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What the Success of Snapchat Means for Marketers

 

Snapchat

Content is king. It’s a phrase so overused that you may have nixed it from your digital marketing vocabulary completely. With hundreds of social media platforms sharing content at breakneck speed all over the world, how small business marketers continue to evolve and stand head and shoulders above all the chatter? The answer is content, but not just any content. Consumers are savvier, smarter and have higher expectations than ever. The content that will get you a gold crown has to be relentlessly consistent and inherently personal. If you have any doubt, look at how Snapchat has changed the face of social media with over 100 million active users and 7 billion daily video views.

Behind the Scenes Is Where It’s At

Brand consistency gets a lot of hype, and for good reason. Your audience has to feel like they can rely on the brand they love and trust. But in a fast food, first-come first-served, fight-for-your-right-to-party kind of world, consumers are now looking for more than a Coke and a smile. They want to see a brand evolve. They want to see behind the scenes. In fact, they expect it.

Snapchat is used by the masses, but it’s also used by the White House, professional sports teams, Amazon and CNN, all showing a more informal, humor-driven side. This adds dimension and relatability, which engages audiences on another level. Unlike the beautiful and professional images of Instagram and the carefully curated Facebook content planned out in advance on Hootsuite, Snapchat is instant, impermanent and truly of the moment. It’s also proof that consumers are interested in unpolished, real-life appeals.

Make It Easy and Make It Personal

Snapchat is the first social media platform to give users their own QR code as an inherent part of the user profile. While many businesses have used QR codes to drive traffic to a social media platform, website or microsite, Snapchat puts the focus on the user by giving them a code they can use to gain followers and connect with new friends. Both Elle Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar have changed their Twitter profile pictures to their Snapchat QR codes. All their followers have to do to follow them on Snap is take a screenshot of their profile picture, open Snapchat, go to add friends, tap add by Snapcode and select the screenshot. Easy, fast and no typing required.

Always Be Pushing Content

If there’s one thing to take away from the Snapchat revolution is that it’s OK to get real with your target audience. The fact of the matter is that perfectly polished content takes time and money, both of which are going into the pockets of your competitors while you’re perfecting every Instagram post and analyzing all 140 Twitter characters.

Get a cellphone with an impressive camera, like the HTC One M9, so you’re always ready to capture the moment. Get a cheap, phone-friendly tripod or camera stabilization equipment made specifically for shooting video on your cellphone for less than $30. Just don’t forget that it doesn’t have to be perfect, edited or directly related to your product to hit home with your audience. Just give them a warm and fuzzy feeling when they think about your brand.

We understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

 

 

ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. 
Contact us at ImageSmith.com or call us at 828-684-4512 for quotes on all your print and marketing projects.
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Making Print Social: Interactive Media and Integrated Marketing

 

info graphics and interactive media

Infographics have become wildly popular both online and in print. Graphic designers create visually inventive ways to convey otherwise confusing, unclear or tedious information that work well in print layouts and also draw readers online. The graphic-as-step-by-step-explanation trend is almost cliché – so much that The Atlantic was able to explore the trend with its article “The Rise of ‘In One Chart’ In One Chart.”

This doesn’t mean you should run away from infographics, though. They rose to ubiquity because they work: people enjoy them and they help explain complex topics quickly and succinctly. But infographics are inherently a one-way street. The designer and client are communicating with their audience, but the audience cannot talk back. This is why interactive media is a great new frontier for marketing. Users often spend more time with interactive media and they remember its message better afterwords. The following are some great examples of ways to take advantage of interactive media within any marketing campaign:

Quizzes

Dish Network has a Netflix quiz that is close to its television-addicted audience’s heart. With a series of questions, it helps determine what type of Netflix binger you are. Test takers answer some of the questions with responses like “I occasionally skip work to finish a season” or “I lost track of days somewhere between starting “Breaking Bad” and finishing “Mad Men.” Similarly, SnapApp created a quiz entitled “DDI: Common Leadership Styles,” and has reported great results with this as well as with many other quizzes it has put together.

