Tag Archives: Social Media Strategy

Why Guilt Is Good for Marketing and Building Emotional Response

This entry was posted on May 13, 2019 by Melanie Stern.

Marketing strategists know the importance of hitting consumers right where it hurts. Depending on the product or service, the creative pitch and delivery should tap into an emotion. Anger, joy, dread, anticipation, doubt, fear, confidence, guilt, or shame, emotion is what drives people to relate to a given advertising message. And it’s this relatability that will hold their interest, allow them to process the message and hopefully, engage response.

We Are Glutton for Punishment

It turns out that guilt is more than a quick go-to, and I might add desperate, tactic used by parents in getting their kids to do what they’re asking. The art of persuasion in marketing is used by creative gurus to make the audience believe that they will feel some sense of guilt if they miss the advertising opportunity presented. Moreover, if the viewers give the guilt-ridden message attention, there must be a moment that resonates with them and further accentuates the guilt already in place. Here’s an example.

The Blame Game

In a society that shudders at the thought of being accountable for anything, no one likes to be reminded of a faux pas, mistake, indiscretion or a flat out epic failure. When it happens, many quickly jump at the chance to point the proverbial finger on someone or something else as being the source of the snafu. Yes, there’s a lot of finger pointing going on—just look at our politics and how the media portrays these cat-and-mouse antics that denigrate personal and business brand.

But blame seemingly raises the eyebrows of consumers getting them to stop, watch, and share the information. In fact, this isn’t counterculture anymore but the natural process of social media channels in action. Decades earlier, when it was good business practice to admit to a problem and fix it or put out a retraction correcting the misinformation, there is no such content animal in existence today. In fact, we thrive on marketing mistakes and often devise them on purpose. Remember, bad press is still – good press.

Part public service announcement, part big pharma-to-physician-to-consumer play, this TV spot hits parents and their teenagers hard by pitting them against one another through the sharing of vital health information, and laying some heavy blame. The advertiser, Merck, provides new knowledge to its audience while simultaneously shaming them for not knowing the info beforehand. Compelling as it is, this shame and indirect blame reinforces the importance of the message, leaving the audience guilty unless they act on the message… or forever be held accountable by their children. A cheap shot? Manipulation at its highest level? Absolutely. Is it effective? Just ask any parent that’s seen it on television because if they remember then it worked, right?

The Fault of Our Own

There are certain subjects that get people and their panties rolled up too tight: children, aging parents, fitness, education, personal space, and health to name a few. But when it comes to diet and weight loss, it reigns supreme on hitting people’s buttons on the woulda-shoulda-coulda rant. Though it may not always be expressed, many Americans would own the notion that they do need to lose, at least, five pounds. But oh the list of reasons why it isn’t happening. I could get rich quick if I could cite them all.

Not only is our guilt, laziness, and frustration about diet and weight loss a popular topic of conversation, it sets consumers up for the continual cycle of triumph and defeat. It’s what weight loss program developers and fat-free product manufacturers hope for and make a hefty profit on. Nonetheless, people are like sheep. And advertisers and their clients love sheep.

Dangers of Guilt in Advertising

You’ve probably run across individuals in your life who appear to thrive on misery. It must be a ‘thing’ considering the programming across media outlets echoes the sentiment. However, there is a flip side or two to this type of story. America likes a good amount of sap with their misery. It’s our way of coming out ahead, rooting for the underdog and winning, or holding on to hope, faith, and that it matters and makes a difference. This Fiber One commercial blends the bad and the good, well.

When we use guilt in marketing, it’s important to remember who the target audience is and how they are likely to respond.

Consider adding the following to your guilt-ridden messaging:

Happy ending
Humor
Solution-based final thought or call-to-action
Non-profit or charitable mention

Other than the misery-seekers and negative Nancys you may know, guilt is not usually something we like to share. Typically, we keep our guilt hidden or quickly deflect it with a good shot of blame sent elsewhere. But if you have to use guilt to give your marketing campaign the attention it deserves, make sure to give the audience a way out of feeling bad, by offering something that feels good.

Shame and Guilt, the Double Whammy

As risky as it can be, there are inherent benefits to using guilt in your marketing as it is representative of some of the twisted aspects of our interpersonal relationships. Think of a best friend, partner, or spouse. In the best of circumstances, you have gained a level of trust where you feel ‘safe’ in sharing exactly how you feel.

Unfortunately, this isn’t just about the compliments, thoughtfulness, praises and other displays of appreciation. It also includes those moments that really put you in disbelief, shock, and awe. And it is in these moments that we may not feel empathy or sympathy, but are compelled to remind the other person of their idiocy. Yeah, reality bites.

Alka-Seltzer found the sweet spot in this human condition and nailed it on their award-winning campaign from decades ago. Some may say that the copywriter and creative director were way ahead of their time. Although, I’m thinking that indigestion is timeless.

