During the two years that were the pandemic, we were forced to stay home and not travel. Business was anything but “business as usual.” The B2B world overnight had to grow new synapses to remotely reach, educate, and sell to new and existing clients. While the phone and Zoom calls picked up much of the […]
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 as many large companies tried to build […]
As a daughter, I’ve shopped for Mother’s Day gifts for my incomparable mom, Kim, for as long as I can remember. Today, I’m a mom to the cutest two-year-old this side of the Mississippi (maybe both sides), and I’ve gained a whole new perspective on what Mother’s Day and Mother’s Day gifts are all about. And then, as […]
“I’ll just Google it” has become instilled into every aspect of our lives, and for some reason, we place unconditional faith in computer code that has no face, personality, or distinctive trait that conveys a trustworthy outcome. Yet we continue to rely on the Google Search algorithm for daily wisdom, a great spot for pizza, […]
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 […]
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, […]
The chatter about Customer Experience (aka CX) has been growing for the past few years. Initially, this was an offshoot of user experience (UX) for e-commerce companies but quickly grew to be the catchphrase that seeks to map the activities in each consumer funnel, quantify their quality and measure their impact. This has been critical […]
Protecting Your Brand in an Age of Increased Exposure Your brand is the aggregate of what you say it is and what regular people on the street, or probably more correctly, the internet, say it is. In fact, there has never been a time when consumers had more power over what a brand “means” than […]
Over the past year, the hype around the metaverse has accelerated at a dizzying pace. With all the talk, it was natural that speculation would run wild with what this means for various industries. In this article, we will look at what it means for the financial services industry. In today’s edition of Compound Interest, […]
We’ve all heard more than once that people today are overstimulated with information, and their attention is stretched thin. We all feel it, too – the subconscious tug of a thousand different things vying for our attention. In a single morning in a household like mine, kids are repeatedly asking the whereabouts of their favorite […]
It’s a question that we as consumers get asked several times a day – “Would you like to sign up for our rewards program?” In fact, it’s become a key part of the customer checkout experience. Rewards and loyalty programs have long been a way for companies to connect with their customers in a unique […]
Few marketing tropes have been thrown around over the past several years quite as much as “storytelling.” Many a book, webinar or convention speech has talked about the nature and importance of storytelling, but more often than not, that content has focused on storytelling for consumer brands. Clearly, storytelling is important. We learn about our […]
It’s been a few years since we’ve seen this much effort and creativity invested in Super Bowl ads. Maybe it’s because the pandemic funk is lifting. Maybe it’s because 30 seconds cost advertisers an extra $1.5 million this year, but man, there were some great ads! While we are still having trouble unseeing the awkward […]
Let’s be honest. The last two years have been brutal. The COVID-19 pandemic continues, a lot of us haven’t seen a majority of our co-workers in person since 2020, and many businesses continue to cut back, not by choice but as a result of the hard hit they’ve taken to their bottom line. What, if […]
When COVID first hit in 2020 it brought a lot of uncertainty and along with it a lot of changes to the way people, brands and companies were engaging with each other. As the world collectively began to come to terms with the pandemic, we started to see a lot of brands and companies making […]
Recently, a 13-year-old in your world may have asked for and received a popular virtual reality (VR) headset. You’ve seen them game in it. Maybe you’ve even ventured into their game world out of curiosity. Then, at the end of 2021, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a rebranding of Facebook into “Meta,” its new parent company focused […]
In the interest of time, if your website is currently WCAG 2.1 AA or AAA compliant, and you’re reading this article because you’re worried about the new imminent WCAG 3.0 compliance threshold, or you think there will be negative SEO ramifications for not immediately adopting these new standards, you can stop reading now. Your website […]
Discussions around digital marketing have left financial services marketers with a lot to keep up with as of late. While the robust landscape of tools that digital marketers have at their disposal is at an all-time high, the restrictions and policies affecting third-party data around online privacy have been evolving at an equally rapid rate. […]
What to Expect in 2022 As we head into 2022, it’s time to refresh your social media strategy and make sure you are up to date on the latest social media development and management trends. In this edition of Plain Talk, we’re diving into five popular and influential trends to consider including in your New […]
There’s no question that maximizing your email marketing as part of a robust performance marketing program is one of the smartest and most cost-effective things you can do to help boost your marketing horsepower. In fact, we’ve got a great article stuffed with tips for high ROI email campaigns if you’d like to check it out. However, […]
In 2015, super brand Adidas realized they had a problem – they were optimizing their marketing efforts against the wrong metrics. Yikes. They discovered they were overinvesting in performance-based digital marketing and underinvesting in brand building. They prioritized efficiency and real-time attribution of digital media and ignored brand impact and brand desire. Since then, Adidas […]
