But is this really a new technology? Not really. Not by the new definition of new, aka developed within the last 6 months. Augmented Reality (AR) has been around for several years, you just may not think of it as that. How about that Yelp app on your smart phone that finds and reviews restaurants you’re close to via your phone’s GPS. Or how about Layar, a popular app that shows you what is around you by displaying real time digital information (layers) on top of reality. Augmented reality (AR) has been growing rapidly since 2009, but what’s exciting (and a bit creepy) about this tool of late is the way marketers are starting to use it. Here are just a few:

POS augmented reality application: LEGO augmented reality kiosk shows what’s inside the box.

iPhone RFID: object-based media – location-based urls with your phone – wave your phone by an object and it tells you something about it, drives you to a URL.

Tissot watches – sit in front of your computer and virtually “try on” the different styles.

These are most likely just teasers for what media and communication experiences will look like in the near future. According to Juniper research, the current global revenue for augmented reality (AR) is currently less than $2 million, but is projected to be around $1.5 billion globally by 2015. At this past spring’s SXSW conference, a panel of augmented reality developers said the future of AR is working it into the everyday, via glasses/goggles or even AR contact lenses. They said once these tools are available to the masses, marketing and advertising as we know them now will once again be a thing of the past.

Hold on. It’s coming fast. And it will give all new meaning to the term “reality check”.

Since its inception, the Nordstrom brand has centered around being helpful, right? Like a phone call telling you they remembered you were looking for shoes to go with the suit you bought last month, and they just got the perfect pair in. Or how about the American Express openforum.com, a free website with tons of information that claims huge success in helping business owners succeed. Oh, and its content contributors are donating their brains and talent at no charge to American Express.

It’s easy to talk about big brands like these, but how about the success some smaller brands are enjoying due to their helpfulness? Like Kellogg Garden Products, with a website full of gardening tips from soil calculators to fun kid gardening activities. Their website Analytics show a huge percentage of visitors time being spent on the pages they’ve built simply to be helpful, and their brand recognition confirms this.

Big or small, these brands understand they must give in order to receive. Paying it forward may end up being the most successful marketing mantra for the 21st Century. The question is, is your brand ready?

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.

We’ll level with you: these are all definite risks. But the rewards far outweigh the risks. In fact, many of these risks are possible without you even becoming involved in Internet marketing (for instance: an ex-employee can start blogging about you even if you aren’t online).

Luckily, we can learn from the mistakes many other companies have made online. Here are three marketing “fails” we’ve seen and what you can learn from them.

1. L’Oreal’s Fake Blog

A few years ago, when blogging was still relatively new, many consumers started blogs about the companies they loved. One of these blogs was for L’Oreal, and it extolled what consumers loved about the company. The problem was that it was not a customer blog: it was created by L’Oreal. As soon as consumers discovered this, L’Oreal faced a huge backlash from their customers.

The Lesson: Everything you do online should be genuine and real, or customers will call you on it.

2. Personal Tweets on the Company’s Account

There are so many social networks available today that it is difficult to manage all of your company’s social media accounts. And let’s be honest: you probably have a couple personal social media accounts you update as well. It can be difficult to keep track of all your accounts…and sometimes you may even mix them up. That’s what happened when a Red Cross social media intern posted the following message to the Red Cross twitter account:

“Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer…. when we drink we do it right #gettingslizzerd” [Source]

The Lesson: Before posting anything to a social media account reread what you are posting and make sure it’s going to the correct account.

3. Domino’s Employees Post Disgusting Video

Two Domino’s employees decided to do something that would make any restaurant eater cringe: they posted a video to YouTube showing them doing disgusting things to the food they were preparing for actual customers. As would be expected, the video went viral and customers were up in arms. Many companies would have handled this situation by either keeping quiet and hoping the situation would go away, or finding someone to blame. Domino’s President Patrick Doyle however released his own video on YouTube taking full responsibility for the issue. With this move, Domino’s avoided an issue that could have significantly hurt the company.

The Lesson: If you do experience an Internet marketing blunder, accept full responsibility.

If you’d like to read about more Internet marketing “fails” and what you can learn, take a look at this article. If you are interested in how we can help with your Internet Marketing, be sure to contact us.

Image Credit:  Some rights reserved by griffithchris

As you know, a buyer goes through a set of steps when purchasing a new car. At each step, there is a huge opportunity for you to use Internet marketing tactics. We’ve laid out each step in the car buyer’s journey and included the Internet marketing we’ve found successful.

1. Gathering Information

Once a consumer decides they want to buy a car, their first step is researching cars. They know their desire (to buy a car), but they don’t know which car they want to buy. Therefore, they’ll look up any and all information they can find on cars. Today, most of that research is done online.

There is a huge opportunity here that only successful car dealerships take advantage of: provide useful information on the cars they offer. Top car dealerships not only provide the specs on all the cars they sell, but also produce videos showcasing each car. The main objective with Internet marketing is to be helpful. In this step of the car buyer’s journey, potential customers are looking for information. If you provide it, you are more likely to be their choice when purchasing a car.

