Perhaps I’m just another victim of the news cycle or maybe I’ve just been through this a few times in my fifty-plus years traveling around the sun but it seems to me that we just might be in for a rough economic road here in the near future. And by near-future, I mean next Tuesday or sooner.

Recessions are defined quantitatively, meaning that certain indices need to reflect specific data before we allow reporters to use the R word. The gross national product (GDP) typically has to show two consecutive quarters of negative growth in order to qualify for a recession. During first quarter, the GDP pulled back by 1.6% which is 17% less than my stock portfolio declined. On top of all that we can see the effect of high gas prices on everythings as even a bag of Skittles is way more than it used to be.

Speaking of Skittles, let’s remember too that our current and former political leadership dumped money into the market like candy. It’s no wonder that it now takes more money to buy anything and everything. This is the very definition of inflation. Unfortunately, the only way to fight inflation is with recessionary measures that slow demand.

Some good news shows U.S. manufacturing and non-farm payrolls showing growth while unemployment dropped from 3.9% to 3.6%. Consumer spending remains tepid and real personal income is actually pretty solid so perhaps we should all start watching less cable news and just get on with our lives.

So … a relatively mixed bag of economic news that, coupled with a Fed that is continually raising interest rates, tells me that a recession is inevitable. All of the aforementioned factors lend me to believe that it will be a moderate recession that is longer lasting but less traumatic than what we saw in 2008.

How do difficult economic conditions affect your marketing efforts?

In simple terms, a slowing economy means that you’ll see a corresponding decrease in your profit margins. Given all that we talked about in the first five paragraphs, it does seem like pretty much every industry will feel some effects of the pending slow down.

It’s not the least bit uncommon for companies to respond to difficult economic conditions by cutting expenses. Marketing is an expense that can be cut with seemingly less pain than other expenses that companies incur. Oftentimes, it’s the first line to be affected when the economy slows.

Rightfully so.

I know you weren’t expecting that answer but you probably weren’t expecting lots of things these days. I wholeheartedly understand that difficult economic times require companies to cut their marketing budgets.

How do you effectively cut your marketing budget during a recession?

This, like many things, is much easier said than done. The complexity of attribution (figuring out what is working and what is not) is just that, complex. It’s particularly difficult with campaigns that have top-of-the-funnel push elements (billboards, pre-roll video, etc.) as well as pull elements (POS, pay per click, etc.). Since attribution is readily more evident with pull elements, brands tend to cut push elements first and deepest.

A better strategy is to take a much more holistic approach to cutting your marketing budget. What is happening in your industry? Any new trends? What are your competitors doing? Are there any new players in the space? Start there.

Next, look at your company and the marketing efforts you are currently putting forth. There are too many variables to address with one blog post but in general terms look at each component you are currently executing. Regardless of what type of marketing you’re doing, there are always ways to cut your budget responsibly.

Traditional Marketing Strategies in a Recession

For any type of traditional media look to flight your ads to help minimize expense. This can be done with each and every type of traditional media in the market. If you’re already flighting you may need to eliminate a station, move your schedule to be more seasonal or perhaps be even more judicious with your flighting. Adjusting platforms (i.e. moving from TV to radio) is also something to consider as long as you look at including congruent assets (like outdoor with radio) to maintain your top-of-mind awareness.

Traditional media is sold by vendors who hire deeply talented sales professionals. They know their stuff and they also know what’s happening in the world. Give your account executive (and perhaps their manager or better yet, media superhero Jim Knapp if he’s available) a chance to guide you to the very best way to maintain your brand’s presence while at the same time, cutting your budget. No one is happy with a budget cut but a good rep should know their product, know your brand, and most importantly, know how to get the most out of the budget you invest with them.

Digital Marketing in a Recession

On the digital side you should, if you haven’t already, make sure you are executing a properly structured email campaign as that is truly the most cost efficient way to engage your audience. Work to grow that audience and be sure you’re always providing value to someone’s inbox. Mind you cadence as opt outs are no bueno.

Learn more about email marketing here.

Organic social media is also the prize in the Cracker Jacks box when it comes to cost efficient digital marketing. The problems most brands have is that they don’t do this properly. This leads to low engagement, poor results and of course, nausea and vomiting. Paid social can also be a good move but it’s not for the faint hearted. Sounds self-serving but I do recommend the assistance of a good marketing firm with both paid and organic social media. You could otherwise be spinning your wheels and not accomplishing the important goal of making your marketing efforts more efficient.

On the SEM side I would recommend that any belt tightening be done with great scrutiny. Despite what your Google rep says a broad term search might not be right for you so tuning up your search campaign would be in order during difficult times. Of course, engaging in practical, search enhancing SEO is also highly recommended. Difficult economic times tend to bring out the worst in vendors. Use caution when you get served an ad from an offshore company stating that they can make you first in organic search while also making you two inches taller.

