Karen Goldfarb, Copywriter » advertising

I am not a target market

Karen — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 21:44:03 +0000

10 years of ingenious hard-sell condensed to 2 minutes for your modern attention span.

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And if Only 1% of Those People…

Karen — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 08:01:12 +0000

And if only 1% of those people… | Derek Sivers. When expectation regarding circulation and conversion greatly exceed one’s brand, as it were.
(tags: engagement, direct_marketing, advertising)

Ad Concepts from 54 Pics, Plus Theater Lobbies

Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man

Karen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:41:49 +0000

Advertising adds value by changing perception. Rory Sutherland asserts that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as “real” value”. Case in point: don’t miss the Shreddies “relaunch” commercial at around 14 minutes in. It’s priceless.

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Ad Concepts from 54 Pics, Plus Theater Lobbies

Karen — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:01:45 +0000

Creative AD Concepts | 54 Pics |

Creative advertising techniques and ideas + hundreds of example TV, email, print ads

(tags: advertising creative inspiration strategy ideas advertising_concepts)

Seeking New Ad Concepts for Movie Theater Lobbies – Advertising Age – Video

(tags: advertising concepts)

See ART & COPY, the new film about advertising

Karen — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:52:46 +0000

Check out the trailer for ART & COPY, a new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray (SURFWISE, SCRATCH, HYPE!), it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time–people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry. Includes George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Lee Clow, Hal Riney and others who were responsible for “Just Do It,” “I Love NY,” “Where’s the Beef?,” “Got Milk,” “Think Different,” and brilliant campaigns for everything from cars to presidents.

Is the end of traditional media truly nigh?

Karen — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:44:42 +0000

From one of this copywriter’s favorite social networking experts, Sorel Denholtz, in her most recent blog post for Digital Axle.

“If you’re in advertising, you’d better learn to speak digital, because that’s the way the world is going.”

Those words come from Josh Bernoff’s Groundswell blog today, summing up Forrester Research’s just completed five-year interactive marketing forecast. Over 70% of the marketers they surveyed expected the effectiveness of channels like created social media, online video, and mobile marketing to increase, while the effectiveness of direct mail, television, magazines, outdoor, newspapers, and radio would stay the same or decrease.

They expect digital marketing to grow to about 21% of advertising spend in five years, while overall budgets are declining. And of all aspects of digital marketing, social media is the area expected to show the greatest growth, growing from $716 million this year to $3 billion in five years, between social networking campaigns and agency fees. (And this doesn’t include ads on social networks, because those are considered display ads.)

What does all this mean for you, dear friends? Time to get your digital on. Old school just won’t cut it for much longer.

We leave you with this eulogy from, well, a social media site.

Romanelli helps local lumber retailer take on the big guys

Karen — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:43:42 +0000

As part two of my continuing effort as a copywriter and marketing strategist to bring you tales of marketing success in The Current Economy, again, give it up for guest-blogger Bernie Freytag, Creative Director at Romanelli Communications. Bernie will tell you about how this “lean, agile, flexible and focused” agency on the East Coast is helping their clients weather these lean times. In this case, it’s about good ol’ fashioned wood products from JAY-K Lumber.

David (with help from Jack) stands up to Goliath
Romanelli Communications helps local lumber retailer take on the big guys

Marketing and communications expert Romanelli Communications doesn’t like to back down from challenges, especially those facing their clients. The economy was tanking, an extended housing and commercial building slump began, a Home Depot was flourishing down the road, and Lowes had launched a pre-emptive strike by opening a new superstore within sight of privately-owned regional hardware and lumber retailer JAY-K. Many of its kind had thrown in the towel in the face of similarly dire straits.

JAY-K and Romanelli have been taking them on successfully for several years now. While big box stores often employ teens and untrained salespeople, JAY-K’s employees all have years in the business, possess deep knowledge of their specialties, and are relied upon by professional contractors to meet their needs without hesitation. JAY-K’s pros are always happy to share that knowledge with shoppers as well. Romanelli branded them as the local and regional experts of choice, who knew the area and the special needs of its residents. Together they launched a campaign to strengthen that brand and engage the community at every level of promotion.

One unlikely hero: a mannequin dubbed “Jack O’Trade,” dressed like a store employee, who appeared on billboards and around the region to reinforce campaign themes in support of buying local and supporting the community. Jack created a huge PR buzz that resulted in JAY-K feature stories in the major local newspaper and on the NBC affiliate in their hometown. With the addition of a strong online presence and social networking (Jack even has his own MySpace page), JAY-K has posted strong sales through the worst of the economic downturn and in the shadow of the big box stores. They continue to thrive, and are making positive changes inside the store and online to reinforce their brand.

Romanelli has already applied their winning formula to another regional home improvement chain with similarly inspiring results, and is looking to help others beat the giants, and the economic odds, in their own regions.

