Proliferation

Mar 23
0

Content Marketing in the Pre-Internet Era

By | advertising, content marketing | No Comments

Content marketing is the new big thing in online marketing — from billboards to in-your-face pop-up advertising, content marketing is like a breath of fresh air that brings consumers to your business the natural way.

Yet while content marketing is a buzzword currently trendy among businesses from the East Coast to Utah, content marketing has been around longer than you’d think. Let’s take a look at some examples.

John Deere

Back in 1895, agricultural manufacturer John Deere launched its own consumer magazine, known as “The Furrow.” Originally published quarterly in Clarinda, Iowa, “The Furrow” is now available in 12 different languages and 40 different countries around the world, with a consumer reach of 1.5 million people.

Michelin

A mere five years after John Deere’s “The Furrow,” in 1900 tire manufacturer Michelin came out with it’s “The Michelin Guides,” a series of comprehensive guides to automobile maintenance, travel and local restaurants and hotels. Originally distributed for free in France, “The Michelin Guides” expanded into annual releases that covered various different countries.

Jell-O

The next big foray into content marketing in the 20th century came from American gelatin company Jell-O in 1904. Facing low sales, the Jell-O company began door-to-door distribution of free copies of its Jell-O recipe book, featuring creative uses for the gelatin dessert. The recipe book was a smash hit throughout the Midwest and Utah, reaching $1 million in sales by 1906.

Procter & Gamble Co.

Without the Procter & Gamble Co. (P&G) approach to content marketing in the 1930s, we wouldn’t have today’s classic soap operas such as “Days of Our Lives” and “The Young and the Restless.” The P & G company, purveyor of all things household goods, needed a new way to appeal to stay-at-home housewives in Utah and elsewhere. Through the creation of dramatic storylines full of mystery and intrigue, the classic soap opera was born.

Hasbro & Marvel

In 1982, comic book legend Marvel and toy company Hasbro teamed up to create the iconic G.I. Joe comic book. Through cross-channel promotion via both comic books and a television series, G.I. Joe became a household name — and sold an unprecedented amount of merchandise.

While content marketing has come a long way since the turn of the century, the core concepts remain the same. Tailor your branded content in a way that is both relevant for consumers and beneficial for your brand, and people from the East Coast to Utah will be clamoring for your products. For a strategy that has stood the test of time, content marketing is it.

Mar 23
0

Caught on Snapchat: The Newest Trend in Advertising

By | advertising, Snapchat, Social Media | No Comments

Snapchat is the fun quick way to send videos and pictures to friends without having the worry of people looking at your craziness for too long. Now many companies like McDonalds and Taco Bell, along with other successful marketing and advertising agencies, are moving some of their advertising over to the popular app.

Finding What People Are Looking For
Snapchat is easy, it’s fun, it’s quick and that’s what people are looking for. Snapchat allows marketing agencies in Utah as well as around the world to put a short fun video up, showing just how diverse their company is. The user, if they don’t want to watch the whole thing, can see the name quickly and move on to their next photo. The image may have been quick, but it was memorable.

Snapchat Discover
Snapchat recently added a new way of seeing news and other ads with Snapchat Discover. Different from regular Snapchat, Discover lets the marketing companies be front and center, instead of fighting for space — like on Facebook or Twitter. Discover allows for graphics, text overlays, animation and sound. Discover uses unique channels for different publishers. Advertisers can have their own place where they can market to those using the Discover feature.

Know Your Audience
Snapchat is a social media platform for people who want a quick idea of what their friends are doing, and Snapchat makes that possible with videos and images that last for a short time. One thing you will want to look at is how are you going to get your message across quickly and with flare. Doing ads with flare, color and humor will help make your company feel more approachable. Remember, the people who use Snapchat are in a younger generation and want something fun — not long and drawn out.

Overall, to make sure your advertising is effective, especially to the Snapchat users here in Utah, make an advertisement that can represent your company at a glance in a fun and effective way.

Mar 22
0

Facebook’s New Lift API Will Be a Welcome Help to Marketers

By | advertising, Facebook, Social Media | No Comments

In an effort to help get more marketing companies on Facebook and to help promote their companies, Facebook debuted the Lift API, a way that will help advertising agencies find out who is looking at their client’s advertisements and create studies to help boost sales and awareness.

