by Brad Trites, Account Manager, Twin Creek Media

I am going to make a very bold statement: “There is no marketing tool available to small businesses more powerful than Facebook”. I guess after making a pretty big statement like that, I better support it.

As a small business owner, the last time you took out a really expensive full-page ad in your city’s most popular phone directory or ran a TV or radio ad, did it provide you with constant referrals? Did your clients receive timely updates about new products that you are carrying or your daily specials? What about actively building your brand awareness, did it do that for you? A properly managed business page on Facebook has the ability to do all of these things and a lot more without having to be that word that all small businesses dread, “expensive”.

A Trusted Source
For most businesses the best source of new clients is usually referrals. When a friend tells you that they really like a certain restaurant, you are more likely to try it out. On Facebook, you follow a business’s page by clicking that page’s “Like” button. When you do this, your action is posted in the News Feed of your friends. You essentially just told all of those people, “I LIKE this and you should check it out!”. Since you are an interesting person with great taste, some of your friends will do just that, and guess what? If they hit “Like”, they will automatically tell all of their friends. Some of those people will take things one step further and even visit your website and possibly become a real customer.

Daily Special
Most businesses are constantly changing. They begin to carry new products. They run new promotions. They win an award. They have product tips or advice to share. They land new clients. These are all pieces of information that a small business wants their customers to know about as quickly as possible. Not only that, this is information that your customers want to know about! Facebook gives small businesses the ability to communicate in real time to their customers. This is key in helping you strengthen relationships with your customers and build customer loyalty.

Tag you’re it!
Once your small business has it’s own Facebook page and you have managed to get a couple of hundred people to “Like” it, the next step is to engage your fans and turn them into your own marketing army. If you post compelling content on your page, there’s a good chance that some of your followers will repost your items, “Like” it, Tag it, or Comment on it. Every time someone does one of these things, your brand gets placed in front of another large audience. Even if the majority of those people take no action themselves with the content, the more they see your name the greater their awareness of your brand becomes. If you’re business was given the opportunity to place free ads in front of an audience every day, wouldn’t you go for it? That is exactly the opportunity Facebook provides small businesses.

Lasers are cool…
One of the great things about Facebook for small businesses is that ‘friends of a feather tend to flock together’. If your company’s target market is 16 year old males that skateboard, chances are that those kids that “Like” your page have a Friends List dominated by other 16 year old boys that like to skateboard. Facebook provides an extremely effective way to put your brand in front of an extremely focused intended audience. Traditional marketing tools such as TV, radio, and magazine ads command huge premiums to access such focused target markets.

NOTE: Hey marketers! Did you know that the average age of a Facebook user is closer to 40 than 14!

WARNING!
Simply setting up a Facebook business page is not enough to generate results. Like any marketing strategy, your Facebook initiative requires both commitment and planning. Compelling content needs to be regularly created and posted on your page and a two-way dialog needs to be maintained between your business and your followers. There is both an art and a science to using Facebook as a marketing tool. As such, if you are not prepared to learn what needs to be learned or able to commit the time required to manage your page, then you should strongly consider hiring a social media-marketing specialist.

Bottom Line
Social media marketing creates engaging customer experiences, drives website traffic, foot traffic, and email/phone inquiries. Although social media is primarily about sharing & relationships, it ultimately results in more sales.  Don’t forget: online marketing tactics should be integrated with your offline efforts too!

Next Steps...
At Twin Creek Media, we have setup Facebook pages for many businesses... both B2B and retailers selling direct to consumers. Facebook is just one social network among other notable ones: Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, StumbleUpon, etc. It’s best to have an online marketing strategy that defines measurable goals and uses the best tools for the job. For a primer on the big picture, see our Social Media 101 article or download our Social Media Reference Card.

