ADvice
Here's our two cents in marketing. Of course,
we write it in the hope that you'll find it more
valuable than that. Like 10 or even 20 dollars'
worth of good advice.
Toaster Pastries and Marketing
When it came to hurricanes, executives at Walmart knew that ice and beer were big sellers. But it took truly predictive technology to unearth the power of the toaster pastry. It turns out that Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts sales increase around seven times their normal rate, pre-hurricane. And not just any Pop-Tarts – strawberry flavored! Thanks to this insight, jam-packed trucks filled with jam-packed pastries are right on the heels of The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore to every storm-threatened shore.
Now apply this same logic to marketing. What if, instead of simply responding to client marketing requests, you anticipated your clients’ marketing needs for the future?
If your marketing and communications agency is similar to WCG’s, your clients operate in a highly competitive, sometimes global landscape that is constantly shifting. They rely on you to keep them ahead of changing customer needs. One way to do this is by demonstrating you’re experts in the digital field.
Do your digital research. When a Fortune 500 client approached WCG to discover how to successfully prime its marketing techniques for the changing mobile landscape, we got to work. With the assistance of our sister agency, hawkeye, we painstakingly collected data from key landscapes, topical case studies and competitive marketing reviews to identify the best strategy for its insurance business. Then we presented all the information we collected, along with powerful suggestions for future mobile strategies.
Put your best digital foot forward. In efforts to win an account with the Henrico Economic Development Authority (EDA), one of WCG’s most persuasive tactics was demonstrating how we could leverage analytics and measurement and reporting services with our electronic marketing savvy to bring its marketing into the future. Our capability for creating compelling campaigns by seamlessly integrating digital channels with traditional ones was one of the chief reasons WCG was named Agency of Record for Henrico EDA.
Showcase your digital expertise. One way WCG has highlighted our digital capabilities is with the newly launched RVA Creates campaign—a collaborative effort between The Martin Agency, VCU Brandcenter, Elevation, J H I, The Hodges Partnership and Venture Richmond to promote Virginia’s Capital as the Capital of Creativity.
Noting the growing trend of users seeking to be active participants in marketing, WCG helped design the RVA Generator—a web tool that enables users to import personal pictures of people, places or things that are uniquely Richmond and uniquely creative. It’s just one digital component of this collaborative effort. Each partner promoted the RVA Generator via Facebook and Twitter, and, tracking our progress via Google Analytics, WCG discovered the RVA Creates site has been viewed over 4,300 times in its early existence.
Which brings us to another point: while traditional marketing mediums usually aren’t enough—they rarely are in this technological age—neither is educated guesswork. Quantifiable data is the true path to business progress. That’s why WCG painstakingly gathers, synthesizes, tracks and measures data. Through our findings, we’re able to develop brand extensions, channel enrichment and ROI-maximizing strategies for our clients and rich experiences for their customers that attract new and repeat business.
Ultimately, it’s a digital marketing world. In order to maintain a leadership position, you always have to do your research. Anticipation of the future based on concrete data, not reaction to the present—that’s the name of the modern marketing game. And it’s a good thing: who would want to live in a world where you have to suffer through a hurricane without the comfort of a gooey strawberry-flavored pastry treat?
Not you? We didn’t think so.