Branding and Pop-Tarts

I was recently shopping for Pop-Tarts… I mean, “pastry treats,” as defined by my favorite store brand. As I continue to try stretching our grocery budget to feed our four kids still at home, the cheaper product was beginning to look better and better.

   

 It wasn’t about any fancy packaging. To me, it just mattered if my kids would eat them, and how much of my disposable grocery budget was spent on the quick and easy breakfast food. 

The truth was that I’d tried switching before, and it didn’t go over so well.  However, I decided to give the store brand another try without flaunting the stand-ins box. In other words, I hid the switcheroo from my kids, and I thought I’d gotten away with the change until my 12-year-old remarked, “I don’t like those other pop-tarts. They are all frosting and no filling.”

I understood what he meant. Although we buy plenty of other store brand food items (pasta, butter, eggs, orange juice….), I only buy Heinz ketchup and Prego spaghetti sauce because I really do prefer the taste over the other national or store brands. Thus, we’re back to being brand loyal to Pop-Tarts, stocking up when they go on sale, using coupons and “eating” that small amount of money not saved.

According to Marketing Expert Laura Lake, we’re not alone. Lake states, “Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the sum total of their experiences and perceptions, some of which you can influence, and some that you cannot.”

In this case, it was the taste that prompted my kid’s comment and ultimately the deal-breaker for the pop-tart dilemma, but what is influencing your branding? Like the “pasty treats” scenario, is your target audience willing to dismiss the bells and whistles of your “box” to choose your product if price is one of your strategies? Or, is your poor image portrayed by some things you’ve overlooked – the user-friendliness of your website, the professionalism of your signage, your lack of accessibility, and more – overshadowing your quality product? How well does your packaging reflect your company?

According to KiSSmetrics, unlike marketing, which is the set of processes and tools that promote your business, branding is the culture itself – the message that permeates and rules all the processes of your business. 

 

For now, we’ll stick to our Pop-Tarts. Is your branding resulting in customers that are just as loyal?

Give Thanks Everyday!

This week is Thanksgiving, and as I think about everything this holiday means, I begin to realize once again how much for which I have to be thankful. It’s easy to remember this when there’s a holiday that spotlights the idea of giving thanks. I just wish I could remember to be thankful each and every day.

You know how life gets in the way of actually being present in the moment? Work and family life gets hectic. It’s not that I don’t stop through out the year and count my blessings. It’s just that I to take what I’ve been given in this life and embrace it with gratitude more often.

Everyone here at Morse + Harris Marketing hopes that you can find thankful moments in your “everydays” more often as well. May each and every normal moment be the chance for you to be grateful. Let us all say thanks a little more and remember how lucky we are each day.

Let’s all give it a try - starting today.

Happy Thanksgiving and may the gratitude of this holiday follow you throughout your new year.

E-Messages

Did you know that at least 50% of readers check their e-mail on their mobile device? Think about how that small screen space affects your message.

We know that we have 8 seconds to capture our audience’s attention. With the increasing percentage of mobile device readers, it’s a good idea to add buttons – yes colored Buttons, not just links – to your e-messages. Buttons are more powerful than links and will bring a larger click-through rate. 

Most readers only scan the preview pane so OWN THAT GRAPHIC! Try different subject lines and conduct your own survey to see which subjects tend to be opened the most. “Breaking” and “Alert” are the most opened subjects, but we can’t all pretend to be CNN. So the idea here is to experiment, research and craft your own message so that it can be read quickly.

E-newsletter Eight Second Challenge

Take a look at your watch. Now count off 8 seconds. That’s all the time you have to grab

someone’s attention.

In today’s marketing world, it seems that many companies want to write long elaborate messages in their e-newsletter campaigns. More is better, right?

According to the email marketing company, MyEmma.com, our e-mail attention span is approximately 8 seconds. After that most readers hit DELETE!

So act quickly with your message and let readers know what you are saying and what you wish them to do ASAP.

