GPS and Ad Tracking – I’m sure you’ve seen them driving around town, sometimes a scooter with an advertisement cart behind them, sometimes it’s a big truck or even a mini truck with a thin billboard behind the driver – they are mobile billboards. Don’t think mobile like your smart phone, think mobile like moving – in a nutshell it is a moving billboard.

Have you ever wondered if this technology/advertising makes sense for your business? It all comes down to the tracking and the exposure you receive versus the money spent and the return on investment. This style of advertising allows you to track your advertisement as it travels down the road. You can view current traffic conditions and active driving times. This data provides the advertiser with the ability to monitor and re-route the mobile billboard drive. The advantage here is the real-time tracking and being able to analyze the cost benefits of leads.

Translation or Culturalization of my marketing creative?

Translation or Culturalization of my marketing creative? In today’s all digital world it is very easy to fall into the online software translation trap. Translation versus Culturalization of your marketing materials is of the utmost importance. It’s not just about using Google translate or relying on an online translator to relay your message. It still takes eyeballs experience and it is a deep understanding of the goal for the advertisement. Many cultures use words differently, In one culture a word could mean a straw in another market it could mean a sexual act. Understanding the nuances of language is not something easily translated into by piece of software.

Often translations miss the mark and say things that hurt, confuse or completely missed the point of the advertisement altogether. Understanding the language is just one component of culturalizing advertising or marketing campaign. Understanding the market demographic cultural backgrounds and religious references are a big  part of understanding and targeting a consumer. That is the start of creating a well rounded multicultural marketing campaign not just for international markets but also for the US market.

Designed to reinforce technology

Designed to reinforce technology – Are your Google Ad Words or Facebook advertising campaigns performing as well as you planned? If not, have you evaluated the creative (images/ad copy) you are using to drive the campaign? Often, businesses try to cram so much information into one small ad it creates a very confusing and hard to read ad that customers just ignore.

Here are some simple steps you can take, which will help you maximize your advertisements impact:

Step 1. MESSAGE: What is the one most important point you are you trying to make? Step 2. AUDIENCE: Who are you speaking to? Step 3. VEHICLE. Is your desired audience using the advertising platform you have chosen? Answering these simple questions may seen obvious, however more often than not, in the rush to meet ad deadlines, we sometimes miss the most essential point of advertising in the first place. Who we’re trying to advertise to and what are we trying to say. Remember the K.I.S.S. rule: “keep it simple silly.” Using pull quotes or a direct call to action statement along with an engaging image or graphic will always interrupt the reader and deliver your message more effectively.

Maximize your marketing dollars with E-blasts!

Maximize your marketing dollars with E-blasts! When designing electronic communications, or “eblasts,” you can save money by leveraging the web hosting service you are already paying for. If you have a website, you’re already paying for hosting. Instead of subscribing to an additional eblast service to host your images, you can simply upload a directory of images to your hosting web server and link to the files from your chosen email client or HTML code. This option enables you to remain in full control of your images and content while saving you money.

Another potential money saver is to actively update your current mailing list. For example, if your database is 10,000 strong and you receive 1,000 bounce backs or undeliverable email addresses, updating these addresses will minimize the number of bounces you receive. Afterall, do you want to pay for emails that cannot be delivered? If you are paying per email address, in most cases, making these updates will save you some money on your monthly bill.

EXHIBITION OPENING: Pedro Pérez.

Ringling College Patricia Thompson Gallery Presents Pedro Pérez
Selection of work on display through October 21

Sarasota, FL – Opening June 10, the Ringling College of Art and Design Patricia Thompson Gallery will host the work of alumnus Pedro Pérez, Class of 1996. This multi-media exhibition will include design work from his various advertising campaigns and present several projects he has completed over the course of his professional career.

An exploration of the creative process, this exhibition will lead the viewer through the behind the scenes decision-making and experimentation of advertising, culminating in several polished, completed campaigns that demonstrate the result of this foundational work.

Pérez is a founding partner of Nuevo Advertising Group and an adjunct professor of Global Brand Strategies at Ringling College.  He founded his first company, Merging Point Design, Inc., with fellow students while they were attending Ringling College. This first venture specialized in custom website design and development and quickly landed some impressive local and national clients such as Sarasota’s own Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, Lee Wetherington Homes, and Stardust Casino and Boyd Gaming in Las Vegas, Nevada. Merging Point focused on the front-end beauty and functionality of websites as well as the back-end management systems. 

Email tracking software, good idea or not?

