Break Through The Noise

The normal human response to noise is to ignore it. That becomes impossible, though, when the noise is either very loud and annoying, or unforgettable. Most people will do everything they can to avoid loud noises, unless they are compelling ones. For example, it’s natural to tune out arguing neighbors or a screaming child. It’s just as natural to stop what you’re doing to listen to a songbird or a beautiful guitar solo. The latter noises are compelling, and that’s the type of “noise” you want your advertising to have.  It’s estimated that the average person sees and hears anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 branded messages every day.  Compare that to the average of 500 ads 40 years ago and you’ve got a whole lot of noise.

Why so many today? The enormous increase is due in large part to the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets. A recent Nielsen Company survey found that American adults spend more than 10½ hours consuming media daily, an hour more than the previous year. When you think about human reactions to noise, the important lesson becomes obvious. The best way to be noticed in the midst of advertising “noise” is to be compelling. And the most compelling ads are creative ones, which grab and maintain the viewer’s, reader’s or listener’s attention. The rest are just noise, which most people will avoid, ignore, or just plain overlook. As we said, creativity is a must!

Make It Memorable

Many ads are eminently forgettable, whether they’re on TV, in print or online; they often simply blend in with the noise and have no lasting impact. The best example is Super Bowl advertising. This past year, ads went for more than $5 million for each 30-second ad, and more than 50 unique commercials were shown during the game.  In surveys done a week or so after the Super Bowl, though, most people only remembered only a few of the ads.

Commercials which people do remember stick in their minds for one reason: creativity. Those who are old enough can still visualise the futuristic 1984 Super Bowl Apple ad, or the 1979 Coke commercial with Mean Joe Greene; they became classics. Similarly, the 2018 Super Bowl ads that people do still recall, even though they aired in a virtual blizzard of advertising during what many consider to be the

best game of all time, were memorable because they were creative.

Only a few companies are in the position to spend millions of dollars on a single ad, and online advertising costs just a fraction of that amount. But the important takeaway is the same as it is for Super Bowl advertisers: audiences remember creative, outside-the-box ads. Unexpected creativity seems to work best.

Viral

There’s never a guarantee that your advertising will go viral, but a strategy that gets you there is ideal.  Coming up with something that makes people say “Wow! I wish I had thought of that!” is the ultimate goal. Something people haven’t seen that’s clever and creative gives you your best chance at going viral. Being creative and engaging will ensure that your exposure and return is positioned to be great. Creativity is a must!

Budget

It might seem counterintuitive that you can save money by producing creative advertising. After all, hiring talented writers, artists, designers or directors – or paying an agency for conceptualizing and developing an

ad – sounds like a budget-busting expense. It just might be, unless the advertising is creative and effective – which is the only kind that will give you the exact results you’re looking for.  Additionally, hiring a good agency that is programmed to be mindful of your business’s brand, your customer bases’ needs and the professionalism you need to portray to them.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review was designed to measure the financial impact of creative ads. It found that every dollar invested in highly-creative advertising campaigns, particularly if the ads are artistic and elaborate or brilliantly illustrate a product benefit, returned twice as much revenue as money spent on “ordinary” ads.

There’s one other cost benefit: creative advertising that works well has a much longer shelf life than a series of moderately-effective (or ineffective) standard ads. Producing just a few creative gems can save a lot of money which would otherwise be spent on dozens of ordinary ads, benefitting a company’s bottom line.  Bottom line is, if you go cheap with your ad design, you will most likely be wasting both the money you spend having the cheap ads designed AND the money you spend to run them.  Moreover, you could damage your business’ image and cause potential customers/clients to doubt your ability to impress them.

Branding

Of all the 5 reasons that creativity is a must for businesses, this one is the “mustiest”.  If no one knows your business, no one will hire your business.  Being creative in promoting your brand will cause consumers to recognize and appreciate the effort you make to put your business in front of them. Even if they don’t remember the specific advertising over the long-term, and even if the ad doesn’t convince them to buy right away, there is a long-lasting positive effect on the company’s brand overall. A professional designer/creator of ads will know just how to grab your potential customer or client by the shirt and then make them smile at their cleverness.  That’s the goal anyway!  :)

Creative Advertising that gets attention and gets people to take action takes work and focus. Hiring a professional marketing and advertising professional like Creative Juices Marketing Agency is a smart way to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  If your business needs creative advertising, whether it be print, radio, tv or digital advertising; contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511 or send this CONTACT FORM

See also Ultimate List Of Graphic Design Tips

The post 5 Reasons Creativity Is A Must appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

Go mobile!

