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Out of Home Advertising for Post Pandemic Consumers

May 25, 2021/in Articles, Blog, Directors /by Mark Beebe

The success of digital marketing has been noted for some time now. Every business has some sort of digital marketing strategy. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, digital marketing became even more effective than ever before. People were essentially trapped inside for more than a year, which means they spend significantly more time online. As a result, they became easier to reach via digital marketing efforts. However, as the pandemic comes to an end, cities will eventually begin opening back up. Knowing this, it’s critical that you begin planning an out-of-home advertising strategy.

What Is Out Of Home Advertising?

Out of home advertising refers to any advertisements posted outside, where countless people will see it. The more people walk or drive by out-of-home ads, the more exposure your brand receives. Obviously, out-of-home advertising was nowhere near as effective during the pandemic as it once was since everybody stayed inside. There are lots of examples of out-of-home advertising — billboards are one of the most common types. Billboards also include murals, posters, and junior posters. Billboards can be both paper and digital as well.

Is Newspaper Marketing still Valid?

The Benefits Of Out Of Home Advertising

In-home advertising, such as digital marketing, TV commercials, radio ads, and the like, are often preferred by businesses (especially smaller to mid-sized businesses). However, you should strongly consider out-of-home advertising as well. While the pandemic undoubtedly hurt the relevance of out-of-home ads, people will be looking to get out and about post-pandemic. As cities open up and people make an effort to spend more time outside, there will be more opportunities to reach them using out-of-home advertising. If that’s not reason enough to begin planning an out of home advertising strategy, consider the following benefits:

Outdoor advertising will be seen – Any person walking, biking, or driving by an outdoor ad, will see it.

Outdoor ads can increase brand exposure – If you put your ads in the right locations, you can reach a larger audience.

For instance, placing your outdoor ad in a location that has a lot of pedestrian traffic will ensure that it’s seen by a lot of people.

Outdoor ads can help bolster digital marketing efforts – Studies have shown that 46 percent of people will perform a search online after seeing an out-of-home ad.

Planning For Out Of Home Advertising

When it comes to successful out-of-home advertising, it’s crucial that you know your audience. If you know who you’re trying to reach, then you can determine where the best place to reach them is. For example, if you’re advertising a high-end luxury product, placing a poster for it at a bus stop in a lower-income neighborhood doesn’t make much sense. Instead, it would be more effective if you put it up in an area of town where there are multiple luxury stores in operation. This way, the customers of those stores will see your ad.

In addition to understanding the audience you’re trying to reach, you will also need to figure out the best placement

for your ads. An ad displayed on the side of a building where it’s difficult for nearby pedestrians to see is going to be ineffectual. You’ll want to make sure you know where the ad is going to be placed and where it will be visible.

Finally, the message is very important. Just because people see your ad as they walk by doesn’t mean that they will remember it. Make the messaging and branding clear. Try to make the ad as memorable as possible. People who see clever or memorable ads while they are waiting in traffic will often share them on social media.

Take Advantage Of Post Pandemic Out Of Home Advertising

As the pandemic nears the end, consumers are going to be making up for lost time by going out, whether they’ll be heading into the city on a night out, going to the park, or traveling to see friends and relatives that they haven’t seen for a long time. Knowing this, there is going to be a huge opportunity to reach a bigger audience using out-of-home advertising.

The Importance of Visual Aids in Senior Living Marketing

May 17, 2021/in Articles, Directors, Senior Living, Senior Living Marketing /by Terry Becker

While senior citizens are not the only audience that senior living facilities market to, it can’t be denied that they make up a massive percentage of their audience. As such, to grow and succeed, you must market to this part of your audience. It’s also important to note that different parts of your audience will react differently to various marketing efforts. When it comes to senior living marketing, we can’t overstate how important it is to use visual aids. Visual aids can greatly improve your ability to communicate with senior citizens, especially when you consider how effective they are in their daily use.

Senior Citizens Understand Visual Cues Better Than Verbal Cues

Verbal communication tends to become more difficult as a person ages. Many healthcare providers understand that effective verbal communication requires the addition of visual cues. There are many reasons for this. Some senior citizens are simply hard of hearing, making verbal communication more difficult. Some have difficulty understanding the main message due to memory issues or other problems. Visual cues can be used to enforce a message or tone.

