Four Reasons Why You Should Be Advertising Right Now

Four Reasons Why You Should Be Advertising Right Now

When the Stay at Home order in New England gets lifted, are you positioned to reach out to past customers and let them know that you are open for business?

The normal reaction to a recession or global pandemic is to cut company spending. And the first place they go to make those cuts is usually marketing. But that is a big mistake.

There are endless reasons why company’s that choose to invest in digital advertising when times are tough also do better in the long run.

Here are four reasons why we think you should be advertising right now.

#1 It’s cheap right now!

Both Facebook and Google have reported a decline in advertising revenue due to the coronavirus. In essence, there’s more digital ad space available right now than buyers as companies who are too focused on the short-term have paused their ad spend.

According to a study from IAB, digital ad spend for the March-to-June period is expected to be down 33%. It has not been this cheap to acquire a customer from paid advertising in years. That window will close soon.

#2 You need to maximize sales

If revenue is an issue, you need more sales. To get more sales, your consumers need to know what you’re offering. That’s where advertising comes in.

Companies have been using Braveheart Digital Marketing for close to two decades to drive leads, sales and revenue through their website. Let’s Start Strong together! Start Strong is our new Economic Recovery program to maximize and optimize your marketing efforts. Let’s have a conversation!

#3 Maximize what you get from your ad budget.

Did you know that 43% of all search-related conversions happen over the phone? And that 65% of businesses find their most valuable customers are calling them because they are ready to do business?

Let us set up an advertising campaign where you only pay when a conversion (lead form completion or phone call) actually happens. This is a great way to maximize your ad budget.

#4 You’ll gain market share

While your competitors are cutting back on spend, there’s a room for your brand to take precedence in the mind of your target consumers. This is a rare opportunity for smart brands to shift the whole competitive landscape in their favor in the long run.

If you have gone dark with your advertising and are ready to emerge stronger and clearer, we can help you with our Let’s Start Strong together!

Start Strong is our new Economic Recovery program to maximize and optimize your marketing efforts. Let’s have a conversation! Contact us today to get started.

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Visual Storytelling With Data

In this episode of Five Questions with… I sit down with JLA Analytics founder Julie Alig to talk about visual storytelling with data. This is part one of a two-part interview.

Can you tell the audience a little bit about your background Julie?

At heart, I’m basically a storyteller. As I look back I’ve really always been interested in stories. It was in grad school that I really got interested a lot more in data, using data and marrying that with stories to be able to really have an impact. I went to the University of Chicago, I got my doctorate in Political Science, I did a lot of work in quantitative methods, survey research, that sort of thing.

What I really wanted to do was be able to understand how to use data, and how to use it in a very honest, methodologically rigorous way, so that people could really feel what the story is in it, and beyond that to figure out, “what do we do with that? Where do we go next?”

And so that’s what my company does. We work with clients that have a lot of data and don’t know what story it’s telling, and who need someone with the tools and the expertise to come in and work with them to figure out what’s going on and plot a course for going forward.

Common basis of understanding

With COVID-19 there’s just so much data that’s out there. I think Andrew Cuomo has done a really good job of visual storytelling with data by condensing it down into understandable parts.

Most data analysts do not do this. When you have a complex dataset, what are some of the tips and tactics that analysts can use to sort of take that and tell a story around it that people understand.

With a complex data set, you can answer a whole lot of questions, and you can do a lot of really fun stuff. I think we’re all pretty aware of all the powerful machine-learning algorithms out there, a lot of these very, very complex statistical analyses. I find, honestly, that if you can’t tell a story, even if it’s a complex story, if you can’t tell it in a very simple way then what good is it?

You might have all of this data, you might have these really cool hierarchical clustering algorithms or whatever you call them – logistic regression of whatever – but if you can’t get down to and answer that question that your customer or client has then what good is it?

I think that’s where thinking of this in terms of visually telling a story with data helps me, and I think it helps other people to think about breaking that down. The first thing you need to do as a practitioner when you start having a conversation about a really complex topic is to make sure you find a common basis of understanding with your audience, with our client.

If you don’t have that common basis, that foundation from the get-go, you’ve lost them. It doesn’t matter how great your R2 is or this, that, the other. It’s over their head and you’ve lost them, and what good is it then?

