When it comes to marketing, there’s nothing quite like trying to keep up with the slew of emerging digital marketing tools to make you feel old and dated.  They seem to spring up quickly and multiply like rabbits!  Sometimes I’ll hear someone mention a hot new digital tool and think “huh?” while I run off and quickly do a Google search.

I have decided enough is enough.  I am putting my foot down on digital, (at least for the next week or so) which is why I want to spend some time talking about those old, outmoded traditional marketing tools.  I’m kidding of course!  Often, while we are all wrapped up in what is new, bright and shiny, we forget about some of the tried and true tools that still deliver results consistently.  When your team is made up of a lot of young, talented individuals, you can quickly forget that the entire world isn’t tied to Facebook, using Pinterest, or checking-in with Foursquare.  Sure, the demographics are certainly leaning digital, but you might be surprised to find that every marketing tactic in your arsenal doesn’t need to be digital to be relevant.

I was chatting with the VP of Marketing for a National chain in the travel industry last week.  He mentioned to me that 50% of their customers still prefer a direct mail approach.  While it may sound like an antiquated approach in the traditional marketing sphere, it is hard to beat something physical in the hands of your customers or prospects if it is getting the desired results.

It is the tangible and authentic feel of some of the traditional marketing tools that still makes them successful.  At the end of the day we like to connect with things, we like to touch them, and interact with them; we like to feel like they have some personal connection to us.  Sometimes a very well executed flyer, brochure, or direct mail piece can speak volumes about your business.  A well placed ad, especially in a highly targeted publication, can still reach the ideal audience for your product or service.  As radio and television become more decentralized and fragmented, there are opportunities to pick up valuable air time at a fraction of the cost. Right now there are businesses telling their story using traditional broadcast formats and finding success in their given markets.  One of the most effective of all the traditional tools is investing time and energy to connect within your community.  Whether through sponsorships with local events and organizations or providing support to a non-profit or charity event, this type of exposure is by far the most real, tangible interaction you will ever get for your business.  (Look for a future article discussing creative ideas for leveraging an event or partnership).

Again, I don’t want all of you to run off and put an end to all of your digital marketing initiatives, that’s not the point of this article.  We will spend plenty of time examining the power of digital marketing tools as well.  My hope is you will remember or at least consider the value traditional marketing can provide.  It’s ultimately about broadening your reach through multiple channels.  You might even consider how traditional marketing can strengthen your digital marketing efforts.  Although we have a lot of amazing developers and programmers working at xiik, we’ve worked diligently to keep our traditional offerings robust.  We have designers, graphic artists, strategists, and researchers ready to help your company develop, revise, or execute a comprehensive traditional marketing approach.  While it may be exciting to focus on emerging tools, please resist the temptation to put all of your “eggs” in the digital marketing “basket.”

What do you think?  Do you feel old?  Do you see the power of traditional marketing tools?  We would love to hear your success stories?  Reply here or leave your response on Twitter or Facebook.

Where to begin? I grew up loving business and have a real passion for marketing and strategy (probably one of the reasons I am now working at xiik). It seems natural to start this series with the basics…a real 50,000 foot view of marketing. It’s hard not to really “xiik out” when I think about where we’ve come in the world of marketing. There are so many amazing digital tools at our disposal and some tried and true traditional tools that work equally well. If we step back in history for just a second it’s amazing to consider just how far we’ve come.

In 1992, just 20 short years ago, a good marketing mix for a business might include: print advertising, direct mail, community sponsorships and engagement, and local radio and television commercials (if you had the budget). So simple we could probably manage our marketing plan in our sleep.

In 2002, we were still relying heavily on these traditional tools. Maybe we were using e-mail to do some marketing. If we had the budget, we probably had a website, but it was likely very static. There was still no Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, no saturation of text messaging, and blogging was still the little brother to message boards and chat rooms. Wow! How times have changed!