In real-world conversations, visual cues can include smiling, using eye contact, nodding, and using hand gestures. These visual cues also show that you’re engaged, which will make them more engaged.

Read more here to learn about how to market to senior citizens.

How To Use Visual Aids To Market To Senior Citizens

Reading long walls of text can bring up a lot of challenges for senior citizens. They may have some difficulty following along due to memory issues or simply because they aren’t familiar with some of the terminology or slang being used (which is why it’s so important to write with your audience in mind). Fortunately, you can make it a lot easier to get your message across through the use of visual aids. The following are a few examples of how visual aids can be effectively used:

Photographs That Evoke Emotions – Photographs are a great way to relay the tone of an article to your audience. For instance, an article about senior living facilities can be informative, but a picture of actual residents enjoying those activities will have a much greater impact. Just remember to use real photographs. Stock photos often look fake and can end up hurting your trust.
Infographics That Break Down The Numbers – If you’re trying to reinforce a message using statistics, your readers can quickly get lost in all of the numbers. Support content that relies on stats or numbers using infographics. Infographics help make it easy for readers to better understand the numbers and their context in a less overwhelming way. When creating infographics, make sure the numbers and words are big enough for people with eyesight issues to see.

How to Optimize Senior Living Marketing Using Visual Aids

Use Colors That Aren’t Overwhelming – Many senior citizens can’t navigate websites and pages like younger generations. As such, use color in a way that helps guide their eyes to where you want them to look. Additionally, don’t overwhelm your pages with color, stick to one or two complementary colors that reflect your brand.
Use Slideshows That Are Easy To Follow – Because longer articles can be more difficult for an older audience to follow, slideshows are a fantastic way to make your points easier to digest. Each slide can focus on one point and use its own visual aid. As such, a slideshow is also more engaging for senior audiences.
Use Videos That Are Engaging – Video content is a much more effective way to deliver information to your senior audience. Not only will having a personality on screen be more engaging and relatable, but your audience will have an easier time understanding your message. Not to mention that they won’t have to strain to read anything. Eye contact and hand gestures within the video can help enhance the engagement of the senior citizen.

Use Visual Aids To Strengthen Your Senior Living Marketing Efforts

Visual aids can go a long way towards getting your message across to a senior audience as well as to help evoke emotions. However, having visual aids isn’t going to be enough to sell your message or convey certain emotions. You need to use visual aids smartly and in a way that’s impactful. Senior audiences may have some trouble with their eyesight or may have some memory limitations, but that doesn’t mean they’re not intelligent – don’t make the mistake of dumbing your senior living marketing efforts down. Senior citizens are nothing if not smart and won’t take kindly to marketing efforts that offend them.

What Is The Difference? – CRM vs. Marketing Automation Strategy

May 7, 2021/in Articles, Directors, Marketing Strategy /by Dan Gartlan

Building a relationship with each customer is essential in today’s business world. Without that relationship, you simply aren’t going to have the sales needed to remain profitable. That is why both CRM (customer relationship marketing) and marketing automation strategies focus on building that relationship.

Understanding how these strategies and systems complement one another helps businesses market and sell to their target audiences effectively.

The Critical Customer Relationship

Even with so much being done online these days, customers still want a relationship with the companies they do business with. They want to feel that a company understands their needs and that the company will address them.

How a business addresses the critical customer relationship will mark its success or its failure. Companies need to build and nurture this relationship. They do this by collecting critical data that helps them address their customers’ needs and challenges.

Learn More: How to Create Content for Each Sale Funnel Stage

The Top of the Sales Funnel

The strategies you use at the top of the sales funnel are going to be different from the strategies you use at the bottom. And these strategy approaches define the differences between CRM and marketing automation strategies.

At the top of the sales funnel, you are capturing leads wherever they come from. They can be people with a casual interest in your product or they can be seriously in the market and just starting the research process. The problem is, there is no real way to know which category the lead falls into. This is where marketing automation and nurturing comes into play.

