out of the blue

When searching for controversial commercials today on YouTube, I was initially surprised to see Burger King’s “I Like Square Butts” commercial.  But only for oh, maybe .2 seconds.  Then I stopped to think about it and thought, “Hey, what were they thinking??”  But now I realize, maybe Burger King is smarter than all of us (well, all of you…).

If you haven’t seen the commercial yet (and by the looks of things, you may not because it is in danger of being pulled and understandably so), it basically is a spoof remake of Sir Mixalot’s “I Like Big Butts” music video of the oh so lovely 90s.  The difference?  The girls in the video are shaking square butts with the King watching them and rapping.  The point?  Burger King is advertising for their 99 cent kids’ meals that currently have SpongeBob Squarepants toys in them.  If you want to watch it before continuing on with my rambling, click here to see the YouTube video.

I guess the controversy that this commercial brings up pulls in the whole element of audience.  Is Burger King advertising to parents, children, or a different crowd entirely? If the answer is parents, they are clearly barking up the wrong tree.  Burger King is not this stupid.  They know children will think the video is hilarious, as well as childless adults.  So even though the commercial is supposedly for a kid’s meal, this is not really Burger King’s goal.  They are following the lead of Victoria’s Secret…advertising their product, not necessarily to the intended audience, but with the same outcome- more customers.

Think about it.  If you are a 20something childless adult (in the legal sense anyway), and you see this commercial, first thing you do?  Laugh.  Next thing you do?  Think, I want Cheesy Tots (or a Whopper, Chicken Sandwich, Burger Shots, etc).  Then you drive your ass to Burger King without a second thought about the commercial EXCEPT to maybe sing “I Like Big Butts” or call your friends and reminisce about Sir Mixalot.   Burger King’s goal-met.

If you’re a kid and see this commercial, it may go over your head or not, but either way you a) want Burger King b) want Burger King or c) Burger King.  Although your parent may be slightly peeved over the commercial, you know, as a child, that only a slight amount of pleading will get you your Burger King.  Particularly if you sing the Square Butts song until your mouth is occupied with the sweet success of fried food.  Burger King’s goal- met.

So, either way, parents are not the direct audience but they are nonetheless reached.  They will be pulled in by their children to the Burger King drivethru despite their proclamation that they “will never visit that restaurant again.”  Please, spare me.  We all know that they’ll forget about this commercial the very next time something remotely controversial hits the land of media advertising.  Burger King will survive… and prosper.

If you’re looking to turn SWAG (stuff we all get) into SYGO (stuff you give out), this is the article for you.  Figuring out how to make SWAG work for your business is an important marketing technique that should not be overlooked.  Simply throwing a pencil with your logo on it at your potential customer will not do any longer.  Not only may you poke someone’s eye out (if the pencil is pre-sharpened), you risk being thrown in with the millions upon millions of pencils and pens already out there.  Some tips for SWAG to work for you:

*Be creative.  Think beyond a pencil.

*Be attractive.  Ugly is not good.

*Link it back to your product or service.  If you are a microwave company handing out oven mitts, something is wrong.

*Size Matters.  What was that you ask?  Size matters.  Make sure your logo stands out. 

*Avoid stickers.  Stickers are cool…when you’re six.  Is your potential clientele six?  Awesome-then spring for the sticker!  The exception to this rule is if your sticker has convenient information on it that needs to be handy at any given time.

*Remember the web.  When people see your company logo, they will go online and search for you.  If your waterbottle reads “Hydra Blast” and your logo in reality reads HyDrAbLaSt!, your client may be confused.  Plan accordingly.  Oh, and while you’re at it, make sure you took down all those drunk HyDrAbLaSt!,weekend excursion pictures…yeah, you know what I’m talking about.

Some ideas to get you Swagging….

 *post-its

 *paper

*waterbottles

*cups

*Thumbdrives

*Mousepads

*etc., etc., etc…

Some sites to order Sygo:

*Branders.com

*Zazzle.com

*Throwthings.com

Ahhh….the economy.  I don’t think we can go a single post without some sort of mention or reference to the lovely Recession that we are in right now.  Of course, there are silver linings to every cloud, and the Recession is no exception.  Today’s silver lining:  Crowdsourcing.  Crowdsourcing is simple.  An obvious play on the dreaded outsourcing that helped land us in the Recession, crowdsourcing is utilizing the undiscovered talents of amateurs at minimal to no cost.  People of today are especially willing to work for free if it means getting their name out their on a worthy product.  So next time you need a fresh look or new idea, put the word out there.  Start a contest with the winner receiving credit for his or her work.  If need be, you can throw in a small cash prize as well.  Undiscovered talent is your best untapped resource-use it!

To learn more:  MSNBC Article on Crowdsourcing

As a follow-up to last week’s “You’ve Got Mail”, I decided to research the best times of the day/week to send out email blasts.  The results, as expected, were inconclusive.  After all, it’s next to impossible to analyze the email habits of millions of people and define a “good” time to email anyone!  A good second, however, is to read up on the theories that people have.  Here’s a good place to start:  New Insights on Time of Day for Email

In order to be a good blogger, I’ll add a few of my own ideas as well.

