Agitation with Vegetation, Tips, Mini-Case Study and our Birthday Suit…

Friends and colleagues,

Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side because it’s planted on top of a septic system.

Fed by “fertilizer,” the turf on the other side of the fence is longer, greener, more lush. But so are the weeds among these leaves of grass. And eventually they start to overwhelm the lawn, forcing you to get on your hands and knees, pull up root systems, clean up the mess and re-seed. In much the same way, marketers on both the client and agency side who have been looking for new tools, new tech, new processes and new people, are realizing that a lot of what they coveted isn’t quite what it seemed to be. But new growth IS needed. So we are figuring out how to reconcile old and new without digging up the front lawn.

Ok, I’ve almost exhausted this tortured metaphor. Let’s get you to the flower garden where you can pick up a bouquet of tips artfully arranged by our archers:

Tips and Topics

1. Establish affinity and community, duh. We all have an inherent need to establish connections to our world and other people. We want to be part of something. But too often we fail to establish that connection with our prospects. Instead, we start to sell them stuff. We push toward a transaction before we establish a common bond. The result: Our prospects tune out, opt out, ignore, ghost. So let me suggest that in almost any marketing communication, you think first about how you and your prospects are alike. Tell them why you’ve sat in their chair, felt their pain, grew up in the same state, share a common colleague, like yellow mustard, whatever says, I know you, I’m like you. I want you on my team. I guarantee they’ll be at least twice as likely to buy something from you.
2. How to pass Facebook’s ad tests. Many of you are boosting posts on your Facebook pages. It’s pretty easy to do; the targeting capability is getting more robust and the cost is reasonable. Props to Zuck and his crew. But a large % of you are unaware that Facebook’s ad standards are, for a variety of reasons, fairly stringent. For example, Facebook’s ad bots and human screeners do NOT like a lot of text on images. If you have more than 20% type in your ad (yes, this is somewhat subjective), you will get the digital equivalent of a slap on the wrist. So, don’t be that gal. You’re welcome.
3. Boil down your brand. Marketers are familiar with – and often openly disdainful of – 100+ page brand “guidelines.” They take more than a village and a small savings and loan to build, they are unnecessarily complicated and guess what? Almost no one reads them. So may I suggest you ask your brand team (agency and/or internal team) to synthesize your brand book to no more than 10 pages that answer these five questions: 1) What do we do? 2) Why do we do it? 3) For whom? 4) What do we sound like? 5) What do we look like? 6) What happens if we forget 1-5? Put all the rest of it in an indexed digital appendix. Then ask every key stakeholder to digitally sign off on all 10 pages. The result: You’ll literally be on the same page and you’ll figuratively be singing from the same hymnal. And that, friends (and ok, you too colleagues) is good for your brand.
4. Wherefore art thou, video?  This is an important question to answer given the mega-explosion (yes, I coined a new term for emphasis) of video in our digital lives. I’m guessing not so much, especially if it’s not captioned. But the propeller-heads at Google are now using artificial intelligence to identify snippets of video-related search queries, and have the snippets play on search results pages. In fact, Google’s AI-fueled bots already recognize more than 20,000 objects, places and actions in stored and streaming video. So it is in your interest to find out what these people, places and things are and make sure they are worked into your shot lists and scripts. Or ask your slick, turtleneck-wearing production teams at Crossbow Group to help.
5. Context is king and royalty is a page one search result. In yet another sign that video has officially killed the radio star, you can now ask yourresident nerds (I use this term lovingly since I’m married to one) to identify appropriate locations in your organization’s videos to insert ads that are contextually relevant to the video content. This can be done by matching the timeframe-specific labels of your video content with the content of your advertisements. The net result: Your video content will come up much higher in both short- and long-tail search results. And das, as they say in Google’s Berlin research facility, ist

Mini-case Study: Invisalign

Invisalign, provider of the world's most advanced clear aligner system, was signing up new dental providers at a healthy rate, but they were engaging slowly, taking too long to start their first case (i.e., new patient) so we worked together to research the resistance and develop an integrated test campaign to spur action. Within months, time to first patient was cut significantly. (disclosure: #s were very nice, but we can’t share specifics)

Our Birthday Suit

Alright thrill-seekers, here’s the naked truth: We don’t have one. But we are 20 years old this month and I am crazy proud of the people and principles that have inspired and sustained us from day one. Thank you for sharing the ride with us. Here’s to 20 more.

As always, if I can do anything for you – make a connection, share some experience, crowdfund the removal of that tattoo you must regret - please let me know.

Thanks again for your patient indulgence.  Have a great day!

There's more leafy greens at: https://www.crossbowgroup.com/agitation-with-vegetation-tips-mini-case-study-and-our-birthday-suit/