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What the Media Wants from Brands

Journalists and bloggers aren’t getting what they want from brands, which means brands are getting less publicity in media stories. That’s the primary finding from the PRESSfeed 2012 Online Newsroom and Digital Media Relations Survey. Today, journalists and bloggers find stories in different ways and expect story sources, like corporate newsrooms,to provide more than a bit of text if they want to see their brand names in media coverage.

The problem for corporate newsrooms whose employees work to generate publicity for the company and its brands is that they don’t know what journalists and bloggers want from them anymore. Times have changed and the statistics below show you what journalists think is important versus what corporate public relations professionals think is important:

  • Images: 80% of journalists vs. 26% of PR professionals think images are important.
  • Embed Codes: 76% of journalists vs. 28% of PR professionals think images are important.
  • Video: 75% of journalists vs. 43% of PR professionals think video is important.

The disparity between what journalists think is important to get from PR professionals and what PR professionals think is important to give journalists is significant. Despite the fact that research has shown images can increase story views by more than 75%, only 56% of PR professionals routinely include images with their press releases.

Furthermore, since more than three-quarters of Internet users get their news online today, it’s more important than ever to optimize story content for search engines. Images can also be search optimized, which means not only are images and video useful in getting journalists to notice and write about your brand’s news, they also help more people find those published stories via search engines. That means more exposure for your brand!

The infographic below shows all of the key data from the 2012 Online Newsroom and Media Relations Survey.

Click the image to view the full-size infographic in PDF format.

pressfeed infographic

What’s Next for Branded Apps? [Infographic]

age of apps infographic thumbnailThe past, present, and future of mobile apps, including branded apps, are depicted visually in an infographic from Neolane, which is shown below.

The Age of Apps infographic starts in 1993 when the first touchscreen phone debuted by IBM followed nine years later in 2002 with RIM’s first BlackBerry device. Fast forward just five years later to 2007 and Apple debuted the revolutionary iPhone. One year later in July 2008, Apple launched the App Store (followed in October 2008 by Google’s Android Market launch) and the worlds of mobile devices and mobile apps have never been the same.

By April 2009, over 1 billion apps had been downloaded from the Apple App Store, and exactly one year later, the iPad debuted. By August 2010, the Android Market reached over 1 billion apps downloaded. In 2012, Google Play (the new name launched this year for the Android Market) had reached over 15 billion app, and the Apple App Store exceeded 25 billion app downloads.

So what’s next for mobile apps? And why does it matter for brands? According to the infographic, some very important things will happen by 2016 that relate directly to brands:

  • By 2016, 44 billion apps downloaded
  • By 2016, app-to-person messaging will overtake text messaging
  • By 2016, 70% of iPhone users will have downloaded apps from well-known brands
  • By 2016, 60% of iPhone users will be interested in downloading apps from well-known brands

Check out the suggestions for creating branded apps based on the research presented in the infographic below. Hopefully, it will get your mobile creative juices flowing!

age of apps infographic

Image: Neolane

Uncover The Clue to Hue – Color and Corporate Web Design


Color counts. It affects humans in numerous ways, spanning from mood to motor skills. For example, the color red can increase heart rate and blood pressure.  Surprisingly it can also increase the amount of electrical activity in the brain as well as one’s eye-blink rate.

When it comes to web design, color is a substantial feature.  However, not all web designers are aware of the psychological and physiological effects of color. Color is  often an afterthought, applied in a random fashion with no regard for its potential effects on the user. This also means that little consideration is made as to how color can be used to enhance the user experience. This is an opportunity that should not be overlooked.

Below are descriptions of the psychological and physiological effects of colors often used in web design:

  • Red – The traditional hue of red elicits extremes on both side of the emotional spectrum; it can evoke passionate love or intense anger. It can also increase restlessness and tension. Therefore it is best to use modified versions of red, such as pink, maroon,  or  rose.
  • Orange – Highly saturated oranges can come across as intrusive, and even invasive. Experts agree that it is best to use oranges with lower levels of saturation because they create an energetic, lively, and jovial mood. The use of orange is believed to be particularly effective in the food service industry.
  • Yellow – Yellow is consistently considered a cheerful color. Unlike orange, saturation levels have very little effect on its cheerful expression. In regards to physiology, yellow has been found to  speed metabolism. It requires intense focus of the eye, making it an excellent color to use to catch the user’s attention.
  • Green – Green is associated with life, health, and nature. It has a calming effect with the ability to increase concentration and enhance meditative states. While red increases tension and restlessness, green has a calming effect that reduces muscle tension.
  •  Blue – Blue is a safeguard color – not many people dislike blue. It represents calmness, security, and trust. Most importantly, it is a universally appreciated color, regardless of culture.
  •  White, Black, & Grey – These three commonly used colors are both psychologically and physiologically neutral. They do have symbolic meaning, however. White symbolizes purity and cleanliness. Black has negative connotations while grey is simply passive.