Several years ago, a marketing professional from a large company told me trade media simply wasn’t worthy of their marketing plan. Talking about their product in trade media before it was available to consumers didn’t make sense to them. They had a sales team to handle getting the word out. No offense to their team, […]
Comparing TikTok and Instagram Reels The average adult begins to lose concentration after just eight seconds, according to a 2020 study performed by Microsoft. In other words, we have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. When considering social media for customer engagement, our short attention span is further complicated by the glut of channel […]
Recruiting applicants should be an easy process…you post a job listing, you send it out on all the major job platforms, maybe have your employees share it on social media, and you’re done. Right? Well, not exactly. As many business owners have experienced in 2021, hiring quality applicants is getting harder and harder. In this […]
The pandemic is slithering slowly away and economic factors seem favorable in the U.S., so it looks like we’re going to be OK. So, what could go wrong? If you are like many companies, a return to normal means staffing up to pre-pandemic levels as we bounce back; however, in many business verticals, something’s different. […]
In a September 2014 interview with Fast Company, Andrew Ng, Chief Scientist at Baidu went on the record to state that in five years he anticipated 50% of searches on Chinese search engine, Baidu, would be image or voice searches. This prediction was concentrated into an article, which implied that “in five years, at least […]
According to the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), 21% of c-store operators have recently shifted to curbside pickup, while 14% are focused on drive-thrus. These growing numbers are due to COVID-19 consumer trends and falling fuel sales. This results in what NACS describes as “pushing the industry further into the omnichannel universe.” Over the […]
Balancing Innovation and Branding for Long-Term Growth For traditional banks and credit unions that enjoy strong name recognition, the value of their name carries equity. For many years, this has been a fixed dynamic that isn’t lost upon anyone in the industry. Over the last few years, traditional institutions have been finding themselves having to […]
According to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, there were roughly 9,400 business-to-business trade shows in the U.S. in 2019. These trade shows by some estimates represented a $15 billion industry that was forecast to exceed $17 billion in 2021. More importantly, these shows routinely represent critical sales opportunities for businesses of all sizes. Then […]
When I was a kid, my near-scratch golfer dad spent a lot of time trying to teach me his passion. There were many steps on how to approach the ball. And there were corrective instructions for most practice swings, but when it came to the actual swing, there were only two things I was told […]
In today’s hyperconnected, digitally focused world, reputation management is a 24-hour job. With countless social media platforms available for both fans and foes to say anything anytime about your brand – like that they found fish tails (well, shrimp) in their box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch – these posts can easily influence a company’s success, […]
When we think of online influencers, it’s easy to instantly think of a celebrity or someone on Instagram with a blue checkmark by their name and one million plus-followers; sharing their favorite makeup or facial cleanser – but in reality, these types of influencers aren’t what’s driving the high user engagement rates – rather their […]
First a Story The first restaurant I remember going to was the Howard Johnson’s on Route 9 in Framingham, Massachusetts. They had great fried clams and terrific ice cream, and I remember when I was five years old going for the first time with my grandmother. She was a very stern and prim Irish Catholic […]
Brands globally have worked to build or upgrade their websites and online stores in response to the pandemic, which is no surprise with the pulsing closures of brick-and-mortar businesses. However, what many brands have not prepared for is the impact that skyrocketing internet use has had on the relevance of their digital image and video […]
The healthcare industry has been slower to accept and embrace digital in the past, and it’s not completely their fault – there are federal privacy regulations, and other challenges have made traditional advertising more appealing. In addition to traditional marketing, healthcare providers also made good use of in-office marketing tactics. But with COVID-19 and the […]
You know that a healthy flow of great content is an essential way to inform and stay in touch with existing healthcare patients, and it’s also a way to help bring in new ones. However, you also know that the best content often comes from our healthcare professionals, physicians and experts who have never been […]
When it comes to overused phrases, “the possibilities are endless” ranks pretty high. However, for anyone talking about digital engagement for a financial institution, the phrase isn’t hyperbole. If you’re aiming to deliver an end-to-end digital experience for your customers, then you know that it means not only thinking of everything, but also continuously analyzing […]
Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past decade or two, you have probably heard about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). It has invaded our lives, taken residence in our homes and garages, and – thanks to the advent of the smartphone, become a welcome guest to nearly every moment […]
Is it just me or has everyone been getting an influx of text messages lately? And no, not from your mom or BFF – from politicians, brands and advertisers. Obviously COVID-19 has brought a ton of changes, but maybe it’s also renewed or increased interest in one-to-one communications and new (old) ways to connect with […]
