Super Ad Budgets

In the final days leading up to the Super Bowl, you may be wondering who the big marketers will be this year and what ads you’ll be talking about with co-workers on Monday morning. For some, the ads are the only reason they watch the big game in the first place! In fact, last year’s Super Bowl ads even scored their own MySpace page where viewers could watch their favorites after the game.

With this year’s price tag reaching a record $3 million for a 30 second spot, which comes out to roughly $100,000 a second, it’s surprising NBC was able to fill all the available spots. Especially with many marketers scaling back their budgets during these rough economic times. You won’t be seeing GM airing any new ads this year. I think they realized this wouldn’t be a good use of our tax dollars!

The point is many marketers can’t pass up on the amount of exposure the Super Bowl has to offer no matter what the cost. Even if the only thing close they’re getting to ROI is 95 million laughs, where else can you find an audience this big? For some, such as GoDaddy.com, the past couple of years have really paid off. In an article in this week’s Media Week, GoDaddy’s CEO claims that since they aired their first ad during 2005’s Super Bowl, their market share has increased from 16 to 46 percent. How’s that for ROI? You can obviously expect to see another one of their ads this year.

If you’re curious who else was able to swallow this year’s $3 million price tag, and what you can expect to see on Sunday, check out this article on AdAge.com:

http://adage.com/superbowl09/article?article_id=133081

Marketing Show ‘N Tell

I could live contentedly the rest of my life if I never came across these words again: quality, value, solution, trust and care.

The words mean damn near close to nothing anymore – we use them hard and put them away wet, as they say. With businesses struggling just to keep existing customers, persuading new ones to try your product or service is almost impossible. Your message has to hit 'em between the eyes with something meaningful.

Don't tell people you have a quality product, demonstrate it verbally. Instead of saying “Quality furniture for all your needs,” talk about the furniture’s hand-strung springs, kiln-dried hardwood, durable fabric, dove-tailed joints and other tangibles – give them something they can sink their teeth into. They’ll come to the “quality” conclusion all on their own.

Instead of saying…

…“value,” compare your price, and what customers get for it, with competitors’
…“solution,” tell people exactly how their life will be easier better/more enriched by choosing you or your product
…“trust,” define for people what you do that makes you trustworthy. Do you have an especially transparent organization? Do you submit to third-party audits?
…“care,” identify what do you do, very specifically, that proves you care. Do you have extended office hours to accommodate patients’ schedules? Do you have a free pick-up and delivery service?

Next time you’re about to type in one of these overused, stale words, remember you’re far more believable when you show, not tell.

Press releases: They're not just for media anymore...

Recently I’ve been finishing up summaries of our client’s 2008 public relations results and diving into a new book called “ The New Rules of Marketing and PR”, written by David Meerman Scott. The two have me thinking about educating clients on how a press release can be most effective in today’s explosion of user-generated content instead of focusing on how many articles directly resulted from issuing a press release.

Press releases are most effective when used on the Web to reach direct customers, NOT solely as a tool to get media to write a story about that topic. In fact, I’ve heard that press releases have little to no influence on the articles reporters choose to write. Writers want exclusive, meaningful stories that no one else has seen or heard before. Additionally, as both the quality and quantity of online user-generated content expands, more people turn to social media as their source of education and awareness.

So I’m sure you’re all thinking (especially our clients…), why even bother with a press release at all? A press release can be extremely successful in boosting awareness if "all the moons are aligned” for both consumers and media. This most often includes frequent, optimized press releases distributed on social-media friendly newswires (such as PRWeb and pitchengine.com), along with posting the release on the company's website, blog, twitter accounts, etc. to "seed" the information on other Web sites and blogs. This new outreach in tandem with traditional media relations will best generate the results you're looking for.

A new way of thinking for both clients and PR professionals about public relations is most required to get value from new initiatives. Just because your press release information wasn’t published on the front page of the local newspaper, doesn’t mean hundreds or thousands of potential customers didn’t see the information on the Web and were inspired to visit your Web site. And in the end, it is the customers you want to influence anyway, right? Utilizing the web to get information to a customer as you would the media only cuts out the middleman and tells your story faster and most cost effectively.

