What are you doing to make sure your business stands out? On this week’s Think Tank Tuesday, I spoke with Andy Heck about what makes Alpin Haus such a distinct brand. It’s more than a slogan or the logo that comes with any business. Watch now to see what Andy had to say about branding:
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Marketers across the globe are constantly plagued by the question; “should I spend my dollars on social media marketing, or search engine marketing?” To help answer this question, MDGAdvertising has produced a really nice infographic breaking down some of the various campaign components you would generally look at when assessing a marketing campaign. These include:
Lead Generation
Brand Awareness
Local Visibility
Interactivity
MDG’s review of Lead Generation performance included SEO, PPC and Social Media Marketing as the key metrics. The research which included interviews with more than 500 marketing professionals across B2B and B2C companies produced a single clear winner for lead generation; organic SEO. Although difficult to achieve without a lengthy campaign and a number of outside considerations, organic SEO is a clear winner for lead generation. But one must ask the question, at what cost? Because of the time and expenditure involved in achieving quality search rankings, is this a fair assessment when considering the ROI? Maybe long term, but this metric is very interesting none-the-less.
The Brand Awareness component of this infographic produced social media as the winner according to rankings in terms of objectives. Brand Awareness ranked #1 for social media marketing and #3 for search engine marketing. From my experience, this research is pretty undeniable. Search is great for lead generation, but social is excellent for brand awareness, and certainly a great bet for a quick return on your investment.
With this in mind, although there is still great value in using social media for targeting local users, consumers still rely on search for their local information requests. Consumers will almost always use search to locate information on websites as their starting point, and that includes services such as Google Places. Although social media has great potential in this area, search is still the winner at the moment if you’re looking to reach a local consumer base.
However if it’s interactivity and engagement you’re looking for, marketers will choose social media as their preferred platform, but interestingly not by as much as you would think. Although social media was a winner with 65% of marketing professionals stating they would use social media for increased interactivity, SEO scored 54% and Paid Search scored 34% indicating strong value across both of these channels if handled effectively.
Finally, with changes to search engine algorithms constantly in the mix and strong signs that social signals such as likes, tweets and +1′s affect search performance, the good money when comparing social vs search, is actually on a campaign that includes a mix of content marketing for SEO, and some strong social support for that campaign. As marketers survey the social and search landscapes, we are set to see a large shift toward marketing campaigns that comprise both platforms to achieve a well-rounded result for the content owner.
Source-http://www.jobstock.com/blog/social-vs-search-marketing-spend-comparison/
I agree with the conclusion that organic SEO is the clear winner for lead generation. The first thing that came to my mind was the value that video brings to SEO. When your business dominates the first page of natural Google for different searches you don't give the competition an opportunity to market their business. For example, if you have video in place that shows why your brand is better than your competitor when a consumer does do a search for your competitor your video will dominate the search. Equally important, is that like the article states search is great for lead generation but social is great for brand awareness. I've seen way to many owners that are from the "old school" not understand the value of social media for their business. So many still think that if they build these amazing dealerships that buyers will storm through the door however, that strategy may have worked in the 80's but it's a failing strategy today. In today's market we know that we must fish where the fish are.
At the end of the day consumers still rely on search for local information requests. And your mission if you accept it is to utilize SEO/SEM/PPC, social media and VSEO so that you can capture your consumers at the ZMOT or at their point of interest.
This is part 1 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:
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It isn’t what you’re saying on social media that has the biggest effect on your business. It’s what others are saying about you that makes the true impact.
I’ve used those words in various forms since 2008. It’s become a cliche in my own mind because I have to say it so often; many businesses we talk to haven’t gained that understanding by the time we have our consultation even today in 2013. It’s not their fault. The social media marketing industry is challenged with laziness in many ways. Building brand ambassadors is hard work so many “gurus” prefer to stick with what they can do easily, namely posting random things and pushing for likes, retweets, +1s, repins, and other components of social media promotions that are useful but that aren’t as important as they lead their clients to believe.
There are three truths that need to be understood about social media marketing:
The easy road is to post interesting or entertaining images, text, video, or links. The more fulfilling road is to play outside of your own profiles, to make your social profiles a conduit rather than a hub, and to do the things that encourage the customers or clients who love your products, services, or ways of doing business to advocate for you online.
It’s about building ambassadors, and as inhumane as this may sound, you should be building a brand ambassador factory. Sounds creepy. Almost makes it seem like an allusion to Soylent Green. Thankfully, we don’t have to turn our customers into feed in order to make this work. We simply have to make them happy and give them the opportunities and prompting to tell the world that they love you.
