View Post

Marketing OC: How to Profit from the Yoga Factor

So, you think your marketing campaign is cruising. OK, where’s the evidence?  You better have some, or you’re a ship without a rudder. Maybe you’ll reach your goal. Then again … Basically, every campaign needs a progress report. Many score-keeping tools exist. Selection is a personal matter, being dependent on circumstances and objectives. But whichever ones get the call, they …

View Post

Marketing OC: Is Branding Dead?

J. Walter Thompson is a legendary American advertising agency famous for many, many firsts. The ad agency idea of the ‘Account Executive’ and the ‘Creative Department’ were both born at JWT in the 1880s. But neither achievement is more significant than the development and perfection of trademark advertising. JWT literally wrote the book on how to build an impenetrable trademark …

View Post

Ads & Tech: No More Click-Away and Other 5G Perks

It may seem trivial in the everyday word. But in digital space, a few measly seconds can be everything. In fact, this miniscule amount often means the difference between success and failure. A few seconds is the normal load time for many ecommerce pages. A pittance, right? Not to the speed-minded user. Such a ‘delay’ can seem like an eternity. …

View Post

Digital Marketing: Insist on Less for Instagram Videos

With digital marketing expanding its reach, brands are riding the trend with gusto. All avenues are being explored. One such avenue is the online video — especially those inhabiting the social media space. Instagram is one of those spaces, a realm ripe for snappy vids. Video success, however, is not a guarantee. Many simply don’t engage. Instead, these ho-hummers drive …

View Post

Digital Marketing: Should Bots Get the Boot?

Is it possible to work for a brand and not pay an income tax? It is if you’re a chatbot. Never late for work, the bot is digital software hand-crafted to emulate an unfailingly loyal, personal human assistant. It’s mission: help visitors, whatever their needs. Have a question? Need some direction? The resident chatbot is ready to serve. Increasingly, the …

View Post

E-Commerce Busts Another Record

E-commerce marketers, smile big and congratulate yourselves. Your diligence, dedication, and creative genius have paid off. Just glance at the early projections. According to distinguished number crunchers, Thanksgiving Day’s online sales have gone to the moon. Current estimates see turkey day generating $3.7 billion in solid online revenue.  That’s a 28% jump from last year’s haul. True, the official number …

View Post

Digital Marketing: Why Marketers Need Pixel Power

‘Get to know your customers’ — this arguably is the oldest and most often-recited of all marketing maxims. The phrase has been worn to a nub through the ages. Nevertheless, it rings true then and now. Marketers must know the shopper mind; know what drives their actions. Minus this knowledge, messaging is wild guessing. There’s no getting around it. The …

View Post

Digital Marketing: Gain an Edge with Amazon Holiday Marketing

Surging e-commerce sales, particularly during the holidays, isn’t exactly headline news. Everyone’s heard the buzz — things are hopping online. During the 2017 holidays, online sales soared by a juicy 14.7%.  The trend isn’t about to stall. According to industry gurus, holiday e-commerce revenues will rocket higher in 2018. Not surprisingly, Amazon is electrifying the upsurge. Expect another power surge …

View Post

Digital Marketing: SnapChat Grabs for a Second Chance

In 2011, SnapChat launched itself into the world. Just another social media platform? Nope. A Facebook clone? Hardly. Snap was different, radically different. The great differentiator was its messaging mechanism. Ordinary social platforms did their talking with text. Snap, however, was pure pictures. Nothing but snappy images zooming to waiting eyes. And the world, particularly the younger portion, grabbed hold …

View Post

Digital Marketing: Microsites Never Miss

Endless pages … Endless products. That pretty much sums up the typical overcrowded e-commerce site. Essentially, visitors arrive, plow through a forest, and if they’re lucky, find what they’re looking for. Some willingly carry out the hunt. Others prefer instant results. Many others. For them, the microsite was created. The microsite is not a clone nor a compact version of …

