Marketing Strategy

Debunking the Myth of Multitasking

August 21, 2013 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

First Things First: You Cannot Multitask

This isn’t ‘new news’ by any stretch, but it’s terribly easy to forget—our brains are only truly capable of focusing on one thing at a time. According to Earl Miller, a neuroscience professor at MIT, rather than being able to focus on multiple things at once, we’re simply shifting our focus at a very high speed. Another neuroscientist, Daniel Weissman, of the University of Michigan, points out in the same NPR article that we “frequently overestimate our ability to handle multiple tasks”. The real question here is—what do we do about it? How do we meet deadlines while knowing that we can’t truly juggle a million things at once?

Get Organized

While it’s tempting to continue to think that we can “do everything all the time,” it’s best to move forward and figure out a better method for managing our workloads.

There are several methods for getting organized, so find what works best for you. Do you use Outlook to keep track of tasks, deadlines, and a journal of your time spent? Do you prefer good, old-fashioned pen and paper to do lists? From a structured method for planning your meetings to prioritizing your tasks, being organized will serve you across the board as it applies to accomplishing your goals.

Communicate with Co-workers

A great tip I acquired at a SkillPath Seminar entitled, “Managing Multiple Projects, Objectives and Deadlines” (which is where the myth of multitasking was truly driven home for me) was to enlist the help of others to stay organized. Ensuring that your communication is clear and understandable allows for all members of the team to be aware of your goals. If you don’t clearly communicate to your team that you’ll be devoting your afternoon to finishing up documentation for a project, they may continue to (lovingly, of course) push you toward working on a different project. Use your newfound organizational techniques to share your plans with your team and encourage them to get organized as well—it’s a win-win situation.

Don’t Forget to Breathe

Transitioning from believing in your ability to multitask to an organization-based method of operation can be stressful—don’t forget to breathe! While you certainly can’t expect perfection from yourself, you can consistently work toward bettering your personal system for managing your workload. Get organized, communicate with your co-workers, and experience your focus and productivity levels increase exponentially.

Have you made the mental move away from believing in multi-tasking? How’s it going? Let us know in the comments!

The Pitfalls of Isolating Digital Marketing

August 7, 2013 by Dabrian Marketing Group 1 Comment

What is Digital Marketing?

For years, traditional marketing was the primary form of communication between businesses and their potential customers. It helped these businesses to create brand awareness and get the word out to potential customers about their product or service. Although traditional marketing continues to play a huge role in the business world, digital marketing has become just as, if not more, important. As the use of the Internet continues to soar, so does digital marketing. For the most part, digital marketing provides an inexpensive alternative to traditional marketing. When it comes down to it, business professionals are looking for “instant gratification,” two words that are not necessarily associated with the traditional side of the house. Digital Marketing gives businesses better insights into what marketing tactics are working and if those investments are contributing to ROI.

How Can Digital Isolation Affect Your Business?

When it comes to engaging in digital marketing, decision makers too often think that a single service is going to drastically impact their business and instantly change the competitive landscape. The fact of the matter is, looking at digital marketing in its entirety and developing well-thought-out digital strategies are what lead to success. When you isolate digital marketing, it can open the door to reckless budget spending on campaigns with no way of accurately measuring performance. Failing to see digital as a whole can greatly reduce your chances of reaching your target audience and leave you looking up at your competitors.

Putting the Pieces Together

Digital marketing can be very puzzling to some. It’s important to realize that digital marketing is not a solo act; it is performed in unison. Only when you begin to look at digital marketing as whole instead of one element or service, will you begin to see better results. For example, while social media is a great way to increase brand awareness and manage brand reputation, it does not often directly impact conversions and sales. However, increased brand awareness can help drive more site traffic and improve search engine optimization–related metrics. Ultimately, the more site traffic you gain, the more likely you are to generate conversions and see increased ROI.

Conclusion

As we move throughout the 21st century and beyond, digital marketing will continue growing and become a vital step toward a business reaching its organizational goals and objectives. Building and developing long-term relationships and strategies is what digital marketing is all about. The sooner you begin to realize that digital marketing is not just as simple as a one off service, the better off they will be.

Having trouble seeing the bigger picture? Share your thoughts or questions in the comments below or give us a call at 610-743-5602!

Snap That: The Rise of Microcontent Marketing

July 24, 2013 by Dabrian Marketing Group 1 Comment

What is Microcontent?