The program was announced in January of 2015, and since then has had over 1,000 businesses using the program. Facebook is also testing new ways that will help advertising agencies understand which ads people saw or clicked on the most or least. This helps businesses know which products are going to be a better sell, and help marketing companies know which products to push.

What Does It Do?
Lift API helps companies keep track of who is looking at the companies and what demographic is interested in the product. It will let marketing companies, advertising agencies, the Facebook partners and other third party partners create their own life studies for conversion rates. Kind of a creepy way of letting people that you don’t know know what you want, but this will help companies know what you want to see.

Social Media Benefits
Other social media platforms besides Facebook have helped marketing companies and advertising agencies reach out to the consumer directly. Facebook helps focus on engagement with the consumer, by studying “likes” and views. Social media creates a loyalty to the business directly with likes and follows. Advertising agencies can also post direct content and updated content on social media, helping the consumer be up to date on what is happening within the company.

Advertising on social media is very inexpensive, and has become a popular way to share information. Facebook makes things easier for marketing companies and advertising agencies, and with Lift API, they’re making it easier to help businesses grow.

Mar 09
0

The Most Iconic Brand Logos in History

By | advertising, Design | No Comments

Nothing helps to solidify a brand’s place in history like a great logo. A great logo is clean, simple, and above all instantly recognizable. Any marketing agencies and designers can easily create a flat-color logo with a simple shape and clean lines, but what contributes to a brand logo’s overall staying power? A good logo should not only be aesthetically appealing and universally applicable, it should also accurately represent the company mission.

Logo design has changed significantly over the years, yet only a select few logos have stood the test of time. From legendary 20th Century designers such as Paul Rand, Milton Glasser & Saul Bass to up-and-coming graphic design firms, here are the most iconic logos in history.

Iconic-Brand-Logos

Mar 08
0

Communicating Brand Message Via Influencer Marketing

By | advertising, marketing | No Comments

In a nutshell, influencer marketing is a specific type of marketing that focuses heavily on utilizing key industry leaders to convey a brand’s message to a sizable market. While traditional companies focus on reaching a target audience through direct means, marketing companies that employ an influencer-based approach either hire, pay or motivate influencers to spread the word about a brand, product or service to the general public — both online and offline.

Influencer Campaigns Thrive with Social Media, Content Marketing

Influencer marketing requires a couple of different types of marketing support to be successful. Almost every influencer campaign employs two additional advertising tactics: social media marketing and content marketing. Because most legitimate marketing companies should already have a solid grasp on both these areas (and if they don’t, you should seriously question their capabilities), incorporating influencer marketing tactics is more of a natural next step than it is a step in a different direction.

Influencer Marketing Isn’t Word-of-Mouth

Don’t be fooled; influencer campaigns are not the same as word-of-mouth campaigns, although the two can be (and are often) used interchangeably. Most marketing companies who employ influencer-heavy tactics almost certainly utilize word-of-mouth communication channels to spread positive information about particular brands, messaging and product popularity. How influencer campaigns differ, however, is that they designate a key person or correspondent to leverage their status, influence and connections to create buzz for a product, service or idea.

Using Influence, Connections and Status to Target Audiences

This type of non-traditional marketing uses a set of unique building blocks to create successful campaigns. Aside from identifying the initial influencers for the designated product, brand or service, influencer marketing goes one step further by creating a campaign that directly and aggressively targets specified audiences within an influencer’s direct reach. It’s essential for influencer campaigns to conclude with thorough, conclusive metrics tallying the reach and sales for the sum of the campaign. Based on how successful or unsuccessful this data may be, future influencer campaigns may change accordingly.

Mar 07
0

Why Can’t Spotify Win the Advertising Battle?

By | advertising, Audio, commercials | No Comments

It’s not news — or at least new news — that Spotify ads have a relatively solid anti-fan base online. With 20 million paying subscribers in 2015 alone, there are bound to be some rankled or slightly irritated users — but why? Why do Spotify ads in particular seem to have a dedicated hate-following online, versus similar (albeit slightly different) music platforms such as Pandora or Songza?

