Can we LEARN anything from the political marketing machine?

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POLITICAL MARKETING… BORING!
BUT CAN WE LEARN ANYTHING FROM THEM?

This weekend we head to the polls to choose which pol gets pole position for the next few years.

Is there anything more annoying than political ads? We are lucky in this nation that we are only subjected to a month or two leading up to the national elections. In America, their election campaigns start years in advance with their two major parties having their primaries and whatnot. Although, it does make for some truly great/cringey watching over there:

 

It can be over powering the amount of ads you are subjected to especially seeing as the majority have made up their minds.

And, we are all usually in our own bubbles when it comes to news, you watch one news program, get you news from the same few sites and follow the type of publishers on social media that you already have an affinity for.

So, it often turns out that you may not know what others know and vice versa.

I have been inundated with advertising over the past few weeks not least of which from Clive Palmer’s Party – I don’t know why, perhaps I fit a certain demographic or the fact that I searched Clive Palmer Party banana for this pic (you might remember from last month that still makes me laugh:

Make Australia Eat Bananas from r/australia

The political parties fight wars on many different fronts. They see each other at work every day, they duke it out in the press and at debates and they PR and Market the hell out of themselves. So, what can we learn from the politicians campaigns – not about their policies but about marketing. We have identified three areas that they do well:

GO BIG OR GO HOME – MARKETING BUDGETS

Clive Palmer reportedly budgeted 80 million dollars in advertising. When deciding on your marketing budget it is important to be realistic about what you will need to spend you might know that you will never have a spare 80 million lying around like the mining billionaire but figuring out a % of revenue versus your budget is extremely important. It is crucial to follow up after a campaign and make sure your ROI matched your expectations and adjust accordingly.


 

Are your marketing schedules and plans always getting pushed further back by life? Listen to our podcast episode on budgeting here

 


 

DON’T PUT YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET – MULTI-CHANNEL MARKETING

Nowadays, omni-channel marketing is everywhere (figuratively and literally), another essential ingredient is of the budgeting process is where you distribute your marketing funds. You will notice that the political parties are across multiple touchpoints from the traditional media of TV, Radio, Press and Billboards to the text messages and digital streams of social, display ads and emails. Let’s not forget the rallying of your base – be it social shares or volunteers doing phone calls, receiving multiple letterbox drops or the tradition of putting a politician’s face in your front yard. We will probably never achieve that level of multi-channel advertising but nether-the-less it’s important to have the touchpoints that fit your strategy and budget. Plus, it will help you get into someone’s digital bubble that may have previously been out of reach.

WHAT MAKES YOU – YOU! USP

Not only do candidates have to differentiate themselves from each other but they need to humanise themselves from the ambivalent and downright anti-political punters – the oft-quoted derisive view of pollies “their all a pack of bastards” comes to mind. Politicians spend countless resources on extolling their differences. Be it focussing on policies of their own or going the ever-tenuous negative route.

It’s important to find your unique selling proposition.

Even though the campaign will be over in a few days’ time it’s worth noting that the outcome may have ramifications for years to come just like any marketing campaign so it’s worth the effort. If you want to discuss your next campaign political or otherwise drop us a line.

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Written By: Rob

LISTEN: Social Media – What is it good for?

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Welcome to the Remember Podcast

Social Media | What is it good for?

Today, we get down to basics and discuss social media – the good, the bad and the ugly of it. How it can be a tough sell but also something that can be quite transformative for a brand.

Put your ear phones in – sit back, relax and hit play…

 

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Are ROBOCALLS Good Marketing?

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Robocalls – Should you consider them?

 

Annoying; aggravating; infuriating however you describe robocalls they have become part of our lives unfortunately.

I was watching John Oliver’s segment on robocalls a few weeks back and it got me thinking (you can view it here).

Just so you know, I am not writing this article from the perspective of we should do this but I am interested in the theatrics of it.

Do robocalls work? Are they all scams? Could they even be considered a marketing technique?