The Vendor Client relationship – in real world situations

Karen — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:55:20 +0000

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7 superior alternatives to Google Adwords

Karen — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:16:48 +0000

Seven is indeed a lucky number so here are seven tips on selling more, but with a twist. This one is from an unusual source. Tammy Kahn Fennell runs VintageRareStuff.com, a site devoted to selling antiques. Here’s what she says has worked for her when she needed to find ways that outperformed Google Adwords. Looks like soon, everyone will know about direct marketing in all its forms, old and new. Enjoy! (You can see her original post here.)

Those of you who know me know that I spend my of my days dealing with in antiques and collectibles. I love feeling the history in my hands. This is in stark contrast to the way I sell these treasures… through the Internet. Nothing tangible, and I have to try to reach my audience amongst a sea of ‘noise.’

There was a time that I was spending a large part of my budget on Google Adwords to try to get people to find me. And yes, I was getting clicks, but the conversions were very, very low, which was both costly an ineffective. This is why I came up with a new plan. Here are the 7 ways I get people to find us without using Adwords. And guess what? It costs a heck of a lot less!

1. Create a mini site. What is a mini site, you may ask? Well a mini site is an ugly little site with a niche-specific domain name that forces people to make a decision. My shining example of this is www.HummelsHumels.com. First of all, the name is very specific to the Hummel Figurine, which is highly important. The search engines find it easier than my main domain, ‘vintagerarestuff.com’. It has a lot of good words in the top bar above where people can type in a new web address, which also gets Google’s attention. But the most important thing is that it’s SIMPLE. It addresses the topic “Do you have a question about selling your Hummel collection?” and then it gives the person a place to fill in their name and email address to find out how. Very simple. One page. Ugly little site, but does wonders.

2. Start building a list. Once you have a few mini sites out there with forms to contact you, make sure you save their info. I use mycontactform.com and contactology.com. This way, when you have a product of interest, you can send it directly to people who would actually want to know about it. Sending an email to 500 people who care about a subject is better than getting 1,000 clicks from people who are just ‘curious’ on Adwords.

3. Have a presence on eBay. I know, eBay has become a bit of a pain in the you-know-what lately, but they are still the largest e-commerce site, period. Having a presence there gets you higher in Google searches by virtue of the fact that eBay gets higher on Google.

4. Get an account on LinkedIn and join groups. There is a group for nearly anything you can think of on LinkedIn and it’s a vastly underused feature! Recently I posted in 4 collectibles groups “looking for people to interview on Collectibles Corner TV.” In 48 hours I had 5 responses. Do you know how long it used to take to find someone to interview? The same can be done for anything. You sell panini grills? Join the restaurant owner group and start a discussion about commercial grills, then casually mention that you sell them. The exposure is really targeted. Make sure to check the box to be emailed if someone replies so you’re able to follow up.

5. Write a free guide in your niche. Distribute this in every form imaginable. Post it as a page on your web site, devote a mini site to it, sell it for 99 cents on eBay with free shipping in the niche you are catering to. Giving free information is one surefire way to get people to trust you, consider you an expert, and notice you.

6. Write articles and go negative. You can write articles for free on a lot of different sites, and you can also write directly onto your own blog. But negativity often works better. In our panini grill example – a good title would be “Why you NEVER want to buy a 240 Volt Flat Grill made in China”. Then explain why and offer them a solution – something that you can provide

7. Get video. This is the MOST superior alternative to Google Adwords. Search engines love good videos that are well tagged. It’s actually quite amazing. There are services out there that can do this for you for under $600 and will literally take care of everything from production to distribution. When you think about how quickly $500-$600 can go on Adwords, it’s a no-brainer.

7 and-a-half tips to start social networking

Karen — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:09:40 +0000

1. Get on Twitter.

2. Try Twitter Advanced Search to plug in keywords that apply to your business, ideas and interests. (You can even get an RSS feed as new tweets come in with your chosen terms. Personally, I prefer Tweetdeck as it creates columns with your searches in a nice interface and keeps updating them until you delete them.)

2.1/2. If you need help coming up with keywords, use the Google Keyword Tool on Google Adwords to generate keywords. (It’ll even scan your website and suggest keywords based on your content.)

3. Connect with Twitter users who are posting about the topics you’re interested in. Tweet them. Follow them. Let them do the same with you.

4. Do similar things on other social networks like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Orkut, etc. (Check Wikipedia for a list of social networking sites to try. But remember to focus. There’s overlap among social networking sites.)

5. Use Google Blog Search to search for bloggers who may be interested in your topics, too. Then email them, post on their blog, and make contact. Invite them to do the same when appropriate.

6. Consider using a social aggregator to manage all your networks in one place. (I’m using Minggl, mainly because it connects all the networks I’m on and features a status blast so I can update across all of them at once.)

7. Keep focused. Treat social networking like any other professional to-do. Set a goal and stick to it. Social networking is resource- and time-intensive. Enlist help as needed, especially if you’re doing this for a company or organization.