Want to read up on SEO? Click here to revisit our blog on the topic.

My not so final thoughts on marketing during a recession

Marketing is always easier when you have an unlimited budget. Having worked in media, marketing, and sports for 27 years I’ve yet to work with that client. I want to say too before we wrap up that some businesses can actually do well in difficult economic times. These exceptions can adapt well to the slowdown and perhaps offer a way for people to soften the blow of less money, less opportunity, and more stress.

ReThinc Advertising is one of those companies. We don’t welcome an economic slowdown but we are ready for it.

I personally believe that difficult times bring out the best in people with talent. My people have talent and as a company we’ve taken steps to prepare ourselves for what could be a challenging time.

Remember, “All captains show mastery in calm seas…” (thanks Bob Freeman). Stewarding your brand to marketing success during a recessionary period is possible, it’s just not easy. If your company needs help in evaluating just where to make cuts in response to these difficult times, contact me at ed.olsen@rethincadvertising.com.

I don’t think I’m being dramatic when I say that successful marketing is one of the great secrets of the universe. Anyone who’s ever engaged in a marketing campaign knows that it can be as mysterious as black holes in space, the pyramids in Egypt, and my wife’s dating history (before me of course).

I personally really like to play up the difficulty and importance of solid marketing, because I have a sister who’s a nurse and a brother who was a police officer for 32 years. That’s a lot to live up to at family gatherings.

Solid marketing might not save lives but it does put expensive, gluten free crackers in the pantry. There are ways to market more effectively and today we’ll explore one that you may not know a lot about.

How do I maximize my marketing investment?

Well, that’s easy, right? You simply hire a full-service marketing agency in Phoenix whose name rhymes with tea drink. (I had so many better ones but the editors said no…) If you can’t do that let’s start with one of the more important steps many brands skip, especially when they buy directly from advertising vendors.

A critical early step to formulating an effective marketing campaign is creating customer personas. This is purposefully plural as for most brands, customers vary in age, gender, and more importantly, behaviors.

To keep this blog less than a 10-minute read, I’m going to assume that all of us recognize the value of relevance when it comes to brand messaging. It’s critical for your campaign to deliver relevant messages to relevant audiences.

Because the egg always follows the chicken, you must therefore spend time analyzing your audience.

Since I’ve practically confused myself at this point, I think it might be time for a real-life example as well as shameless self-promotion. Our sister sports agency (Line Drive Sports Marketing) handles the marketing efforts for the Peoria Sports Complex, which is the spring training home for the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres. The people who attend these games (as well as the people we want to attend these games) can be “generally” categorized as follows: local older people, out-of-state fans of both teams, local fans, millennials, local families and Peoria residents.

We then devise ads that would appeal to each one of these demographic groups and then serve them on platforms that make sense for each group. For instance, our millennial campaign emphasizes the social aspect of spring training and might include images of attractive people wearing flannel shirts and wispy tank tops drinking beer. Instagram is a good platform that would make the most sense to serve ads to this age group.

The result: more millennials attending games at Peoria Sports Complex, BOOM. We essentially do the same process for the remaining personas using images, messaging and platforms that are relevant to each. Make sense?

Marketing success was ultimately driven by the very critical step of creating customer personas as a guide for ad creation.

How can you create your own customer personas?

This is relatively easy but then again, so is changing the oil in your car and how many of you change your own oil?

That’s what I thought.

My best advice to you is to not overthink things. Analyze your product or service for what it provides and who would be most likely to purchase it. Careful not to create personas for your exceptions unless you really have something new and exciting to offer them. Outliers can be a way of growing a business and differentiating your brand (aka targeting men for a new day spa), but you must be sure to create an accurate customer persona to market to them effectively.

It’s also good to be very specific. You should literally individualize a customer persona in order to have a greater understanding of how you can better influence their consumer behaviors. This represents the bullseye you are aiming for with your marketing efforts. Anything in and around that can help you to grow your business.

We don’t typically name our personas but companies with in-house marketing staff oftentimes do. This helps non-marketing types (aka management) to better understand what you’re executing while also making any internal analysis a little more light-hearted.

Can your customer persona change?

I’m compelled to say something really smart here but the real answer is well, yes … kind of and candidly, that doesn’t sound so smart, does it?

A good marketer should always be aware of shifting audiences, consumer preferences, and other things like economic pressures that you can’t control. All these make us more important than nurses and policemen when it comes to making you safe. (Are you listening, mom?)