The processes to do this differ from business to business. There are too many moving parts from one industry to another and from one store to another within the same industry to be able to post a roadmap or guide that would do justice to the topic, but over the next week I will be posting articles that give some general concepts to help you develop your own plan. The best way to stay on top of this (there will be much more written on this specific topic) and other social media marketing concepts is to subscribe to Soshable by Email.
More to come on this important topic very soon…
This is part 2 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:
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We’ve all heard the cliches.
These sayings would start to get really annoying if they weren’t 100% correct.
As I said in part 1 of this series, it isn’t what you’re saying about your brand on social media as much as it’s about what other people say. Unfortunately, many people only talk about a brand if they have something bad to say. To counter this from both a reputation perspective as well as an exposure perspective, brand ambassadors are the most important people in your public relations world as it pertains to social media.
Everyone already knows that you love your brand, that you believe in your product, and that you have the best of everything to offer your customers in your opinion. If you didn’t believe that, you wouldn’t be in business, so most claims by a company are not believed. Not every brand can be the best, but every brand claims to be the best. As a result, people go to two forms of outside sources to confirm or deny claims. They go to experts in many opinions – Roger Ebert has made and broken many movies with his words over the decades. The other place they go thanks to the power of social media and review sites is to their peers. What are other people who have already tried your brand, product, or services saying about you?
The presence of brand ambassadors is not just a matter of encouraging happy customers to write reviews. Reviews are great and extremely important, but there’s no real “skin in the game” when they post to these sites. They’re one within a group. If a company has 100 Google Local reviews, what’s one more added to the mix, at least from a customer’s perspective. It’s not a personal thing when someone posts to review sites.
Social media, on the other hand, is a personal thing. Those who take their social media seriously are much less likely to say something good about a brand. When they do, it actually means something. Their friends and family who already have an opinion about the person will take their recommendations on social media more seriously. This isn’t even taking into account Facebook Graph Search which has the potential to amplify this even more (we’ll see). This is simply looking at the state of social media today. If someone’s willing to say that they love your brand, product, or service on social media in general and Facebook in particular, it’s the most powerful review anyone can give you.
It’s the “skin in the game” that isn’t present on review sites.
If your company is actively building brand ambassadors, you’re already seeing the amazing results. You’re hearing from your customers either through social media itself (“You were right, Bob. ABC Motors took great care of me, too!) or at the store itself. If you aren’t hearing about people coming to your store because they heard about your from a friend, you’re not building brand ambassadors. I’m not trying to use circular reasoning here. Just stating a fact. If you build brand ambassadors regularly on social media, you will hear about it at the store. It’s that simple.
In the next story, we will go into detail about how to identify potential brand ambassadors. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to Soshable by Email to get the full scoop on how to make the most out of your social media marketing efforts.
This is part 3 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:
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Let’s assume, for a moment, that you have step one on the path to building your Brand Ambassador Factory covered. For those who don’t know, step one would be to make sure that your business is operating in a way that creates extremely happy customers and clients. There’s nothing I can say on this social media blog to help you there – run a good business and make people more than satisfied with the results you deliver. If you aren’t doing that, social media can’t fix it.
With the assumption that you’re running a good business out of the way, let’s move on to step two. You have to identify potential brand ambassadors. The initial requirement is easy – they have to like you. Unfortunately, it goes much deeper than that. Liking your business isn’t enough to make a brand ambassador. You have to look for other qualities to go along with it.
This is where stereotypes have to be thrown out. A hip 20-something isn’t necessarily addicted to their smartphone and Facebook. A 65-year-old grandmother isn’t necessarily still handwriting postcards to her grandchildren. You can’t identify a potential social media user without asking them. Once you start asking, you’re going to be surprised at the results.
Before you ask, you’ll want to make sure that your employees are prepared for the initiative. It is an initiative. To downplay it as something that you’re “playing with” or to isolate social media activity to a single person is a mistake. It takes every customer-facing employee at a company to really get the most benefit out of this. Have a meeting and even have everyone read this blog post first. It’s important that they get it before trying to sell them on the concept.
Here are some characteristics you’ll want to look for when determining whether or not to approach someone about being a brand ambassador for your business:
This isn’t as much of a no-brainer as one might think. There are tons of shy people on social media. In fact, social media offers a venue for shy people to interact with their world from a safe distance which is part of its popularity. These shy people aren’t going to be brand ambassadors.