Now the most important questions - How do I implement and measure these new initiatives? Simple, leave the PR work to an agency who understands the new rules and stay tuned for my next post, where I’ll try to tackle the wonderful (and by wonderful, I mean extremely challenging) world of social media measurement.

Doing More With Less

We were recently challenged by a client to take another look at the marketing plan we had just completed for them and presented to their entire sales organization with the goal of taking nearly 20% out of the budget without sacrificing any of the programs, the effectiveness and simply put, doing more with less.

While this was certainly not the first time we’ve faced the “do more with less” request over the past several months, this was probably the first time the expectations of performance were not negotiable. When we got over our initial “you gotta be kidding” reaction, we did sit down and take a very critical look at the plan and identify a few areas that could be restructured to maintain impact while reducing cost.

One of the primary things this or any client can do to reduce costs is move direct marketing efforts from print and post to online. It is amazing how dynamic and efficient these tools have become. We took our client’s direct mail list, worked with an email appending service to acquire the actual email addresses for approximately 60% of the client’s contact list and will be sending out a consistent campaign of messages throughout the year directing recipients to our client’s landing pages, website and contact information where we can track activity and attribute actual performance metrics to the campaign.

Even with the costs of the list appending, distribution of the emails through an appropriate service like our eMarketerPro and the time to coordinate the mailings and reporting, these campaigns will be less than 66% of the cost of a traditional direct mail campaign requiring printing and postage.

While the distribution list is about 60% of the size of the direct mail list, we fully expect the response rate and sales opportunities to increase given the difference in rates from traditional direct mail (1.5 – 2%) vs. email response marketing (6 – 8+%) .

That’s definitely doing more with less.

How To Say You’re Sorry

It’s tough in any business (or just in general) to admit when you’re wrong…and to do it well. Mostly these attempts sound hokey and disingenuous.

Hallmark, a few years ago, did it and did it well. The following is an apology they sent out after their site crashed and caused e-card senders to go elsewhere:


Dear Friend,

We owe you an apology. First, the most important three words of this letter: WE ARE SORRY.

This Valentine’s Day, our site was up and down all day. For many of you, that meant frustration and wasted time when you were simply trying to send or retrieve an e-card.

We thought we were ready to handle a huge amount of traffic on Valentine’s Day. Obviously we thought wrong. We were surprised by double the amount of traffic we expected. And we cringe at the disappointment we caused some of you.

In short, we made promises to deliver that were not kept. And for those of you who experienced that disappointment, we are so sorry for any frustration we may have caused.

Rest assured this experience will serve as a lesson for us. We are now challenging our team to reevaluate every step we took to prepare for Valentine’s Day … because it wasn’t enough.

With our deepest apologies,

The Hallmark.com Team


Now that’s the way to do it: don’t point fingers, admit your mistakes, give a little explanation if you have to, and be done. You gotta admire that kind of class.

In Times Like These, What's Your Message?

Just when you thought it couldn't get much worse, the New York Times hits us between the eyes this morning with a battering ram: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/business/economy/27jobcuts.html

The economic news sucks and every manufacturer and service provider is scratching deep below the surface to find ways to get people to part with their money.

From a message standpoint, you should be trying to change behaviors, not attitudes in times like this – you're trying to get people to buy, not get them to change their perceptions of you or your product.

In a nutshell (there are exceptions), forget any messages that focus solely on:
-- Your credentials, experience, quality, professionalism, integrity
-- Your business/product as the best/hippest/biggest/most sought-after/most highly regarded
-- How much you care

Forget talking to customers about intangibles...and do something to really set your self apart. How? DO more for your customers (for the same price) to show you understand economy is doing to us all. That, then, becomes your message.

