Become a business partner with your account by helping them create a marketing and advertising budget

My first sales job at a daily newspaper, I had a total of three products to sell. We had the daily newspaper, a weekly TMC and a monthly homes magazine, and that was more than many publishers at the time. Today, the load of products we offer can be overwhelming and it creates a crunch on time for us and our sales staff.

Our accounts also have a similar crunch of time, as they try to juggle an ever changing business landscape. With all the time pressures in business today, we all still have the opportunity to devote just five minutes of time to define advertising and marketing goals. I would suggest we have an obligation to do so with our accounts, who need our expertise more now than ever.

Small businesses often times need help with even the most basic things as determining an advertising budget. Too many business owners do ‘pocket-book budgeting’, which is simply seeing if there is any extra money in the account right now. If there is a little extra, then they will make that their budget. Successful business operators are more disciplined when it comes to setting aside an advertising budget.

Successful marketing professionals work with their accounts to help create those disciplines. This is not something that needs to take a large investment of time by the account or the sales rep. There are several great resources available through the internet as well as through the NAA. The NAA planbook offers suggestions for advertising budgets based on industry and by a store’s square footage.

One of my favorites is the one minute advertising budget test. Four quick questions that a sales rep can ask an account, that do not require a lot of research by the rep or the account and can yield a starting point for an advertising budget.

The industry averages for advertising budgets are just that, averages from across the country. They do not take into account things like low traffic or isolated locations or amount of competition in the marketplace. The one minute budget test does factor those things in, and gives the sales rep a starting point for a discussion with a business owner or decision maker.

Also important factor of budget is when to spend it. Timing is everything in life, and that includes when to advertise. There is a great website that can tell you when people are buying select products and services:  http://lifehacker.com/5973864/the-best-time-to-buy-during-the-year/ .

For instance, according to the website the best time to buy a mattress is May. Knowing that consumer information, a bedding store should start preparing and promoting before the surge in May.

Creating a budget and helping the business to the best time and best vehicle for their message will elevate the sales rep. Instead of being the sales rep for the local newspaper, you can become the marketing department for that local department.

Pete Van Baalen is a dynamic marketing professional, specializing in traditional and digital marketing platforms with over 25 years in media and marketing experience. From Central Indiana (Indianapolis), you can reach Pete at pete.vanbaalen@gmail.com.

Was changing the "Got Milk?" campaign a bad marketing decision?

The big announcement today was that Milk has decided to change their campaign slogan from "Got Milk?" to "Milk Life". While certainly not a life or death issue, it is an interesting topic to debate in the marketing world, trying to figure out if dropping such an iconic phrase is a good thing or not.

The "Got Milk?" campaign was first introduced in 1993. So a twenty plus year run on a tag line is a pretty one, but was the value of the campaign gone yet? They admit that the catchy phrase, often imitated has great recognition throughout the country and likely the world. But they wanted a new strategy and new approach.



I don't think it is a wrong decision to moooo-ve on (sorry, couldn't resist) from the old campaign. But personally, I believe once you establish something that becomes so much a part of pop culture you need to be very careful with change. Don't believe me, ask the creator of "New Coke" in the early 1980's.

When I think of iconic brands, I think of McDonald's and their golden arches, and the Ford Motor Company oval. Often times, I will use these two as examples with people I'm training. First, I ask them to draw the two logos. To this day, no one has asked me what they look like, which is a pretty good indication of how iconic they are. Then I ask them to recall an advertisement where those logos were altered. I seem to recall seeing a Santa hat on one of the arches once, but beyond that they are not messed with at all.

For the sake of the creative person left to manage the account now that the decision has been made to move to "Milk Life" for the tag line, I hope this is a huge success. I'm not sure it is a decision I would have endorsed, at least based on the limited information I have.

Here is the story from Advertising Age:  http://adage.com/article/news/milk-dropped-national-milk-industry-tactics/291819/

Pete Van Baalen is a dynamic marketing professional specializing in traditional and digital marketing platforms with over 25 years in media and marketing experience. From Central Indiana (Indianapolis), you can reach Pete at pete.vanbaalen@gmail.com.

Americans are turning blind to digital advertising, ignoring it at an alarming rate

America is going blind at an alarming rate and something needs to change! The number of people who don't see and ignore digital advertising is a problem for marketers in this digital age.

A survey I saw earlier this month stated that 80% of Americans ignore the digital ads to which they are exposed. That rate is more than double the rates of traditional media like TV (37%), radio (36%) and newspapers (35%). The best target for marketers are also the most affected. The more money you make, the more likely you ignore digital ads.

I first saw the study on Mobile Marketing Watch a few days ago. You can read about the entire study by visiting:  http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/digital-ads-what-digital-ads-39346/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MobileMarketingWatch+%28Mob

I believe some of this blindness is a result of the shear amount of digital ads people are exposed. From pop unders, display ads, Google text ads, social media ads, video pre-roll to whatever else I've missed, the amount of exposure to a typical online viewer is large thus the opportunity to ignore large numbers is understandable.

The controllable portion of this increase in advertising blindness is content and design. A poorly designed web ad, just like a poorly designed print ad yields lower results. While most marketers have gone away from the neon light flashing on a webpage approach, there are still a ton of bad ads in today's marketplace.

The basics still apply:  powerful copy and artwork to get a viewers attention, a strong call to action and uncluttered space are just some of the basics.

Making staff training routine with these quick and easy ideas

So I'm looking for training ideas for my staff for later this week. Training is a routine for me and my team, but I think we especially need some help this week on communication skills.

