Were the Super Bowl Commercials worth the Spend?

Without a question, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots 31 unanswered points against the Atlanta Falcons will be a Super Bowl memory that will be etched in the minds of sports fans forever.  The unprecedented comeback was nothing short of amazing and Tom Brady has solidified himself as the Greatest of All-Time.  Obviously, we can all talk about the controversy surrounding Brady and the Patriots, but more importantly will we remember any of the commercials during the big game?

Ad buyers estimate the average cost of a 30-second advertisement crept up to a whopping $5 million this year for the Super Bowl or the

equivalent of $166,667 per second.  The Super Bowl is expected to serve up more than 110 million viewers. According to Forbes, this year’s $5 million price tag equals about 4 and 5 cents. An average commercial at between $200k to $500k for 2 to 7 million viewers which equates to 8 to 10 cents more per viewer.  By all accounts this seems like a great spend right?  Even Forbes, Huffington Post and every large marketing agency say if you can afford it utilize the Super Bowl for your Ad Spend.

However, most companies cannot afford this type of spend and the one’s that can are throwing good money away.  Not to mention, 2017 Super Bowl Commercials were less than stellar this year!

According to Communicus’ new study about advertising during the big game showed that four out of five commercials during the last Super Bowl failed to make people buy or build product interest, the research firm said.

Key findings from the Communicus’ research, based on a nationally representative survey of 3,000 adults 18-65:

• Only 10% of consumers remember the average Super Bowl ad and know the brand being advertised.
• 80% of Super Bowl commercials fail to change consumer opinions/intentions regarding a brand.
• Only 33% of consumers can remember seeing a typical Super Bowl commercial in the first place.

While the viewing audience for the Super Bowl has only increased 300% since its inception, ad rates for the game have risen by 12,000%.  “Super Bowl advertising retains a strong allure for marketers,” said Ms. Jeri Smith, President & CEO, Communicus, Inc. “This is despite the clear and consistent lack of ROI for the vast majority of brands investing in the Big Game.”

Recently, advancements in media and technology have provided advertisers with a multitude of new ways to target and connect with potential customers.  Consumers have long been vocal about their aversion toward ads; ads interrupt programs, push products that are potentially not of interest and are, in general, a nuisance.  It’s simple: We the consumer DO NOT like ads shoved in our face from you the company!

Enter DeliveryMaxx. 

DeliveryMaxx has developed a Patent-Pending program allowing consumers to advertise to their friends and family via Social Media just by sharing their happy experience.  In addition to being able to provide content across all of the major social media channels driving traffic back to their clients’ websites, DeliveryMaxx helps its clients with Online Reputation and Social Media Engagement.  In short, DeliveryMaxx turns its client’s customers into virtual billboards saving their clients thousands of advertising dollars.  How simple is it you might ask?  By taking a simple picture or video and providing the consumer an opportunity to share the happy experience; one transaction can equal to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of views.  For companies that have multiple transactions a day, these views and customer engagement will increase exponentially.

The best part of digital advertising is the advertising does not disappear overnight.  The shelf life for digital advertising can last years.  DeliveryMaxx also puts in place a strategic plan which improves their clients’ customer satisfaction index by staying in front of the happy customer.  Thus, emotion and loyalty drives the consumer to continue to advertise for said company.  Because of DeliveryMaxx’s Patent-Pending Technology the proven results happen as easy as pushing a button on a mobile app driving your product into the hands of millions of potential consumers.  The cost of this type of advertising is less than 1 cent per view.  Because the consumer is the one advertising for DeliveryMaxx the ROI increases tremendously as they are reaching “like minded” consumers.

For more information on how DeliveryMaxx can help your business or organization create a custom advertisement and marketing program worthy of Super Bowl proportions visit www.deliverymaxx.com or contact 888.936.6299.  DeliveryMaxx clients include Automotive Dealerships, Real-Estate Brokers & Agents, Churches, Service Industry, Sports Teams, Non-Profit Organizations and more.  In fact, anyone wanting to create a dominate presence on the web needs the DeliveryMaxx Program.  Everything published to the World Wide Web will affect how your business is perceived.  DeliveryMaxx allows you to take full control of your presence on the web; ensuring that daily branded content (Blogs/Videos/Images), reputation management (Online Reviews) and customer retention strategies are working together in unison allowing you to set your dealership apart from the competition.  It is not enough to just have a program, but you must have a strategy and DeliveryMaxx provides you the tool to allow you and your customers to share with the world how great you are!

Social Media Marketing for Sales

Does Your Ad Strategy Fit Modern Times?

