Super Digi-Bowl I, Small Business Video Challenge

Super Bowl kicks off in 19 days with the first outdoor, cold-weather super bowl in New Jersey. Super Bowl XLVIII will also be the first time two states, New York and New Jersey, proudly co-host the game. A 47 year tradition of NFC and AFC rivalry, Super Bowl has opened the doors to quite a few American “largest” facts including:

● Second day of highest U.S. food consumption

● Most watch television broadcast

● Most expensive commercial airtime

According to USA Today, FOX is charging around $4 million for 30 seconds of commercial time and that does not include production costs. For many small businesses, spending that much money for 30 seconds is unthinkable. Yet for companies like Coca-Cola, millions of consumers watching and the social media buzz is worth it. Small businesses are also looking to create buzz and what better way to do this than social media? So let the games begin!

Affinity Express welcomes you to the first “Small Business Digi-Bowl!” Submit  your 15-30 second commercials for your company to Affinity Express by kick-off on Super Bowl Sunday, February 2nd  and watch as we air them beginning February 10th on our NEW website and social media sites including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. You can earn the title of “Digi-Bowl Champ” and/or “Fan Favorite.”

Producing films can be done at very low cost and even from your cell phone. Here are a few tips to get you started:

        ● Get close and shoot horizontally

        ● 5 Tips for Creating Video

        ● Make Marketing Videos with your iPhone

Best of luck and we can’t wait to see what you share!

2013: The Year of Digital Brands

Sometimes I ask myself if “Digital” is a type of media or is it a congruence of all media. In the past, we would paint on canvases, shoot and store photos on film and listen to music on records. Now “digital” brings all these capabilities together and merges them to appeal to all senses. It allows you to see videos, read case studies and watch product demos, listen to songs, informative webinars and podcasts as well as touch to explore, interact and share your views across the globe. And as far as the customers are concerned, when they want something, they want it personalized, and they want it right away. Only the online environment can meet these kinds of demands.

Many of us realized the importance and started exploring the full potential of digital. While Standard Media Index (SMI) recorded a rise of 4% in U.S. ad spending during the first two months of 2013 versus the same period in 2012, digital spending (including online display, video, search, social, mobile, email, etc.), accounts for the second-biggest share of media spending, representing more than a fifth (21.7%) of the buys made by the major agencies. As a category, digital media buys expanded 16% during the first two months, led by a 12% increase in premium display, a 6% gain in search and a 23% surge on ad networks.

Marketers are increasingly investing a greater chunk of their marketing budget in digital because it includes better metrics, targeted outreach and the ability to connect with consumers in their comfort zone. But another factor is also working in digital’s favor: savings.

As overall marketing budgets increase by an average of 6%, as researched by Gartner, much of the increase in digital spending will come from marketers reinvesting cost savings. When asked how they were funding their digital marketing programs, 41% answered that they were saving money by replacing traditional tactics with digital tactics and that this savings was funding further investment. Another 28% responded that they decreased traditional marketing budgets to free up funds for digital.

However, an even more intriguing trend is the role brands are playing online by investing in building and nurturing their digital identities to have a much wider reach in the virtual world than the physical world. Here are some important steps being taken:

• Creating and sharing great content: Companies are building digital content that becomes the driver of audience engagement and eventually revenue opportunities. Successful online marketers begin by understanding what can capture their target customers’ attention and then weaving in good stories and content that viewers will want to share. Red Bull is one of the brands that used this tactic successfully with their “death defying jump.”

Great content also has a spin-off effect. Successful content marketing experts use COPE: Create Once, Publish Everywhere. While this suggests content should be pushed out on multiple platforms, it also means that content which might not be valuable to one audience in its current form, such as a press release about a senior member joining a company, can be spun into an interesting blog post, which shares the person’s vision, experiences and take on industry trends that many readers may find informative.

• Using social media to extend brand reach: Another big step for brands is going all out and embracing social media to extend their reach. This is a wonderful vehicle that helps in spreading news, creating awareness and providing an environment for meaningful two-way dialogues with target audiences.

A good example was this year’s London Fashion Week, which used digital technology and social media to reach out to the growing segment of shoppers. More than 21 shows at the fashion event were broadcast live on the LFW YouTube channel, of which 60% were live-streamed to the LFW website. Brands, publications and designers used social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to share their experiences of fashion week. Participants on Pinterest created a photographic diary of brands and fashion magazines, designers and celebrities; giving the equivalent of “VIP” access to the shows. Twitter trends enabled fashionistas to not only get the opinions of fashion leaders and celebrities, but to also give their own feedback—that is what social media is all about.

• Using visuals for more engaging stories: In their digital journey, brands are slowly but surely evolving to build visual montages that feature everything from their daily accomplishments to major victories. They are using image-driven networks such as Pinterest and Instagram and making compelling visual updates to customer-centric platforms such as Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. It is a great opportunity for brands to go beyond traditional “push” marketing tactics and to create videos that address multiple audiences and a variety of consumer needs. A great example is Best Buy that uses its YouTube channel cleverly by using the logo and corporate color palette perfectly for branding.

Visitors are greeted with six videos to choose from and can easily scroll through a variety of video content with a blue slider beneath the featured videos. The channel also shares links to the Best Buy website and social media profiles and highlights their Daily Deals.

It is no wonder why marketers are scrambling to get their brands on a media that offers a vast array of sensory experiences. As business leaders want each dollar spent on marketing to be linked back to sales figures, the need for accountability has accelerated the speed of going digital as this medium allows every activity to be measured, in real time, down to a single click.

