“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The age old philosophical question that actually has a lot of applicability to modern marketing. The truth is that the best marketing campaign with the perfect message will fall flat if there is not an audience of people to see it. data mining At Bluetext, our go to market can be divided into three areas that must work in concert to be successful:

• Brand Strategy, which focuses on creating the right message and brand positioning;
• Brand Presentation, which focuses on taking that message and making it visual; and
• Brand Delivery, which focuses on taking that strongly designed visual message and delivering it out into the market via multiple channels.

The dirty little secret is that so many companies focus on their strategy and their presentation but then fail to really attack the proper channels for the delivery of their message. So here are four things you should be asking yourselves or your marketing agency to ensure that your message is delivered to the right audiences in order to properly achieve your goals:

1. Do you have a database and are you leveraging it? There are many modern techniques for properly leveraging your corporate database to drive awareness and interest in your products or services beyond sending out HTML email blasts. Just this week Google announced a new product called Customer Match that will let advertisers upload lists of emails and match them to signed-in Google users on Gmail, Search and YouTube. This same functionality is available inside of Facebook for very specific targeting.
2. What conversations are you a part of or could you be a part of? What assets (people) do you have that we could insert into conversations to better position your company as thought leaders to drive thought provoking agendas? Have you created an editorial calendar that you review each week and track against KPIs?
3. Are you putting any budget to paid media? If you are looking to drive leads as opposed to straight awareness then taking a portion of the budget and putting it toward paid channels (for sponsored content, advertorial, infographics, etc.) is critical for success. Think about going programmatic as well to maximize every dollar. My partner Rick Silipigni wrote a blog post about this approach recently – check it out here – https://bluetext.com/planning-a-digital-media-buy-get-with-the-programmatic/
4. Are you thinking outside the box? Every company has a handful of activities that they take on from a marketing standpoint every quarter, but only the most successful companies carve out budget to launch innovative campaigns to drive differentiation in the market. Every quarter you should be asking your team and your agency for ideas that would be considered innovative and outside the box. Check out this amazing pop up book my team just created for Workday to help them tell their story in a unique way…http://www.workday.com/payroll_evolution.php

Programmatic buying for display ad inventory hit an inflection point this year and is expected to account for 70% of total display expenditure in 2016. This major shift is being driven primarily by digital agencies like Bluetext who are leveraging rapid advances in advertising technology systems such as Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) that automate the buying process with real-time bidding (RTB) – the backbone of programmatic buying. Programmatic media buying allows agencies to manage and purchase inventory from multiple ad networks through the single interface of the DSP – allowing advertisers to buy a select set of algorithmically filtered impressions across a range of publisher sites simultaneously – all targeted at a specific user persona.

With RTB, a media buyer can create a set parameters such as bid price and network reach, and can combine those with demographics and attitudinal data and auto adjust dozens of performance based variables in real time to determine the right campaign settings to achieve the desired ROI.

So what are primary advantages that programmatic media buying provides to marketers?

1. Speed

The automated buying process allows marketers to place ads through the DSP enabling quicker turnaround and increased speed to market, both of which become more critical as planning cycles get shorter, and more stringent performance goals call for dynamic testing and optimization of new strategies that can be obtained via RTB.

2. Targeting

Programmatic buying in its purist sense isn’t media buying – its audience buying. DSPs allow marketers to target a specific segment of users, wherever they are – and with retargeting capabilities built in – wherever they’re going based on previous interest in a specific product or service.

3. ROI

Increased ROI is achieved by the buying efficiency that programmatic platforms afford marketers – from both a time and cost perspective – as well as the ability to target and optimize in real time. The ability to gain traction in the market at an increasingly rapid rate with new technology also allows marketers to test various strategies simultaneously and shift budgets to the best performing channels

As advertising technology advances, approaches to programmatic buying are sure to become more sophisticated. With the addition of RTB to social networks – and even more traditional channels like print, tv and radio as some predict – new strategies will present themselves that weren’t previously possible. At Bluetext – 100% of our online display buying is programmatic – so I recommend taking a peek over your agency’s shoulder to make sure they are buying smarter and giving your brand the best opportunity to win in today’s highly charged competitive environment.

Last week some very interesting data came out of Parse.ly, an analytics firm which collects data for 400 digital publishers including Conde Nast, Reuters, Mashable, and The Atlantic. The headline is that, as of June 2015, Facebook is driving more traffic to websites than Google’s sites including google.com and Google News.

HUH you ask? How is that possible? Google is the king of referral traffic, right? It is all about search engine optimization.