Need more convincing?
A properly executed Facebook strategy has the ability to generate new customers that are well informed on your business’s developments and willing to actively market your brand on your behalf. Let’s see your telephone directory pull that one off! If you want to chat more about this topic, come visit us at the Twin Creek Media Facebook page and we’ll keep the conversation going!

by James Shaw and Amelia Penner

Radio Advertising in the Okanagan - Part 2 of 2

Last time we talked about how the basics of using radio in your marketing mix.  In case you missed Part 1, we covered:

• Deciding on the right radio station
• Knowing who your audience is
• Choosing the right time of day
• Comparing Okanagan radio stations

Get Them to Remember
Hearing is not the same as listening. People hear background noise, but listening is focused and active. The average person needs to hear your radio ad 11 times before they will actually listen to it. Once they do listen to it, are your customers remembering what you say? Below are some suggestions to create a winning ad:

• Use humor - people love to laugh
• Create curiosity upfront with an odd intro or sound - a well designed ad interrupts the listeners’ current thought process to switch them from “hearing” to “listening”
• Mention some related facts or “did you knows?”
• Turn part of your ad into a catchy song that is sure to get stuck in someone’s head
• Make your ad a conversation between two people
• Sponsor the news or sports or weather with a quick 10sec sound bite (shorter ads but more repetition for the same dollars)
• Jump on board with a station’s contests or quizzes. You may have to provide prizes which will cost extra money, but the brand awareness and foot traffic may be well worth it.

Most importantly, do not forget to mention the name and important contact information of your business. You do not want them to remember just your ad, you want them to remember you. The average person needs to listen to something at least 3 times before they can remember it. So... repeat repeat repeat.

Get Them to Take Action
What is the goal of your ad? Do you want them to call you, check out your website, or come into your store? If no one is taking action, try some of these tips:

• Say the phone number and email address in a way that they will remember
• Advertise a sale. Yes, people still love sales. Be specific though. Eg. “No tax on all couches and loveseats this Saturday and Sunday only.”
• Make a limited time offer or limited amount available. In the example above, the sale is limited to a certain product and a specific time frame. Interested listeners now have an image of a new couch in their minds AND a deadline. A bit of pressure prompts action.

Whatever you want your listener to do - make it clear and easy.

Measure Your Results!
John Wanamaker, a US department store merchant, once came up with the most famous advertising quote of all time:

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

So inevitably the phone rings (or the web traffic spikes).... do you have any idea if they are calling because of your radio ad or because of your website or yellow pages listing, or billboard, or newspaper ad, or.... or....? Let’s talk for a moment about ways to measure and compare.

Call Tracking
Companies like MongooseMetrics (MongooseMetrics Tracking) allow you to register a separate phone number to use in your radio ad (or wherever you like). When someone calls this number it will still ring on your phone at work, but you will be able to track online how many people called from hearing your radio ad. Tip: you can use unique phone numbers on other ads too, like print and web ads. It’s a great way to measure the effectiveness of each to start to understand what type of marketing is making your phone ring.

Web Traffic Tracking
There are a few different ways you can track who is visiting your site from your radio ad.

1. You can register a new domain that forwards people to your website
2. You can add a subdomain (subdomain.website.com)
3. You can add a section to your website (website.com/section)

All of these unique URL’s can be tracked within your web stats program (we love Google Analytics - it’s good and it’s free!). Using unique URL’s for each piece of your marketing campaign makes it easier to attribute the source of the traffic that results from them. The next step is to change things around in the current ad to boost its effectiveness or dump the losers and boost the winners.... but that’s a topic for another article.

Buying Radio Ads
Here are a few quick tips to remember when buying radio spots...

• Do not pay the standard rate card price - negotiate for a better deal
• Heavy load your ad spots into a short time period if your budget is small - alternate two weeks on and two weeks off to get the better bang for your buck
• Do not run on more than one station at the same time unless you have a large budget - switch between your target market stations to get increased frequency and measure the results
• Do not always buy direct - sometimes buying through an ad agency can get you a better deal

Do you have an opinion on a local radio station? Have good story about an epic radio ad failure or smashing success? Share it! For the good of all humankind and the ears of our children! Don’t not hold back! Okay, that was a bit melodramatic...

by James Shaw and Amelia Penner

Radio Advertising in the Okanagan - Part 1 of 2

For local retailers and service providers that market to the general population, advertising on the radio can be very effective.  Success or failure on the radio can be attributed to factors such as relevance, repetition, brand awareness, call to action, measurement, and creativity.  As with any other media, it’s important to integrate your radio campaign with other online and offline efforts.  An integrated campaign is greater than the sum of its parts.  For a primer on Integrated Marketing see: Engaging Customers: From Bored to Boombastic!