Watch What You Say and the Way You Say It

When did having ‘no filter’ be more acceptable than common courtesy? This positioning trait can be effective in advertising. But before you lead with content that emotionally shakes consumers without giving them any positive recourse when it’s over, ask yourself and your marketing team this: How would it make you feel? Do they enjoy eating a crow sandwich topped with guilt-flavored jelly? Does it shame them into making a change? And if they simply start sobbing, blame it on the writers. It’s always our fault.

Ask Us to Review How Your Brand Speaks to Your Clients

Melanie Stern

Looking at the world through word-colored glasses, I am continuously in awe of how we evolve as people in business. We strive to communicate in a direct approach and, when we see fit, through subliminal channels. As a content strategist, I look forward to sharing all perspectives to help entertain, enlighten and engage more in others.

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This entry was posted in Marketing Strategy, Sales & Pro Tips and tagged Brand Identity, Marketing Tools, Social Media Strategy.

Why Agency and Client Business Marketing Expectations Disconnect

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This entry was posted on April 9, 2019 by Melanie Stern.

Imagine yourself sitting at a negotiating table. You could be the business owner looking for the best way to market your company products or services to a captive audience. You might be the marketing executive, hoping to secure a new client. But no matter which side of the table you find yourself, there is an unspoken, yet crucial, aspect to forging this relationship. Hidden between the lines in even the best drafted agreement is the business marketing expectations that reside within each party. And seldom do the twain meet. Here’s why.

Not Everyone Speaks the Same Marketing Language

You may know your business, but it doesn’t mean you know marketing. On the flip side, marketing agencies know the nuances behind great copy and show-stopping design (or they should) but don’t count on them being experts at the differences between lug nuts. But if you manufacture lug nuts to a variety of industries, for example, how do you know which creative agency can help you effectively share the information, reestablish your brand, and build a following all about lug nuts? You don’t, initially.

Lug Nuts Don’t Help If They Don’t Fit

Allow me to expand on this makeshift scenario. You are the lug nut company. We Are Ego is the marketing agency looking to pitch and land lug nuts as a client. Here’s how a typical meeting might go down, whether you’re working at getting the account or desperately trying to keep it.

The We Are Ego agency believes they know everything about marketing. Its owners will tell you that as a fact. As such, they pitch you and pontificate in detail about how their knowledge and experience supersedes what you know about lug nuts. If they’re any good at their pitch, they’ll have you believing that. And if they’re just as talented at convincing your customers that you are the lug nut kings of the industry, this relationship will be golden.

But where there’s ego, there’s noise.

Your client’s customers won’t focus on the noise. Sure, they might be intrigued by the ad or promotion delivery. They could be intrigued by the marketing message or can’t get enough of the latest product offering. But the bottom line to the lug nut customer is… the lug nut.

Dialing this back a bit further, advertising agencies of the past reveled in their ability to spin their audiences through solid creative. Today, it takes a back seat to the most important aspect of marketing: The people who will consume your product or service. People are primary. Period…

…now back at the negotiating table. You’ve got two different kinds of people. How can you make them fit into each other’s square hole?

The Digital Debacle

If the lug nut company has a CTO, then you can banter beautifully about the analytics of social channels and the scalability of your preferred web design template and how it will lessen the cost and down-time in production, if they switch to your platform. Unfortunately, for the lug nut management representatives at the table representing sales, operations, manufacturing, legal, and logistics, all you’ve done is throw a slew of terminology at them that might as well be Greek. Because it is.

You haven’t impressed them. The lug nut team now feels out of step, out of touch, and belittled. How can they gage your value when they have no idea what you said? And so much for building trust. Good job We Are Ego. Great way to pitch a prospect (sarcasm overload here).

Technology and digital means of communication have allowed us to touch more people faster, but with much less efficacy. It has desensitized our ability to connect on the human level, which is where you truly need to be to reach people and make a positive, lasting impression. Isn’t that what marketing is all about? This goes for client interface too.

How did we get so lost in this data driven society?

Some People Read But Nobody Listens

This is a story of the chicken and the egg. The internet has reset the bar on how many media impressions a person can take per second and, with that, the attention level needed to take it all in. The result is that people cannot nor care not to truly digest what’s being thrown at them.

In addition, now that we (consumers) are expected to process more information at a quicker rate, we have less time to spend on each marketing message. This is a challenge for the marketing agency. Getting your creative to craft messaging that grabs the attention of the reader/viewer is the key to bringing a lug nut brand to market and growing it from there.

Unfortunately, people don’t read. And when it comes to marketing agency-to-client business agreements… these people don’t read either.

Where Egos Talk, Pigs Fly

Then there’s the art of listening. What? Exactly. People are generally more worried about what they are going to say than concern themselves with whatever it is that you just said. Right. This brings new meaning to the term circular conversation. People talk but the communication doesn’t have a purpose and seldom goes anywhere. Isn’t that productive?