View Post

Digital Marketing: Awaken Your Landing Page with these Performance Boosters

In digital marketing, the landing page is arguably the highest-value page in your website. Ideally, it’s the most targeted page in the bunch. The place that thrusts web traffic to key points of interest, like product pages or offers, exactly where brand marketers want them to go. Consequently, the landing page now ranks among the world’s premier lead-generators. With so …

View Post

Digital Marketing: Create a Core Curriculum for Curious Customers

Do people fly to your website yearning to learn everything possible about your brand? Cherish their thirst for knowledge. The eager visitors are flashing a major signal – inviting you to seize a golden opportunity. You now have an open door to their minds – and a chance to convert the curious into fiercely loyal customers. Your mission is obvious …

View Post

2 Incredibly Simple Shortcuts to SEO Improvement

SEO and digital marketing – a common blend in the digital world. Well-established would be an understatement. But well-established doesn’t mean well-executed. As with other big-time endeavors, trial-and-error, experience, research, and fine-tuning all lay the groundwork for SEO success. There’s a rub, however — all this takes time. True, it’s time well-invested. But what self-respecting marketer doesn’t crave a way …

View Post

Success Steps for High-End Brand Digital Marketing

It doesn’t matter if the product is a yacht, an exotic perfume, or something in between. High-end brands demand special treatment in the marketplace. Traditionally, they’ve received that treatment in conventional outlets such as print and display. Unfortunately, the ROI from these conventional resources is dwindling. Simultaneously, the ranks of online shoppers are swelling. Marketers of luxury brands see the …

View Post

A New Piece in the Retail Marketing Puzzle

Should brand marketers overhaul their retail marketing strategies? Well, that might be a bit extreme. Nevertheless, some changes are in order. Changes? Aren’t brand marketers solidly plugged into e-commerce? Why tamper with digital success? Because changes are rocking the retail sector. Big changes. The kind that demands quick reflexes, keen insight, and flawless adaptability. According to ShopperTrak, a data analytics …

View Post

Digital Marketing: Why Email Belongs in Your Starting Lineup

Brand marketers have tons to juggle these days. Social media, SEO, mobile, video, metrics, digital this and digital that … all this and more commands non-stop attention. But with so much hogging the limelight, is something important stranded on the sidelines? The reference here is to the fading status of email marketing. Make no mistake about it. Brand marketers still …

View Post

Marketing by the Book: If You’ve Got It, Flaunt It

Blogs, articles, social posts, and videos are acclaimed staples of content marketing. But they’re quick snacks, tantalizing and consumed in a flash. What about deep probes that expand a topic to new dimensions … that demonstrate a brand’s undeniable expertise? For that, brand marketers must go by the book – the ebook, to be exact. Pack an ebook into a …

View Post

Digital Marketing: Where to Drop the Dollars

A little there, a sprinkle here, and maybe a dash lobbed into that area … this method of distribution might fly in the meal-preparation sector. But for the distribution of dollars in a digital marketing budget, the methodology is extremely hazardous. Randomness simply doesn’t pay. Far safer and more productive is budget prioritization. Resource allocation means simply to channel the …

Marketing Orange County: Virtually Impossible to Ignore

If reality sometimes gets too dull for your liking, there’s always the virtual version. Brand marketers already have discovered the virtues of virtual reality (VR). As they view it, the simulated experience is hitting grand slams with a swelling number of enthusiasts. According to research, a sizable chunk of users feels more engaged when devouring a healthy dose of VR. …

Digital Marketing: Give Your Emails the Ultimate Summer Slim-Down

Slim, trim, clean, and snappy – that’s the way to go when crafting email messages. Excess baggage and bulky verbiage just won’t cut it. Too many drawbacks. Chunky emails drive away readers in droves. Really, who’s got time to navigate the clutter? That, of course, assumes the mega-message reaches the inbox. Truth be told, many a high-bulk email never gets …