Just 25 years ago, email users would get home and excitedly log in to their AOL email accounts, and after the horrible nails-on-a-chalkboard sound of their modem connecting to the internet, wait with anticipation to hear, “You’ve Got Mail!” Back then, electronic mail was new, rare and definitely under commercialized. A lot has changed since […]
In 2021, it’s safe to say that a big chunk of our days are spent online, whether thumbing through social media, shopping, researching a project or big purchase, or gathering information about current events. Of those daily website visits, how many of them stand out to you as being really great, personal experiences? In this […]
If you are working at home with your children or your dog right now, you don’t need me to remind you that COVID-19 has changed the way we live and work. In the B2B industries, the changes have been tougher than just working from home. We’ve seen critical tradeshows, events and travel mostly cancelled. Reductions […]
For years, we’ve used digital advertising as an efficient and effective means of reaching exactly who we want to reach, with the right message, at the right time. Ad tech and publishers have been competing to offer better targeting, more capabilities and better tracking, and each ad tech call offers something new – some new […]
It’s certainly easy to get into the habit of developing creative resources or websites in a vacuum, believing that these strategically sound, well-designed and expertly curated assets will be the doors through which your customers and prospective customers will first experience your brand. In reality, several gatekeepers can stand between your brand and your customer. […]
Love it or hate it, social media is more than just a way to connect with friends online. While many of us remember when Facebook first began and being part of a community that didn’t include Business Pages or Newsfeed Ads, the world of social media from 15 years ago is very different from what it is now, which is a world where businesses can no longer afford to not maximize their social presence. In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll walk you through why social media is more important than ever and what you should do about it.
This year has been unlike any other. From trade show cancellations to public relations crises, we’ve rolled with the punches that 2020 threw and wanted to highlight some of the exciting things we’ve worked on this year, even during a global pandemic. Our team breaks down 10 of our favorite projects. Hershey – National Hot […]
Effectively targeting and attracting Generation Z depositors must be a key component of bank marketing plans in the mid- and long-term in order to replace the current boomer customer base as these consumers transition to drawing down assets in retirement. In this edition of our Compound Interest series, we’ll help break down critical experiences, characteristics […]
As 2020 – a year unlike any other – finishes up, marketers are faced with a new world of replacing crucial business leads. One of the most impactful methods – trade shows – is still in flux. Many early 2021 shows have been canceled while others are considering postponing or moving to a completely virtual platform, […]
Today we can’t think of any B2B or B2C business that doesn’t need more leads. With increasingly limited access to brick and mortar services, trade shows and shopping opportunities, those leads really need to be digital to keep your business healthy. Unfortunately, this is not a secret. Your competitors are likely upping their digital game […]
Whether your focus is on B2B marketing or B2C, there are few topics more relevant today than generating qualified leads to move your sales forward. There are a great number of ways to do this (in combination for best results), but in today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll be discussing the anchor tactic for “pay-per-click” […]
In the late 1800’s, some smart and probably fun person figured out that their tea trolly would be much better used to display the household stash of spirits rather than tea. On that day, the bar cart was born. Fast-forward to today where what was once a dusty piece of mystery furniture in mom’s (or […]
In 1972, advances in and increased access to computer processing spawned the first experiments in what would come to be known as computer graphic imagery (CGI). That year, the future founder of Pixar, Ed Catmull, created the first known 3D CGI film. Simultaneously Hollywood writer/director Michael Crichton’s engineers pioneered the first use of CGI in […]
1. Building Trust Is Essential for Growth and Retention Financial institutions of all types understand the importance of trust. Without it, you won’t be successful in retaining existing customers, and it will be difficult to lure in new money without a trustworthy reputation. But the mindset that you will build trust by simply doing what […]
In 2020, typical communications strategies took a back seat amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. Many businesses quickly pulled all marketing efforts during the start of COVID-19, evaluating how to best handle this crisis and still get key messaging to the public without appearing tone-deaf to what was happening in the world around us. But while […]
For a long time to come, 2020 will be known as the year that changed everything – the way we live, socialize, shop, travel and work. You name it and it was impacted this year. That includes crisis communications plans that were already in place. Many businesses have formal plans that help them prepare for their worst-case scenarios, but who was ready for a pandemic that affected how businesses operate, or for national protests as a result of racial injustice that held businesses accountable to be transparent about where they stood in the Black Lives Matter movement? The answer: absolutely no one.
There’s no denying that customer experience (CX) has looked very different in 2020. However, there’s still a question of how this strange year might affect expectations for CX moving forward.
