Marketing Category
Ideopia Goes Mobile. Should You?
When should you consider developing a web designed to meet the needs of mobile users? The answer is in your current web analytics. If mobile traffic to your website exceeds, 5 to 7%, it’s time to go mobile. Ideopia just passed that magic number, so we launched a small mobile site that delivers the essentials about our company, shows off our work and offers access to our blog. Take a look with your smartphone at Ideopia.mobi
Meet the Millennial: Your Brand’s Future
Are you marketing to the 18-34 set? If so, you need to know that conventional marketing strategies and tactics will not work. And, with a combined spending power of $306 billion, it pays to get to know them.
They don’t use traditional media, their values are based on a strong orientation, and they are the most brand resistant generation ever. Let’s peek inside their heads.
- Most educated generation yet
- Closer to parents than previous generations
- Strong social orientation supported by social media
- 85% have MySpace and/or Facebook accounts
- Only 2% interact with companies only online
- They only open email if they’ve opted into a list from a brand or store
- Ignore online and offline ads, including social media, use DVR to scoot past commercials, unless they are creative
- Effective content includes videos, contests, and short articles that relate to their interests
- Must be approached on their own terms on the media they use, e.g. Facebook, MySpace
- Deeper brand relationships cultivated through through opt-in email and events
QR Codes and Smartphones Takeoff Together
QR Codes haven’t changed much, but the technology that supports them is blasting off. Last year, QR code scans increased 1,600 percent. The ghastly boxes that resemble a cross between rat maze and a Lego® piece are turning up everywhere: packages, buildings, ketchup, TV and even the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Another driver in the adoption of QR codes is the rapid increase in larger-screen smartphone sales, like the Android-based phones and iPhone, which are cannibalizing the market for tiny-screen feature phones. Larger screens make the web easy to use, especially for mobile-designed sites and landing pages.
Mobile Web Pages are a Must with QR Codes
OK, QR codes are cool, but they’re pretty useless without the infrastructure of a mobile landing page or website. QR codes do two things: convey a short text message or launch a URL.
A successful campaign requires a site developed for mobile. That means a landing page that’s pertinent to a specific product, offer or contest. Sending customers to a desktop website will result in a frustrating experience and cost you dearly in response. On September 21, Google emphasized the switch to mobile by changing its algorithm to downgrade pages containing Flash or pages not designed specifically for smart phones.
Do you need mobile landing pages? Check your web analytics to see what percentage of your traffic is generated from a mobile device. Anything above 10 percent indicates an opportunity to mobify your marketing.
Have questions about getting started with mobile? Call Susan Abramovitz at 513-947-1444 ext. 10.
Can a Cockroach Beat Your Business?
A corporation that runs and manages many unrelated businesses to reduce risk in any specific industry is called a conglomerate. You know them as the likes of Tyco, Loews and American Standard. With all due affection, we know them as cockroaches. And there’s much to learn from our six-legged, turn-on-the-kitchen-lights-and-scream ancestors.
Universally despised for their creepy looks, cockroaches carry diseases like salmonella, dysentery, gastroenteritis, typhoid, and leprosy. They’re easy to hate. But you could also argue that they are one of the most successful creatures on earth. They’ve been scurrying around for 295 to 354 million years, which makes the world’s oldest profession look like a garage startup. How do they do it?
The cockroach business model is like a highly stable conglomerate composed of largely decentralized and varied businesses. The diversity of holding insures survival through any cyclical market fluctuations, or natural catastrophes. Maybe you’ve survived a crashing stock market. Cockroaches have endured high-impact meteors.
Although cockroaches don’t own subsidiaries, the world is their oyster in a way that a CEO can only dream about. Cockroaches skedaddle in 4,000 different species and feast on anything from leather, beer, glue, dried skin and gum to just about any plant, vegetable, fruit or meat. Their version of food is like our money, and they can eat anything.
Like great conglomerates roaches persist with a vengeance. They can live a week without their heads (management beware); a month without food; 40 minutes underwater; and absorb up to 15-times the radiation of humans without dying. And, as you may have discovered late at night, their exoskeleton makes them tough to crush.
Sure, roaches benefit from being omnivorous, and having a tough shell. But they also exhibit group-based decision-making, a sophisticated behavior that accounts for complex actions such as resource allocation and competition. Are your staff meetings this productive?
As a brand, the mighty cockroach is golden. Its DNA, profligate eating habits and interpersonal skills remain unchanged over the millennia.
What we learn from roaches is extreme flexibility in food (money) sources, cooperation and resilience. So what’s your plan?
It couldn’t hurt to add a little roach to your portfolio.
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Give Your Ad the Chimp Checkup
- Do you have a chimp, a partially naked body, or some other clever device to grab attention to your ad? Good.
- After looking at the chimp, the headline and the logo, will your prospects understand your selling message?
- Do you have other ads that feature chimps, apes or gorillas? If not, you just have an ad, not a branding campaign.
- Is your chimp photo stock or original photography? After all, you don’t want your competition to steal your monkey, do you?
- Aside from a large chunk of shared DNA, does your chimp relate to the ad’s message? If not, you’re just monkeying around. Heh heh heh.