We’re still at that negotiating table. While this meeting may just be an initial client pitch for their business, negotiations between a marketing agency and a client are always taking place – every time they communicate.

Swallow that truth, and you might change your communications best practices.

Marketing Agency and Client-Side Etiquette

Say what you mean
Mean what you say
Document it

The above points may require some extra work on both agency and client but it will save countless hours of frustration and heightened emotions along the way. And it will save your relationship, instead of having to salvage it.

If you’re the agency, perhaps you prefer boasting about your creative portfolio, stellar accounts, and trophy wall full of awards. Gloating doesn’t make pigs or clients fly. But some agencies try. They try.

Revisit Conversations, Often

Think back on the last conversation you had with your marketing agency or member of your internal marketing team. You have a recollection about a web-based initiative, the deliverables needed and the associated deadlines. There was scope creep involved but the deadlines stayed the same.

Unfortunately, that was just the part of that prior conversation that you chose to remember. The marketing guru emphatically remembers that the deadlines got pushed, because of scope creep.

People tend to remember what they want to remember especially when it serves them best. However, had there been additional conversations about the shift in scope, the misunderstanding would be caught and addressed earlier, without the agency/client standoff.

Right, Wrong and Fair

My father once told me, “Business is like life. No one ever said it was going to be fair.” The ins and outs of the marketing agency and client relationship parallel that statement. There will be times in your partnership (that’s what it should be) where volatility will rise and patience will falter. It’s okay to have differing viewpoints on what will work in marketing and what won’t. The essence of your shared dynamic is in realizing you want to achieve the same goals. How you get there may be the source of contention, which isn’t bad.

Opposing marketing ideologies keeps the agency and the client on their professional toes, acquiescing into learning new things, and staying competitive. And in that – everyone wins.

Establish the Preferred Method of Chatter

Have you heard about the 5 Languages of Love? I wouldn’t bestow those onto your business relations; however, there are languages of communication. Depending on many factors, every person will have their own preferred method for communication.

Text
Email
Phone call
Video call
Face-to-face

Whether the reasoning behind the preference is convenience, audio or visual sensitivity, as well as a combination of both, make sure to ask what the best form of communication is per agency and client representatives.

Restate the Obvious

Be it a phone conversation, text message, video conference or email correspondence, send a follow up communication and reiterate the major points covered in the communication. State your understanding of the takeaways from it, as well as the next steps needed. Then ask the other party to confirm your understanding or provide counterpoints that differ, in writing.

This will serve both sides well in the event of scope creep, memory loss or momentary lapses of reason during an overview of marketing budget, performance metrics or creative campaign presentation.

Nothing Can Replace a Face-to-Face

Most of us have been guilty of sending an email to the wrong person and hitting “Reply All” instead of “Forward” or “Reply”. What about your ill-thought response to a client or agency message? When you perceive it the wrong way and blew an incident way out of proportion.

Digital communication snafus happen. Often.

Derail the damage done by adding a monthly face-to-face with your client. If a client isn’t local, work in a trip to their office at least once a quarter or have them come to you. It’s the best way to get a comprehensive understanding of who they are, if they’re confident in your abilities, and whether they truly like you. Does that even matter?

Yaaass. People prefer to work with people they like. If a client has found two different marketing agencies with similar reputations and solid performance benchmarks, agency personality and likeability are the tipping point to securing the account.

Your Contract Is Your Friend

It may not be fun to enter into a business agreement between agency and client with a litigious mindset, but it’s worth its weight in preventing hassle down the road.

A well-crafted contract is your friend. A solid agreement provides the foundational support needed when missteps happen over the course of the marketing agency/client association.

But don’t think that the marketing service contract is all about numbers. Of course the budget, monthly retainer, KPIs and ROI is important. But what blurs the numbers and the mechanisms to achieve them are expectations that get glossed over from one side to the other.

Can you avoid assumptions borne from expectations? More than you might think.

Add specific provisions into the contract:

Cost for changes to deliverables
Cost for scope creep (production and timelines)
Call out preferred communications to be used

In addition to the above, revisit the contract (internally) every 90 days. You’ll know if you (agency or client) are in accord with the terms and conditions and can make adjustments before the other side calls you out on it. If you feel that a modification should be made to the contract, consider drafting an Addendum and scheduling a face to face to discuss the matter.

Here’s what can happen if you don’t.

The Agency Is the Last to Know

You’ve never been asked to meet with the business owner. But you received a call out-of-the-blue and now find yourself doing the two-hour road trip late on a Friday morning to get there. But you’re prepared. You’ve got the latest monthly reports ready to be presented showing the steady increase in site visits, social engagements, and followers. With any luck, you should be receiving the final edit to the latest video production creative has completed and know it will “Wow” them.

