Have you ever been to a webpage that wasn’t optimized for your phone properly, and the ads blocked the content? How about waiting so long for an ad to disappear that you clicked on the ad, then clicked the back arrow just to see if it would end sooner? Well, you’re not alone; 90% of those surveyed find digital ads annoying. In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll look at problems with programmatic advertising and the damage targeting top-of-funnel metrics, like impressions and clicks using broad ad networks, can have on your brand.

Mortgage volume is rising, and lenders who want their share need more than rate promotions to compete. Build your strategy around MLO thought leadership, local SEO, and a strong review presence. An always-on marketing approach builds a more consistent pipeline than chasing rate cycles. Learn how to position your institution for sustainable mortgage growth.

In an effort to be more efficient and more effective, today’s advertisers are pushing to get more targeted by eliminating “waste” and driving results. While this pertains to all media, the biggest and most exciting benefit of digital media is you can reach, as the old saying goes, “the right person at the right time with the right message.” It seems simple, right? “The more targeted, the better” seems to be the new motto. But what happens when you take that too far? Or when your campaign doesn’t work, despite being 100% honed in on the “ideal” target audience. In today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll examine three major targeted marketing strategy mistakes we see and discuss how you can avoid similar pitfalls in your campaigns.

In 1990, the Canon EOS Rebel camera ad featuring tennis star Andre Agassi boldly told us, “Image is Everything!” Back then, it certainly was something, but was image more important than it is today? You needn’t look any further than your friend’s and family’s social media pages to realize that the “ideal self” is still alive and kicking in 2022. In today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll juxtapose concepts that center on the concept of real self vs. ideal self in advertising and what we think that means for the future of brand relationships.

Consumers, investors, employees, policymakers, and business partners are becoming more interested in learning the benefits of ESG, driving its importance and complexity for companies and institutional investors. While it’s predominantly linked in its most formal executions with publicly traded corporations, there is value to smaller private companies and brands to enhance or grow a halo effect if done properly, with purpose and authenticity from all involved. In this edition of Plain Talk, we’re not giving advice on developing an ESG initiative. Instead, we’re focusing on 11 ideas to boost your ESG branding by leveraging your practices.

During the two years of the pandemic, we were forced to stay home and not travel. Business was anything but “business as usual.” Overnight, The B2B world had to grow new synapses to reach, educate, and sell to new and existing clients remotely. While phone and Zoom calls picked up much of the slack for B2B marketers, digital marketing was also forced to evolve significantly. In today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll outline the three biggest industry changes that will “stick,” how they affect your B2B digital marketing strategy, and what you need to do about them.

For many years brands, and not surprisingly, the advertising industry shared the opinion that it was between difficult and impossible to bring the services that a traditional marketing agency provides “in-house” to the client company. There was pretty good evidence that this was the third rail of advertising. Many large companies tried to build in-house agencies only to shut them down or struggle as the quality of their marketing mysteriously slumped. However, today there are some pretty compelling success stories for in-house agencies (IHAs). So, we thought rather than ignore this truth, we would have a closer look. In today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll help you examine what conditions might be necessary to succeed in in-house marketing. We’ll explore what you gain and lose and whether in-housing might be for you.

As marketers, we continue to seek an understanding of how our brands can consistently produce awesome search engine result page (SERP) rankings on Google. That’s a heavy lift without having some understanding of the engine that’s under the massive hood of the search hotrod that is Google. This edition of Plain Talk will share what you need to know about Google algorithm update history. Use this information to gain a meaningful understanding of Google search algorithms and how they impact your brand.

Influencer marketing is here to stay. Let me repeat this one more time for the people in the back. Influencer marketing isn’t going anywhere. We all probably thought that influencer marketing was a fad at one time. We saw social media influencers first start on Facebook promoting products, then came the thousands of long-form reviews and unboxing videos on YouTube, followed by the birth of Instagram, where a new group of influencers took flight. Most recently, TikTok arrived with its explosion of short-form videos that made the social influencer landscape an entirely different ballgame. In today’s Plain Talk, we will explore the world of social commerce and the role influencer marketing plays in “helping” us find our next purchase.

Community is a multifaceted word. There are hundreds of touchpoints where your firm can connect with and do good for your local communities. Every day the phone rings or something arrives in the mail with a new suggestion on how your firm can help and give back to your community. In today’s Plain Talk article, we’ll review the best way to approach corporate citizenship for law firms and how community engagement can help your firm grow.