I just came across a quick read article that has provided me with training for this week, and perhaps a week or two beyond that. If you're looking for a quick training idea, check it out:

http://www.citehr.com/298471-ten-best-communication-games-training.html

Comcast purchase of Time Warner puts the cable operator in position to be a marketing powerhouse

Not so quietly, Comcast is building a stronger and stronger marketing channel. The announcement this week of the acquisition of Time Warner Cable increases the leverage for Comcast.



As the map shows, Comcast solidifies its presence particularly in the eastern half of the country for cable delivery. Add in the NBC network, and Comcast is set to potentially influence a large portion of advertising and marketing dollars spent.

This week, as a former customer of Comcast Spotlight I received a celebratory announcement for their 10th anniversary. With Comcast Spotlight, you can purchase traditional cable ads certainly. But my purchases have been for targeted display ads on Comcast's homepage as well as well known sites through their affiliated marketing programs.

This is a sale that will be scrutinized by the government, but if approved will be very interesting for marketing decisions going forward. I have said before that the data that Comcast can learn about TV and internet users is very valuable. This data can be used to solidify advertising revenue for their cable outlets, but could also be transferred to the broadcast network NBC and help them target audiences and advertisers like we've not seen before.

Ad Age had a great story this week on the potential future of Comcast with Time Warner a part of their portfolio. Read it at:  http://adage.com/article/media/comcast-time-warner-cable-means-advertising/291713/

Every marketing department should try to think and act like a minor league baseball team's marketing department

The Super Bowl is just hours away, and already a winner is emerging in Super Bowl related marketing contest. It is not Budweiser, Pepsi or any of the advertisers that reportedly paid $4 million per spot. My winner is the independent minor league baseball team the Bridgeport Bluefish.

Peyton Manning has been yelling "Omaha" at the line of scrimmage while calling out plays for the Denver Broncos. In their game a few weeks ago against New England, he called out the Nebraska city's name over 40 times. To which the Omaha Chamber of Commerce responded with their own marketing campaign capitalizing on that publicity. The Omaha Chamber is planning donations of $1500 to Manning's "Peyton Payback" charity during the Super Bowl. http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/2013/story/_/id/10366971/super-bowl-xlviii-omaha-chamber-commerce-pledges-1500-peyton-manning-utters-omaha

But the real winner of gorilla marketing is the Bluefish organization.

First some background. While I am a big baseball fan, before today I've never heard of the Bluefish franchise. Frankly, I'm not really sure where Bridgeport is except that is somewhere in Connecticut. To my knowledge, I know no one associated with the organization yet I'm championing their cause as I sit in my Central Indiana home.

Watching TV this morning, the local Fox station did an entire segment on the team. The Bluefish have come out on Super Bowl Sunday suggesting that Manning change his "Omaha" call to "Bridgeport" instead. It is a ridiculous idea you say, right? Probably so, even though GM Ken Shepard is offering a $5,000 donation to the Peyton Payback charity if he does.

Clearly no one expects Manning to do this, but I love the fact that Shepard and his creative marketing team created this ploy to gain publicity for the team. All marketing teams should take note of this, and try to figure out how it can be replicated in your market.

The typical minor league baseball marketing budget is nothing; or very close to nothing. But the Bluefish figured out that they could get publicity through a creative ploy such as this. Sure, they've put up $5,000 on the highly unlikely chance Manning said "Bridgeport" during the Super Bowl. That's like placing a bet you know will never be collected. Beyond that, they are out $0 and yet they have received local, regional and now national attention. All of this coming in early February, right when minor league baseball teams start pushing for program ads, ballpark signage agreements and season tickets.

It is great when you have a huge budget and can buy your way to a great marketing campaign. It is even better when you can get creative and figure out a way to do even more with less. Full details on the Bluefish's offer can be found at:  http://www.bridgeportbluefish.com/blog/post/281/bluefish-ask-manning-to-call-audible-play.

Kudos to the Bluefish! I hope the team on the field can be as successful as the marketing team has been with this promotion. You can check out the Bluefish at www.bridgeportbluefish.com.

Infected online advertising a growing threat to online publishers

Online security is a big concern, and a growing business around the world. While hard for me to understand, there are people out there in the world who get a kick out of screwing up my computer; and yours too. Some will place a virus on your computer with hopes of gaining secure information for financial gain. Others out there do it for 'fun'.

The attacks come at us from every direction. The latest getting national attention is from online advertising. The Wall Street Journal recently reported the trend, noting that hackers had already caused Yahoo! to serve up infected advertising to European users.

I had some limited experience with this happening in the past as well where I work. As a online publisher, this is one of the worst emails / phone calls you have to handle. In the case I was involved in, it was an inconvenience with no damage done; except for the site's reputation of course.

Infected ads are on a sharp growth pattern. Google announced that they disabled over 400,000 sites which hid malware last year, up from only 123,000 in 2012. Online publishers reap benefit from online networks, selling their unsold inventory and providing untold dollars to the bottom line.

I'm not a fan of the ad networks online. While they do help online publishers with much needed revenue through remnant advertising programs, they are also driving down the value of online advertising and marketing. Ad networks provide lower priced alternatives for local advertisers, which is always very frustrating to an advertising sales rep. Nothing worse than seeing your local account on your website on the same day they said no to you, and knowing they paid pennies on the dollar for that advertising impression.

To learn more about the malware threat, check out the article written by Danny Yadron in The Wall Street Journal at:  http://on.wsj.com/1iWHsvR