Wise Words: Give Your Customers a Place To Talk, Or Someone Else Will

Today, we offer a link to a very wise friend of AdSymetrix who has some timely advice for Smart Marketers who are skeptical about social media and using the Internet for anything more than just having an online presence.

His article, “Give Your Customers a Place To Talk, Or Someone Else Will”, talks specifically about ways that companies can provide tools to their customers to talk about their products and services. If you’re in business to stay in business, you already know how happy customers help you grow. Steve’s article should give you a bit of insight into ways that you can use various media tools to help make your happy customers more vocal. (As well as giving your not-so-happy customers a place to vent and solve their problems).

Brand Advertising and Response Advertising: Why They Matter

When you’re promoting your business, you can go two routes: you can tell your customers why they should do business with you, or you can tell your customers to do business with you. That’s the basic breakdown between Brand Advertising and Response Advertising. Both are important in their own ways.

To give you an idea of the value of Brand Advertising, think about your favorite soft drink. Are you thinking about The Real Thing, or It’s The Cola? Coke and Pepsi are great examples of Brand Advertising. You choose similar tasting drinks not because of what they are, but because of which ‘team’ you align yourself with. Think about the off-label brands you see in the grocery store, you can buy their cola for nearly half the price of Coke or Pepsi, but because of how you feel about Coke or Pepsi, you choose to spend the extra money.

Brand Advertising is valuable, and expensive. It can make your customers think about your business without thinking about exactly what you’ll do for them. It’s also very important in the battle between Google and Facebook:

That’s where the big-budget brand advertisers come in. Google has courted them for four years, to no avail. That’s because, while search ads are great at delivering advertising to users who are seeking specific products, they are less effective at creating demand for stuff users don’t yet know they want. Google has tried everything to lure brand advertisers—from buying and selling radio ads to purchasing YouTube. And it is easy to see why it keeps trying. Today, global online brand advertising accounts for just $50 billion a year. Offline brand advertising, meanwhile, accounts for an estimated $500 billion.

Response Advertising is more concerned with closing a sale. Or at least with getting the consumer to the point of talking to a salesperson. These ads are the ones that include some kind of Call To Action. That would be, “Come in for a Free Service,” or “Call Today” or “Visit Our Website for Coupons”. Response advertising is tied directly to the activities of your business. You can see a connection between the amount of marketing you do and the amount of business that it attracts.

Both Brand and Response advertising have a valuable place in your marketing mix. You need to know how to balance the messages that make your customer feel like doing business with you with the messages that tell your customer how to do business with you.

And that’s where AdSymetrix comes in. Our Response Measurement platform allows you to know what ads work and what ads are just wasting your time and money. We can track any response to any ad, placed anywhere. Contact AdSymetrix today to learn how we can help you.

Recession Stirs Resourcefulness

Like everyone else, you’re looking for ways to economize. To prioritize. To maximize the value of what you’re doing and minimize the cost of doing it.

While we’ll tell you about ways to prioritize your marketing through response measurement and knowing what works, it’s good to know that everyone everywhere is looking to similarly economize their lives.

Here’s an article by Baysie Wightman and Tina Bronkhorst about ways that smart moms are tackling the new economy.

Even is the New Up

A sad title for a post about business, but a true one. If you can keep your business running at an even keel - same amount of sales, same amount of revenue, same amount of employees - you should consider yourself a huge success. Even, in this economy, is as good as being up for the quarter.

But what if you could do better than just break even from last year? What if you could determine not only the best way to attract new business, but what areas of your marketing mix were just wasting money?

That’s where AdSymetrix comes in.

With AdSymetrix, you’ll Know What Works. You’ll stop wasting money on activities that just waste money and don’t bring in new business. Better still, you’ll learn more about who is responding to your ads, how they’re hearing your marketing message and why they are connecting with you. AdSymetrix tracks any response to any ad placed anywhere.

When you know what works, and stop doing what doesn’t, you can spend your marketing budget in smarter ways. Get starrted today, Contact AdSymetrix for a free consultation.

Lights in the Darkness - Why Now is a Good Time for Your Business

It’s easy to look at the news and wonder just how much worse things are going to get with our economy. Bankruptcies, defaults, higher-gas prices, lower employment, and general anxiety over the economy is enough to have anyone hoping to hide in a barrel. But as Smart Marketers, you know that you can turn a bad time into a great opportunity.

Right now, in the middle of the Great Recession, is the best time to start your new business. Really. You may think that because people are so scared to spend money, or that they’re going to lose their job, or that they can’t pay their bills, that this would be the worst time to start something new. You would be wrong.
When times are tough, customers start looking for new solutions to old problems. Think about your own life. Are you finding ways to economize? Focusing a bit more on your grocery list? Turning off the lights when you leave the room?