But something happened between contract and expectations that was never discussed.

You enter the conference room and find 10 angry-looking executives who scowl at your very presence. Instead of presenting numbers, representative of the fruits of your labor, you receive a lashing of untruths relayed in expletives. The core accusations?

Inconsistent communication
Skewing performance numbers
Missed deadlines

Justifiable? Not according to the contract. Unfortunately, the contract can be perceived in multiple ways. (Isn’t that how attorneys secure ongoing employment?)

This client/agency encounter didn’t end well, though it could have.

If the Relationship Can’t Be Saved, No Need for Sour Grapes

Never burn a bridge in business. It’s short-sighted, like cutting off your nose to spite your face and almost as painful.

Regardless of how you believe the other party wronged you, this is all temporary. And if you’ve served your client well, let them go gracefully. Time will show truth. They may come back at some point in the future when they see the value of your business and what you brought to the table.

Should that happen, follow the guidelines in this blog. But before you e-sign on the dotted line, come to a place where agency/client expectations meet and egos are left at the door.

Real Communication Brings Real Results, Faster. Ask Us How

Melanie Stern

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This entry was posted in Business Strategy, Sales & Pro Tips and tagged Business Marketing, Design, Marketing Tools, Social Media Strategy.

A Guide to Getting Started with Instagram Sponsored Posts

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This entry was posted on February 27, 2019 by Team Eminent SEO.

If you are a business owner or marketer, you know that social media is one of the top ways to interact with potential customers and get your brand out into the public eye. You have probably used Facebook to interact with existing and potential customers, and likely have heard of Instagram as an advertising and interaction platform.

Did you know that there are 1 billion active users monthly on Instagram? Of those 1 billion, at least half are engaging with not only friends, but with brands, too. Instagram users actually engage with brands 10 times more than they do on Facebook.

Using Instagram properly can make a huge difference in the engagement levels your business sees each month. One way to increase your brand awareness is through Instagram sponsored posts.

What Are Instagram Sponsored Posts?

Instagram sponsored posts are organic posts made by you on the Instagram platform that you can then use as an advertisement for your brand, so long as you put money behind it. Unlike traditional advertisements, you will use an existing organic post and all of its engagement to reach more Instagram users.

These will look like any regular Instagram post, but will say “Sponsored” next to your company’s name. Like this:

If you want to be able to target a specific audience, you should make use of true promoted posts. These posts will only appear on the Instagram platform. But, you can target them to a specific audience based on age, location and interests. You can add your website URL and even an action button to help drive potential customers to your website.

If you want to run engagement-oriented sponsored posts, you can choose a past Instagram post from your profile and use the targeting options that are available for typical Facebook and Instagram ads. The benefit of this type of sponsored post is that all engagement on and off platform will be transferred to the original post while the sponsored post is running. This increases your user-generated content (USG) and helps to spread the word of your brand.

How Are Sponsored Posts Different than Other Types of Instagram Ads?

Promoted and sponsored posts both focus on promoting existing posts as they currently are. This includes all user-generated content. Other types of Instagram ads focus on brand awareness, lead generation, conversions and traffic.

These ads will create new posts even if you are using the same image and caption as an existing post; they will not carry over comments left by users in the past on similar/identical posts. By creating a blank slate, you can’t capitalize on the engagement that exists on the original post.

When you initially create your sponsored post, you will be asked what the objective is for that post. You can choose from the following options:

Traffic
Lead generation
Engagement
Brand awareness
Reach
App installs
Messages
Video views
Catalog sales
Conversions
Store visits

The option you choose will determine who sees your ad. Both Instagram and Facebook will only show your ad to people their algorithms identify as most likely to take your desired actions. This means you may have a hard time getting more engagement while also getting new leads by creating just one sponsored post.

Creating Instagram Sponsored Posts in Ads Manager on Facebook

Because Facebook owns Instagram, you can create sponsored posts that can populate both platforms. The Ads Manager is extremely easy to use when creating a sponsored post.

Narrow or Broad Target Audience?

First, you will go to Facebook’s Create Ad page and choose “engagement” as your objective. Once you have chosen your objective, you will then begin choosing your targeting:

You may choose to create a narrow target audience if your brand will appeal to only a certain type of person.
Or you may choose to keep your targeted audience as broad and general as you can.

This choice depends on your brand and to whom the sponsored post would be most relevant.

While having a broad and general audience may allow you to reach a higher number of individuals with your sponsored post, having a more narrowed target audience may just get you more engagement on the post coming from individuals who are truly interested in your brand and what you have to offer them.

What to Post, Where to Post

Once you have chosen your target audience, you will need to choose your placement and determine how much you want to invest in this sponsored post. Choosing the correct platforms will affect whether people will be able to view likes, comments and shares. This can affect the overall engagement the sponsored post generates.