Advertising is an integral part of any business, countless dollars are spent every year by local and national brands to help spread their story to potential customers.  However as technology changes many companies have not changed their advertising strategies to compensate.  Thanks to a rapid expansion of social media platforms on mobile devices, faster internet connectivity, and more sophisticated technology a huge shift has occurred in the way people get their news, and the amount of money spent advertising on social media is set to match newspaper ad revenues by 2020 according to leading forecasters.

Advertising Agency Zenith Optimedia predicts that ad spending on social media will account for 20% of all internet advertising in 2019, crossing the $50 billion mark and coming in just one percent behind newspaper ads around the world, poising social media advertising to overtake newspapers by 2020.

As such, it is crucial that marketing efforts be directed to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.  However, don't run to spend money on social media advertising just yet.  Use these trends to your advantage to develop a customized, organic, content-driven approach to social media in lieu of spending lots of money on short-lived ads.  And with the increasing popularity of free browser add-ons that block advertisements, your business stands to gain more with an organic approach to social media.

While advertising on social media can be beneficial, it is best used to complement an effective content-driven network, saving you money while still reaching people and creating potential customers.  Building an expansive network of inbound links is the foundation of good Search Engine Optimization (SEO), increasing your business's visibility online.  An effective network is comprised of multiple social media sites with a mixture of content such as blog articles, photos of your business and customers, instructional videos, videos highlighting inventory and special events, reviews and comments from real customers, and other unique content designed to showcase the many aspects of your business.

"The Big 3" social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and it is crucial your business has a strong presence on these sites.  However, there is a large variety of social media channels that it is important to engage with.  Sites such as Pinterest, Google Plus, Tumblr, Flickr, and others serve to increase your reach to more customers.   Building a complete network and utilizing them to their fullest extent will set you apart from your competition.

Sound daunting?  Fortunately, creating an extensive network and populating it with consistent unique content is extremely simple with DeliveryMaxx.  DeliveryMaxx works with you to determine a marketing strategy, creates a custom social media and online review network, and provides you with a mobile application that allows you and your team to easily send content to populate your very own expansive network.  

Content marketing is simple and easy with DeliveryMaxx, all it takes is less than ten minutes each day to create content such as customer photos, special event showcases, blogs, daily posts, videos, reviews, and more!  All of which is posted and optimized by DeliveryMaxx allowing you to focus more on your business rather than social media and advertising.  Let us reach people for you and keep your business in the online spotlight!

For more information about how DeliveryMaxx works and to schedule a demonstration visit http://www.deliverymaxx.com or call 888.936.6299 today!

DeliveryMaxx Makes Video Marketing Easy for your Business

Founder of Money Journal, Sam Oh shares great information about utilizing video marketing into your strategy.  DeliveryMaxx is the perfect app for your business or organization that will allow you to easily produce, publish and create lasting digital reach for branding your company or organization.

Have you incorporated video into your marketing strategy? If not, it's time you should. A few years ago, video marketing seemed to be its own entity. If you wanted to be found by select audiences, you had to have video. But now, video has special significance everywhere. In this post, we will look at why you need to start video marketing now.

YouTube: The world's second largest search engine.

Google is, and likely will always be number one. But YouTube has over a billion users who watch millions upon millions of hours of video. You can reach them by creating video that they can discover in YouTube search or general Google search results, depending on your video's topic and how well you optimize it for search engines.

Related: YouTube Marketing: What to Consider Before Getting Started 

Alternatively, you can reach YouTube's audience via a wide range of YouTube video advertising options. This includes banners, commercials before another video, commercials in the middle of a longer video, sponsored videos in the sidebar, and many other ad types specifically made to appeal to video consumers.

YouTube creators go beyond entertainment value. They serve audiences with actionable “how-to” content from helping golfers fix a slice to buying a used car and online marketing tutorials for beginners. YouTube has become a free educational hub for “learn it yourself” consumers and makers.

Best of all, every video you create for YouTube can be repurposed for dozens of other video hosting sites like Vimeo, DailyMotion, and many others. In addition, social networks like LinkedIn allow you to link YouTube videos to company pages and use them as media samples for your professional profiles, giving you even more opportunities to share videos about your business.

Video gets great reach on Facebook.

Do you want to reach more people on Facebook? Start using video. Video has been shown to get more organic reach than other types of posts according to studies by SocialBakers. Facebook is also starting to rival YouTube in video views, claiming to have hit an average of eight billion daily video views.

