Category Archives: Marketing
Presidential Election Provides Marketing Opportunity for Consumer Brands
by Robin Embry on November 6, 2012 | no comments
in Marketing
Since it is Election Day I thought it would be interesting to showcase how some well-known consumer brands have capitalized on one of the tightest presidential elections in our nation’s history.
Here are some of my favorites:
Spirit Halloween promoted the sale of Romney and Obama Halloween masks. The company said they have successfully predicted the past few elections based on total sales of each candidate’s mask. Of course, those sales will likely never surpass the Richard Nixon mask, which according to various sources, has been a leading seller for years.
Fitz Root Beer unveiled campaign bottle Root Beer that features either President Obama or Governor Romney. They post sales results regularly on their Facebook page. Fitz president Michael Alter said, “Root Beer is an all-American beverage, so it just makes sense to use it to promote the election and use sales of Romney and Obama bottles to gauge the vote.”
Convenience store chain 7-Eleven created the “7-Election” campaign where coffee drinkers can choose between a red cup and a blue cup. In the last three elections the cup sales have closely mirrored the final results. One 7-Eleven executive said that the campaign provokes conversation about the election but at the end of the day it is really just something fun for their customers.
Want to win a free flight? JetBlue was hoping to create some hype as the company promoted a free round-trip plane ticket to 1,006 international travelers in 2013 if their candidate didn’t win. The airline drove traffic to dedicated web site for the voting (sorry, it closed yesterday if you were interested).
What have been some of your favorite election marketing campaigns?
You have a few hours left, be sure you go out and vote!
How Simple Changes to Website Images Can Increase Search Engine Discovery
by Scott McIntosh on August 30, 2012 | 2 comments
in Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Website
“A picture is worth a thousand words” – or maybe more, if it’s on your website.
Most websites contain images because they are a powerful way to keep visitors on your website longer. Images keep people’s attention and can range from an infographic containing important statistics to an intriguing picture related to your business message. Did you know that images can also help people discover your website through search engines?
Images can be optimized to provide more opportunity to place keywords throughout your site, which can help target more of your relevant keyword phrases. Optimizing your images with target keywords can also increase the chances an image from your site will be displayed as an image result in the major search engines. Although search engines can’t actually see an image (yet), they can determine what an image is all about by reading 1) image file names, 2) title attributes and 3) alternative attributes within the website code. And in those three attributes lies your opportunity.
File names are the actual names of the images that you are using. So when adding an image to your website or a blog post, try to add some relevant keywords (describing your business) as the image file name as opposed to something along the lines of, “pic24464.” This is especially important in the age of image heavy social media sites such as Pinterest, since photo file names travel with a photo (by default) when pinned to a board.
Alternate (ALT) attributes are the words that are displayed in place of an image when the image doesn’t display properly. So it’s an “alternative” way to understand the image. Images that don’t display may typically look like a box with a colorful little icon. These 
images appear less often as more websites and browsers continue to improve how they display images. Search engines, however, continue to use ALT attributes as a way to discover what an image is all about. So if you use an image of a hospital on your healthcare marketing blog, consider describing the image with an ALT attribute such as, “Healthcare Marketing Blog Image of Hospital.”
The same goes for a title attribute when adding relevant keywords. The title attribute is displayed as text when you hover the mouse over a website image. It can be read by the search engines in your website code and should describe the image as well as contain your target keywords (where possible). Be careful not to use the same phrase for the file name, title and ALT attribute as search engines like to see some keyword variety. When in doubt on whether to use keywords versus a more realistic image description, use the better image description. Websites that are more user friendly as opposed to more keyword stuffed will do better in the search engine results.
Facebook Hits the Mark with its Enhanced Targeting Option
by Sam Sudano on August 16, 2012 | no comments
in Facebook, Marketing, Social Media
The demand for advanced analytical insight is increasing and, as marketers, we continually strive to gain more data on audience and engagement from our social media campaigns to demonstrate the value of our online efforts.
