Integrated Marketing

#FindNewRoads and #CruzeToLA

November 19, 2015intro-multimedia, UncategorizedBlog site, chevrolet, cruze, cruze to LA, Digital, events, facebook, Grad Student, IMC, Integrated Marketing, outdoor, radio disney music awards, Social Media, sweepstakes, University of Floridastacielscott Leave a comment

Company Analysis: Chevrolet

When someone says describe Chevrolet, one mark seems to always come to mind with consumers and that is the Chevrolet bow-tie emblem. This slanted plus sign has been the logo identity for the company since 1913 and is featured on the front of most if not all Chevrolet models. Wiki defines Chevrolet as the following, “Chevrolet colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM)”. In North America, where we will focus on the Domestic marketing efforts of this project, Chevrolet produces a variety of automobiles from compact cars to trucks to sportsters. Chevrolet has been around for over 100 years selling cars under the GM brand. Chevy became a volume leader in 1919 selling mainstream vehicles to compete with Henry Ford’s Model T. By 1929, Chevy became known as the best selling car in the United States overtaking Ford. Since the company’s inception, the goal of the company has been to be a leader in the automotive world. Despite fierce competition, Chevy has done a great job at remaining mainstream. That’s not to say that in years past, Ford and Dodge haven’t edged Chevy out for best vehicle awards and overall brand popularity, but Chevy is making it’s way back to number one. In 2015, Chevy had three vehicles rank number one for the J.D. Power Initial Quality Award. The Silverado LD won in large light duty pickup category, Malibu took the midsize car category, and Equinox for the compact SUV category. For 2016, Chevy won Motor Trend Car and Truck of the year for their updated design and innovative features in the Camaro and Silverado! With momentum like this, it is imperative for Chevy to continue marketing their vehicles to consumers with an integrated marketing approach. It isn’t 1913 anymore where newspapers were the primary form of advertising for cars. Now more than ever, it is time to think about television everywhere and how every screen and platform is an advertising opportunity.

The goals and objectives for Chevrolet’s overarching brand are as follows:

Goals/Objectives

Reach moms and families and build awareness of Chevrolet brand.
Increase purchase intent for Chevrolet vehicles especially the Cruze and Equinox.
Build awareness of the cool factor and connectivity of Chevrolet vehicles.

The primary target audience for a campaign featuring the Chevy Cruze and Equinox is moms and families. The vehicle features for these models entice both moms and their families when purchasing such a big-ticket item. Everything from gas mileage to innovative technology features to comfort is analyzed before signing the purchase or lease agreement of a brand new vehicle. Moms want to know if the vehicle will entertain their children, is it safe to drive from point A to point B, and is it cost effective. Kids influence the model purchase by the cool factor.

Notably, the automotive industry as a whole is very competitive in design and available features. The biggest rivalry in American Motor history is between Chevrolet and Ford, closely followed by Dodge. The American automotive industry has the most competition between US brands, but lest not forget about the various other automotive companies out there vying for a piece of the auto pie like Toyota, Honda, BMW, Volvo, and Volkswagen just to name a few.

With such a competitive environment comes much opportunity!

Opportunities –

Ability to create innovative features and products offered first or only available in Chevy models.
Become more innovative and try edgy attention grabbing marketing promotions that resonate with the current market.

Strengths –

For 2016, Chevrolet won two categories… Motor Trend Truck and Car of the year. These awards help boost sales and visibility of the brand.
Integrated Technology – Keeps moms and families connected to everything and everyone by introducing Wi-Fi feature within the vehicles. (Up to 7 devices)
As of May this year, Forbes noted Chevrolet as the sixty-second most valuable brand in the United States.

Why Leverage an Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Plan Traditional marketing has always been about brand awareness and having the media platforms push advertising campaigns out into the world for people to consume. Traditional advertising campaigns are time-consuming on the front end due to the production lead-time required and the extensive planning of media buys.

With a growing number of social media options, which are far less costly than traditional media, the question arises about why spend so much money on those pricey TV, radio and print ads. However the answer is simple, using both traditional and new media together, as opposed to one versus the other, you can move your message further and reach a larger audience.

“IMC is not a new concept, but it’s more important than ever, as there are now more marketing channels than ever before. Back in the 50’s, marketing campaigns relied heavily on print, radio, and television. It didn’t take much to keep these aligned. But, now with digital media, we have everything from newsletters to social media campaigns. Our marketing tool sheds are filled with new and effective tactics that range from broad messaging (your website’s homepage) to targeting more niche groups (via Instagram),” states Kyle Eliason from Pi Portent.

Quite simply put, your social footprint is just as important as having a website for consumers to find information about your company as is the television spot for additional brand awareness. The platforms all work together to reinforce your marketing message to your targeted consumers.

Additional Integrated Marketing Communications: Ideation

Additional IMC marketing efforts that I would love to see executed in this cross-platform #CruzeToLA campaign are Print, Outdoor, Email and Social.