And now, if you want to get people engaged with your business, you should consider incorporating live video. Facebook has recently found that people spend three times longer with live video than with pre-recorded video. This is likely due to the fact that viewers can actually engage with the person(s) on camera by sending reactions, asking questions, etc.

But even if you don't want to get into live video just yet (which is now available for personal profiles, pages, and groups), you definitely need to start uploading video to your Facebook page for that organic reach boost. Not to mention you can pick one video as a featured video that appears above the About box on the left sidebar of your page. Think of it like a commercial or introduction for new visitors to your Facebook page.

Related: 3 Essentials for Making a Facebook Video That Gets People to Buy

Soon, Twitter's 140 won't include media attachments.

Do you want to share more on Twitter? If so, then start sharing video. Twitter plans to roll out a new change that allows people to add media to their tweets without counting it towards their 140 characters. This means you can link to a video and still have 140 characters to describe it to your followers and add hashtags.

This is beneficial for multiple reasons. For starters, the video will stand out in the news feed, and the play button on the video will beg for people to click it.

Secondly, the video will get added to your media library, which appears on the left sidebar of your Twitter profile. That way, unlike your normal tweets that get lost in your profile's timeline, visitors to your profile will see your latest six media shares. So be sure to make your video thumbnails will catch people's eye and make them want to click!

Live group video chat is getting hotter and hotter.

Google Hangouts helped the explosion of live video group chat and public broadcasting of roundtables and live group Q&A. Then came Blab.im, which brought a little more simplicity for those who wanted to have four people on at a time and rotate people in and out of the broadcast easily. And now there's Huzza, a new Blab-like live group broadcasting platform with even more features that you can use, for a price.

Related: Can Live-Streaming Video Help Me?

The point is, if you want to get some exposure on a personal level that you can use to get your business exposure, you should consider getting invited onto or hosting a live show on one of these newer platforms. While Google Hangouts is older, it has the advantage of being free, having the ability to host up to ten people, and having lots of features such as screen sharing. While other platforms are newer, don't count out Google Hangouts just yet.

Your business ought to be in pictures.

As you can see, there are lots of ways your business can enter the world of video. The key is to find the way that is best for your business and start there. And to make sure that no matter what type of video you create that you share it on as many platforms as possible so that you reach as many people as possible with your video marketing.

Experts across the country are talking about video marketing and the importance of incorporating this strategy into your daily marketing and advertising routine.  DeliveryMaxx has a Patent-Pending App that utilized with their Digital Marketing and Advertising Program that will allow you to accomplish everything you need to do within minutes and a simple press of the button.

Video Marketing is the Next Biggest Thing!!!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a video worth?  According to my 7^th grade honors student a video is worth 1.8 million words!  My daughter is not too far off when we investigate how the mind works.

According to research people will retain almost 20% of what they hear.  They generally retain 30% of what they see.  However, when they combine seeing and listening; the retention of the message increases to 70%.

Every blog, article and digital expert expresses that businesses must utilize video to share their message.  There is good reasoning behind these statements.

·         Online Video Marketing is far more cost effective than TV, Radio, and Print advertising.

·         Once your online video is complete you can reuse the video in multiple marketing settings. Facebook, You Tube etc. can all be used multiple times for absolutely no cost.

·         Online Video Marketing will improve your Google ranking. Videos are 53% more likely than text pages to show up on the first page of search results.

·         It’s all about Brand Awareness. Viewers retain 95% more of the message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text.

·         According to Cisco, The future is here now. Internet video traffic will be 69% of all global consumer Internet traffic in 2017.

So what is your plan? 

DeliveryMaxx has a Patent-Pending Digital Marketing Program that allows you to produce and publish videos instantly populating all of your digital channels.  These videos can be shared to individual consumers within seconds, provide video testimonies and show off your great products and services.

The DeliveryMaxx program will allow you to produce Walk Around Videos, Testimonial Videos, create a video messaging program for congratulations after the sale/service, birthday wishes, anniversary of the sale date, and even miscellaneous videos commemorating whatever event you choose which are branded with your business and contact information, as well as easily accessible to share with the world. 

All of the content is embedded with special code creating backlinks, mentions and citations driving more traffic back to your website.

