Local marketing solutions for national brands

Dish Network’s Auto Hop Erases Commercials and Ad Revenue

John Sullivan, CEO — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:26:33 +0000

Just when you think you’ve modified your advertising and marketing strategy to adjust for all of the changes in technology and consumer behavior, something else comes along that could change everything, again. Well, Dish Network is dishing out a major disrupter to television advertising, it’s called Auto Hop.

According to this article on NewYorkTimes.com Auto Hop will record TV programs and allow you to skip the commercials when you play them back. The benefit to the consumer is obvious and the disadvantage to advertisers is devastating.

From the article,

James L. McQuivey, a vice president and analyst for Forrester Research, said that “with Dish’s aggressive move to please the end customer rather than advertisers, it’s clear that in the fight for TV revenue the gloves have finally come off.” He continued: “The fact that Dish would be willing to anger some of its most important content partners just goes to show how desperate these times we live in really are.”

The desperation stems from the persistent fear that subscribers will forgo paying for television service and turn to Internet alternatives instead. A feature like Auto Hop is a drastic step “to keep consumers interested,” Mr. McQuivey asserted.

Not surprisingly broadcasters and advertisers are going to fight this in court, so don’t change your strategy just yet.

Let Your Dealers Help You Go Local Social

John Sullivan, CEO — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:30:05 +0000

There is a lot of interest recently in whether or not advertisers will flock to Facebook in the coming years to make them worth their current market valuation.

BIA/Kelsey thinks that advertisers will spend more on social in the coming years as they are referenced in a recent blog post at MarketingCharts.com

US social media advertising revenues will increase from $3.8 billion in 2011 to $4.8 billion this year, and then more than double to $9.8 billion in 2016,details BIA/Kelsey in a May 2012 forecast.

They further go on to predict that a good share of the social media budgets will be spent on local as shown in the chart above.

One of the major challenges for a national advertiser to develop a local social program is how labor intensive it can be to customize, place and monitor brand messages in so many places. A smart solution is to enlist the help of your independent dealers who are looking for things to post on their social tabs, walls and pages.

A modern ad builder portal is loaded with brand content suited for social sites, ready to be customized by the dealer and when hosted by the portal, tracking and monitoring the success and content is automatic. Make these microsites 100% co-opable and you’ve extended your reach into social without any additional labor costs and at the expense of local newspaper advertising which has lost much of its value over the last several years.

That’s the smart way to go local social.

Mobile Search is Like Mind Reading

John Sullivan, CEO — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:30:13 +0000

Target marketing used to mean sending a direct mail postcard to households of a certain income level that were close to one of your best retailers. We’ve come a long way since then. Now, we can almost can get into a consumer’s mind as they use their smartphone to search for a product.

I’ve seen these statistics many times but I borrowed this intersting graphic from a post on MarketingSherpa.com

These are amazing numbers as 68% of smartphone users will visit a nearby store after searching for a product or retailer from their smartphone. 32% will purchase in a nearby store.

So now you can use mobile ads to promote to a consumer who is thinking about buying one of your products and is standing or driving within close proximity to one of your best dealers. That’s really targeted marketing.

The best way to take advantage of this technology is to add the ability for your retailers to build mobile ads and corresponding mobile landing pages in your ad builder. Our system also hosts the landing pages so you can track the results and make it much easier to approve mobile ads for co-op reimbursement.

Mobile is much cheaper, better and faster than what we considered as targeted marking just a few short years ago.

The Internet Makes Local Marketing Much More Challenging

John Sullivan, CEO — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:54:42 +0000

The Internet has made and continues to make a big difference in the way consumers research and buy products. It’s always difficult to explain the magnitude of what is happening, especially on the local level. I ran across this graphic from a blog post at Screenwerk.com and thought it was worth sharing.

The author, Greg Sterling takes credit for the pretzel image but attributes the concept and words to Walt Doyle, the former CEO of WHERE and now the head of PayPal’s Media Network.

As Doyle said in his post announcing the re-branding of Where Ads as the PayPal Media Network:

A consumer may begin their purchase journey in a store, on a phone, at their desktop, or on a tablet, then engage with the same brand or product across a multitude of different mediums and devices to discover, research, price check, etc. . . The boundaries between the physical and digital world have disappeared and the purchase funnel has become a purchase pretzel! No longer is there e-commerce, offline commerce, m-commerce – there is simply commerce

Remember when all you needed to describe the purchase process was a funnel? The pretzel is a much better image to describe the way it happens today.

Now think about retail advertising and merging your local dealer’s message with your brand message. Providing customization for newspaper ads and radio spots in your marketing portal for dealers just isn’t enough anymore. You need a local digital strategy and the tools to let retailers build landing pages, Facebook tabs, banner ads, e-promo pages and more to reach today’s consumer.

The good news is that the technology is here now that can address the pretzel path to a sale and the ROI is much better than traditional media. The real challenge is to admit that you have to change and then spend the time to think through the process. The sooner you start the better.

Tablet Computers Aren’t As Mobile As You May Think

John Sullivan, CEO — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:43:48 +0000

Local marketing in the digital age is constantly changing for the better and simultaneously getting more confusing. What you thought was true yesterday may not be true today. As a case in point, there is a recent study out that shows that consumers use their tablet computer in the home 74% of the time. Yesterday we were relating tablet computers to smartphones, in that they were both considered to be mobile devices.

