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What YOU can be doing to help boost your business

Here are a few tips from QA that you can try yourself to help your business grow.

Get personal with your customers

Your customers are the heart of your business – without them, you would cease to exist! By interacting with them you can develop a powerful relationship.

When a customer makes a purchase, or signs up to your newsletter etc, have them receive a welcome email.  Something simple like this reduces cognitive dissonance (the feeling of ‘oh god, what have I done’ after a purchase or decision) and allows them to feel supported in their decision.

Get social

By incorporating social media into your everyday business, you can connect with tones of potential customers.

People go on Facebook to be distracted – so give them something worthwhile to turn their attention to!  Refer to our previous Instagram blog post to find tips on how to use Instagram for your business.

Leave the office

Increasing your public profile through conferences and networking events can be beneficial to the success of a business.  So any events that are suitable to your industry you should consider attending.

Be the leader/ expert in your industry

Consider who the influential leaders are in your industry.  How can you get amongst them?

Offer insights to bloggers, journalists or become a guest editor to give your opinion.  Customers relate to knowledgeable and powerful figures.

Know your users

If you don’t understand what it is you customers want, there is no point implementing any of the above tips.  Engage with them to find out what kind of product, information, insight, services it is that they are after.

This can be found by finding out what keywords are trending in your space through Google’s free keyword search tool.

Here at QA we love to hear about what is working to boost your business, and we love giving advice so contact QA if you would like to chat about other ways we can help you boost your business.

We hope you enjoy reading the Sunny Media blog. For more information please visit our full website www.sunnymedia.com.au

Australia ranks high when it comes to spending money on Advertising

eMarketer and Starcom MediaVest (2013) have released surprising research to suggest that Australian marketers are spending more per head to reach their target audience than in another country.

$582 dollars per person is the figure that sets Australia above its counterparts.  The UK sits second at $540 per person and Norway third at $535 per person.  The US, Denmark, Canada, Sweden, Germany and Japan all rank in the top 10.

This research could suggest two things; either that Australia is too expensive, or possibly that the market is not as efficient as it could be.

While the top 10 list is made up of only developed countries with access to the latest technologies, the research is let down by not taking into consideration the country’s population sizes.  Australia has a population of 23 million compared to the US’s 313 million and the UK’s 63 million people.

When QA is spending your advertising dollars we do it wisely, some of our key influencers are TARP’s and cost per thousands. We are always striving to achieve the results you want in the most cost effective way.

Franchise Advertising

Jetts Fitness – Case Study

Jetts is a 24/7 Gym Franchise business with over 200 gyms across Australia and New Zealand. Approximately 3 years ago QA were engaged as Jetts Advertising Agency and to consult on an overall strategy to pull into place a national consistency by working with individual regions around the country. It is really important to note that there was no national marketing fund at all, and to make this happen each region had to commit to working together.

This work started with the Sunshine Coast Group first, which consists of 8 gyms. One of the priorities was to first have the one group working together by pooling marketing funds to create an ongoing brand campaign which would lift their profile, memberships, and most importantly future proof the brand against new competition that we knew was to come. We also needed to find a cost efficient way to brand with a limited budget.

Based on research we had gathered, along with research provided by Jetts, we decided to aim all advertising in and around Mondays, and developed a campaign called ‘ Jetts Monday’. As this is the day that the most online searches are made, and most online visits are made to all gyms, we decided we wanted to ‘own’ the day, do something that the incoming competition could not take away and hopefully build a message that became part of the vernacular for gym users.

This was an immediate success, with online searches and enquiries increasing on Mondays, and flowing on to the rest of the week.