Flyers

At On The Road To events, custom co-branded flyers would be passed during the festival and to those that visited the Chevrolet booth on site. These flyers would provide all the details for the #CruzeToLA sweepstakes from what you could win to how to enter and earn more entries. The backside of the flyer would call out all the new features of the Chevrolet models they want to tout during this promotion. Additionally, due to the partnership with Nokia Theater, flyers can be handed to those leaving other events held at Nokia Live during the week of March 14 – 20 prior to the sweepstakes closing. Again, these flyers would be co-branded and tout features of the Cruze, but also the #CruzeToLA promotion. Granted these folks are probably from LA, but they can still be entered to win tickets to the RDMAs and a chance a keys to a new Cruze!

Email

Send sweepstakes promotion to the current Chevrolet email-marketing database to provide their super fans the opportunity to enter and just general awareness of the promotion.

Outdoor

Produce co-branded flag banners featuring the Chevrolet Cruze and RDMAs along the surrounding blocks of Downtown LA. This brands the outdoor space of the festival at Ardy’s Pre-show Party and adds to the overall brand awareness of Chevy’s presence and sponsorship of the RDMAs.

Pin-Party

Chevy and Disney to host a week long Pin Party encouraging moms to re-pin the custom promotional pin (found on Chevrolet’s Pinterest page) to their own boards for a chance to win $1,000 and a trip to the RDMAs. Should any of the Pinners also write a blog post about the promotion, and Tweet about it on their social handle hash tagging #CruzeToLA, they will receive 5 additional entries to the sweepstakes. This will be promoted on Chevy’s Facebook page and one of the main hero images on their website.

Pre-roll on YouTube

:10 second Chevrolet branded ad as pre-roll placement prior to main performance at the RDMAs.

For example, their branded spot could lead in to custom video content such as this:

View Here

Proximity Marketing

Those that opt in and accept to receive the offer from Chevy at the On The Road To tour and Ardy’s Pre-show Party will receive a free oil change at any Chevrolet dealership. This gets moms on Chevy lots to look around at the new models they saw at the RDMAs. There would be on-site signage at the pre-show festival about the opt-in offer.

Analysis: #CruzeToLA Sweepstakes Promotion

Analytics would be measured by sweepstakes entries, page views from the digital site and social engagement and impressions pulled from Sprinklr.

Thank you for your time and consideration of the pitch #CruzeToLA Sweepstakes presented by Chevrolet. This IMC promotion will meet your objectives and provide brand awareness to the cool new features of the Cruze!

Analytic Post Mortem and Creative Ideation for the Future

November 16, 2015intro-multimediaanalytics, Blog, campaign, facebook, HVAC, ideation, Integrated Marketing, post mortem, results, Social Media, yelpstacielscott Leave a comment

Assignment/Synopsis

This is our last week’s assignment for the Multi-media Communications class I’m currently enrolled. We’ve studied Integrated Marketing Communications, what it means and how it is executed by brands big and small. This final post is going to take us through a post mortem analytic review for a company labeled XYZ. Please note; this blog post is for academic purposes only.

XYZ is a heating and cooling company (HVAC) located in Western Massachusetts. This recently launched small business provides installations, maintenance, and repair to their customers. Currently XYZ utilizes the following platforms for advertising; website, Twitter, Yelp, Google+, Facebook and direct mail. The stats we will be examining below are from Facebook.

To date XYZ has 489 likes on their fan page. This means we have lots of room to grow the XYZ’s audience and followers.

Key Findings

Analytics like Research can be interpreted in a variety of ways. A lot of times Research can mean one thing to one person and something totally different to another. The same goes for how the research is translated and spun. With this in mind, here are some of my key findings for XYZ.

XYZ’s fans are online in the highest concentration at 12pm, 3pm and 6-8:30pm.
XYZ’s fans demographics are split with women taking 57% of the pie and men 43%.
Women are the dominant fan mix in every age range except 25-34.
The majority of XYZ’s likers are from Massachusetts or Connecticut.
For those that have commented, liked or shared XYZ’s posts in the last 28 days, the men demographic take the lead with a 65% engagement over 35% women.

Screen Shot 2015-11-16 at 8.07.01 PM.png

Screen Shot 2015-11-16 at 8.07.12 PM.png

Campaign Improvements

Yelp is a great way to earn the trust of new customers. If you have great reviews, people are more likely to try your company over one that doesn’t have good things being said about their service. First off, XYZ could enhance and increase their reviewers on Yelp. (see Future Campaigns for additional details) Secondly, Twitter could be leveraged as a weather service update provider for Massachusetts area, service messages, or any cute type of heating/cooling related promotional tout that comes to XYZ’s mind. Leveraging SEO and tags within posts will improve overall awareness of the XYZ brand and their services.

Social Amplification

The definition of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) according to Wikipedia is the application of consistent brand messaging across both traditional and non-traditional marketing channels and using different promotional methods to reinforce each other. XZY has a presence on their own website, Twitter, Yelp and Google+ pages. Having multiple social channels, promotions can easily be shared among the different channels to cross promote the overall brand promise of XYZ, but also any and all promotions that they may have to offer. What is great about sharing on other social media channels is that it is free to share to your current followers, and you have the opportunity to purchase or boost any content that you wish.

