The Missing Piece In Digital Marketing – Please Don’t Stop The Music?

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In all the talk today about the importance of content, it’s occurred to me that one area digital marketers are overlooking is music. Specifically, the valuable role a great (or hated) jingle can play. Some may make you want to tear your hair out, but you have to admit, sometimes the worst ones are the most memorable.

With the rising popularity of brief videos like 6 seconds on Vine, or 15 seconds on Instagram, we continue to focus on visual aspects – but music has always played an important role in helping folks recall your brand. Like other traditional advertising, digital marketers don’t have to spend big to incorporate music into our their content efforts. Even in the earlier days of social media, companies like Animoto understood this and made music a crucial element in its tool, allowing users to combine original or royalty-free music with slideshows to create cool videos. Yet even they don’t mention “make a jingle” as one of their suggested Top 5 Ways to Use Video for Business. Of course, nobody likes elevator music, so grab an intern with a guitar or an executive who sings on the side (you never know – one of our old clients is now a blues singing sensation!), write some funny lyrics and try adding them to your next video. I mean if the Hoff can sell “Thirsty for your Love” you can sell “I got the customer service blues,” right?!

And for inspiration, here are – for better or worse – some of the most memorable ad jingles our staff shared with me. What would you add to the list?

Empire Carpet

 
F-R-E-E Credit Report

 
Kay Jewelers 

 
Luna Flooring

 
1-800-54 Giant

 
Geico, who believe so strongly in the power of jingles that they feature “Music From Our Commercials” on their site.

http://www.geico.com/about/commercials/music/

 

“Effective Executive” Series with Ric Calvillo of Nanigans

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ricThis week’s “Effective Executive” interview is with Ric Calvillo, co-founder and CEO of Nanigans. Nanigans is pioneering the next evolution in media buying with its predictive lifetime value platform for performance marketing.

Ric Calvillo is Nanigans’ co-founder and CEO. Ric has over 20 years of startup experience, having founded and led three technology companies. Prior to co-founding Nanigans, Ric was Founder & CEO of Incipient, Inc., a venture-backed data storage infrastructure software company.

We asked Ric about his current role and the early days in his career as well as what is next for Nanigans for the remainder of 2013.

Can you explain your technology in simple terms for our audience?

Nanigans is the transformative SaaS platform for performance marketers, focusing on customer predictive lifetime value at scale. Most of our clients right now are in the e-commerce, travel and gaming verticals and use Nanigans across social and mobile.

 

What is the most exciting part of your role as CEO and Founder at Nanigans?

The most exciting part would be watching the growth of our customers, employees and the overall business. I started Nanigans in 2010 with the simple idea that performance marketing was inherently broken, and just a few short years later we’re up over 200 customers, 100+ employees and have offices around the world. Feeding off of the energy and successes of Nanigans employees is also contagious, and that vibrant culture is seemingly always on display walking around any of our offices.

 

Back in the early days of your career, what did you envision Nanigans to be? Have you met or exceeded your expectations?

I always wanted marketers to buy media based more on data than anything else. We know that consumers want to see a certain amount of offerings from advertisers and engage, especially online. For us, it was helping our customers find those purchase-minded consumers at scale and develop long-term relationships with their best target audiences.

 

In such a fast-paced tech industry, how do you keep up with the constant changes and developments?

We have an always-on engineering team. There’s no “easy solution” or “10 step method” to keeping up with the ever-changing tech industry. We focus on partnerships, planning and execution to ensure we’re always meeting goals. Our team meets every day to confirm nuances or updated plans, and we all sit together in an open floor plan to ensure open communication can happen in-person not just via email or phone.

 

You recently celebrated a huge milestone (1 Billion conversations enabled), how did you celebrate internally and how does this milestone motivate you and your Company to achieve future goals?

It’s always nice to highlight “big wins” for the company, so we celebrated the same way we always do, which means to take a step back for a moment and understand the impact and then move on. This industry changes on a dime, and we’ve seen great companies fail in the past few years so we don’t like to spend too much time on “accomplishments” but rather focus on how we can continue to provide value for our customers and innovate within the industry.

 

What is next for Nanigans for the remainder of 2013?

We’re focusing on how to best scale the business. In terms of verticals, we like ecommerce, travel, gaming and a few others while also looking at where to expand geographically. We currently have offices in Boston/NYC/SF/UK, which leaves a lot of opportunity on the table so finding the right combination for growth while continuing to maintain our level of quality and success for our customers is the main priority right now.

