We just came across a really interesting article on a new concept of co-branding, called “Wikibranding,” in which your customers help shape your message. The old-world days of the marketing department controlling the message is, sigh, in our rearview mirror. Find the article on our blog, BrandBlog, at www.ggcomm.com/blog.
Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category
“WikiBranding” — Something New to Learn
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011Jennifer Jackson
Monday, April 25th, 2011We’re so excited to welcome Jennifer Jackson as the agency’s newest Account Manager. Jennifer brings us a wealth of online and web marketing savvy from her prior positions as Cleveland Clinic’s Communications Manager, Internet Marketing and as an Interactive Account Executive/Digital Media Buyer at one of Cleveland’s larger ad agencies. Jennifer will handle a variety of the agency’s larger accounts, including those in its growing medical/healthcare portfolio.
Mongoose is Calling
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011Another break in the lead-tracking chain has fallen! Marketers have sensed for some time that many inbound calls were actually preceded by a Google search or visit to the company’s web site. Now, we have the data to show it. Mongoose Metrics software, added to a site as easily as Google Analytics, is able to trace the source of incoming phone calls, so you’ll know if the call was made after receiving an e-newsletter or after a search. It will even tell you what search engine was used, and whether it was an organic or paid search result. In one instance, Mongoose showed us, for instance, that paid search on Yahoo! was more likely to lead to a phone call than Google paid search. Hmmm.
Well THAT Was Unexpected
Monday, April 11th, 2011We’re closely tracking the changing ways b-to-b decision-makers are finding and evaluating products. One new “media consumption” study we conducted last month revealed a few surprises, such as when we asked how buyers find information, and what information they find most credible. Frankly, we didn’t expect we’d find this:
* Top sources for finding information: Company web sites, search engines, shows and white papers.
* Top sources for credibility: Company web sites, colleagues, articles, online trade magazines, shows and white papers.
* It’s astounding that company web sites score so highly in both questions. We would have assumed that they would be discounted as biased information sources, but that’s not the case. OUR TAKEAWAY: your site needs to be deep and detailed.
* We were surprised to see relatively little difference in the ways people in different age groups gather information and what they believe. We expected greater disparity.
* We were surprised to see both print and online magazines continue to be ranked so highly as a prime information source.
Lead Conversions Jump 400%
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011It’s all about conversions. Handbook offers have long been the “home run” for b-to-b lead generation. But we took it up a notch when we re-directed the offer to a landing page created using industry “best practices”: just four fields to complete in the request form and no other links or navigation to distract the visitor. Of course, best practices applied here as well; lead flow from the handbook offer jumped 400% during the landing page’s first two months.
Another Great Award Season for Goldstein Group
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011Congratulations to Avtron Aerospace, which picked up top honors in the Cleveland Rocks PRSA Award and in the PRSA District Diamond Awards competitions for the new branding campaign created in partnership with agency Creative Director and Chief Imaginist Jeff Spencer. Congratulations also to Abanaki, which was honored for its Public Relations and Social Media campaign during the Gulf Oil Spill, which doubled traffic to the company’s web site in a two-month period.
Avtron's website
Seeing Is Believing
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011We’ve been able to monitor click traffic on web pages for a while now by using Google Analytics. But where do a visitor’s eyes go? Where are the dead spots on your web design, and exactly how far down are people scrolling on each of your main pages? We’re answering those questions with a new tool called Clicktale, which provides fascinating “heat maps” that identify where the mouse travels on a web page (but may not click). Why track mouse movement? Because there’s an 80 percent correlation between your eye movement and where the mouse travels. Quick hit: with one client, we learned that the unusual placement of its all-important “quote” button, even though it was at the top of the page, rendered it nearly invisible.
Something new to learn — “Wikibranding”
Sunday, February 27th, 2011Really interesting article on a new concept of co-branding, called “Wikibranding,” where your customers help shape your message. The old world days of marketing controlling the message is, sigh, in our rearview mirror. http://goo.gl/dg1LM
Online or Offline Spending: Here’s What Google Says
Monday, January 24th, 2011It’s human nature to try to simplify complex topics into black-and-white decisions, and that applies to marketing as well. As we all struggle to better understand the role of marketing in purchase decisions, and the shifting nature of online versus traditional marketing, many have come to the conclusion that it’s an online-only world today, and that nothing else matters.
But most marketers understand that the most effective programs are those that are consistent in approach and balanced in nature. It’s an online AND offline world for marketers, says one surprising advocate for traditional spending: Google. In its recent study on best practices for B2B marketers, Google, the center of all things related to online marketing, points to the importance of going to market with a balanced approach:
Sixty-three percent of B2B marketers recognize that traditional initiatives have a strong impact on online activity in terms of search traffic, web traffic, and online conversions.
That’s not to diminish the role of online marketing, but it points to the multiple tactics that are needed to break through the clutter, particularly in complex purchase decisions.
Lead Generation in a New Era
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010Agency President Joel Goldstein and Ron Gilbert of Keithley Instruments co-presented at the annual COSE Small Business conference in October on “Lead Generation & New Media Advertising.” Email jgoldstein@ggcomm.com for a copy of the talk.