The most important thing to understand about color is that it is culturally defined and personality dependent. For example, white means purity in certain parts of the world but it symbolizes funerals in others. Also, red may be appreciated for its invigorating effects by an extroverted person, but avoided for these very same effects by someone who is introverted.

When it comes to color and corporate website design, it is important to keep two things in mind:

  1. Know the target audience. By knowing the demographics and even personality characteristics of the target audience, one can tailor the website palette to cater to their color preferences.
  2. The goal is to keep physiological and psychological arousal to a minimum. So it may be wise to use neutral colors in the website design.

Remember, color can improve a website just as easily as it can detract. When used correctly, color is a powerful and easy tool to enhance user experience, thus enhancing consumer trust.

References:

For physiological effects of the color red

http://www.jjtok.io/3m10p/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Effect-of-Color-on-Store-Design.pdf

For psychological and physiological effects of color

http://www.amazon.com/Color-Human-Response-Aspects-Reactions/dp/0471288640

Computer Anxiety & Older Adults: Using Self-Efficacy to Break Usage Barriers

According to the U.S. Census Bureau 2012 Statistical Abstract of the United States, adult Internet users over the age of 65 jumped from 28% in 2005 to 42% in 2011.

Although this is an substantial jump in Internet usage among older adults, over 50% of this age group is still not benefiting from the Internet. Why?

There are several proposed reasons why millions of the elderly still do not use the Internet, computer anxiety being the largest factor.  Computer anxiety prevents older adults from gaining the social, economic, and interpersonal benefits that the Internet can provide.

Computer anxiety is partially due to the fact that most corporate website developers tend to overlook older adults as a part of the potential user audience. In fact, most website designs actually make computer anxiety worse in older adults.

An important psychological principle termed self-efficacy is deeply intertwined with computer anxiety and older adults. Self-efficacy, in short, is one’s belief in their ability to complete a specific task. Computer self-efficacy then, is one’s perceived ability to use technology such as computers and the Internet. Research shows a direct relationship between computer self-efficacy and computer anxiety; those with high computer self-efficacy have lower computer anxiety.

Self-efficacy is a key determinant in motivation and behavior; those with high computer self efficacy are more likely to be more motivated to face the challenges of using the Internet and thus more likely to engage in online usage. Computer self-efficacy can be increased by  ‘mastery experiences’, or successful computer experiences. For example, if one has low computer self-efficacy, but then master a certain element of Internet use, then computer self-efficacy increases and computer anxiety decreases.

The problem lies in the absence of ‘senior-friendly’ websites, and the related lack of opportunity for such mastery experiences. The National Institute of Aging and the National Library of Medicine addressed this problem by publishing Making Your Website Senior Friendly: A Checklist. This publication provides 25 guidelines to make websites more accessible to older adults. It covers three main categories:

  1. Designing readable text
  2. Increasing memory and comprehension of web content
  3. Increasing the ease of navigation

This publication enables web designers to help build the computer self-efficacy of older adults. Tactics as simple as incorporating specific fonts (i.e. sans serif typeface) or offering web site tutorials, can help to increase computer self-efficacy in older adult users, and empower them to take advantage of the benefits of the Internet.

An abundant amount of research indicates self-efficacy has a strong determinant on motivation and behavior. It has been applied to health, sports, interpersonal skills, academics, public speaking, and recovery from trauma. Not only is it powerful, but it is also easy to develop under the right conditions.

Website developers who incorporate ‘senior-friendly’ elements to their websites will enable older adults to partake in the social, economical, and personal benefits that can be obtained from Internet use.

