Innovative marketing strategies

The 2010 Content Marketing Spending Survey conducted by Junta42*, and published by HubSpot, shows that marketing with content is on the rise.

In fact, 33% of the typical marketing budget of all companies surveyed focuses on marketing with content – A rise of 11% over 2009.

Curiously, enterprises with less than one hundred employees spent 40% of their marketing dollars on communication endeavors with content compared with18% by businesses of more than one hundred employees.

An engaging, relevant content philosophy may be replacing a legacy of slogan and jingle psychology – prospect relationships and retaining customers by touching their minds…a novel thought…respect the customer.

A question making a statement

Success in business will depend in no small part to the means and methods employed to define products and services, attract business, conduct transactions and maintain customer relations. Those seeking instructive insights from the web are looking for less intuitive “why we are” brand posturing content and more evidentiary “how we did it” results.  

The “how we did it” however, may not always be so easy to speak of considering the proprietary conduct of each business and the assumption of privacy owing to binding non-disclosure agreements. Yet the tools used are relatively standard. What continues to be unique is the artful way they are deployed and how they leverage what is offered. Today, the evidence of a brand can no longer just be its recall or its relative value, but rather its productivity and that is always more relevant and therefore “persuasive” content.

We may ask ourselves if engaging in content specific conversation and debate is either marketing or sales… MindGang knows that there was never a difference between the disciplines from a bottom line perspective… only the title on the business cards.

The reaction of networks is not always equal and opposite

The force of viral marketing is undeniable. It can propel the unknown to the familiar in less time than it took our imaginations to create the actual subject of the conversation.

Though velocity is a highly desirable marketing credential, without content and context there can be no anchor point from which awareness can be leveraged to permeate the culture.

It’s essential that the conversation socially shared by a network contain not only the keywords, but the true meaning intended by the marketer. Given the aptitude of the community to responsively generate its own content-context mashup and share it with even greater speed, it is essential that social networking not be the exclusive communication channel for an endeavor.

The integration of multiple messaging venues not only affords marketers with the desired awareness, but additional communication platforms from which the brand has significant control.

Nothing.

Social networking has left an indelible impression on our social and economic culture. Never before in our history has there been an opportunity for the conversation of one to be heard and commented on by so many so quickly.

The awesome subscriber growth rates of FaceBook and Twitter provides a glimpse of what is to come.

So powerful is the vehicle of social networks that companies which once had complete control of their brands through traditional communication media are incapable of controlling the voices of millions of individuals that have “other” points of view or experiences and owing to the veil of virtual anonymity feel free to voice facts and fantasy, hate with help and vilifications with verifications.

Riding the crest of positive commentary is a cosmic high, but the depths of negative customer campaigns can be do dark that a black hole would appear as the light at the end of a long tunnel. There is no one size fits all solution for the successful management of social engagement… each situation will require a dedicate approach. When in doubt of what responsive action to take, take none.  

A voice in the woods… even with an echo will eventually become silent without a response.

Joel Margulies | MindGang

Proficient marketers have always sought to get inside the head of the customer. Transformative un-tethering technologies such as the internet, mobile phones and social networking have not only altered customer behaviors and thinking, but they have impacted our entire socio-economic culture challenging marketers to rethink their thinking.  

Network Effects is the nomenclature economists use to relate to the means by which the value of a product or service increases in lock-step with the volume of individuals or audience who use it. By example; one iPhone doesn’t create the demand for mobile banking, but 250,000 iPhone subscribers on a single carrier platform do attract 100,000 apps including mobile banking.  The more the merrier so to speak.

Network effects, if dynamic, can add velocity to an idea, object, person or group accelerating it past personal choice to peer obligation or in Maslow’s case an immediate biological craving or a deep emotional need. When a market with network effects migrates to a single dominant theme, then it is unlikely to retreat from its leadership position. However, individuals must also believe that migration to an alternative theme carries a higher than reasonable price —as in time and inconvenience — if they were to move their home and family.

Every product developer would like to leverage network effects, but truth be told, the customer can be pushed and prodded, but not coerced to engage with a product or service that they do not relate to… no matter how useful, affordable, proftable or creatively marketed.