The Basics: What Station?  When?
Below are the basics of what you should already be doing with your radio ads.  If you cannot check off all of the following things, you need to address them before applying the other changes we suggest.

• Are you advertising on the radio station(s) your target audience listens to?
• Are you advertising during the times that your target audience is listening?

Relevance: Know Your Audience
The key to any marketing effort is understanding your audience.  Who are they really?  Are they 46 year old men who like sports, outdoor living, and drive trucks?  Are they 34 year old time-starved females with 2.5 kids, who believe mini-vans should have their own lane?  What radio station is your audience listening to?  Throughout Vernon, Kelowna, and Penticton there are a variety of stations that target different age groups and genders.  Unfortunately, the variety of stations creates overlap which makes it harder to choose between them.

Time of Day
Typically the best times to run your ad are when people are driving to and from work.  These would be 6am to 10am and 4pm to 7pm.  The theory is that there are more listeners during these peak periods.  This is balanced by the fact that these spots may be more expensive and there could be more ads crowded together, making it easier for your ad get lost in the noise.  Eg. if your spot is 6th in a series of 7 spots back to back, has your audience already flipped the station before hearing it?


Kelowna Radio Stations

Penticton Radio Stations

Vernon Radio Stations

About the Charts...

Hopefully the charts above are a helpful resource.  The Okanagan radio scene is quite fragmented and there is a lot of overlap.  This is great for listeners - more choice!  But for advertisers, it means the decision of which station to buy is harder, and often you will need to buy more than one station to be effective.

Most of the data provided in the charts come from the radio stations themselves.   There are a few important exceptions.  First "Core Demographic" means just that: it's the core demo, but of course there are 20 year olds listening to the news on AM1150, and 45 year old men listening to Britney Spears on SunFM (yikes!).  There are always exceptions.  Also, note that "Teens" is not an official demographic in the radio world.  We have just added it in there because it's true.

Relative Popularity

Radio Marketing Bureau is a great source of information for stats and ideas

I'm sure that we may have started a minor war and fans/employees of the various stations all have their opinion on which station is the most popular.  It's important to note that we ranked the stations in relative popularity based on available data from stations (taken with a big grain of salt), a report from CHBC (a TV channel would be less biased supposedly?), BBM Canada's industry rankings (ranked with paper diaries) and by the "seat of our pants" feelings (highly subjective!).  So to sum it up...  Our rankings are not scientific or definitive.   The stations ranked "High" seem to swap first/second/third positions often, and radio reps can tweak the data (with age or time of day bracketing) to boost their station above others.  Another issue with popularity ranking is the source of the data itself.  The Okanagan is still in the stone age when it comes to measuring radio's reach, audience, duration, and listener demographics.  Very literally, we still use paper/pencil and keep "diaries" about what we remember listening to... then mail the journal in.  Bigger metros, like Vancouver and Calgary, use digital gadgets called Portable People Meters (PPM) which "listen" to the radio stations that are on when Jenny or John go about their day.  PPMs are much more accurate.  In Vancouver, PPMs have found to significant adjust male/female listenership vs. paper journals.  Check out Radio Marketing Bureau's PPM Bulletin 8:Vancouver if you're interested.

One final note on popularity... who cares!  Ask your own customers.  Do a phone survey or online poll.  Find out for yourself.  Trust your instincts.  Plus, a small specialty station might offer a great deal over the big boys, better service and good exposure to a specific audience.  If the audience is a match, don't ignore the "less popular" stations.

Coming next week in Part 2....

• Getting creative...
• Do you stand out from “the noise”? Be creative - remember radio is the “theater of the mind”.
• Does your ad prompt action? Don’t forget a call to action. What do you want the listener to do exactly? Call you? Drive by? Visit a website? Be specific.
• Different types of radio ads (eg. sponsorships, contests, etc.)
• How to test and measure your radio campaigns
• Tips for buying radio advertising

Continue on to Okanagan Radio Advertising Part 2

by James Shaw, Creative Director

Are your customers ENGAGED with your message (or bored out of their minds)?

When it comes to engaging your target audience, not all marketing channels are created equal....

You are competing with 1000's of messages everyday. Your "target audience" is being bullseyed with so many random, off-topic, and boring attempts to capture their attention that they've probably tuned out most marketing messages altogether.  Wow, that's a depressing thought for marketing managers and advertisers, right?!  Industry insiders have even gone so far to say proclaim things like, "Death of the Advertising Agency" and other disturbing headlines.