Obviously with so many gyms across the country, and little coordination, our job was then to help facilitate each major city with their own marketing group, and media strategy. This has now worked its way through to Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, and is soon to start in Sydney (least clubs and the last growth area) and Adelaide. All states have used Jetts Monday, in amongst other brand and pricing opportunities. The important aspect of success in this roll out has been the regional groups working together as one for a common goal, and utilising funds for a greater return. Within franchise systems we know that this cannot always be possible, however through planning, patience and considerable hard work, this fantastic group now has a united national strategy through utilising regional based funds. Each state is still different, is planned and booked differently, and must be treated as different. And it is certainly not one size fits all, and we do this by treating each regional group as a different client, and creating the strategy with them, albeit under the brand specifications and directions form their fantastic corporate marketing team.

Jetts is a company that continues to grow, and we at QA are very proud to have been part of that past, and have great excitement about their future.

This client case study is only one example of the many franchise advertising systems that Sunny Media is involved with. Our experience with franchise advertising and cooridnation of multiple campaigns is second to none, if you are a part of a franchise group in Brisbane, Queensland or throughout Australia QA can help bring your advertising and marketing results to the next level!

We hope you enjoy reading the Sunny Media blog. For more information please visit our full website www.sunnymedia.com.au

New Print Readership Measurement…. EMMA

The future of print audience measurement is called EMMA (Enhanced Media Metrics Australia)… but what is it?

EMMA launced at the start of the new financial year and is designed to provide a complete picture of how people read and engage with newspapers and magazines across print, online, smarphones and tablets.

EMMA was developed by an independent research company and has been built in response to agencies and advertisers needs for greater transparency, accuracy and frequency of data.

This is how EMMA works… 54,000 people are surveyed a year, mainly recruited by phone, but around 8% through door-to-door methods. They will then complete an initial online survey taking them around 45 minutes, with around half completing a secondary survey looking at consumer habits in various categories. They are then sent an online link, where they complete a five minute survey about what they have read and visited in the proceeding day. This data is then extrapolated to give a readership number for each masthead across the mediums.

EMMA also sees for the first time around 130 regional papers, normally too small to be surveyed, a readership number, using Census data around demographics and the survey data.

Why it’s better?

The launch of EMMA already started with a collection of over 18 months’ worth of data, featuring a number of significant innovations and enhancements:

• An in-depth database of all newspaper formats capturing data across all platforms

• Branded sectional data within newspapers

• Contemporary segmentation and new insights into product categories

For us in an Advertising Agency, the data will more accurately portray the audiences figures, enabling us to respond to our clients briefs more effectively and providing the best environment to bring advertisers closer to their customers.

We hope you enjoy reading the Sunny Media blog. For more information please visit our full website www.sunnymedia.com.au

The multi screen household & online video… you need to get on board!

Although Australians of all age groups continue to spend the majority of their screen time with their home TV set, new screen technologies have entered the home which are being used to complement TV viewing.

Changing viewer behaviour is evident with homes acquiring internet-enabled TV sets, people using tablets in place of desktop and laptop computers, and smartphones taking over. Currently, 27% of Australian homes have each of the four screen types: TV, PC, tablet and mobile phone, up from 16% only a year ago.

These days you can use the internet as a broadcast medium delivering tailored site, sound and motion communications to target audiences at scale while controlling a desired reach and frequency. Digital media is now changing so fast, the big question is, are you keeping up?

It should come as no surprise that online video has hit the mainstream in a big way, although it also has a long way to go. Here are some interesting facts:

  • Almost one third of Australians have a tablet in their household, this has doubled from 2012 – 2013 (OzTam)
  • Australians spend 8.53 hours per month watching online video on devices other than a TV (OzTam)
  • 74% of online Australians engage in simultaneous screen use of TV and internet, with 30% doing it daily! (OzTam)
  • Online video now accounts for 50% of all mobile traffic (Bytemobile)
  • Globally, online video users are expected to double to 1.5 billion in 2016 (Cisco)
  • Globally, online video traffic will be 55% of all consumer Internet traffic in 2016 (Cisco)

Some early investigations are showing that removing 25% of the display budget and investing it in video drives a significant uplift in online conversions.  All of this points to a medium that we need to understand better!