So I really try to stay true to what the original questions were, and really think about how someone is going to use the data. We all fall under these traps of going off on tangents or going down rabbit holes. For me, analysis is really iterative.

Coming back to the questions, answering a few more questions, coming up with a few more findings, and then going back and iterating. Almost like a palimpsest.

Presenting too much information

What I find a lot of times is that analysts we work with or have seen elsewhere, they’re so focused on showing that they’re the smartest in the room that they just go really deep. They lose everybody, because yes they are the smartest one, because they own the data, but you have to be able to – as you say – bring that up to that story point at the top that says, “these are the terms that we can all understand, and this is the story part that’s around that.”

That’s powerful when it works, it’s a really tough meeting when it doesn’t, when you go too far with that.

Yes And full disclosure, I’ve been doing this for 20, 25 years, I was a young analyst way back in the day! There is something really cool about when you’re able to find something that allows you to dig and dig and dig, and come up with something. You get excited about it and you want to share it!

I’m sure I’ve been guilty of that in the past, but you need to come back to,”Okay, so what? What are we gonna do with this? Does it really answer the question?”

And if it doesn’t, okay, let’s stick a pin in it, stick it over here in the parking lot and get back to the question at hand: how can we really help the client or the customer to make a difference?

Consumer Insights And Behavior

In this episode of Five Questions with.. We’re continuing our conversation with Captify CEO and co-founder Dom Joseph about pulling some insights into how consumer behavior has changed as a result of the Coronavirus. Part one of our conversation about changing consumer behavior and consumers in a COVID-19 world can be found here.

What are some consumer insights you have on the type of messaging that resonates with consumers today?

I think there’s been some very clever stuff coming out from some brands that have managed to move quickly. I do think some messages have been a bit ‘done-straight-away’.

I saw a funny meme yesterday that got sent around about brands trying to evolve their messaging to the emotional state of the country right now but still trying to sell their product straight away afterwards. Consumers will really see through that sentiment.

It’s a tricky one for brands to work out. I think they’ve probably got to try a few things and iterate and find out what

I think this causes a lot of problems for a lot of companies because often the link between creative and media buying strategy is so disparate that actually a lot of brands won’t be able to move quickly enough. They won’t be able to adopt and listen. You’ve got to have a different message right now.

One of our biggest clients, KFC , were very, very quick to change. Their slogan is normally ‘finger lickin’ good’, and right now we’ve been told not to touch our faces! I was very impressed with how quick they were to do that. So, some brands are able to change their messaging and make it right for the scenario, and a lot of others are going to really struggle.

Again, we’re just here to help. If consumer insights can help inform that creative strategy, and if we can help with the creative build, then that’s something that we would do. Then, we can offer to help you guys out. I do think that companies have got to evolve it right now. You have to really understand your audience, which is a very difficult one to work out.

Who does Captify work with?

https://www.captify.us/We work with about 700 brands around the world. Most of it is still with agencies. We’ve really built up a lot of our setup focused on servicing agencies. However with a lot of our agencies, we’re starting to get a closer integration with the brand itself. That is very much of interest, because what we don’t like is being too cut off from really getting the best out of our product.

The best way to use Captify ‘s product is in combination with the client’s data, so we can actually look at the full end-to-end customer journey. We can overlay our first-party client’s data on our data to see and understand the search behaviors of their users and that allows us to be able to pull the consumer insights from the data.

If we can match all the search data we already have on those users it gives us a much richer understanding of what your existing or high-value audiences have been doing over the last twelve months, what have been the trigger points.

If we can get to that level of integration with a client then we’re able to do much more stuff together and the consumer insights get more powerful, the way that you can react quickly and customize content is more powerful.

The ideal client at Captify is one where we are using our product to its full capacity to inform everything from strategy to buying, all the way through to measurement. We really strive as a business to be a core partner that can be used at all stages in that journey. There’s no specific brand, we work in every vertical, but our biggest verticals are travel, automotive, finance and retail.

Three Ways To Increase The Conversion Rate Of Your Website

When a client says that they want to generate more leads, sales, revenue from their website, the most common tactic is to focus on increasing traffic, whether that is through increasing the PPC and/or social media budgets or adding more content in order to attract more organic search traffic.

One option that is often overlooked is increasing the conversion rate. For example:

That is a 50% uplift in results!