You want that person who can’t stop socializing. They are often talkative in person, sharing information without being asked. They will likely check their smartphone throughout a long transaction. If they grab it and take a peek every time it pings them with a new text message or Facebook update, they’re connected in all the right ways.
We’ve all known that ever-connected person who is a total snob. Their profile is probably loaded with cynical comments, which are only slightly less cynical than what they say about people in real life.
Friendly people are much more likely to be brand ambassadors. They are the ones who carry an extra smile with them in case yours runs out of juice. They like you the moment they meet you and many people like them as a result.
This is an extremely important trait of a brand ambassador because these are the type of people who are willing to help you out when you ask. At the end of the day, very few people become a brand ambassador without prompting, which means that you want to identify those people who are willing to put their name behind a good experience they’ve had with a company. Remember, brand ambassadors are giving personal endorsements. It’s not like asking someone to post a positive review on Yelp. Getting them to post on their social media is a true endorsement. Since it’s a reflection of themselves that reaches their friends and family, it actually means something. It’s “skin in the game” which is why it’s so much more powerful than a simple positive review.
This is the moment of truth. Are they happy, and I mean really happy with your product or service? If they meet the first couple of criteria and they express extreme satisfaction with their transaction, you’ve found an ideal candidate to approach about being a brand ambassador.
You’ve done right by them and you could really use them to do right by you on social media. This is it. You’re about to get a real endorsement from a real person who is likely trusted by their friends and family.
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In the next part of this series, we’ll discuss the ways to approach a potential brand ambassador and put them to work for you.
This is part 4 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:
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You’ve made a customer extremely happy with their purchase and exceeded their expectations. They’re smiling, shaking your hand, and thankful that you earned their business. They show all of the signs of being a potential brand ambassador. Now, how do you actually convert them from happy customer to brand ambassador?
We’ve already established that it’s important. Now go for the post. Your goal is to turn this happy customer into someone willing to advocate for you online. It’s not about getting a review. Those are easy. Reputation management on review sites is an important activity, but save those conversations for those who aren’t going to post about your on their social profiles. Getting an endorsement on Facebook is much more useful than getting a review on Yelp (unless your Yelp score is poor, in which case you probably want to get that bumped up first).
To get someone to post about you on social media, there are two effective methods to try.
This is the easiest way. It’s also slightly less fruitful because they must divulge in their post that they received compensation. That’s okay. If done right, even divulging the “payment” can be turned into a positive thing.
First and foremost, don’t go straight for the close. Just like with any sales process, you have to sell them on the idea. This requires a little setup first. Try to catch them when they’re really happy. After they’ve just given your store a compliment is ideal. Then, ask them about their social media presence.
Here’s an example of a conversation:
The wording should be something like this: “I just had a great experience buying my new car at ABC Motors. They even gave me my first oil change for free just for posting this.”
That’s it. Of course, it’s not always that smooth of a conversation, but remember that even a handful of people per month can make an impact on future sales.
Similar to the incentive, the valid reason approach can be almost as effective. Done well, it can be even more effective because you’re asking for real endorsement without anything attached.
Use the talk track above but replace the oil change dialogue with something like this:
From there, it doesn’t matter how they post it. They aren’t required to divulge anything and we’ve seen that when customers are given complete freedom to advocate for you how they want, they’ll do a better job at it.
Getting a Facebook post is amazing. Unlike review sites, it exposes your brand and the experience you deliver to people through a trusted peer. It’s human nature to trust the advice of people we know more than strangers on review sites. These types of public endorsements show “skin in the game” as we’ve mentioned in previous articles. Review sites are made fine, but they aren’t broadcasting the message to the right people the way a Facebook endorsement works.
This is all great, but a true ambassador won’t stop there. This is where we get into the real ways that happy customers become the brand ambassadors that we need. We’ll discuss all of that in the next post in this series.
This is part 5 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:
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You've gone through all the steps. You knew that we were going to be talking about brand ambassadors. You learned why they're important. We showed you how to identify them, then we discussed how to approach them. Now, it's time to wrap it up with the hardest part of them all. We're going to talk about how to sustain them as true brand ambassadors.
There's a difference between a person who leaves a nice comment on Facebook and someone who actually tells people they know about you. It's important to get that person to tell about their experience at your store on Facebook. It's amazing to make sure that that person is proactive in the future. If they were happy buying a car at your dealership today, we want them mentioning you when they see their friend three months from now saying on Facebook that they need a new car. That's the type of brand ambassadors that we want talking about us on social media.