Once you have handled all the logistics of the post, it is time for the fun part: choosing your creative. This is the step where you review all of your previous Instagram posts and determine which organic post you would like to use as a sponsored post. In many cases, you will have a similar post on both Facebook and Instagram, so make sure you select the Instagram version of the post.

The final step is to review your ad and submit it. During this process, you will want to check that you have chosen the correct post, the correct target audience and the correct objective for this sponsored post.

When Should You Create Sponsored Posts on Instagram?

Instagram sponsored posts are not ideal for every situation; whether you should use sponsored posts or the traditional ad system will depend on your ultimate objective for this campaign. Are you looking to simply get more attention to your brand, convert engagement into profit, or increase local store traffic? Then a traditional ad may be a better option.

However, there are four cases when a sponsored post can reap benefits for your brand and business:

Shoppable Posts: Instagram allows business owners to tag a product in their images and create a link for users to purchase a product they like immediately. These posts only work on mobile and the Instagram platform, so you will want to use sponsored posts with Instagram-only placements.
More Brand Awareness and Visibility: Even brick-and-mortar companies can benefit from sponsored posts on Instagram. These posts can raise the awareness of your brand while allowing you to engage with current and potential customers. This engagement level can lead new customers to your store.
Accumulating More User-Generated Content: Again, using an organic post with plenty of user-generated content will gain you more UGC on a sponsored post. When people see posts that already have a ton of UGC, they are more likely to take notice of the content of your post.
Leverage Your Existing UGC: Chances are you have at least one post that is doing really well in the engagement department. If this is the case, you should consider using this post in a sponsored campaign, as it will likely do well with a larger audience. As a bonus, the user-generated content it has already earned will carry over into the sponsored post.

In December, Pantone calls out its “color of the year,” dictating to many companies and consumers what the next 12 months will look like in trends and, hopefully, corresponding purchases. It’s a big deal to real estate and interior design businesses, textiles, apparel and accessories creators who want to make sure they garner appeal to their audiences and referring business partners. But there’s a methodology behind color choice. It’s multilayered and touches on where people are at in their hopes, dreams and current state of emotional flux. As such, this psychology of color in marketing isn’t only apparent at Pantone’s discretion but ongoing with every brand redesign and creative campaign. If you’re palette savvy, color will mean more to you than an afterthought. Done right, it’s the basis of shaping consumer behavior and responsiveness, both, on conscious and subconscious levels.

Color Is the Visual Personification of Emotion

In simplistic terms, think back on when you were a kid, spending time on a rainy afternoon with a box of crayons and a coloring book. No one said you had to use brown, black, gray, or tan for hair color when you filled in between the lines (okay maybe outside the lines too). Perhaps you stuck with convention on colorization or maybe you felt that blue, green, violet or chartreuse were appropriate choices for Goldilocks. But why? What was the reasoning behind color choice? It has much to do about what choice made you feel good or feel right about crafting the complete picture.

How we feel about a product or service, even prior to having a direct experience with it, can be initially carved from the visual brand itself, evident in a logo, product or its packaging, associated merchandising, and web design.

Let’s drill it down into a harsh human moment. Have you ever met someone and just didn’t like them? You may not have been able to put your finger on it but there it was… that feeling of nonalignment, discomfort and disinterest. Yeah… the psychology of color can show up like that too, affecting brand marketing on a grand scale. So how do you know what color is right for your brand? It’s not an exact science, not even close.

Color Wheel of Feelings

If you search for the meaning behind each color, there are a variety of answers available, it just depends on where you look and the preconceived notions you may already have about them. Though the color wheel provides answers, it is meant as an overview of what many people believe defines the feelings or emotions of these hues. But exercise some caution. Think of it similar to the game show, the Wheel of Fortune. You turn the wheel and it lands on a color. There is no rhyme or reason behind where the wheel stops turning. It’s somewhat the luck of the draw. The same can be said about brand color and how your target audience(s) responds. Are you feeling lucky?

Beyond luck (and knowing your target audience) you’d be wise to include psychological, spiritual, and cultural aspects of their thoughts and behaviors that could affect their perception of color.

Life Experiences and Associations Shape the Meaning We Give Color

Why do you like turquoise while your best friend swoons over carnation pink? There could be an association between the color and a positive memory you have surrounding it. This is sort of like a subconscious word association but with pictures. For me, when I envision the color midnight blue (my favorite) it reminds me of the sky and the water at night on the beach. It was peaceful, calm and a personal place to escape. Can you recall why you have your favorite color?

Spirituality Brings Color to Light

Aspects of religious teachings or spiritual thought can enter into colorization preferences. Many people who believe in Judeo-Christian faiths refer to white light as the means to ascend into heaven, while dark and eerie shadows represent pending death. In addition, those who believe in hell may describe it as a violent place, full of red-colored demons surrounded by bright orange fire.

