Wicked Bionic: Cross-cultural Marketing and Advertising

Using Location Targeting to Focus Your Messaging

In today’s marketing climate, the more precisely you can direct your marketing toward people who need and want your product, the more effective your marketing becomes. Creating messages that resonate with your target market is only half the battle, however. The other half is about getting your message in front of those people at strategic moments. This is where a strategy called location targeting comes in.

What Is Location Targeting?

Also called “geo-targeting,” location targeting is a marketing technique by which you select specific geographic locations where you want your ad to appear. You determine these locations based on your research about the habits of people within your target market and where they will be. In its simplest form, any time you choose to place your ad on a specific billboard or digital display or send mailers to a particular zip code, you are location targeting. However, in recent years, modern technologies like GPS and IP tracking have allowed marketers to become even more specific when and where they display their ads. We can detect precisely where our prospective customers are showing up in real-time. Therefore, we can display our ads at the right time, not just the right place—often right on their own devices! In these ways, location targeting has become much more sophisticated—and much more effective.

Tools and Techniques for Effective Location Targeting

What are some ways you can hyper-focus your marketing messages through locations targeting? Let’s look at some of the most current methods:

Geofencing. With this location-based strategy, you create a virtual boundary around a geographic area you wish to target. When people within your target market enter that geographical area, your ad is served to their smartphone, taking the form of a text message, push notification, or even a social media ad.
Look-back data. To get even more specific with location targeting, you can partner with a vendor who tracks IP data over a period of time so you can identify which people visit specific locations frequently, then target your ads to those people. For example, if you are marketing sporting goods, you can gather look-back IP data to identify “active users” of a local sports complex and then use it to send ads to them.
Cross-channel marketing. Another use of look-back data is the ability to track users’ smartphones back to their home IP address (the IP address where users access the Internet from home). With this information, you can now send consistent brand marketing messages across every device accessing that IP address, including computers, tablets, and connected TVs, through over the top (OTT) streaming ads. In this way, you can market to an entire household within your target market.

These are just a few creative examples of how smart businesses and brands use technology for enhanced location targeting. Wicked Bionic can help you determine the best location-based strategies for getting your message in front of people who will buy from you.

Tips for Building Your Brand, Virtually

If challenging times like 2020 had happened 30 years ago with this intensity, most of our businesses would have been sunk. In that sense, it’s fortunate that we live in a day where technology allows many of us to run our companies remotely. At the same time, operating remotely poses its challenges, especially if your marketing strategy has relied heavily on brick-and-mortar facilities and in-person connections. How do you continue building your brand when the virtual space is all you have to work with at the moment?

Here’s the good news: Your target market is now online, as well. Most people are staying home more, spending more time on social media, streaming more content, and shopping more online than ever before. You don’t have to wait for them to come to you—you can go to them, from anywhere in the world. You just have to learn where they’re hanging out online and be smart about reaching them. Let’s explore some tips for how to utilize virtual space more effectively to build your brand.

Make the Most of Social Media

With social media platforms now serving as people’s primary connection to the outside world, you owe it to yourself and your company to leverage this outlet for all its worth. Research which platforms your target demographic is using the most, and get to work building a presence there. Target advertising can help, but don’t rely only on ads—focus on engagement, providing helpful information, and building followers. If you can also enlist the help of a few social media influencers, you can expand your reach exponentially.

Educate and Inspire using Video and Conferencing Platforms

Spending so much time at home, people in your target market likely have more time on their hands these days. You can use this to your advantage by creating helpful content related to your product or service. Setting up a YouTube channel is just one way to accomplish this. Still, you can even utilize video conferencing platforms like Zoom to host workshops, meetups, product demos, and more for a more interactive experience. (These platforms also work very well as a replacement for “in-person” meetings for direct sales and pitches.) These resources are excellent for educating people about what you do and how it can help them, and giving them actionable information will build customer loyalty around your brand.

Be Strategic and Hyper-Focused with Online Advertising

The other side of Internet connectivity is that the Internet is incredibly vast, with tons of competing content, and it’s easy for your message to get lost in the mix. Though they are becoming more user friendly, spending money on Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc., without any focus or strategy, will likely result in wasted effort. Fortunately, some online tools and strategies help you to “hyper-focus” your ads directly at legitimate prospective customers, and location targeting even lets you narrow it down to zip code, street, and building. Before spending marketing dollars on these outlets, take extra steps to make sure you’re reaching the right people.