Future Campaigns / Promotional Ideation

HVAC is a seasonal business, and their marketing should be strategic and targeted. As we learned a few weeks ago, email marketing is not dead. Email marketing is very much alive, and XYZ should work on growing their audience’s data base in order to keep constant communication with their clients. Yelp and Google+ are two social channels that can be leveraged heavily to promote the brand and really provide a deep social footprint for the company.

Email Marketing – Build Database
- As customers start using XYZ’s services, they should start creating and building their email database. By doing this they will be able to send out reminders to their customers since their business is seasonally driven. Email marketing helps push consumers to make the call or purchase sooner especially if they have been thinking about a certain product or service.
Yelp – Increase Reviews
- Sometimes you have to give a little in order to build your brand and company. XYZ should invest in a Yelp promotion that would give consumers $100 credit towards heating and cooling repairs or maintenance after they have left a review. This would build reviews on their site, and promote repeat customers. Win, Win!
Google+ – Locate XYZ
- Building out the company’s social footprint is beneficial to the brand. It makes it easier for consumers to find information about the company easier than if information is only in one place.

Integrated Marketing Recap | Live Design Trade Show

October 26, 2015intro-multimediaGrad Student, IMC, Integrated Marketing, LDI, Live Design Trade Show, Social Media, University of Floridastacielscott Leave a comment

I’m a UF grad student and this blog post is for educational purposes only.

As part of a weekly assignment for the University of Florida’s MMC5006 Introduction to Multimedia Communication class, we are taking a deeper look at how Live Design International (LDI) does Integrated Marketing for their October trade show event in Las Vegas LDI Tradeshow.

The LDI Trade Show has been the leading global tradeshow and conference for live design professionals for 28 years. The tradeshow hosted over 10,000 attendees and more than 350 companies/exhibitors. I found it interesting that the University of Florida College of Fine Arts has a partnership with LDI and offers students credits towards their degree for masterclasses they attend through LDI. Their main website houses all sorts of information including link outs to LDI partners, details regarding offered masterclasses, and even the itinerary for the trade show.

LDIshow.com

LDI has a great start to IMC as they house all their information on their website and use it as their main information destination. On the right hand side of the home page there is a call out for attendees to download the LDI Mobile App and connect with LDI on all of their social channels. Those social channels include, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. The 728×90 header is advertising space, and one sponsor used it to tout their booth number.

Email

Live Design sent out an email communication to their distribution list letting everyone know that LDI Tradeshow had begun, and they featured In the Eye of Rock ‘n Roll Hurricane providing ribbon ceremony cutting times and regular exhibit times.

Email communication continued throughout the week. I received an email about every other day. The last email I received linked out to an article announcing all the LDI award winners.

Facebook

Facebook has 5,122 people wanting to know the latest information via Facebook channels. LDI posted once or twice before the tradeshow began, but during the week is when they really stepped up their social engagement and sent multiple updates. The posts they distributed on Facebook were reminders to visit certain exhibits, they called out booth numbers for people to go check out, a couple of sponsor posts with one having a sweepstakes layer, and then tons of behind the scenes photos!

Twitter

LDI’s following on Twitter is 3,754. This is the social channel that LDI focused on pushing out information during the week of the tradeshow. Leading up to the tradeshow, LDI was posting once a day or every other day. On October 19, kicking off the LDI Tradeshow, they posted 13 times. Throughout the week, LDI pushed out post after post. Everything from panel info, where that night’s after party was being held to master class offerings and other Vegas specials. If you were looking for information about the happenings of LDI, you could find it on their Twitter page. #LDI2015 was the most widely used hashtag during the promotional window of the tradeshow as well as #LDIAfterDark which promoted the nighttime events. LDI @tagged many exhibitors new products and promoted it’s mobile app via Twitter as well.

At the end of the show, exhibitors and attendees alike were tweeting ‘that’s a wrap’ and ‘thank you for a great show’. The hashtag #LDI2015 saw much love at the end of the show. LDI didn’t do much two-way conversation during their social promotion, but at the very end they did re-tweet a few posts.

In future promotional strategies, it would be great to see some conversations regarding the events at the tradeshow or vendors products just to have some social back and forth banter.

YouTube

Their YouTube channel hasn’t been updated in 10 months. The top video is the highlight reel from the 2014 LDI tradeshow. With all the technology and cool visuals coming from this tradeshow, I would think that YouTube would be a great social channel to leverage. Definitely an opportunity missed by LDI.

Mobile App

LinkedIn

LDI has a LinkedIn page and the social chicklet on their website, however, it seems as though they do not have much activity through this social channel. This could be an area of improvement whereas LinkedIn could be leveraged to connect to all the tradeshow vendors and attendees.

