Category Archives: What’s New

8 Recent Digital Marketing Stats

Below are 8 interesting digital marketing stats posted recently posted in AdWeek.

1. Facebook users are becoming lurkers.
34% of Facebook users posted a status update during the third quarter (according to GlobalWebIndex) – meaning 66% didn’t post one at all during a three-month period. Down from 50% of users updating their Facebook statuses during the same period the year before.

2. Social network usage is on the rise.
Facebook users were using an average of 2.5 social networks in 2012, that number has since increased to 4.3 social networks. (according to a recent GlobalWebIndex report)

3. YouTube vs. Facebook.
200,000 consumers were interviewed across 34 markets for its Q3 study. While Facebook has the biggest worldwide membership of any social platform, it is not the most-visited social platform – YouTube is. YouTube is No. 1 for visitation, with 81%  of respondents having gone to the video platform at least once last quarter compared to Facebook’s 80%. (again, according to a recent GlobalWebIndex report)

4. Wearables usage to double.
By the end of this year, 39.5 million U.S. adults will have utilized wearables such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, a 58%  jump over last year, according to data from eMarketer, which expects wearables usage to more than double by 2018 to 81.7 million users.

5. A good review is important.
41% of those surveyed by Social Media Link say it takes between one and four digital product reviews to get them to buy.

6. Are we addicted to our smartphones?
58% of Gen Y consumers consider themselves to be addicted to their smartphones. The company’s mobile-minded report also said that 66% of millennials are likely to contact a business by placing a call versus 22% who are likely to use social media. (Invoca report)

7. A note from Wall Street.
Mobile might be the future of marketing, but Wall Street could be more impressed. “Mobile Internet” stocks were down 15% during the third quarter. (recent Digi-Capital report)

8. Cookies are more than a snack.
When asked what their single most important source of data for insights creation will be two years from now, 30% of clients and 27% of suppliers chose “consumer-specific data collected passively.” The most common example for “passive data” is the use of cookies on a consumer’s computer to capture Internet browsing history. (GfK and the Institute for International Research (IIR) surveyed more than 700 market researchers  and suppliers)

If you are interested in hearing more digital marketing stats & how they might apply to your business’ bottom-line be sure to contact us.

Cutting through the “noise” revealed as top social media program challenge

Cutting through the “noise” has been revealed as the biggest social media challenge facing B2B brands, according to B2B Marketing’s 2015 Social Media Benchmarking Report.

38% of respondents cited cutting through the “noise” as the main stumbling block when it came to social media.

Companies are also struggling to determine their social worth, with 35% encountering ‘difficulty proving ROI’.

However, the study also showed only two in five (40%) senior managers expect their social media channels to accurately demonstrate ROI, while 34% rarely or never expect any proof in regards to ROI.

Yet, respondents were largely confident in their ability to improve ROI over the next year, with 55% expecting a slight improvement and a further 23% anticipating significant gains.

Other significant challenges for social media marketers included ‘lack of time’ (30 % and ‘lack of strategic planning’ 25%).

The report also revealed just 35% of companies use paid-for social media monitoring platforms, perhaps explaining why marketers are struggling to present comprehensive analysis.

An over-reliance on standard website analytics could explain some reservations, with
75 % of companies using platforms such as Google Analytics, which only focuses on web traffic from social rather than audience breakdowns, engagement and interactions.

Let’s look at some of the statistics:
– Only ½ of marketers say social media is an important part of their marketing:
56% critical or important, 44% of some importance/limited importance or no importance
(Interesting note: not much has changed since 2014 when 62% said critical or important & 38% said of some importance/limited importance or no importance)

– Marketing allocates: 12% of budget & 20% of time on Social Media

– Marketers are focusing on reach, rather than engagement:
16% use Social Media to interact, 69% broadcast own content, 13% direct conversations

– Top challenges: Cutting through the “noise”, followed by difficulty proving ROI & finally, lack of time

– Most B2B actively used platforms: 76% Twitter, 71% Linkedin, 47%YouTube

– Most effective B2B platforms: 58% Linkedin, 24% Twitter, 9% Facebook

– Most effective content formats are: Infographics, videos, images
(Interesting note: the most used content formats are: Links to longer content, videos, written copy)

– Measurements to measure success: 56% web visits, 58% interactions, 42% downloads of content

Contact Debbie @ Radsick Ad Group to plan & implement your companies 2015/2016 Social Media Program – we can help you cut through the Social Media “noise” – saving you time & getting a greater ROI.

