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Seeing Red – What Design and Branding Experts Think of That Red Hat
Advanced Manufacturing Demands Advanced Marketing
I joined Elliance 6 months ago, and am learning something new every day. The one big thing I’ve learned, which sets us apart from anywhere I’ve worked in the past, is that marketing is no longer just about persuading human beings. It’s also about persuading Google Bots. The differences in what appeals to humans and robots are obvious, but what I find fascinating are the similarities. Here are 3 important ones for marketers: A Shared Vocabulary People often group together around mutual interests and beliefs. At the core of their interests and beliefs is a common language. So it’s only natural that Google Bots are built to recognize keywords and key phrases. Once you really know your audience, you can develop a SEO-informed lexicon and bake it into all your digital marketing, so the robots bring the people you want to your door. Credibility People rarely respond to a persuasive story they only hear once. It’s only after we see … Continue reading
Posted in: Search Marketing
Facebook has recently made available a plethora of new video options for both pages and individual users to use for engaging more authentically with their friends and fans. This includes their recently released feature called Facebook Live, which allows you to connect with your fans, friends and followers by sharing real-time video of what you’re doing. Marketers especially in the higher education industry should definitely jump on this because it creates an intimate, authentic connection with your audience and most importantly it humanizes and personalizes your brand. It is important to appreciate the importance of a live video in terms of the audience engagement and post visibility, Facebook Newsfeed is not in a chronological order rather it is a personalized feed which shows what is most relevant to the user. Since the release of Live, Facebook has tweaked its algorithm to show Live videos more likely higher in the News Feed. When you use Live with your page, you already … Continue reading
Posted in: social media strategy
A gift. A donation. A lunch. A trip. Volunteering. An interview. They’re all grounds for a handwritten thank you note. To me, it’s a big priority. It’s an appreciation I got from my father. Looming is the memory of my brother and I sitting at the dining room table, pens in our aching hands, scribbling thank you’s for everything you could think of, as he watched over our shoulders like a drill sergeant. “That one doesn’t show enough appreciation! Did you appreciate that Highlights subscription from Aunt Maude?” “Sir, yes sir!” My memory tends to exaggerate. And my dad was nothing like a drill sergeant. And I don’t actually have an Aunt Maude. But I’m thankful for his caring. Because now, I really do think to send notes out, even for small things. And the one positive side of the handwritten note heading toward extinction is that people seem to appreciate it more when you write one. With Thanksgiving a … Continue reading
As of yesterday, August 24th, Amazon had listed 24,393 books on brand marketing ready for you to read (have fun). Al Reis has 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. Jack Trout emphasizes differential. And I recently saw a brand glossary from a nationally-known, prominent marketing firm that contained more than 50 brand terms and descriptors. Oh my. Benjamin Franklin once said “There is nothing so absurd as knowledge spun too fine.” I often feel we get dangerously close to that with all our brand philosophies, processes, descriptions and other beliefs. From my standpoint, there are really only two things you need to keep in mind: Step 1: State your singularity. Call it your promise, your differential, or your brand advantage. Whatever you want to call it – state it. Clearly, passionately, and unapologetically. Step 2: Prove it. Hopefully, how you decide to describe yourself has resonance. Hopefully it is genuine, honest and authentic. If it does and it is, then this … Continue reading
In light of my yellow Elliance copywriter’s desk making its first journey around the shy Pittsburgh sun, I got to thinking about what I’d learned about higher education marketing in the last year, and if there was anything the handful of schools I’ve worked with had in common. It seems to all boil down to one thing: There are awesome people doing awesome things everywhere. Pardon my vagueness. There are about 2,000 four-year institutions in the United States, and each is known for different things — some more than others. But the one thing that I’ve found, no matter where U.S. News and World Report ranks them, is that 100 percent of these schools have staff, faculty and students putting their hearts into their work. I truly believe that there is magic that happens when passionate people work together. From the hundreds of thousands of service hours completed every year by a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts that has … Continue reading
Buzzwords, such as “native advertising,” “brand publishing,” “custom content,” “sponsored content” and “corporate journalism” are fresh industry lingo for what advertisers have been trying to do since the dawn of advertising – appeal to potential customers with content. Though the ultimate goal of content marketing has stayed the same, the agencies and mediums of delivery are vastly different. Companies are turning to web content experts to produce ads that reinforce their brands while matching the editorial voice that the site’s dedicated readers have come to expect. Upworthy — a website for viral content started in March 2012 — creates content marketing for clients. They recently created “Watch the Spread of Walmart Across the Country in One Horrifying GIF” and ran it on their site for the AFL-CIO. “Our goal in this process was not to advertise for the AFL-CIO or to promote companies,” said AFL-CIO digital strategies director Nicole Aro. “It was to instigate conversations that are happening around what … Continue reading
Taken the dive into “Big Data” yet? If not, take heart. It’s not the amount of data that you accumulate that’s important. It’s more important to collect the right information. That takes thoughtful planning. Our tendency is to review performance data after we launch a campaign or blast an email broadcast out there. However, traffic metrics are a poor substitute for revenue analytics and conversion metrics. De facto data reporting isn’t a great long game though, if you’re trying to make a case for the next round of marketing investment. Most digital marketing agencies and in-house marketing teams know how much time they put into developing a major creative campaign. Do you know how much time you spend planning for ROI? Or is it merely an after-thought? Let’s be a bit more intentional and deliberate. Consider developing an ROI Strategy. And put your heart into it.
Posted in: Digital Marketing
As the director of business development, it’s often my job to talk about the work that we do at Elliance, helping potential clients to understand how we might approach their challenges. To make sure I can truly represent the expertise of my team, I’m always trying to learn from them. And because they are (in my opinion) brilliant at what they do, there’s a lot to learn. Here are some of the things they’ve taught me in the past two years… Storytelling works. Stories move mountains, change minds, inspire action, build bonds. And it’s not just important in a homepage feature. It’s just as important in a tweet, in an advertisement, even a single image. Every touch point with your audience is an opportunity to tell your story. Brands already exist. I often hear from prospects interested in creating a new brand. In fact, the best brands can’t be created. They’re already part of the soul of an institution or … Continue reading