Additional LDI Promotion from Vendors

ScubaEarth: Specific Social Media

October 19, 2015intro-multimediadiving, Integrated Marketing, marketing, ocean, proximity marketing, scuba, scubaearth, Social Mediastacielscott Leave a comment

Industry Specific Social Media

This week we are learning about proximity marketing and industry-specific social networking. The increase in mobile devices is driving popularity for proximity marketing for its ability to reach consumers at point of purchase opportunities and for consumers on the go. And, industry specific social networking is gaining traction within social communities.

Below, take a look at one industry specific site I really like, ScubaEarth. Earlier this year I finally received my open water diver certification from PADI, and quickly enrolled in their social community ScubaEarth. With the help of ScubaEarth my next dive adventure is currently being planned!

So What Is ScubaEarth?

Scuba Earth

PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) created ScubaEarth, an industry specific social gathering place for divers and diving advocates. On PADI.com you can find a call to action stating join the evolution on ScubaEarth directly underneath the social channel call outs.

ScubaEarth® is an online scuba resource and social community for divers and other water lovers. It’s a robust, one-stop site to research, plan and share dive experiences. ScubaEarth targets PADI divers that want to stay in touch with diving experts and those that also want to receive the latest information on dive trips and equipment. Diving is an expensive hobby and one that is usually planned well in advance. With that in mind, this site aids in the research of finding a location to dive and ensuring you have all the information you need.

Not only can you connect with diving buddies, but you can share your images and dive information including visibility at the dive site, how long the dive consisted, and what sea life could be seen at each logged dive location.

This site is definitely a resource in that you can access your diving certification and dive classes administered by PADI, look up featured destinations, research dive sites and find dive shops.

Mission

To engage new divers and keep current divers diving | Support and mobilize the scuba diving lifestyle | Encourage customers to fulfill their scuba diving needs with a PADI Retailer or Resort

Vision

Establish a thriving online community of dive enthusiasts and professional experts who share valuable content.

Stand Out From the Crowd

ScubaEarth stands out from other forms of social communities because it is truly a resource and way to connect with other divers. The site provides the certification details you’ve received and has the log book feature woven as one of the main features. This site allows people to truly connect with those that are passionate about diving without being flooded with daily posts about what your friends did last night or ate for lunch today.

Get Schooled with Proximity Marketing

ScubaEarth has 4 main tabs at the top of the site. Featured Destinations and Dive Shops are two of the four tabs that could seamlessly incorporate proximity marketing to further the potential bookings of a dive trip and the purchase of new equipment for a divers next trip below the surface. If a diver is searching for a new destination for a dive trip, incentives could be sent out through posts to the wall or their network of buddies to encourage bookings. Also, discounts on new masks, fins, bcd’s, and other accessories is a no brainer! ScubaEarth also allows you to add your local dive shop to your profile. Discovery Dive Shop is my preferred retailer and their location is stored in my profile with a specific code. I think this geo-targeted information and link in my profile could give the dive shop the opportunity to send email notifications on the latest dive trips and any promotions they have going on in-store.

ScubaEarth Integrated Marketing

At the bottom of the main page of ScubaEarth’s site, it has the following call to action for four additional social sites.

There is a small presence on YouTube in addition to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. In my opinion, Instagram or Flickr could be two really cool visual social channels that would amplify and create excitement for future dive trips. Being able to see what other divers explored under the ocean’s surface in an aggregated gallery on ScubaEarth could make the experience so much more visually stimulating, and again, I think promote research for those featured dive locations found in the images.

ScubaEarth by PADI

ScubaEarth Instructional Video

Find me on ScubaEarth…I’d love to hear all about your diving experience!

Nike, McDonalds and Coca-Cola are Socially Savvy — They Just Do It and are Lovin’ it by Opening Happiness!

October 12, 2015Uncategorizedall day breakfast, coca-cola, coke, facebook, Grad Student, instagram, Integrated Marketing, just do it, mcdonald's, nike, open happiness, twitter, University of Floridastacielscott Leave a comment

Nike, McDonalds and Coca-Cola are Socially Savvy — They Just Do It, Are Lovin’ it and are Opening Happiness!

Below, check out how these brands use integrated marketing methods to promote themselves.

Facebook • Twitter • Instagram • Google+ • Pinterest • YouTube

Nike does take an integrated marketing approach to advertising, however, they do it without inundating the marketplace with their messaging. On most of their social platforms, it seems that the overall Nike brand retweets it’s sub-brands like Nike Football, Nike Women or Nike.com.

On Facebook, Nike posts once to twice a month. They limit their use of hashtags on the Facebook platform only leveraging their main campaign hashtags such as #JustDoIt or #NikeZoom.

For Twitter, Nike posted 4 times in the month of August (and they were all re-tweets), posted only twice in September , and has yet to post anything in October. When Nike posts, they do integrate a hashtag, but they keep it very simple and again stick to the main or trending hashtags.

You would think that hashtagging on Instagram would be a no brainer, but about half of the posts Nike disseminates via Instagram do not incorporate any hashtags at all. They do @tag their sub-brands in their messaging.

The content on Google + is posted more infrequently than any of the social platforms. This seems to be the same with Pinterest.

You can connect to the social channels below from Nike.com.