It isn't easy. It requires a subtle approach, a light touch, but a persistent one. Here are three things you can do to take that happy customer who posted about you on Facebook to the next level.
No, I don't mean going on their Facebook post about you and saying "thanks!" You have to show true appreciation for their effort. You have to stand out above and beyond anything any other company has ever done for them.
There's a fine line between being appreciative and being an annoying stalker. This is why it's important to interact with a purpose. It should never be random. Show your appreciation at times when they least expect it, when you're not at the top of their mind, and in ways that require real effort and/or money.
One way to show appreciation is with a quick gift card sent on a handwritten envelope with a handwritten note inside.
"Hi Bob. I just wanted to check in on you to make sure you're enjoying your car and that you're still getting compliments from your friends. We appreciate that you posted on Facebook last month when you purchased it and we wanted to send you this $10 Starbucks gift card as a small token of our appreciation."
This can get them to post again about the gesture, but more importantly it reminds them of the over-the-top experience they received at the store. When their friends and family are looking, you want them to mention your store by name.
Here's the thing, and it's arguably the hardest truth to convince businesses of until they see it for themselves. If an average Facebook user promotes your product, their message was seen and heeded by their friends and family. There is a good chance every single time you're mentioned on Facebook as giving someone an exceptional experience that someone amongst their friends and family will see this and act upon it.
When someone comes in and say, "I heard my cousin Bob that you guys took great care of him," you have to let Bob know. If you have a referral program, this is a no-brainer. If you don't have a referral program, refer back up to showing appreciation and reword the note that you send with the gift card.
Don't forget, it's not just about your business. People like helping their friends and family. Bob didn't just help you to make another sale. He helped his cousin Sally have the same great experience he had. Sally may or may not let him know, but either way you definitely want to let him know. Validate that he's an influencer and that he's important to his friends, family, and your business.
This is optional and requires some work, but it's very useful when done right. On your website or through social media, take your brand ambassadors who have posted about you on Facebook and highlight their posts. This is best done in a group setting - individual highlights can be a bit creepy.
At whatever frequency is appropriate, post screenshots of all of your positive mentions. Make certain that there is text with the person's name if their name and posts are public on Facebook. If they aren't public, you don't want to mention their name.
Again, this is optional. In a way, it's a bit risky, but it's also a way to let people know on your website and Facebook page that you have a strong commitment to customer service.
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It's not what you say about yourself on social media that matters. It's what others are saying about you. This is where the value is. This is how to move the needle.
Next to computers, tablets, and smartphones, our cars are often the most technologically-challenging item that we deal with on a daily basis. Every model year brings out new gadgets and gizmos that are designed to enhance, adapt, and often-times engage with other technologies that we carry with us. Tablets are used as owners' manuals. MP3 players have become our stereos. Speakers and mics interact with our phones for hands-free driving. These are the common examples. Today's cars can do so much more.
The advertising on the OEM level often focuses on technology. Why do so few dealers do the same? It's not that they need to advertise the latest advancements to SYNC or show off the technology in any way. That's the manufacturers' job. They can, however, demonstrate that they have both an expertise in making these technologies work for their customers as well as an eager willingness to make it happen.
Many dealers do this. Few market it properly. Many of the car ads we see on television or the internet still focus on sales, price-beating, and gimmicks. What if (and think about it for more than a second) instead of promoting their dealership the same way every other dealership does, they took the path of focusing on their expertise and customer service. What if they weren't just there to sell you a vehicle. What if they were there to help you make it fit in with your technological existence?
It's an idea that was sparked by a friend, Jeff Cryder at Lebanon Ford, about a year ago but that didn't manifest itself in its current form until tonight. I was debating with a friend about his iPhone 5 versus my Galaxy SIII. His "winning" argument that obliterated any chance of convincing him that my phone was better than his: the Genius Bar.
Price is a losing battle in the automotive industry. Most dealers will be within dollars of each other when negotiated down to the bottom line on identical cars. The focus on "we treat you right" is still a powerful message but doesn't quite have the zing that it once did; the number of scandalous car dealers with poor practices has diminished dramatically in recent years and the majority do what they can to treat their customers with respect.