 

 

 

The $1,000,000 Question…

Digital Marketing vs Traditional Marketing?

Do you know the difference between digital and traditional marketing – and why both are equally important?

If your answer is ‘no’, read on, or risk being left behind.

So you have heard of the Internet and now you think you’re up to date with the latest trend? Well, if that’s as far as you’re knowledge extends, you have got a lot to catch up on! Heard of SEO, social media marketing, pay per click?

If not, it’s time to get up to date, and quickly – your business depends on it!

Business marketing is going through a significant and rapid change at the hands of the digital era – your brand and your reach to perfectly combine digital with traditional marketing is more important than ever.

What does traditional marketing include?
Traditional marketing is everything you have seen done in the past, above and below the line. It is the television ads, business cards, the print ads in the newspaper, promotions, brochures, posters and radio.

It relies on technology we have had for some time, and while this technology is gradually becoming less popular, there are certain parts of your audience who will always prefer it!

In general, while traditional marketing intends to provoke a response (this is its core purpose), largely, it does not offer the opportunity to be interactive and can be difficult to measure. How do you know how many people read your ad, saw your billboard, or watched television for that specific 30 second slot?

What does digital marketing encompass?
This is a challenging question to answer, because right now digital media is evolving rapidly and what it currently encompasses, and what it could encompass in just a week could be markedly different – the possibilities are endless!

Currently, if you’re exploring digital marketing, you are looking at everything from your company’s website, through to banner ads (even moving videos) on sites relevant to your audience, rankings in search engines, mentions in social media, and company-owned social media pages, videos on the likes of YouTube, and a myriad of other media. 0ne of the most exciting aspects of digital media is that the vast majority of it is completely interactive.

With web 2.0 came the opportunity to provide your feedback and input on everything, to chat live to a consultant online, and to create an avatar that lives in a make-believe computer world. As web expands and evolves, interactivity is only increasing.

What this means for your marketing, is that in some respects you are losing control – you can’t control everything consumers say about your brand. So increasingly, we are becoming more and more accountable for our businesses – essentially, if we make a brand promise, but don’t deliver on the front line, people will know!

How will this impact my marketing strategy?
The most you can know at this point is your marketing strategy needs to reflect both traditional and digital marketing tactics.

It is still very important to maintain an element of face-to-face communication, to leave a business card, and to take advantage of publications that specifically target your audience and capture a strong readership.

At the same time, a business that does not have a strong website, will not likely survive. If you don’t understand the need for some sort of social media interaction and you don’t believe in online advertising, you will be left behind.

Radsick Ad Group can help you find the answer to the $1,000,000 question!
While getting the experts on board in developing your strategy is highly important, it is also important you get up-to-date and develop even a small level of understanding of this new marketing era.
We invite you to contact us today,

 

 

10 Quick Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing

With more than 90 percent of consumers checking their email on a daily basis, businesses are quickly realizing this is one of the best ways to reach their target audience.

Whether it’s to spread company news, promote a sale or highlight new products and services, companies are finding great value in their email marketing efforts.

Measure it: One of the greatest aspects of email marketing is just how easily it can be measured. Take advantage of tools that show who read what and where and who didn’t as a way to best determine when to build on successful efforts or fix lagging results.

Use video: Adding videos to emails increases return on investment and monthly revenue by 40 percent. Additionally, click-through rates increase by as much as 3 times when marketers include a video in an email.

Go mobile: Mobile devices offer marketers a way to reach customers wherever and whenever they want. However, this makes creating a solid campaign more critical than ever, since the email will often be judged with just one glance.

Increase open rates: To make an impact, emails need to stand out. Review open rates to see which emails are getting the most interest from your consumers. Make sure each email is serving the customer.

Be recognizable: Since you may have only a second or two to grab your customer’s inbox attention, use a consistent look, format and subject line to make it easy for them to recognize your emails.

