advertising Archives - Thoranna.is

Repetition

In a previous blog post I have discussed how we need to identify each and every touchpoint with our brand to examine how we can use them to build it, and how we need to make sure that we consistently deliver the same brand experience through each of those touchpoint. This is not enough though. You also have to remember to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat and repeat again.

It’s Great to Be Bored!

Repetition is absolutely key in marketing and I can promise you that if you are doing your marketing right, you will get bored. You will get bored of your brand identity; your colours, fonts, images etc., you will get bored of your marketing materials; your advertising, messaging etc. You’ll get bored with the whole thing. Absolutely, you’re going to get bored!

But the thing is, you’re always working with your brand, you’re always looking at it, thinking about it, it’s always there. However, you’d be really lucky if the people you are trying to reach see 1% of what you are up to. So you must remember that it’s not about you. It’s about them. You’re going to get bored but you have to pull through it and just stick with it!

The thing is if you start changing things up, changing your messaging, changing the look of what you are sending out, whether it is advertising, brochures, stuff on social media, blogs or whatever it is, you end up at square one again.

We all know how many things are there out there vying for people’s attention each and every day. So when you start changing things up they’re not going to recognize you. You’re going to have to start building awareness and recognition all over again. However if you stick with it and you stay the same, you’re going to be strengthening their memory structures of you in their minds and they’re going to end up sticking.

Snakes and Ladders

It’s a bit like a game of snakes and ladders. [Read more…]

Lead Me

For those who have been following me for a while, the marketing process is not a new concept. In another post I have talked about owning rather than renting your marketing, by using advertising and other means to get people into a marketing process where you don’t have to pay each and every time you want to make contact with those people.

I want to talk a bit more about how we can own our marketing, and how we can use the concept of lead management to do this. A lead is someone that has come into contact with us and is now in our marketing process.

This is how I have usually portrayed the marketing process: [Read more…]

Owning or Renting Your Marketing

Those that have been following me for a while might accuse me of being anti-advertising. So I want to address that today.

I am not against advertising, per se. However, I want to make sure that businesses are always using the marketing activities most suited to themselves, their market and their brand, and activities that give them the best return on investment (hmmmm very much a business phrase! :) – and activities that can be measured to show that they are really delivering results and that all important ROI.

Unfortunately, many of us just throw adverts out there and don’t think enough about what we want them to do, or make sure that they are doing what we want them to do. The fact is that people need to see you (your business, product, service) quite a lot of times before they are ready to buy, and for most small businesses, getting that exposure entirely through advertising is simply too expensive. I have spoken extensively about how often people need to see you in videos. If you plan to drive your marketing mainly through advertising, you have to advertise a lot and that can get very expensive.

Another thing that non-specialists in marketing have a tendency to do with their advertising is to try to say a million things at once. The fact is that it is hard enough to get people to take note of one message in your advert and as soon as you try to get more across everything becomes muddled and the ad loses its effectiveness.

Advertising can however be a great marketing tool if used correctly. What do you need to do for that? Here are five things you need to remember when you use advertising in your marketing: [Read more…]

Dear Facebook…

Many of us use social media for our marketing. I asked a few entrepreneurs to send me questions they wanted answers to regarding Facebook, and here we go! :)

What is the difference between Facebook Ads and Boosted Posts?

Facebook ads are the adverts you see either to the right of your newsfeed or even in your newsfeed. There are a number of options, such as CPM or CPC (see below) and they can serve a number of purposes.

Boosting posts simply means you are paying for more visibility for your post with your followers and their connections, or even with a wider audience.

The thing is, not everyone that likes your page will see everything you post there. There is such a huge stream of content flowing around Facebook, so they have all sorts of ways to help you see more of what you are interested in and less of what you are not. You have probably noticed that the number of people who see your posts is a lot lower than the total number of likes your page has. People who interact with your posts, by liking, sharing or commenting, will see more of your posts going forward than those who do not do anything with them. This is why interactivity is so crucial on Facebook, because it gives you more visibility without having to pay for it. Boosted posts however enable you to pay to get more visibility. Oh well, Facebook is a business after all.

When you buy Facebook advertising, what is the difference between CPM and CPC?

CPM means Cost Per 1000 Impressions – so basically, how much you will pay for a thousand people to see your ad. This is also known as PPI or Pay Per Impression. [Read more…]