Not so fast. The data points to some recent shifts in how Facebook focuses on driving content to its site, and validates the fact that this is not some random stat that will course correct. The trend line has actually been going this way since 2012.

So as a marketer, what are you to do? Well, don’t ring the alarm bells too quickly. Search engine optimization is still critical for success and needs to be a big part of your marketing mix. But don’t ignore Facebook and write it off as a nice place for consumers to share pictures with friends. That is an uneducated and naïve viewpoint and one that is clearly not valid based on these numbers.

I think it is safe to say that Facebook is just getting started, and optimizing your content to play off the Facebook algorithms, as much as that is possible, is a very smart approach. Some of the concepts that we continuously share with clients include:

• Make your Content snackable and consumable
• Encourage social sharing
• Create conversation and dialogue
• Be unique, relevant, or different, but never be boring

How is your organization optimizing social content? Are you seeing an uptick in conversations due to your efforts or are you just scratching the surface?

Since my last post was on “Mobile First” I thought it might make sense to opine on mobile marketing…specifically mobile apps where Bluetext has waded deep into the water this summer.

While we are all waiting for mobile browsing to overtake desktop – mobile apps screamed past PC websites in terms of Internet usage. As this trend is bound to continue in 2016, marketing strategies should evolve to keep up.

Approximately two-thirds of the world’s population are mobile phone users, with the total number of mobile subscriptions globally approaching 8 billion. The mobile market is continuing to explode with no signs that it is going to slow down anytime soon.

These broad advances in technology and interaction create the need for new tactics and strategies that will keep brands strong and customers loyal. Users spent almost 25% more time in apps last year than they did the year before, and 2016 is more than likely to see an equal, if not more precipitous increase.

As new mobile apps continue to flood the market, the way that users engage with them is going to continue to change. And as app makers respond to these changes, app marketers will need to analyze and predict trends to keep their brands one step ahead of the game.

Mainstream marketers put more value on organic versus acquired users, however from an engagement standpoint, paid search and ad networks are by far the two of the most effective channels by which users are brought to apps. And while both are of equal value once they’re using the app, our analytics show that users who find an app through an ad network are more likely to return to download and use the app than organic users. This would certainly suggest a sea change is coming in how brands will approach mobile marketing.

As this change is taking place, user retention will remain a top priority for app developers. Users already inside the app will come back to it again and again and, in turn, become more inclined to make an increasing number of in-app purchases.

In this scenario, app loyalty is the ultimate goal. In order to better engage users, apps will have to start using more sophisticated methods to foster loyalty and that’s where the advertisers come in. The rapid increase in in-app purchases will result in a race to produce more ads, both externally and within apps, to engage the growing user base once they are committed to the app.

As apps are becoming an increasingly more important aspect of daily life, developers are becoming smarter and more creative, encouraging users to embrace technology in every aspect of their lives and attracting advertisers like yourselves to reward them for it.

For several companies, the new HTML5 and video based immersive executive experiences Bluetext has been creating are delivering amazing results. For example CSC (Fortune #175) is seeing this experience as #1 out of 12,000 website pages in its domain. These digital experiences represent our clients’ commitment to leading-edge user experiences for thought leadership, sustainable technology, and delivering deep, rich contents to address the requirements of their diverse personas.

“Our new Immersive Executive Experience offers an incredibly powerful demonstration of 3D, with unmatched visual quality and fidelity,” comments Ray Holloman, Director of Marketing and Digital at 1,300 employee firm NJVC. “The new web design and digital experience is integral for immersing our customers in understanding our Mission Critical IT capabilities.”

NJVC was looking for a new powerful message to the market as well as an immersive experience. The video snippets of this experience below provide a good sense of how we are merging marketing campaigns with thought leadership content marketing.

Bluetext, a top digital agency in Washington DC, has produced these user experiences for CSC, McAfee, Intel Security, Deltek, TalkShop, Cooper Thomas, GovPlace, Futures Industry Association, VMWare, and NJVC and would love to explore producing one for you.

This is part 1 of a 5 part series by Bluetext about innovation in marketing and communications.

Before hurling yourself into a production and budget battlefield to get that amazing video shot for your next campaign or brand asset, marketing commandoes now have a variety of tiny, toss-able reconnaissance robots they can hurl into any business or consumer use case as it follows you around and keeps your brand battling above its weight class.

For challenger brands without the resources of a major real estate marketer or major retailer etc, they can now have million dollar footage integrated in their marketing mix of assets for amazingly low cost.