How do you achieve that? Here are three ways you can increase the conversion rate of your website.

1. A/B Test

A/B or split testing allows you to test two alternative versions of your page (page A and page B) so see which one has the highest conversion rate.

There are a lot of different things you can test on a page, but these are the three that I start with:

The headline. You should have a strong, convincing and believable headline that promotes the main offer. The legendary ad guru David Ogilvy once said: “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. It follows that, if you don’t sell the product in your headline, you have wasted 80% of your money.“
The offer. What is it that the customer is getting for their money (how is it all described and laid out).
The size of your order buttons and the wording of call to action (e.g. “Join now and get access to XYZ” vs “Sign up”). For software products the primary call-to-action should often be the “demo/trial”, not the “checkout/purchase” buttons. Enlarging your action buttons usually helps.

2. Optimize Your Form

ImageScape reduced the number of form fields from 11 to 4 and saw a 160% increase in the number of forms submitted and their conversion rate increased 120%.

Here are three ways you can improve the conversion rate of your form:

Test the button copy:

One of the easiest changes to make on a form. Instead of using the generic “Submit” text, tests have shown a higher conversion rate using “Click Here” and “Go”.

Form length really does matter:

Expedia has done a lot of testing on what is the idea length of form, and they found that by eliminating company name from a form they were able to increase profits by $12m.

Require Unnecessary Information

Testing has shown that reducing the length of a form from 11 fields to 4, can increase conversion rates by as much as 120%.

What changes can you make to your form?

3. Focus On Google Analytics

One of the most overlooked tools that can be used to improve conversion rate optimization is Google Analytics.

In the Conversions section of Analytics you can review your conversion funnels. By looking at the Funnel Visualization below, we’re able to see how many users dropped off from each step, indicating areas of optimization.

As we can see, it breaks down that we have a significant number of people dropping off after they reach the cart page. Maybe there’s an area for optimization to reduce that drop-off amount.

Need help increasing the conversion rate of your website? Need your landing page audited? Then contact us today and start converting more traffic into leads, sales and revenue.

Consumer Behavior And Insights

In this episode of Five Questions with.. we’re chatting with Captify CEO and co-founder Dom Joseph about how consumer intent and consumer behavior has changed as a result of the Coronavirus.

Who is Captify?

Captify is the largest holder of search data outside of Google . We essentially bring in search data from publishers all over the web. Consumers who are searching outside of Amazon and Google for holidays, cars, different types of products, even just researching things in life and so on, we bring all that search data in and then use it to provide ad campaigns and insights to our clients.

We bring in about 46 billion searches a month and Google does about 110 billion, so it has a relatively large scale, but we’re really focused on consumers who are specifically a little bit further down the funnel. You might actually use Google to research a topic, but since you want to buy something you would actually then go to the next level of publisher or partner, and those are the companies we work with. It’s the on-site search data from those partners that provides us with the consumer insights..

We provide value to our clients through consumer insights, using the data to derive the interest and intent that users are showing, informing media buying strategies with it.

For example if you’re looking to sell more cars, it’s helpful to look at how consumers are searching and going through the consideration phase and then engage them across all channels from CTV to video and display native. A true omnichannel view of consumer behavior and the buyer’s journey.

How has coronavirus changed Consumer Behavior?

What we’re seeing is that obviously as Coronavirus broke there was a very abrupt change in consumer behavior. We have moved past the crisis and panic mode, and now we’re seeing a real shift towards people looking for a positive presence in their lives.

We’re seeing higher trends in movies that provide comedic relief and escapism from the constant barrage of news. I know for one that I’m certainly doing that myself. I’ve stopped watching the news, I’m just tired of seeing day-by-day how many tens of thousands of people are affected, it’s all got a bit too much.

Another change in consumer behavior we are seeing is that consumers are really searching in a different way. We are seeing a huge rise in people searching for specific products, everybody looking for fitness stuff as well as home appliances to really enhance the way they’re spending their lockdown.

Home office is also a big one, we’ve seen a huge amount of that. We’ve seen a huge amount of spend from our clients in all of these verticals.

So, despite the fact that many advertisers are clearly paused we’re still seeing that actually some of them are going for it in quite a buoyant fashion. Some sectors are clearly going to be in a very good way from this, everybody that’s advertising around food and home office and such, as I said. That’s reflected in the search behavior that we see.

