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May 05

If David Ogilvy Was Starting Today, He’d Be A Search Marketer

By Internet marketing, SEO 5 Comments

David Ogilvy was one of the godfathers of Madison Avenue. His book, “Ogilvy on Advertising” remains a marketing bible and his agency, Ogilvy & Mather, a worldwide force.

What’s interesting is how he got his start.

david-ogilvy-picture

He sold stoves door-to-door in Scotland during the heights of the Depression. In becoming successful at it, he became fascinated in how what he said made a difference between whether he got in the door or not.  He learned, tested new approaches and eventually became so successful they asked him to write the sales manual for the entire company. By the end of the 30’s he had followed his interest across the Atlantic to work for Gallup Research. He later cited their emphasis on meticulous research and adherence to reality as a major influence on his thinking.

 

His Approach

“I prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance.”

“Do your homework. Study the product you’re going to advertise.”

Read More

Apr 26

Internet Marketing Strategy: Do You Have A Tagline Or A Proposition?

By Internet marketing, SEO 3 Comments

Last week, in my monthly guest post on the Search Engine People blog, I provided the backdrop for taglines vs. propositions and made the point that, with the decline of interruption media and the rise of relevant media, the ‘Just Do It’ tagline era is over as you lose in internet marketing by being vague.

In this post, I’ll share how to find out what you’ve got and steps you can take to improve it and, subsequently, your online marketing performance.

Why Is A Value Prop So Damn Important?

Call it what you want: Unique Selling Propositions or Value Propositions. I think they call them props because they prop up an old business to keep it from falling down or, when done really right, they pull a business forward, increasing its speed to help it fly.

Value Proposition Definition Analogy

Whether it’s an email subject line, your Pay-Per-Click ads or the landing page, if you don’t have a good prop, your internet marketing is just going to fall down or just sit there.

How To Build A Strong Value Proposition

Here’s 6 steps to get you Read More

Apr 15

Sharp Example of Branding for Top Chefs

By Branding, Digital Storytelling No Comments

You know those little dividers in the grocery store that separate your meat from someone else’s potatoes?

Came across one yesterday that converted it from a regular, everyday item into an awareness-building medium. The Food Network in Canada is launching our own version of the hit U.S. show Top Chef. Some clever marketing folks found a way to promote it that interrupted an ordinary moment in a shopper’s day into a relevant little bit of interruption marketing.

Creative Branding Example

Marc Tellier, a friend and CEO I worked for in rebuilding the Yellow Pages and Auto Trader brands, called this ‘getting clever points’: the magical little moments that reward the consumer for the interruption and uses storytelling to stick to the brain and create FAME for the brand.

In a world where the power of traditional media has declined and fragmented it’s a branding strategy that’s becoming increasingly necessary.

Got any you’ve seen? I’ll profile them in an upcoming post on ‘small ways to create big brands’.

Mar 17

App Happy: How To Avoid Being A Mobile Marketing Failure

By Internet marketing, Mobile Marketing One Comment

“Let’s build a mobile app! It’ll go viral!”

This might make the list of top 10 Marketing refrains of the year. It has all the optimism of “Let’s put on a show! I’ll make the costumes. It’ll be fun!”. But by the latest count there are over 400,000 apps for Apple products alone. Even if you can manage to make it through that jungle of competition and get your target customer to download yours, will they keep using it? A recent study by Localytics, found that 26% of downloaded apps were never used again.

This post shares some tips on how to avoid App failure inspired by a great example I came across.

What Makes A Great App?

Whether it’s a widget, a mobile app or just a micro-site that provides a unique service, for internet marketing success I suggest there are 3 factors Read More

Mar 10

Tool Time 2! 10 Great Free Internet Marketing Tools

By Internet marketing, Internet Marketing Tools 4 Comments

In last week’s post – Tool Time: Getting The Right Internet Marketing Mix – I likened getting the optimal online mix to shopping at Home Depot and categorized 17 major  tactics into what they do so you don’t end up with a tool that looked cool but gathers dust.

One major type of tool I left off was measuring tools Internet-Marketing-Tool-Measurement . So in this post I’ll share the 10 favourite internet marketing tools of this mechanic when it comes to measuring how we’re doing and if we’re on the level. In order… Read More

Mar 07

Amy’s Ice Cream: One Cool Social Media Marketing Example

By Facebook Marketing, Social Media Marketing 3 Comments

Came across this great example of ‘fanning the flames’ thanks to a mention by Ann Handley of Marketing Profs on a podcast.

‘Fanning the Flames’ is what I refer to when you use Social Media Marketing and other tactics to activate your fans and get them to talk about you. It’s just like blowing on the embers of a fire to turn it into a roaring flame.

It’s not only an amazing site with great digital storytelling for a relatively small business  – check it out here at Amy’s Ice Cream – but here in this grab from their Facebook stream they’re using monitoring of their name on Twitter to capture positive comments about them and then reposting that onto their Twitter and Facebook streams.

Great Social Media Marketing Example from Amys Ice Cream

Stats are showing only 1 in 10 fans will actively, publicly talk about a business so when they do this is an awful cool way (pun intended) of getting your fans to share the love across channels.

Hope this helps.

Bob Nunn is an award winning internet marketing consultant based in Toronto passionate about getting brands tuned up for the online age and dessert. He’s the founder of BrandMechanics.ca and a regular speaker and guest blogger. Give him a call to see how Brand Mechanics 9-point social media marketing audit can get you on the road to a winning plan.

Mar 01

Tool Time: Getting The Right Internet Marketing Mix

By Internet marketing, Internet Marketing Tools 4 Comments

Picking the right mix for your internet marketing has become much more complex recently. Everything is so sexy and new – and there’s a lot of choices! Sort of like going to Home Depot. This post provides some easy guidelines for picking the right tool for the job.

Be careful when you go to Home Depot. From experience I know that too often you spend big money on something that looked cool and you thought for sure that you could use.  But six months later you’re looking underneath your workbench saying ‘Now, why did I buy that?’

Internet Marketing Consultant Tips

Trying to pick the right internet marketing mix is just as dangerous. You’re just as likely Read More

Feb 09

How To Create A Low Cost Internet Marketing Listening Post

By Internet marketing No Comments

I guest post  over on Search Engine People’s popular internet marketing blog. Posted my monthly piece there yesterday. Check it out.

It lays out 10 simple steps to creating an internet marketing dashboard to listen in on the social media conversation and monitor search for your brand, your competitors or your category. It’s a ‘D-I-Y’ process if your budget doesn’t allow for the expense of more upscale social media monitoring tools like Radian6 etc. The ‘Twiterati’ are saying it’s “actually pretty cool.”

Click here to read:

Social Media Monitoring Example

Bob Nunn is an award winning internet marketing consultant based in Toronto passionate about getting brands tuned up for the online age and listening to ‘Y’alternative’ music. He is the founder of BrandMechanics.ca and a regular contributor to Search Engine People’s blog.

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