In April of 2012, the filtered photo sharing behemoth Instagram was sold for $1 billion, and recently, Snapchat, the “self-destructing” photo messaging smartphone app, saw its market value soar to over $800 million. Twitter’s Vine, another popular smartphone app for sharing looping 6-second videos, has garnered over 13 million users since it hit the mainstream (and that was on iOS devices alone). These booming platforms enable users to share the tiniest blips of their lives with their friends and the world by promoting the creation of microcontent.

With microcontent platforms, users can say a lot with only a little, effortlessly sharing a small piece of their everyday lives, flexing their creative muscles to tell a story, or otherwise dictating a profound, personal message. The social media environment has always been inherently fast-paced, and as long as the figures above persist, it’s safe to say that this genre of user-generated content will only continue to proliferate.

Why does Microcontent Matter for Marketing?

A key for successful content marketing has always been crafting a message that not only delivers relevant and valuable information, but also resonates with its audience, affecting them in a personal and meaningful way. Years ago, this was achieved through brand loyalty campaigns and the repetitive broadcast marketing of TV and Radio. In today’s social-driven world, however, these tactics have become next to archaic.

For brands both big and small, the goal is now participation, interaction with customers, and striving to create a one-on-one dialogue with their audiences. The days of catchy jingles and cute product mascots are drawing to a close; with social media, consumers are more empowered than ever. A single disingenuous claim or deceptive marketing tactic will spread like wildfire, placing companies at the mercy of their fan base and sometimes into predicaments from which recovery can seem impossible.

The Marketing “Wave of the Future”?

Keeping up with trends and the new, exciting ways in which your business can market and communicate with customers is a step in the right direction no matter your industry or area of expertise. Without some effort on your part to learn about and develop strategies around new forms of content, you’ll soon become as obsolete as that stack of old roadmaps you keep in your glove compartment. And don’t forget, your analytics data will eventually show how your snail’s pace has caught up with you.

On the other hand, there’s also your audience itself to consider. Now more than ever, consumers are getting privy to the ways ads find their way into their everyday lives. New forms of communication like microcontent signify a call to action for marketers to come up with innovative ways to reach prospective audiences without overwhelming them, wasting their time, or blatantly throwing out one sales pitch after another. In this day and age, the best way to market a product or service is to just be awesome. By telling a gripping story, humanizing your company, or turning something familiar on its head, people will start talking. And that’s what social media is all about, communication and forming connections.

I urge you to think about the ways your business may benefit from the next Instagram or Vine. Will it provide a means for you to connect with customers on a level you never thought possible? Will it allow you to speak volumes by showing the difference your product has made in people’s lives? Or will it simply get people engaging with you because they feel like they finally can?

To find answers to these questions, start by doing some research, figuring out what works best for your business, and above all, embracing the technology and becoming part of the conversation. Microcontent may seem small, but its marketing value has limitless potential.

Feeling a little hesitant about riding the Microcontent wave? Share your thoughts or questions in the comments!

Achieve PPC Success by Working Backward

July 10, 2013 by Justin Miller Leave a Comment

If you are measuring your PPC Campaigns to monitor their success, then you know that there are a lot of metrics to consider. There are the straightforward metrics (Impressions, Clicks, Cost, etc.), the calculated stats (Cost/Click = CPC, Click/Impressions = CTR, etc.), and now there are even assisted metrics (referring to Impressions and/or Clicks that eventually lead to a Conversion.) With so many different ways to measure your PPC, it is not realistic to attempt to be the best (whether that is highest or lowest) in every metric. Instead, you will need to focus on specific metrics and measure your success based upon your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs.) However, with so many metrics, which should be your KPIs? This question can easily be answered by determining your Goal, or purpose, for wanting to run PPC.

What’s Your PPC Goal & Strategy?

Before you start paying for and running your PPC ads, you should have a purpose, or goal that you want the ads to achieve. This purpose can range from increasing brand awareness, to generating leads, or driving more online/in-store sales. The fulfillment of this goal will determine if your PPC is a success or if it needs more work. Once you have chosen your PPC goal or purpose, the next step is to figure out a way (strategy) to accomplish it.

Your PPC strategy is simply a more defined method of how to achieve your PPC goal. For instance, if your goal is brand awareness, then your strategy should be to expand the reach and increase the visibility of your brand. However, if your goal is to drive online sales, then you will want to focus and target your PPC efforts towards people who are ready to purchase your product/service online. And, of course, if your goal is lead generation, then your strategy will broadly target people interested in your product/service, as well as similar, related and connected products/services.