In addition to the videos your company will be able to:

• Publish relevant meaningful content (blogs, pictures, videos) to the web
• Videos are a must in the digital marketing world and allow you to share your message instantly
• Post engaging content to talk with your potential consumer
• Win the game of posting the most content allowing you to be seen
• Utilize all of your social media channels daily
• Communicate directly with your customers sharing how much you care about them and their business
• Take a picture allowing your customers to share their great experience with all of their friends and family on their personal social media sites.
• Capture and direct reviews to any review site you choose your customers to share their experience
• Have the ability to instantly provide information about your products/service with a personal message

DeliveryMaxx is the only company that allows you to do all of these things with one mobile app saving you Time & Money creating great relationships with your customers, advertising/branding your company online, improving your online reputation, and turning everyone into a virtual digital billboard sharing your story and great things you do on the World Wide Web!

By utilizing the app to its fullest extent, your organic search engine results increase as well as referring backlinks, mentions and citations continue to increase driving more traffic back to your website.  Your team will have a tool at their fingertips (DMAXX app) where they can capture a great moment and provide a link for your customers to share it to all of their friends and family allowing conversations about your business to be shared with potential customers.  In addition, DeliveryMaxx has provided you the tools to instantly post and share videos, communicate with your customers or clients for years to come on.

For more information, contact DeliveryMaxx at (888) 936-6299.

Why Digital Media is Necessary for your Business & How to Use It

Every article or blog that has been written over the last ten years has stated that businesses must utilize social media and online reputation to improve their business!  However, as much opining which has been published, explanations as to “How to use Social Media to your advantage” have been lacking detailed substance.

By taking a simplistic approach, businesses can effectively use digital media to accomplish their goals which will allow them to increase branding, online reputation, customer engagement thus improving customer service indexes and sales.

First, a business must ask themselves what they need published on the internet about their service, products and how they conduct business on a day-to-day basis.

Every entity needs the following:

·         Videos branded with their company.  These short videos should be natural and a true reflection of the business (today’s consumer isn’t wanting to watch another commercial).  Videos should be published daily and be readily available to send to inquiring customers.  By producing short 30-45 second videos whether they are customer testimonies or “how to” videos; businesses will be adding content to the web easily available to the search engines.  Videos should not only reside on YouTube or Vine.  They should be shared throughout the companies’ digital network and the business should have multiple active digital channels to reach potential customers.  Yes!  This means publishing videos to Twitter, Google+, Facebook and others.

·         Online Reputation is anything and everything said about your business on the internet.  Yes, stars are valid and make a brief statement about the feelings of individuals’ experiences with your business.  However, the consumer also understands that there are “Fake” and unwarranted reviews which do not tell the whole story about your business.  It is important to stay vigilant on all of the Online Review Sites keeping your star rating high.  However, it is much more important to allow all of your customers or clients to be provided a forum to share in detail their experience.  There is no better way or opportunity to provide an opportunity for your customers to share their experience immediately to sure accuracy of the experience and completion of the online review.  Unfortunately, many businesses don’t have a plan or a tool that will allow them to capture a review at the time of the transaction which limits the number of positive experiences to be posted on the web.  In addition, by allowing all customers to give immediate feedback at the time of service; unhappy customers who share their thoughts will allow the company provide an expedient remedy to the issue with the ability to satisfy and win the customer for life.

·         Customer Social Media Engagement creates customer satisfaction.  Business is pretty simple.  If you provide a good product or service to your patrons; they will be happy to share with friends and family what you have done for them.  User-generated content is much more effective and important than content you share yourself.  Praise from your customers is sure to catch the eye of prospects!  The only catch is that it must be easy for them to do and there has to be a program creating the virility of the post. 

·         Search Engine Optimization is important, but should be done organically.  This means creating content on the web which sticks or resonates with the Search Engines.  The more content provided the stronger your business becomes the authority in your subject matter.  Paid Advertisement only last as long as you are the highest bidder!  Organic content last forever.

There are thousands of analyst that have stated these things that must be done to create relevancy for your business on the internet.  There are almost as many digital media companies that try to provide a quick fix for one or all of these things that businesses need to utilize when reaching their potential clients.  The facts are that these companies have not been able to create a true engaging program for their clients’ customers falling short of social media marketing and online reputation.

With its Patent-Pending Digital Marketing Solutions; DeliveryMaxx is the only digital media company that provides a simple to use app which will allow to immediately collect online reviews, post engaging videos and online content with branding and advertising.  The program is embedded with digital code helping increase SEO which provides first page results on the Search Engines.  It is a tool that is implanted with a complete digital strategy giving their clients a competitive advantage over the competition.  For more information about DeliveryMaxx contact (888) 938-6299 or watch the DeliveryMaxx Introduction Video!

What have the Presidential Primaries shown us about Social Media?

“Feel the Bern”, “Make America Great Again”, and “TrusTed” are all slogans we have read or heard each day we peruse through our Facebook or Twitter feeds.  Even if you haven’t watched the nightly news you can probably attribute which slogan belongs to which candidate.

