Digital Media; Permission Or Interruption

It would revolutionize the ad world.

It was about engagement.

Conversation.

It would strengthen your brand.

Seth Godin on Permission Marketing:

"Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them."

So about those ads that pop up and block the page I want to read.  

Who gave you permission?

Why do you hide the x to close the page?

In fact when I am trying to close your ad, all you make me do is want to hate your product for taking up my time.

And by the way I have never clicked on one of those ads.

Maybe, accidently trying to close the ad.

But most likely one of the few reasons you see any click-throughs is because of "bots".

And those bots will cause marketers to lose over 11.6 billion dollars, according to a story by Gavin O'Malley in Media Daily News. 

And don't get me started on having to sit through your ads on You Tube.

Conversation my.....

Pepsi and the social media experiment that bombed

Social media is the new black.

Does it work? Of course.

But not always. And before you think of abandoning mainstream media for social media, here is The Ad Contrarian's blog on Pepsi wiping the blood from their nose.

Tony Mariani

When direct mail is sloppy

I received this from department store HBC (Hudson Bay Company). What you see here is actually 2 mailers.

Bay Mailer


My business card displays both radio stations. Here they have obviously missed that fact and decided to add me for each station.

Bay Mailer 2

Same offer in each envelope. But here is where they lost me and really wasted their money.

Bay Mailer 3

I have never bought their HBC cards for employees. Heck I have never bought an HBC card.

Someone didn't do their homework and I wonder how many more on their mailing list are like me. How much did those mistakes really cost.

Tony Mariani

Would you have paid for this tv ad

This is very surprising that Coors who has some good ads, would have settled for this for Keystone Light.

This isn't funny or believeable.

Tony Mariani

Social media creating evangelists

Reading a post on building customer loyalty and evangelism with social media
on American Express Forum, the article talked about the rewards of engaging and strengthen those relationships and creating true advocates.

A word of caution. Your business needs to be firing on all engines from front to back.

Remember the social media knife cuts both ways.

Tony Mariani

Increase your direct mail response

The age of interruption marketing has seen its better days. It doesn't spell the death of the traditional medias but splinters them.

It's hopefully created a more focused approach to your advertising and marketing.

Take direct mail. A 2% return is considered good.

You can easily double, triple and even quadruple that return with a couple of tweeks.

First off do not send out your entire mailer in one sitting. You won't blow your whole budget and you also will be able to pace yourself to accommodate the work.

Secondly and probably more important, make sure you do your homework on acquiring your mailing list. Outdated lists end up costing you a fortune. Do the math. If your return goes from 2-6%, is it worth it to pay more for your lists?


Tony Mariani