What are Your Key Performance Indicators?

Your goal and strategy are now in place, but you still need metrics to measure to ensure success. The best and easiest way to determine which metrics to monitor for success is to work backward from your goal. Ask yourself, “What does the user have to do or go through to accomplish my goal?” Using increasing online sales as an example, the user would have to:

Purchase online [Conversion]
Browse & Select a product/service
Arrive at your website [Visit]
Click on one of your Ads [Click]
See one of your Ads [Impression]
Conduct a search that would trigger one of your ads

As you read through this list, certain metrics, your KPIs, will begin to stand out. First, an Impression is needed, then a Click which leads to a Visit, and finally a sale (Conversion.) After figuring out the straightforward stats, look into the calculated stats that would help you achieve your goal. In this case, Click Thru Rate (CTR = Impressions/Clicks) would show that quality of your targeting efforts. A low CTR indicates that you are getting Impressions, but either to the wrong people, or your competitors are getting the Clicks rather than you. Another calculated metric (via analytics) that you will want to see is your Bounce Rate, which is the percentage of visits that leave your site after viewing only 1 page. Because online sales require visiting multiple pages, your Bounce Rate will reveal Visits that did not turn into sales.

After looking at those that did not make a purchase, look into your Conversion Rate (Conversions/Clicks.) This metric will, again, validate your targeting efforts and give you a success rate. Additionally, do not forget to watch your Cost. Keep track of Cost per Click (CPC) as well as Cost per Acquisition (CPA) – this is the same as Cost per Conversion, but CPC was already used. Lastly, you should also be tracking the value of your Conversions to compare it to your Cost and make sure that you are obtaining a positive ROI. This process will be different for each of your PPC goals, but is a crucial step to ensure that you are measuring the correct metrics towards your PPC success.

PPC Success – Backward is the Way Forward

Success is no accident. It requires goals, strategy and KPIs measurements. For PPC, this requires starting with your goal and working backward through a user’s process to accomplish it. The important metrics, or your KPIs, will be clear once you determine the steps people have to go through to achieve your Goal. This process may seem tedious, but is absolutely mandatory to achieve success. Of course measuring is not the final step. If something isn’t working, adjustments need to be made, but without measuring (and measuring the correct metrics) you will never know why you did, or did not, achieve your goal.

The Recipe for Better Team Meetings

July 3, 2013 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

We’ve all had at least one poor team meeting experience…you know the ones I mean—you leave the conference room and have no idea what just happened or why you were forced to experience it. Though it might seem far-fetched, it is possible to have a great meeting experience! The recipe for better team meetings is easy to follow and doesn’t even require a mixing bowl.

Step One: Send a Thorough Invitation

Regardless of how you’re sending your meeting invitations, it is important to include as many details about the meeting as possible. Time, date, and location might be a given, but what else would it be useful for attendees to know?

What is the point of this meeting?

Are you strategizing a website content overhaul? Going over the latest client offering? Letting the team know why they are coming to the meeting is just as important as where the meeting will be held.

How should attendees prepare?

Do they need to do research? Gather ideas for brainstorming? Making sure that attendees are prepared for the meeting will keep everything running smoothly and, as a bonus, help prevent you from getting annoyed about under-prepared attendees (c’mon, you know it’s annoying…).

What should attendees bring with them?

Pen and paper? Laptop? It might sound silly, but if you don’t tell people to bring a notebook and pen, they probably won’t.

Step Two: Prepare to Present

Speaking of preparation, you too should come prepared to your own meetings. Similar principles apply:

Research and brainstorm

Regardless of your industry or meeting topic, times are always a-changin’. What research and brainstorming can you do to make sure you’re up-to-date on your industry’s best practices?

Write an agenda

Agendas and efficient meetings are best friends. An agenda allows you to setup the complete structure of how you will run the meeting, start to finish.
Agendas also allow you a constant method for pulling the meeting back in from potential tangents/sidebars.

Bring what you need

Nothing is more painful to the ego then showing up at your own meeting without your laptop/notebook and pens/etc. Even in a flurry of busy-ness, make sure to remember your own things!

Step Three: Notes, Notes, Notes

You’ll want to use that laptop/notebook and pens/etc to keep track of what happens during the meeting.

Keep record of the meeting

Not only will record keeping help you remember what was established for action items (see Step 4) but also make recapping (see Step 5) much easier.