References

For the U.S. Census Bureau, 2012 Statistical Abstract of the United States:

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1158.pdf

For the National Institute of Aging and the National Library of Medicine publication Making Your Website Senior Friendly: A Checklist.

http://www.nia.nih.gov/health/publication/making-your-website-senior-friendly

For more information on self-efficacy in general:

http://jamiesmithportfolio.com/EDTE800/wp-content/PrimarySources/Bandura3.pdf

For more information on computer self-efficacy:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0305048395000356

For more information on ‘senior-friendly’ websites:

http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/61/older_adults.htm

The Intersection of Marketing Theory and Investor Relations

target by segmentBoiled down to its essence, investor relations is consultative selling.

Investor relations professionals want the right type of customers (investors) to buy a piece of their company (stock) and to have a good ownership experience (own the stock for a long period of time).

The potential market for a company’s stock is vast, covering institutional investors and individual investors, who can be either domestic or foreign. Because the market is far larger than can be reached by a typical investor relations department, it requires careful application of available resources. This is where the marketing tools become useful.

Often, when you speak to people in the profession of investor relations, they speak about “targeting” investors. However, marketing theory teaches that targeting is only one-third of a process of segmentation, targeting and positioning.

Segmentation

Segmentation refers to the process of breaking down the investor base into distinct groupings so that an investor relations department can deal with a clearly identifiable classification. There are a number of ways to whittle down the investment universe, starting with separating active from passive shareholders. It obviously does no good to pursue index funds as they will simply hold you in proportion to your weighting in the index. Next, you can classify investors as either short term or long term. Considering the time and effort it takes to get an investor to buy your stock, many companies will consider it far preferable to have investors who will be around for a while, but as discussed below, this may not always be the case. Next you might wish to consider the groupings of institutional versus individual shareholders and how to divide your time and efforts.

At this point, the process should be clear that regardless of how you wish to divide up investors, you will need to clearly break them down in to manageable groupings.

Targeting

Once segments are identified, marketing principles state that the attractiveness of each segment needs to be evaluated. For many companies, the obvious choice here is the segment of investors that are active, long term investors. These may be institutional, because that is where much of the investible funds reside, however, some companies may also wish to consider individual shareholders for the desirable qualities of low turnover and loyalty to company products. Some companies, particularly those with low trading volumes and visibility might wish to target more active short term investors in order to raise their liquidity profiles. The point here is that companies need to consider their individual situation before making a judgment about their optimum target investor.

Positioning

The final step in the three part marketing process is positioning – what is the appropriate information about what the company is and where it’s going and that can be presented to the target investor that will resonate with the investor’s style, portfolio constraints and investment philosophy. For example, new, quickly growing companies will be presenting to growth investors who will want to know about market growth, new products, research and development spending and other items that will further enhance growth. On the other hand, mature companies will likely be marketing to Growth at a Reasonable Price or value investors and will choose to emphasize financial returns, margins and operational efficiencies.

There you have the basic marketing principles applied to investor relations in a nutshell – segment your investors, target the most attractive segments and position your company message to fit the investor profiles you have targeted.

PPC Accounts for Only 6% of U.K. Search Clicks

mouse clickAccording to a study of 1.4 billion successful search queries from 28 million people in the United Kingdom, which was conducted by GroupM UK and Nielsen, only 6% of clicks from search engines come from paid search while 94% come from natural (unpaid) search.

The research also found that women are more likely to click on PPC search results (53%) than men (47%).

Furthermore, the number of people who click on paid search results increases with age as follows:

  • Ages 2-17 = 5% click
  • Ages 18-24 = 11% click
  • Ages 25-34 = 18% click
  • Ages 35-44 = 21% click
  • Ages 45-54 = 21% click
  • Ages 55+ = 23% click

Brands will be interested to learn that the study found 80% of U.K. searches for brand terms ended with the searcher clicking on the first search result. In fact, just 10% of respondents clicked beyond the third result for branded search terms. That’s significantly different from the 39% of people who click on search results after the first three for non-brand search terms.

Furthermore, industry affects click-through rates (CTRs) as well. The study found the highest CTRs for search result positions one, two, and three in the following verticals: airlines (93%), auto manufacturer (84%), and broadcast media (83%). On the other side of the spectrum, the lowest CTRs for search results positions one, two, and three were found in computers and consumer electronics (56%), home and gardens (60%), and current events/news (69%).

More data is offered in the infographic below from eConsultancy, which was produced by MEC and Neo Mammalian Studios. There is a lot of information in it that could be considered as you develop your paid search strategy for your brand in the future.
Evaluating the UK search marketing landscape infographic
Econsultancy.com – Become a smarter digital marketer

Image: Ariel da Silva Parreira