Last month, we discussed how Twitter’s enhanced features aim to improve the social site’s targeting options and search functionality. One of these updates includes a “Promoted Tweet” option that allows advertisers to target its audience based on geographic location, device, and platform.
Not one to get left behind, Facebook is rolling out its own version of the feature with “Enhanced Post Targeting.” In the coming weeks, page owners will be able to use Facebook’s new feature to target the reach of outgoing posts based on audience age and gender. Before this change, marketers could only target outgoing posts by location and language. And while geographical targeting is useful for global marketing, it’s of little help on a local level.
While the advanced option is only open to a select number of pages at this time, Facebook emailed some page administrators with news that the enhanced targeting “will become available to all pages” in the next few weeks. Reports say that additional options are coming soon, such as the ability to target posts based on your audience’s relationship and educational status, college, workplace, and interests.
So what does this mean for brands? If you’re a major department store that I follow on Facebook and you’ve just launched a new back to school Fall fashion line for teen girls, the new targeting option will allow you to set your posts’ broadcast to target that specific demographic. That means your post about back to school fashion won’t show up in the newsfeed of my veteran grandfather or the 25 year old pre-law student next door. It will show up in my younger cousin’s newsfeed, who proudly added the name of her high school and her birthday to her Facebook profile. You can also optimize the time and frequency of your posts to match the schedule of the audience you’re targeting, a combination which could potentially lead to higher returns.
One thing to keep in mind: while targeted posts broadcast to a specific demographic’s newsfeed, all original posts still make it onto your brand’s Timeline. This means if you don’t have enough original content mixed in between those targeted posts, your page could resemble one long advertisement stream, which could lessen the amount of time visitors spend on your page.
If you’re one of the select businesses granted early access to Facebook’s enhanced targeting option, we’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’re a business owner who is still waiting for the new option to hit your Facebook page, do you expect to use the advanced targeting feature often? Let us know in the comments below.
Operating Room Videos Are Exciting
by Paula Lovell on August 14, 2012 | 7 comments
in Healthcare, Marketing, Video
At the end of a long day in the OR, shooting for a hospital client, almost anything can happen.
Instagram is an “Insta-hit”
by Sarah Mansouri on July 12, 2012 | 1 comment
in Marketing, Social Media
Several months ago, Facebook purchased the rapidly growing photo sharing application, Instagram. At the time, Instagram already had an impressive 30 million users. Since the $1 Billion purchase, the application has set fire with 50 million users in its short, twenty-one month existence.
While Instagram is available only to those with an Android or iPhone, its popularity has caught the attention of many as imagery and photo sharing is all the rage in the social media world. For those who are not so acquainted with Instagram, you may wonder what all the hype is about. Aside from the fact that Instagram allows users to take photos and virtually transform them into a masterpiece in a matter of seconds, it has the potential to be a great marketing and business tool for any company.
What is Instagram?
Instagram is free photo sharing application available on the Android and iPhone. Once you have downloaded the app, you are able to create your own username and have the option of connecting with other users through your phone contacts or Facebook and Twitter accounts. When you are ready to take your first photo, simply hit the camera button and take a picture. Next, you have the option of applying a filter or blurring out part of the photo, which can transform the image in seconds. The final step is to share your photo, where you may add a caption and instantly share to your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
And it doesn’t stop there. Similar to Twitter, Instagram allows its users to add hash tags to each photo posted. For example, if I were to take a picture of something representative of Nashville, I could hash tag my photo with #Nashville, thereby allowing anyone who searches the term to see my photo. Users are able to search hash tags and connect with other users who have similar interests and experiences.
How Can Your Business Use Instagram?
With the ability to hash tag photos, users are able to connect with people who have similar interests as their own. When I searched #marketing, 17,774 photos appeared, from users all over the world who wish to share their own marketing stories and experiences through a photo. This can be huge for any company that aims to connect with customers through social media and imagery. If a new restaurant is opening and wishes to connect with potential customers, they can simply create an Instagram account and upload pictures of their entrees, décor, menu, etc. and use creative hash tags that will attract clientele. The sky is the limit when it comes to creatively marketing to customers with Instagram.