So, have you gone ahead with marketing and positioning your organization on digital platforms? How have these efforts affected your brand reach? Share the ups and downs of your digital journey with us.

How to Market Your Facebook Business Page

As more of our marketing efforts get centered on e-customers who meet, shop, share and live their virtual lives on various social media, it becomes that much more important to build a brand that connects with them in their comfort zone. Most businesses today build their Facebook profiles to have conversations, announce promotions and be part of customers’ special moments, but it is not easy to elicit responses from an audience that is exposed to so many brands. How can small- to medium-sized businesses use Facebook as a marketing vehicle to effectively engage and interact with their audience? Here are eight tips to do it successfully.

1.       Develop a strategy: According to David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, “Instead of one-way interruption, web marketing is about delivering useful content at precisely the right moment when a buyer needs it.” We need to have a strategy in place that helps us fully explore and utilize the medium, while keeping efforts focused on the goal. To grow your business and fan base, ensure your Facebook wall reflects your short- and long-term goals at all times.

2.       Understand the platform: Facebook as a vehicle is constantly undergoing changes to connect with its audience in the least intrusive manner.

Inbound Marketing: A Cost-Effective Strategy for SMB Marketers

If there’s one thing that holds back most small business marketers, it is tight budgets. Outbound marketing events like trade shows, direct mail and telemarketing are extremely expensive. At the same time, they do not have enough metrics built in to calculate return on investment. Digital marketing is like a knight on a white horse. It offers everything that a marketer could dream of: brand promotion, conversation, business leads, easy entry and exit routes and low costs. With that in mind, here are five easy tactics for successful inbound marketing despite low budgets and small teams.

1.       Blog to exist or exist to blog: 2013 is the year to start what you have been holding off on before now—blogging for your business. Yes, Google has introduced changes in its algorithm yet again, which means there are no quick-fixes like black-hat search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to bring a ton of prospects to your website in no time. The new approach for SEO is to create content that is engaging, interesting and relevant. Blogging is one of the best ways to ensure your website has content that reflects latest trends, industry updates and market dynamics. Such material will attract visitors to your website in droves. It enriches the top of your sales funnel because prospects searching for information about your industry will find your posts on search engine results pages and click through to your site.

After setting up the blog, it’s time to start posting. Topics could range from products in development to employee experiences working at your company to interesting observations and developments taking place in your industry. By interacting with clients and your sales and customer service teams, you could gather questions that you answer in your blog posts. For example, last week someone asked me how could he market his brand on a shoestring budget and here I am answering his question using digital marketing.

Here are the numbers:

Number of average blog posts per month: 4

Total hours spent on researching and writing: 16 to 20 hours per month

ROI: constant influx of inquiries and leads

2.       Provide factual references to potential customers: If I visit a business website for the first time, I would first like to know about projects the company has completed in the past and its clients. So you can convert unsure prospects into hot leads by featuring case studies on your website. Well-written case studies combine masterful story-telling with carefully researched facts, detailed analysis and meaningful solutions to problems that draw in readers.

Case studies benefit businesses by:

• Positioning organizations as credible solutions providers
• Highlighting expertise and industry knowledge
• Sharing benefits of products/services
• Communicating best practices and lessons learned
• Establishing that companies have proactively addressed critical business needs

Customer testimonials play a critical role by giving a stamp of reality to your claims. They also show how much clients trust your company when they say, “We have been using their services since past ten years,” which is a great motivator for visitors who are still trying to make chooses.

3.       Offer product trials: Once prospects have found their way to your site, you need to give them reasons to share information that will allow you to ultimately convert them into leads. The easiest way to do this is to offer free product trials or eBooks in exchange for details. This is done very effectively by Hubspot, which offers eBooks on many of their solutions.

eBooks are much more elaborate than blog posts because they have more examples, graphs and charts to make information understandable and compelling. Because the word limit is much higher for eBooks, you can incorporate multiple perspectives and approaches.

Product trials let potential customers test for a limited period of time with basic functionality. They give your audiences a taste of products or services, with the hope they will like them and come back for full-fledged purchases.

4.       Implement visual calls-to-action: Visits to your website are useless if potential customers are not directed to pages with related content and blog posts that answer their questions. For example, the digital services page on our website has anchor text pointing visitors to our blog posts on the same subjects. Similarly, you could benefit if your social media activity is integrated on your website, as ongoing conversations are a big draw for visitors to share their opinions and eventually make business inquiries.

                                                                     Here is a Twitter engagement blurb on the koozai.com website.

5.       Measure your social media performance: Many of us indulge in long hours of discussions trying to prove that social media is bringing value to our businesses. If you ask me, the best way to check is to simply measure it!

Conversation rate = # of audience comments (or replies) per post

As Avinash says, “One beautiful thing . . . you can measure this on every social channel on the planet. Blog. Twitter. Facebook. Google Plus. YouTube.”

By following the conversations that generate bigger responses, you will be able to determine which stories impact your audience, where your brand touches them, which geographies are attuned to your topics and which groups on LinkedIn like to connect and respond to your discussions. This gives you a deeper understanding of your audience, knowledge about your brand’s strengths and weaknesses and direction on how to provide value to your followers and the industry.

What other marketing tactics and ROI calculation methods do you use to get maximum branding mileage on a tight budget?