Delegate the tasks

If you’ll be presenting for the entirety of the meeting, it might be easier to assign note-taking to an attendee (or utilize a staff member who often takes on this responsibility). Make sure that whoever is taking notes writes legibly or types logically.
As a bonus, some really great ideas can be generated when you re-read your notes. You never know what you might come up with!

Step Four: Develop a Plan of Action

All good meetings end with a plan of action. A great way to organize your plan of action is with action items. Examples include:

The team will send me their notes from the meeting
I will send out tasks to persons x, y, and z
Our next meeting on this topic will be scheduled for “date”

Note: In addition to notes, action items should also be included in Step 5.

Step Five: Recap

If you’re constantly on the go (which we can safely assume you are), the chances of remembering your meeting last Tuesdays are just as unlikely as remembering what what you had for breakfast. Recapping is a team meeting best practice and is useful for a few reasons:

Collecting the notes from the team

You’ll want to read through everyone’s notes and recapping gives you the time to do it.

Generate meeting highlights

High-level highlights can include main topics of conversation, decisions that were made, and action items

The next meeting scheduled for the topic, if there is one

Even though this is included in the action items, it’s important enough to mention twice. Get the date/time hammered out and then proceed back to step one!

Note: The meeting recap should occur the same day the meeting takes place and be made available to everyone at the meeting.

Even the greatest of leaders can’t have total control over meetings, but being prepared with a great recipe is definitely a great way to plan better team meetings. Have tips or tricks for having better team meetings? Share them in the comments below!

3 Ways to Use Crowdsourcing to Mine Marketing Gold

June 5, 2013 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

In a traditional sense, the concept of crowdsourcing has been used to complete a specific task by utilizing a vast workforce. Whether the task involves funding a project, solving a complex problem, or even finding a missing person, the operation is the same – bringing together myriad resources in minute amounts to achieve substantial results. Today, the advent of instantaneous digital communication has allowed this process to expand even further.

In this week’s blog, we’ll show you some ways you can extract some real marketing value out of this tried and tested method, and it all starts with thinking slightly outside the box.

When you’re Strapped for Innovative Ideas

Steve Jobs said that innovation is what distinguishes those who lead from those who follow, and in the marketing world, the cutting edge is one of the most advantageous spots to set up camp. New ideas and groundbreaking tactics are often at the heart of a brand’s success, and not just because trends can quickly turn down that dark and dangerous road to the land of the passé. There’s also changing consumer attitudes and expectations to consider. And what’s the best way to tap into that oh-so-valuable perspective? You guessed it, crowdsourcing.

Think about it. An inherent aspect of crowdsourcing is focusing an immense, seemingly disparate group of people into achieving a single goal. When your idea well has gone dry, tap into the torrent of the hive mind. Reinforce open communication and be proactive in seeking input from your audience. Whether in the form of a poll, questionnaire, or review, a new perspective on what your business has been doing can spark creative ideas around what it should do next. Sometimes, all it takes is one nugget of feedback to stir up something fresh and successful. And while we’re on the topic of feedback…

When you Want Better Audience Engagement

People love the feeling of being involved, whether that means taking up a charitable cause, volunteering, or voting in a local election. Chances are if you provide an opportunity to give your audience a voice, more than a few will take up the offer. So how does that benefit your marketing? In terms of garnering engagement, no resource is more useful than social media. These networks represent the most effective way for a business to open a direct line of communication with its audience. Due to their very nature, crowdsourcing opportunities abound with these assets.

By amping up personal communication via social and asking questions that elicit not only engagement, but your audience’s personal opinion on something, you open up opportunities for more of those priceless insights into how your next steps should pan out. For example, having your social audience choose between design variations or submit suggestions for a new product name can do wonders for engagement. This type of communication can also help…

When your Products / Services need some TLC

New marketing tactics and promotional approaches aren’t the only things crowdsourcing can bring to light. The process of creating a public forum can also assist in product development. How? Through the art of real-world testing. With this kind of crowdsourcing, you can gather insights “from the ground” and in real-time. Think of it as a large-scale beta test before a full-on product roll out. You’ll be able to resolve any kinks and make sure that when all things are “go,” you’ll be putting out a better, more reliable product.

Another way this can tie in to all the situations we’ve mentioned so far is through incentive. Offering your customers a tangible reason to participate in crowdsourcing (like an early bird discount or the opportunity to purchase the product before it’s released) is paramount to achieving the results you want. In the end, you’re left with a better offering, more brand advocates, better customer relationships, and ultimately, lower costs.