You might be wondering why this history lesson is relevant to you. Quite simply, the level of complexity that Presidents, CEOs, and Marketing Executives have to navigate just to keep their company and their brand at the forefront of consumer’s minds is overwhelming. While it might seem easy to say, “We’ll just stick with what works for us,” the reality is a fully optimized mix of marketing tools is the only way to remain relevant and positioned for success in today’s fast-paced business climate.

If you have an in-house marketing team there can still be a lot of value in using an outside firm to assist with strategy and execution. Regardless of the size of your marketing team or breadth of your marketing capabilities there can be a real savings of time, resources, and energy when you look for external assistance. Pardon me for the in-blog commercial, but the reason I get so excited about xiik is the fact that we have the ability to deliver the most cutting-edge digital marketing tools, while still maintaining good old fashioned expertise with traditional marketing tools as well. This approach can be a real win-win and can keep you from falling too far behind to the competition in terms of your marketing mix.

In the coming weeks, I am going to delve deeper into both traditional and digital marketing tools and further expand on the growing complexity of marketing today. Soon you will understand why having multiple marketing tools in your arsenal just makes good business sense and why finding the right marketing partner to help you can make all of the difference.

In the meantime, if you think your marketing plan might be due for a “check-up,” please send us an e-mail or give us a call.

Here’s a quick question as well: What area of marketing do you see as being most challenging for your company or business to execute? We’d love to hear your feedback!

So, what makes for a great commercial that will boost a company until its brand eventually morphs or even outlive the brand or company itself? We geeks have compiled a list of our favorites from the last half-century. For five of them, we dive into what makes each piece effective and why it became a cultural phenomenon. Warning: this post may be extremely nostalgic.

1. Mac vs. PC (series)

The “Get a Mac” campaign has easily become one of the most recognizable series of television advertisements. Every episode follows the same template: two men, one introduces himself as a PC and the other as a MAC, in front of a completely white background who act out humorous scenarios in which the two computers are compared with each other. Simplicity and cleanliness are some of the most descriptive words to describe the Apple brand and these commercials have achieved just that, which has kept their image strong and consistent. It has stirred much debate whether Apple is going about advertising their brand in a mean way, forcing PC to respond with the less successful “I’m a PC” campaign. In my opinion, that is the point when you know as a company that you have intimidated the competitor past their comfort zone because they know you are doing something right. In this case, Apple has combined the essential pieces in making a series of highly successful promotions by using humor, the competitor’s weaknesses and a clean projection of the branding making any of these spots instantly recognizable and memorable.

2. Old Spice – The man your man could smell like

Last year, Old Spice launched the fastest growing online viral campaign ever. Starring in the series, Isaiah Mustafa, former NFL wide receiver and current actor has become an icon for the Old Spice brand as well as anyone online looking for a good laugh. This is another unbeatable combination that this company has taken advantage of. The dialog and persona of the campaign perfectly matches what a man’s cologne commercial needs to stand out in a highly competitive market. Among the many awards this has won, the combination of well-executed television marketing, social media campaign and YouTube takeover prove this spot to remain a part of popular culture for a long while.

3. Tootsie Pop

I don’t know about you, but the famous question “How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?” will forever be ingrained in my mind. This has to be one of the most well known unanswered questions in human history! The brand’s popularity has stayed strong since the commercial debuted in 1970. The animation is simple, not perfect and a style that proves itself impossible to forget.  Although one guy by the name of “The Lollipop” claimed it took him 1,327 licks to get to the yummy center, the question still stands unanswered. Maybe if some of us geeks get some downtime, we can hold our own experiment to find the answer! See, right away Tootsie has sold xiik at least a whole bag of Tootsie Pops just for making that dang commercial!

4. Wendy’s – “Where’s the beef?”

Starting off as a generic catch phrase in the US and Canada, “Where’s the beef?” originally translated to questioning the substance of an idea, event or product. But after Wendy’s creatively transformed the slogan into their own, promoting their big burger patties, several spin-offs and references forced their way to popular culture, which spread the word like wildfire. Commercials are short, concise and straight to the point. We can learn a lot by noticing how just three words said over and over can settle in someone’s mind and never let them forget where they can find “the beef.”  This may be one of the most popular commercials ever to come into existence featuring only three elderly ladies. Maybe sex doesn’t always sell.

