Category: Blog

Your Guide To Online Reviews

by adventureadagency, posted in Blog

When a consumer wants to find out more about a business, where do they go? Many turn to online reviews. Consumers love online reviews because they can trust their peers more than business owners or marketing gurus. Customers will believe other customers and judge a business based on others’ experiences. This is why your online ratings are of the upmost importance. However, with so many review sites it can be hard to navigate the online review scene. We have put together this guide to help you understand more about each individual review site and what you can do to help your business get better reviews. We will go over the suggestions, rules, and regulations for Google Places, Facebook, and Yelp.

Google Places:

  • Suggestions:
    • Remind your customers to leave feedback on Google
    • Become an active presence on Google and respond to reviews.
    • Make sure your business information is verified.
  • Rules:
    • No Advertising, spam, phone numbers or links to other sites, off-topic reviews (someone else’s experience), obscene language, conflict of interest, illegal or copyrighted content, etc.
    • Reviews are most valuable when they are honest and unbiased. If you own or work at a place, please don’t review your own business or employer. Don’t offer or accept money, products, or services to write reviews for a business or to write negative reviews about a competitor. If you’re a business owner, don’t set up review stations or kiosks at your place of business just to ask for reviews written at your place of business.

Facebook:

  • Suggestions:
    • Keep your Facebook page current and engaging.
    • Make writing a review easy.
  • Rules:
    • Ratings and reviews must follow the Facebook Community Standards (no hate speech, inappropriate content, fake reviews, etc.)
    • Focus on the product or service offered by the Page and based on personal experience.

Yelp:

  • Suggestions:
    • If you receive a negative review, do everything in your power to make it right.
    • Let customers know you are on Yelp, but don’t ask for reviews.
  • Rules:
    • Inappropriate content, conflicts of interests, promotional content, relevance, privacy, intellectual property, demanding payment
    • Your contributions should be unbiased and objective. For example, you shouldn’t write reviews of your own business or employer, your friends’ or relatives’ business, your peers or competitors in your industry, or businesses in your networking group. Business owners should not ask customers to write reviews.

We hope this helps you navigate the online review process. If you need further assistance in getting more reviews, then please contact us today!

What You Can Learn From “Big Business” Marketing

by adventureadagency, posted in Blog

Think about some of the most successful brands you know and ask yourself how they got there. Was it a great product, a great marketing strategy, or both? Obviously a business cannot survive unless it is offering a product or service people are willing to buy, but marketing plays a vital role in the ongoing success of a business.

Let’s take Apple, for example. Is the iPhone really superior in terms of quality to any other phone? Almost all smartphones have great graphics, easy to use technology, and the newest features, but why do most people tend to gravitate toward Apple products? It is because Apple has established itself as the “go to” brand; if you don’t have Apple, you have something inferior. Since it’s humble beginnings, Apple has utilized a marketing strategy that showcases Apple products are sleek, fresh, and wanted by everyone. They have put themselves at the top of their industry.

So what does this mean for you? We can all learn from Apple and other successful brands when it comes to marketing. Let’s take a look at how these big companies become big.

1. They view marketing as a necessity.

Many business owners use marketing as a startup strategy, but forget about it once they have reached large enough revenue. They think marketing is something that should only be used when more customers are needed. This way of thinking is not going to get you on the same level as Apple or Coca-Cola. If you wait until it is absolutely necessary to start marketing, it’s already too late. By creating and implementing a regular marketing strategy, these businesses thrive year after year. They do this ongoing marketing to maintain the customer base, ensure their reputation, keep things interesting for customers, and secure their business’ future.

2. They keep their brand consistent.

Coca-Cola and Apple, huge businesses with boundless budgets, don’t do anything crazy with their branding. The logo of both companies has remained more or less the same throughout the years. The message is the same, and the brand identity is the same. Although you need to keep your marketing fresh and innovative, your brand should always stay consistent. This will help your business build character and create brand loyalty within your customer base.

3. They are active on social media.

Over 80% of Fortune 500 companies are active on Facebook and Twitter. This helps their brand become more personable and gets customers more involved. Social media allows customers to be not only content absorbers, but also content creators. It allows customers to have personal interactions with the brand and gives the brand an outlet to be a little more creative and fun.