So, if you are asking yourself ‘where do I start with online advertising’, ‘how do I promote online videos’ and ‘what is a YouTube channel used for’… Ask the team at QA, we can help review your options and show you how best to use online to compliment your existing advertising presence.

Newspaper readership continues to decline… here are the latest figures!

Digital subscriptions were thought to be the great savior for newspapers however the first round of stats for combined print and digital sales have been released and so far only The Australian is moving in the right direction.

Circulation figures for the June quarter have just been released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), alongside the first year-on-year stats for combined print, digital and package sales (masthead sales).

In total, the print market saw a 10.9% year-on-year decline in sales, with News Corp Australia titles dropping 9.7% in total and Fairfax 16.4%.

The declines in masthead sales are not as steep as the declines in print-only sales, indicating digital sales are making some inroads. However, digital growth is not yet sufficient at present to balance out print circulation decline.

Looking to print-only circulation figures, the results in the June quarter were particularly bleak. Not a single newspaper recorded positive growth, and across News Corp and Fairfax the best result was a 6.8% decline recorded by Fairfax’s weekday edition of The Australian Financial Review. The strongest result across the whole market was recorded by West Australian Newspapers’ West Australian, with a 3.8% drop.

Fairfax’s Sydney Morning Herald experienced the largest print decline, sliding 17%.

Newspaper inserted magazines also saw major declines across the board, with all audited titles seeing circulation drops. The total NIMs market fell 12%.

CLICK HERE to check out the complete set of ABC Circulation figures released August 2013 of Metropolitan Newspapers, Magzines & Inserts.

Brand Ambassadors can boost your social media

Anyone online can see that the remains of various social media campaigns are scattered all over Facebook! Many marketers have flocked to Facebook in the hopes of striking viral. However, one of the major problems behind these campaigns is that not a whole lot of them had much of an idea of what they were doing!

Do not assume that if you build a social media presence that customers will come. Always ask yourself, what is the value to them? The real challenge is building a brand-based community, and developing ambassadors is just one method of creating them.

Firstly, you need to understand that the term ambassator is far more general. It applies to those who act as leaders within the community. They come in different shapes and sizes, but they essentially represent a highly engaged community member. They also are the seeds from which communities grow.

Their networks may not resemble the adoring fans of a movie stars, but they do represent networks nonetheless – networks comprised of a valuable target audience group. Your ambassadors may not be paid, but they are conduits through which to communicate with your audience, approaching them as peers, rather than as customers.

The advantages that brand ambassadors represent are numerous. They not only grow the community, but also sustain it as it develops. They provide support to new members, and work to dispel the trolls.

There are many who would tell you that the absence of ambassadors was instrumental in the downfall of the Kony 2012 campaign, a campaign comprised of thousands of supporters armed with very few facts. Without enough ambassadors equipped with a genuine understanding of a complicated issue, the overnight community collapsed, as the few highly vocal cynics went practically uncontested in their efforts to topple the movement.

Your ambassadors should be the ones who sit right on the edge of the idea diffusion bell-curve – early adopters, the people that are naturally excited about your offering. If you can identify these individuals you are going to find a far higher return when you engage with them, rather than with those that aren’t quite as interested.

The role of ambassadors needn’t always be this formal however. Look at Nike’s ‘She runs the night’ campaign. The campaign was highly ambassador-focused, but the ambassadors were young female runners. Identifying these people and supporting them did not comprise of formal training but simply giving away a few free sneakers and running activities for them to participate in. The real life engagement carried over into online discussions, designed to create a buzz around the Nike brand with the ultimate call to action being towards recruiting runners into a night race. The campaign was a huge success.

More and more brands and campaigns are taking this approach – identifying the few who will talk to the many, empowering them and supporting them in their voluntary role.

In order to communicate with a target audience, you need to understand them, and nobody knows a particular type of person better than someone who is that type of person. Ambassadors provide a much-needed point of reference in the murky world of social media engagement.