Technology. Expertise. A willingness to help customers get "plugged in" to their cars and take advantage of the tremendous technologies available to us - these are the things that might just work from a marketing perspective. It would be a welcome change from a television advertising perspective. It would be a differentiator at the website level. On social media, it could shine. Now, apply this to both the sales and service departments and I think you might have something.
Would it work? Is it worth trying?
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"Car Technology" image courtesy of Shutterstock.
This past week, I made the risky move of upgrading to the newly released Windows 8 operating system; Microsoft’s bold attempt at upgrading their OS which has kept the same fundamental functionality for more than a decade. While slightly hesitant to upgrade before a service pack was available, I ultimately chose to take advantage of Microsoft’s limited time $39.99 upgrade offer. Talk about utilizing the "urgency" close right?
As I’ve played around with the new OS for the past few days, I’ve made some observations that may turn out to be a prediction of a new technological frontier for dealers who are looking to kick things into high gear... or I may just be out to lunch. Whatever your opinion may be, just go with me on this for a minute.
The most noticeable of all the new features for Windows 8, is the shiny new start screen which really acts as a dashboard to your most visited apps. Though some critics complain that Windows 8 is optimized for tablets, I haven’t had any problems finding my way around with a mouse.
Microsoft has redesigned the UI for many of their apps and have included some new apps, all of which come with a very streamlined and integrated experience. Among my favorites are the new music player app which comes loaded with the ability to stream full length music and a new “smart dj” tool that automatically creates a playlist based on an artist genre of your choosing.
Thanks for listening to me ‘nerd out’ for a second. Let me get to how car dealers could actually use Windows 8 to leverage new business and reach larger groups of car shoppers in their own home.
What got me me thinking was the newly added “Store” app which allows users to browse from a variety of both paid and free applications. Simply select the category of app you wish to download and you have the ability to select from hundreds if not thousands of apps to have installed on your PC. If you know your way around the app store or play market, this will be quite easy for you.
Imagine what would happen if you created a Windows 8 app that was compatible on both desktop PCs and Windows tablets? There has been a lot of talk around whether or not Dealers should develop iPhone and Android apps vs. keeping with dealership mobile websites, but think about the doors you could unlock by tapping into an even larger traffic source!
Let’s talk numbers. By 2008 (according to Forrester), there were 1,000,000,000 (Billion) PCs in use with a forecast of 2 billion in use by the end of 2015. It took 27 years to reach the 1 billion mark and will only take 7 years (from 2008) to reach 2 billion. If that’s not simply incredible to you consider that the average number of PCs needing to be sold year after year since 2008 is 142,857,142 in order to reach the forecasted target by 2015.
Now, have you purchased a new PC lately? Don’t they come pre-loaded with a Windows operating system? According to Amazon, every new PC sold between June 2, 2012 and January 31, 2013 will receive a special upgrade offer of only $14.99, thus placing Windows 8 well within the reach of hundreds of millions of people.
Consider how many of the 142,857,142 PC buyers this year are also in the market to purchase a vehicle or are at least conducting some level of vehicle research. I’ll tell you what - that new Microsoft ‘Store App’ is pretty fun to navigate and somehow sucks you in just like Apple’s famed App store and Android’s Play Market, so imagine what competitive advantage you’d have by placing your dealership and your brand in front of the masses.
I envision a personalized shopping experience filled with user reviews, dealership videos, blogs and news. Since the app is installed on the personal computer, (and I’m just thinking out loud here), imagine if there was a way to have your app send notifications to your potential customer's calendar, email, social networks and more. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg and if done strategically, dealers could tap into a massive market of vehicle shoppers.
To take it one step further, though Windows 7 and 8 tablets don’t contribute much to tablet sales as of current, Windows 8 tablets are forecasted to help tablet sales increase by 4% according to Gartner. Apple still remains king of the mobile arena with roughly 60% market share, however,with an estimated 117,000,000 tablet shipments in 2012 alone, 4% works out to 4,680,000 (4.68 million) Windows 8 Tablet shipments and that is more than enough users to inject your dealership with some serious prospects.
In closing, let me say that there are many, many avenues to help drum up new business. I had the pleasure of attending Lon Safko’s keynote at AutoCon in which he enlightened us on the various social media marketing opportunities from Facebook to Second Life. I swear - by the end of his presentation there were multiple silent explosions in people’s heads, followed by smoke trailing out of their ears.
The point is that there are sooooo many ways to prospect for new business and technology, whether revamped or emerging provides you with more ways to reach out to potential buyers than ever before. Windows 8 is just another example of something you could use to leverage new business for your dealership.