If you need assistance in developing a “big business” marketing plan for your business, contact us today! We’d love to show you how your brand can incorporate these strategies to secure success for years to come.

The History of Advertising

by adventureadagency, posted in Advertising, Blog

We all hate history lessons, but it’s important to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going.

It’s hard to say when advertising actually started, because people have been trying to sell and trade things since the beginning of time. To sell something, at least some form of persuasion must be used. It is subjective whether this is advertising or not, so we will just start with organized American advertising. Take a look at our timeline to see where it all began! Where do you think advertising will be in the future?

Fact vs. Feeling

by adventureadagency, posted in Blog

How many facts do you hear in a day? How many of them do you remember?

How many emotions do you feel in a day? How many of them do you remember?

Odds are that you remember what you felt more than what you heard or saw. Remember that saying, “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”? That quote is also true in marketing. Studies show that people rely more on emotion than reason when establishing brand loyalty. Emotions are the basis for reason – once someone is emotionally attached to a brand or product, they will come up with a logical reason to purchase it.

There are four basic emotions: happy, sad, afraid/surprised, and angry/disgusted. These basic emotions can combine to create the plethora of emotions that exist in human nature. However, we can use these four to evaluate emotional marketing strategies.

Of course everyone loves to be happy, and people love to make others happy. Messages that make our audience feel happy are more likely to be shared. Social media is a great way to utilize this finding because it is optimal for sharing

Sadness, although a stark contrast from happiness, can also be an effective emotional appeal. Sadness helps us connect and empathize – it draws us in emotionally. Sometimes everyone just needs a good cry.

Fear/surprise is also an effective strategy. Think about watching a scary movie – nothing is more comforting than sharing the experience of being scared with someone else. Fear/surprise make us desperate for something to cling to, and when no one is around, a brand will have to do. Fear also creates urgency and causes us to take action. Do note, however, that fear/surprise should be used conservatively as ads that are “too intense” will often scare customers away.

Anger/disgust can be used in a marketing campaign to make us more passionate. Think about when you read comments on an article. Have you ever read rude comments and felt more passionate about the topic at hand? This is how anger can be an effective strategy.

So what’s the takeaway? Emotional marketing works – but you must know how to use it. Certain emotions will work for certain ads, but not for others. Overall, emotions work by not being so “in-your-face”, but rather flying under the radar and grabbing the audience without notice. Feel free to contact us if you need assistance setting up your emotional marketing campaign.

How Do I Come Up With More Marketing Ideas?

by adventureadagency, posted in Advertising, Blog, Marketing

Have you ever experienced writer’s block? You’re sitting there staring at a blank screen about to pull your hair out because the ideas are just not flowing. The same can be true when trying to come up with creative ideas for content marketing. How are you supposed to keep the ideas fresh and creative? After all, there are only so many ideas out there (and a lot of the good ones have been taken by Oreo and Doritos)! So how do brands like Oreo and Doritos keep coming up with one good idea after another? We’ve put together a few tips to give you a hint at what you can do to have a continuous flow of marketing ideas.

1. Creativity

There is no such thing as “wrong” creativity. Let your ideas flow no matter how ridiculous they may seem in your head. Sometimes we can be too hard on ourselves and shut down an idea before we even get it fully developed. Allow your mind to go places you may normally be critical of. Brainstorm any and every idea you have. This will give you a long list to choose from, and you just may have written down the needle in the haystack.

2. Teamwork

Of course you want to be the person to come up with an idea, but we can’t all be on our A game 100% of the time. Allow others to add their input, even if they aren’t on the marketing team! If your business is designating only a handful of people to add creative content to the marketing department, then you may be missing out on tons of creative ideas! Allow anyone to pitch an idea to you at any time. Just because your accountants sit behind a desk crunching numbers all day doesn’t mean they don’t have creative juices too! Collaborating allows you to bounce ideas off of one another and can often produce the best ideas. You know what they say – two heads are better than one!

3. Current

Be current and stay on top of trends. Get your brand involved in the trends early. You have to do it before everyone else can. Take the ALS ice bucket challenge, for example. If your brand does it, it shows that you support a great cause and have a fun company environment. However, timing is everything. Be one of the first to do it and you get tons of attention and publicity. Be one of the last and you are just another piece of the puzzle.