For the metaphysically minded, color is often used to define a person’s aura. If you are told that you emanate a yellow aura, it means your energy is full of spiritual power and the ability to harness new ideas and creativity. But if you weren’t a spiritual person and didn’t view color in this way, seeing a brand symbol in yellow might be a subliminal sign of caution. If so, how likely would you be to trust this product or service?

Culture Holds the Key to the Tone that Color Sets

Depending on where you are in the world, the same color can mean something entirely different from region to region or culture to culture. For example, many Americans hold the color white to mean purity or goodness. However, in some countries in Asia, including China, Korea and Japan, white equates to misfortune, loss, mourning or death. Often worn at funerals in Eastern cultures of the world, white is the antithesis in North America as it signifies light and purity in Western society.

Regarding the color black in the U.S. and Canada, for example, its underworld connotation may bring discomfort to some but not to those who resonate with Goth or Gothic culture. People who consider themselves Goth follow certain color guidelines in their fashion. Often misunderstood by the general public, Goth individuals will don heavy contrasts in their clothing and makeup. Stark white faces, deep red or black lipstick, eye liner and clothing represents Goth culture but not as an obsession with death. Rather, the use of black apparel and accessories is more about emulating a dark or mysterious allure, while paying respect to Victorian and Elizabethan eras as well as punk couture.

How Business Gets Color All Wrong

Perplexed yet? While there are no guarantees that you’re going to get brand color choice right for everyone, it’s more about what you need to be doing to maximize the possibilities of appealing to as many people as possible. Here are some points of contention that could make the difference between a marketing win and a complete snafu.

Disconnected Brand Impression

There’s a hierarchy of linear thinking that plays an important role in brand color. It isn’t about choosing the right color but more about understanding the relationship between your product or service and how color should properly represent it. Men and women will favor certain colors over others differently and it’s rooted in how they perceive the meaning behind the color. If you take that into consideration when picking your palette, your brand color will more likely hit the mark.

To illustrate this concept, imagine a company entitled Green Machine. For the executive, the name could imply a money-making endeavor. For a horticulturist, the name eludes to landscaping. And for environmental enthusiasts, there’s an expectation that Green Machine supports ecological initiatives. If their brand color is only green, expectations of who the company is will not meet expectations of many because the color doesn’t make it clear.

Now, if the brand palette includes brown, this favors landscaping business. If green is partnered with blue, this aligns with environment. And if the green is interspersed with accents of black, there’s a more corporate or hard-edge feel, aligning with financial business.

The use of color in your brand should instantaneously equate to what your business provides, what it stands for, or ideally both. When your color represents your business authentically, you will more likely attract the people who would be interested in what you have to offer.

Personal Choice Rather than Audience Specific

Ego often gets in the way of selecting the colors that fit a business. It sends chills up and down my spine when ego takes front and center. I recall a client in Scottsdale who was starting a new marketing agency and needing to pick his brand colors. This new business was going to be the next best thing since sliced bread in the creative world, showcasing strong work by the best art directors, writers and videographers in town. The brand positioning was edgy, bold and confident. Think about the colors you would choose. I can already tell, your ideas are better than what the client decided on. You ready? He was adamant about navy blue and gray for his brand. (pause) I know, epic fail.

Miscommunicating Focal Points

Even if you’ve chosen your brand colors right to a tee, how you place them will strengthen your decision or dull it. Color, used effectively, can draw the right attention to where it needs to be: on a tagline, a product, or a pricing CTA. Effective use of color can serve as visual cues to a customer, leading them to where you want them to go on your website, and throughout the user experience.

Why Brand Messaging and Color Should Complement Vision

Whether you’re just a getting your business off the ground or considering a marketing refresh, color is a crucial piece of the success puzzle. In fact, make it part of your marketing plan to revisit its use each year. I’m not suggesting that you need to ditch what you already have, but maybe add another color to make the primary brand hue pop off the page. Or select a more subtle hue that brings the existing palette together better, defining your brand story more succinctly.

All in all, color is a personal preference. Though when a business utilizes the power it possesses through audience assessment and strategic execution across all media channels, color not only gives your company the attention it deserves but leads people to your door.

Rethink Your Color, Reevaluate Your Brand. Hit Us Up!

Team Eminent SEO

The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest Ads for Beginners

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This entry was posted on January 7, 2019 by Team Eminent SEO.

If you are like most business owners, you probably have focused a lot of your social media advertising efforts on Facebook. With over six million advertisers, the competition is pretty steep!

The good news is that there is another social media advertising option you can test for your business: Pinterest! Pinterest only has approximately 1.5 million companies connecting with users each month and offer a great opportunity to get your business in front of more users and new prospects for your brand.