 

 

PerkettPR Staff Picks for Must-Read Summer Books

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Photo courtesy of m-trends.org

Photo courtesy of m-trends.org

It’s safe to say that communications professionals are pretty voracious readers. After all, our business is staying on top of and in the mix with massive amounts of content, so there’s more than a good chance that our eyeballs track back and forth across screens and pages for at least part of each day.

But when was the last time you really read something? No, we’re not talking about Google alerts, news scans, blogs or client placements – but a good old-fashioned (or digitized for our Kindle/iPad contingent!) book.

Summer is the perfect time to make a dent in your personal library – and if you want a little inspiration, check out what’s on our must-read list while squeezing in some vacation time before the kids head back to school:

Professional/Business Reading

Personal/Pleasure Reading

  • South of Broad by Pat Conroy: “Not a quick beach read, but his stories about the south and all of its many charms are always a nice escape to somewhere warm and different. I really liked Beach Music, too, and would recommend that first to see if you like Conroy’s style.”
  • Inferno by Dan Brown: “Brown’s books speak to my appreciation of history and my interest in the impact of religion on society and culture, as well as my (and everyone else’s) fascination with a good conspiracy theory.”
  • The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins: “I’m a little slow to the party with these, but better late than never! They’re chock-full of cliffhangers, so I’m on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what Katniss Everdeen will face next.”
  • Most Talkative: Stories from the Front Lines of Pop Culture by Andy Cohen: “I’m reading it on the iPad and absolutely loving it…super funny!”
  • A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness: “I quickly read through this and book two (Shadow of Night) and am now eagerly anticipating the next in the series. A history scholar and teacher, Harkness combines her passion and curiosity to create an amazing, rich story and uniquely compelling characters that stay with you long after the book ends.”
  • The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer: “If you’re looking for more intellectually stimulating material…I just finished it, and it’s terrific!”
  • Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich: “I’m hooked on them and am eagerly awaiting number 20. Any book that has you laughing out loud is better than therapy as far as I’m concerned!”

If one of your favorite books didn’t make the list, let us know. What are some of your recommended summer reads?

Persuasive Picks For Week Of 6/17/13

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hashtag1The popularity of the hashtag (#) has just received another boost with the recent news that Facebook will now be rolling them out to users. While most of us are familiar with hastags and their rise to fame on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, their background and meaning remains shrouded in internet lore. Who created the hashtag? Why is it called a pound sign, number sign, and a host of other names? And when we use them, are they actually helpful? EContent‘s Jose Castillo explains The Humble History of the Hashtag #And #Why #It #Matters.

Social media can level the playing field between industry leaders and upstarts, between multinational corporation executives and small-business owners, making peers of all participants. So what makes the difference between a following of 500 and a following of 500,000? Brian Patrick Eha, Assistant Editor at Entrepreneur.com, provides 5 Social Media Rules Every Entrepreneur Should Know culled from darlings of the current social media landscape. Use these tips to increase your influence and make a direct impact on your business strategy.

types-of-social-media-followers-peekTake a look at how many fans your company has on its social platforms. Now, look at how many of those fans are active and how they interact with your brand. There are all types of fans to consider; the casual liker, the deal seeker, and of course the ranters. So what other types of social media fans exist? MarketingProfs‘ Verónica Maria Jarski posts an infographic that provides profiles and suggestions for reaching various fan types in Seven Types of Social Media Fans and How to Engage With Them [INFOGRAPHIC].

Relatively recently, YouTube made a change to their ranking algorithm to favor watch time, which means the longer you can keep viewers tuned in to your videos, the higher they will rank in search. This doesn’t mean, however that you should make lots of long-form videos of 15 minutes or more. Watch time simply means the length of time your videos keep a viewer on the site. In ReelSEO‘s latest “Creator’s Tip #96” How to Increase YouTube Watch Time by Linking to Playlists, host Tim Schmoyer offers this subtle method to get viewers watching more videos per session.

That’s A Wrap! Now What?

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mlp-countdown2Note: This is the second installment of our two part video production tips post. Read part one in Lights, Camera, Action, Oh My? 

So, you’ve finished your big video shoot and now you have an assemblage of footage that could benefit from editing. It’s important to understand that video editing is not just about trimming the footage; it’s also about creating flow and emotion, as well as making it entertaining. Editing a video that has good flow and some catchy music will make all that time you took shooting the video worth it. But first you’ll need to choose a video editor.

Video editors like Adobe Premier and Final Cut Pro are largely regarded as the most comprehensive video editing applications, but they are costly tools for beginners to learn on. Luckily there a number of free options available to everyone.