Click-through: Since click-through rates gauge your success, be sure to make your call to action loud and clear so consumers have a reason to click on your links. You also need to measure links clicked to guide future content.

RSS feeds: Businesses with regular RSS updates – syndicated live Web feeds — can more effectively connect with their audiences and attract new followers. Sharing RSS content allows organizations to multiply their number of readers, which helps draw in more customers in the long run.

Use templates: Often the easiest and most reliable way to send emails with a branded look and optimize reader response is to take advantage of email templates.

Add social: Emails that include social-sharing buttons have a click-through rate 158 percent higher than emails that don’t. Adding social media to an email strategy can produce large campaign results.

Bottom line: When creating email campaigns, ensure they align with your overall business goals & brand so you can best guide content and strategies.

Cheers to Pantone’s Color of the Year

Pantone’s 2015 Color of the Year will be Marsala:
A naturally robust and earthy wine red.

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Designers always eagerly await Pantone’s December announcement of its Color of the Year, predicting which hue will be ubiquitous in the year ahead.

The executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, Leatrice Eiseman, further elaborates:
“While PANTONE 18-3224 Radiant Orchid, the captivating 2014 color of the year, encouraged creativity and innovation, Marsala enriches our mind, body and soul, exuding confidence and stability. Much like the fortified wine that gives Marsala its name, this tasteful hue embodies the satisfying richness of a fulfilling meal, while its grounding red-brown roots emanate a sophisticated, natural earthiness. This hearty, yet stylish tone is universally appealing and translates easily to fashion, beauty, industrial design, home furnishings and interiors.”

 

 

Print Design in 2014

If you believe print is dead, then you’ll be amazed to see the inspiring collection of print trends presented by Cubicle Ninjas! It’s always exciting to see new trends emerge in the print world. From typographic “lock-ups” to luxury printing, check out the latest print design trends for 2014.

WHAT’S HOT?

Type-Only:

Type-only designs used in print speak for themselves. It’s free of embellishments and the message is straight forward.

Image-Only:

Image-only layouts with little or no type look striking in print, and the images don’t get lost behind words.

Full-Page Typographic “Lock-Ups”:

Typographic “lock-ups” is a great way to organize type in a clean and readable layout.

WHAT’S NOT?

QR Codes:

The problem with QR codes is they’re often times not used properly. Why place a QR code on an ad in an underground subway with no reception, for example. All in all, majority of designers don’t favor them.

THE NEXT FAD

Luxury Printing:

Print layouts with luxury printing shine bigger than designs printed on mediocre material.

Double Exposure:

Double exposure is an edgy trend that gives your print projects a dramatic feel.

10 Web Design Trends You Can Expect in 2014

There are many exciting things that 2014 has in store for us who live, work, and produce the World Wide Web.

Last year, we looked at the 10 Web design trends for 2013. Many of the trends that were spotted last year are still around today and will undoubtedly take off into 2014. After all, that’s why they are called trends and not fads, as trends tend to stick around for a few years while fads are only hot for a very short time.

Let’s look ahead and see what kind of new(ish) Web design trends we can look for and be inspired in 2014.

1. Non-boring typography
It’s great to see more designers experimenting with different types of type. One trend with type we can expect to see in 2014 is fonts with personality.

“Fonts with personality” are fonts that feel like they can stand on their own. They are not your standard serif or sans-serif font. Designers are starting to find different fonts to add to their arsenal that add a little personality and uniqueness to their designs.

We expect to see many more websites in 2014 getting away from very simple and overused typefaces and finding some with personality.

2. Flat design
Oh Apple, how we love thee.

Last year we said that more than likely, Apple was going to shake its Skeuomorphism, and boy did they ever. With the release of iOS7 came the design aesthetic most commonly known as “flat design.” While dropping drop shadows and gradients often seems like a good idea in some cases to give a more updated look to things, Apple took it to a whole other level by dropping pretty much any design element it could.

Apple has for a long time been a trendsetter, and what Apple does, the rest of the world seems to follow. iOS7 has been out for a while and already there are a flood of sites coming online every day with new “flat” designs. We don’t anticipate this trend ending in 2014.