We are surrounded by photographs pretty much every waking minute that we are using any type of communication device these days. In the realm of social media, photographs and video content rule the platforms. Let’s dive a bit further into the subject of Taking Excellent Social Media Photos — 5 Tips From a Photography Legend. […]
Open banking is oftentimes perceived as a trend taking place in Europe but that is lacking adoption in the United States. The reality is that it is very much a part of the financial services landscape in the U.S., but its proliferation is driven by a different source than in Europe. Due to European regulators predicting a boom in open banking, the EU drafted PSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2) while the U.K. released their version known as OBI (Open Banking Implementation) in order to get in front of the phenomenon with regulations and guidelines. In the United States, the Treasury has agreed to draft guidelines and recommendations, but there is no law or regulation in America that drives open banking forward. However, one doesn’t have to look further than the number of Third-Party Providers (TPPs) affecting consumer and business banking in the U.S. to realize that the trend has taken hold in the states as well.
A casual reader looking at spirit sales numbers for 2020 might think it’s a pretty good year. After all, in July Nielsen indicated a 52-week rolling sales increase of 5.1%. But those numbers do not tell the whole story. Overrepresentation in sales increases by the larger, high awareness brands and well known value brands, and […]
Podcast advertising has recently become a hot topic among brands and media planners. In today’s PriceWeber Plain Talk post, we’ll talk about why the medium is growing, some reasons it might be time to consider adding podcasts to your media strategy and some of the best practices for podcast advertising if you do. The technology […]
While most of the world is in quarantine and practicing social distancing, one social media platform has continued to maintain a rapid growth in downloads, especially in the U.S. According to Sensor Tower’s report, 2019’s second most downloaded app worldwide, TikTok, saw an 18% increase in downloads, tallying the number to 2 million between March 16 and 22, compared to the previous week at 1.7 million.
If you’ve been in the banking business for a while like me, you can attest to the fact that for decades, pundits have declared virtually every recession, economic downturn or national crisis to be the death knell of community banks, and in 2020, the financial emergency caused by the global pandemic is no different.
In this edition of our plain-talk series, we’ll take a look at brand trust and corporate social responsibility, and discuss how the two are playing out during the current COVID-19 global crisis.
Community and regional banks facing competition from the bigger money center banks need to know how they can compete effectively and win. If they try to fight the same way as the giants, they will get overpowered and definitely overspent. But if they think like a smaller bank, they’re nimble and responsive enough to compete successfully. So, how do smaller banks prevail? They think like David.
Recent headlines regarding a planned (and abruptly cancelled) Barnes & Noble Black History Month promotion serve as a reminder that not all well-intentioned marketing ideas are worth doing. As marketing professionals with years of experience, we’ve all learned to trust, to some degree, that little voice inside our heads that tells us when we may have stumbled across an idea that could be genius. Intuition. Inspiration. The gap in time and space where the magic happens.
Ad dollars are on the move in the financial space – increasingly shifting from traditional to digital, and specifically to mobile. While financial services have historically relied on more traditional vehicles, times are indeed changing. In this edition of the Compound Interest series, we’ll talk about why it is time to up your digital game and how to do it.
If you’re like me, the beginning of the new year means you’ve spent some time thinking through the opportunities and risks that lie ahead in 2020, hopeful that with the right marketing plan, you can enable your institution to grow, keeping customers, employees and the board content. But often, input from stakeholders, overambitious business plans or constraints on staffing and budget mean that not every facet of your plan can be realized. In this first installment of our “Compound Interest” financial services marketing series, I’ll share some of the valuable things I’ve learned over my 30 years in bank marketing about how to put a successful plan into motion.
Influencer marketing has become a digital monster. Are you doing it? Are you doing it wrong? Should you be doing it at all? If so, how and under what circumstances? In this edition of the Plain Talk series, we’ll take some of the mystery out of influencer marketing and dispel a few myths along the way. First, let’s talk about the money.
In our Plain Talk article earlier this year, Can your website land you in court? Making your website ADA accessible, we discussed a few reasons why businesses should consider upgrading their website accessibility for people with disabilities. At that time, a flood of discrimination lawsuits were hitting the courts that related to Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and we recommended that if your business had a physical location and a website, you should “probably” make it WCAG 2.1 compliant to meet contemporary recommended standards for accessibility. In this edition of our Plain Talk series, we’ll be upgrading that “probably” to a “definitely” and explaining what’s changed and how it may impact you and your business.
If you’ve been advertising online for any amount of time, you’re probably already pretty familiar with a couple of the most common ways to run ads on the web.