Right now is the perfect time to focus your new business idea so that it not only makes sense in a down economy, but also can thrive when the recession ends. The key is focusing on small, achievable goals that you can use as the base for how your business will run. The more innovative and efficient you are with your products, the better prepared you’ll be for success.

Starting a new business is one of life’s greatest, most fulfilling challenges. Focus on small, achievable goals, and you’ll find that even when times are bad, customers will come.

Valuing Your Advertising

Everyone needs to know their worth. When you’re marketing your business, this becomes even more important.

Do you know which marketing efforts are the most valuable for your business? Not the most expensive, the efforts that you undertake that bring in the most new business. Do you know whether a full page ad in the daily newspaper is better than sending out an email? Or whether buying airtime on your favorite radio station turns more listeners into customers than sending out direct mail?

You need to know the value of your marketing. Luckily, we know how to help.

AdSymetrix focuses on Response Measurement. Our business is based on the idea that when you know what works, you can stop wasting time and money on things that don’t. It lets you know the return on your response, not just the return on your investment.

Feed The Meter - How Connecting With Your Customers Builds Your Business

Ever walk through the cosmetics department of a department store? Alongside all the standard product you’d expect to find, are people eager to make you look even better than did when you walked in the store. Their tactic is to pamper you by applying their makeup, cologne, skin care product, to your face. They’ll spend some time with you, touch your face and remark at how this product or that improves your looks. Whether you just enjoy the free sample or choose to buy a whole cabinet full of product, they’ll treat you the same way. In the end, the bond between the brand and the consumer is built through this high-touch technique.

As a business, you need to find ways to connect with your customers. Your advertising and marketing is one way of connecting. Whether you’re launching marketing campaigns around coupons or trying to build your brand, you’re reaching out to touch your potential customer. Online constant contact is a bit easier. You can build Facebook pages for your business, build networks of fans and keep them in the loop as to what you’re doing in your business. Twitter, LinkedIn and Ning can all work the same way. You can send out newsletters, email, mobile messages and phone calls.

The key, and the thing that matters most, is that you are feeding the meter of their involvement with your business. The more you show you want to be connected to them, the more they’ll know they want to do business with you.

Maximizing your advertising budget with call tracking and marketing measurement.

Life in these harsh economic times can be tough. Work can be even tougher. If you’re in the business of marketing your business (which if you’re in business, you are) then you face the problem of proving the value of your marketing. As every company, every family and every individual looks for ways to economize, your business needs to show that it is irreplaceable. That because people work with your business, their lives or their work is better.

You need to show that you are valuable. Your customers need to know that if they choose to spend their money with you, they get more than just a receipt. Your partners need to know that by working with you, they are going to grow their business. You need to know what works, so that you can throw out what doesn’t.

Don’t just take AdSymetrix word for it. Check out this article at Npost : It’s Not Your Fault, It’s Your Problem

In the article, Derek Preston talks about the need to measure your efforts and show their value to your partners, vendors and customers. By measuring your efforts, you can show the ROI of working with you, and more importantly, show how invaluable you are to their lives.

And that’s where AdSymetrix comes in. Our Call Tracking, Dynamic Call and Click Tracking and other Response Measurement Tracking Tools allow you to show the people you do business with why they need to continue to do business with you, while letting you Know What Works in your marketing plans.

Prove your value, use AdSymetrix. Signup Today

Facebook - Great for Old Friends and New Marketers

Wired today posts a story about how Facebook (and other social media network sties) can not only help you reconnect with old friends, but also provide marketers with invaluable information about how to market to you

It’s easy to forget how much personal information about you is out on the web. For a marketer, these networks serve as great hunting grounds for new business. For the social media network member (you) these networks open up your life to anyone you may know. Or who many know someone who knows you.

While your sense of privacy may be pricked by the open nature of these sites, remember that you can use them to your advantage as well. With 180million people using Facebook alone, there’s got to be a few thousand people interested in your business.

How To Know What Works

What if you knew what happened every time someone saw one of your advertisements?

You’d be able to see how they react to your message, what they think of your offer, whether they like your logo, and if they intend on following your Call To Action.

Unfortunately, hiring people to watch over every ad you place is terribly expensive. That’s why AdSymetrix offers Real-Time Response Tracking. Our Dynamic Call Tracking and Dynamic Click Tracking allows you to know who’s responding to your ads, as soon as they respond to them. If you’re online, you can see every screen they see. If you’re advertising using more traditional - Outdoor, Print, Broadcast, etc - you can see what ads generated what calls and who made them.

And, because you don’t want to leave a Call to Action unanswered, our Response-Triggered Marketing Services offer Dynamic Direct Mail, eMail and SMS services that send out individual messages to everyone who contacts you because of your ad.

You’ll know what works, and you’ll be able to focus your advertising.

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