Wicked Bionic is highly experienced in all aspects of marketing within the virtual space, and we can help you create a customized strategy for effective brand-building, even in the midst of challenging times. Reach out to us to learn more.

4 Ways to Help Your Business Bounce Back for the End of 2020

No one could have predicted the kind of year we have all had collectively. A public health emergency, lockdowns, quarantines, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, rampant unemployment…the list goes on. If your business has taken a hit this year (as many have), you might be tempted to write off the rest of this year, go to bed for a few months, and hope 2021 will be better. However, the remaining few months of 2020 don’t have to be like the rest. If you are willing to think creatively, you can take some steps now to create opportunities for your business and end the year in a stronger position than you thought possible. Let’s discuss some key ways to help your business bounce back over the next few months.

Focus on What You Can Do (Not What You Can’t)

It’s so easy to fall into the snare of lamenting the financial losses and missed opportunities caused by the pandemic. But doing so is a waste of time, and you may be leaving even more money on the table. Instead, take an inventory of the possibilities rather than the hindrances. For example, you may not be able to take face-to-face meetings right now, but you can connect to anyone in the world from the comfort of your living room using video chat. If your normal sales channels have been closed off, start exploring alternative channels that don’t require in-person contact. Despite everything, the downtime is a perfect opportunity to tweak your business plan when things open up again. There’s always a way to be productive—you just have to look for it.

Look for Ways to Meet the Need

Despite a pandemic and a challenging economy, people still need things, and people will spend money on what they need. If your product or service sales have dropped due to the pandemic, perhaps there’s a way to tweak your service to adapt to a new set of needs brought on by the health crisis and even create a new revenue stream. Perfect example: Look at how many clothing companies have started making face masks to meet the drastic increase in demand. Take stock of what people need right now that you might be able to provide without a huge onramp or cash outlay—even if it’s not within your usual wheelhouse, and even if it’s only temporary. Now is not the time to limit your business to one way of doing things. You might be surprised by what ideas come to mind once you start thinking in new directions.

Build Customer Loyalty through Social Media

With more people out of work and spending more time at home, it’s a guarantee that your customers are spending more time online. Now is the perfect opportunity to build stronger connections with them through social media engagement. Don’t just use social media to sell your product or service—use it to start a conversation. Share content your customers will care about—position yourself as an expert and a guide in your field. Interaction breeds loyalty—and customer loyalty can be a lifeline to carry you through the crunch.

Make Your Marketing Plan Hyper-Focused

When cash is tight and budgets are limited, you need your marketing dollars to stretch as far as possible. You don’t need to put your brand in front of vast numbers of people—you need to put it in front of the right people. Do some research on your target market, hone in on the people most likely to buy your product—even down to the neighborhood—and utilize hyper-focused marketing strategies to reach those specific people. You’ll generate many more leads per dollar spent with this approach, and you’ll have a better shot at converting those leads to paying customers—even in a pandemic.

At Wicked Bionic, we keep our finger on the pulse of your target market, and we know the best ways to reach your customers even in times like these. Reach out to us to learn more about how we can use cutting edge tools to help you connect better with your customers.

How to Keep Your Marketing Authentic and Avoid Coming Across as Generic

The younger, savvy consumers of today naturally gravitate towards brands that are authentic, raw, and vulnerable. Inauthenticity in a brand is a huge turn-off, and younger consumers can often spot fake attempts to appear authentic a mile off. Highly successful businesswomen like Barbara Corcoran understand authenticity.

So how do you ensure your marketing stays on-brand and comes across as authentic?

Be True to Your Brand

There’s really no secret to it; in order to seem authentic, you need to be authentic.

To be a truly authentic brand, you need first to identify what your brand values are. What’s your purpose? What does your brand stand for?

Figure out why your brand exists and why it matters. You can’t fake authenticity; just be true to your brand and the values it stands for in all of your messaging.