Facebook • Twitter • Instagram • Google+ • Pinterest • YouTube • Tumblr • Vine • Flickr

Has anyone ever craved breakfast for lunch, dinner or even a late night snack? Well, McDonalds released a new menu that serves breakfast all day long. This new promotion is being touted across all media platforms, and let’s just say Mickey D’s is rocking integrated marketing communications! Their television commercials even showcase people sharing their requests AND their joy for all day breakfast. I must say the commercials that touted the tweets for all day breakfast were hilarious. Well done McDonald’s… hat’s off to your creative agency for this promotion!

YOU CAN GET BREAKFAST ALL DAY

#AllDayBreakfast

McDonald’s instagram is highly stylized, very simple and is saturated with the primary colors in the color wheel. Insta gets around 4 to 5 posts a week.

Tweeting is a regular mainstay for the McDonald’s brand. The photo posts on Twitter are not like the photos of perfection you see on their instagram channel.

@McDonalds YAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS #alldaybreakfast SOOOOOOOO good

McDonald’s uses Google+ and YouTube to house all their videos so that they can be found in one easy location.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/yCTopiYQoYw“>

McDonald’s also uses Tumblr to collect tweets, instagram posts, gifs, memes and collect them in one easy local for sharing and re-sharing purposes.

Talk about synergy between two major brands. Check out this Vine that McDonalds posted…

Raise your hand if you love a coke with a big mac! Yes please, my hand is up!!

You can also find more information from this blog on McDonald’s social presence.

Facebook • Twitter • Instagram • Google+ • Pinterest • YouTube • Tumblr • Vine • Flickr (and I’m sure Many Many More)

Coca-Cola shares happiness across all media types and has a prolific social media footprint. Coca-Cola does integrated marketing well, and you can find brand consistency across all the media and social platforms they are on. They are very consistent in their messaging and posts.

When it comes to hashtags, Coke is very clever. They hashtag their campaign titles as well as hashtag current events with custom graphics like the blood moon post below.

Coke consistently updates each of their social platforms with new content every day or two.

I really love the pin boards Coca-Cola has on Pinterest. They are all related to events or a lifestyle thematic.

On Coca-Cola.com (United States version), the website has a module that drives to Social that features the latest posts, allows you to connect via the website and link outs to the following social platforms; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

Doggone Best Products USA is ‘Paw’rrific

October 5, 2015intro-multimediaamazon, Blog site, dog doggone doggone best products, email, facebook, Grad Student, IMC, Integrated Marketing, pinterest, Social Media, University of Floridastacielscott Leave a comment

Whether or not you are marketing yourself or a brand, you must define your objectives and strategizes to achieve your marketing goals. The objectives and strategies you outline act as a guideline for creating all the integrated marketing communications for a particular campaign.

For this week’s assignment, I choose to help out a friend of mine and create marketing elements and further the social footprint for their dog supplement company.

DOGGONE BEST PRODUCTS USA (DoggoneBestUSA.com is coming soon!)

Doggone Best Products is a pet supplement company dedicated to the health and happiness of your four legged friends. Let’s take a closer look at the company and their marketing strategy.

Objectives:

Further awareness of Doggone Best Products
Create and further Doggone’s social footprint keeping the brand message, look and feel of the content consistent yet customized for each platform
Create and distribute email communication for their newest product, a 5 million count Probiotic

Strategies:

Update product information on Amazon
Create Pinterest account to target women
- Pin health tips for senior dogs, the right amount of exercise your dog should be getting, and tips for weight management
- Pin boards that further promote the Doggone brand and doggie parent interests
Target customers that have previously purchased the Joint Supplement with product information regarding the new Probiotic supplement

Let’s take a look at the IMC elements created to promote and market Doggone Best this week!

Amazon Product Info:

Doggone Best had two different formulas for their joint supplement. After many focus group testing’s with beloved pets, the original formula which was chicken liver flavor won out over the beef flavored formula. To market that the original formula will be in stock as of October 6, I crafted position statement about it being back by ‘Paw’pular demand and the discontinued use of the beef flavored supplement.

BACK BY ‘PAW’PULAR DEMAND: Your furbabies have spoken and we listened. We are exclusively offering our original joint supplement formula that your dog loves so much!

Pinterest: Created the entire Pinterest footprint for Doggone this week

The visual bookmarking tool that helps you discover and save creative ideas.

I created 8 boards for Doggone this week, and many more will be added in the future – but it’s a great start in creating a pet loving community for Doggone Best. The first set of pin boards are creative ideas for fall images with your pups, Pet Care with a focus on joint health for senior dogs and weight management, inspirational quotes about dogs, and of course a board about puppies is cuteness overload!

Email Marketing:

In the previous week’s lesson for integrated marketing platforms, we studied email marketing. Email marketing is not dead and is a great way for companies to boost sales and distribute the latest product information and sales to their consumers.

Email is the most dominant way of sharing information. Back in the day, one of the best parts of logging onto AOL was the knowledge that after minutes of agonizing squeals, you’d be treated to that wonderful phrase, “You’ve Got Mail!”

