So you have some money to spend on a communications campaign? Great! It may surprise you to know that the amount of money you have to spend is not as critical as how fast you spend it.
Here’s the thing. In documentary production we are able to make a nice chart of how money is spent. If you view it as a timeline, you’ll notice something right away. At the start – when it is just you and an idea – things are pretty cheap, but as production continues – adding a crew, an editor, composer, and graphics - things get more and more expensive. If you need to make changes at the beginning, it’s cheap. If you need to change something at the end, it is not cheap.
Now, when you look at communications and PR, most people turn that formula on its head. People seem to think like movie moguls who want their blockbuster movie to ‘open big,’ so they blow an enormous amount of money on the opening weekend, the premiere, the launch, the one-time media release, figuring that if you make enough noise at the beginning ... Read more
Tags: campaigns, communications, Creative Best Practices, media budget, public relations
Posted in Creative Best Practices | No Comments »
My career as a journalist spanned nearly a decade. When I left to launch online video startup, BizBOXTV, I quickly discovered storytelling was part of my DNA, evident in the process and style of my new media company and how it approached its first productions.
It wasn’t about story-boarding or scripting, it was about asking questions, getting answers, and weaving content together to produce an interesting and useful story. The benefits of combining the approaches of traditional journalism and brand storytelling seemed obvious. It’s something we’ve called “brand journalism” since day one, and it’s picking up speed as the new-media world continues to evolve, along with consumers’ habits.
Businesses are using social media, web video, and digital publishing to speak directly to consumers. It’s a way for brands, big and small, to use the approach of professional journalists to create, curate and share expert content in the form of blogs, articles and video. Brand journalism is obviously not as impartial as journalism, but it’s a way for a brand to engage an audience with relevant and interesting material. The content must be factual, and keep “relevance to... Read more
Tags: bizboxtv, blogging, boeing, brand journalism, calgary, canada, cisco, content creation, content marketing, corporate video, customer engagement, digital media, home depot, journalism, lisa ostrikoff, online video, online video production, PR, public relations, social engagement, Social Media, Storytelling, toronto, usa, video marketing, vlogs
Posted in Ad Serving, Creative Best Practices, Media Planning & Buying, Opinions, Social Media, Targeting, Uncategorized, Video | No Comments »
Much has been written about the simple mistakes that Bond villains make in allowing the nominal spy to escape and foil their evil plans. But along with recommendations to overcome previous superspy-killing bungles, there are marketing lessons to be learned.
With the film franchise’s 50th anniversary and the new James Bond movie, Skyfall, out this week, there’s a lot of excitement around the legacy of everything Bond. Beyond the drinking, fighting, intrigue, women, gadgets, fast cars, and espionage, there are the villains. What purpose would Bond and MI6 have if it weren’t for the deviant masterminds of nuclear, drug-related and generally destructive plots?
Aside from their schemes, these criminals are often successful entrepreneurs or high profile public figures who are bona fide geniuses. Much has been written about the simple mistakes that Bond villains make in allowing the nominal spy to escape and foil their evil plans. But along with recommendations to overcome previous superspy-killing bungles, there are marketing lessons to be learned.
In that spirit, here are seven marketing tips from 007 bad guys that can apply to your brand.
Don’t give away your secrets to the competition: The classic Bond villain mistake. Things seem like they’re going in your favor, so why not have a... Read more
Tags: 007, b2b marketers, b2b marketing, b2c marketers, b2c marketing, bond villains, james bond, PR, public relations, skyfall, Social Media, social media marketing, social networks
Posted in Entertainment, Opinions, Social Media | No Comments »
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Tags: Amy Kauffman, bad PR, crisis communications, david meerman scott, HMG Creative, hubspot, hurricane sandy, mashable, newsjackassing, newsjacking, PR, PR fail, public relations
Posted in Ad Networks, Creative Best Practices, Opinions, Search, Social Media | 3 Comments »
I was thrilled to see the joint GroupM and Nielsen research published recently on the UK Search Marketing Landscape. If you missed it, Danny Goodwin’s blog post, “Organic vs. Paid Search Results: Organic Wins 94% of Time” is a great summary. With this study, marketers and search marketers have, for the first time, vendor-neutral data containing evidence of organic search clickthrough rates (CTRs).
As a quick recap, the research concludes that 94% of searchers click through on organic search results, and that the top three positions in Google earn 61% of the clicks. These numbers are not far off the numbers I’ve used for years when describing the importance of SEO in a marketing budget as well as ranking on Page One for the keywords prospects are searching on to find your organization. The GroupM and Nielsen numbers simply (and strongly) validate the importance of an on-going SEO strategy.
A significant disconnect, however, continues to exist between the impact that SEO can have on impressions, clickthroughs and lead generation compared to PPC and the representation each receives in a typical marketing budget. Take Forrester’s U.S. Interactive Marketing Forecast, for the years 2011 to 2016. Marketers are spending and will continue to spend,... Read more
Tags: content marketing, content strategy, online marketing, optimized content marketing strategy, public relations, Search, seo, Social Media, Strategy, Video, web presence optimization
Posted in Search, Social Media, Web Analytics | 7 Comments »
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