In today’s plain-talk newsletter, we’re talking social responsibility trends. Americans’ trust in the federal government to handle both international and domestic matters is at the lowest point it has been in more than twenty years, according to a recent Gallup poll. Only 35 percent of Americans have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the U.S. government’s ability to handle domestic issues. Meanwhile, trust in the government to handle international issues ranks only six points higher at a mere 41 percent.
In this first edition of the “plain-talk B2B marketing” series we’ll be talking trends in B2B trade shows. We hope you’ll find valuable insights that you can apply to your B2B marketing regimen.
In this first installment of our “plain-talk healthcare marketing” series, we’ll prescribe some practical advice about some of the most difficult marketing that healthcare groups have to do – recruitment marketing – and how to smooth the path to filling open healthcare positions.
Welcome to summer! Remember when summer meant vacations with the family, sunny days lounging by the pool or even just sleeping in? Yeah, we remember that too. However, in today’s fast-moving world of digital marketing, summer also means planning time.
For years you’ve had your website on a partner’s proprietary content management system. Why is now the time for a change? In this installment of our plain-talk digital series, we’ll explain.
If you haven’t been following the latest trends and best practices for mobile web design, you may be leaving money on the table. So how do you design a better, more effective mobile website experience for your customers? In this installment of our plain-talk digital marketing series, we’ll talk about five trends driving best practices in web development for mobile.
In the advertising world, April Fools’ Day is comparable to the Super Bowl. Advertising agencies and corporations show off their creative flair with entertaining (and sometimes eye-roll worthy) spoofs. As we prepare to be blown away by the latest and greatest brand pranks in 2019, let’s reflect on our favorite April Fools’ Day pranks from 2018. So sit back, relax and get ready to chuckle (or groan).
So deeply has the web penetrated how we navigate the world, that today your website could land you in court for a pretty unexpected reason.
Last month, this meme juxtaposing Tom Cruise and Wilford Brimley’s ages made the internet rounds, leaving innumerable blown minds in its wake. For those who followed up with Wikipedia, it proved true: When he filmed Cocoon in 1984, Brimley was 50 years old; Tom Cruise filmed Mission: Impossible-Fallout at 55. The age comparison between the two men has been circulating for the past few years, updating essentially with every new Mission: Impossible release, but this time it rocketed around social media faster, perhaps because Cruise is now in his mid-50s yet still pulling off his own stunts.
Lately, our society has engaged in much more discussion about the need to recognize bias in ourselves and our culture, in how we interact with and represent others. As a primary means of mass communication, advertising has a special role to play in this concern.
We are in the midst of a longstanding nursing shortage that has persisted in the U.S. and is expected to reach 1.2 million vacancies by 2022. While some states are in better shape than others, these vacancies will impact nearly every healthcare organization nationwide. Fortunately, there are recruitment tools and tactics that healthcare organizations can implement to overcome the effects of the shortage.
In 2016, PriceWeber began a relationship with an economic development association, where our specific charge was to upgrade their web presence after several years of neglect.
Economic recession has been influencing decisions whether and where to attend college in recent years. A new survey bears out that this trend continues among teenagers despite news that consumer confidence is on the rise.
When we initially fielded research on people’s tastes, attitudes and preferences in the craft beer category, we expected to learn or validate much of what’s already been discovered. Yes, people are suffering a bit from hop overdose. Fruit sours are growing in popularity. People increasingly treat craft beers like wine, pairing them with food. Consumers often discover new craft beers upon recommendation of bartenders and friends, so you need bar staff relations and social media programs to spread the word. Our research backs these trends up, but the question was — were there any surprises?
We didn’t say it, but Gene Marks of The Washington Post did. This holiday season, PriceWeber wanted to create a unique way to showcase our festive spirit while driving awareness for our client Louisville Ballet. So we constructed a 39-foot, 6-inch nutcracker. The result is “cracking a few nuts” from its position just off Shelbyville Road. And yes, it can actually crack a nut.
If 2016 set out to be the year of controversy, it certainly hasn’t disappointed. Daily local, regional, national and international headlines have not failed to give passionate social media users a plethora of causes to fuel the expression of their opinions. And much like the Energizer Bunny, they just keep going and going and going.
If you’re like most businesses today, you have a website – one that may have been designed five to 10 years ago, and today is an unsightly patchwork of add-on features.
Unless you’ve been in hiding, without a smartphone, you’ve heard a lot about virtual reality. For some, VR is touted as the “it” technology that will save marketing (or make it cool again). From the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to gamer and entertainment blogs, it’s been hot water-cooler talk for some time. If you’ve experienced virtual reality yourself, you have to admit, it’s pretty cool tech. But is it really the next big thing, or will it just be another arrow in the marketing quiver?