These tactical flying robots have gained a ton of traction within the marketing world as of late for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that any time you send a robot to execute an expensive and trick task, you’re not sending a human. And that is scalable and cost effective.  Traditionally robots are generally complicated, fickle machines packing a lot of moving parts. They often require on the ground pilot operators to undergo special training just to learn how to use them and fly them everytime. Not this technology, toss and follow.  Really amazing technology and solution.

Removing the pilot and giving this new paint brush to the creative minds in marketing departments and their partner agencies will really improve the experiences we will start to see as this innovation sinks into the millions of brand messages we see a day.

At Bluetext we work with many companies that can benefit from this kind of technology.   For example, in our real estate practice, we see many of our clients like JLL, Kettler and HomeVisit to leverage this kind of technology to deliver better more impactful imagery to deliver their product and service to market.

Interested in being innovative with your brand, marketing or communications?   Talk to Bluetext

Trade associations that represent the interests of and provide services for their members, be they large companies and organizations or individuals, all face the challenge of retaining their current members every year, growing their member base and reaching non-members who may be involved in the policy or business arenas. Competition among associations is fierce. Even without competitive pressures, it’s not always easy to convince individuals, organizations, small business or large corporations to devote resources and pay fees to an industry association year-after-year. They not only have to see the value, they need to feel part of the group and believe that it is looking out for their interests and providing them the services they want.

With industry associations as with other organizations, the website is the hub of activity for members and others who want to know about the group and its issues. Too often, the hub is ignored because it’s not viewed as central to the mission of the group. We think a strong website is essential, because that is the first place that any target audience is going to look for information. Bluetext has helped dozens of industry and membership organizations leverage their web presence to better recruit and retain their members, grow their revenues and maintain a close relationship with their constituents. Here are our top five tips:

Make It Engaging. Compelling website design and graphics are extremely important to reach those key audiences and to keep them interacting with the site. First impressions are important, and if the design doesn’t resonate, the visitor may leave quickly without engaging. A tired or out-of-date design signals that the association may not have the resources or digital savvy to have a modern and fresh look and feel. The design should also allow the visitor to find a wide range of information that spans their interests. Visitors come to association sites not to purchase a specific product, but to learn about a variety of topics, policy issues, and services that are relevant to them. Burying that information under layers of tabs may lose the target audience. A responsive design is a must, as more and more individuals are accessing the sites through mobile and tablet devices. We also recommend longer scrolls as visitors swipe to navigate the screen, rather than waiting for a new page to refresh as they move about the site.

Make It Personal. This should be fairly obvious, but it is surprising how many membership organizations and trade groups fail to highlight their own members. Why is this important? Because individuals need to be able to relate to the other people in the organization, to understand the types of people who are also part of the group and what value they get from their dues. Not only does this draw in new members, but it also serves to “humanize” the organization by putting faces and stories on what otherwise might seem like a faceless group.

We recommend setting up a section on the website that is full of videos and scrapbook-type photos of members and their families. For Forest America, which represents the nation’s private forest owners, we set up a section called “Caretakers” on its website, with profiles of dozens of landowners and their families who are part of the organization. To capture the footage, we take a video crew to their annual meetings and film them during breaks telling their stories—with other family members at their side. We add in photos that they send us and any other materials that help tell a personal story. The Caretakers section serves three important functions:
1) It shows visitors to the site, including policymakers and other organizations, the human faces that comprise the organization;
2) It helps with recruitment, as other private forest landowners see that they can be part of the team; and
3) It energizes current members, who love to see their colleagues and friends—and their own families—in a scrapbook setting.

Give Them The Tools They Need. Members are busy, so any shortcuts that make their lives easier are welcome. For the Society of Human Resource Management, a membership organization that includes thousands of human resources executives, retention was suffering due to the economic downturn. HR directors needed an easy way to convince their CEOs that membership in SHRM paid valuable dividends in training and resources for their annual fees. Rather than their typical request for approval, which might be shuffled to the bottom of the in-box, we built a tool for members that with just a little bit of information would create a compelling brief presentation to be send to their top executives. The deck, which explains the value of joining or renewing their membership, was far more likely to get the attention and approval of the boss. After launching the new tool, SHRM saw its renewals increase dramatically.

Make It Easy. Not only do members appreciate better tools, they need easy ways to take action and interact with the organization. Having persistent Calls-To-Action across every page of the site is essential to get the type of engagement that demonstrates value for the organization. In some cases, those Calls-To-Action can be as simple as “Join Now.” But for advocacy sites, having a sophisticated application built-in that can send a tailored email or letter to a Member of Congress or a regulatory agency serves many purposes.