Not all campaigns, and not even all brands, are going to have activities that are ambassador-friendly, but if you want to make people care about something, a sure-fire way is to give them ownership.

This article was sourced from B&T News. If you think your brand could benefit from a brand ambassator or you need help with your social media presence ask QA to help… it’s just another service we can work on with you to help you achieve better outcomes!

Facebook eyes off TV’s ad dollars

Digital experts have labelled Facebook’s plans to sell television style adverting a “great move” for the social network and marketers alike, as its share prices reach a yearlong high.The social giant is planning to challenge television advertising by selling 15-second spots starting at $USD1m to as much $USD2.5m a day, according to Bloomberg.

Strategy director and founder of HardHat Digital, Dan Monheit, told B&T selling TV style adverts is undoubtedly a good move for Facebook financially.“When it comes to monetising an audience, there’s nobody out there with as many eyeballs to monetise as Facebook,” Monheit said about the network which has 1.15 billion members.

“In a way they’re already playing catch up with the likes of Twitter and YouTube who have been making big inroads here.”

Simplified Targeting:

Bloomberg’s two sources said the ads will initially be sold on a full-day basis and will only be targeted to users based on age and gender.This “dumbing down” of targeting options – Facebook currently lets marketers target users based on interests and location – will let marketers make like for like comparisons with TV buys, according to Monheit.

“Facebook could let advertisers zero in on specific audience groups using the millions of data points they’ve got available as well as provide tracking and reporting that TV networks could never even imagine.

“I guess they’ve decided it’s easier to just sell people what they think they want, rather than convincing them that they want the wrong thing.”

Limiting the options will make it easier for advertisers and media agencies – “especially big lazy ones” according to Monheit – to spend serious dollars on the network.“Cleverly, they [advertisers] don’t even need to change the length of their TV spots.”

“The next big question is what they’ll do when these big budget TV spends finally get some true analytics behind them and things like wastage can be quantified.”

Tim Evans, national strategy director DT, said targeting television advertising dollars is “a great move for Facebook”. “For marketers, it’s a highly measurable amplification tool.”

It may be good move for Facebook’s coffers but how will users respond?

Facebook Users:

“Users won’t mind if some of the half-relevant sponsored stories that appear in their news feeds becomes half relevant video content instead,” Evans said.

However, Monheit highly doubts users will be ok with TV style ads in their news feeds.

“Pre-roll and autoplay ads are annoying, interruptive and skipped as soon as possible – but at the end of the day we’re using the service for free.”

A user won’t see a commercial more than three times in a day, according to Bloomberg.

To avoid aggravating users Facebook should avoid autoplay and the ad-ratio in user’s news feeds should not increase, according to Evans, who added that to ensure cut-through the spots need to be relevant to the user and appropriate for the platform.

“It’s about quality and relevance, and frequency if you can pull off the other two. Native ads strive to equal the value of their editorial context.

“Give users a choice of what to watch, and they’ll pick the most interesting thing they can find within their news feeds – whether it’s an ad or not.”

Monheit feels Facebook’s mission to monetise its audience may eventually backfire.

“At some point they’ll kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, it’s just hard to know if we’re 5% or 50% of the way there,” he said.

“At this stage, the switching cost for leaving Facebook for most users is huge. It contains all of our history, friends, important dates, milestones and more.

“To this end, there’s probably a lot more annoyance the average user can handle before leaving the biggest part on Earth becomes a real consideration.”

Share Rise:

Meanwhile, Facebook’s share price has reached its highest level since the company’s initial public offering on May 18 last year.

The social network hit the $38 a share mark overnight, following Facebook’s second-quarter earnings report which revealed the company’s revenue had increased by 53% to $1.81bn (USD).

The report, released last week, also revealed mobile advertising generated $1.6bn (USD) for Facebook in the second quarter.

Source: http://www.bandt.com.au/news/digital/facebook-eyes-off-tv-s-ad-dollars

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