We finished up with our science lesson this morning and sat down at the kitchen table for a snack. This is usually when the five-year-old has “tablet time” (we’re not the type of parents that abides by the “Screen Time!” mantra or severely restricts device usage…). As I was putting snacks out, I noticed he……
Category: Marketing
Marketing Joy
Spectrum Not Marketing Joy Hearing from Spectrum never brings joy. We have been Time Warner Cable (which became Sprctrum) customers of their high speed internet offerings since moving to our new home in 2013. We regularly receive mailers and calls from them asking us to consider their phone plans or cable tv packages. Remarketing is……
Marketing to Your Own Beliefs
I get these sorts of questions frequently from new clients: “Why aren’t my Facebook Page posts getting more likes?” “Why isn’t my website getting more views?” “How can I let more people know I’ve written / made / created / offer the best service / product in my area?” “When will people start responding to……
Google Shopping Gift Guide and Importance of Trending vs Popularity
Google’s annual Shopping Gift Guide is out for 2020. While it’s a handy tool for personal shopping, it also has some incredibly helpful stats for marketing and messaging. The trick is to focus on trending items using data. The same is true for Instagram… the hashtags that you should be incorporating into your posts for……
The Economics of Mask Wearing
https://twitter.com/carlosgil83/status/1334240989087666181 For the last 18 or so years that I’ve been in marketing, I’ve used “democratization” and “community focus” as consistent buzzwords in both my consulting work as well as speaking at conferences etc. I don’t think there’s any better example as to why those terms are important than the experience of living through 2020.……
Rise of OnlyFans, Decline of Influencer Marketing
Interesting dynamics for the marketing world (something I’ve been arguing for since “influencer marketing” became a thing years ago) as we continue to see re-evaluations of things like Google Ads and social media marketing as well. The landscape is changing rapidly and I’ve been on a ton of strategy calls with clients lately trying to……
Google Slashing Marketing Budget
Read the tea leaves, folks. Things aren’t “re-opening” anytime soon. This is a long term situation and those at the top of the food chain are very much aware of the coming choppy waters… Google is slashing its marketing budgets by as much as half for the second half of the year, according to internal……
Google’s Ads Updates in Search Results
We manage a number of Google Ads campaigns for clients. We’ve definitely noticed an uptick in desktop CTR’s since the updates (same as what happened with mobile last year). But a Google Ads campaign is only as good as the conversions it drives. If the quality tanks b/c of more junk clicks, ad spends will……
The Problem with Trying to Do Your Own Email Marketing
Web designers always bemoan online website creators like Wix and Squarespace for making it too easy to build a website and undercutting their own trade (and pricing). We’ve certainly battled with that at Harrelson Co over the years, especially given that our main client base is made of nonprofits, churches, small businesses, and generally those……
Own Your Own Name
Very much agree… As for the future, I believe owning your domain name will become increasingly important and that experiences like mine will become more commonplace. Source: How I Finally Won My Name from Domain Squatters After 9 Years of Waiting
Intelligent Voice First Interactive Advertising
“We are in very early days of the Voice First revolution and Intelligent Voice First interactive advertisements along with true Voice Commerce will form the new backbone to Voice First AI just as pay-per-click and shopping carts formed the last revolution. In the next 10 years “Dumb Pipes” of audio and video channels that do……
NASCAR’s Social Media Leaderboard
Marketing and NASCAR are two of my longtime passions (lots of overlap on that Venn Diagram)… so I couldn’t resist sharing these stats. Interesting to note that Danica retired from NASCAR after this year’s Daytona 500… that doesn’t say very good things about the health of the sport from a marketing perspective. Kyle Busch led……
It’s not a bucket – Seth Godin
Drip by drip is how we build things, but we can’t see it. One more “no,” one more failure, one more lesson learned. — Read on seths.blog/2018/11/its-not-a-bucket/
Instagram Stories for Churches and Nonprofits
More and more of my clients on the nonprofit and church side are asking about Instagram Stories and experimenting with them in some form to help with outreach. Like anything on the web or mobile, it’s always fun to dive in and try things out. But there’s no need to reinvent the wheel if you’re……
NASCAR’s Marketing Decline
I’ve been a fan of NASCAR since I was a small child (runs in the family) and got to experience the peak of the sport in the early 2000’s. Sponsors and money and TV deals were rolling in and it was just an exciting time to follow races despite the gimmicks that NASCAR leadership started……
Do Facebook Ads Really Work?
Within the advertising industry, the debate about whether advertising works on Facebook is not new. A survey last year showed over 60 percent of small business owners felt advertising on Facebook was ineffective. The lawsuit takes it a step further, saying Facebook is misleading advertisers. Source: Does Facebook Really Work? People Question Effectiveness Of Ads……
Keyword Research Tips
Good overview of keyword research here. Too many people neglect the usefulness of thinking through important terms and keywords in their web site’s content or blog posts. If you ask a Googler how to rank better in their search engine, they’ll tell you to “write great content.” That’s true but deliberately thinking about your “main……
Personal Branding (Not Selling Out)
I’m not a huge fan of the “personal brand” phrase, but I do appreciate how David Bowie (a constructed name and a series of constructed personas) was a “personal brand” of sorts and never in a band (besides those three Tin Machine albums in the early ’90s that we won’t talk about here). Same with……
An observation on “Church ‘Marketing’”
Hyperbole aside, this is ridiculous. It’s called the gospel. Marketing is not a negative phrase or concept that churches or religious orgs should shy away from. “Navel-gazing” and “not spreading the word,” however, are according to the Gospels. The marketing of the church is an invention of the Antichrist. If you have to ‘sell’ your……
Church Marketing and Political Issues
Six-in-ten religiously unaffiliated Americans – adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – say the questioning of religious teachings is a very important reason for their lack of affiliation. The second-most-common reason is opposition to the positions taken by churches on social and political issues, cited by 49% of……