Real Fun with Real Parmesan!

We’re having so much fun working on promotions for our client Parmesan.com.  Today we launched the “Show Us Your Origin” sweepstakes. 

To find out more,  start at the Parmesan.com website or the YouTube channel for Parmesan. 

To enter, you’ll create a short video that shows where you are from, why you love Parmesan, and what your favorite part of Parmesan.com is.  Have fun with it!  Nancy Radke did—watch the “Queen of Cheese” explain the contest (with tiara) while showing us that she hails from Syracuse!

The winner will receive a prize valued at $500, which includes a $250 Visa gift card and a gift basket for making a delicious Italian meal that includes—of course—Parmigiano Reggiano® .

Find out why Parmigiano Reggiano is the king of cheese and tell us why you love it!  Visit: www.parmesan.com  

The SEMPO-sponsored Client/Agency Debate

The annual SEMPO State of Search Marketing Report was recently released and I moderated a panel discussion on its findings at SMX East just last week.  The SEMPO survey is unique as it captures and reports on the same questions asked separately along parallel tracks – one for Clients/Advertisers and the other for Agencies.  This lets me share some of the findings in a fantasy debate style format:

CLIENTS:  We see the most significant top emerging trends in search marketing as being the rise of mobile internet use and Google algorithm updates. 

AGENCIES:  While we agree with the two trends you mention, we actually also rate the rise of local search as a little more significant than Google’s algorithm updates.  Not sure why 41% of you clients feel local is not significant.

CLIENTS:  At least 69% of us are carrying out email marketing for our organization.  That’s a lot more than the 49% of agencies who are doing it.

AGENCIES:  But are you integrating it with your other search tactics?  Probably not as 60% of you treat social media and search engine marketing separately whereas 58% of we agencies see social media as very much a part of our search activity.

CLIENTS:  Yea, well maybe that’s because 64% of us see measuring ROI from our social media efforts as the biggest challenge when it comes to social. 

AGENCIES:  Is that why you pulled back so much on Facebook PPC this year?  Last year 74% of you were using Facebook PPC and this year it’s only 56%.

CLIENTS:  You know our budgets are more fixed than in the past. PPC budget allocation flexibility based on ROI is down from 50% two years ago to just 38% now.

AGENCIES:  It all comes back to integration, doesn’t it?  We see that integration, attribution and measurement with other online/offline marketing channels is one of the SEO challenges clients say grew this past year.   That and hiring/retaining talent.   Maybe we can help you.

CLIENTS:  Really wish you could but management is making us take more of this in-house – especially social which is now handled 63% in-house.

AGENCIES:  There you go again.  Seems every other year clients decide they want to bring search/social in-house and then change their mind when they realize the time and cost to implement exceeds their ability.  Or when Google’s algorithm updates hit you hard.  Talk with you again soon.

Should You Have to Pick Between Traditional and Digital PR?

Nearly everything has gone digital – from television  to our personal interactions.  It seems that you can find and do just about anything with a click of a mouse.  PR is certainly no exception.

In years past, traditional PR consisted of extensive, vertically focused Rolodexes, carefully constructed press kits and press releases sent by mail to media sources.  Now we see a blurring of the lines between PR and Media Relations departments and communications in the social channel by Marketing and  other representatives of organizations (for example, Customer Relations).  What once was a carefully controlled set of outreaches to the media has now become a more serendipitous process through which the media can find your brand and contact you.

Through this blurring of the lines between traditional PR and digital marketing, it has become increasingly apparent that using both in a synergistic manner ultimately yields the best results.

While digital marketing allows a brand to reach audiences directly without the use of an intermediaries (traditional PR agency reaching out to reporters who then get the message to the buyers), it does not guarantee the credible, third-party, authoritative voice that objective journalists bring to the process.  Using a traditional PR in tandem with digital marketing will assure that your brand obtains direct and indirect attention from earned media while still maximizing the use of your owned media.  Traditional PR will allow for direct outreach to the authoritative sources that will talk about your brand, while digital marketing will allow for you to reach your consumers more immediately—and to make it easy for the media to find you when they want to talk, too.

So should you have to pick between traditional PR and digital marketing?  Why not use both?