Own Up to Mistakes

A huge part of authentic marketing is admitting to the mistakes you make. A number of large international brands have had to make public ‘amends’ for delivering campaigns that offended. As marketing gets more personal and targeted, consumers tend to view their favorite brands as personal relationships.

Pete Canalichio, of Licensing Brands, says, “Even our closest friends make mistakes. We are willing, even if sometimes anxious, to forgive. We just want to be told ‘I’m sorry. I messed up.’ When that happens, all is right. When it doesn’t, things are never the same. The same goes for brands.”

Take a Stand

The real test of a brand’s authenticity is when it is faced with controversial issues.

Consumers today, particularly Generation Z and the Millennial Generation, are extremely socially conscious. An Edelman study reported that 64% of shoppers worldwide are belief-driven and base their shopping decisions on a brand’s position on controversial issues.

No matter how strong your marketing is, if you don’t step up and speak out against things that go against your brand values and mission, customers will quickly lose trust in your brand.

Keep Your Promises

This sounds obvious, but you would be surprised at the number of brands that don’t keep promises and don’t communicate honestly. Brands like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft & Google that tend to rank the highest in authenticity surveys are careful to deliver on what they promise and are consistent in their messaging.

At Wicked Bionic, we have helped a large organizations keep their marketing on-brand, authentic and real. Get in touch with us, and we will help you devise a marketing strategy that’s true to your brand. Make an appointment today.

4 Key Benefits of Hyper-Focused Local Marketing

Blasting your marketing message to as many people as possible used to be a tactic that was widely used but not always the best for smaller budgets. (The whole idea behind mass marketing is to cast a wide net and hopefully catch a few fish.) These days, however, the opposite is true. The more you can focus your message toward a specific segment of people, the more effective your marketing becomes, and the more return you get on your advertising investment. Think of it as fishing in a lake where you know the fish are rather than the ocean.

This marketing type is the underlying principle behind hyper-focused local marketing (sometimes shortened to hyperlocal marketing). By concentrating your efforts in specific local areas where your target audience lives, works or plays, you’ll speak more directly to the people who want and need your product or services, and you’ll generate more sales as a result.

Where localized marketing used to involve targeting a specific town or zip code, modern tools now allow marketers to get too detailed in their efforts, targeting specific streets, pinpointed locations, and even particular households, ethnic groups, and demographics. A successful hyper-focused local marketing strategy typically involves using multiple methods at the local level, including tactics like:

Optimizing your online presence to show up in localized web searches or “____ near me”
Conducting deep research to learn the habits and interests of your target market at the local level
Using technologies like geofencing and IP tracking to trigger strategic localized ads at the right times and places

This localized approach can go a long way toward getting you the results you’re looking for. Let’s look at four key advantages to adopting a hyper-focused local marketing strategy.

Easier to Measure Results

When you limit your marketing campaign to specific people within a particular area, it’s easier to gauge the metrics and identify success—to see what worked, what didn’t work, and make tweaks and refinements. You can also perform A/B testing at this level by trying different ads in similar locations and compare their performance.

Easier to Replicate Success

If your localized marketing approach works in one place, it will work in another. While even different neighborhoods in the same city may respond to different stimuli, the basic concepts of localized marketing will work in the same way. As you master the localized approach, you can scale your efforts to other local areas where you do business.

Easier to Build Customer Loyalty

When you supplement your local targeting with locally relevant content (e.g., blogs, videos, and social media), you establish yourself as a local authority within your vertical. You also gain trust from your prospective customers because they believe you understand where they are coming from.

Easier to Establish a Niche

By understanding your customers’ needs at the hyper-local level, you can easily position yourself as the only provider of that particular product/service in your area. Establishing yourself in a niche market can dramatically ramp up demand for what you offer since you’re the only place people can get it.

At Wicked Bionic, we know how to make hyper-focused local marketing work to your best advantage and get you the best returns on your investment. Talk to us to discuss creative options for integrating a more localized approach into your marketing plan.

Marketing to a Politically Savvy, Younger Audience: Dos and Don’ts

Generation Z (today’s teens and 20-somethings) account for $143 billion in spending power, and the Millennial Generation accounts for another $1.4 trillion. Designing marketing that appeals to a younger, politically savvy, and socially/environmentally-conscious audience is the way to building a long-lasting brand.