I'm sick of advertising too. [I'm the Creative Director for Twin Creek Media, but since I own the company I'm not worried about being fired for a statement like that! Whew! ]

Aren't we all sick of advertising?  Let's define advertising as: any boring marketing message that we aren't interested in, isn't relevant, and isn't engaging.  No one likes "advertising" in that sense.  So what's the opportunity?  As marketers, business owners, sales reps, and business developers our goal is to communicate our messages so well that they do not come across as ads.  The challenge is to make them the opposite of the definition above:  un-boring, interesting, relevant, and engaging.

The topic of this article is Engagement, so we'll leave the other communication goals alone for now.  Marketing and advertising used to be limited to mostly "push" type messages.  Traditional mediums of print, radio, and TV can be effective if done creatively (and targeted as much as possible) but in general the communication is one way.  Marketers push the message out to sea and hope someone eventually picks up their message-in-a-bottle.  Tradigital mediums are not whole lot better in my opinion, but at least your target audience can find your message whenever they want - it's accessible and searchable on Google for example.  The other advantage of pushing content out online is that it can be interactive.  People can dig, explore, learn and sort of control their experience with your brand, product, or service.

Stop "pushing" and have real conversations on Social Engagement channels. The major advantage of this type of communication is that it's two way.  People talk, and people talk back.  If your marketing message is genuinely interesting and relevant to your audience it won't be treated as an ad.  Instead of being boring and ignored your message becomes a thread in normal conversation.  It's a story worthy of repeating.  This is true marketing success!

Wait! Social Media is not the answer to all your marketing goals. Nothing irks me more than flavour-of-the-day marketing.  It's important to figure out exactly what you're trying to do, and who you're trying to reach.  Social networks are not the obvious answer every time.  Set measurable goals so you'll know if moving in the right direction.  Often it's best to integrate all the marketing channels together.  They each have strengths and weaknesses, and instead of jumping on the band wagon with the latest (untested) web tool, craft balanced campaigns to meet your communication goals.  Use a blend of traditional and digital tactics.  Use one channel to spark awareness and curiosity.  Another to inform.  Another to capture.  Another to have conversations.  Another to sell.  Another to retain.  Another to... well, you get the idea.

Have an opinion on engaging customers?  We'd love to hear them!  Comment below.

Since 2004, Twin Creek Media has been a strategic and creative marketing agency located in Kelowna, British Columbia. The firm has carved a place in the marketing world by becoming known for integrated marketing: combining the best of internet and digital with the traditional mediums of print, radio, and TV.

We've structured our company a little differently than other marketing agencies.  We have 4 people on our executive team, and 12 part-time specialists on our creative team.   Clients get consistent leadership and project management, while scoring the specialized resources that make up our "dream teams".

Normally, clients get "A" there, "B" the other place, "C" somewhere else, and run around between various companies fitting things all together.  The result: lack of clarity, lack of continuity, lack of harmony in the marketing message.  Instead, at Twin Creek Media clients get a well-rounded range of marketing services... from assessing the need, creating the materials, and choosing the right tool(s) for the job.  We fit in very nicely with SMBs (small/mid sized businesses) - companies with 10 to 50 employees.

Twin Creek Media aims to be the gold standard in integrated marketing.  Roughly half our staff are Gen X and Y - we understand the digital world.  We live the internet.  We breathe Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, digital video, SEM, SEO, mobile apps... we know how to integrate the best of what today's technology has to offer with what is tried and true in the advertising universe - the big 3: print, radio, TV. 

"We love integrated marketing. Assessing your market and understanding your target audience is critical.  Creating the concept, designing the visuals, and crafting the words are undeniably important.  But the correct delivery of the message is crucial for successfully engaging your audience.  Marketing channels are all different and each have there own strengths and weaknesses.  We want to use the right marketing mix for each client." - Cara Reed, Account Director

We will not limit our services to one industry or one marketing tool.  Imagine marketing channels were colours of the rainbow... (oh boy, here comes the metaphor!) We will not limit our offerings to one colour.  If you want an just an expert in the colours of black & white, there are a million of them these days... just Google it.  We want to use any and all colours appropriate to tell your marketing story!