*Monday is always a bad idea:  Mondays, just like any first day back in the office, are a horrid time to send anyone anything, particularly an email blast.  The first thing I do when I see that my inbox has 120 messages is figure out which 100 can be deleted without even glancing at.  We live in a world filled with SPAM, plan accordingly!

*Lunchtime is probably not a good idea:  Lunchtime, while it seems like a good time to send an email, is probably not.  Most people are going to be using that 30 minutes to Facebook or MySpace and do not want to be bothered with anything remotely resembling work that they are not on the clock for.  The exception is, however, if you are sending an advertisement for something that I would actually care about reading about in my free time (such as a Swedish Massage or something of the sort).  Just keep in mind that people like their free time.  Plus, if they don’t check their email during lunch, they are most likely to return to a full inbox much like a Monday.

These are just a couple of my own ideas.  Feel free to post your own.  Whatever time of day or day of the week you decide to send that email out, just remember it does matter!

One of the most effective marketing techniques on the web in today’s world is email marketing.  Email marketing is simple:  obtain a list of prospective or current clientele and send them an email (duh) with current special product features.  Such emails can include links to websites or contain exclusive offers.  There was a time when you could send anyone anything without consequences (ah, the glory old days of the internet) but that time is long gone.  SPAM, thank God, is being reduced by law.  Therefore, it is important that you follow the strict guidelines set by the government in regards to spam.    To read more about email marketing and the laws to abide by, click here:  Intro to Email Marketing.

Keep in mind the following tips when creating an email “blast”:

*Short and sweet

*Don’t overload your email with graphics; many people have them turned off on their email

*Be conscious of what time of day you are sending the blast out at.  Different times of days will affect if your blast is immediately deleted or not.

Lastly, it is important to use a professional company when sending out email blasts.  If you’re going to put a lot of time and effort into this form of advertising, it’s best to use someone who knows what they’re doing so you can maximize the success of your campaign.

When building your company’s first website, it’s important to keep the old KISS in mind…keep it simple stupid.  The reason? The answer:  The economy, of course!

Now, we both know that your company is going to take off with flying colors and sell more products/services than ever…but in today’s lovely unpredictable economy, it’s important that you stay based in reality and not sink all of your money into a website that no one will ever see besides your mother.  It’s of course important to build a website, but remember, websites can always be expanded upon in the future. Build a simple, professional website.  It’s a good base to have.  In the future when you sell a million of those legged blankets, you can have the all-out site that sings and dances and even emits smells from the screen….but for now you don’t need that much!

For your simple website, just make sure you have the basics. The basics would include:

*A clean, attractive homepage

*Working links/navigation throughout the site

*Enough information regarding your company to entice potential clientele

*Contact info

That’s it! That’s all you really need!! Just get your product/company out there and see if you have the stuff to move forward (alright, I know you do, see if people have the intelligence to recognize this…better?).  Once your website takes off and you’re rolling in money, THEN you can shell it out to build the amazing website.  But WAIT until this moment has arrived for you.

DPro has a good program for starting a basic website: BizWebMachine.  It allows for the quick and simple creation of a website that is not necessarily customized to the tee, but rather designed in a general manner allowing for the look and feel of your company but still allowing minimal cost.  In short:  it’s easy to build, but still looks amazing.

Check out one of our BizWebMachine sites:

Valhalla Lodge BizWebMachine Site

Ahh….it’s that time of year again. Nope, it’s not tax season, not Christmas, not the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, but rather the end of football season. I’ve been informed it’s not officially the end until the “All Star” Game, but I still feel a small tinge (ok, fine, maybe a LOT) of excitement when the Super Bowl is finally over. This year, I went and saw “Revolutionary Road” during the game much to the relief of my liver. Anyway. The point of all this babble? The one good thing that football/the Super bowl does have to offer? Commercials. You love them, I love them, we all love them. So, for a nice little break from your monotonous workday- here’s a link to the 10 best and 10 worst commercials of 2009. My personal favorite- The Mr. Potato Head commercial. I actually emitted an “LOL” upon viewing it. So without further delay-

FoxSports.com 10 best/10 worst Super Bowl Commercials 2009

First, let me state the obvious. A website, no matter how beautiful and elaborately designed, doesn’t do anyone one bit of good if no one visits. Next point: With the millions of websites out there (it’s not 1996 anymore people) it’s not easy to make people visit YOUR site. It is tough! So before (or after for you unfortunate souls who didn’t consider this matter before you launched your “awesome” site) you launch your number one site selling the fruit of your loins, you should consider how you’re going to be found in Google. Yes, that’s right, I said Google. Google is the number one site for people who don’t know where they’re headed. But YOU need to know where your site is on Google in order to hope to make back at least a few of those dollars you sank into your website (so it’s not all in vain).

