Bullseye Marketing Group

First of all – HAPPY 2020!  I hope everyone is off to a GREAT start in the New Year.

As I review my goals for this year, I keep going back to some sales training that I went-thru a few years ago.  In that training, I learned some valuable lessons – but one of the most memorable ones is “IF you don’t write down your goals and visions – you can’t hold yourself accountable”.  If you just ‘think-them-up’, two months from now, you will have forgotten them all together. Oh and how true that advice is! [...]  Read More

Solve a Problem or Achieve a Goal!  That’s it!  That’s what a GOOD Marketing Agency or Media Company should be doing.  Unfortunately, a lot of them aren’t.

If anyone is just trying to SELL you a product or service – run for the hills.  The person on the other end of the phone <or in front of you> is ultimately trying to push the “flavor of the month” or to hit a ‘made-up’ goal.  They aren’t looking out for your own good or in the best interest of your business. [...]  Read More

……..NOT The steak.

If you’re in the world of Marketing, you’ve probably heard this phrase once or twice.  But, what does it mean?  Some say it means ‘sell the Benefits instead of the Features’.  Others say ‘Sell clients What they Want…..not What they Need’.

Or (in other words) your customers don’t care about facts, they only care about results and how you can help them ‘move the needle’.

As consumers, most of us buy on Emotion NOT on Facts.  What may work for one client (most likely) will not work the same for another.  If you get lucky and capture lightening in a bottle, don’t try to replicate it and relabel it as something else.   [...]  Read More

I haven’t sent anything ‘snail-mail’ for a long time so when I went to the Post Office to buy a stamp (recently), I was SHOCKED……55 cents……for ONE stamp.  It was at that moment, I knew I had to write this Blog.

In the world of Media, we base a lot of our campaigns on CPM (or cost per thousand).  Basically, how much it costs to reach 1,000 people.  So, if you  take the price of ONE stamp ($.55) and multiply it by 1,000, it will cost you $550 to mail out a letter <or offer> to one thousand persons.  Let’s not forget that you’ll have to lick 1,000 envelopes to seal them, YUCK (and, if you remember what happened to George’s Fiancé on Seinfeld—–poor Susan).  And, lastly, you have to physically take them to the Post Office to mail them out…….MIND BLOWN. [...]  Read More

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve fallen into this trap (more than once…..I may add). Early in my media career, I’d be in-front of a prospect and start having ‘diarrhea of mouth’………throwing out acronyms like: HUTs, PUTs, Ratings, Shares, TSL, TOS, IMPS, CTR, CPM, etc. I (obviously) knew what I was talking about, but 9 times out of 10…….the person sitting across the desk from me would shake their head and smile – pretending that they knew what I was saying as well. I’d be like GREAT, they get it. When what they were really saying was “you’re speaking a foreign language and I’m just gonna nod to make it look like I know what he’s saying”. I’d walk out of that meeting, thinking ‘yes, I nailed it’. Wrong!  But, because of that, I lost more sales than I care to admit. Of course, I did land a few accounts using this ‘flawed’ technique, but as a good friend once told me…..’a broken clock is always right – TWICE a day’ AND ‘even a blind squirrel finds an acorn, once in a while’. After a couple of dozen ‘failures’, I did an inner-search to figure out what went wrong and the answer was clear……it wasn’t the client, it was ME.

In EVERY business, there are words, phrases and acronyms that are COMMON to the people IN that industry. We eat, live and breathe those words……24/7.  But, if we go into sales meeting and try to figure out what the client REALLY needs, they DON’T EVER need to hear ONE industry phrase………they don’t care.  All they want to know is:

A) how we can help achieve a goal   OR   B) how to fix a problem—–THAT’S IT.

Ready, Aim, Fire. That’s our strategy at Bullseye Marketing Group!

With so many MASS mediums out there, it’s so hard to pinpoint your message to your exact audience. I refer to this as ‘throwing spaghetti against wall’. Sure, some of those noodles will stick, but can you really afford to guess which ones will? For me, I’d rather pay a little more for a DART to hit my exact customer…….knowing that there is little to NO waste in my marketing dollars.

Of course, the message is as important as reaching that audience. If your call-to-action is weak (or non-existent) you won’t even make a dent in your prospect’s mind. As a local, direct client you really can’t afford to ‘brand’ yourself. If you’re a big conglomerate like McDonalds (who spends tens of Millions of dollars in advertising each year), you can ‘throw-up’ your infamous Golden Arches and everyone knows who you are and what you’re selling…….without any price-point. As a local advertiser, it’s hard enough to get customers into your store. So, when you can afford to run a marketing campaign, you can’t waste it. Make sure that the CTA is strong enough to capture interest.  [...]  Read More

Every time I hear this, I have to laugh (a little).

In no way, shape or form am I saying that this is not happening, but we buy these devices and invite them into our home or personal space. The functionality of these devices are to act as our virtual assistant…….so (of course) they are standing by for the command to react to your request.

It may shock some of you, but the World Wide Web has been doing this same ‘act’ for over a decade.

It’s called Digital Fingerprinting.

When we surf the web…….every ad we click, every story we read, every site we visit and every search we make leaves a digital trail. These algorithms identify and generate forms of workflow that track & monitor your every move on the web.

Digital Fingerprinting enables publishers to reap benefits by expanding and extending the value of their content through newer monetization avenues like content publication on paid video portals, social networks sites generating advertising revenues, performance and playback of content across radio, television and promotional events, use of content in advertisements, Television and radio programs and marketing activities among others. Digital Fingerprinting has wide areas of application in the media ecosystem from content monitoring to monetization; including:

• Content identification for contextual and targeted advertising
• Retargeting
• Mechanism for content delivery verification
• Audience measurement
• Content filtering and  Broadcasting monitoring
• Contractual compliance
• ACR (Automated content recognition) enabling enhanced user experience and greater engagement through second screen applications
• Content publishing sites (UGC, content portals, social networking etc.) to control copyright infringement and revenue from advertising

While this may sound scary or could be construed as on the edge of creeping (digital term for ‘stalking’), it actually helps you <as the advertiser> so that you’re reaching your perfect audience and cuts out most of the waste that many mediums can’t.

Big brother IS watching, but each one of us some control over what he hears (or sees)