Mark 432 Test 1

6M Model of Marketing Communications

Market

Mission

Media

Message

Measurement

Money

Mission- 6M

• Set an objective for the communication (depends on focus of consumer journey)

• qualities of SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time specific)

• e.g. consideration stage (get 3000 potential customers to visit in 3 months)

Market - 6M

Defining the target audience

• should include: day-to-day lives, what they think and feel about the brand and competition, needs and preferences consumer journey

High involvement vs Low involvement

High: cars, electronics. Serious personal consequences, greater chance of cognitive dissonance

Low: low-cost, frequently purchased products, gold: get people to buy habitually not think

Message- 6M

How do you want to say it? How are you going to say it?

• hedonic= pleasant sensation

• develop value proposition: brainstorming set of benefits or values you promise to deliver to customers to satisfy their needs

• Values, belief, attitude

Positioning Statement

Provides parameters and inspiration for developing your desired brand identity

• how you want the desired behaviour and offering to be seen by the priority audience

• internal use only

• not a promotional message or slogan

Why focus on 1-2 messages?

Ping-pong theory, too many messages is hard for consumers to grasp

Media - 6M

Outbound Marketing (push)

• brand initiates conversation and pushes a message out to their target audience

• top of funnel marketing (tv/YouTube ads, display ads, social media ads)

Inbound Marketing (pull)

• create useful and highly visible content so potential buys come to you

• content should be interesting and solve consumer needs

• bottom of tunnel marketing (SEO, social media posts, website content, blog posts)

Money - 6M

Budgeting reality

• based on goals may need X

• based on funding may only have Y

• options: reduce marketing goals, phases, reduce high price tactics

Advertising budgets

• affordable

• advertising-to-sales ratio

• competitive parity

• objective and task (BEST ONE)

Measurement - 6M

How should your boss assess the impact of the communications?

• avoid costly mistakes (by doing a test run)

• Evaluate alternative strategies (doing A/B testing)

• increase advertising efficiency (by not inventing in bad creative)

• assess progress to objectives (by pre and post tests)

Marketing Metrics

• Message delivery: how widely and deeply the message has spread

• Reach: percentage of target audience exposed to campaign in time period

• Frequency: number of times exposed (Aim for 3-10 exposures) *No more than 10

Traditional funnel

Awareness →Familiarity→ Consideration→ Purchase → Loyalty

Triggers

Something in the environment that reminds people to buy

• can be a sight, sound, or colour

• e.g. first snow triggers to buy winter tires

Consideration set

• consumer considers an initial set of brands

• Brands in initial set are 3 times more likely to be purchased

In-store touch points

• packaging

• placement

• fixtures

• informative signage

• sensory marketing

Post Purchase experience

customer builds expectations based on experience

Two types of loyal customers

Active Loyalists

• they stick with product and recommend it

Passive loyalists

• stay with brand but not committed, open to competitors, stick with it because of laziness

Consumer journey mapping process

1. Map the current “as is” journey

2. map your touch points

3. overlay the marketing possibilities (i.e the ideal journey)

4. Pick aspects to get them to that desired state

*not a map of their journey with your products. It is a map of their journey with the product category.

User Experience Design

Function UX

• covers elements of user experience that relate to using the tools such as working technical elements, navigation, search and links

Creative UX

• bigger, harder to define impression created by the tool. So-called ‘wow’ factor that covers visual and creative elements

Design for usability

1. follow website conventions (logo top left, shopping cart top right)

2. Create effective visual hierarchies (more important things higher up)

3. Break pages up in to clearly defined areas

4. Make it obvious what’s clickable

5. eliminate distractions (less clutter, box stores are an exception)

6. Support scanning (different sections labeled, bold category headers, images>text)

Mobile first design

Mobile users have different needs

• goal-oriented, time- conscious, search dominant, locally focused

Mobile First philosophy

• design for smaller screens firs

• add features and content for larger screens (“responsive design”)

• conventions, visual hierarchies, no link too small

Landing page should match the advertisement on 3 dimensions:

• product/service

• message

• visual components

Types of landing pages

Single Product - ad for a single product should land on the same product

Multi product - ad for a product category should land with multiple products in category

Lead generation - ad for a service should land with phone number or contact information

Long copy - ad to solve a problem should land with blog on the solution

Subscription - ad to drive traffic to good media content should include CTA sub

Single purpose - ad for low commitment conversion (e.g email)

Landing page design

• Attention - what action should customer take

• Context - where are site visitors coming from

• Clarity - is it clear what landing page is about from quick scan

• Congruence - do all words on the page influence conversion

• Credibility - do customers have ample reason to believe you deliver promises

• Closing - use positive messages close to desired click region

• Continuance - after conversion does customer know they’ve completed action

Three question design

• What are you offering?

• Why should I pick you?

• What do you want me to do next?

How often to A/B test

You must continuously apply A/B testing

• always be testing, once one A/B test concludes, another A/B test should begin

Web development process

1. Discovery and planning

2. Design

3. Development

4. Testing and launching

Conversion rate optimization

create new version → test → analyze results → identify improvement → repeat

SEO & AIO, why?

• Draws customers in

• pushes messages out

GEO

Generative Engine optimization

AEO

Answer Engine Optimization

AIO

Artificial intelligence optimization

Page title

Good: 50-60 characters, write for humans. What do you want to click on?

Bad: no duplicate titles on your site

Page description

• Max 155 characters, use an active voice and make it actionable

• make sure it matches content on the page

User experience - on page strategies

• use charts, images, graphics, videos

  • increase time on page and reduce bounce rate

• use mobile first design

  • google penalizes sites that are not mobile-friendly

• make sure page loads fast *MAX 4 SECONDS

  • compress images, use content delivery network

Outsource vs. internal

Outsource: hire a company to do all of these steps for you

Internal: you can do it yourself

GEO vs SEO strategy

SEO; found and ranked

GEO: understood, extracted, cited

How to do AIO

• write content that answers specific, natural- language prompts

• use clear, concise language, avoid fluff

Short-tail long tail

Short-tail: 1-2 words

mid- tail: 2-3 words

long -tail: descriptive phrase

Creative/message strategy process

1. Positioning: what place do you want to occupy in consumers mind

2. Key message: what do you want to communicate?

3. Big Idea: How are you going to communicate that idea

4. Execution: content copy

Brand positioning

• Is your point of difference compelling

• Have we established a point of reference

• are we leveraging our points of parity

Above all else, you must serve the VALUES and preference of well-defined target market

SUCCES

• Simplicity

• Unexpectedness

• Concreteness

• Credibility

• Emotion

• Stories

Going “viral”/ why things catch on STEPPS

• Stories

• Triggers

• Emotion

• Public

• Practical value

• Social currency