Now, should we be thinking of tablet computers as a replacement for laptops in the home?

This chart shows where in the home consumers are likely to use their tablet computers. The surprise for me here is the use in the home office. Could it be that tablets, with a keyboard, are replacing the desktop or laptop computer?

Hopefully there will be more studies to follow and we’ll get a better idea on how tablet computers are being used.

This is important as we build, host and maintain local landing pages and microsites for retailers. We not only have to be thinking of building landing pages and microsites for computers and smartphones but also flex the site to fit the 7″ tablet screen as well.

The good news is that we can build brand compliant landing pages customized by the dealer in a way that will fit all of the screens a consumer is likely to see them on. In fact, as a brand you have to address these kind of issues because there is no way your independent retailers are going to be able to keep up with all of these changes.

Local marketing is getting much more effective, you just can’t rest on your laurels.

Mobile Search is the New Google

John Sullivan, CEO — Fri, 04 May 2012 09:35:56 +0000

Local advertising is changing from traditional media to digital, from offline to online. Well here is an interesting chart from BIA/Kelsey that shows a dramatic shift within the dramatic shift to online.

The number of mobile searches is going to surpass the number of searches done from desktop computers by 2015 and keep rising from there.

There are lots of reasons for this happening. Among them is the increase in smartphone ownership and the explosion that is taking place in the number of tablet computers consumers are now using.

The web is becoming mostly mobile and when it’s mobile we have a better idea of where the consumer is when they search for a product, brand, product category or dealer. So now, with the help of Google, we will be able to associate ads with consumers who are near a specific dealer looking for the dealer, our brand or product category.

It’s like being able to whisper in the ear of a consumer who we know is thinking about buying our product category. ” Hey our product is only two miles away and on sale, here’s a map.” Now, that is efficient.

We used to say that Google was the new Yellow Pages, now we can say Google Mobile is the new Google.

You should already be allowing your dealers to build and you host mobile landing pages in your ad builder.

Printed Yellow Pages are Green?

John Sullivan, CEO — Wed, 02 May 2012 09:02:17 +0000

I think most of us are way past the loss of value of the printed Yellow Pages, as many of our clients don’t even co-op them anymore. Consumers have simply moved online to find out information about local outlets for their favorite products.

So I was really fascinated to read about how Green the printed Yellow Pages have become from this report from The Local Search Association (formerly the YPA).

The point they are making is that since 2007 they have reduced the amount of paper used in printing the Yellow Pages because of better printing techniques, thinner paper and the real big reason, many of the printed Yellow Page directories have gone out of business.

Taking lemons and making lemonade they make the point that by reducing the number of printed pages they are a very green industry. Say what?

They even go on to say that by comparison to the energy that it takes to run the internet and the poor recycling methods for electronic devices such as computers, tablets and smartphones, the printed Yellow Pages are a much greener alternative to using the internet.

Of course, they post their research online.

Google + Going -

John Sullivan, CEO — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:24:40 +0000

Social media should be a big part of your retail advertising strategy. When used in conjunction with your local retailers, it’s free and effective, that’s as good as it gets.

Providing tools in your marcom portal for dealers to post your content on their Facebook page is a must.

Once you have your Facebook execution under control, then take a look at Google +. While Facebook’s growth rate is slowing, according to this chart from a Bloomberg study, Google + usage is going down.

Google + had a great advantage when it launched simply because it was Google and already had great market penetration for its services. Instant success but since then the Circles idea hasn’t caught on like they hoped and user time on Google + has been steadily declining.

Never count Google out because they will adapt. However, get Facebook right first and then think about Google +

Mom’s and Mobile Go Hand in Hand

John Sullivan, CEO — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:34:27 +0000

Winning the last three feet at retail has always been a difficult challenge for marketers. Things maybe getting more exciting according to this report from BabyCenter.

This shows some dramatic growth from last year to this year in the percentage of mothers who use their smartphone or tablet while shopping, and how they use it.

On the bad side for marketers, your best printed point of sale piece may not hold a candle to the streaming video a mother may be watching on her cell phone about your competitor’s product.

The good news is that your competitor isn’t streaming great video on a mobile site yet for consumers, so there is still time to offer your retailers a mobile site that is loaded with great brand content and the local retailers compelling reasons to buy.

Do it right, mom’s watching.

Newspapers Not Keeping Pace with Digital Revenue

John Sullivan, CEO — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:05:38 +0000

Things are already bad enough at your local newspaper’s office with subscriptions continuing to fall and the print ad revenue falling right along with it. Now from a blog post at Newsosaur, we see that newspapers aren’t keeping up with the growth in digital advertising.

All along the idea has been that local newspapers could offset the fall in print advertising revenue by selling more digital advertising.

The numbers so far don’t add up, as the drop in print is greatly outpacing the growth in digital. And the graph above puts it even greater perspective as it compares the overall growth rate for digital revenue with the growth rate for digital at newspapers.

To be fair, it would almost be impossible for a newspaper to keep pace, as a percentage of growth, because every year there are so many new ways to advertise digitally, think Groupon. However, not counting percentages, the dollar amount increase in revenue for newspapers is pretty bland and certainly doesn’t make anyone feel good about their long term survival in print and or digital.

If you have a five year strategy for local advertising, make sure you’re not counting to heavily on local newspapers to carry your message to consumers in print or online.