers. And bad competitors are apt to be aggressively negative. This is why the most important thing you can do is to be diligent in your listening.

If you find an illegitimate posting soon after it was submitted, and you are fairly certain it has been put there by a competitor, you can submit a complaint to the sponsor of its source (i.e. Yelp, Insider Pages) as well as the search engine (i.e. Google, Bing, Yahoo!). But you need to do it quickly. And you need to have legitimate backup to prove it.

If you find a negative, but legitimate, posting, 90% of the time it pays to respond to it publicly – no matter how painful that may be. If you also have a way to reach them offline without invading their privacy, it is obviously helpful. But, even more than the unhappy complainer, think what your response will do for a potential customer who reads it. You have the opportunity to show them you care, you are timely, and you’ve made an effort to right what might be a wrong. Only when it appears that you are dealing with an irrational person who would just use your response to continue degrading you or your company should you keep quiet.

Finally, the best thing you can do to get these comments out of readers eyesight is to “push them down”. That means create more relevant and current information that will show up higher in search results and move this older information down and off the first search page results.

If you have questions or want to talk more about this, feel free to contact us.

Tags: online advertising, online marketing, online reviews
Posted in Brand Management | Brandtailing, Consumer Behavior, Social Media | Leave a Comment »

Apr

How Should Agencies Be Paid?

by Brandtailers

I found this fascinating blog quote regarding agency compensation:

Media costs are market determined, so they’re easy to value. An hour of time is easily measured by a clock. But, how is the brightness of an idea measured, or the effectiveness of communication? These are really fuzzy, non-touchable things to measure. In the land of lawyers they’re called “intellectual property,” and payments for them are generally determined through royalties and licenses.kilgannonsays.wordpress.com, Kilgannon Says, Mar 2010

Just yesterday I was with a great client of ours debating how our agency fees should be valued. He noted that when we first started working with him two years ago our compensation was based on a much heavier level of traditional media use. He very politely argued that now, since we have moved away from so much traditional media, the fee doesn’t make sense. I responded saying how ironic it was that, since we moved away from the traditional media, we were actually investing more time and effort into his account. Neither of our thoughts were valid points. His tied our value to traditional media commissions. Mine tied our value to the clock. As an ancient wise man once said, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

I love the story about the plumber who shows up at a home for an emergency repair. He spends five minutes fixing a very large pipe leak in the kitchen. After his five minutes of work he hands the homeowner a bill for $150. The homeowner is exasperated and accuses the plumber of highway robbery, stating that the repair only took him five minutes and how dare he charge that much for such a quick repair. The plumber calmly replies, “I just saved your kitchen flooring, which appears to be worth thousands, not to mention your water bill, which would have been very high had I not known what to do quickly. Are you paying me for the five minutes, or for my ability to solve your problem?”

As agencies we spend most of our working hours helping clients solve their problems. This usually means helping them generate more customers, more leads, and more sales. But even with today’s amazing online technology and the ability to measure consumer movement and actions, there is still a lot of intangible effectiveness that can result from an agency’s problem-solving efforts. Like the ability to pick the right musical background for a radio spot that increases it’s stickiness. Or being able to negotiate lower printing costs for a mailer that, in turn, increases the project’s ROI. Or how about not only coming up with the big idea, but then making sure it’s delivered through every brand touch point from website to floor graphics, to business cards, to POP to traditional media?

An agency’s value should be based on their ability to quickly and accurately determine the problem, develop a strategic solution, and deliver appropriate results. That’s what the plumber had. That’s what the customer was paying for. And that makes sense. So, maybe we should change our name to Brandtailers Plumbing?

Tags: advertising agency fees, advertising agency's worth, agency fees
Posted in Brand Management | Brandtailing, Marketing, Retail Marketing | Leave a Comment »

One Response to “How Should Agencies Be Paid?”

Brandon Yanofsky says:

April 11, 2010 at 10:21 pm

I agree, I think agencies should be paid on their effectiveness to solve a problem. But the correct problem should be used as measurement.

Let’s assume a company hires an agency to increase sales. The agency does some great work to bring more traffic to the site. But customers don’t buy the product. I think the agency did its job very well. It’s the company who isn’t doing what it should.

Anyways, I think that performance based pay is the best way to pay for anything, disregarding time and all extraneous factors.