2. The Dealership Search

The next step in a car buyer’s journey is the search for potential dealerships to purchase from. The consumer has an idea what car they want, and now wants to find who can sell them that car. A few years ago, this step in the car buyer’s journey involved visiting car dealerships and speaking with salespeople. Today, most consumers complete this step online.

Therefore, it’s imperative to have a powerful website for your car dealership. First off, you want to have an easily navigable listing of the cars on your lot. This is the equivalent of a car buyer coming to your car dealership and walking around the lot. Second, you want to make it easy for consumers to request more information about each model. This “call to action” will allow you to gather more potential leads (more about this in the next step). Lastly, you want to have contact information that is easily found on your website. You want to have, at the minimum, a phone number, email address, and contact form.

If you’d like more information on producing amazing car dealership websites, please read our article here.

3. Selecting a Dealership

Once a car buyer has a list of potential car dealerships they want to purchase from, a period of time passes before they actually make the purchase. As you already know, this period can make or break your sale. The potential buyer might have a list of 3 or 4 car dealerships they are considering. That’s why it’s important to keep in contact with your potential buyer. Most car dealerships keep in contact with potential buyers through phone calls, but Internet marketing can help here.

In the last step, you made it easy for potential buyers to contact you about a specific model. Using an email marketing strategy, you can automate your “touch points”. A strong tactic here is to again provide useful, informative content. Remember, the car buyer is trying to decide which dealership to choose from. Possible content you can provide would be a comparison of your dealership with others. Or maybe you want to prove that you can be more helpful by providing a guide to buying cars. Or, you can even ask your potential buyer how you can be helpful.

4. Loyalty

Your car buyer has now bought from you and is a new customer. Most car dealerships consider the car buying journey finished and stop marketing. However, these dealerships are missing a huge opportunity. Past customers are prime candidates for future business, both as a referral source and repeat customer.

Internet marketing can help you here by keeping you in contact with your customer. Remember, Internet marketing is about finding ways to be helpful. A customer who has purchased from you would like information on car maintenance. You already have them on your email marketing list so provide them with guides informing them how to keep their car in great shape. You can also remind customers when it’s time to bring their cars in for routine maintenance. Also, be sure to show your appreciation. Doing this will show your customers you care, making them more likely to refer new customers and do business with you again.

Now you see how you can use Internet marketing at different stages in the car buyer’s journey. Take a look at your current marketing plan. What areas of your strategy are strong? What areas could use improvement? Which of the above Internet marketing tactics can help you improve those weaknesses? If you have time, we’d love to discuss this with you in more detail. You can contact us here.

Image Credit:  Some rights reserved by dok1

Buying a car is all about people. A consumer walks into a car dealership and is instantly greeted by a salesperson who will guide them through the whole car buying process. Therefore, many consumers choose where to buy a car based on their feelings towards the employees: if they like the salespeople or servicemen, they buy from that car dealership. Perrys, a car dealership in the UK, produced an amazing video to showcase their people:

Not only do they introduce you to their employees, but they also invited their customers to be on the video. The result: a more “human” business that more consumers want to do business with.

For us, Zappos is the king of making a business more “human.” The extremely successful online shoe retailer has centered their entire business on people. Take a look at just one of the videos they produced:

In this short video, you get a feeling for the fun and exciting employees. And more importantly, you see they actually enjoy working for Zappos. All of this translates over to their brand message: Deliver WOW Through Service. In addition, Zappos has an archive of videos giving you a behind the scenes look and invite people to come to their headquarters for tours.

In today’s world, the people are most important when it comes to business. Remember what Richard Branson said, “When it comes to business success, it is all about people, people people.” If you want to attract customers, you need to make your business more human.

Take a look at how we’ve made our business more human. Click here to learn about all the team members who make Brandtailers what it is.

Image Credit:  Some rights reserved by Robert Scoble

Search Engine Optimization

How Search Engines Work

Google and other search engines works tirelessly to match the websites they return in their search results with the user’s intent. For instance, if a user types in “buy video camera,” Google knows this person is wants to buy a video camera. Therefore, Google returns websites that are useful to the user, such as video camera review websites and video camera stores. It determines the relevancy through three main criteria:

What Is Search Engine Optimization

In a nutshell, Search Engine Optimization is about leveraging your website’s assets in a way that encourages search engines to rank your website towards the top of their search engine results. There are two main parts of search engine optimization: on page and off page. On page optimization is more of the technical aspects. As we discussed above, a search engine looks for specific keywords to determine the subject of your website. But these keywords must be placed in key strategic areas. On page optimization is about placing these keywords in these strategic areas. Off page is about acquiring back links. There are numerous techniques to acquiring back links, such as encouraging sharing through social media, press outreach and content syndication.

How Search Engine Optimization Can Help Your Business

When a website ranks high in search engines, it receives a higher level of relevant traffic. For example, a video camera store that ranks in the first position for the keyword “buy video camera” will receive thousands of visitors a day. And each one of these visitors is actively looking to buy a video camera. The same holds true for your business. The higher you rank in search engines for keywords relevant to your business, you will get a greater number of valuable leads. Search engine optimization is the path to higher ranking and more business.