Ok, so let me start by saying that I am not the expert on how to be found in search engines. DPro Marketing (my employer) contains many folk with SEO (you’ll learn later) knowledge, but I am a novice. This makes me the perfect author of this article. This, folks, is SEO vs. PPC for dummies. Written by a novice. Makes sense, right?

Key Words to Know:

Organic/natural SEO: This is the term used to describe the rise of your website in search engines. SEO stands for search engine optimization. Still with me? Hang in there! Basically, Organic SEO as I understand it is your website showing up sooner on search results naturally. That is, versus paying for your website link to show up on the side. Organic/natural SEO is a good thing.

PPC: PPC stands for PPC. This is when you pay for your website to show up on people’s screens when he or she types in certain keywords (of your choosing). So you will rise in the search engines, but not naturally (now you’re getting it…)

SO WHAT?:

So why do you care about this? Well, you obviously want to be in the top of search results if you actually want people to visit your website. So the question is, how do you want to go about being found? PPC can get pricey and tricky, but it does yield guaranteed results (guaranteed in the fact that people will see your link, not that they will buy from you). Organic SEO is harder to achieve, but with inbound links and updating your site frequently to contain more keywords, you can do so. It seems that to achieve Organic SEO, it would be optimal to consult someone who actually knows what they’re doing, but go ahead and knock yourself out if you think you’re that awesome.

Either way, it is important to know the difference between these two search terms, both as a consumer and as a company. Whichever route you decide to take ( I feel as though I would recommend a combination of both), make sure your website is up to par so that when people actually get to the website (however they may get there) they are impressed and want to learn more.

That’s all my wisdom for the day. Surf on people, surf on.

Source: “Organic SEO vs. PPC?” by Kara Ratcliff

 Ahhh…Happy New Year.  I can’t say I’m too sad to see oh eight leaving us, especially with  the continuous decline in the economy (to top it off, I’m in Michigan), and I think we’re all looking forward to oh nine.  A new president will be entering the office and it feels like a fresh start for everyone.  That’s the hope anyway.  Of course, nothing comes easy and the same is going to go for your business.  In order for your business to thrive (or in some cases even just survive) in ‘09, you’re most likely going to need to switch up your marketing techniques.  You’re playing to a different crowd now that everyone is holding onto their money with the death grip.  In order to get your potential customer to part with their hard-earned cash, you’re going to have to make them want it….bad.  It goes without saying that the main place you’re going to need to worry about your marketing techniques is the internet.  So, without further delay, here is an article useful to what will be known as the hardships of ‘09.  Read it, learn it, own it, do it.  And good luck!!
20 Internet Marketing Trends of 2009

One of the most important yet overlooked aspects of marketing is the wording.  What you write does matter.  For many people, how their product/website looks is focused on and perfected to the tee, but when it comes to what their site actually says, it is just quickly slapped together.  This can, and most likely, will hurt your business. Sure, visually your website/brochure needs to draw your customer in, but your words are what actually keeps the customer’s attention.  Some pointers to keep in mind when writing: 

*Avoid the passive voice.  If you don’t remember active vs. passive voice from your days in elementary school- here’s a quick refresher.  In an active voice sentence, the subject is performing an action.  Example:  The dog ate my homework.  On the other hand, in a passive voice sentence, the receiver of the action in an active voice sentence will now become the sentence.  Therefore, the dog ate my homework will become: The homework was eaten (by my dog).  As you can see, the excitement of the passive voice sentence does not even compare to the active voice.  There are times, however, when passive voice is necessary-perhaps when you are trying to deflect blame, because in a passive voice sentence the agent of the action is not a necessity as in active.  Overall, just avoid being passive, ok?

*Vary your sentence structure/words.  No one likes to see the same thing over and over and over and over and over (Ok, you get it) again.  Vary your sentence structure, sentence length, and the words you use.  If you use the phrase “for example” in one paragraph, try “to illustrate” in the next.  Thesauruses are your friend- use them!

*Don’t get too hung up on grammar but know the basics.  The rules of grammar are constantly changing mostly because of the presence of the web.  The internet, instant messaging, emailing, and texting are changing the rules of grammar.  It IS acceptable to use LOL in the right context or the proper medium.  You probably shouldn’t use it in a brochure, but in a blog, it’s perfectly acceptable.  Don’t sweat the small stuff, but do learn the basics.  Example:  their vs. they’re, you’re vs. your, etc.  These will save your life and your business.  If I’m reading  even a blog and someone uses you’re as a possessive, I laugh at them.  Yes, that’s right. I’m that mean.  I can’t even take them seriously after reading that.  Learn the basics but know there are exceptions to the rules with the internet/text/email.

*Avoid the ordinary.  I recently read a story online about a homeless man who had a sign that read “Help me. I’m blind.”   A marketing lady took a marker and changed the sign to read “It’s autumn and I can’t see the leaves change color, please help.”  He made a lot more money panhandling.  So, even though you’re probably not a panhandler on the streets, you are a panhandler in the business world- plan accordingly.

Hope these help- just remember writing is important and to state the obvious:  spellcheck!