Mac users shouldn’t need to be reminded of iMovie, Apple’s movie editing software that is included on all new Macs. And Windows users can download Windows Live Movie Maker. Even YouTube has it’s own Video Editor. These tools all have pretty intuitive interfaces that allow you to easily trim video segments and drag-and-drop video segments along a timeline. They also provide the ability to add music tracks, text overlays and other simple effects.

Now that you have a video editor, here are some tips to help you polish your video into engaging content that everyone will want to watch:

  • Create a “rough cut.” Review all your footage and trim into usable segments, then organize chronologically.
  • Tell your story. Think about what you are trying to convey to the viewer and organize your segments to enhance that feeling. Don’t be afraid to try different things and to cut footage that just doesn’t fit.
  • Don’t make too many cuts. Try to use shots around 5 seconds each, this is roughly the time it take for the human eye to digest the picture. Any less time between cuts and your video may appear “strobe” like and this could make the viewer feel anxious. Longer shots could bore your viewer if there isn’t a good mix of interesting images and movement.
  • Add effects. Adding transitions and overlays can bump up the cool factor, but try not to overdo it. Use overlays to give viewers context and reminders, but only use them for the first 3-5 seconds of a clip. Adding transitions can enhance the beauty or feeling of your video, but keep it simple with cross-fades and forego the checkerboard wipes and twirling effects. Try different things, play it back a few times, and decide what effects are most appropriate for your audience.
  • Add intros and outros. Not only does adding title slides or credits make your video look professional, it’s a good way to set up the point of your video for viewers – and to spell out what you would like viewers to do after watching the video.
  • Use basic fonts. It is a much safer bet to stick with proven fonts like Times, Arial, Tahoma, Garamond, Helvetica, etc. Reason being, they are easier to read when watching a small video on a mobile device. This may sound contrary to flexing your creative side, but using decorative fonts can actually make your video look amateur rather than creative.
  • Add a music track. Adding an underlying music track can bring a completely different message to your viewer. Try different types of music to see how it impacts the mood of your video. Music tracks can also camouflage unintentional background noise in your footage. Before making your music selections, it would be wise to familiarize yourself with Creative Commons and Public Domain Music and Royalty Free Music.

Have some basic video editing tips of your own? We would love to hear them in the comments below.

5 Desk Exercises for Busy PR People

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desk-exercises-300x199Between client deadlines, monitoring headlines – and everything in between – regular gym visits all too often slip down (or completely off) a PR person’s daily to-do list.

But this lack – or total absence – of activity is serious business: According to this infographic by Medical Billing & Coding, most of us spend more time on our behinds (9.3 hours per day) than in bed (7.7 hours a day), and this sedentary lifestyle (i.e. sitting for more than six hours a day) can increase your risk of death up to 40 percent.

Wait…what? Yes, simply put, the more you sit, the shorter your lifespan, which is a very scary prospect.

But the good news is there’s something we can do about it. Even if squeezing in an hour-long sweat session into your day isn’t feasible, there’s still hope for staying in shape. By incorporating short bursts of exercise into your day, it’s easy to increase your overall level of physical activity and help stave off things like obesity and cardiovascular disease.

This doesn’t have to involve sprinting around the office so you arrive sweaty to meetings, however; keep it simple and gradually work your way up to more movement as your body adapts.

Here are a few simple desk exercises to get you started.

  1. Chair Dips. Sit on the edge of your office chair (without wheels is best!) and place your hands on the edge of the seat, fingers facing your body. Slowly lift off the seat, and lower your body toward the floor, bending elbows into a 90-degree angle. Push yourself up, using your triceps.
  2. Plank. Work your entire core by positioning yourself, facing down, with both hands and toes on the floor (like the upper part of a push-up). Keep back straight, and pull your belly button upward to engage abs. Hold for one minute.
  3. Lunges & Squats. In the comfort of your cubicle, time yourself for 30-second sets that combine stationary lunges (alternating sides) with squats to wake up your entire lower body.
  4. Incline Pushups. Stand a few feet away from your desk, placing both hands on the edge. Carefully lower yourself so your chest is a few inches from the top of the desk, before pushing back up to engage your chest, arms and upper back.
  5. “Pushouts.” Stretch your back and strengthen your biceps by sitting in your chair (a rolling one this time!) and grasping the edge of your desk. Slowly push back until your head is between your arms and you’re looking at the floor, and then pull yourself back in.

