It’s no secret that women have traditionally been the primary decision makers in the household and advertisers have continually targeted their traditional ad messaging towards them. Since the social network boom has dramatically increased over the past couple of years, and with the new Facebook Timeline layouts and the ability to brand YouTube and Twitter pages, social branding and advertising has shared a bigger role in strategic media planning. This recent Nielsen study, highlighted in this graph, shows that women are more likely than men to be more active on social sites.

In short, advertisers keep doing what you’re doing and apply it to the social realm…because women will continue to dominate! (I just had to throw that in because I am a woman, and may be a little biased)

I’m sure you’ve heard that print is a dying breed.  Yes, newspapers aren’t as many pages as they used to be and their subscriber base has shrunk for all forms of print, but does that mean it’s not worth advertising in?

Rather than focus solely on circulation numbers (the actual number of printed copies), you should look at the medium’s readership (the percentage of adults who read the material) According to Scarborough research on newspapers, for the top 25 DMA’s, newspapers’ readership audience has higher household income levels than the overall median, are 16% more likely to be college graduates, and 11% more likely to be home owners. So what does this mean? Make sure you know your target audience and what their habits are. For example, that stay at home housewife is not the one commuting to work, probably not listening to the radio as much and is not passing billboards. But she may have time to flip through the newspaper or read a magazine while she’s drinking her morning coffee. I’ve been preaching throughout this series about having the right media mix.  If you put all of your eggs in one basket, you’ll be missing out on a potential customer.

So what are my advertising tips on print? If you can budget it, and you know you’ll be advertising often, buy in bulk. Frequency buys WILL save you money.  Make sure that your ad has a call to action. It could be a sale, a special discount to the customer that reads that ad, coupons, etc. You want to drive people to your location. Lastly, you want something that sets you a part from the rest of the crowd. Most likely your competitors are advertising in the same sections or trade publications as you are. Make your creative pop. It could be something as simple as a catchy headline, a crazy creative approach, or my favorite, white space!

As a bonus, here are some clever print ads that I like to help fuel your creative fire. (Severn Savings Bank ad by The Cyphers Agency)

Giveaways are the perfect way to get your product into the hands of your consumers.  But sometimes, we as marketers tend to get a little too ambitious with our out-of-the-box amazing ideas.  Somehow, that crazy giveaway seems like a phenomenal idea at first. You know, the one that requires the consumer to go out and buy a hula-hoop, make a video of themselves doing the “craziest” tricks ever (like jumping through it while it’s on fire – backwards), post it on Facebook, and tag 400 people, all just to get a coupon for 10 cents off. And when our giveaway only resulted in two entries, we wonder why everyone didn’t enter because it was such a creative idea. Turns out that the simplest ideas are the best ones.

Whether a client’s goals are product awareness or trial stimulation, giveaways are a one of a kind way to get the word out about something. But if we’re going to ask the consumer to “jump through a hoop” (get it?), it better be well worth it.  Marketers have to look at two things – the barrier to entry (number of steps the consumer has to take to enter) and the value of the reward. The key to a successful giveaway is to create a balance between the two, but also keeping in mind that the consumer likes to feel that they are getting the better end of the deal. If you want consumers to put some time in, you better come strong with an AMAZING incentive. And these incentives don’t always have to be huge, they just have to be something of value to the consumer – a coupon, exclusive deal, or even providing a head start on getting the latest concert ticket.

Next time you are planning a giveaway, remember that the more you can make the value of the prize outweigh the barrier to entry, the more successful you are going to be. And the happier your consumers are that they’ve gotten something pretty sweet.

Let’s talk about classical music. Now stay with me on this one: I swear it’ll circle back around. Classical music is about as “high culture” as one can get, especially in the musical realm. It’s timeless and self-important. But the classical scene is facing an issue. Modern classical music has abandoned the melody that made pieces by the old greats like Beethoven and Mozart so lasting. Modern classical is a car crash sounding cacophony of dissonant, a-tonal noise and, (surprise, surprise) no one wants to listen to it. People hate it, asking questions like, “Why do we have to listen to music that sounds like buses crashing?” The classical-managerial class (read: snobby rich guys that commission new classical composers) keeps funding it regardless. For the last century they’ve funded new composers who write this car crash music and, when no one wants to listen to it, they blame the audience. “The audience doesn’t get it,” the elites cry! “The audience just wants to be coddled by the old greats instead of learning to appreciate the new,” they bellow! That could be true, or maybe they just don’t like the music?

You already see the marketing lesson coming don’t you? Well, it’s fascinating to watch how even a market as high-brow as classical music is still not safe from Marketing 101: if The Consumer doesn’t like your product, they’re not going to buy it. In the case of modernist classical music, The Consumer has spoken. They don’t like modern classical and they’re not going to pay to listen to it. Sorry guys, game over. Blaming the audiences taste and telling them to grow up is not going to change anything. Sadly, the classical elites aren’t catching the hint. Robert Blumen, writing for Ludwig von Mises Institute economics blog, sums it up well:

Why does the classical-managerial class after a century of its failed agenda not admit that they were wrong and start trying to fund music that people might like? In what other industry would entrepreneurs continue to pour funding into a failed business model?

What a good reminder that marketing and business always come back to The Consumer. You might think your product is great or that your ad is clever as hell or that you “know” better, but if The Consumer doesn’t agree, it’s time to change.

As marketers, we preach on getting inside the mind of our consumer. We praise demographics and psychographics, and find value in knowing that our consumers are of a certain marital status, household income, or age range. We love knowing if they are brand loyalists or brand skeptics. But knowing our consumers – really knowing them – seems to be undervalued in today’s market place.

With more choices than ever, marketers are struggling to find that unique offering for their brands or products. What will make that consumer buy? What feature can we showcase? Maybe, just maybe, those features that we as marketers see as valuable aren’t features that make the consumer tick. It is our job to find those small nuggets of information to give us the edge.

Don’t just know that your customer shops at the grocery store only 2 miles from their house. Know that they always go straight to aisle 2 to pick up milk, order the same cut of meat every Tuesday from Joe the butcher, and use paper instead of plastic bags. Who is to say that a tiny piece of knowledge like this won’t help your product strike a chord or get noticed faster.

Go one step further than just taking the factory tour. Take it to a level higher than gathering a focus group or sending out a survey. Get real. Get in the face of the consumer. Become one of them. Talk to them on a personal level. Wouldn’t it be something if all companies required their marketing department heads to spend a few days with their target consumer? It is easy to say that we know what someone wants, but another thing to actually see it in action.

There is invaluable knowledge in knowing the small things, the details. It is there that you’ll find a connection to the heart inside your consumer. Maybe its changing the color of your packaging from green to blue, or changing the sound of the rain in the background of a commercial.

So I challenge you: know your consumer. Move in for a day, take ‘em to dinner, go shopping with them. If you don’t, your competition just might. And where does that leave you?