Is communication an illusion?

To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw. 

"The biggest single problem in social media marketing is the illusion that communication has actually taken place."

How do you judge the success of your communications? 

Clicks, hits, views, likes, etc. Do not indicate that communication has taken place. The whole purpose of social media is to build a dialogue. For that dialogue to happen there must be someone there to respond to enquiries and most importantly make the sale.

Too often I see ad's vlog's blog's or even hear a podcast that piques my interest, I need to know more. I make further enquiries to find a website that is down and no one to answer my enquiries. By then I am talking to someone else who can answer my questions and convinces me that I really do need what they are offering and can negotiate a good deal. 

So, your advertising and marketing has worked, congratulations. Yet without someone there who can take the calls, field the enquiries, to make the sales. You have just given business away to your competitors.

Before embarking on an advertising or marketing campaign you MUST ensure that you have the infrastructure in place to handle the enquiries and sales that it will generate. If you don't someone else will.

Without effective communication, you have no sales. Without sales, you don't have a business.

Gavin Bryan-Tansley

VidFX+ Advertising.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing

On the 9th March 2017, the United Kingdoms Code of Advertising Practice. Published new guidance from the Advertising Standards Authority about recognising marketing communications. 

That is rules on how affiliate marketing must identifiable as an advert. 

Affiliates, need to ensure that consumers know that what they’re looking at is advertising. That means making sure it’s clear BEFORE consumers engage with it. Often, the context alone will make this clear. But sometimes the content might need to make it obvious that it is an advert.

This is often the case in social media, Vlogs, Blogs, news sites and voucher sites etc. Businesses, or individuals, who create content or websites that give an impression of independence. Must take extra steps to highlight content that is advertising for a third party. 

This new guidance, provides some suggestions, tailored to different platforms. Giving affiliate marketers some inspiration, but the key principles to bear in mind are;

• Where a piece of content wholly relates to affiliated products. It needs to be clear that the whole piece is advertising. Thus it may be necessary to use an identifier (such as ‘Advert’ or similar) in the title;
• If only some of the links and content to affiliated products. It is those aspects, that must be identifiable as advertising. By for example, labelling the relevant links/sections;

The guidance is also to remind businesses. That allowing their affiliates free rain over the content and targeting of ads. Does not absolve them of the responsibility for ensuring that marketing communications. That they reap the benefits from, must follow the advertising rules.

If you are an affiliate marketer. Or a brand that uses affiliate marketing. You can get up to speed with the new guidance shown here.

Nobody is buying!

You have an innovative product, fantastic service and an award winning business.

The crowds should be all over you, clamouring to buy. Yet you are not attracting enough business to even cover your costs. 

Why?

A lot of businesses think a good product alone is all that is needed. How many times have you heard, 'Build it and they will come'? Well, this is a line from popular entertainment, not the sage business advice that it is thought to be.

What you have to do is 'sell your business'. If your potential customers do not know who you are, what you do or where they can find you, how do you expect them to buy from you.

In short if you are not doing anything to advertise your business, how do you expect to be in business? Passing trade, word of mouth etc., are all largely redundant in this day and age. For passing trade, you have to place yourself where someone is likely to pass. You have to have an enticing display to attract the potential customer who is outside to come inside. These days this is your Webverts and SEO. The videos and images on your website have become your shop front and store.

Word of mouth and recommendations do not take place over the garden fence any more. They happen in social media. If you do not have an online presence and do something to justify this, how can your satisfied customers refer their social circle to you?

The art of advertising has not changed, only the media we use and the pace at which we work has. It is still all about attracting customers to buy from you and not from someone else. To do that we have to give them the reasons they need to make that choice.

We have to change, 

an interest into a like
, 
a like into a desire
, 
the desire into a want
 
and the want into a need.

An example

At one time hand made axes were the low end of the market. The logging industry needed high volumes of a consistent quality that the small hand forges could not produce, so they moved to axes made industrially.