4. Steal

Okay, we don’t mean you can literally steal. But you can steal ideas, sort of. Read book, watch T.V., look at magazines, anything to get your creative juices flowing. You never know what may trigger an idea. Once you find an idea, you can incorporate your own product and use your own voice to make it original. Of course, you can’t copy the idea exactly, but seeing one thing may trigger you to think of another.

We would love to hear any other tips and tricks you have for being creative and how they worked for you!

It’s A Great Day To Be A Small Business Owner

by adventureadagency, posted in Blog

Being a small business owner can be stressful, but luckily your marketing doesn’t have to be. It’s the golden age for marketing. There are so many platforms and opportunities available in today’s world that our ancestors couldn’t have even imagined.

  • Social media gives us free access to a global audience
  • YouTube is like a free TV spot. You can post your own content for the entire world to see.
  • Ebooks allow us to publish our own content without a publisher or contract.
  • Website Building Sites like Wix or WordPress allow us to create our own website for little to no cost!
  • Podcasts give us our own radio station – were we can pick who talks and what is said.

All of these sources are available to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Smartphones have changed the game so now you can reach your customers with just the click of a button. The great part about all of these options is that you are in charge. There’s no TV producer, no magazine editor, no news reporter to pick you. You pick yourself, and that is the beautiful thing about the golden age of marketing.

With these new technologies you can reach a wider audience, move at a faster pace, tell more interactive stories, and customize your content. Research and analytics can show you who buys what, and how and why. You can get inside your customers head and tailor your message specifically for them. You are able to give the customers what they need and value based on the power of analytics.

With platforms like Twitter, you can market real-time to real people. Customers can engage with your brand in front of the entire world. You can interact with global issues that are happening now to make your brand seem more “human”. Your marketing now not only gives customers information, but also gives them an experience.

Transparency is everything. Show your customers who you really are and give them a behind the scenes peek at what you do. New platforms make marketing much less formal so your customers can get to know the real you and what your brand is all about.

With technology ever changing and the global market growing, you have a lot to consider when creating a marketing strategy. Luckily, many platforms make it simple to express your brand in any way you want. The next age of marketing is yours to do with what you want. You have the freedom and the power to define your own marketing.

The Scoop On Content Marketing

by adventureadagency, posted in Blog, Marketing

Content marketing. We’ve all heard of it, but what exactly is it? You’ve made an educated guess about content marketing, but you’re still not sure about the ins and outs. And you’re too embarrassed to ask anyone. This post is for you!

The dictionary definition of content marketing is:

“Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

The goal of content marketing isn’t to create as many ads as possible – it is to add value to the customer with the goal of encouraging customer behavior. Content marketers create the media people actually want to consume. It is not about selling the product, it is about delivering valuable information to the clients in hopes that they will use their newfound intelligence to purchase your product.

Do not think of content marketing as being a separate entity of your current marketing strategy, but rather intertwined with your current tactics. Content marketing should be involved in most all of your marketing strategies. Social media uses content marketing because it is all about making the audience connect with your brand by delivering relevant information. SEO uses content marketing because search engines look for quality content. PR strategies cover the issues customers care about, blogging delivers relevant content, and many other strategies utilize content marketing as well.

So what are some examples of content marketing?

1. Blogging: The most obvious example of content marketing is creating a blog post. Blogging fits all of the descriptions of content marketing. It delivers valuable, relevant, and consistent content to an audience.

2. Infographics: Infographics are exactly what they sound like – info and graphics. They may include statistics, charts, facts, and timelines. Infographics are extremely useful because they can be easily posted on social media and websites.

3. Videos and podcasts: These are often underutilized because it seems intimidating to create a video, but don’t underestimate your ability! Create a high-quality video that never goes out of style so you can reuse it over the years.

4. Ebooks: These speak for themselves. Lots of information in an easy to access format. Give your customers some valuable insight to make them keep coming back to you every time!

Those are just a few examples of content marketing, but the possibilities are endless. There is no cookie cutter example of what is or isn’t content marketing. The main takeaway is to always remember to add value to your customers. Think like your customers and try to imagine what information would be most useful to them. For more tips, contact us today!