With 79% of internet users conducting online shopping via mobile devices, you should be embarrassed if your website isn’t mobile-friendly. This is not optional, although many still treat it like it is. If you do digital advertising, don’t forget to create mobile-preferred ads that are tailored to this audience — and make it as easy as possible for them to convert. Direct link to your website and/or use call extensions so they can simply click to call your business.

Use more ‘human touching’ ads

Ads with super-high click-through rates generally speak to the emotions behind why your customer would want what you’re selling. For example, instead of writing an ad that just asks the prospect to register for your mountain climbing school, think about why someone would be interested in mountain climbing in the first place. One extremely successful ad said “Fluorescent lights are killing you. Be more than a warm corpse.”  WOW… that’s morbid.

Write content to help your audience

The best content for marketing is directed at helping and delighting your key audience. Understand your customer: know their pain points, what gets them psyched, and what keeps them up at night. Killer content address your audience’s needs and concerns! Try using keyword research tools to identify the questions your audience needs answers to — then deliver what they’re looking for. Creative ideas are the best for the web where attention-grabbing is essential.

Add a visual element

To ALL your content pieces on your website, your ads, and you social media posts — People get bored with text really fast! To keep visitors reading, it’s essential to have images breaking up your text. Don’t overlook the importance of a visual element, even in blog posts that are predominantly text-based.

Show and tell with videos

Video content, whether you’re trying to demonstrate how your product works or just educating and entertaining visitors, is incredibly powerful. Video not only draws in users, it sticks with them — retention rate for visual information can reach 65% vs. 10% for text-based info. Plus, customers who view product videos are much more likely to convert than those who don’t.

Get into symbols

Symbols and special characters, like exclamation points, dollar signs, and registered trademark symbols, are known to increase click-through rates. Don’t got completely nuts with the exclamation points though!  It may look like you’re trying too hard!!!??!

Invest in infographics

We know readers love visual content, and infographics are a prime example of linkable visual assets.  While the idea of creating a top-notch infographic may sound daunting, it doesn’t have to be hard. You don’t need fancy software — in fact, you can make a simple infographic just using PowerPoint!  You’ll find that Pinterest is a good resource as well.

Make a statistics lists

For an easy content marketing fix, collect interesting statistics on a subject related to your business and create a blog post about what you’ve learned. Massive lists of facts and stats are easy to create and extremely sharable — and other content creators will want to cite your research! (Man… maybe that’s what THIS IS!)

1. Discuss Current Events: According to HubSpot’s research, nearly 80% of shared and/or retweeted content is about news, and more than 50% of that content is entertainment-related.
2. Don’t Be Overly Self-Promotional: Become thought leaders!
3. Include Links to Your Website: More than 50% of shares and retweets include links.
4. Understand Your Audience: People follow others who they feel are thought leaders in their industry.  Your followers want content that is credible, intelligent, and valuable.
5. Share and Retweet Others: “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” Enough said.
6. Ask Others to Retweet You: If you have something valuable to share, you probably want as many people as possible to spread that content or message, and simply asking others to share.
7. Consider the Timing of Your Tweets: When sending out tweets, timing does matter.

But I digress…  :)

See also 10 Tips For Creative Marketing

The post Creative Ideas For Web appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

In the early days of branding, most marketing communications were one-way. Companies could speak to their audiences through advertisements or newspapers, but it was difficult for people to get back in touch—to have conversations—with companies. We live in a very different world today. Today, companies can put messages almost anywhere. Billboards, advertisements, and newspapers still exist, but the online world has led to the constant presence of marketing messages—and direct one-to-one communication with potential customers. The same connection that leads to the spread of marketing messages means that consumers are more connected than ever. Emails, instant messaging, and text messages let friends communicate instantly across large physical distance. Social media and forums add complete strangers to the mix. Conversations can happen between people anywhere.hy is branding important?

If branding your business involves influencing the perception of that business, it’s no longer possible to fully control the brand story. Customers and potential customers are on social media talking about your products. They can tell each other about good (and bad) experiences.

REMEMBER THIS ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS BRAND – You can affect it. You can build it. You can spread it, or grow it. But your brand mainly exists in the minds of your audience.