What do you think? Kindly leave your comments below. Happy developing.
(The Intro Video is from Google describing the "Brand Active Initiative")
Learning from the past
In the 1950s, brands slowly moved to TV, just as they have started to move online today. In both instances, buying and selling systems improved; audiences and new content quickly moved to the new medium; and the creative possibilities inspired great ad campaigns.
However, a key moment for TV came in the 1950 with dramatic improvements in measurement—like ratings and quantitative market research. Once major brands could see who they were reaching and what impact their campaigns were having, they fully embraced the medium, creating a multi-billion dollar industry...and TV’s golden age began.
Making better decisions with actionable brand metrics
Unlike the early days of TV, digital advertising is already incredibly measurable. The only problem is a very old and well-known one: the standardized metrics today are largely clicks, user interaction rates and conversions.
But as brand advertisers - such as movie studios or consumer goods companies - know, it’s a challenge to measure changes in brand favorability of a movie or whether an online campaign is driving more consumers to the store. And it’s even harder to take quick action on any such insights.
That's why today, at the Ad Age Digital Conference I'll be introducing the Brand Activate Initiative, an ongoing Google effort to address these challenges and re-imagine online measurement for brand marketers. With this initIative we're partnering with the industry and supporting the IAB's Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) coalition. We believe that the industry’s significant investment in brand measurement efforts can substantially grow the online advertising pie, for all.
Is a particular ad in your campaign especially useful at improving brand recall in Illinois? You should be able to immediately increase your coverage throughout the Midwest. Is one ad slightly less effective at driving purchase intent and in-store sales? Tweak the creative, straight away.
The first Brand Activate solutions
We’re working to build truly useful brand metrics into the tools that advertisers already use to manage their campaigns, so they’ll be actionable within seconds, not months.
The first two Brand Activate solutions are rolling out today:
Active View: Advertisers have long looked for insight into whether consumers saw an ad on page 145 of a magazine, or switched the channel during a TV commercial break. It’s similar online, so we’re rolling out a technology, which will be submitted for Media Rating Council(MRC) accreditation, that can count “viewed” impressions (as defined by the IAB’s proposed standard, this is a display ad that is at least 50% viewable on the screen for at least one second).
Called Active View, this will first be available in coming weeks within Google Display Network Reserve. We’ll also be making this metric a universal currency, ultimately offering it within DoubleClick for Advertisers, as well as to our publisher partners. Active View data will be immediately actionable—advertisers will be able to pay only for for viewed impressions. Going forward, we’re working on viewed impression standards with the IAB, and our agency and publisher partners.
Active GRP: GRP, or a gross rating point, is at the heart of offline media measurement. For example, when a fashion brand wants their TV campaign to reach 2 million women with two ads each, they use GRP to measure that. We’re introducing a new version of this for the web: Active GRP. Active GRP has two key features:
More to come
We look forward to bringing other measurement initiatives into our suite for brand marketers, including a brand impact survey pilot with Vizu, our brand lift measurement product (Campaign Insights) and various cross-media measurement research projects globally.
This is just the beginning of the Brand Activate Initiative, with much more to come for brands and publishers. We think that with brand new metrics comes a new brand moment - one that will encourage brands to invest in the web, help publishers show the value of their digital content, and stimulate digital media’s own golden age.
Infographics are quite trendy these days throughout the marketing and tech community. It's not difficult to see why. Through infographics, marketers and researchers are now able to provide substantial information/statistics while still be able to appeal visually. But, what exactly is an infographic?
Put simply, an infographic is 50% informational (INFO-) and 50% visual (-GRAPHIC). It's that simple. An infographic is the result of both research and analysis on a specific topic. (i.e. car shoppers during the holidays) While some may knock the infographic as just being another fad or trend, you must remember this: More than half of us are Visual learners.
What Purpose do Infographics serve?
My Take on Infographics:
I think infographics are awesome--and, that they're here to stay. Being a writer, it's hard to admit, but the truth is that people don't read as much as they used to, meaning that they're more likely to click on your infographic than they are to click on your blog post. "Hey, look it's shiny!" Infographics are not only appealing visually, but they also enhance and inform your marketing strategy in regards to SEO, online visibility and brand awareness.
So, perhaps, the next time you plan on writing a blog post featuring different statistics, you might want to hold onto those stats and embed them into a nice little graphic for everyone to enjoy.
[Source: Web Marketing Group]