Long story short, the efforts of electoral candidates and their social media agencies seem to be concentrated towards winning affection of millennials (25 to 34 year olds), and although no one can say today which candidate is going to win the elections later this year, one thing is clear: social media is winning the elections today.  The same goes for the way you conduct business every day.  Your customers and potential clients get their information from social media.  More importantly they get their information from the information their friends or family share on Social Media Channels.

Facebook’s head of U.S. Industry for Politics and Government, once cited the benefits of their video advertising saying it was a “great way to reach and mobilize supporters and voters that candidates need to win elections.” He further added that “those voters are on Facebook,” which is not far off the mark, counting the 200 million U.S. citizens actively using Facebook. It’s not enough just to post to Facebook.  DeliveryMaxx provides a tool to allow you to create a daily campaign to have people share your story on their Facebook page which in return has your customers marketing and advertising for you.  Obviously, DeliveryMaxx post your story and activity on all of the Social Media Channels important today.

Posting on niche social networks can help candidates stand out to millennials, according to Betsy Sigman, distinguished teaching professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. Millennials also appreciate photos and images, and these forms of media can make candidates more memorable to people in that valued demographic, Sigman says. If a candidate's message resonates, millennials are likely to share with people in their networks.  Nothing stands out more clearly for your company than others sharing your story on their timeline or news feeds.  All you have to do is use the DeliveryMaxx tool to allow your clients to share your information.  It’s not enough for you to post to your business page.  Your story has to find a way to get to your customers pages because that is where your potential clients reside.

To say Donald Trump has won the social media battle is a serious understatement. He could very well be the first president who rewrote the rules on social media.  When Donald Trump fires off a late-night Twitter tirade, it shows up in the feeds of more than 3.7 million followers.  Some reports show that Trump has received over $400 Million in free advertising because of others sharing his message.  The days of paying for clicks and paid overlays are gone.  You may not like what or how he says things, but one thing is for sure; others are sharing his message daily and that is FREE ADVERTISING!

The candidates may not be able to fix our country, but their campaigns have figured out how to get “We the People” to talk about them on Social Media.  Your team has a tool at their fingertips (DMAXX app) where they can capture a great moment and provide a link for your customers to share it to all of their friends and family allowing conversations about your business to be shared with potential customers.  In addition, DeliveryMaxx has provided you the tools to instantly post and share videos, communicate with your customers or clients for years to come on important dates such as birthdays, anniversaries and more.

For more information about how you can take advantage of social media and the revolutionary DMAXX App visit http://www.deliverymaxx.com today!

Content Content Content

For decades real estate professionals have been pounding home the phrase that opening a new business is all about… Location Location Location.  This phrase or concept dates back to as early as 1926 or even earlier.  The internet has made it commonplace for businesses to reach customers from around the world and with the advent of social media digital marketing is all the rage.  When designing a digital marketing plan or simply starting a new business, yes it’s that fundamental, every business owner or manager should consider several factors when deciding what and when to launch a campaign.  There are several types of marketing campaigns to consider, but here we are talking about digital marketing and more specifically content marketing.

Every post every picture for that matter every word that is said about a business or product is now an opportunity to introduce oneself or said product to the marketplace.  Customers are not only right around the corner, but now sit just a click away.  I’m not going to bore with details and statistics of why ecommerce is so important and explain the complexities of what makes for a good website, if you’ve made it this far you already understand these things.  What we are going to discuss is that in the digital age location matters, just not that much.  Online marketing programs are all about CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT, and did I mention CONTENT.

So where are you getting your digital content from?

Blogs are and excellent source to increase the number of mentions and backlinks to your respective address and in many cases this is the primary driver for original content most businesses use.  Blogs must be original and always include a message that speaks directly to the audience you wish to show up in your show room.  Blogs are also a great opportunity to share accomplishments as well as community spirit/service activities.  This is the best place to show case your business to the ever so discriminating public.  In short Blogs are your way of describing you.

Press Releases are much like blogs in that they provide the reader or prospective customer with a summary about you and/or your business.  The biggest difference here is that you don’t have control over the message.

Reviews/Online Reputation is all about what others are saying about you.  It’s pretty simple to maintain a positive online reputation, simply treat customers correctly and deliver on promises as stated when stated.  There are countless numbers of online reputation companies promising to “fix” businesses reputation.  Be wary of anyone that says they can get you reviews or have negative words that are being said about you removed from one site or another.  Simple fact is you are who your customers say you are and in most cases perhaps even better.  In general 95% plus of the people businesses serve would return to that business or even refer a friend, but statistics show that less than 3% share that information in a public forum.  What about the other 5% that for one reason or another were not satisfied??  You guessed and overwhelming number of those tell everyone.  You need to find a program that will capture more of the 95%ers.

Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) could take up an entire article, and there are plenty already out there, on how to utilize it for ecommerce but here it’s all about content.  Every post is an opportunity to add content about your business.  Unfortunately businesses fall into the trap of posting useless information just to fill a page every day.  Posting services sell or shall I say prey on managers and owners selling them on their “need” to have daily posts.  Here’s the secret… If it doesn’t point directly back to your businesses internet space then it is just filler.  There is content everywhere within the everyday activities of each organization that utilize third parties to create their social footprint.  What if each employee had the ability to create effective content that was a direct reflection of that organization and could show honest and current interactions with customers.  That company would now have an edge that no third party provider could provide.  

Recently, DeliveryMaxx was chosen for the 2015 Best of Rockwall for Management Consulting Services due to the program meeting all of their client’s marketing and advertising needs.

DeliveryMaxx is a privately held company providing social media marketing, web-based solutions, customer retention, and other advertising services and is based in Rockwall, Texas.  DeliveryMaxx is the preferred provider for companies needing to improve web presence, online reputation, customer satisfaction, sales, and innovative strategies that enables them to confidently deploy their mission-critical products and services in today’s competitive environment for market share.

For additional information about the company or its products and services, visit www.deliverymaxx.com or contact (888) 936-6299.

Content Marketing Doesn't Work

This may seem like an odd article coming from someone who makes their living in the content marketing world. But when I say that content marketing doesn’t work, it’s true. It doesn’t work for many companies because they either have the wrong expectations or the wrong creation and promotion strategies. And when content marketing isn’t deployed correctly, it doesn’t work.

Content marketing is a bit of a buzz word. The idea has been around for a long time, but it’s recently garnered attention as social media and SEO have started valuing content more and more. Add to this the fact that customers are doing more research before they make a purchase, and you can see why content marketing is getting more attention than ever before.

In the chart you can see that content marketing has actually surpassed search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) in search popularity. In fact, of the big four digital mediums, it trails only social media marketing in current interest.

But What Is Content Marketing?

The dangers of trends is that there is a lot of misinformation around what the trend really is. Because of this, I’ve seen definitions of content marketing ranging from native advertising to blogging to social media. Technically these are all forms of content, and yes they are also forms of marketing, but does that make them content marketing?

For this article, let’s limit the definition of content marketing to this:

Content marketing is the act of a company, business, or organization producing and promoting informative content to engage and interact with their target audience.

Why Doesn’t It Work?

Simply put, content marketing doesn’t work because it needs two attributes to be successful, a long-term commitment and high-quality content. And both of these requirements have high demands in terms of time and effort. Because of this, they are often ignored in an attempt to make content marketing more scalable and easier to deploy.

But unlike SEO and PPC, you’re not dealing with an algorithm when it comes to content marketing. You’re dealing with the reactions and emotions of your living, breathing customers. And that can’t be gamed, hacked, or exploited. Instead, you need to plan and deploy a content marketing campaign with the same care and attention that you would any other major company initiative.

Consistency

Content marketing requires time and effort. And these are two things that are usually in short supply in most growing companies. So, how do you find them? You democratize your content creation. Instead of trying to shoulder the burden of content creation with one person or one department, the responsibilities should be spread around the company. This accomplishes two things. First, it allows the workload to be shared and ensures that there is always someone fresh ready to step up and produce content. Second, it gives your message many different perspectives and voices. This is great for keeping the content from becoming stale and tired.

Another great trick to remain consistent is to have a well-established plan going into your campaign. This means that you sit down and write up your content calendar and your promotion strategies. And you need to make these as specific as possible. Ambiguity in your calendar will open the door for dropped initiatives and forgotten tasks. So assign hard due dates and make sure that everyone sticks to them.

Finally, in order to stay consistent you have to make sure your content doesn’t become a chore for you, the producer. To do this, mix in many different types of content so you’re always working on something that challenges you in a new way. Here’s a short list of a few types of content that work great:

• Blog Posts
• Infographics
• Slide Decks
• Case Studies
• eBooks
• Whitepapers
• Videos
• Quizzes
• Audits
• ROI Calculators
• Memes and Images

As you can see, content marketing isn’t dependent on having a blog. Yes, a blog is a great tool for content marketing, but it’s only one piece of the larger puzzle.

