Category Archives: branding

Who is the audience?

My friend Richard recently posted this on his Facebook page with a link to the You Tube video of a Snickers commercial: I’m a twix man myself, but full marks to the creative team behind this one. However, watching it again, I’m not entirely sure who the target demographic is. Is it college aged men (who likely have no idea who Aretha and Liza are), or is it boomers (who know who the Divas are and are nolstalgic for their carefree road trip undergraduate years note that the car is a late ’80s era Volvo)… or is it Gen Xers like me who fall in between, repost the ad, ponder its significance online and… oh shit the bastards nailed me again!!! Just when I thought I was impervious to even their best efforts, those sneaky marketers co-opt me again and make me an accomplice.

So, who exactly is the audience? And, is it the pinnacle of marketing when people tweet, retweet, blog and otherwise post about your commercial or product? Not if the reason people are talking about it because they have no idea who it is for. If the intention of the marketers was to throw in so many different cultural references that people talk about it because they are confused, the exercise has failed. Do we relate to the references? Does the commercial inspire us to buy the product or interact with the brand?

I’m one of those people who “isn’t myself when I’m hungry” – I get it. But the next time I’m bordering on a diva moment because of hunger, am I going to reach for a Snickers? Not likely.

SEO – keyword thinking

No doubt, the most important part of your web site is what it says to the human visitor. However, when you write your site with SEO in mind you should evolve a keyword mindset: Humans categorize and we use keyword concepts to make sense of the world and the web.

Keywords are also the driving force in search engines. That’s why in addition to weaving these important words and phrases throughout your web site, you need to ensure that the coding aspects of the site are considered.

Here’s the source code view of my web site (if you click on the image you can see it larger)  at www.strategicmoves.ca. Note the underlined elements:
– Description and Keyword meta tags
– Title tag
– Image alt tags
These tags exist in code only and should support your actual content. They are useful in ensuring search engines interpret your site correctly.

Consider this question: how do you make keyword thinking an integral part of web development?

For instance, do you task your creative writing team and technical web team with creating these tags as each new page is written? Who writes your description, keyword, image tags- your writer or the developer? Who determines the title tag – and are they in tune with your brand strategy?

I always recommend that the writing and web teams work closely together from the outset and involve the client to ensure the best results for the users. I say for the user because SEO is about users and positioning yourself effectively in the content of search engines.

SEO goes beyond search engines

This is a snip from my Facebook page: A colleague posted my new website to their feed. The text used to describe my site comes from my site’s description meta tag. It’s a concise positioning statement. These words do not appear anywhere on my web site other than in code. However, being written for people my home page  does present my consulting business in 4 paragraphs that expand and explain this positioning further.

SEO: write for people, code for search engines

One way to get search engine optimization right is to think of SEO from the earliest stage of conception of a web site, or a web page. That means you’ll write the site for people and you’ll construct the code for search engines.

Writing for people includes

  • Starting with your keyword list
  • Using your most important keywords, rather than many variants, in title tags, urls, page’s description tag, headings, and body text
  • Be authentic and trustworthy
Construct code for search engines
  • Heed the power of the url
  • Create the most important Meta tags; title tag, description tag, keyword tag
  • Create image tags for each image on your site (this is also a good accessibility guideline)

You can optimize every page on your web site. If you have 40 pages that’s easier than if you have 40,000 pages. Simply triage the needs for improvement and invest where you’ll see the biggest return on your investment: for instance, home page, secondary landing pages, or key sections. 

New content should simply be conceived with these simple SEO concepts in mind, rather than be retrofitted later.

Telemarketing – a field guide

As I got the fourth phone call in a week from a telecommunications company wanting me to switch or upgrade, I sighed with frustration. As someone who has managed telemarketing campaigns, and who has benefited from excellent service calls, I know that telemarketing can be positive and profitable – in terms of sales and in terms of enhancing the relationship between company and customers.

So why are telemarketing calls so annoying?

1 – the caller doesn’t know who I am or the relationship I have with the organization. Seriously – how does Rogers, who owns Fido, not know that I have cell phone service with Fido? How is it that my fairly simple name get mispronounced almost every time?

Companies track purchase behaviour and a multitude of other details about their clients. Phonetic pronunciation of names and tracking the comments of the customer are absolute requirements for any company undertaking telemarketing. Please acknowledge that I do business with you and that it’s valued.

2 – the caller isn’t offering something relevant to me. Why switch phone service when the costs and services are identical? Want me to change to your service? Offer something significantly better than what I currently have. Why did you think I’d want tickets to the circus? Is my name from a list of people who have supported a particular charity or are you cold calling from the phone book?

3 – the caller doesn’t know the details of what they are offering. So I am interested in getting a subscription to the dance series. Is that ballet in tutus or contemporary dress? The caller had no idea.

Callers need to know as many details of the business as possible and know how to quickly find answers to customer questions. Small details really do make or break the deal.

4 – the caller doesn’t ask me anything about my experience with the company. I don’t want to listen about you – I want to talk about me and how I experience your company. Callers representing the company are contacting current and potential clients – it’s an amazing opportunity to advocate for the company and collect quick feedback on brand awareness and customer satisfaction.

Telemarketing is as much a Public Relations activity as a Sales activity. Use it wisely to carefully promote your message and collect important information from your customer base.

Intrinsic connections: SEO and Brand

In my recent SEO seminar I put search engine optimization firmly in the context of branding and building customer relationships. My premise:

  • Web users want: what they want, when they are ready, wherever they are, and in just the way they want it 
  • People don’t want to ‘search’, they want to ‘find’, so SEO must foster user-centred and brand-oriented keyword thinking and writing

Online Channels are about: Dialogue and Conversation

  • They work because of: Relevance and Timeliness
  • They demand: Authenticity

In that sense then, brand matters. Because trust can be won and lost in an instant. And search engines are often the first encounter a web user has with your brand; they might also be the last encounter when web users choose another listing over yours.

I used a simple three step process to explain the importance of SEO from a brand point of view.

  1. Search for company name, or important keyword relating to your company in a search engine (do this with the top 3 search engines and note the differences): What does the listing say? Is the headline and short description search engines use understandable and a meaningful communication about your brand? Does it leave the right impression?
  2. Look at your company’s homepage: Identify where each engine is getting the information it shows from? Typically search engines use title tags – that’s the text that shows up in the browser’s tab – and either words appearing on the site or the description meta tag, if you have one set up.
  3.  Title tags and meta tags: Anyone can, you included, look at the source code of your web site. Most likely its in a menu drop down like “View – Source”. Or look for developer in the page icon drop down. Title and meta tags should be easily found at the top of the page for each of your web pages.

This may well be the first step to making improvements to your web presence that are championed beyond the confines of the web team, or maybe the web and marketing teams.

Because, SEO is a way to ensure your brand is effectively communicated. It is also a way to be found by the right people in the online environment.

Thoughts on Making Buying Decisions

Some purchases we make require very little critical thinking – and some that would benefit from weighing options more carefully are made using overrides. (“I want it”, “my neighbour has it already”). Some purchases receive a great amount of attention – often those that cost a lot of money, but not always.

One way to think about performing arts marketing is that we endeavour to recruit buyers who are willing to use convenient overrides so that they subscribe year after year, regardless of the specifics of the programming or other aspects of the overall customer experience.

This is important because arguably purchasing several live performing arts events in a single transaction (subscription) has significant implications for the buyer: time commitments, long terms planning and their financial capacity to pay in advance.

What are the circumstances required for someone to make a complex purchase in a mostly automatic fashion? And is it realistic with emerging audiences or is that a model of a time that is coming to an end?