This guide will show you everything you need to know about running a successful Pinterest ad campaign.

Why Should You Use Pinterest Ads?

While many people see Pinterest as just another social media platform, it is more like a search engine. With traditional social media platforms, users connect with each other and share content with friends and family. Pinterest is a platform where users search for inspiration and new products or ideas. They are able to create boards to save the content that they are interested in.

Pinterest ads appear as promoted pins that are sponsored by a company. This makes it easier for users to find and purchase the items they dream of having. Promoted Pins list the brand sponsoring the product and contain links to a sales page to make purchasing easy.

The concept of Pinterest began as a way to replace scrapbooks and corkboards used by many for inspiration with digital boards that could be added to or edited easily. Pinterest began as a simple idea that has grown into the third most popular social media platform in the U.S. Users are able to create wish lists and dream boards and companies are able to easily showcase their products and simplify the buying process.

Getting Started with Pinterest Ads

The first step to advertising on Pinterest is to create a business account. If you currently have a personal account that you wish to convert you can visit the business conversion site and follow the steps to convert your personal account into a business account. This includes creating a business profile with your company logo, business type, and a description of who you are and what your company does.

Creating a new account for your business is just as easy. Simply visit Pinterest homepage and click the link that says create a business account.

Enter the email address you wish to use for the account, create a password and enter your business name and type. Once you have entered the information click create account and you are ready to create your business profile and agree to the terms of service.

Once you have created a business account on Pinterest, it is time to create your very first board. This will make it easier for users to find your content. You will want to create business board that you can add relevant pins to. These pins can include blogs, special offers, new products, and so much more. As a business account you can create images and add summaries to each pin to grab a user’s attention.

Creating Pinterest Ads

Once you have created your business account and your first board, you are ready to enter the world of Pinterest ads. The advertising structure of Pinterest is very similar to that of Facebook and Instagram. You can create ad campaigns, ad groups, set the amount you wish to spend each day/week/month, and track the results of your advertising efforts.

There are three levels in the structure of Pinterest ads. The first level is the campaign. This is where you will set the objective of your campaign and the maximum amount you want to spend on a particular campaign. The second level is the ad group where you can decide on your budget, target audience, where to display your ads, and how long you want your ads to run. Depending on the objective for your ad campaign and your business type, you may have multiple ad groups within a campaign. The final level is the promoted pins that are the result of the process.

You will create your ads in the Ads Manager Dashboard. Once on the Dashboard, you will click create ad and begin the process. Pinterest makes creating ad campaigns simple by using a step by step process and giving you choices along the way. For example, there are four objectives to choose from when initially setting up your campaign. These include:

Brand Awareness
Traffic
App Install
Video Views

You will then be asked if you wish to create a new campaign or update an existing one. The next step in the process is to determine your budget limit and decide if your ad campaign is ready for an immediate live launch. If you are not fully ready to go live, there is an option to pause the campaign until you are ready to go live.

You will then select the ad group for your campaign and select a name for each group so that you can keep all of your campaigns organized.

Once you have selected your ad group, the most important part of a successful ad campaign is to select your target audience. This step is where you can very specific about who you want to see your advertisements.

If this is your first Pinterest ad, you will be asked to create an audience by choosing from four options. This audience can be based on people who have been to your site before, a set list of customers that you can upload, audience that has engaged with pins in your domain, or an audience similar to one you already have.

Once you have created an audience, it is time to target your ads to certain groups of people. You can choose a specific gender, age, language, what device they are using, their location, etc. By targeting your ad at specific people who are more likely to show interest in your product or service, you are avoiding wasted money on advertising efforts that don’t garner more business so be as picky as you like.

Advanced Options

Pinterest has a number of advanced options when creating ads on their platform. You can choose how and where your ads are displayed. You can choose whether ads are displayed as users browse their feed or similar pins, when they search for items similar to yours, or both. Choosing both allows your business ads maximum exposure to potential customers.

Another advanced option is to pick interests and keywords associated with your business. This will target ads to those who share the interests that align with your business and products. You can choose from over three thousand interest and it is recommended to choose at least 25 keywords.

Setting Your Pinterest Ad Budget

There are two options when setting your bid for ad campaigns. You can choose a daily budget or a lifetime budget. A daily budget indicated the maximum amount you want to spend each day on your ad campaign. A lifetime budget is the amount you wish to spend for the total time that your ad runs on Pinterest. The budget options you select will depend on the amount you can afford to spend on an ad campaign.

You will notice that as you change things such as your target audience and budget the estimated number of people that will be reached by your ad campaign will change as well. This is to help you get an idea of how effective an ad campaign will be based on the choices you make.