Today that situation has changed there is no real need for axes anymore. The logging industry has been mechanised and loggers work from the comfort of an air-conditioned cab.

Yet today, axes are selling at premium prices! Not just any axe but hand made axes from the small forges that a few decades ago were forced to find other product lines because they could not compete.
 Industrially produced axes are now retailing for around $20 -$60 hand made axes $200 to $600 each!

So what changed?

Making logging and axe skills into a sport generated the interest, rebranding small axes and hatchets as camping and outdoor survival tools took care of the rest.

This is called associative or aspirational advertising. In this case the foundries associated their axes with a life style to which people could aspire. Even if you could not give it all up and go live in the high woods. That axe becomes a promise to yourself, that one day, even if only for a few weeks, you could live your dream of a simpler life.



Tricky? No, just an understanding of human nature and how purchasing decisions are made. That is what advertising is, letting people know what you have for sale. Then giving them the reasons why they should buy from you rather than from another.

Gavin Bryan-Tansley Owner Vid-FX+ Advertising

Getting it right

Getting it wrong could cost you more than just money.

Creating commercial advertising requires creative skills that will set the advert apart from surrounding content. 

Thinking outside the box to create advertisements that are true to the brand, as well as selling a product. Yet different enough to stand out is one thing. To remain within the law and the codes of practice are another. What seems such a good idea in the pub or the closed environment of the office, often falls flat when it reaches a dispassionate audience.

A recent advert, a very clever spoof of a popular TV program, Animal Hospital. Received no less than 250 complaints about the association of a commercial product with animal cruelty. While the advert was legal in all aspects, it still caused offence. These errors in judgement could become obvious if it is test marketed before release. The footage could then possibly be reused with a slight change of emphasis or re-editied to change the offending scenes. 

Regrettably this is a stage often overlooked or dismissed as an unnecessary expense by far to many advertisers. The cost of testing is often far less than the costs associated with having your adverts withdrawn. 

The advantages of using a professional agency is that they deal with these kind of issues all the time. They also kept up to date with various trends and topical issues through their professional associations and trade press. They can help in avoiding these situations by bringing years or decades of commercial experience to your advertising.

Gavin Bryan-Tansley Owner Vid-FX+

Is your marketing working for you?

Do you find yourself having to invest more time each week looking for sales? 

When you take a well earned break, do your sales fall off? 

Then your marketing is probably not working for you.

The desire not to be left out, to keep up with the latest trends and technology, has meant many businesses are leaping into high-end advertising and marketing, without the preparation or grounding in the basics that support these techniques. Having invested a significant amount of effort in developing an online and social media presence, many businesses have forgotten about the basic building blocks that should be supporting and building their brand.

Business who have the courage to admit that their current marketing is not working for them, need to focus on the basics, their 5W’s. These basics have always worked, they still driving the content of all major advertising and marketing campaigns, no matter the platform they run on. 

Many marketing Guru’s hold up the large multi-nationals as the example to follow, highlighting some of the strategies and tactic's that they have used. Yes, these tactics have been proven to work, in big companies. Companies that have a major investment in the trained and experienced staff to make it work. Much of this advice is not exactly relevant to SME’s as they have neither the budgets, the experience nor the staff to run similar campaigns. 

Smaller businesses need a different way of thinking about advertising and marketing. They must make sure they are relevant and connect with their audience in an authentic way. They need to take a longer term strategy, building a self sustaining campaign that does not need to micromanaged to keep it relevant.  Think ahead, what other events are going on to which you can link your advertising? Let them do the promotional work and place your ad's within their material. To many SME's miss out on these fantastic opportunities to promote their business because they have to think and plan months, or even years ahead. Get this right and you can send more time on your business doing the things you set out to do, not working for your business as an unqualified, unpaid advertising sales and marketing manger.

Gavin Bryan-Tansley Owner Vid-FX+