Do you have a positive photo sharing experience on Instagram? Would you consider using the application for your business? Let us know in the comments section!
Are you just being social, or are you ready to engage?
by admin on June 28, 2012 | no comments
in Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter
This blog post was written by Lovell Communications Intern, Channing Jones.
With 800 million Facebook users and 100 million tweeters, many businesses are jumping on the social media bandwagon and swiftly creating Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr accounts (sometimes just out of pressure from the marketing folks). But the question for businesses remains: are you truly ready to engage with consumers in the social media space? Do you really understand what engagement entails?
Communicating with consumers via social media outlets has become a two-way real-time conversation between brands and friends, fans or followers around the world. Accepting the “no holds barred” mentality that exists on the Web requires a loosening of control as employees listen, interact, and respond to the wants, needs and aspirations of consumers. Not sure if your business is up to the social media challenge? Consider these tips before your next post, pin or tweet:
Embrace transparency. Followers of your business, particularly on Facebook and Twitter, both want and expect to be engaged online. Negative feedback and complaints are a reality of the social media environment, and you must respond to them. Personalize the response to the individual, and offer tips, suggestions and advice to address complaints and problem areas. Answer users in real time, and don’t be afraid to foster a dialogue among the community of consumers who follow you online. Honesty is the only acceptable approach to garner respect from fans and followers.
Get real. Being authentic goes beyond maintaining a healthy image. Take customer relationship management (CRM) to the next level by getting to know your consumers and putting out feelers to understand your followers’ preferences. Conduct Facebook surveys, tweet out questions relating to your brand, or comment on users’ unfiltered thoughts and opinions. Single out users and reward them for liking, sharing or talking about your business. Fostering real relationships with your customers builds trust between the brand and consumer and enables users to see a value in your connection in the social media space.
Understand the metrics and, more importantly, the behavior that drives them. Social media is continually evolving—as are marketers’ efforts to measure the significance of a like, share or comment. In addition to the helpful Facebook Insights analytics tool featured on Facebook, the list of social media metrics seems to be endless. But just knowing the numbers isn’t enough. It’s important to consider the behavior and the motivation behind a user’s decision to share or like branded content. It’s also productive to evaluate the results with regard to the content users respond to most frequently and positively and the time periods and frequency in which the interaction occurs.
Make your Facebook friends your new best friends. Consumers have literally become the voice of their brands. Let your followers become your biggest brand ambassadors, and encourage them to post their experiences with your business. Getting into the heads of your core consumers will allow you to understand how your brand is perceived by your customers. A recent Crowdtap survey suggests that 92 percent of consumers rely most on recommendations from people they know when making purchasing decisions. More and more, those recommendations are online.
Got Millennials? Emulate them. Follow popular blogs, publications and social media experts to stay current with the latest trends and conversation. Especially take heed of Generation Y—the most technology savvy and digitally connected generation today—and experiment with various online platforms such as Tumblr, Pinterest and other widely popular sites.
Speak the language your customers want to hear. Determine what consumers seek most from your brand as a social business. Is it advice, humor, stories or tweet conversations? Once you’ve determined your social media sweet spot, ensure your company maintains cross-channel integration among the traditional, mobile and social outlets where your customers “hang out.”
Social is part of today’s marketing landscape. There’s nowhere to hide, so just jump in!
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
How to Use Pinterest for Business
by Sarah Mansouri on June 21, 2012 | no comments
in Marketing, Social Media, Viral Marketing
For Marketers Who Want Their Commercials to Go Viral: Be coy with your logo and “out there” with joy and surprise.
by Paula Lovell on April 5, 2012 | 5 comments
in Marketing
Using infrared eye-trackers and technologies that analyze facial expressions, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School has predicted what’s needed in commercials to make them more apt to go viral.
The bottom line:
1. Don’t flaunt your brand logo. Show it repeatedly, but subtly.
2. Use joy and surprise, and use it early. People stay more engaged and stick with an ad when it starts with joy or surprise. Special note: surprise is good; shock is not. Funny is good; nudity keeps a lot of people from “sending it on.”