Once you have a consistent plan, you now need to focus on the quality of the content.

Quality

When it comes to the quality of your content, I like to liken it to the décor of your home. You want to produce content that you’d be proud to take home and hang on the wall. If you wouldn’t be caught dead with your content adorning your house, then you shouldn’t be using it to try and engage with your customers.

For the penny pinchers out there, it’s an unfortunate fact that you often get what you pay for when it comes to content creation. This doesn’t mean you can’t outsource your content creation, but you should expect to get what you pay for. That’s why for smaller companies it’s usually a better idea to create their content in-house.

So, whether you’re outsourcing your content creation or taking care of it internally, you need to ensure that you’re producing content on the right topics. To do this, you need to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. At our firm we use in-depth buyer personas and customer journeys to give us an idea of who our target audience is and what we should produce.

Once you know who they are you want to help them. You do this by solving their problems. So, instead of producing content that’s all about you and your company, you should produce content that answers questions and helps them solve the challenges they face. As I’ve stated many times before, no one wants to download your brochure.

And don’t scrimp on the details. There have been many studies that the content that’s shared and engaged with the most is long-form, in-depth pieces that are supported by research and statistics.

This means you shouldn’t be killing yourself to produce new content every single day. But rather, you should focus on producing high-quality pieces. As long as you’re doing that consistently, then arbitrary cadences don’t matter as much.

The Proof Is In The Pudding

A friend of mine, Jake Baadsgaard, who owns a conversion optimization and PPC company called Disruptive Advertising, realized early on how much impact content marketing had on his marketing efforts. And we’re talking about a guy who works with PPC every day. Be that as it may, he knows that his PPC efforts are much more effective when they’re supported by content marketing.

“We have one of the most active and informative blogs in the PPC industry. And it produces great results for us in terms of traffic and customer engagement. But the temptation to short-cut the content production and promotion was a major challenge I needed to overcome. But a dedication to writing and planning has allowed us to stick to our guns and produce content that we’re proud of and that we know our customers want to engage with.”

Jake is not a natural content marketer. He would rather spend time on marketing activities that can be easily quantified and graphed in an Excel sheet. But his blog has been active for over a year and the posts they publish are long-form with great insights and research. This has led to syndication of the content, speaking opportunities, and interview requests. But without that commitment to quality and consistency, he wouldn’t have experienced those fringe benefits.

Put It All Together

So the next time you hear someone tell you that they don’t see the value in content marketing and that they never saw results for their efforts, they’re probably right. Because as I’ve outlined in this article, content marketing won’t work unless you focus on what’s important and have a long-term plan for success.

Original article can be found at http://www.forbes.com/sites/miketempleman/2015/08/17/content-marketing-doesnt-work/ 

DeliveryMaxx has the answers and tools you need to successfully create the content you need to work for your business.  For more information visit http://www.deliverymaxx.com 

Digital Marketing Done Right - DeliveryMaxx

2015 Best of Rockwall Awards DeliveryMaxx for Management Consulting Services

DeliveryMaxx is one of the most talked about digital marketing companies in the country with their patent pending digital solutions program.  In short, DeliveryMaxx has discovered a way for businesses to provide an opportunity for all of their customer to share their great experience with their friends and family through a digital network that is the strongest on the World Wide Web.  Not only has DeliveryMaxx developed a unique program that separates its clients from their competition, the program also increases Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Online Reputation Management (ORM), Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Content Management (CM) all utilizing one simple app.

The great thing about DeliveryMaxx is that they use common sense business principles combine with today’s technology creating excellent results for their clients.

DeliveryMaxx started a little over five years ago as a customer retention program and quickly adapted helping business to take advantage of marketing and advertising on the internet.  “When DeliveryMaxx made the conversion to digital marketing, we saw a need for businesses to be able to advertise and market on the web.  There were too many companies taking advantage of their clients not knowing or not understanding the proper way to navigate advertising on the internet.  Unfortunately, these companies actually harm businesses more than helping them and we quickly decided to help companies work digital media correctly” states James Schaefer, Chief Operating Officer of DeliveryMaxx.

The app can be downloaded by anyone, but will only be able to be utilized by DeliveryMaxx customers.

“DeliveryMaxx was created methodically filling in all of the gaps that dealerships were unable, or did not know how to fill to complete the circle of attracting a new customer, providing great service or products, and having them share their experience immediately with friends and family” explains Schaefer, thus providing automotive dealerships and other organizations with a unique ability to increase CSI Scores, Sales, Customer Loyalty, Service Revenue, Online Reputation, Search Engine Optimization, and Branding.