5. “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke”

First aired only on the radio, the “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” commercial did not do so well. But, the agency was finally persuaded to film a commercial of the song to be performed on a hill top in Rome, Italy, where a large group of multicultural teenagers lip synced the song to promote a message of hope and love. Smart move on Coca-Cola’s part! For a company to show their support of the global community in a way like this is creative, moving and extremely affective. Also, whenever you’re able to get a popular song written about your brand, there is a good chance that brand will be remembered through the song. It is my prediction that more than half of everyone who watches this Coke commercial will quickly recognize the song again in the future. It’s true – you can’t beat the real thing.

While searching for commercials we thought to be the best, we also asked our Twitter and Facebook fans what their opinions were. Here is a list including several more equally awesome concepts that deserved to be shared!

McDonalds Larry Bird vs. Michael Jordan

Monster.com

Head On

1984 Apple Macintosh

Sheraton

Walmart

AT&T – Rethink Possible

Allstate Mayhem

ETrade Baby

What are the commercials you remember most? Let us know in the comments section!

Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Seoul, Korea for the 3^rd SIGGRAPH Asiaconference on computer graphics. The rest of the xiik geeks celebrated once they heard news I would actually be gone for a full month on an extended trip through Asia. (Because they were happy for me. Yes, that’s why.) After the conference in South Korea, a few friends and I planned a journey to tackle the east side of China, traveling from Beijing to Shanghai to Hong Kong and lastly Macau.

Needless to say, it was an experience of a lifetime. I consistently ran into one difficulty, however, while in China: staying connected with everyone back home. My friends, family and co-workers depended on social networking sites or an email here and there to know that I hadn’t fallen off the Great Wall or gotten lost in the Forbidden City. Aside from Hong Kong and Macau, which have an entirely open Internet, while in mainland China (Beijing and Shanghai), we soon realized that contacting home through our normal websites – Facebook and Twitter mostly – was not going to be an option. Not convenient!

So, what’s behind China’s policies to block such popular social networking websites? Though China has always exerted more control over its media than Western-style democracies, the real straw that broke the camel’s back was when violent riotserupted in the western region of Xinjiang in July 2009, where authorities blamed the use of the web, specifically Facebook and Twitter, for its planning. The entire Xinjiang region lost access to the entire Internet for several months as a result.

As I began to make friends with locals in these cities with restricted access, I asked them what their opinion on the matter was. Most felt the violence wasn’t the major player. Instead, they felt the blame was on China’s domestic services like Weibo and Kaixin, the Twitter and Facebook of China, respectively. If China has the opportunity to completely cut off the majority of the population to these US-based sites, locals have no other option than to use what is second best. Can anyone say scarcity power? Here is a list of all currently blocked sites in China. (Unfortunately and ironically, for the mainland China readers out there, this link directs to Wikipedia – one of the very sites China blocks.)

For me, a dude who uses Facebook and Twitter multiple times per day, the inconvenience really required some adjusting that I didn’t have the time or inclination for on my travels. Each moment spent searching for a proxy server or way to navigate the text-based websites that magically let me in (such as getus.in) I knew I was wasting time I could easily be using to see more of that vast country! One wonders what kind of cumulative adverse effect on tourism this might have in the long run.

Of course, I am just one guy. I can theoretically survive without my Facebook fix for a couple of weeks. But what happened to all of those China-based companies that relied on Twitter and Facebook as free, essential marketing tools? Are they stuck using the more censored, domestic platforms for now until China eases up or will they try to use proxy servers to gain access? Does this force more of a national, rather than international, approach to their brand-building and business development? There are many questions and implications for a society that does not embrace the connectivity of an open, transparent online global community.

What would you do in their shoes? Could you adjust to life in China as it currently is? Do these policies affect your desire to travel to or do business with China?