Well, it may surprise you to learn that I was a telemarketer when I was much younger – after coming back from a backpacking trip and needed some quick income (ahh the early 20s – a magical and depressing time; equal parts delightful and sobering when I wasn’t drinking, that is).

I was working for a charitable fund selling lottery tickets, being a charity did soften the blow a bit to whoever answered, but still copped my fair share of verbal assaults from the homeowner. I would put my average fail rate at about 95% which in industry averages is about standard.

It wasn’t a complete robocall because last time I checked I am still human; but there was a computer making all the calls and I and the other 100 people in the room had roughly about 5 seconds in between calls.

Surely, being non-robot must have helped the equation, as I took a quick (and rather unscientific) sample of friends and family and found that no one would respond to a robocall. In fact, as the technology to make the calls advances, so do the devices we use to answer them. Most people automatically screen a call that isn’t in their contacts but our phones more often than not now tell us the country of origin and/or whether it is a suspected spam caller which make it doubly hard to get through.

Most salespeople and marketers alike know that it’s a numbers game at the end of the day and if you throw enough mud at the call wall some will stick hence the preponderance of calls being made.

In the same John Oliver story, it was predicted that 45% of mobile calls in 2019 in the US will be robocalls – a staggering amount and with any numbers game someone is bound to lose and someone is bound to win.

So, is being annoying a viable option?


Stop the presses

I literally just received a spam call as I was writing this – I thought I would have a laugh and answer anyway – it was a tele-survey for the upcoming election – no harm no foul right besides everyone knows who I am voting for…

Make Australia Eat Bananas from r/australia


Now on with the show

When I look at it, there are two ways to being annoying – either being present at an inopportune place and time or doing something that antagonises.

The robocall more often than not does both perfectly, you know they are going to call you when you have just sat down for dinner and they are proffering things you do not want or and more likely still suggesting you will go to jail or worse if action is not taken (I’m pretty sure I paid my tax bill).

The sheer volume, zero human resources, relatively cheap software and calls make it a viable option for many scammers but on the whole, it doesn’t work for a reputable brand as trust and connection are two of the most important facets when making purchasing decisions for punters and companies alike. (These two facets are actually why social media is quite a great economical marketing solution – check out our latest podcast which deals with social).

And the flipside to this is of course, talking to a robot when you make the call yourself – like calling a telco, for example, trying to meander through the often-ambiguous automated questions that will hopefully lead you to the right department but invariably does not.

This causes immense annoyance to the average joe or jane and can lead to lost customers. Companies spend millions trying to figure this out. Recently, a friend called up a car insurance and was greeted by a human and then put into the automate call which softened the blow a lot and increased his happiness with the call.

At the end of the day as you might of guessed it letting a robot do the work in what is traditionally a human to human interaction hasn’t really found traction yet but as technology gets better and the robots get more human-like you can bet your bottom dollar that they will be able to get your bottom dollar.

On a side note, and because you’ve made it this far, annoying isn’t just relegated to the domain of our cyborg overlords some of the most annoying marketing techniques are the ads themselves – enjoy….

Coles Down Down camopaign

 

Sometimes people get so annoyed at the annoying ads they take it upon themselves to rally against them

Chevy Malibu

 

Mentos Nipples

 

There’s also jingles that are just so damn catchy that are annoying I am thinking banana make those bodies sing; banana boat and cottees my dad picks the fruit.
And this absolute gem:

Ashley madison

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LISTEN: Perfectionism | The fly in the ointment

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Welcome to the Remember Podcast

Perfectionism | a blemish on your record

In this episode, we discuss perfectionism and how it’s not a positive attribute but can cause negative outcomes.

Hit play and enjoy…

 

 

And speaking of perfectionism, what magic made this:

 

via Gfycat

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3 EPIC Digital Marketing Podcasts that everyone involved in Marketing should listen to!

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3 EPIC Digital Marketing Podcasts that everyone involved in Marketing should listen to!