Here are some dos and don’ts.

Do: Have a Brand Purpose

Young people are more socially and environmentally aware than previous generations. In a nutshell, they care about our world.

55% of Generation Z choose brands that are eco-friendly and socially responsible, according to a study by the National Retail Federation and IBM.

And 61% of millennials are worried about the state of the world and feel personally responsible for making a difference.

To appeal to a younger demographic, have a brand purpose that goes deeper than just economics, and improves the world in some way.

Don’t: Ignore the Mobile Experience

Reportedly, 73% of Millenials and 65% of Generation Z use their smartphones to make online purchases.

Optimize the mobile experience by creating bite-sized content geared towards mobile consumption (think vertical mini-videos, Instagram, and Facebook stories) and making the checkout process as easy as possible.

Do: Be Human and Authentic

Young people today have a deep distrust of traditional marketing that relies on gimmicks and pushy sales tactics for promotion – they’re a turnoff. Be open, honest, and authentic to build a connection with younger audiences.

Don’t: Play Fast and Loose with Consumers’ Privacy

Generation Z places a high value on privacy and the security of their data.

Whenever you attempt to collect data, be as transparent about what data you are collecting and have an updated Privacy Policy in place. Commit to keeping consumers’ data safe, and don’t ask for more information than you absolutely need.

Building marketing strategies that appeal to younger audiences can be tricky. Wicked Bionic can help you create culturally relevant marketing that will connect with multicultural and younger audiences. Reach out to us today for more information.

Hot Tip: Advertise on Streaming TV to Reach More Eyeballs

Modern marketers today generally don’t need to be convinced about the value of Internet marketing. As a growing brand, you probably know the necessity of developing a social media presence, and that mass advertising on TV and radio doesn’t reach nearly as many people as it once did.

What you may not understand is why conventional TV spots don’t work anymore and advertisers are moving elsewhere. It’s not just because social media is more popular—it’s also because those viewers went somewhere else—specifically, to streaming television.

The Great Migration

Viewers have been leaving cable and antenna-based television in droves—but they haven’t stopped watching. Sixty percent of adults now subscribe to at least one streaming service (e.g., Hulu, Netflix). Deadline reports another 20 percent of viewers “cut the cord” from cable just last year and now derive all their entertainment from streaming services over the Internet.

Our point? Any well-rounded marketing and advertising brand campaign needs to be seriously discussing streaming advertising and its potential reach. Let’s take a closer look.

Streaming Television—What It Is and How It Works

Most of us don’t really need “streaming media” defined for us, but for marketing purposes, “streaming TV” encompasses any form of digital distribution of video content, whether it’s television shows, movies, news stories, sporting events, etc. Popular streaming platforms today are widespread and include Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, and a host of others. Many popular content companies are now providing their own streaming platforms (e.g., HBO Max, Showtime, Disney+) which may “piggy-back” on other streaming platforms like Amazon or Hulu for an added fee. Even YouTube qualifies as streaming TV by these definitions. Another umbrella term for streaming content is Video-on-Demand (VOD) because, with the exception of live-streamed, most of the content is available any time of day or night—whenever the viewer wants it.

Perhaps more significant from a marketing standpoint is not what classifies as streaming TV, but how it is paid for. Many viewers pay a monthly subscription to these services for commercial-free viewing (known as Subscription Video-on-Demand, or SVOD). However, many platforms like YouTube and Hulu offer a free or very low-cost version of their services by selling ad spots. And some, like PlutoTV and IMDb MTV, only offer a free version with ads. We refer to these as Advertising Video-on-Demand or AVOD).

Maybe you’re starting to see the advertising potential here. Just as strategically-placed ads can reach many thousands of people on social platforms, now creating ads for AVOD platforms can deliver your branding message to a massive number of viewers who have left conventional television behind. By having your marketing agency do deep dive into research on the demographics and interests of viewers who watch specific shows, you can target your consumer advertising much more effectively than was ever possible with broadcast TV.