After briefly browsing through some of the user reviews online, it appears that there are at least a couple of things Spotify is getting wrong in its advertising department. And with more than enough advertising agencies willing to weigh in and fix the problem, there’s no reason why the music platform shouldn’t be stepping up its advertising game.

The Ads Clash with the Listening Experience

Although it’s nice that Spotify offers a free, ad-supported version of its music services, this doesn’t mean there aren’t strings attached to the listening experience. Most advertising agencies attempt to curate their ads to fit the general tastes of the product or services’ target audience; however, it appears (from a user’s perspective) that Spotify attempts none of this. The result? Misplaced, erratic ads that ruin the listener’s vibe. In addition to feeling irritated, most users express vehemence at having their workout routine mix interrupted by an ad for Trojan brand condoms.

There Are Too Many Consecutive Ads

If the ad content wasn’t annoying enough, another factor of the Spotify ad problem involves the amount of ads that are played between songs. While other music platforms such as Pandora may play one or two ads between songs, Spotify will play multiple ads that successively aggravate the listener. Most advertising agencies do not endorse this kind of approach.

Encouraging Listeners to Upgrade to Premium

If Spotify’s intention with its ads is to encourage listeners to upgrade to the ad-free Premium version, it would probably behoove them to start by building a more favorable fan base. The duality of Spotify is that while its services are awesome — and almost a necessity — their ads are isolating listeners and causing what might become an irreversible schism among music enthusiasts everywhere.

Mar 02
0

Content Marketing: Fact Vs. Fiction

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, marketing | No Comments

Content marketing is easy, right? All you have to do is write a couple of blog posts, choose a few stock photos and call it a day, right? Wrong. From Utah through the Midwest, there are a plethora of myths surrounding how content marketing works. Some of the key attributes of this niche marketing genre require client to consumer trust, strategic brand investment and a healthy relationship with social media outlets.

Whether you’re believe old wives’ tales about re-spinning content or buying into the idea that marketing and advertising are one and the same, here’s the real scoop on fact, fiction and theory when it comes to content marketing.

Content-Marketing-Fact-Fiction

Mar 01
0

Inside the Beautiful Mind of a Content Marketer

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, marketing | No Comments


The occupation of content marketing is uniquely different from other marketing occupations. Throughout Utah to the Midwest, the creative job description of a professional content marketer requires the mind of an artist coupled with the writing style of a reporter. By perpetually trying to think outside of the box, the content marketer must not only possess a keen sense of wit, but he or she must simultaneously be mentally organized and innovative.

As artists who are as passionate about AP Style as they are about the Oxford Comma (or lack thereof), finding a great content writer requires a unique simulation of particularly-curated character qualities. Here’s the breakdown on what makes or breaks a good content marketer.

fusion_contentbrain

Feb 26
0

A Guide to Guest Blogging

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, marketing, Uncategorized | No Comments

Although the term “guest blogging” might seem like an axiomatic statement, in reality, there’s quite a bit to it. Before you attempt to reach out to a blog with the hopes of guest blogging, it’s essential that you find out how guest blogging can benefit your content marketing campaign, whether you’re in Utah or the Midwest. Spend some time getting to know the blog and the blog’s content — this will give you the most accurate feel for audience and tone.

After you’ve successfully determined the tone of your target audience, you’re ready to craft a post. Here’s the rundown on everything you need to know about creating a stellar guest blog post.

fusion_guestblog

Feb 25
0

Landing Page Essentials

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, marketing, web development | No Comments

The landing page of your website is so much more than just a place where end users go to learn more about your products and services — it’s also where they make a first impression of your company or business. There’s a specific science behind what makes a successful landing page and what might cause people to bounce from your site faster than a fifth-grade game of dodgeball. If you’re attempting to pursue any type of content marketing campaign — whether you’re in Utah or the Midwest — there are a few key components you should know about landing page content and layout.

From an attention-grabbing headline to straightforward design basics, here are a few tricks and tips to help you achieve a landing page that simultaneously attracts positive attention while decreasing your bounce rate.

fusion_landingpg