All I know is that we were thrilled to reach Hong Kong at the end of our trip, where we could access the real Facebook layout and catch up with our friends back home. If you cannot live without some of these sites every day, visiting mainland China will be even more of a culture shock than you had imagined. Don’t let that stop you, though! For me, a status update can wait. Traveling the world is much more rewarding than getting a few likes or @ messages online.

If you’ve traveled to or conducted business with China in the last few years, we’d love to hear about your experiences with their media landscape.

The answer that we’ve found through research and experience with our clients is surprising.

Studies have shown that a direct e-mail subject line, like “B” above (“November 2010 News”) will most likely get the highest open rate. Many people have become inundated with e-news and don’t have time to guess what its contents might be. This makes it critical to “get to the point” or expect the sting of that delete key.

Our Point: Throw “marketing speak” out the window and be direct.

Want some tips for improving your e-newsletter subject line? Here are a few ideas that we’ve found in our research for guiding you toward effective subject lines.

1. Think Twitter.
What Twitter posts inspire you to respond? Which ones get your attention? The posts that are relevant, short, and interesting!

2. Use the News.
Remember that rolled up piece of paper you used to find at your doorstep in the morning? Yeah, newspapers may be becoming a thing of the past, but one thing we can learn from them is how to save a buck by keeping word count small. Check out news headlines and see how journalists are experts at getting to the point quickly! Keep your subject line 40 characters or less.

3. Less Waste, More Space.
Your company name should be listed under the “From” line anyway, so why waste characters in your subject line on repeating your name? It wastes those precious characters, and is redundant.

4. No “Dirty Words.”
These words may not seem harmful to you, but they can get you caught in spam filters and many have been proven to negatively affect open rates. Avoid: FREE, Help, Reminder, Percent Off, Click Here… to name a few. Make sure your marketing agency is testing your email newsletters thoroughly for spam trigger words before sending.

5. What the #$%!!!?
Avoid the use—(“or overuse!!!”)—of punctuation marks and symbols. Some mail filters are getting pretty picky about the symbols in your subject lines. The top ones to avoid: quotation marks, dollar signs, percent signs, and exclamation points. While you’re at it: AVOID ALL CAPS!

We’d love to hear from you—what other tips do you have for writing good email subject lines?

A nine-year-old boy stood more than 20 feet in the air in a hayloft, stretching his hands out toward a rope swing. His friend below had just launched the long rope (which was strung from the very top peak of the barn) up toward the boy above. But just as the boy reached to grasp the rope and swing out across the barn, his friend accidentally pulled back on the rope to relaunch it and looked up to see the boy suddenly falling down—head first—toward the hard, wooden floor below…

Cliffhanger! What does this story have to do with anything and why is it related to xiik?

Marketing is all about telling stories. I was reminded of this yesterday while attending the MBO Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. Two of the sessions I went to were focused on content planning and strategy—very critical for successful marketing campaigns.

Don Schindler of AgencyND spoke about the successful elements of a story:

The Exposition—quickly setting the scene
Hook—revealing the problem
Rising Action—keep them hooked while building the story
Climax—everything builds to this moment
Resolution—finally giving the answer

Seventh grade English, right? I recall sitting at my desk in junior high, sketching that graph every English teacher wants you to learn. You know—the one that looks vaguely like a mountain range?

So what does basic plot structure have to do with marketing? Everything!

Your target audience must be engaged with your message to gain their interest in your product/services/ideas. A compelling story will captivate your audience and draw them in so that you can lead them toward your goal.

Many folks in the marketing industry fall back on the easy route—using the same old marketing language: “our product can change your life” or “we will beat our competitor’s price.” In this way, we forget that effective marketing messages aren’t written for a company’s compliance office or CEO—they are written for everyday people who are captivated by real, compelling stories about mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure!

The young boy falling down from the hayloft in the story above was my father’s cousin and the boy standing below was my father. Miraculously, as his cousin was falling down, one of the hay bales in the stack below him just happened to be sticking out a bit from the others and managed to break his fall enough to flip him around so he could land feet first. Had those bales of hay been stacked squarely, he may not have survived that fall. My father recounted that story to my brothers and me when we were children as an example of how one tiny unexpected thing can change your life.