Here’s another tip for your e-newsletters. Because the eye processes a photo 60,000 times faster that words, uses images to enhance your verbal message. For an added bonus, go ahead and add your link to the graphics!

Take our 8 second challenge and see if you can tell your story and leverage it. E-mail is not dead – it’s thriving when it’s not clunky!

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Poofreading – We mean Proofreading 

Oh, the importance of proofreading. How many times have you been in a hurry to get that brochure off to the printer or that ad sent to a publication, and you JUST SEND IT! Oh no!

We have all made those mistakes which take the form of a transposed letter or another simple sentence misstep or grammatical error. Most of the time it happens because we’re all in a hurry.

So allow Morse + Harris to say what you’ve told yourself dozens of times. Stop! Resist that urge to send that item off, and get it off your plate in a hurry. Have someone else read the content. We always say at Morse + Harris Marketing that “a new set of eyes will see the errors.”

Some of the typos we make are just funny AND some will cost you money. If you don’t proofread, you just might end up paying for a client to receive 2,000 new Annual Reports – and no one wants that.

Case in point, we received this in an email and had to share. Apparently in Lake Zurich, they need to specify that you can't actually donate your kids and pets to rummage sales. Did anyone even read this ad before they printed it? There's another typo in the ad too, can you find it?

E-mail Campaigns in 4 Steps

E-mail marketing is an effective, budget conscious medium to reach your target audience. While one email is not the best for lead generation, a drip email campaign can be very effective. To create a simple, effective email campaign, start with these four steps.

11. Email Software

While you could use your regular email like Gmail to send e-newsletters, it is limited in templates, scheduling, analytics, and database storage. Therefore we suggest using professional email software. Now we know what your thinking, “Email software, that’s out of my budget.” On the contrary, many email services offer both free and monthly plans; email campaigns can be created within any budget.

Here are a few services to consider:

• Mail Chimp 
• IContact 
• Constant Contact 
• Emma

22. Build Your Email List

Now that you have selected a software program, you need to build a database of your business contacts. You need their first and last name, name of business and e-mail address. So how can you gather emails?

• Contact form on your website
• An email subscription on your blog
• Social media sign-up
• Business cards of individuals you or your team have met

These are all effective ways to get your audience’s information, just make sure the people giving you their information understand that you’ll be emailing them newsletters, offers, etc. 

Continuously compile all of your contacts into one database on your new email software. Getting into the routine of adding your contacts into your database will increase your e-newsletters reach as well as keep your database up-to-date.

33. Decide on a Schedule

The right email schedule has a few variables including sales cycle and audience. If you have a short sales cycle you might consider sending two emails a week with sale updates. On the other hand if you have a long sale cycle, monthly or bi-monthly would be best.

44. Decide on the Right Content

Your email campaign has two major components: The subject line and the message itself.

•  Subject line
  Your subject line needs to standout from the numerous other emails your audience is receiving. If it sounds like an advertisement, it’s going to be deleted or sent to the span folder before it even gets opened. So, create an engaging subject lie that is both personal and informational.
  
• Message
  Your audience is probably getting 100 or more emails a day, meaning that a successful email-marketing campaign shouldn’t include big blocks of text. So keep it short, simple, and fun by utilizing bullet points and images to make it easier to read.

So as a recap, get a budget supported email software, build your database, decide on your schedule and start creating content for your audience. Your audience doesn’t need to know everything at one time, leaving you the opportunity to break up your messages with fresh creative and varying angles throughout your campaign.

An Ad we Love: “But You’re a Potato!”

In today’s everyday noise of messaging and branding, the numerous commercials about love and romance start to blend together after some time. That is of course, except for a commercial staring Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead.

Why do we like it?

Very simply - Lays Potato Chips took the obvious stereotypes of love, romance, and sex appeal and turned them into an easy-to-remember advertisement.

What makes it successful?

The soft sell and memory recall are just short and simple.  Much like M&M’s, Lays uses the product as the characters. The main point of the script is to make a commercial that is not only memorable, but sells the product in a light, humorous way. Click below and enjoy the spot, perhaps with a bag of Lays.