A Resource for Free Stock Photos

This week I wanted to tell you about one of my favorite tools on the internet: Unsplash. Unsplash is an amazing resource of curated and free to use stock photos. One of the key components that makes Unsplash great is the curation. You can find free to use photos in different corners of the internet but often the quality is only so-so. Unsplash brings your breath taking photography each week. The cool part about it, it is completely free to use! I mean you do have to pay for… oh wait, no it is completely FREE TO USE!

Now if you have used Unpslash before and found finding the perfect picture difficult you might want to check back with them. Recently Unsplash answered the prayers of many of it’s users but adding a tag search of their entire database. That is a game changer. Instead of scrolling through hundreds of beautiful images you can bring the search time and effort down significantly if you know a good keyword or two.

In fact the featured image on this post is from Unsplash! Hopefully with my new camera I will be able to get some photos onto Unsplash!

Visit Unsplash.com for a amazing collection of photos!

TV is changing

 

TV is going to change dramatically in the next few years and this week it took a big step that way.
Streaming services are growing!

The chart above from Marketing Charts shows a stat that we probably already knew: On Demand video services are growing significantly. 76% of all households in America use some sort of media on demand. This statistic could be artificially high because it contains DVR’s which is become more standard with modern telecommunications. I think it would be safe to say 50% of households in America have a streaming service.

The number of cord cutters (aka people who do not have cable in the home) is growing. initially some thought it might be a victim of the recession but as the economy returns to full strength the number of families without cable has not wavered much. Premium tv is becoming aware of this increasingly large group of people. ESPN decided to do something about it and in doing so might have placed the first nail in the coffin of cable/satellite tv.

ESPN has announced that it is joining a completely cable free streaming program with a few other channels offered through DISH Network for $20 per month. ESPN is one of the reasons most people stay on a cable subscriptions! Why would ESPN do this? Ad revenue. As cord cutters continue to grow the value of ads on channels exclusively on cable and Atlanta networks will begin to drop.

Imagine a future where you will be able to buy small packages of the channels you actually want to watch. This is great for consumers and for local advertisers. Local advertisers frequently get mixed in with all the channels a media company has access to. Advertisers will be able to better target their ads to specific packages of channels that their customers will be watching.

This maybe the first nail in the coffin of cable/satellite tv but do not clear your schedules for their funerals anytime soon. This transformation will be years in the making and will be restricted by fast broadband access. Not everywhere is as lucky Jackson with our 1 GIG fiber network. Thanks JEA!

 

 

 

 

Gender in Social Media Use

Gender effects social media use.

Another great chart from Marketing Charts. This one chronicles social media adoption in the general population and by gender. There is a lot of interesting information that comes out of this graph and some of it matches stereotypes. Pintrest is vastly more popular among females. This is not very surprising but if you are primarily marketing to women this means that you should really be using Pintrest!

I find it very interesting that there are only three social networks that comes in stronger for males than females: Google+, Linkedin and Vine. The running joke for a while was that only Google employees were on Google Plus and well Google has a propensity to hire males (83% are males). This could be the explanation or it might have to do more with cultural tendencies for employment. This article indicates that almost 2/3 of business owners and those who are self employed are males.

Google requires Google Plus pages for the business map pages. Linkedin is the business social network. This is probably not the only factor but it might help explain the disparity. I think these adoption statistics will change in the coming years as women become more empowered in our society.

It is also interesting that a 6% larger share of males ignore social media all together.

Spotlight: Our Jackson Home

Our Jackson Home Logo

This month’s customer spot light is on Our Jackson Home a project recently launched by Luke Pruett and Jim Wilhelm. Our Jackson Home is here to help tell the story of Jackson and let everyone know about the cool things happening in our city everyday. I reached out to Luke and Jim after hearing a few of their podcasts and we agreed that I could be an asset to the team. I set out to design a logo that would make this new organization look like it has been around a while but that also focused on its primary story telling medium: podcasts.

Our Jackson Home Logo

 

We also launched a website recently to hold all of the stories that the writers for OJH are finding. You can check it out here: www.ourjacksonhome.com You can sign up for their weekly email newsletter on the website to get all their latest stories to your inbox. They also interviewed me and my wife for a podcast, you can listen to it here: 

A few less Beliebers

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/justin-bieber-arrest-cnn-sets-673508
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/justin-bieber-arrest-cnn-sets-673508

Scrolling through CNN this morning before heading out to play football I saw a headline that grabbed my attention.

“Justin Bieber just lost 3.5 million Instagram followers”

Now just to be clear, I am not a Belieber and generally try to avoid anything talking about Justin Bieber but this one caught my eye: Link to Article.  (h/t @AaronSmithCNN)

The summary of the article is this: Instagram in something people are calling the “Instagram Rapture” (I think would be better named: Instagram Purge), Instagram has purged fake profiles and the Biebs has lost 3.5 million followers. Crazy. But it almost makes me feel better about my small amount of followers.

As far back as the days when MySpace was popular I remember having to deal with robotic accounts. You would recieve friend requests from random people with clearly photoshopped pictures and the temptation was to accept the request. Why? Because having that one more like, even if it was fake, might make your numbers look better. Businesses can do the same thing: it is tempting to get one more email or facebook like for the sake of having the number. The quality of emails and facebook likes is important. If you are building a tribe of dedicated fans you ought not dilute them with fakes or people who you have tricked or forced into liking your page. If dilutes your numbers and does not allow you to measure your marketing strength or market reach effectively.