Staying in the know when it comes to digital marketing is hard. If you are looking for some great marketing podcasts to listen to at work or when you are on the go – look no further we have our top 3:

 

MARKETING OVER COFFEE

Marketing Over Coffee is an awesome podcast to keep up with. Every week, hosts John J. Wall and Christopher S. Penn record the show, which is 20 minutes long and is shared every Friday. This podcast is designed to be casual, conversational, and not “newsy”. They share tips on social media, SEO, search marketing, copywriting, affiliate marketing, and more – and they take listener questions.

https://www.marketingovercoffee.com/

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING PODCAST

Social Media Examiner’s weekly Social Media Marketing podcast is hosted by Michael Stelzner and other members of the Social Media Examiner team. Each podcast focuses on new social media features and strategies, which provides listeners with helpful tips that they can use to improve their social media results. The Social Media Marketing podcast is 45 minutes long and is shared once weekly, on a Friday.

https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/shows/

ONLINE MARKETING MADE EASY

Amy Porterfield’s Online Marketing Made Easy was created with small business owners in mind! Most marketing strategies can seem very overwhelming to small businesses first starting out, and it can be difficult to know where to start and how to apply vague strategies like “create an online course.” Sounds much easier said than done! Online Marketing Made Easy breaks down these big strategies into small, manageable step-by-step pieces so that everyone can execute them to get awesome results. Amy shares what will work, and what doesn’t work, in the world of digital marketing.

https://www.amyporterfield.com/amy-porterfield-podcast/

 

There it is – get listening. If you have any favourites let us know here.

 

 

 

 

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Maintaining a tight data cycle

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The ins, outs and roundabouts of the Data Cycle

The Data Cycle in marketing is closely linked to campaign cycle and social strategy but it is a bit more refined in scope in that it only focuses on the data and information gleaned.

PREPARE

You are starting a new campaign, it either started with the boss saying

  1. we need more sales or
  2. why aren’t we getting more sales or
  3. we hit our sales targets but let’s do double this month or
  4. we’ve had a good year so far why don’t you take a week off

Wait… What?… OK – just checking if you were paying attention that last one normally doesn’t happen but if it is usual for your boss to say that sort of stuff I can send you my CV or you can make an introduction… you know what, let’s just play by ear, we’ll figure it out, but seriously don’t forget.

So at this stage you have to prepare your marketing strategy whether it’s print or online, social or search yada yada yada. Then we have to make sure we know what success looks like how we measure it and most importantly for the data cycle – how we collect that data.

PRESS PLAY

Now it’s time to start, press the button – if you have ever run a marketing campaign through mailchimp you’ll know that this gif sums up the trepidation nicely.

 

Let’s make some noise.

INTERPRET

You may think the hard work is over – and ideation and creation is important don’t get me wrong but for a numbers geek like me the fun starts right about… now! It’s time to crunch the numbers.

Collect all your data

Look for meaning in the data

Turn it into information for others to understand

REACT

Some think that the reaction part is at the end of the campaign and inputting your learnings in the next campaign but having fast reactions is good. Seriously, your campaigns are like kids you may have set them up for success but you never know what can happen if you aren’t watching.

 

So, it’s wise to schedule in review times during the marketing campaign itself – it can be the key to a successful strategy.

Once you have obtained the information from the interpretation phase it’s time to implement it on the fly. Be it, finding out that one particular social stream is taking a liking to the campaign and putting money behind that or by tweaking your messaging to generate more action. It can save a campaign.

There you have it the data cycle in four* simple steps.

 

*There can be a fifth step and that is storage – store your data in a well collated way can be the key to saving hours looking for a piece of information or being able to aggregate the data so you can see trends emerging. Luckily in this day and age most of us use analytic programs (google, adobe etc.) that keep the history saved and accessible.

 

 

image credits from giphy except A serious man and hero image from unsplash

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LISTEN: Procrastination

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Welcome to the Remember Podcast

Why haven’t you started your marketing yet?