To me, successful marketing is like that bale of hay. A fascinating story that sticks out from the usual “marketing speak” can capture people’s attention and possibly even change the course of their life by influencing them to make a decision they wouldn’t have otherwise considered.

I know I am reenergized—how about you?

Mass Effect, BioWare’s latest role-playing game, is one example. It really pushes story and engages the player with well-defined characters with whom s/he can relate. Naturally, real world scenarios come into play, in this case, sex. Good old-fashioned digital gaming sex!

Now, let it be known that these in-game sex scenes are totally mild. Just like in film, games have a rating system to help prevent minors from playing them. So why would it be any different for a game to introduce sexuality and real emotion, especially considering the increasingly wider demographic that gaming represents? The production director for Mass Effect 2 describes,

“When I play a game, I always find it odd when I’m just running around shooting things and beating things up without understanding why I care. I need a personal reason to care. That’s something that the characters offer.”

This gaming trend got me thinking more about how sex may be spreading to other new media, namely the Internet. And no, we aren’t talking pornography here, which practically started the internet. Instead, the focus is on companies that were originally more conservative and have completely rebranded themselves around that famous phrase: Sex sells.

American Apparel is my primary example. They are HOT! From one look at their home page, it is clear that this brand isn’t afraid to show some skin, literally. Their suggestive promotions leave customers wanting more. In other words, they have brought sexy back.

Just as we play games like Mass Effect to immerse ourselves in a fantasy and connect to its characters, we visit the American Apparel website in hopes we’ll find sexier duds for the avatar that is our real identity. The engaging photography, beautiful models and seductive marketing keep us browsing and fantasizing, until (in their hopes) we arrive at an item we simply must have.

Of course, American Apparel isn’t the only retailer with an unorthodox way of marketing. There are plenty of others, including one of our well-known quality denim suppliers, Diesel, pictured below.

So what does this mean? That our heads are stuck in the gutter and more brands are giving in too? I don’t think so. Rather, these companies have capitalized on a part of life that is captivating and, frankly, always on our minds. Their marketing strategies have shifted to a more progressive way of thinking to keep pace with changing generational attitudes and globalization. The younger crowd is less squeamish about the human anatomy than its predecessor, as are several Westernized cultures across the Atlantic. Like it or not, get used to seeing even more sex than you’ve seen before. As graphics technologies have begun to create interactive experiences that more closely mimic our sensory world, never before have we been so captivated by websites and games. Buckle up, it’s gonna be a risqué ride!

When a client or prospective client contacts xiik to develop a Web site, brochure or marketing campaign, one of our first questions is always going to be, “What do you want to accomplish?” We ask this because every company has different goals. It also helps us to learn more about a client. Often, but not always, a client may not have an end goal in mind, but just think they need “marketing.” However, marketing without a purpose is like trying to shoot a target in the dark. If you’re not sure what your goal should be, here are a few things to consider:

• The Status Quo: Think about your company from an outsider’s perspective. If staying objective is too hard to do, literally ask people (not employees!) what they know about you or your company. Do they know who you are and what you do? What you stand for? Is their perception of you positive or negative?

• The Goal: What do you want people to know about your company?

This is just the beginning of the strategy process. Although strategies may take some time and planning to develop, a solid strategy acts as a roadmap for achieving your goal(s). Just like a good coach won’t send his team into a game without an end goal (winning) and a series of plays to achieve the win, a good marketing firm won’t run a client through a gauntlet of marketing options without knowing the intended result. Anyone can shoot an arrow in the dark, but turning on a light always helps with hitting your target.

So, no brainer, right? Well, here’s something to consider seriously for anyone dabbling blindly: As the social media audience for communities like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, iTunes, LinkedIn, etc. continue to grow rapidly, so will the number of special interest groups and messages we are bombarded with. Just as email evolved in the 1990s to filter out spam, our mindset in online communities has become geared towards that permission-based philosophy: I decide which groups I let talk to me on a regular basis. And as we grow wary of the brimming marketing waters on the other side of that opt-in firewall, we are becoming more selective and less forgiving.