If you stop to think about it, email has become a mainstay for most businesses and how the majority of business communication is conducted. Email has replaced faxing documents as well as replaced many face to face and telephone communications. Email makes it easy to document communication, and reference it at a later point in time if necessary.

More than one in five people worldwide use email. That’s about 1.9 billion people. It’s predicted to increase to 2.5 billion email users in the next 2 years. Yup, email’s popular. The Radicati Group, who came up with that info, also reckon that the world sends about 294 billion emails daily. 192 billion emails sent daily, that is an incredible amount of electronic communication!

Here is a screenshot of the email I designed that went out to Doggone’s distribution list. The two main points of the email is to promote the Probiotic and drive customers to connect to Doggone’s social sites. The email also reminds the audience of the free shipping and returns feature when ordering.

Facebook:

The strategy for this social channel is to continue to update the main content of the page including updating the brands imagery. For example, the use of the image with the golden retrieving the stick is the same image that was prominent in the email communication. I’ve also set the social post strategy for the next coming weeks that will drive to Doggone’s Pinterest board, promote the buy 2 promo offer, as well as posts that promote the overall health and care of your pet!

I encourage everyone to follow Doggone Best on Facebook and Pinterest as their social footprint grows in the world of happy, healthy furbabies!

And, don’t forget to check out these great pet videos!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/AJFRvkNF6Wg“>http://

https://www.youtube.com/embed/XZ8M6o46KO4“>http://

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nupfxo2ihQc“>http://

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fipadBqIiQ4“>http://

Thanks for tuning in this week!

My Three Favorite Blog Sites

September 27, 2015intro-multimediaBarkPost, Blog, Blog site, Gators, GoodInc, Grad Student, IMC, Integrated Marketing, Masters, OhMyDisney, Social Mediastacielscott Leave a comment

This week’s lesson in my Multi-media Communications class was to learn about different types of blogs and then target three of my favorite blogs to discuss in this post.

There are five different types of blogs, which are:

News
Professional/Semi-professional
Recreational
Aggregator/Link sharing
Group

Successful blogs are those that have posts that are published often because new content drives traffic, and their articles have a lengthy word count (around 1,500). Most bloggers have multiple social sites linked to their blog, however, the top 25 bloggers all have one social channel in common and that is Twitter!

Below, find 3 of the top blogs I check frequently.

BarkPost – categorizing this blog as Professional

“The BarkPost helps dogs share their stories with the world, using the power of the hoomans.” It is a place where you can get your fix for funny, cute, or heartwarming doggie pictures and stories.

FACT: Dogs do pawesome stuff.
FACT: But there was never a place where all this pawsomeness was shared with the world before BarkPost.

BarkPost touts being the first site that gathers all doggie related content, stories and photos and shares them with the world. If you love dogs and stories about dogs, there is an article out there for you on BarkPost. Also, I love how organized BarkPost is with their content. They have the blog articles categorized and make finding specific content very easy.

BarkPost takes doggie lingo to the extreme with changing every regular word to a ‘puptacular’ version of a word such as autumn was recently changed to ‘pawtumn’ in a BarkPost email on the first day of fall. I feel that their creativity in how they position their blog articles and unique doggie language makes them stand out from other pet oriented companies.

Bark and Co has a family of brands that include the following: BarkPost, BarkBox, BarkShop and BarkLive. I think the most well-known of the family of brands is BarkBox, a monthly subscription service. Pawrents can have treats, toys and other goodies sent to their pet monthly. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest all drive to the blog site. Instagram isn’t a driver, but is used as a visually appealing brand presence on the social channel. Social sharing chicklets are located at the top of the blog site making it very easy to stay connected. Facebook advertising and word of mouth are two of the main BarkBox marketing methods, which led me to discover BarkPost when researching whether or not I wanted to try BarkBox for my dog.

From this week’s lecture, BarkPost seems to do most if not all the things that were outlined in having a successful blog. BarkPost posts entertaining content and they post often. Their social footprint drives people to view the full articles.

BarkPost has extensive advertising opportunities that are outlined on their site and seen in the images below. At the top of their page they a sponsored by call out that they label ‘spawnsored by’ and they have a ‘pawtners’ section as well.

Oh My Disney – categorizing this blog as Professional

Disney Interactive launched 4 blog sites in February 2013, and they are; Oh My Disney, Disney Insider, Disney Playlist, and Disney Style. They all link and pull content from each other, however, I find Oh My Disney more relatable and entertaining than the other Disney blog sites. Oh My Disney is known for all the Disney inspired Quizes and Disney inspired custom video content. Think Buzzfeed, but for Disney fanatics.

The purpose of the blog site is to create compelling content and have a deep reach with moms. With great reach and impressions, it provides greater sponsorship and advertising opportunities for third parties.

Because the blog site is owned by Disney, the content if of high value and in my opinion speaks to Disney super fans. Disney is great at telling stories. Through the content they produce, they are able to engage fans and play on emotional experiences they’ve had with Disney brands since childhood.