This type of content is fun for users, it encourages them to stay on the website for an extended period of time and it prompts them to share the results with their friends on various social platforms. THIS IS GOLD. Quizzes are good investments to get users interested in looking at your content and promoting it for you – for free.

Contests

New York’s premier hip hop radio station, Hot 97, has remade itself for the digital era. One recent advancement is a contest to find up-and-coming artists called “Who’s Next.” For this contest, the station identifies local amateurs with potential, and each person or band creates a profile page to upload his or her songs to attract positive votes from listeners. A community has developed around the contest, and now the station has a small army of loyal fans who come to the site regularly to check for new music, watch videos and read the bios of those who hope to be the next big star.

Running contests encourages followers to check your site regularly, which gives you the opportunity to promote your product or services to them.

Visual Storytelling

One of the most beautiful examples of compelling visual storytelling comes from the New York Times. It’s story, “Snow Fall” tells the tale of a skier trapped in an avalanche on the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. From maps and video interviews to incredible photos and informative animations, this story has it all.

Although most companies don’t have anything this poignant to tell, the process helps turn all kinds of stories into captivating content. For example, McDonald’s put together an interactive site for user-generated “100 McDonald’s Moments.” This is designed to “remind people why they love the McDonald’s brand experience and core products,” explains Razorfish. The idea proved to be a success since the collection grew from 20 moments to 100 over a month of marketing. Razorfish also notes that the average visitor spent more than seven minutes on the website.

Stories enable visitors to spend more time on your site and engage with the content. Find or create a story that relates to your target market, and encourage visitors to look around for more interactive content.

 

Of course, all of this is part of the strategy of integrated marketing – using all the avenues of connection between you and the public in concert to boost the power of your marketing. Print, website, social media, face to face – it just makes sense to coordinate across all these interactions for greater results. For example, here’s a quick link to a story about how Traveler Beer uses social media to drive interest in their new Shandy drinks. Or this link about how Coca-Cola has generated huge buzz with their VDP marketing of personalized drink bottles.

We can all learn some creative ideas from how the big players use integrated marketing to create powerful returns. But the benefits are in no way limited to huge budgets or huge corporations. Even the smaller companies can coordinate their social media, blog and website with their print and direct mail to generate greater results in their marketing. In short, any content that makes your marketing “social” will be more successful for you and more engaging for the people you reach.

 

 

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Engraving – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

 

 

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
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Event Marketing for Small Business Owners

Bullhorn announcing Event

There are millions of small businesses competing against each other with websites, advertisements and marketing campaigns vying for the attention of consumers. It is difficult to stand out from the crowd in such an environment, but event marketing puts your brand right in front of consumers in a way that other forms of marketing can’t.

Events are a tried and true method of marketing, and lots of businesses large and small use them to engage potential customers. Live Marketing reports that companies spend $24 billion on exhibiting at events every year. Here’s a look at some of the tenets to help you take advantage of the vast opportunities available to you in event marketing:

Host Events

The quickest way to have people notice you is to invite them over. Hosting an event gives you a chance to market your product to consumers while networking with other businesses. As a small business owner, your event may not be a huge convention, but this gives your brand a chance to stand center stage and make a big impression.

Think about what kind of event is right for your business. If you run a bookstore, host an event where your staff reads books to children. Or, if you run a print shop, host an educational event for other small business owners about creating marketing material. Be sure to brand your event with custom signage displaying your logo, colors, and message. Items such as pop-up banner stands and wide-format posters are affordable, portable and can be reused for other marketing opportunities.

Trade Information

Whether you host an event or attend one, be sure to put your contact information into the hands of anyone who seems interested. You can do this by creating an email sign-up sheet or by offering incentives for people who visit your site and log in right then and there at the event. Also stock your event with flyers, brochures and any other print collateral and work to put it into the hands of your event visitors. Your primary goal should be to get as much information from potential consumers as possible as well as giving them the tools to research your business after the event is over.