This means that now more than ever, a non-profit has to make a persuasive mark online the first time and then continue to delight their followers with clear branding and engaging, relevant content. One of the most accessible means of achieving this is viral video.

How many times in the past year have you been sent a link to a video or spotted one on someone’s newsfeed? If you liked it, did you forward it on to others with similar interests? And perhaps you were already brought to a host website or clicked a website link from inside a social media site because you were interested to know more about the organization behind the video. If you haven’t done any of these things, you are in a fast shrinking minority these days. Online interaction with video media will only get bigger as more content moves to the web from traditional sources like radio, television, and print. Consumers interact with this kind of content and, when done well, enjoy it more than plain mail.

Additionally, utilizing these tools sooner than later lets you engage with the future makeup of your base: Millennials. These are those idealistic, social youngsters aged 15 – 29 who are quite used to filtering out poor marketing messages and live on the web more than anyone else. According to the non-profit marketing blog Getting Attention: “Your org has to learn how to work with Millennials most effectively if you want to move forward, and they’re incredibly savvy marketing wise. As [researcher Alison Fine] said at the close of a recent speech on her research, ‘If we don’t figure out how to incorporate Millennials into our nonprofit organizations, they’re just going to start their own causes, overnight, using free tools.’”

Another powerful effect of video is what VisibleMeasures.com calls “viral activation,” where “interest in a new clip drives a corresponding increase in viewership to related, but older clips.” This means that your investment of time and budget into a viral video could produce a marketing piece that helps your organization engage with online audiences long after its original release.

All of this additional, targeted web traffic improves your brand visibility and provides a self-sustaining vehicle to improve membership, event attendance, fundraising, etc. So, if it can be effective, then how do you do it? PBS.org’ online guide Mediashift has a great article with some case studies titled How Charities Harness Social Media to Raise Awareness, Money. Here are some more thoughts:

Content is King

Some of you out there may be inclined to go for the hard sell approach: Bam! This is my organization and this is why we’re awesome! So, sign up for these three events and donate to our cause! This is most likely not a useful approach. The content of your video needs to feel less like an advertisement and lean more honestly towards entertaining and/or educational. Find a story or angle that will create genuine interest on the part of your viewer that will make them want to know more about what you do. And know your audience. Maybe plan on three smaller videos that each target a different constituency, rather than one fancy masterpiece that may be too broad in scope. Or not. Your commodities online are time and attention-span: use them wisely.

Getting the Viral Ball Rolling

Just like that proverbial tree falling in the forest, if no one sees the video, then what’s the point? If you’ve started with investing in compelling content, then the next step is getting it out there. You’ll need a smart plan that includes [of course] posting to social media sites, email marketing from your existing database, and interacting with your audience to encourage them to participate — whether that’s posting online comments, “retweeting” the video on Twitter, blogging, joining your Facebook Fan Page, or creating a response video.

Finding a Bigger Marketing Budget

Creating a video campaign does not have to break the bank, but the return on investment can be huge. There is the opportunity to leverage existing corporate sponsorships and/or forge new ones within the social media arena using viral video in a way that brings value to both brands, increases your reach, enlightens your audience, and safeguards your existing budget. Win, win, win, and win.

To learn more about how xiik Interactive Marketing can help accomplish such an effective campaign, give us a call at 888-900-XIIK.

Sources:

http://www.gettingattention.org/my_weblog/2008/05/tow-of-my-fav-o.html

Posted by Nancy E. Schwartz, May 21, 2008

http://www.visiblemeasures.com/news-and-events/blog/bid/8164/Evolution-of-Dance-2-Evidence-of-Viral-Video-Evolution

Posted by Matt Cutler on Wed, Jan 28, 2009

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/04/how-charities-harness-social-media-to-raise-awareness-money118.html

Posted by Mike Rosen-Molin, April 28, 2009