Bob Cargill, who was named the New England Direct Marketing Association's "Direct Marketer of the Year" for 2009, is an independent social media director, content marketer, copywriter, storyteller, creative director and public speaker...available for hire. You can follow Bob on Twitter at @cargillcreative.
In this video, I talk to social media consultant, Meaghan Edelstein, about her new social media crisis strategy deck and how brands should be tailoring their marketing strategies and tactics during the coronavirus pandemic.
In these uncertain times, countless brands are adjusting their advertising and marketing messages. What about you? This is not the time to think you can just set it and forget it when it comes to communicating with your customers and constituents, especially on social media. This is not the time for your canned sales pitches. This is the time to reach out to your audience and ask how you can help them. During this pandemic, your business may still be in operation, but your focus should not just be on your bottom line, it should be on doing what you can for the greater good. This is the time to show the human side of your brand. This is the time to speak honestly about how the health crisis is…
Al Roker is delivering his morning weather forecasts for NBC’s TODAY show from his kitchen. Late-night talk show hosts like Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel are presenting new DIY incarnations of their shows from home, too. Popular musicians and celebrities of all kinds are live-streaming on Instagram, Facebook and almost everywhere else on social media, performing hit songs and connecting with fans. They are doing whatever it takes to keep the show going on, making a huge positive impression on viewers and listeners during these difficult days. Brands and businesses can be doing the same thing, too. In fact, some of your most meaningful communications could be taking place during these tough times. Your customers and prospects will appreciate hearing from you. But they don’t want marketing and sales pitches,…
Amid the rapidly worsening coronavirus outbreak, marketers, advertisers, brands and businesses might need to adjust, if not pause their messages to consumers. It is important to be sensitive to the seriousness of this situation. The economy may be threatened, but lives are at stake. Take a look at any of your existing marketing campaigns and make sure to bring them up-to-date. Authenticity is always a priority in marketing, but now more than ever, what you say to your audience is a representation of how you feel as a brand. Business must go on, but think how you might be able to do things in a better way. Think like CVS Health. They announced today that they will deliver prescribed medications to customers for free. That's a win-win situation if ever…
In business, we want to think of our customers and prospects as relationships, not transactions. We want them to like and respect us, to think so highly of our businesses, brands, products and services, that they’re loyal to us forever. We want them to feel close to us, to know that we’ve got their backs, that we’re listening to them, that we care about them, that we want them to be happy with everything they get from us. I recently read a blog post written by Mark Schaefer in which he talked about something called parasocial relationships. That’s what I’m talking about in this post and the accompanying video. As Mark explains in his post – which you can read here – a phenomenon that started out in the ‘50s,…
My wife, Barbara, wasn’t feeling well the other day. After talking to her doctor’s office on the phone, we decided to go to a local on-demand healthcare facility, CareWell Urgent Care in Marlborough, where she could get the quickest treatment possible. We didn’t have to wait more than a few minutes before she was seen by two different nurses and thoroughly checked out. Not only did she receive exceptional care at this facility, the medical team’s bedside manner was ridiculously awesome. They spent a lot of time examining her as well as just plain comforting her. They weren’t just extremely professional, they were incredibly personable as well. BIG thanks to Kristen and Virginia, the two nurses who took care of Barbara during our visit. You. Me. We can all learn…
I’ve been around long enough to have worked as a marketing professional both before and after the emergence of the Internet. I’ve seen what was once called plain, old marketing transform into an array of digital marketing, social media and online capabilities we couldn’t have imagined back in the day. Now we have artificial intelligence, chatbots, smartphone apps, ephemeral content, SEO, ABM, AR, VR, YouTube, podcasts, geo-fencing, blockchain, TikTok, voice search, programmatic advertising, omnichannel marketing and social commerce. Having at our disposal practically all the tools, tactics and technologies we could ask for, it’s a ridiculously awesome time to be a marketer. Unfortunately, it’s also an incredibly difficult time to be in this business, as those on the receiving end of our messages are sick and tired of our ads.…
Real success in business is achieved when you use real people in marketing and sales, real people in real time being really honest with their audience. When I saw Mark Schaefer speak earlier this year, he emphasized the importance of being human as marketers. I saw Seth Godin a few months later, and he pointed out that human marketing takes time. They're both right, of course. Consumers are tired of being bombarded by the constant cacophony of cries for their attention from brands. There must be a better way to win friends and influence people in business. That’s why I’m such a huge proponent of social media. Social media levels the playing field, making it possible for companies to engage with consumers - and vice versa - as human beings.…
To break through the clutter and win consumers over, advertising and marketing need to get real. That’s what Bud Light did recently. During game five of the 2019 World Series, Washington Nationals fan, Jeff Adams, took a home run ball to the chest while holding on tightly to his two cold beers. That’s when Bud Light sprang into action. Not only did they take quickly to Twitter to call attention to the moment, they tracked down the fan and by the next game, had him the star of a television campaign that featured the actual video footage of him being hit by the ball. This scenario was remarkably well played by Bud Light, to say the least. Borrowing a page out of the social media playbook, they wasted no time…