In this episode, we discuss not having enough time on your hands and why it is actually hard for some of us to start marketing and stick to the plan.

Hit play and enjoy…

 

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What is Marketing Automation?

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What is Marketing Automation?

At its most basic, marketing automation is software that self-operates your marketing activities for you. When used correctly, these tools perform tasks in an effective and holistic way that helps convert strangers into customers, improve your bottom line and increase your operation’s efficiency based on their interactions with you online (mostly).

Types of Automation

Some people have a very narrow view of what constitutes marketing automation while others have a the more the merrier point of view.

I like to keep it simple with a list of 5 to be honest most of these have some crossover but they also can stand on their own two feet and perform automated tasks:

 

Email Marketing

Example: User action initiated email or series of emails to educate and nurture your potential customer.

 

Site Automation

Example: Live chat prequalifying/chatbots can save time and harvest data for you.

 

Social Automation

Example: Posts curators/sharers or chatbots not only can it save time it can give an answer and provide a nice user experience when your team are away from the desk.

 

CRM Software

Example: Master storer of all lead information that leads to personalisation for each customer interaction.

 

Programmatic Advertising

Example: Automatically display your ads based on data.

Some of the players

As I said above these can be quite intertwined for example your email marketing software being your CRM. There is a plethora of different tools out there to facilitate the various tasks, some of the most popular tools are:

Mailchimp: “Consider us your personal think tank.”

No longer just the worlds biggest email marketing platform they continually add features and they have a forever free plan for the smaller business.

Hubspot: “There’s a better way to grow.”

With a free CRM out of the box Hubspot goes from strength to strength with their inbound marketing and automation software and amazing training.

Marketo: “One Platform, Every Engagement, Any Channel”

Marketo can be expensive and is a true enterprise solution with all the bells and whistles.

Drip: “See your customers in full color.”

A user friendly tool that is a great entry into the automation sphere.

IFTTT: “A world that works for you”

This is for everyone not just marketers a simple computing concept is at the heart of this automation If This, Then That.

Salesforce: “Help your business grow with the world’s #1 CRM.”

Another incredibly powerful enterprise CRM with the mostest. It can build a complete customer journey for you and more.

Is marketing automation the death of the marketer?

You might be thinking with all this set and forget business that people will be losing their jobs to technology. And marketing is no different. These tools can very well take many of the labourious tasks that, as a marketer, can eat up a lot of your time.

This doesn’t mean you will be out of a job however, in fact in many ways this sort of technology can bring great advertising outcomes to ANYONE perhaps the greater the challenge for marketers is to apply their skills and push even harder for the attention of consumers and inspiring action.

But it also means that as a base line, your marketing can be “produced” more effectively and your time will be used by doing what you do best – that’s thinking of new ways to showcase the great work your company does.

The average automation flow still falls down in other areas like the ability to have a meaningful conversation with another human or keeping content fresh although AI is getting crazy good. CHECK THIS OUT

images credit unsplash 1 , 2, 3.

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What businesses often fail to understand about social

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What businesses often fail to understand about social

Finding the true worth of social

 

Have you ever sat back and said “I don’t get how social works for my business” or are you doing social and thinking “This is pointless” only to read every second day how people are building empires from social media exposure for their business?

Meeting as many business people as I do, especially men and women in their late 40s through to their mid 60s I often see and hear how they just don’t think social is doing anything for their business.

Sometimes, we will be engaged by a client for social whom we know will leave us after 6 months and question our role and the role of social at all in their business.

We have a wide array of processes in place to try and educate customers on the role of social, the realities of undertaking it, the commitment required to do it well and the potential outcomes for their businesses over time, but often despite all this our customers (a certain, small percentage, mind you) will leave and feel they got nothing out of their investment.

You may be thinking it is unusual for one to be so honest about a failed business relationship, but it is this approach that typifies how social works: being genuine and informative and I think there are lessons to be shared and learned by showcasing failure not merely success.