Asheville Area B2B Trade Show Event, 2015
Asheville Area B2B Small Business Expo

Document Everything

We live in a media-centric world, and if you don’t take pictures, it may as well not have happened. Additionally, social media gives you a chronology of people who interacted with your brand that you can broadcast to engage your followers and drive business. Playing photographer and social media guru can be a challenge, but with an up-to-date smartphone like the HTC One M9, you can handle all that and more from the palm of your hand. Take pictures of yourself and your customers, and share them on social media to link yourself to the community around you.  Include print and promotional products with QR codes to help drive traffic to your online marketing – it’s all about using every opportunity to take advantage of multichannel marketing.

Give It Away

Branded trade show promotional products
Branded promotional products as giveaways put your name in your prospects hands.

Promotional items are a cross between gift and marketing material, and they are always a hit at events. Convention-goers often get excited about all the free swag they can receive, and you can leverage this to get the crowd to advertise for you. By giving away small promotional items, such as keychains, T-shirts and hats, you can make potential customers happy and have them advertising for you wherever they go. Furthermore, promotional items drive business — Epromos reports that 85 percent of consumers do business with a company after receiving a free promotional item.

Publicize

Heading to an event won’t help you if no one knows you are there. This means you need to get the word out. Post on your website about the event and take to social media to let your followers know where you will be. Reach out to bloggers in your industry and local news outlets to let them know about the event and your role in it, so you can get some press before the event even begins.

 

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Engraving – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

 

 

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
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4 Easy Steps to Creating Engaging Video Content

 

Add video to mobile marketing

Visual content marketing, or the use of video in your website’s content, has grown exponentially over the last few years. According to numbers published by Ooyala, mobile and tablet video watching has grown a staggering 532% since 2012. Taking advantage of the new trend to couple content with video is key in your content’s success in engaging consumers. Here are some ways that you can use video to engage your audiences and keep them coming back for more.

Teach Them Something

Your audience may be interested in your product, but may be unsure of how to use it or are confused about its applications. Smart content coupled with instructive videos can engage and inspire consumers to make the jump from interested to invested. For example, Callaway Golf’s online show, “Callaway Talks,” is a video podcast where pros talk about equipment, performance and innovations within the world of Callaway Golf clubs. The information provided, discussions, and debates are all powerful content marketing tools utilized by Callaway to reach out to consumers with video content.

Tell Them a Story

The line between marketing and entertainment is becoming more blurred than ever before. No recent advertisement serves as a better example of how entertaining content can serve to capture the imagination of consumers and engage them in your brand than the recent viral video shared by the Wall Street Journal of Jean-Claude Van Damme doing powerful splits between two Volvo Trucks. In just a minute and a half Volvo created massive social media buzz and demonstrated to the world the stability and control of Volvo’s powerful Dynamic Steering systems. You may not have world-class martial artists at your disposal, there are plenty of royalty-free stock videos available online. With clever editing, narration and your own video content, even stock video can be utilized to craft a memorable tale to capture consumer attention.

Get Them to Relate

If your brand isn’t strong, most consumers will see you as just another faceless company with something to sell them. By adding a compelling and human face to your online presence, you can draw in customers on an emotional level and help them relate to you. Global arc welder manufacturer Lincoln Electric crafts oxyfuel cutting devices and distributes soldering alloys internationally—not exactly a relatable business for most consumers. However, through personal and introspective videos available on their LincolnElectricTV YouTube Channel, Lincoln electric connects with consumers by showing them how welding helps in the creation of everything from farm equipment to roller coasters. With the video tagline of “Welding Makes This World Possible,” Lincoln Electric grabs consumers emotionally and makes them take a second look at the products and people that they may not have ever given a second thought to.

Let Them Participate

The final tool in your video content arsenal comes from your customers themselves. Encourage your customer base to create their own videos sharing how your product or service effects their life, and share the ones that best represent your brand. In doing so, you essentially crowdsource your marketing directly to your audience, and create a connection with them. Everyone wants to be famous for a moment, and sharing consumer created video content is a sure way to get them talking about your product with their friends and families. Integrated marketing that truly engages your audience is the goal. Check out these links to see how companies like Taco Bell and Traveler Beer are utilizing creative ways to bring their customers into their marketing outreach.

 

 

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Engraving – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

 

 

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.