3. Large hero areas quickly killing sliders
If you asked us what is the #1 trend in Web design today, this would be it.

Large hero areas (the “intro” area, often an image with a little amount of text, at the top of a website – a borrowed term from print design) on website home pages are running rampant and it is a trend we don’t see going away either in 2014. They are quickly taking over real estate on websites where sliders used to reside.

Either it be a simple blurred photo in the background with a heading centered in the middle, or a more elaborate one. Hero areas are quickly replacing sliders as the new attention-grabbers, and they are becoming increasingly creative and elaborate.

4. Heavier focus on mobile
Now that responsive Web design is becoming more common place, we are starting to see websites dig deeper into our mobile lifestyles.

Designers are increasingly working on keeping their sites functioning on mobile devices, but developers are taking it a step further to help along with the fact that so many more devices are accessing the Web, and so many more users are using their phones to browse the Web.

Wondering what some things are being done? Integration with social media, asking for email subscriptions, long scrolling sites, and fast loading sites all help make the mobile Web a friendlier place.

5. Videos in place of text
Why read about it when you can watch it? Something else you will start seeing all over the Web (especially in hero areas) are videos.

Videos are becoming easier to produce, and easier to share not on your website, but on social media as well. While some may argue that videos don’t belong on a website home page due to the large amount of data they take to load and run (especially on mobile devices and internet with data caps), videos are an effective way to communicate something technical or new when words just don’t cut it.

Plus, many video services such as YouTube allow you to track how many views it got, allowing you to better plan your content for your website.

6. Long scrolling sites
We’ve become comfortable with scrolling through a website to read and find information, and now with websites using more design techniques such as increased white space and responsive Web design, long scrolling sites are starting to appear again.

Several years ago, it was common to have long scrolling sites that where slammed with content. Well, now we are seeing long scrolling websites but the content is more organized and in a much easier format to digest.

7. Simple color schemes
We can’t have a post on design trends without talking about color. In 2014, we will see a lot more website with very simple color schemes. And by simple, we mean really only one or two colors.

Some websites being launched now are using very little color, or even forgoing color all together. White, black, and everything in between are popular color schemes now, and adding just a hit of another color, such as red, adds drama and impact – all things that garnish attention when used in the right way.

8. Simplified content
We’ve kind of hit on this throughout this post, but while 2013 seemed to be the year of King Content, 2014 will keep the king humble and down to earth. Simpler content will dominate 2014 and beyond as we design our websites.

Simplified content means short bursts of content, a la Twitter style. Over the years as a population, our attention spans have become shorter, so designers have compensated for that by putting content in short bursts instead of long narratives.

Not many areas on websites these days (except blog posts) have more than about 250 characters. It is because it is easier and faster to read for users who like to scan the page.

9. Dropping the sidebar
This is more for blog or magazine-type sites, but many of these sites are experimenting with dropping the sidebar all together. This allows for a more visual impact with content (and easier responsive Web development).

Imagine this: you reading an article without things flashing, crowding, or otherwise buying for your attention. Designers understand this and are working to make your reading experience more pleasant by getting rid of these distractions and expanding the content of the article to take over the page.

10. Manipulated imagery
While it is easy to just throw any old photo on your site, it is a little more difficult to manipulate  it into something different. In 2014, we will see more images that have things such as color overlays, blurred images, or even images that are reminiscent of Instagram images with filters.

BONUS: Crazy, sexy, cool stuff
This will be the trend that we hope never ever dies. As the Web grows and becomes more involved, and as more things are developed, designers and Web developers are going to get their hands on them. If you thought parallax scrolling techniques were cool, just you wait.

Expect to see many more things hit the Web in 2014, such as the use of HTML5 to animate different parts of a site.  Just don’t go overboard.

 

It’s Conference Season Again!

 

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In April the Colorado/Rocky Mountain AFP will host their annual conference at the Denver Tech Marriott.
In late May the Treasury Management Association of NY (TMANY) will host their annual conference at the NY Hilton.
Radsick Ad Group is proud to assist in the advertising of these 2 premier Treasury and Risk Management Conferences that will have well over a thousand attendees – CFO & management levels from the corporate finance, capital markets, financial planning/analysis and treasury/risk management industries in the US.