Industries served by DeliveryMaxx includes automotive dealerships, real estate agencies, youth sports teams, churches, celebrities, service, doctors, hotels and attorneys.

Recently, DeliveryMaxx was chosen for the 2015 Best of Rockwall for Management Consulting Services due to the program meeting all of their client’s marketing and advertising needs.

DeliveryMaxx is a privately held company providing social media marketing, web-based solutions, customer retention, and other advertising services and is based in Rockwall, Texas.  Founded in 2009 DeliveryMaxx is the preferred provider for companies needing to improve web presence, online reputation, customer satisfaction, sales, and innovative strategies that enables them to confidently deploy their mission-critical products and services in today’s competitive environment for market share.

For additional information about the company or its products and services, visit www.deliverymaxx.com.

Marketing 101

Source: SBA

In order to successfully grow your business, you’ll need to attract and then work to retain a large base of satisfied customers. Marketing emphasizes the value of the customer to the business, and has two guiding principles:

1. All company policies and activities should be directed toward satisfying customer needs.
   
2. Profitable sales volume is more important than maximum sales volume.
   

To best use these principles, a small business should:

• Determine the needs of their customers through market research
  
• Analyze their competitive advantages to develop a market strategy
  
• Select specific markets to serve by target marketing
  
• Determine how to satisfy customer needs by identifying a market mix
  

Marketing programs, though widely varied, are all aimed at convincing people to try out or keep using particular products or services. Business owners should carefully plan their marketing strategies and performance to keep their market presence strong.
Conducting Market Research
Successful marketing requires timely and relevant market information. An inexpensive research program, based on questionnaires given to current or prospective customers, can often uncover dissatisfaction or possible new products or services.
Market research will also identify trends that affect sales and profitability. Population shifts, legal developments, and the local economic situation should be monitored to quickly identify problems and opportunities. It is also important to keep up with competitors' market strategies.
Creating a Marketing Strategy
A marketing strategy identifies customer groups which a particular business can better serve than its target competitors, and tailors product offerings, prices, distribution, promotional efforts and services toward those segments. Ideally, the strategy should address unmet customer needs that offer adequate potential profitability. A good strategy helps a business focus on the target markets it can serve best.
Target Marketing
Most small businesses don’t have unlimited resources to devote to marketing; however, the SBA wants you to know that you can still see excellent returns while sticking to your budget if you focus on target marketing. By concentrating your efforts on one or a few key market segments, you’ll reap the most from small investments. There are two methods used to segment a market:

1. Geographical segmentation: Specializing in serving the needs of customers in a particular geographical area.
   
2. Customer segmentation: Identifying those people most likely to buy the product or service and targeting those groups.
   

Managing the Market Mix
Every marketing program contains four key components:

1. Products and Services: Product strategies include concentrating on a narrow product line, developing a highly specialized product or service or providing a product-service package containing unusually high-quality service.
   
2. Promotion: Promotion strategies focus on advertising and direct customer interaction. Good salesmanship is essential for small businesses because of their limited advertising budgets. Online marketing is a cheap, quick, and easy way to ensure that your business and product receive high visibility.
   
3. Price: When it comes to maximizing total revenue, the right price is crucial.  Generally, higher prices mean lower volume and vice-versa; however, small businesses can often command higher prices because of their personalized service.
   
4. Distribution: The manufacturer and wholesaler must decide how to distribute their products. Working through established distributors or manufacturers' agents is generally easiest for small manufacturers. Small retailers should consider cost and traffic flow in site selection, especially since advertising and rent can be reciprocal: a low-cost, low-traffic location means spending more on advertising to build traffic.
   

The aforementioned steps combine to form a holistic marketing program.
The nature of the product or service is also important in citing decisions. If purchases are based largely on impulse, then high-traffic and visibility are critical. On the other hand, location is less of a concern for products or services that customers are willing to go out of their way to find. The Internet makes it easy for people to obtain goods from anywhere in the world, so if you’re worried about reaching a certain market, selling your product online may do wonders for your business.

Aston Martin #DB10 - #AstonMartin

The next Bond adventure hasn't even hit theaters, and yet we already know what car he'll be driving. The Aston Martin DB10 is 007's official ride in Spectre, and is being developed specifically for the film. That kind of thing happens when a character and car maker have been linked for 50 years. Only 10 will be built, so the odds of you parking one in your garage are essentially zero, but if past concepts are any indication, you'll be seeing echoes of its streamlined design in production Aston models very soon.