We’re also seeing parents looking for new toys and new methods to entertain their children. Everybody’s starting to run out of ideas now having had this prolonged period indoors.

I think generally the consumption on the internet and watching videos is so much higher right now too, which in combination with our search data is evolving to the areas I mentioned above.

We’re also seeing a huge influx in video inventory, which has led to a big opportunity for advertisers to take advantage of perhaps cheaper inventory, and more being available in CTV and so on. That in turn is shifting advertiser patterns as well.

You can hear more of our interview with Dom Joseph on our YouTube channel.

Should You Be Advertising Right Now?

We are a month or so into a Stay at Home order in New England and a like many small business owners you are wondering whether you should pull or pause your ad spending as the COVID-19 crisis puts a strain on your businesses.

The good news is that research shows that your buyers want you to continue to advertise.

A March 2020 survey by GlobalWebIndex asked internet users in 13 markets whether companies should continue advertising as normal. Nearly four in 10 US respondents agreed, and a similar share (35%) were neutral, compared with 28% who disagreed.

These results are similar to what we saw in a survey from Kantar, where just 8% of consumers in 30 countries believed that businesses should not advertising during this crisis.

This does not mean that your messaging now will be the same as before the pandemic.

In fact 77% of respondents said they wanted advertising to “talk about how the brand is helpful in the new everyday life,” and 75% said it should “inform about [the brand’s] efforts to face the situation.”

The type of messaging we are seeing work really well right now is advertising that shows that you are part of the community and what you are doing to help your employees, customers and community.

Here is a good example from Ford Credit giving customers that they have some breathing room around their car payments.

Or this tweet from Budweiser announcing they are diverting their sports budgets to crisis aid efforts.

In uncertain times, there’s one thing that remains certain: we are #OneTeam.

Let’s come together in support of the heroes on the front line of the health crisis.

Learn how you can join us and the @RedCross at https://t.co/a3OxgiGqeF pic.twitter.com/e7OC8cKAMm
— Budweiser (@budweiserusa) March 25, 2020

If you have gone dark with your advertising and are ready to emerge stronger and clearer, we can help you. Contact us today to get started.

B2B Sales - Account Based Marketing

In this episode of Five Questions with.. we’re chatting about B2B sales and how to do Account Based Marketing with Andrew Fox from AdDaptive Intelligence

Who is AdDaptive?

AdDaptive is focused on revolutionizing companies’ B2B marketing approaches by reaching niche audiences about midway down the funnel. By advertising only to targeted accounts and decision makes that matter most, they eliminate a lot of wasted ad spend.

Using data to focus on your best targets

Success for any B2B sales or account-based marketing campaigns is measured in the numbers of appointments made or revenue generated. leads and sales.

Quick definition: Account-based marketing, also known as key account marketing or ABM, is a marketing strategy that focuses on a set of target accounts within a market. It uses personalized campaigns designed to engage each account, basing the marketing message on the specific attributes and needs of the account

AdDaptive provides a B2B analysis report that can help you understand your target audience by name, location, NAICS code, revenue, total employees and years in business.

You can select the attributes of the businesses and decision makers you want to reach, or you can onboard your own data to build new custom audiences. With these custom audiences you can amplify the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and deliver better customer experiences, achieving a higher return on your marketing budget.

How is the Corona Virus impacting client’s ABM campaigns?

The approach is still the same in that we’re all people first. There is not a difference between B2B and B2C. It’s just people to people marketing.

Being authentic and emphatic goes a long way. Connect with people on a human level first. Reach out and touch base with them on a personal basis, making sure they’re okay. Understand that people are taking time to understand this new world because nobody had a global pandemic playbook that they could bring up and start implementing.

As a result, clients are looking for is a consultative approach. They want to know what is going on in their market and when it is safe to launch a new ABM campaign.

What does the future look like for B2B Sales?

It depends what industry you’re in, what business you’re in. Some industries have been hit harder than others and will take longer to bounce back.

Many companies we work with have not cancelled campaigns, they have just pushed them off a few weeks or months. As a result, I do think we’ll have a strong second half of Q2 and then a robust second half of the year.

If you have questions on B2B sales or account-based marketing, please fill out the form below.