3. When creating a video ad, think roller coaster. People easily get bored, so you have to turn it on and off, creating an emotional roller coaster that pushes emotions from joyful to surprise; tension to relief. And all this in 30 or 60 seconds.
4. Only a subset of viewers will pass along an ad, no matter how joyful, surprising, mercurial or logo-subtle: primarily, people who are extroverts and/or egotistic. The extroverts are just out there sharing and having fun. As for the egotists, the author speculates that egotism is a trait of someone who shares an ad link because that kind of personality wants to be considered, “in the know,” media savvy and connected. Who knew?
The observations in the article in the Harvard Business Review aren’t that much of a surprise, but it has to be a monumental challenge to convince most company CEO’s to downplay their logo. And I can’t even imagine making a presentation of a new ad built around these pointers to “the suits” in most corporate boardrooms.
Seriously, how in the world do these agencies get this kind of risky promotion past the corporate gatekeepers?
How to Rank Higher in the Search Engine of Life
by Scott McIntosh on March 20, 2012 | no comments
in Marketing, Networking
Recently, I’ve just returned from a vacation where I noticed a fun similarity in the way Google ranks website value and how people rank each other’s social value. And as you may already know, our social value can be extremely important in the successful marketing of our business as well as in our overall happiness.
If you didn’t already know, Google ranks websites for its search engine results by backlinks. A backlink is a link from another website back to your website – thus the name backlink. The more popular the other site is that links to you, the more valuable the backlink. It’s a web-based voting system.
But what about in the real world? You come across many different people in your daily routines, some that you know and many that you don’t. This is especially true when you are traveling. Humans are naturally a very social species and derive pleasure from connecting with others. Each person that you engage with throughout your day is an opportunity for a social backlink.
Each person that “likes” you is another vote for you in the greater social network that is our lives. The more votes you get, the higher you move up in the ranks of business and in life. Now I’m not talking about “spamming” everyone you meet with your business card and sales pitch. Please don’t do that. I’m talking about just being a nice person. I’m talking about engaging everyone you meet as you would a friend or loved one. Listen to them. Remember their names. Ask them how their families are and HEAR what they have to say. Empathize with them and respect their differences. Each new person you connect with on a social level throughout your life will not only help you in your business endeavors, they will also provide a greater richness that can only come from increased social connections.
So get out there and build your social backlinks! And if you need help with online backlinks, call us.
The Cyberchrondria Dilemma
by Paula Lovell on February 7, 2012 | 7 comments
in Healthcare, Marketing
For those of us in healthcare marketing, it’s important to study the public’s evolving and expanding online habits.
So I’m fascinated and mildly amused by the newest cyber-contagion spreading through communities: cyberchrondria. The word probably doesn’t require definition. It’s a term coined to describe people’s obsession with self-diagnosis based on reading online healthcare info.
According to American Medical News, which cites a Pew Research study, 80% of internet users search for health information online. Since about 75% of Americans go online, that’s almost 60% of the US population who are ferreting out online information about illnesses or diseases related to themselves or someone they care about. Some of that information is quite reliable; some not so much so.
Physicians are now reporting an increased number of patients who are needlessly worried about diseases they think they have as a result of internet reading. The docs say they require significantly more time and counsel or, even worse, they sometimes demand costly screenings and tests just to prove they DON’T have a certain disease.
Recently I got an unusual diagnosis which will probably have little or no impact on my life or long term health. The physician (not the best communicator, by the way) said, “And don’t go out and read about it online; it’ll just scare you.” You can imagine the first thing I did when I got back to the office. (And it did scare me to death.) Suddenly I just knew I was having a reaction to the medicine (I wasn’t) and I was diving into “chat rooms” populated by people with the same “disease.” (I’ve never heard so many old wives tales.)
At a time when government, physicians, patients, and insurers are looking for ways to reduce healthcare costs, this can’t be good. By the same token, patients are being encouraged to play a more intimate role in their own healthcare. What’s an intelligent person to do?