Perform three rounds of each exercise with 10 reps each (and just three one-minute segments of the plank) for a complete workout, or break it down and do one exercise at a time throughout the day.

What are you waiting for? Get off that heiney and on the road to better health!

Persuasive Picks For Week Of 6/10/13

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SOCIAL-MEDIA1-300x3001Every marketer expects a return on their social media efforts, but many still struggle with prioritizing which social networks to use – and how to allocate resources. In Social Media ROI for Business: Facebook Versus LinkedIn, business strategist and Business2Community contributor, Daniel Burrus explains that when you understand the psychology of social media and the various types of networking that fall under each umbrella, you can make smarter social media decisions for your business.

Many see content marketing as just that—marketing. But smart marketers know content simply provides the avenue for storytelling. MarketingProfs‘ Jay Pinkert provides some advice on how to grab attention and connect with potential customers, through those stories, and to do it authentically in his post Make Content Marketing Authentic: The Case of Customer Stories.

influencersEveryone preaches about building relationships with online influencers, but no one ever shares tips for how to do that. So, How Do You Find Influencers in Your Area to Help Grow Your Business?  SocialMediaToday contributor, Jennifer MacDonald, explains how to identify and build relationships with influencers in four simple steps.

It’s an age old question that nags all marketers at one time or another:  “How can I get more followers on Twitter?” While quantity shouldn’t trump quality, like it or not, people can and will judge you on the size of your Twitter network. If you want to know how to make your Twitter content more attractive to potential subscribers check out Shea Bennett’s post on AllTwitter: 7 Tips To Get More Followers On Twitter [INFOGRAPHIC].

The Perfect Pitch In PR – Not So Different Than Baseball?

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With headquarters in Boston, the PerkettPR team is naturally composed of many sports fans. As we gear up to watch the Bruins win the Stanley Cup, keep an eye on the Red Sox and their unique manner of winning, and listen to the controversy over the New England Patriots‘ most recent player acquisition, we can’t help but think about how PR is often a lot like sports. It takes a team to win, but each player must be at their best and support each other. You’ve got to keep an eye on the ball, practice a lot, and analyze your plays in order to stay ahead of the competition. If your pitches aren’t quite right, you’ve got to recalibrate or sometimes pull the player. You’ve also got to deal with tough management decisions and sometimes you have to rebuild after a bad season where things didn’t quite work out the way you had planned.

In particular, we liken PR to baseball – how could we not with all those PR “pitches” – in the graphic below. What do you think – did we score?

ppr_pitch_tips_graphic

“Influencers Who Inspire” Our Latest Interview with Kate Gamble, Managing Editor, healthsystemCIO.com

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KG_LinkedIn (3)This week’s interview is with Kate Gamble, Managing Editor of healthsystemCIO.com.  Gamble has copious experience covering the healthcare IT field, and prior to her role at healthsystemCIO.com, Gamble worked as senior editor of Pharmacy Times. And, earlier, worked with healthsystemCIO.com Editor-in-Chief Anthony Guerra at Healthcare Informatics magazine, ultimately attaining the title of associate managing editor. Gamble has interviewed dozens of CIOs and attended numerous annual conferences such as HIMSS and MGMA, as well as local HIMSS events. We caught up with Gamble and asked her what is currently on top of mind for healthcare CIOs, her background in healthcare and sports journalism and what is next for her for the remainder of 2013.

 

What is the best part of your job/career?

There are so many things I love about my job. First, I work for someone I truly respect. Anthony Guerra and I are a great team — not just because we see eye-to-eye on many key issues, but also because I know I can speak up when I don’t agree with something. I realize how lucky I am to have a job where I’m given complete latitude regarding editorial decisions. The fact that Anthony trusts me to make decisions motivates me to work that much harder. Second, I love being part of the healthcare IT industry during such a transformative and interesting time period. And third, I think it’s such a unique privilege to spend so much time speaking to CIOs, the people who are guiding the industry through this evolution.

 

With the boom in healthcare technology, is it easier or harder to source quality content for healthsystemCIO?

I would say that it’s easier to source content — the field of healthcare IT is growing so rapidly. There are always new technologies and new players entering the game and raising the bar. What can be tricky, however, is finding quality content. healthsystemCIO.com adheres to all standard journalistic practices, and we are vigilant about maintaining separation between editorial and advertising. As a result, we’ve had to decline interviews and contributed pieces on several occasions, but I think it’s imperative that we maintain a high standard.

 

What is one healthcare tech product you think can have a real impact on our healthcare system?

