Balancing Traditional and Digital – A Marriage Made in Marketing Heaven
You may have read that studies show people do business with those they know, like, and trust – We believe this is true. We see how top salespeople go out of their way to inform their customers and work tirelessly to make them like and trust them.
Even if what you offer is one-of-a-kind and your customers must have it, you still need to make sure your potential customers know you, like you, and trust you enough to part with their money and give it to you.
The problem is, salespeople often spend a lot of time with very limited resources (skills, tools, and money) to pursue those activities, which takes them away from what they do best – closing deals!
The marketing discipline, on the other hand, is ideally suited to systematically build “know, like, and trust”. Marketing professionals have the right tools to inform potential customers about your offering’s features and benefits. Marketers have techniques to develop brand preference, and we have the means to create trust.
Marketing activities, on several fronts, can handle the heavy lifting of provoking thoughts and educating potential customers, reassuring them that your brand and offerings are the right ones, and helping convince them you are the right company to do business with.
Everyone in your organization must participate in these activities at some capacity, but the responsibility, strategy, and coordination must be in the hands of professional marketers.
At Fractional CMO & Marketing we engage in these activities every day for all of our clients. Call us, and we’ll be happy to discuss your particular situation and needs without any obligations on your part.
Duke Merhavy, MBA, Ph.D.
President & Chief Marketing Officer
What Is Fractional CMO & Marketing?
Fractional CMO & Marketing is ‘Your Smart Marketing Formula’ when you need expert marketing leadership and marketing services to accelerate growth and improve profitability, but you’re not quite ready to hire a full-time Chief Marketing Officer or your own marketing department Our unique arrangement is the most efficient, innovative, and cost-effective formula for you. Click on the image on the right to watch a short video.
Three Things You Don’t Know About Pinterest But Should
In the past ten years, you may have heard an increasing amount of buzz surrounding the platform Pinterest. So, what is Pinterest all about?
Pinterest is a web and application platform that allows users to populate curated ‘boards’ named after specific subjects of interest, and then ‘pin’ related images, articles, and links on those boards. Similar to a digital bulletin board, Pinterest users can organize their passions into categories, allowing them to come back to the content later on for inspiration. The platform is widely image-based, as users see the images of the pins before they see the actual links. This makes it imperative for those creating new pins to make sure their photos are high quality and eye-catching.
Popular boards on Pinterest include recipes and wedding inspiration but can expand to include a much wider variety of subjects such as fashion, career tips, and literature. Pinterest is often utilized via personal accounts, but can also be turned into business accounts, a setting Pinterest offers to help businesses create a following on the platform. Pinterest is not just for moms and millennials; it can be used by anyone to share ideas and content quickly!
The following are some things you might not know about Pinterest:
1. Promoting on Pinterest can be free
Pinterest is not really social media but should be part of your organization’s social media strategy. Sure, individuals and businesses post pictures that can be liked, commented on, and shared (‘repinned’) like traditional social media, but that does not confine or define Pinterest’s abilities. Pinterest is also a potent search engine and free promotional platform! On the over three billion boards containing over 175 billion pins, you can find and post pins about nearly any topic imaginable. Business users have learned to leverage this community in order to showcase their products without paying a single cent in advertising to Pinterest! In fact, an impressive 78% of Pinterest users believe content from brands is useful. This is excellent news for businesses because it means that users have a higher chance of looking at their pins and interacting with them. By creating their own pins, business users have been able to quickly and inexpensively reach a large number of individuals and groups who are interested in topics related to their business.
2. Pinterest reaches millions of people
Pinterest boasts over 291 million monthly active users worldwide, and about 42% of those users (125 million) are in the United States. For comparison, the most widely used social media platform is Facebook, which has 2.375 billion monthly active users worldwide, and less than 9% (or 210 million) are U.S. based. For businesses looking to reach more U.S. customers as well as those considering global expansion (80% of new Pinterest signups are from outside the U.S.), Pinterest is a great tool to utilize. Also, Pinterest is not just targeted at women! While 80% of Pinterest users are female, the platform’s male user count has increased from 14% to 20% between 2013 and 2019, and there’s no indication of a slowdown in the future.
3. Lots of businesses are already using Pinterest
Companies in every industry are using Pinterest to leverage their online strategy. Pinterest does provide paid advertising options, which can be helpful, but you can easily test out how Pinterest advertising works for free by simply by creating your boards and posting your pins, as well as learning Pinterest’s unique SEO algorithms. In addition, Pinterest, unlike Instagram, allows you to add a URL directly to your pins. You could choose to add the URL to your company’s website, a landing page for a particular promotion, your email list signup, or your YouTube channel in order to drive traffic where you want it to go.
Many people think Pinterest’s fame is behind them and are therefore not utilizing its full potential, however, the platform is still very much thriving and has the potential to revolutionize your business’ social media marketing strategy.
Next month, we’ll outline more specifics on how to leverage Pinterest for your business’ online platform strategy.
If you’re interested in having Fractional CMO & Marketing help with your social media strategy and implementation, please contact us at 888-412-2236.
Have a Coke and a Smile: Uniting the world through word of mouth promotion
By Polly Stroup, Editor and Copywriter
From its start, Coca Cola has mastered the art of word of mouth promotion. In fact, the company prides itself at “planting” hard to resist smile-inducing props and spreading messages of goodwill and unity. While, at the same time promoting their product.
It’s human nature to seek out goodwill! In 2012, the Coca Cola company installed “Happiness Machines” around the world. In exchange for hugging the machine, dancing or performing other antics customers could get a free ice-cold coke.
Being a college freshman isn’t easy! The Coca-Cola “Friendly Twist” bottle was introduced the first day of school at the University of Columbia in Bogota. The bottles were fitted with specially designed, interlocking caps that can only be twisted open by a matching top. After reaching into a cooler and pulling out what appeared to be a regular bottle of Coca-Cola, the students realized they needed to first make a new friend before enjoying the ice-cold beverage. This whole process not only promoted conversation and goodwill, word organically spread to families, friends, and basically every news outlet craving a “feel-good” story, putting the soft drink at the top of everyone’s wish list!
More recently, the clever “Share a Coke” campaign revolved around Coca Cola bottles with common names (i.e. “John”, “Sarah”) printed on the labels. The personalized labels encouraged consumers to “Share a Coke” with a friend or relative of that name. To take the campaign a step further, Coke created a hashtag. Word of the special bottles exploded on social media as consumers snapped thousands of pictures with/of their bottles of Coke.
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