But with facebook you have to do more than worry about people who dont really like your service but with robots check out this amazing video about facebook click farms over seas (h/t to @veritasium)

So how to prevent this? I start with really specific targeting of your Facebook ads and a realization that numbers are not everything.

Facebook gets less free.

Dont Just stand there!

Dont Just stand there!

Facebook is getting less free. I blogged about this previously but now Facebook is going to further push for paid ads. I am not sure how much further this can go but it may eventually get to where no one that likes your Facebook page unless you pay for the ad. It will become more comparable to TV. You may have  TV commercial and people maybe a fan of your business but unless you pay the station your ad will not running!

Check out the Wall Street Journal article on Facebook restricting reach: New Facebook Rules will Sting Entrepreneurs.

So what do you do instead? Well don’t just stand there,  build non rented marketing channels. Get permission from your fans to communicate to them. Try using email and I like to use MailChimp.

Customer Spotlight: Maxwell’s Bow Ties

I have been eagerly awaiting this post for over a month now. Monday the website for Maxwell’s Bow Ties went live and so now is a good time to tell you about it! When I first started my business a gentleman wearing a unique bow tie walked into the Co with the apparent mission to find me. That man was Max Garner and we started a business relationship to help bring his bow ties to market in the best way possible.

Max and I worked together to create the entire branding package: logo, packaging, and a website. It has been a joy to work with Max on all of these projects and to wear the bow ties around town (yes I have been actually wearing these and they are awesome!).

Here are the goods (and you can order them here):

 

Maxwell's Bow Ties logo engraved on wood.
Maxwell’s Bow Ties logo engraved on wood.
MBT Business Card Front
The front of Maxwell’s business card.
MBT Product Insert Front
The front of Maxwell’s product insert.

 

The backside of the Bow Tie Insert
The backside of the Bow Tie Insert with the story and care instructions.

I hope to see everyone wearing Maxwell’s Bow Ties this Christmas!

Effective Emails

Why do people open emails from companies? What makes an effective marketing email? Well these stats from Marketing Charts seem to show that deals are the primary reason that emails effect buying behavior.

But this also covers info regarding other forms of marketing. Email ranks at the top of this list and I think it might have something to do about permission marketing. You have to opt in to receive those emails which means you are already interested in the product. If you are the marketer you have already qualified the prospect. Permission marketing is the way to go!

 

Email works when deals are offered

 

McDonald’s addressing its millennial problem?

While perusing the internet last week I came across a new online ad campaign from McDonald’s featuring Grant Imahara (formerly of Myth Busters). McDonald’s has hired Imahara to help “bust some byths”(ht-wd) about their products. This campaign is made up of videos of Grant Imahara and others visiting the factories where the McDonald’s food is made. The video below is an exploration of the sandwich that can only be described by the name McRib!

 

McRib

With this campaign McDonald’s is trying to take steps to recover it’s public image that was so degraded during the great pink slime scandal of the last 2000’s. I think their image is especially tarnished with Millennials. Millennials tend to care about the quality of their food and where it comes from. During a conversation at the CO last night it was pointed out that Chipotle restaurants have a great reputation with Millennials because they have their supply sourcing Millennial-proofed. They use organic and sustainable products which Millennials love. I think this ad campaign is specifically trying to overcome some of the distaste that Millennials have for McDonald’s. What do you think?

 

 

4 Take-Aways from Taylor Swift’s album release

Taylor Switch just sold 1.287 million albums.

That is the most albums sold in one week since 2002 when Eminem released “The Eminem Show” featuring the single “Without Me”. It is the most albums sold this year. No other album has succeeded in going platinum this year and that includes releases from Lady Gaga, Maroon 5, and Florida Georgia Line. In a time of declining album sales how did Taylor Swift do it? I think it was more than musical expertise. Here are four marketing take-aways:

 

100 likes Guy Meme

 

1. She fought the system.

Taylor made an unconventional move by removing her music from online streaming service Spotify and refusing to allow her new album to be played online for free. This is a 180 degree turn from what the music industry is doing. Is it always wise to defy convention? No. But by forcing her fans to buy the album to hear it she found a convention to defy that was in her favor. It was a low risk high reward plan that appears to have worked out for her.

2. She was everywhere. Even NPR. Twice.

Leading up to the release Taylor did appearances on all sorts of media outlets. Late night shows and early morning shows. She worked hard. Even outlets that might be on the fringe of her target market, like NPR. I caught a piece of her interview with Fresh Air and Morning Edition and was impressed by her interview skills. One of the downsides with radio is that you would have had to look on twitter to see that she even showed up on NPR dressed in costume.

3. She incentivised purchase.

To help make people purchase the album in the stores she incentivised the purchase. Taylor and her marketing team thought through the action they wanted people to take (buy an album in the store) and made a good guess on the amount of incentive customers needed to complete that transaction(3 bonus tracks, pictures, and other stuff). She turned the buying of the cd into an experience and in a world full of stuff, experiences will become more and more important.

3. She connected with fans.

Swift does an amazing job with connecting with fans on Twitter and Instagram. One particularly interesting effort was having people send her pictures of them buying her album in stores! I bet for most of these tweens it was their first album to purchase and put their hands on a physical copy (unless it was a gift). In a world where people (me included) get excited about a a mention or retweet on twitter, why not do it to your fans! What a way to connect with fans with exerting a small amount of effort. If someone tries to connect with you on social media it is to your advantage to reach back.

 

Taylor Swift market genius?