One topic that often comes up in our interviews with CIOs is mobile device management in the hospital and physician practice settings. iPhones have absolutely changed the game. The demand from clinicians became so overwhelming that CIOs had to find a way to enable them to view electronic records on these devices, while ensuring data is protected. Mobile device management now plays a key role in the CIO’s strategy. To me, that shows the impact that iPhones have had, and it’s only going to grow as more patient-focused apps become available. These devices could also have a significant role in the growing field of telemedicine. It’ll be interesting to watch.

 

In a recent article, you mentioned you’re a fan of the Food Network. What other TV captures your attention and why?

My husband and I like to watch HGTV — it’s amazing to see how a home can be transformed. It shows what a difference it can make when you use your imagination and think out of the box (of course, it helps to have a crew of designers and builders at your disposal). I also love to watch baseball and football. I’ve been a big sports fan my whole life and I’ve found that a lot of the inspiration for my blog posts has come from sports. One piece I’m really proud of compared the leadership styles of NY Giants coach Tom Coughlin and NY Jets coach Rex Ryan.

 

You interview dozens of healthcare CIOs – what is the single biggest concern they’re facing today?

The recurring theme in many of the interviews I’ve conducted is that CIOs simply have too much on their plates. With deadlines looming for federal incentive programs, organizations are being asked to accomplish so much, and in such a short timeframe — all while staying under budget. Specifically, one of the biggest challenges for CIOs is being able to recruit and retain top IT talent. The demand far outweighs the supply.

 

 

Have you always worked in healthcare media? Why? 

No – I actually worked in the newspaper industry for several years, mostly as a sports writer, and the experience I gained was invaluable. In the newspaper environment, there is no room for error. Editors are tough, deadlines are extremely tight, and if you make a mistake, there’s no erasing it (and no hiding from an angry coach or parent). I loved the energy in the newsroom, but I wanted to explore other areas of writing. I kind of “fell into” healthcare writing and I’ve never looked back. I feel so privileged to be part of such a rapidly evolving industry. The digitization of health records is changing the way care is delivered, and to have a front-row seat is amazing.

 

It seems nearly every publication these days is moving toward a contributed content model at least to some degree. Do you view this as a good thing for the industry or not?

I view it as a positive; however, I think it’s critical that publications hold themselves to high standards and ensure that all content — whether it comes from an outside source or a staff-writer — is useful and interesting to the reader, contains accurate information, and is free of any conflicts of interest.

 

What is next for you for the remainder of 2013?

Our goals at healthsystemCIO.com are to further expand our CIO audience and continue to produce quality interviews, publish solid contributed pieces, and grow our webinar program. I truly believe that we offer a unique product that serves as a resource to key decision-makers. On a personal level, I hope to work toward being a better mom (to my 1-year-old twins) and wife (to my husband Dan), and hopefully, watch the Giants make another run at it.

Persuasive Picks For Week Of 6/3/13

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many-suited-businessmen-300x168Knowing how to convey tone in your online writing – including blogs, Tweets, Facebook posts, pins, etc. – is to know your business inside and out. SocialMediaToday’s Kylie Robertson asks readers “If your business were a person, what would it look like?”- stressing the importance of personality, because that’s what your company will be perceived as online: a person. Read more about writing with the right tone in mind in Who Does Your Company Sound Like? Finding Your Tone in Social Media Writing

Social media and blogging has gone from being an activity we started just for  fun and pleasure, to a more serious business. If you need to market and monetize your business, personal brand, website or blog to take advantage of the opportunities, then you need the right tools, resources and advice to guide you. But the explosion of websites, apps, tools and resources online is often confusing. Business2Community contributor Jeff Bullas narrows it down to 39 Awesome Tools and Resources for Blogging and Social Media Marketing.

emailA recent survey of more than 1,000 mobile device users found that for the first time ever, email is the primary reason people are using smartphones. What’s more, emails from brands are second only to personal recommendations when it comes to influencing purchasing decisions on mobile devices. What does that mean for marketers? Michael Truby at PRDaily explains Why Email Is A Key Element Of Mobile Marketing and notes a few key factors to keep in mind.

When marketers list the types of content they’re producing, many put a check next to the box titled “webinars.” These online presentations have been used effectively for many years, and the webinar’s popularity has surged with the decline of tradeshows during the recent recession. But Marketing Automation Evangelist Mathew Sweezey points out that Only 16 Percent of B2B Consumers Prefer Live Webinars, and suggests that implementing three essential techniques will help you earn more ROI out of each webinar and increase lead generation significantly. – via ClickZ