In this episode we have some simple advice from two digital marketing experts that can help you navigate the digital marketing landscape during turbulent times.
This Day in Marketing History
Today is April 14th: In 1894 the first public kinetoscope parlor opened in New York City. The kinetoscope was one of the earliest motion picture exhibition devices. One person at a time would walk up to the machine, which was roughly the size of a mailbox, look through a peephole at the top of the box, and view a short film played within.
Thomas Edison was one of the pioneers of kinetoscope technology, and he would quickly add sound to the device with a phonograph creative the “Kinetophone”. But the popularity of the kinetoscope wouldn’t last long as film projection that allowed for entire rooms full of people to view a film became more and more popular.
Introduction to guest and topic – Let’s fast forward from the dawn of the motion picture in 1894 to 2020 and the constantly evolving world of social media marketing. In today’s episode I’m joined by our director of digital strategy Cody Lunsford and Digital Marketing Strategist Myles Murphy. Cody and Myles welcome to Create Your Edge.
Main discussion (How to Market During a Crisis: 4 Expert Tips You Can Apply Today)
1. Digital attention is at an all-time high
Social media usage is surging, which also means available impressions are also increasing.
Obviously, do what’s best for your business, but those who can afford to keep their campaigns running for the next 30, 60, 90 days will be doing so in a more favorable market for attention.
2. Many of your competitors are pausing their campaigns
Analysts are predicting that Facebook’s ad revenue, based on the current situation, will decline by 19% for the year, or around $15.7 billion in total. You can see that from two perspectives: “oh man, I better stop advertising since everyone else is” or “That’s a lot of potential competition that won’t be competing for our shared audience.”
We aren’t saying every business needs to go “full throttle” with their marketing, but you also don’t want to go fully silent with your marketing either.
Every business is different, for example, we just met with a local physical therapy client and even though they can’t meet with patients in person, their focus is on the clients they have now and one way they are staying current is by sending handwritten letters to all past and current patients, and the owner has made it a challenge for his team to try and make like 1,000 calls to past/current patients to check in on them.
3. Brand awareness is a low-cost objective geared towards generating as many impressions as possible among your target audience in the hopes of generating greater brand recall.
Facebook measures this by asking those who were served the ad if they remember seeing it two days after being served.
Even if you aren’t hard-selling your product or service, you are still building an audience and gaining data insights that you can use once everything is back to normal again. Examples: video views campaign, brand awareness objective, website traffic campaigns with the pixel tracking, these can all be used now in the short term, that have huge long term benefits.
4. You have the opportunity to serve people now, and win business later
By just changing your message now in the short term, that can help you win the trust and admiration of your customers/clients in the long term.