Creative Advertising that gets attention and gets people to take action takes work and focus. Hiring a professional marketing and advertising professional like Creative Juices Marketing Agency is a smart way to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  If your business needs creative advertising, whether it be print, radio, tv or digital advertising; contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511 or send our CONTACT FORM.

See also Elements Of Business Branding

The post Your Business Needs Branding appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

When you’re starting a new business and your professional marketer tells you that it’s very important to develop strong business brand, know that there is nothing more important.  Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B. An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets. If you are fresh and new and need to be immediately in everyone’s face and memorable; you need business branding.  The essential elements of business branding are two-fold – there is the visual brand that aesthetically represents what you’re all about: the design of your logo, website, and materials; then there is the messaging that communicates what you do and why you’re different, which includes all of the copy and your tagline. To develop an appropriate brand, you need to know your audience, your current challenges and goals, and determine the best visual “mark” and tagline that will represent your business for many years to come.

Simply put, your brand is your promise to your customer. It tells them what they can expect from your products and services, and it differentiates you from your competitors’. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.  The foundation of your brand is your logo and your tagline.  Start here, but don’t neglect to integrate this logo and tagline into your website and marketing to communicate your brand to the public.  If you don’t do that, your brand is wasted.  Always follow your business brand development with a strong and diversified brand strategy.

See also Your Business Needs Branding

Your Visual Brand

When a designer says they’ll design your brand, they really mean your logo and identity materials. It would be more accurate to say they are designing your visual brand. They often will want you to provide your own messaging and copy, and they will completely rely on you in terms of positioning and strategy.

This is the person you use when you are first starting out if you don’t have a lot of money to invest. It gives you something to get your business out there, to start selling and testing your services in the market. Once you’ve had some experience with clients, a solid marketing strategy can be developed and will take you to the next level.

You may choose to find an inexpensive freelancer to develop your visual brand in order to save money.  There are designers out there fresh out of school that may take on your project.  Beware, however, that a rising design star may be incredibly talented creatively, but likely hasn’t yet mastered the art of managing projects and clients. This usually means a lot more of their time AND your time are spent on the project, so certainly be wary of hourly pricing.  Also, they are generally not thinking about messaging and business strategy, which is EXTREMELY essential to creating a compelling and enduring brand.  Your branding can look great, even brilliant, but if your messaging is generic and your business strategy is weak, a gorgeous visual brand is not going to help you much in the long run.  It’s best to hire someone who will look at the whole picture – What image do you want your business to portray?   How will your brand stand out amongst your competition? Will your visual brand speak to and appeal to your target audience.

See also 5 Reasons Creativity Is A Must

Brand Message & Design

Luckily, plenty of agencies integrate design with messaging. You tell them what you your business is about and what you want to communicate, and they put it into words, make a tagline, and design an identity to match. This is probably the most common approach to this type of branding, and if you’ve got a solid business strategy, a brand agency that does the messaging and the design is a great match.

Your brand strategy is how, what, where, when and to whom you plan on communicating and delivering on your brand messages. Where you advertise is part of your brand strategy. Your distribution channels are also part of your brand strategy. And what you communicate visually and verbally are part of your brand strategy, too.

Brand Strategy and Equity

Consistent, strategic branding leads to a strong brand equity, which means the added value brought to your company’s products or services that allows you to charge more for your brand than what identical, unbranded products command. The most obvious example of this is Coke vs. a generic soda. Because Coca-Cola has built a powerful brand equity, it can charge more for its product–and customers will pay that higher price.

Brand equity frequently comes in the form of perceived quality or an emotional attachment. For example, Nike associates its products with star athletes, hoping customers will transfer their emotional attachment from the athlete to the product.

Defining Your Brand

Defining your brand is like a journey of business self-discovery. It can be difficult, time-consuming and uncomfortable. It requires, at the very least, that you answer the questions below:

• What is your company’s mission?
• What are the benefits and features of your products or services?
• What do your customers and prospects already think of your company?
• What qualities do you want them to associate with your company?

Research must be done. You must know the needs, habits and desires of your current and prospective customers. You can’t rely on what you think that they think. You have to know what they think.

If you need assistance with Business Branding, website design, or content creation to promote your business; feel free to contact Creative Juices Marketing Agency to discuss.  We’d love to help you!  CONTACT US.

See also Your Business Needs Branding

The post Elements Of Business Branding appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.