Here is an example of the custom content Oh My Disney releases, click on the image and you can watch the most adorable little pups dress up as their favorite Disney characters!

The menu bar titles are clever and the icons are trendy, keeping it relevant and hip for moms! Let’s be real, this blog is all Disney inspired content, if you love Disney, the articles and quizzes are quite entertaining.

If you google Oh My Disney, every social channel for Oh My Disney comes up, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and YouTube. Paid media on Google and SEO is working to the fullest for the Oh My Disney blog site. The main Disney page on Pinterest also has a dedicated pin board called Disney Quizzes that drives to Oh My Disney’s site.

Advertising, yes there is! The Oh My Disney blog site has a 728×90 and 300×250 banner display ad opportunity. Additionally, articles themselves can be sponsored by advertisers with logo integration and organic brand messaging.

Good, INC. – categorizing this blog as Group and News

“Good pursues the mission to convene, connect, and empower all of us who give a damn. GOOD is a place to share creative solutions for living well and doing good. GOOD Worldwide chronicles and champions the emerging identity of the global citizen and creative change maker.”

There are two parts to the Good Inc site, the group blog sharing side which Good labels as Community and then the other part is Magazine. The Magazine part of the Good leans more towards the news sharing type blog sites. Just like with BarkPost, there are different categories and sub-sections to the company that lends itself to generate revenue.

I think their purpose of doing good makes Good, Inc. unique because usually that isn’t the end goal for most people let alone companies. Believing there is good in everyone and everything gives us hope in the world we live in. Does anyone listen to KISS FM in the morning with Ryan Seacrest? He has a call-in promo for listeners when he asks them to call in and tell him something good. Hearing what’s good in other people’s lives has the opportunity to make people generally feel good and genuinely happy. I think it is great to hear good things versus negative ones, which Good, Inc does a great job at leveraging the power of social and advertising to make a difference, and bring people together to do good together!

I interviewed for a position with Good a few years ago, and I can tell you their social footprint has flourished. Good stays true to their mission statement in empowering and bringing people together to give a damn and feature good doer bloggers. They also make it very easy to share on their site.

Because I have been following Good on Twitter for years, I’ve never had to google and search any content about Good until I started researching Good, Inc for this blog post. With the word good being so common, many different things come up in a google search that are not related to Good, Inc. I believe Good could improve on their SEO especially with their social footprint. It almost feels like they are trying to manage more platforms than they have bandwidth to upkeep. Unlike Disney, the google search produced links to all the Oh My Disney social platforms whereas Good falls short. Now, Good uses social to drive to their articles and posts, but they are not driving people to their social sites from google.

(Note: After writing about their SEO and search, I went to take a screenshot to drive home my point, and now Twitter is showing up in the list. I honestly believe it is because I’ve been on Good’s Twitter page at least 10 times today! Either way, only one of their social channels appears in the search unlike the other two blogs mentioned in this post.)

You can find Good on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and Flickr. What’s interesting is that on their main site they only link to the main 4 social channels; Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram and do not link out to YouTube, Pinterest or Flickr despite their presence there.

On the magazine side of Good’s site, I did see that ads were integrated into the article list. Good also utilized a 728×90 leaderboard and 300×250 banner media on their homepage.

In closing, I hope that everyone can enjoy some of the content produced by these sites just as much as I do! I consider all three of these sites, the BarkPost, Oh My Disney and Good successful. They all are posting engaging content, posting often, posting articles with more than just a sentence, and all engage social media to drive to their sites.

Push, Pull, and Integrated Marketing

September 21, 2015intro-multimediaBest Western, Digital, Grad Student, IMC, Integrated Marketing, pull marketing, push marketing, push pull, Social Media, UF, University of Florida, websitesstacielscott One comment

A push marketing strategy is when a brand advertises its product to garner awareness from their target demographic, while the pull strategy released content in the market to reach audiences, which have an existing interest in the brand or product. Below is a closer look at the integrated marketing efforts that Best Western International currently has in the market and I will be identifying which of these marketing platforms are push and which exhibit pull marketing.

“The newer pull strategy has been viewed as a shift in power from advertisers to consumers, and so requires a more adaptive approach by marketers. With the increase of social networking platforms and users, social networking has become a major and focal part to music marketing adopting the pull marketing strategy. Pull marketing shifts the emphasis and attention onto the customer, trying to market in the correct places by knowing who the target audience is. Consumers are increasingly customizing to better suit their individual needs.” (Wikipedia) The main idea here is that Best Western is hyper focused on the needs of their customers and are pushing content across all of their digital and social channels which then draws or pulls their audience to their brand. Most businesses will use a combination of push and pull strategies in order to successfully market a product as Boundless points out. In my opinion, Best Western falls in this successful combination of marketing for their hotels. Most of the items below are examples of pull marketing, but Best Western does have quarterly promotions that they push out such as their partnership with Disney Media every summer (which is showcased in my previous blog post).