Think what Hyundai did to show their understanding of the economy. The auto manufacturer is allowing people to return their Hyundais within the first year if they lose their income. Hyundai's message is that they're doing something to help – they're part of the solution. People are talking about the program, which in turn keeps Hyundai top of mind for those in the market for a car.

Find something of genuine value to your customers that you can add to what you already do. Not only will this generate goodwill, it's also a great PR opportunity and more fuel for positive word-of-mouth.

What's Your Personal Brand?

I know someone (no, not a client, a vendor nor even a co-worker) whose worst personality traits are revealed with every email s/he sends (I'm not giving ANYTHING away!). S/he doesn't begin or end emails with any kind of introduction or sign-off – no "Hi" or "Thanks" of any kind, and in general the wording of the emails is terse at best – snotty and superior at worst.

Everyone has a personal brand – it's in the way you dress, how you "keep yourself" as my other used to say, the things you're interested in, who you associate with, your attitude, your ethics, what you say and, in this case, how you say/write it.

Even if you're a person of few words, remember that it's equally – if not more – important to be cordial and professional in an email. Take a glance before you send – are you pleasant, do you explain yourself and the situation well, do you give enough/the right information, do you thank when you should thank and say please when asking for something?

There are hundreds of blogs on the Internet devoted to sharing real examples of things like passive/aggressive notes, bad grammar, crappy parking jobs, ugly birthday cakes...and snotty emails. I write mine with the goal of not showing up there. It's just part of my brand.

Getting Through This Mess

Just when we think we couldn't possibly be surprised by the next piece of bad economic news, this morning I saw the news about Harley-Davidson laying people off and consolidating facilities, and I was taken aback. Maybe it's because here in Wisconsin we've gotten used to celebrating their exceptional results, year in and year out. Maybe because for the past 15 years or so they've seemed completely impervious to any ill-effects from a weak economy. Maybe because they're such an icon that they've come to represent to people here in Wisconsin something much more than just a manufacturer.

So the news caught me by surprise, took the breath out of me momentarily. Made me sad again about what we're all struggling through right now.

And it made me think about my favorite Winston Churchill quote, which he said during the Battle of Britain, when German bombs were dropping almost every day on London and other English cities: "If you are going through hell...keep going!"

What that means to me now, and what I'm trying every day to impress on our small team, is pretty simple. We have a choice every day when we show up for work, and it has to do with our attitude. We can choose each day to direct our energies toward watching and worrying about how bad things are in our company, our town, our state, and our country. Or we can decide to put our complete effort into taking care of customers, winning new ones, or finding creative ways to make our work teams more productive.

Do you want to win or lose? It can be that simple. And if you become part of the team that rises above this mess to help your customers survive, just try to imagine the sense of loyalty they'll feel toward you. Wow! I just got goose-bumps! I've got some calls to make.

Twitter Dee or Twitter Dumb?

Written By: Tami Wessley, VP of Client Services, Weidert Group

OK, we’ve all heard that Twitter is THE HOTTEST forum sweeping social media but is it really the way to get your message to the right audience at the right time or, is it just another channel for those who feel the need to endlessly talk about themselves and to share their every move?

Honestly, it can be both. For consumer products companies looking to generate buzz around a new product, companies looking to create a one-on-one customer service relationship with its consumers or, a stodgy firm hoping to reinvigorate it’s reputation Twitter can be a fantastic “twool”. Twitter can also provide grass roots information to supplement B2B competitive analysis initiatives by using Twitter’s search feature to learn what your consumers are saying about you, your competitors and your industry in general. The challenge is balancing Twitter’s benefits with the potential time investment by corporate employees to manage Twitter accounts without sacrificing productivity.

With these benefits, keep basic etiquette in mind when twittering for business. Very few followers really want to hear about your favorite coffee, irrelevant day-to-day activities or what you did over the weekend. In fact, these cutesy tweets may turn off followers by leaving them wondering if you don’t have enough to do all day and wasting their time.

Tami can be reached at twessley@weidert.com.