Los Angeles based Marketing and Advertising Agency Wicked Bionic has owners with over 40 years of experience in entertainment and television. We can help integrate AVOD advertising as part of your broader marketing and branding campaign. Reach out to us for a consultation.

Marketing Strategy: What You Need to Know Before Spending One Cent

If you’ve been feeling like your marketing dollars are being wasted and not delivering on what you had hoped…you’re probably not wrong, and you’re definitely not alone. Small businesses have a notoriously difficult time making sound decisions with their marketing budgets without expert guidance. A survey of small businesses last year found that at least half of them had no marketing plan whatsoever. Other studies have suggested more than 80 percent of small- to mid-size companies have a marketing budget but no written plan to back it up. Los Angeles, marketing and advertising executive Carlos Sapene says, “It’s like fishing in the ocean and hoping to catch some fish. Throwing a lot of money out there and hoping it sticks is not a strategy”.

Our point: You need a plan. You need to develop a marketing strategy before you spend your money. Let’s talk about some common-sense reasons why.

A Marketing Strategy Helps You Identify Your Target Market

Developing a marketing plan requires research and study to create a profile of your ideal customer. Your marketing agency should know how to develop the customer profile that fits with your business and what you offer. To whom, exactly, will you be marketing? Does your target demographic include young professionals or the working class? Are they from a certain age bracket? Will you be marketing to specific ethnic groups? Do your customers live in specific cities or zip codes? Compiling this data helps you make informed decisions on what marketing tactics and messaging will best reach these people.

A Marketing Strategy Helps You Determine What Works for You

The “newest” marketing fad isn’t always the best for every business, nor does every type of marketing work the same for every business. Marketing is never one-size-fits-all. Taking the time to plan a strategy also involves learning about which types of marketing-speak most to your target market while doing justice to your brand and how your company works. By strategizing beforehand, you’ll avoid wasting marketing dollars on campaigns and platforms that don’t connect the right consumer to your brand.

A Marketing Strategy Helps You Track Your Results

The one thing that’s more painful than wasting marketing dollars is failing to understand why and how the dollars were wasted. When you make a plan, you also allocate the budget around that plan—then you track the results. When you see your actual ROI on your marketing budget, you can see what works and what doesn’t, make changes, test and test again—or reallocate marketing dollars away from strategies that failed and toward those that succeeded.

At Wicked Bionic, we make a point of learning everything we can about our clients and their businesses so we can help devise a customized marketing strategy designed to get maximum results. Schedule an appointment and let Wicked Bionic develop an effective marketing strategy for your business.

Important Trends for Marketing to Hispanics

Much of the Hispanic population growth in recent years has come from birth, rather than migration. The so-called “Generation Z” is becoming increasingly Hispanic, with 1 in 4 school-age Americans now of Latin descent. Ninety percent of these young people are American-born, and they tend to have different priorities and worldviews than their parents. While they are mainly bilingual, most prefer English to Spanish—and those old enough to spend money tend to buy online. Brands would do well to pay attention to the Gen-Z Hispanic market’s revenue potential and begin crafting campaigns to reach them.

The Hispanic Population Is Becoming More Affluent

In the wake of the Great Recession, recent research indicates the median personal income among Hispanics has risen by 5 percent, compared to 3 percent for the population as a whole—and for foreign-born Hispanics, the increase has been 14 percent. Sixty percent of Latino American wage earners now make more than $40,000 per year. Nearly half of US-born Hispanic adults are college-educated. These numbers indicate an overall growth in buying power among the Hispanic community. If your marketing strategy assumes the Hispanics in your target market are blue-collar, low-income earners, these are assumptions that need to be revised.

Hispanic Growth into New Areas

While border states like California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas typically have higher Hispanic numbers, the overall growth extends into areas you might not expect. At least 13 states have seen their Latino population exceed 10 percent over the past decade, including places like Wyoming, Idaho, Connecticut, Idaho, and even Hawaii. Brands focusing their reach on local areas should dig a little deeper into the numbers to ensure they aren’t missing a key demographic in their marketing strategies.

Wicked Bionic works overtime to gather the latest data on demographics and marketing trends, and we can provide actionable strategies to improve your marketing strategies to Hispanics and other segments. Give us a call to see how we can directly grow your business.