The Three Traffic Sources For Startups

I was recently re-reading Randall Stross’s book, The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Most Exclusive School for Startups. Inside is a quote from Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham about growth rates for start-up

A good growth rate during YC is 5-7% a week. If you can hit 10% a week you’re doing exceptionally well. If you can only manage 1%, it’s a sign you haven’t yet figured out what you’re doing. A 5%-7% weekly growth rate is extremely aggressive but if you want your start-up to get traction in the market, it’s a good growth number to aim for..

Paul Graham

Y Combinator

The big question then is “how do you do that”?

There are three sources of website traffic for a startup. In order to be successful and meet Paul Graham’s growth target you need to master at least one of these, if not two of these traffic sources.

Rented or Paid Traffic

The first traffic source that most start-ups use is paid traffic. Paid traffic gives you time to allow your other traffic channels to grow and evolve. It allows you to get product market fit, find those those first customers and find out if you have product market fit.

The most common paid traffic sources are Google Adwords (PPC), Facebook ads, display ads, retargeting, paid influencers and paid content promotion.

With paid traffic you are able to contribute content and engage with the audience. You might be able to control the conversation, but you do not own anything else (data, relationship, creativity, etc. etc.). Hence the name rented traffic.

Without the initial steady stream of visitors from paid traffic, you might never get enough data to growth hack your way to success. That is why paid traffic is the most important traffic source for many startups. Over time, that might change, but it is rare to see a startup succeed who does not buy their initial visitors.

Owned Traffic

The second most common traffic source is owned traffic. Owned traffic is traffic from properties that you own. You own the customer relationships. You make the decisions around content, creativity and evolution. The more owned properties you have, the more chances you have to drive traffic to your website.

Examples of owned properties are websites, blogs and customer forums. Social media properties like Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter can also be considered as “owned sites”.

One of the most overlooked owned traffic sources is your email list. You have total control over the timing of the messages you send to your subscribers. And when you click “send,” your messages get delivered straight to them.

The challenge for start-ups is that owned traffic takes time. It takes time to organically grow a following via social media or build an email list. That is why owned traffic is usually the second traffic source that startups tackle.

Earned Traffic

The third traffic source is Earned or influenced traffic. This traffic is online word of mouth, usually seen in the form of mentions, shares, reposts, reviews, recommendations, or content picked up by 3rd party sites.

It is traffic source that you cannot directly control. For example you cannot directly control whether people will “Like” you on Facebook, follow you on Twitter, and then visit your website and become your customer. Nor can you control whether a a piece of content you have produced goes viral.

Earned traffic also includes organic traffic from search engines. Traffic from organic search is considered earned traffic as you cannot control how much traffic the search engines can send you. But like other influenced traffic you can impact this by following SEO best practices.

The challenge for startups with earned traffic is that it is too difficult to predicate, especially in the early stages. You cannot build a growth strategy hoping that you make it to the front page of Hacker News or Business Insider. That is why this is usually the third traffic channel that startups focus on.

Four Reasons Why You Should Be Advertising Right Now

#1 It’s cheap right now!

#2 You need to maximize sales

#3 Maximize what you get from your ad budget.

#4 You’ll gain market share

What They Say About Us?

Small Business Advertising Packages

Recent Posts

Visual Storytelling With Data

Can you tell the audience a little bit about your background Julie?

Common basis of understanding

Presenting too much information

Recent Posts

Consumer Insights And Behavior

What are some consumer insights you have on the type of messaging that resonates with consumers today?

Who does Captify work with?

Recent Posts

Three Ways To Increase The Conversion Rate Of Your Website

1. A/B Test

2. Optimize Your Form

Test the button copy:

Form length really does matter:

Require Unnecessary Information

3. Focus On Google Analytics

Recent Posts

Consumer Behavior And Insights

Who is Captify?

How has coronavirus changed Consumer Behavior?

Recent Posts

Should You Be Advertising Right Now?

Recent Posts

B2B Sales - Account Based Marketing

Who is AdDaptive?

Using data to focus on your best targets

How is the Corona Virus impacting client’s ABM campaigns?

What does the future look like for B2B Sales?

Recent Posts

The Three Traffic Sources For Startups

Rented or Paid Traffic

Owned Traffic

Earned Traffic

Recent Posts

What we do

Email us