We still need to listen to the mob and ask before we tell.

Transactions engage the consumer with a brand

Joel Margulies, Mindgang

Ignore the rules. Rules are appropriate within a market-space where expectation and performance are coincidental. Remove those assurances, replace then with risk and we face a volatile marketplace stimulated by opportunity, complicated by innovative technologies, ever-changing distribution platforms, regulations and global competitors seeking to service disenfranchised consumers. 

Within such a hostile marketplace, recognized brands provide a significant advantage. A brand articulates a consistent, coordinated message across the spectrum of tangible consumer touch points: product lines, claims, materials, packaging, customer service, imagery, media, public relations, marketing and pricing. 

Ultimately a brand becomes an emotional icon employed by the consumer to catalog the product. This enables the brand to transcend the product as its identifier. A brand is the emotional context for the total customer experience. A successful brand amalgamates the problem, solution, credential, guarantee and value of the product that drive consumer decisions. The consumer will place their trust in the brand and not on the product. On occasion a product may have a flaw, but the brand is the guarantee for customer satisfaction. 

It will be the brand that influences the decision maker when facing multiple product choices. It will be the equity accrued by the brand that supports the balance sheets’ good will valuation.

Traditional branding is a long-term commitment requiring considerable funding to deliver the frequency required to communicate the character of a brand. Velocity Branding by comparison uses the funds generated by real time transactions to underwrite the media costs required to create awareness, describe the product and engage the relationship with a transaction

Self Sufficient Marketing underwrites the cost of velocity branding by engaging consumers in profitable real-time transactions that resolve their issues. In addition to a ‘solution,’ the brand now offers the added value of a risk-free, money-back guarantee of satisfaction which lowers the shopper’s reticence to purchase from an unknown source.

The velocity of the branding process moves in direct proportion to the volume of transactions. As the accumulation of activity is monitored by search engine algorithms, advertising placements and keyword recognition are prioritized offering an advantage to campaigns that are working.

Even a great product at a competitive price needs to constantly promote its relevance. Content generation, viral and affiliate marketing, key word management, search engine optimization, web analytics and traditional media placements are essential efforts if the revenue potential of Velocity Marketing is to be realized

An advertising campaign is an arrangement images and phrases presented over time in a variety of media with the intention of establishing a memorable emotional link with its audience. The test of great campaign however, is not that one recalls the key message, but that one’s behavior is altered by that message.

As the costs of media have risen, so too has the advertiser’s need to see results from campaign spending. Technology has provided us with a collection of tools; bar codes, cookies, click-thru’s, web analytics, Audit Bureau of Circulation, Nielsen Ratings and Alexa Rankings to affirm activity, but the technology cannot integrate, promote, leverage and cross market to the advantage of the client to enhance the performance of a campaign.

Sync-ing, link-ing, blog-ing, logg-ing, search-ing for the us in you.

Consumers rely on brands and willingly pay-up for reputations endorsed by their social peers. This reliance empowers brands giving them rank. Status diminishes the value of me-too goods and service competitors. Jacked-in consumers no longer “learn” about a company or a product as brands are the decision short cut for a multi-tasking millisecond culture.

Keywords perform as brands providing similar advantages. The difference is a keyword can be created and or bought without the time and dollar investment associated with traditional brands. Keywords can also be linked to Short Codes (SMS) enabling transactional interactivity via mobile devices. Mobile is the new TV, radio, magazine, newspaper, online real-time relevant marketing media offering targeted geospatial options. And every interaction is infinitely trackable.

Dialogs have longer life spans than speeches

Emerging non-linear consumer behaviors demand innovative modes of thinking when developing engaging communication programs. To be successful, the media mix of creative interactions cannot just be relevant. The correspondence needs to provide reciprocal social values.

The measure of a marketing success will be counted in the numbers that link to and forward the messages creating a connection between people. When that number grows and emerges as a conversation of the network… it will be influential.

Linking is an intensive, organic, and elusive syndication process that can increase the velocity of influential marketing messages. To leverage this viral energy; content, form and value need to resonate.