With marketing automation, your strategies are capturing key pieces of information and using them to nurture a lead further into the sales funnel. This could include contact information like name, email address, phone number, company name, and company size; number of visits to the website and which pages are of particular interest, or which premiums they choose.

Each piece of information gathered about a lead brings critical insight into where they are in the sales cycle. Downloading details about a particular product, for example, is a sign of interest in that product or, at least, that product group. This can trigger the marketing automation system to send targeted emails or special offers.

The Bottom of the Sales Funnel

At a designated point in the sales funnel, a lead moves from the marketing side to the sales side. This is when the data gathered indicates the lead is moving towards making a purchase decision. This is where the CRM system comes into play.

That data gathered in a CRM allows your sales force to nurture the lead into closing the sale. It offers a picture of what the customer wants and their history with the company. Your sales team can use it to schedule calls with the lead or to set dates for follow-up.

The good news these days is that there are a growing number of systems which offer both types of functionality. That way, you can leverage both CRM and marketing automation strategies without worry about one system getting out of sync.

Bob Ward Declares Stevens and Tate as Agency of Record

May 6, 2021/in Articles /by Debbie Szwast

Bob Ward Companies has hired Stevens & Tate Marketing to increase brand awareness for the homebuilder in the Baltimore area and drive traffic to its sales centers. Named its agency of record, Stevens & Tate is responsible for media planning and placement for all Bob Ward communities as well as the company as a whole. The firm is overseeing creative strategy and implementation, designing fresh advertising campaigns that include digital display, social media, radio, outreach emails, and print. In addition, Stevens & Tate is implementing a Google Ads program that highlights the key selling points for each of the builder’s properties. To move prospects through the buyer’s journey, the agency is creating and managing a lead nurturing program that communicates with contacts in Bob Ward’s database on a consistent basis.

See Our Other Clients

Bob Ward is one of the largest homebuilders in metropolitan Baltimore with townhome, villa and single-family-home communities in Maryland, specifically in Carroll, Cecil and Harford counties. Since 1983, the company has built nearly 3,000 homes that offer buyers comfort, quality and value. The homebuilding industry, both local and national, has presented some of its most prestigious awards to Bob Ward, recognizing the company’s standards of excellence.

How to Drive Website Conversions with the Buyer’s Journey

May 4, 2021/in Articles, Attraction Marketing, Content Marketing, Directors, Lead Nuturing /by Nicole Wagner

Before any customer commits to purchasing a product, they will have to go through the sales funnel. The sales funnel is comprised of several stages that the buyer will go through, from identifying the problem they have to making a decision. In online marketing, the sales funnel expands from a prospective buyer to a buyer looking to purchase. Marketers are responsible for guiding prospective clients along the sales funnel until they eventually make a purchase. Attraction marketing is what will catch the attention of customers.

Growing social media usage gives marketers a chance to engage their prospective buyers by creating customized content. However, some marketers still find it challenging to identify the most effective content for each step. The following is a guide to creating the right content to drive website conversions at each step of the sales funnel.

Top of the Funnel: Awareness and Research

This is the primary step where prospective customers realize they have a problem or a need to fulfill. Buyers at the top of the funnel are searching for high quality and relevant information to point them towards the solution

Over 80% of buyers research products online before buying. The best way to attract them is by offering exactly what they need: highly optimized content with original research. Additionally, posting explainer videos that contain demonstrations can have a huge impact on your site. Lastly, create attractive landing pages to offer your visitors solutions at the click of a button.

Read More: How To Use The Buyer’s Journey To Create Great Content

Middle of the Funnel: Evaluation

During the second stage of the sales funnel, buyers are trying to sort through their best options that you and your competitors are offering. It’s the seller’s job to explain why they are the best solution for the customer’s problem. The purpose of this section of the funnel is to highlight your expertise and begin the process of lead nurturing.

The best content for this stage are webinars and live communication features. These give the marketers and customers a space to interact with live questions and discussions. Email marketing is also a great way to offer relevant and consistent content. Don’t forget to include clear calls to action that will convert leads.