And as Henry Ford says failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. Which is why each time we have a disappointing or failed experience with a client we further refine our offering to offer and even better service to our current an future customers.

So our success on any project often comes down to a combination of factors, some as an agency we can influence, others we can’t. But here are some are three key factors to consider when looking to find success sin social:

  1. Content
  2. Time
  3. Tracking

 

Content – MAKE IT GREAT – CREATE MOMENTS

One of the greatest mistakes brands/businesses make with social is they merely take their approach to promoting their products/services and plonk them on a social platform.

Social media is NOT an advertising medium in the traditional sense. Yes, people advertise there, but what really gets followers engaged is thoughtful and interesting content.

People in the social environment want to be entertained, intrigued and delighted but above all followers want genuineness… and it is that aspect of social, businesses fail to understand.

Successful brands in the social space don’t just “Brand” content, their content exemplifies their brand, its values, its approach and therefore it speaks clearly not merely about the products or services they sell, but why the brand exists and whom they exist for.

If you take a look at Red Bull for instance their content richly reflects their brand and appeals to those who identify with the more extreme… and if not those who necessarily live that life, at least those who aspire to add a little more excitement to their day. It isn’t about the product itself but the “lifestyle” the drink fits into.

A brand I have worked on – Maccona also has a hugely successful social following, and their content is all driven around the core idea that Maccona (the product) provides its drinkers with a moment of escape, through the taste, through the ritual of having a coffee. So, their content is formulated to provide a similar and simple moment of escape online.

Now these are both beverage brands and when I showcase these examples to customers (not in the Fast-Moving Consumer Good Space – FMCG) they often refute their ability to achieve this when their product or service is so much more utilitarian or generic.

And my argument is simple That is Bullshit.

Sure, your business won’t produce content that emulates Red Bull or Moccona, but there is no good reason why your brand/business can’t make content in the social space that is authentic to your brand and provides genuine engagement for your customers.

So, what is an example. Well if you haven’t followed the NSW police – check it out. Now I reckon the cops have a pretty tough sell on their hand with enforcing the law…. And let’s face it the “constabulary” don’t always have the easiest brand position either. But some of their stuff is pure gold.

Or what about mailchimp. Let’s face it mailchimp sells the ability to send emails to customers and its one of hundreds of similar products. It’s far from sexy, and as a facilitator who exists in a highly price sensitive environment – what could this brand really do to be “social”.

Mailchimp have done three things that I think are very clever for such a pragmatic product.

  1. In the social space they have taken a very pragmatic approach, their content is typically designed to give real working examples of how to maximise the effectiveness of your communications and in turn they seek to showcase the ease of use, not to mention how to maximise the outcomes using their platform.
  2. They have been consistent in their approach with regular posts across platforms both in terms of frequency and content.
  3. They have spent time and continue to invest in a brand identity (visual style) that goes beyond their logo and underpins the way they present their social communications.

 

This visual style is clever and recognisable and something that not many brands bother investing in. This isn’t just content it is content that is branded both in terms of the strategic approach as well as the ongoing content presentation.

There’s a lot we can learn from these brands, these are not funky products, not emotive brands and yet they have found a way to show their personality despite having boring businesses. They’ve produced genuine content that reflect their brand on social media which keep users alert to their future posts but also keeps their brand front of mind which will allow you to get more followers, build engagement, and grow your business, but let’s be honest to make all of this happen and build a solid following will take…..

 

TIME – ROME AND A SOCIAL FOLLOWING – BOTH WEREN’T BUILT IN A DAY

Building a social following for a retail fashion brand like Boohoo or The Iconic can be rapid and the numbers of followers, sharers and buyers – massive. Again, not every business will have this same ability. So, understanding your business and your customer is vital in determining how many followers you want and having a plan for how long it might take to reach them is just as important.

What is also important in determining the time investment required for your social presence is the latency of your sales funnel/process. For example, if you sell cheap holidays the time between posting via your social channels and seeing a sales response may be a mere matter of days, but if you are selling large mining equipment it may take an extended and ongoing effort to see conversions from social.