When businesses come to us looking for an online marketing strategy, one of the first things we discuss is search engine optimization. It is essential to a strong online marketing strategy. We’d love to discuss further how search engine optimization can help your business flourish. Feel free to contact us.

Whether using display advertising on Facebook or running a commercial on television, the goal of marketing is to generate business for you, the client. When we run a television commercial for a car dealership, we aren’t happy unless we bring customers into the dealership to buy a vehicle. The same holds true when we are running ads on Facebook for a restaurant.

With the rise of the Internet, a lot of new marketing firms have been popping up. They spout things such as, “Hire us and we’ll bring you 10,000 NEW FOLLOWERS!” When we see such statements, we immediately ask ourselves, “What does that mean for the client?” The firms may deliver the 10,000 new followers. But thousands of dollars later, the client has not made any more money and has not received any new business. It’s because many of these new firms don’t understand the basic principles of marketing.

That’s why we are proud to say that we have been around for 22 years. We’ve had 22 years to build and fine-tune the core principles that make great marketing. We know what it takes to bring our clients new business which in return creates profit for our clients. We don’t deliver empty promises like “10,000 new followers”, “1,000 new back links”, or “500 retweets.” While the medium has changed and continues to change, the basics of marketing haven’t. No matter what the medium, Brandtailers delivers insanely smart ideas that bring our clients business. 

1. Make Big Buttons

Ever tried clicking a button on a mobile website and accidentally click the wrong button? You go back, try clicking it once more, and again click the wrong one. It’s happened to all of us and is very frustrating. But how can we be expected to click something that’s nearly microscopic? Instead, let’s make it easy; make big buttons, just the right size for someone’s thumb. Take a look at the homepage of our mobile site. There is no way anyone could accidentally click the wrong button.

2. Keep It Narrow

It’s not fun constantly scrolling, pinching, swiping, and zooming all over a website. Keep your website narrow. While computers are 800px wide or wider, most mobile devices are only 150 to 400px wide. Your mobile website should be narrow enough where all the content fits on the mobile screen. Don’t make your visitors zoom in or out. And the only scrolling should be up and down.

3. Keep It Simple

A big no-no is trying to stuff everything that is on a full website into a mobile website. Not only is it extremely cluttered, but also it doesn’t function correctly on mobile devices (ever see a popup on a mobile website, but no way to click out of it?). Take a look at our mobile website. Our homepage has only a logo, 6 buttons, and links to our social networks. That’s it. Simple. Visitors love simple on a mobile device.

4. Make Text Big

Mobile devices are small. But the text doesn’t have to be. If the text is too small, visitors can’t read anything. As obvious as that statement is, many mobile websites have TINY text that can only be read with a magnifying glass (or zooming, which we dislike). Instead, keep your text at a size that can be easily read on a mobile device. Take a look at our mobile website, notice our header and body text can easily be read on any mobile device.

5. Make Contact Easy

A large portion of your mobile website visitors will be looking for your contact information. They may be driving to your store and forgot the address at home, or they may have an appointment with you but lost your number. If that happens, they’ll visit your website from their phones. So make the contact page easy for them to find. Make the text on the contact page bigger than other pages because your visitors will most likely highlight the address or phone number (it’s difficult to highlight small text). We make it even easier on our clients’ mobile websites. Visitors simply click a “Give Us a Call” button and their phone automatically dials for them.

Take out your smartphone and visit your businesses’s mobile website and ask yourself: “Is this easy to use?” You’ve spent a lot of time perfecting your full website. But, as more people access the Internet with a mobile device instead of a computer, it’ll become essential to spend just as much time perfecting your mobile website. Let us know if you have questions. When you are ready, contact us so we can help you create an amazing mobile website.

Image Credit:  Some rights reserved by MJ/TR (´･ω･)

1. Past Experience

Find out what clients the marketing agency has worked with. Ask to see samples of their work. Preferably, ask to see the work for previous clients who are in an industry similar to yours.

2. Client References

Ask for a list and references of previous and current clients. Contact these clients and ask how their experience was with the marketing agency. For instance: Were their goals met? Were projects delivered on time? How long did it take for the agency to return phone calls? Remember, these references are most likely the agency’s happiest customers. To help get a more balanced view, ask for both the positive AND the not so positive of working with the agency.

3. Meet the People

You will be working with a number of people at the marketing agency and will have hundreds of conversations with them. Therefore, it’s important to meet the people you will be working with and be sure that: 1) you are comfortable talking with them, and 2) that you trust them. You will face difficulties later if one of these two elements is missing.

4. Expectations

Take some time and decide what you expect from the marketing agency. Write down your expectations and present them to the agency. Also, ask the agency to give you a list of their expectations. Now, be honest with yourself: can you meet their expectations? Can they meet yours?

5. Values Aligned

In order to have a healthy relationship with your marketing agency, you need to be sure that your business and the agency have similar values. For instance, we at Brandtailers have a long held principle: “We will not work with vendors and suppliers whose only purpose is to make a buck.” What are your values? Are the agency’s values in alignment with yours?

We hope this helps you in your search for an advertising agency. If we can be of any further help, please contact us.