Bottom of the Funnel: Purchase

At the final stage, the buyer has decided they are ready to make a purchase, but they have not yet decided the source of their purchase. Providing them with access to the solution as well as some incentives will likely turn a prospective buyer to a customer.

Clear calls to action linked to trial offers, video tutorials, and product information can have a huge impact on prospective customers. Aligning your offers with educational and entertaining testimonials is an effective technique. It’s also wise to creating a purchasable demo based on a free plan that entices customers to access its premium features.

Pay Attention to the Buyer’s Journey

Above all, remember to consider your clients’ needs first. From there, develop your funnel in order to fulfill these needs at each stage. If the sales funnel is implemented correctly and your content is helpful to customers, your lead conversion rate will definitely increase.

How to Share Your Message With A New Brand Strategy?

April 30, 2021/in Articles, Brand Development, Brand Positioning, Directors /by Mark Beebe

Brands fight to gain attention. Brands need communication without words. Brands are psychology and science brought together as a promise mark as opposed to a trademark.

Products have life cycles, but brands outlive products. Brands convey a uniform quality, credibility and experience. Brands are valuable.

Without branding, there is no differentiation. Without differentiation, there is no long-term profitability. People don’t have relationships with products, they develop relationships with brands.

Newspaper Marketing in 2021 is Still Valid.. Here’s Why

April 26, 2021/in Articles, Directors, Marketing Strategy, Newspaper Marketing /by Dan Gartlan

When thinking of a newspaper, you might think of a boy on a bicycle throwing rolled-up papers onto people’s yards. In other words, newspapers tend to conjure up images of the past. However, they are not a thing of the past, despite the fact that many people believe them to be. Not everybody has access to the Internet, which means the newspaper remains an important source of news for many people. As such, newspaper marketing remains an effective way to reach another target audience. If you’re not convinced that newspaper marketing is worth the cost, consider the following benefits:

Benefits of Newspaper Marketing:

Reach A Bigger Audience – Did you know that despite the fact that newspaper readership is declining, the average newspaper reaches a larger audience than the average half-hour long prime time TV show? TV commercials are still considered an effective way to reach a big audience, which means newspapers should be considered as such as well.
Reach A More Attentive Audience – You can reach a lot of people marketing on the Internet. More than you can through newspaper marketing — and by a large margin. However, the people you reach through a newspaper are much more likely to engage with your marketing materials, especially when compared to Internet users, whose average attention span is roughly eight seconds. The consumers who read the ad in a newspaper will be more engaged with the message involved.
Newspaper Ads Live Longer – One of the challenges of marketing online is that you have to get your timing just right. If you post content to social media at the wrong time, your audience will miss it. When you advertise in a newspaper, your readers will get to it eventually. A newspaper audience will read through the newspaper when they have the time — which means they’ll see your ad eventually.
Fewer Competitors – A newspaper can only hold so many advertisements. Your competition (and direct competition) will not be nearly as strong as it is when you market your business online. This also means that your ads are less likely to be ignored because of ads and clickbait.
Newspaper Advertising Is Affordable – It costs less to reach a thousand newspaper readers than it does to reach that many people through other means. On top of that, newspaper advertising tends to be very flexible, making it easier to customize your ads to meet your budget.

Why Should You Trust Newspaper Marketing?

People Trust Newspapers – There’s a major trust issue in this day and age. People no longer trust what they see on TV or what they read online. And creating brand trust, as you know, is crucial. “Fake News” as it were, has caused significant doubt to be cast over the media landscape. However, people still trust newspapers — far more than any other type of media. This might be due to the transparency of the text with no puns involved. Because people trust newspapers, they’re more likely to take your advertising seriously.
Newspaper Readers Look For Deals – Many people who subscribe to a newspaper actually go through the ads and coupons looking for deals. This means that the newspaper is a great way to advertise a special promotion or discount. Online platforms using this method are considered “spam”.
Newspapers Provide A Tactile Experience – It may not seem like anything worthy of note, but the fact that your audience can touch the newspaper makes a big difference. Studies have shown that the ability to touch the ad increases the response rate. It’s obviously psychological, but it has an impact on the reader’s purchase intent and engagement. That tactile quality is missing from most other forms of marketing, whether it’s TV commercials, billboards, or any kind of digital marketing.