BestWestern.com:

Best Western’s website includes links to all their social sites. The website also includes a booking widget and hotel locator to assist in planning your next vacation. In addition to their hotel directory, the navigation bar includes travel tips, member rewards and travel deals to assist in planning your travel. The latest offer available is located in the hero slider touting the stay 2 nights and earn a $25 gift card. In reviewing Best Western’s sites, you’ll find that this offer is being promoted on multiple media platforms. This offer is a smaller promo compared to bigger tent pole marketing efforts executed by Best Western. Best Western continues to execute integrated marketing efforts no matter the size of the promotion.

In addition to Best Western’s website being the hub for all the social link outs, it has so much information located within the site. Not only does the site allow you to research and book your next vacation, but you also have access to the history of the hotel-chain but also their senior leadership.

The social media marketing Best Western has in market is a combination of push and pull marketing, however, leans more heavily on the strategy to focus on the pull. In the social media platforms below, you will see that Best Western is providing a ton of information (specific to the social platform and audience) without a hard sell on booking travel accommodations. Yes it is about the bookings, but it goes further with the Best Western brand with the focus on the traveler and their experience.

Facebook:

The cover photo touts the current promotion. Multiple posts daily keep content up to date. Best Western does a great job of sticking to current events. In today’s post, they remind their audience it is Talk Like a Pirate Day and share a short pirate inspired video to go along with their post.

Twitter:

Best Western just recently hosted a Twitter chat with two travel experts asking their audience travel questions, and had the two travel experts answer the chat questions. Best Western is an industry leader in the hospitality vector because they truly are targeting their audience and communicating with them on each of their advertising platforms.

Pinterest:

Pinterest boards can be seen as a great example of pull marketing. Best Western created a travel dream board showcasing their hotels and available destinations. Their pins are incredible and when planning a vacation, you could find a ton of information on locals, not specifically Best Western hotels. This shows how Best Western is providing information about these destinations and popular things to see and do while visiting.

Blog-site: You Must Be Trippin’

Best Western is digitally versed and you can find a presence on social platforms that include Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, Google+ as well their own blog-site named You Must Be Trippin’. Best Western’s You Must Be Trippin’ blog-site has fresh content that is relevant to current events and trending travel topics. Way to go Best Western with the catchy blog-site title!

YouTube:

Best Western leverages YouTube as a hub for all their video assets. Everything from travel tips with Tessa to linking to their You Must Be Trippin’ blog articles with video.

The Mobile Experience:

I was expecting Best Western’s mobile site to be responsive and look like the home page of their website, Facebook and Twitter branding, however, BestWestern.com on mobile takes you straight to the booking feature. I believe that the mobile experience could be enhanced to allow for Best Western branding and easier navigation of the mobile experience.

Email marketing:

E-blasts are examples of push marketing. Best Western sends out weekly email blasts with their top deals and promotions that are being offered. The email includes links to all of their social sites to help easily connect their consumers to their content.

About Best Western International, Inc

Best Western International, Inc is a privately held hotel brand with a global network of 4,000-plus* hotels in more than 100* countries and territories worldwide. Best Western offers five types of hotels to suit the needs of our guests for any travel occasion: BEST WESTERN®, BEST WESTERN PLUS®, BEST WESTERN PREMIER®, BEST WESTERN PLUS EXECUTIVE RESIDENCYSM and BW Premier CollectionSM.

Integrated Marketing Summer Promotion

I love Best Western International, Inc because not only do they want the best experience for their customers when they are traveling, but they also want the very best for the individual hotel owners. I also love the Best Western brand because they are a travel and hospitality leader in digital and social executions. I believe BWI has found much success in leveraging multi-platform marketing efforts to promote travel during summer months.

Their most recent summer promotion with Disney Media was anchored in the property Teen Beach 2. Looking to target moms and get their families excited about summer vacation, BWI offered a promotion for 1 lucky winner to have the opportunity to meet Ross Lynch and Maia Mitchell at their very own dance party on the beach. BWI knows the keys to success when it comes to integrated marketing and spread the word about this promotion across linear, digital, radio, social and in the lobbies of their hotels across the United States and Canada!

Let’s take a look at some of the marketing they did this summer!

Linear Platform

Custom television spots promoting the sweepstakes and chance to meet Ross Lynch and Maia Mitchell.

Branded sponsorship on Disney Channel (click below)

Digital Platform

Sweepstakes Destination, Co-branded Media, and Custom Video Content

Click below to see Extreme Poolside Sports

Radio Platform

National sweepstakes spot and promotion on Radio Disney App

Social Media Platform

Twitter Party with talent, Promotional Posts across Facebook and Twitter, and Talent Engagement

Organic Fandom re-sharing of sponsored content and Teen Beach 2 content

In-hotel/Retail Platform

In the lobbies of all Best Western’s in the US and Canada, you could find branded standees and tent cards. These in-hotel marketing pieces triggered an augmented reality experience allowing you to take a selfie with Ross Lynch and/or Maia Mitchell. The app also had custom content and a quiz featuring who would your travel BFF be from Teen Beach 2!

Additional Social and Digital extensions

stacie scott

creative marketeer

Integrated Marketing

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