In some respects, however your regular sales process should give you some indication around this, so if you do sell heavy machinery don’t expect to put up a post on Linked In once and sell a 1000. Expect it to take some time to build, we suggest that to properly target and build an engaged social following will take a minimum of nine months and up to 18 months before certain business types will see results begin to flow.

But how do you know?

 

TRACKING – SOCIAL SHOULD BE TRACKED – IT’S NOT JUST FOR FUN

This is a big one – And socially savvy businesses consider this often long before they even make a post. How you track success and how you track sales through your social media initiatives are vital to the process and how you seek to measure this will vary business to business and product to product.

Ultimately, investing in systems that track sales and the channel from which they were derived is one thing, but if your business doesn’t have robust digital systems in place, then try simple things like unique URLs, pricing or promotional codes that can help your sales teams track sales coming from your social channels specifically.

This really is very important because, as an example, we worked with a client once who saw a 15% uptick in sales in six months after investing in social with us. We asked them if they could see the correlation between our social campaign and their sales increase. And their response was “no one has specifically said they found us through social, so we are no sure this is working”.

As an agency, there was only so much we could track the performance (within the scope of the brief), so whilst we could see and share from the analytic data showing the increased traffic to the website, see the increase in online enquiries and they reported the subsequent increase in sales Without the client actually finding out where customers found them, we couldn’t close the loop in regard to the effectiveness of the work.

Which brings me back to the crux of this article. Why do some of our clients fail to see value in social?

I think it is often a lack of understanding of one or each the above key factors and the effort that each takes in tandem to find success. Whether you are executing your social in-house, by yourself or with an agency partner you really do have to be invested; invested in the idea of creating meaningful content, invested in the idea of being patient and giving your social initiatives time to work and invested in the systems and processes to track its performance.

As an agency who helps business with social, what I can tell you is whilst our talent at producing great content and managing the complex nuances of each platform is what we pride ourselves in, what makes a truly great relationship and delivers the best outcomes in social is when the client is truly invested in the outcome and knows why social is important for their business.

Give us your feedback – Why is social important or not important to your business?

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Written By: Michael Menzies

How to send a killer EDM

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How to send a killer EDM

Did you know, that there are approximately 269 billion emails sent out every day? So, there’s a fair bit of competition when you are sending out email campaigns!

What is an EDM?

EDM stands for Electronic Direct Mail. The purpose of an EDM is to either build brand loyalty or convert sales – ideally both! 90% of adults and 74% of teenagers still use email regularly, so it’s pretty important that you incorporate EDM’s into your marketing strategy!

What kinds of emails might you want to send out?

• Special offers
• New arrivals/product launches
• “We miss you!”
• Holiday specials
• Re-orders
• Sale reminders
• “You left something in your cart!”

So, how to send out an awesome EDM!

1. Know your audience! This speaks for itself!
2. Include a strong CTA (Call to action), which drives them straight to your landing page.
3. Ensure that your EDM’s are mobile friendly/responsive.
4. Use visuals that enhance the copy.
5. Keep the media to the smallest file sizes possible, as most email platforms cannot adequately handle extremely high resolution images, and people don’t want massive files sitting in their inbox!
6. Don’t include attachments, as they are frequently filtered by spam and, like the point above, you should keep your email size as small as possible.
7. Make sure you have the customer’s permission before sending them anything, for example, they have given you their email via an opt-in form.
8. Keep the text short and simple, so you easily and effectively get your message across. Ask yourself the following: Would I want to read this? Am I speaking as I wish to be spoken to? Can I cut anything out? What is the call to action?
9. Thoroughly review your emails before you send them! Focus your emails with consistent, well-written content (take your time to write and edit it).
10. Analyse the results of each EDM, so you can improve the next one you send and increase your open and click through rates, and as a result, your conversion rate!

Now, go and blow them away!

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