Newspaper advertising continues to be an important medium for marketing. Read more here.

Why Should You Consider Newspaper Marketing?

There are plenty of reasons why newspaper marketing remains an effective way to reach an audience, even in 2021. Although many businesses are focusing a significant amount of their resources on digital marketing, it’s vital that you consider all marketing channels, both online and offline. A balanced marketing strategy is the most successful strategy, after all. As such, be sure to consider newspaper marketing as part of your advertising strategy.

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers

Home Builder Marketing Tips To Drive Traffic And Sales

April 16, 2021/in Articles, Directors, Homebuilder Marketing, Marketing Strategy /by Debbie Szwast

Any ad agency executive doing homebuilder marketing has undoubtedly heard these words from her clients, “we need more traffic.” And while there’s no magic bullet for homebuilder marketing that’s going to drive a specific number of visitors to a sales center in a given week, don’t underestimate the power of partnerships and focused events.

Drive On-Site Traffic With An Event

Recently, we harnessed the weight of one of our media partners to pull off a successful grand re-opening for a homebuilder in Chicagoland. With a property that has been underway for more than 10 years, we were looking for a way to reinvigorate the community and attract new people to the site. The builder was opening new models and we used that as our launch pad.

Learn How To Tell Your Partner’s Story

Capitalize On A Strong Media Partnership

With a limited budget, we partnered with a multimedia company with a local focus to develop a comprehensive marketing plan. The media mix spanned digital, print, email, and even public relations. For two weeks leading up to the event, we dominated suburban news pages online that covered the geographic area we anticipated buyers would come from. This included high-impact interstials, overlays and page takeovers. Click-thru results were four times that of our standard buy.

Target The Right Audience

Layered on top of the digital program was an email campaign, both to past prospects and a new audience. We targeted based on geography, household income, age, gender, and even propensity to buy a home. And we didn’t forget brokers with our homebuilder marketing. We emailed them, as well, and the sales team did “boots on the ground” networking, too.

Build Credibility Through Public Relations

Publicity also played a role in the success of our grand re-opening. A few weeks prior to the event an article appeared in print and online highlighting all the benefits of the community and promoting the reasons to buy as told from a homeowner’s point of view. Then the weekend of the event, a front-page feature—complete with photos—graced the cover of the homes section of the newspaper. The message, of course, enticed people to stop by and visit the brand-new decorated model homes.

Reap The Rewards

Results were amazing. Traffic during the grand re-opening weekend was nearly 10 times that of the community’s weekly average. And, even more importantly, the builder sold more homes in those two weeks than it had the five months prior.

Of course we can’t guarantee an on-site event supported by a strong media partnership will always garner these results. But in this case, it definitely was the right combination for a successful homebuilder marketing plan.

To learn more about how a strategic marketing program can increase traffic and sales at your communities, call Stevens & Tate Marketing at (630) 627-5200 or visit our website at stevens-tate.com.

Types Of Marketing Videos You Should Use

April 11, 2021/in Articles, Content Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Video Marketing /by Terry Becker

Year after year, video marketing grows in importance. Video has never been easier to consume for Americans, especially when considering the increasing quality of smartphones and tablets. Video is also the easiest way for people to absorb information. Additionally, according to a prediction by Zenith Media, the average person will spend around 100 minutes a day watching videos in 2021. The pandemic certainly had an impact on these numbers as well. People have more time on their hands to watch video content, especially those who have switched to a work-at-home environment. Because of this increase in video consumption, a video marketing strategy is an absolute must. The following are some of the different types of marketing videos that you should consider producing this year.

1. Educational videos

Educational videos should be used to help inform your audience about a particular subject. No video marketing strategy will be successful without them. This is because the more informed your audience is, the more confident they will be in making a purchasing decision down the road. Educational videos provide them with the knowledge they need to understand your business and the solutions you offer. There are several types of educational videos, including:

Demo videos – Videos that demonstrate how your product or service is used.
Explainer videos – Videos that showcase why your product or service is needed.
How-to videos – Videos that provide step-by-step instructions on how to do a specific task.
Animated videos – Animated videos are a fantastic way to deliver information in an entertaining way, whether they’re explainer videos or how-to videos.