Email tracking, Did you know the emails you send and receive can be tracked? The process is called “email tracking” and it is an invaluable tool you can use to ensure your clients and contacts have received, opened and read your email communications. To do this, a simple code is inserted into the email message when you send it. This triggers an email response back to you to alert you when the message has been opened, how many times, and in some cases if it was forwarded to someone else.

Email tracking is an especially great resource if you’re in sales. Once you are alerted that your desired recipients have received your initial message, you can further customize follow up communicators and provide additional information. Even learning that your desired recipient has received your message and has not responded back to you can be a great resource for next steps. Think of it like an electronic “message received” response.

Social network marketing is it worth the money?

Social network marketing is it worth the money? Marketing online can bring value to any marketing campaign. One reason is you’d be able to target your customers pretty precisely right down to demographic, geo target, Interests, Religion. Simply by setting up an account on any one of the social network platforms and using that social network to publish your photos, Comments, or your family gatherings. Over time gathering enough content to make you a viable marketing opportunity for a potential business or individual thinking of marketing a product or service through any one of the online platforms.

Most of us do this without even noticing or batting an eye. Have you picked up your phone just simply see what your friends are doing online, to see what events are happening this weekend? Have you clicked on links of interest? All of these things add to your value as a potential advertisement consumer. Have you ever re-posted an item you found on a friends newsfeed? Do you play games that are in theory free on Facebook as an example? All of these things come at a price. By clicking on the links and then accepting the terms you have now shared your contact list, usage patterns, your likes and dislikes. All of these things are used not to pinpoint you per se but you as a demographic which in terms let’s advertisers more precisely target you in their advertisement messaging creative and how they deliver the message to you.

Mastering your Businesses BLOG

Mastering your Businesses BLOG, How many times have you thought of writing a BLOG for your business? I’m sure the first thought is that it would be a great resource, a valuable opportunity to promote your products or services. Then reality sits in. “What am I going to write about?” you ask yourself. “How much time can I dedicate to getting this job done?” “What about my social networks?” How can you keep your business running and find time to add another “to do” to your list?

Here are some BLOG basics that should help. First, decide the purpose of your BLOG. Why are you writing one? What issues do you hope to address with your commentary? Will you be helping your clients with a problem? Sharing your unique voice or particular expertise? Announcing new products or services?
Once you answer these questions, start organizing your BLOG posts into titles.

Second, research what similar posts you find that are already available on the Internet. Will your BLOG add value to a similar topic? Do you have a different point of view you think can help your customers or readers? Once you determine those answers, you are ready to locate resources on other websites that may underscore your message. Sharing information from other websites in your blog can be a good way to showcase your expertise, however you want to be sure that doing so will not take readers away from your content.

Verizon FIOS sells out to Frontier and what a mess followed

Verizon FIOS sells out to Frontier, Raise your hand if you’ve had serious technological issues with the Verizon Fios to Frontier transition during the past Three weeks. Take it from me, the companies should never have done the conversion on April 1. Not only did they set themselves up to be the butt of “April Fools” jokes, they seemed utterly unprepared. My experience is that there was no strategy, no redundancy planning, and no expert guidance to aid the customer service staff to help their customers. After countless phone calls, demanding that my issues be elevated to supervisors, and countless frustration, I’m happy to say our video services are now back up and running – but it took us a week back-and-forth with Frontier to make that happen, and no small thanks to my own troubleshooting.

Here are some simple steps you can take to remedy the potential problems you may be experiencing at home yourself:

First off, let’s take a walk outside your house to the location where the Internet comes into your home. Look at the Verizon/Frontier box. Is it damaged? Does everything look like it’s connected? Once you’ve determined that, take a flat head screwdriver and open the box. You’ll should see a bunch of flashing lights with a legend next to them explaining which lights are responsible for what action. Make sure you have no orange or amber or red lights flashing. Take note and then close the box.

Good people as technology assets

Good people as technology assets. For the past few months I’ve been talking about technological issues as they relate to specific products or mindsets. I’d like to take a moment to shine some light on the biggest resource we may have to tackle tough technological problems. It’s the people we meet every day. The people we work with, and the bonds and relationships we make. How many times have you found yourself incredibly frustrated trying to find an answer to a technological problem? Of course. there is always the Internet, and thanks to Google, most answers are now at our fingertips. With a little ingenuity, you can easily use the Internet to research your idea or problem and to find potential answers or information.

As an adjunct faculty member at Ringling College of Art and Design, I have had the opportunity to meet some of the most kind, generous and hard-working students I’ve ever known. They have all far exceeded my expectations. This new wave of future leaders and artists – digital “natives” – have grown up with technology and understand better than most of us its current and potential impact on our lives and in our work.