First and foremost, individuals will contact policymakers only if it’s a relatively simple process. Most do not have the time to write a note to their Congressmen, nor do they know the issues well-enough. In addition, they might have no idea how to find the right policy-maker and obtain their email or physical address. We have installed a number of effective applications for associations that take the burden off of the member. By filling out, for example, their zip code, these tools can auto-populate a letter with the correct Member of Congress and address, and offer a “Mad Lib” draft where certain fields can easily be completed.

Build In Engagement. There are excellent new tools to engage visitors to the site. The first is obvious: Make social sharing persistent on every page and section of the site. Whenever a visitor sees anything they like—a position paper, an infographic, a video or a blog post—encourage them to push that around to their larger network.

Another tool that we have implemented in a number of sites is a Tweet-Builder—a tool that poses a topic and then invites the visit to complete a tweet, with recommended hashtags that can be included. That tweet then goes in real-time into the associations Twitter Stream.

The benefits of this tool are that it encourages the visitor to participate while helping to populate the social media arena. It also gives an incentive for that person to follow the group on social media, and to broadcast posts out to their larger community.

A third tool that we implemented is a polling functionality—that poses questions on the site in the form of polling questions, and then displays the results on that same page. Designed to resemble a Pinterest Page, polling tools invite participation and give the visitor a reason to keep coming back to the site. This is one that we built for a media company that publishes a variety of sportsmen-focused magazines.

Bloomberg BNA is one of top providers of legal information for attorneys, ranging from court decisions and legal filings to law review articles and news coverage that can affect a company or case. Bloomberg saw a huge opportunity to reach in-house counsel at companies and organizations where litigation, intellectual property, transactions and compliance are managed internally. It needed a dynamic campaign to reach those target attorneys with a good reason why they should add Bloomberg BNA tools to their arsenal.

Bluetext designed a campaign micro-site that begins with a live-action video with six individual personas, representing six use cases, so that target visitors could select the example that most closely matches their own responsibilities. Once the individual is selected, the visitor is taken to a page that provides in-depth details about that particular offering including examples and screen shots.

The site serves as its own segmentation filter, placing targets more directly into the best lead nurture channel. Calls-To-Action are prominent across every page to make it simple to download a whitepaper or infographic, sign up for a relevant newsletter, request a free trial or to learn more. The campaign included a direct mail piece with graphics and designs that match the site.

CITRIX TAKES ON ITS COMPETITION

When Citrix wanted to go after its competitor VMware head-on, Bluetext designed a gamificiation experience that pitted the two contenders against each other. The teaser video features the training regime of a real world champion fighter, and leads to an interactive rock-em, sock-em fighters game with the Citrix kid taking on Victor Machismo– and winning of course. Key messages fill the screen with every punch.

In the massively competitive real estate industry, companies can gain serious strategic advantage from modernizing their marketing tactics to take advantage of new strategies and tools that are impacting how they communicate with customers and prospects.

Here are five trends we are seeing that could benefit commercial real estate companies as they look to up their marketing game in 2015.

1. Leverage your data
Data provides one of the biggest opportunities to show your strategic differentiation, and in today’s world it can be leveraged in so many visual ways. Buyers leverage it across so many of their key decisions. Embrace it, leverage it, and present it in new and unique ways so that the industry continues to drive toward more visualization…

2. Advertising Goes Digital
Paid digital advertising offers so many more unique and exciting ways to present your business compared to the traditional print methods used for so many years. You can present your assets in so many unique ways, micro target your buyers, and measure the impact to evaluate and evolve your visual message on a constant basis.

3. Social = Snackable
At Bluetext we have been preaching the snackable method for delivering content for a while. Few industries, due to the nature of the services, lend themselves better to this approach. Take your visuals and data and information and present it in bite sized chunks. Be consistent with templates and design for a professional look. Your customers and prospects will take notice.

4. Content. Content. Content
Create great content that can be delivered via reports and webinars, and use it to continuously push your message to your customers and prospects. No one realizes you are expert unless you let them know.

5. Customize Your Campaigns
You know who your targets are. You know what content is important to them. Don’t throw everything on the wall and hope it sticks. With new opportunities to micro target across channels like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to deliver a message to a very targeted audience, now is the time to make sure you are maximizing every opportunity to take the message directly where your prospects are.

Those are just some of the trends that should be considered for 2015. If you are looking for a commercial real estate marketing firm, we are doing a lot of great content marketing for real estate and data visualizations to help marketers differentiate their brand in the competitive commercial real estate arena.