2. Interview videos

Interviews are an excellent way to provide detailed information about certain subjects to your audience while also providing a personality to engage with. You can film interviews with both employees and upper management as well as experts that are relevant to your industry. What’s great about interview videos is that they are incredibly easy to produce.

3. Event videos

Certain events, like industry tradeshows, conferences, fundraisers, and round table discussions, can reveal a wealth of information. Film these events and edit them into event videos for your audience to enjoy.

Leveraging Video Marketing During COVID-19

4. Case study and testimonial videos

These types of videos focus on customers and their experiences using your product or service. Not only can you use them as social proof that your products or services work, but they make it easier to build trust with your audience. Potential customers are much more likely to relate to and believe what previous customers have said, after all. Using case studies and testimonial videos, you give customers the chance to explain what their challenges were and how your product or service solved those challenges.

5. Behind-the-scenes videos

A big part of creating a successful brand identity is presenting your company as being relatable. You don’t want your audience to think of you as a big faceless corporation, after all. Creating videos that depict your company behind the scenes is a great way to do this. It shows that there’s a human element behind the business. There are tons of ways to go about creating behind-the-scenes videos. A video of the day-in-the-life of the typical employee or a video of the manufacturing process of a product are great examples.

These are five different types of marketing videos you should consider creating in 2021. As you develop your video marketing strategy, remember that the quality of your content matters — and so does the audience that you’re creating it for. Always keep viewers in mind to ensure that your video marketing efforts are relevant.

Integrating Story Branding With Your B2B Marketing Strategy

April 11, 2021/in Articles, Attraction Marketing, B2B Marketing, Brand Development, Brand Story Telling, Directors, Marketing Strategy, Storybranding /by Dan Gartlan

Marketers have realized that their audiences’ attention spans are getting shorter by the day. In an effort to get it back, they resort to anything to engage them: humor, sex, etc. However, it is one thing to get involved in a commercial and another to get involved in a brand. Successful brands market by forging a deeper emotional connection using story branding which is a part of attraction marketing.

In a technique called The Hero’s Quest, they create a story with a hero, a conflict, and a resolution. The hero has a certain drive like love that leads him to action past certain barriers and eventual conquest. Generating emotional connection with the story is what sells. To be successful in B2B marketing strategy, make your brand the hero of your own story.

Where story branding and marketing integrate:

Distinction

Consumers have vast amounts of choice today but are drawn to the one they can relate to. Distinction is vital in any marketing strategy. A good, realistic brand story enhances a brand’s overall presence regardless of its competitive position in the industry. The right perception hits the audiences’ emotional quotient, tipping it in your favor. Wrapping up your brand in a more meaningful story context further adds value to it. To fellow businesses, buying your product will mean getting higher utility compared to the others in the competition.

Humanizing your brand

A successful B2B marketing strategy is one that humanizes your brand. A brand story cannot be underestimated in doing the job. Individual experiences like those of Steve Jobs, when fed into a company message, go a long way in personalizing and even achieving celebrity like status for your brand. You can use employee or your founder experience for this. Although you cannot have complete control of your story, a little positive twist helps to strengthen it by making it more interesting. Your marketing strategy is even boosted further as a result. A story should be a corporate persuasion tool that leads your audience to you.

Read more on 4 Strategies For Improving Your B2B Customer Experience.

Emotion is more compelling than a straight fact

In spoken word, good oratory skills are regarded highly and can be more compelling when they involve more emotion than fact. Arousing an audiences’ emotion can create big turnaround in your brand path. The Royal navy for example, uses stories to boost confidence and productivity where it is expected of the military to have a tough, factual approach to communication. That B2B cannot use warm and emotive storytelling is not a true rationale. Make your story more willingly received and memorable to achieve greater marketing success.

Interplay

There is a two way exchange between telling a story and marketing success. Story branding strengthens your business whereas a good, stronger business performance reinforces your story. Similarly, poor performance becomes part of your brand story just as easily. A B2B marketing strategy can be shaped but success will always depended on perception. Story branding is one way of building this perception.