Digital Marketing: What’s a Playlist Worth? … Plenty

As a digital marketing platform, YouTube clearly is a force to reckon with. Statistically speaking, the video site currently draws the second-highest quantity of web traffic. This inflow of visitors has created a golden opportunity for marketers – an opportunity to build brand awareness on an unprecedented level. So why not make the most of a good thing? Marketers can …

Digital Marketing: Power of the Thumb

Before devouring a marketing video, most viewers will catch a visual preview. Known as the thumbnail (or thumb), these images often display in search results and newsfeeds. Done right, they provide a snapshot view of the inner video. A moment frozen in time … the defining image of your visual subject matter. But know this — if the thumb fails …

Your Ultimate Digital Marketing Video Blueprint

They’re everywhere, and their numbers are growing on a global scale. In fact, brands and consumers depend on them for results. What is this all-important element? Answer: The Digital marketing video. If you’re anywhere online, you’re bound to spot ‘em. Increasingly, viewers are grabbing the almighty vid for information and insights. Brands readily feed this desire, providing robust product promotion …

Marketing OC: Don’t Dismiss the Dinosaurs

Of all the marketing myths that freely circulate, the one most pervasive and misleading is the gem concerning brick and mortar establishments. According to industry gossip-flingers, the tried and true, physically-constructed store is vanishing and irrelevant. A loser, A dinosaur. Ecommerce will bump aside all contenders from the world of commercial trade. Nothing will remain but digital suppliers. And now …

Digital Marketing: All Your Funnel Needs is a Little Understanding

It doesn’t matter what your brand is selling. If you operate a website, lavish undivided attention on The Marketing Funnel. Respect what it says and learn its story. Doing so will make all the difference in the world when it comes to results. As with its physical counterpart, the website funnel has a tapered top and wide bottom. In its …

Lift Your Brand with Facebook Canvas Ads

Upgrading, improving enhancing … call the addition of new Facebook features whatever you want. But the result is relentlessly the same – better engagement between brand and Facebook visitor. Consider, for instance, a feature called the canvas ad. This is one of Facebook’s riveting contributions to online multimedia. Not as well-known as other native features, canvas ads nevertheless are building …

SEO Makes Some Progress

They’re known as progressive apps … and with good reason. They make web experiences simpler, faster, and more powerful. Not a bad way to get things done. But of all the advantages offered by the progressive app, the most prominent may be its SEO value. Searchers just wouldn’t be the same without them. Before elaborating, a quick snapshot of the …

Digital Marketing: How to Clamp Down on Acquisition Costs

The question hovers before the eyes of marketers and their beloved brands – how can we lower advertising costs? A very reasonable and necessary inquiry. Advertising costs are sailing past the clouds. The pressure to clamp down on prices is tremendous. For the cost-conscious, options are plentiful. The digital universe, for example, offers the tried and true method of lowering …

View Post

The Value of Consistency in Multichannel Marketing

Multichannel marketing has changed the game. Marketing was a lot simpler when the only available delivery system was word-of-mouth. Invent the wheel, and tell your neighbor about it. Or maybe roll it over to a friend for a quick demo. Eyebrows raise, jaws gape, and the next thing you know, wheel mania is raging through the Bronze Age community. Ancient …

View Post

The Expanding Reach of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing, it’s happened for centuries. Once they grab the limelight, their opinion turns to gold. It doesn’t matter what their station in life — celebrity, government official, business leader, athlete, or who knows what. If they’re well-known or even modestly known, their words pack clout. Authority on all things worldly is their privilege. And there’s no disputing their pronouncements, …

View Post

Multi-Channel Marketing: Power of the Pipelines

You might think website traffic is website traffic. Doesn’t matter where it’s coming from. As long as it arrives, your online brand marketing is in great shape. Numbers get the search engines to notice, right? Yes, that’s true. Traffic volume counts huge when rankings are assigned. But pulling in visitors galore isn’t the only SEO ranking criteria. Far from it. …