http://laura-kinoshita.com Marketing and Public Relations Trends from Hawaii Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:31:51 +0000 en-us hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 A series dedicated to marketing and public relations, with an eye toward trends affecting the Western United States and the Asia/Pacific area. Marketing and Public Relations Trends from Hawaii Kinoshita Communications LLC http://laura-kinoshita.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/lk_ed-gif.gifhttp://laura-kinoshita.com marketing, public relations, PR no Laura K Kinoshita laura@laura-kinoshita.com http://laura-kinoshita.com/2010/what-is-the-value-of-display-advertising/ http://laura-kinoshita.com/2010/what-is-the-value-of-display-advertising/#comments Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:09:26 +0000 Laura Kinoshita @lkinoshita http://laura-kinoshita.com/?p=1804 http://laura-kinoshita.com/2010/what-is-the-value-of-display-advertising/feed/ 2 Consider the number of people who are in your target demographic. Look at the stores and brands and rank how relevant those brands are to yours. Do a large number of your customers shop at those stores? Small fraction? If your sign had an exceptionally compelling offer on it, how many of those 20,000 would “buy”? Is your business located nearby, and therefore convenient? The value is a combination of how effective your sign is and the overall lifetime value of any customers that you may get as a part of a direct outcome of that sign. Signage works best as part of an overall branding campaign Will you be running any complimentary advertising while the sign is up? Direct mail to any of the customers that may see the sign? Do any customers of that center subscribe to your newsletter? A sign is most effective when part of an overall campaign, so that the sign become a reminder that they also saw your TV ad, or heard your radio spot, or just got an e-mail from you, and they’ve been meaningn to call you (or vote for you), but haven’t yet, and now they can because your number is on the sign (or they remembered its voting day). Let’s Do an Example Let’s presume you just want to estimate the value of one sign in a busy shopping center. So in that case, let’s also presume it’s going to be a great sign with a specific call to action on it. Like a phone number with instructions to call. Budget about 1-2% “conversion” rate or more, depending on your unique area, market and industry. For a shopping center with 20,000 people a day, assume that 200-400 people will be interested in your sign, and will want to take the next step. Then consider how much a customer is worth. If 200 people are going into your sales funnel, and a small fraction of them end up buying a $20,000 product, that’s great value! But if your product sells for $10, then you’ll need more exposure to break even. Finally, consider the cost of your sign. Divide the cost of the sign by 200 (conservative) or 400 (optimistic) and see if the numbers make sense. How much are you willing to pay for each shopping center lead? $2? $14? $50? Compare the cost of the sign, to what a lead from the shopping center is worth, and compare the effectiveness to other branding and marketing choices you may have. Marketers have more choices than ever. You may find alternatives, such as inbound marketing, or spending one day at the shopping center talking to people and handing out coupons, may have a better value for your business. How do you figure out the value of a sign? http://laura-kinoshita.com/2010/how-facebook-changes-will-affect-marketers/ http://laura-kinoshita.com/2010/how-facebook-changes-will-affect-marketers/#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:25:10 +0000 Laura Kinoshita @lkinoshita http://laura-kinoshita.com/?p=1736 http://laura-kinoshita.com/2010/how-facebook-changes-will-affect-marketers/feed/ 1 On Aug. 23rd Facebook will be changing the way marketers work with Facebook. This is a reminder that when you use Facebook, you do not own your content. So when Facebook changes, you have to change with them. The biggest change is the removal of boxes that once appeared in the sidebar. This is where marketers used to be able to add ”Opt-In” boxes for their Constant Contact lists, or badges from Twitter and Skype. Boxes are what allowed people to tie in many components of their social media campaign into their Facebook landing page. They were very powerful. On August 23rd, they’ll be gone. So any content in a Facebook “box” will need to be recreated. Boxes were also used to appease lawyers. They were where you put “community guidelines” and “rules” to keep everyone out of trouble. Now, this content will have to be moved to the “About” tab or “Info” tab. Neither tab supports FBML, but URLs do turn into hyperlinks, which is nice. Over time, I think marketers will need to make more use of Facebook Markup Language to get the utility of boxes. FBML is HTML used specifically for Facebook. FBML allows you to create landing pages in Facebook that look and feel just like regular Web pages on the Internet. If you’ve ever wondered, “how do I make a Facebook page engaging,” this is how. Examples of FBML are Gain detergent, Coca-Cola and Chick-Fil-A.  Facebook pages will also appear more narrow. If you’ve developed banners or images for Facebook, you may need to resize them. (Did a whole lot of graphic designers just make money?) If you haven’t figured it out yet, all these changes are to make more room (and provide more value) to Facebook advertisers. Facebook is taking real-estate away from “free sites” and giving it to those willing to pay. To see an example of the new Facebook page layout, look at a Facebook Event, like the one taking place at  Big Island Seafood Farmer’s Market. How Facebook's Aug. 23 changes will affect marketers