Adding Pins to Ad Groups

The final step is your ad creation is to select the pins you want to appear in the ad group. These pins will become the Promoted pins shown to your target audience. There are a few rules that must be followed in order to guarantee that your promoted pins are seen:

You must save pins to your own profile
Include destination URLs within each pin
Don’t use link shorteners in the destination URL or in the description
Follow Pinterest’s Ad Standards
Don’t include third-party GIFs or videos

Once you have followed the step by step guide to create your ads, they will need to be reviewed. This takes no more than 24 hours so you should be sure to plan your campaign to include the review time so that you aren’t waiting on the review when you want your ad to be live.

Promoted App and Video Pins

In addition to traditional promoted pins, if your business specializes in app creation, you may choose to create a promoted app pin. These pins contain a link that allows users to download the app directly from their device’s app store. If you wish to create a promoted app pin, you will want to select “app install” as your campaign objective.

Promoted videos are short videos that users can watch to learn more about your brand and products. You can choose between a standard size which is the same size as one pin or a max width pin that is the size of two pins. These videos play automatically when at least half of the ad is visible on the user’s screen. Most users will stop scrolling to watch a video which makes it a great way for you to get exposure for new products.

Selecting Images on Pinterest

Now that we have explained how to create ads on Pinterest, lets talk about what you should use for ads on Pinterest. Pinterest is an extremely visual search engine, similar to Instagram. When users search an interest of keyword, the results display as images rather than text. You want to choose images that are visually appealing to users.

Here are some helpful tips for creating strong images for Pinterest ads:

Use bright, warm colors. Reds, oranges, and browns tend to increase the number of clicks a pin gets. Don’t exceed 50% color saturation as those pins get more repins than those with a higher color saturation.
Use images that are light. Images with medium light get more repins than those that are dark.
Close ups are a must. Avoid white space or too much background image that can detract from the product you are trying to showcase.
Avoid centered images. When you divide your image in thirds, you want to have a majority of the image in the top, bottom, left, or right. Never centered.
Did you leave room for text? Don’t layer text over your image. Rather, crop and shift the image over to leave room for text above, below, or to the side of the image you wish to showcase.

Pinterest Analytics

The most important part of any successful ad campaign is being able to track its performance. Pinterest makes tracking an ad’s performance easy. Head over to the Ads Manager Dashboard (the same dashboard used to create your ad campaign) and select the analytics tab.

From here, you can see every ad campaign you have run as well as how many times your ads were seen, saved, clicked on, and liked. These analytics are displayed in graph form on the dashboard. Want more detail? Click more on the graph you wish to see more detail on. This will show you how many people viewed, clicked, or saved your ad in the past 7, 14, and 30 days. These analytics tools even allow you to track engagement over time, so you can improve or change your ads to continue to increase your engagement rates.

Pinterest Advertising Tips for B2B Companies

Create Boards Your Audience Will Love
Pinterest boards should group together content with a similar theme. You will want to carefully piece together boards with content your audience will enjoy. Once you have created your awesome boards, you will want to link all of your content to your website or a landing page. This way you are drawing users into your organization not just your pinning abilities.

Up the Visual Content

Remember, Pinterest is all about visual appeal. Its easy to talk about your company or product but, users are more interested in visual content. Using infographics, charts, advice guides, etc., your brand can increase the visual content to reach a greater audience. You will want to create stunning images by using photo editing software or take our photos at different angles rather than the traditional straight on shot.

Put a Face to Your Company
It’s easy to show off products or services you provide, and while these posts may gain attention from your audience, they don’t help users connect with your organization. To build the connection with your audience, you should add in personal items such as showcasing the people within your company or even their pets. No one can resist a cute puppy. Plus it helps people see your organization as more than just a business.

Focus on Trends

Pinterest is a great place to show trends and patterns happening within your industry as well as what you are doing to make strides within these trends. Show potential customers how you can help them stay up to date with the latest trends in the industry by creating specific boards for these topics.

Don’t Forget to Test Your Pinterest Ads

Advertising on Pinterest can be done by any business or organization regardless of size or budget. The key is to work smart and maximize the results of any ad campaign you create. This guide should help you take Pinterest by storm, if you follow the steps and tips that were given. Remember, when first starting out on your Pinterest ad campaign journey, it is important to experiment with different ideas and concepts while tracking the analytics of each ad campaign. Keep what works, fix what doesn’t and you will be doing big things in no time.

If you’re looking to advertise for your ecommerce store in Pinterest, check out our in-depth post: Everything You Need to Know About Product Pins on Pinterest

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Why Should You Use Pinterest Ads?

Getting Started with Pinterest Ads

Creating Pinterest Ads

Advanced Options

Setting Your Pinterest Ad Budget

Adding Pins to Ad Groups

Promoted App and Video Pins

Selecting Images on Pinterest

Pinterest Analytics

Pinterest Advertising Tips for B2B Companies

Focus on Trends

Don’t Forget to Test Your Pinterest Ads

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