So yes, depending on your business, the type of customer you appeal to may change. When it does, having a well-defined customer persona will help make any pivots easier. Back to our spring training example, the lingering pandemic and the labor disruption forced us to put greater emphasis on everything local. We had to adapt our outreach quickly to respond to conditions out of our control. Customer personas made that process easier and ultimately, more effective for the client.

Personas are the secret to effective marketing.

Customer personas allow your brand to create and serve more effective marketing messages to your most valuable audiences. They represent the baseline step for the creation of all types of collateral assets from websites to brochures to TV ads and even business cards. If you haven’t taken the time to formulate customer personas for your business, doing so will make your marketing as well as your bottom line more prolific.

Want to learn more about customer personas or perhaps debate the value of marketing to our society? Send me an email to ed.olsen@rethincadvertising.com or give me a call at 602.284.6722.

Building highly functional and properly optimized websites is a core competency for ReThinc’s marketing team. Simply put, it’s what we do … it’s our jam (which sounds so much better than the words ‘core competency’ which implies that I’m just not fun anymore).

We make clean, contemporary, and user-friendly websites. From a cost to quality standpoint, I think we’re an industry leader when it comes to designing and developing websites.

In the past it’s always been our strategy to turn everything over to the client (maintenance, hosting, etc.) once the website is complete. This was, in our minds, the right thing to do. Other agencies that we compete with weave in monthly fees for hosting and maintenance. We saw that as a less than appealing business practice, disingenuous, and very Dick Cheney like.

We were wrong. Skip to paragraph 12 if you want.

The Digital Back Alley and Fraudulent Hosting Charges

Some time ago, we received a letter in the mail stating that we needed to pay our annual fee to retain our current domain. A website domain in simple terms is the address where your website is found. For us, it would be staging-rethincadvertising.kinsta.cloud.

To be clear, there is an annual fee to keep your website live, but that’s paid to a service platform like GoDaddy or wherever you originally purchased your domain. In America, it’s almost always GoDaddy.

This letter looked official, was properly creased and even had big tech words on it like ‘official’ ‘term’ ‘hosting’ and other terminology that made it look like we’d lose our domain if we didn’t pay something like $129 by October 1st. The problem was, that it wasn’t from the service platform where we purchased our domain.

All good. We knew it was a criminal enterprise sending this letter because this is what we do for a living, plus Andrew wasn’t working from home that day. No big deal … letter discarded.

Two months later we got another letter which is pretty much identical to the last except they asked for a little bit less money and didn’t use as many big words. This got my attention. It also got the attention of two of our clients who received similar letters.

At this point, we realized that some deprived individual(s) were targeting small businesses in an effort to defraud them. Of course, being good Americans, we immediately blamed Dick Cheney but after some discovery, we realized he had nothing to do with it. Regardless, we felt like that was a good place to start.

Domain Registry and Domain Listings are Not Legitimate Companies

The letters source from two companies, Domain Registry and Domain Listings. They live on a throne of lies. Paying them money does NOTHING to keep your URL safe, secure or in your name as the owner.

After receiving a very threatening letter from Mr. Cheney’s publicist (or attorney, whatever), I decided to notify the postal inspector that a fraudulent scheme was being perpetrated on small businesses owners across America. They placed me on a 45-minute hold and then informed me that there was really nothing they were going to do about it. This even after I told them that I was friends with Dick Cheney.

Our next step was to send out a gently worded email from Stephanie to our clients warning them about this letter. That got the word out because Stephanie (unlike me) has a 100% open rate on her emails.

Owning a business can be a very overwhelming experience. There’s a lot to navigate, especially in today’s marketing environment, where consumers may (or may not) find you based on a quick and admittedly unscientific way of searching for you on the internet. It’s just not quite as cut and dry as the yellow pages used to be.

For those of you < 30, the yellow pages was a printed (yes, printed) book that magically appeared on your doorstep once a year. It contained business listings as well as poorly done ads that helped people find businesses.

Now we have search, which sometimes takes place on your computer and sometimes (more often than not) takes place on your phone.

The interesting thing about search is that instead of turning to “P” for plumber, a consumer (and potential customer) may write I HAVE A PIPE LEAK into their search engine of choice (probably, Google).

What’s important to you as a plumber and as a business owner is that you show up first when the consumer types in I HAVE A PIPE LEAK in the search bar. (Stay with me here as things are about to get weird.) In very simple terms, you could show up if you’ve purchased this specific search term in its entirety: I HAVE A PIPE LEAK (no capitalization required). If you purchased the term PIPE LEAK you may also show up. If you purchased the term I HAVE A, stop reading and call me immediately.

But wait, there’s more.

You might show up organically if your website is properly optimized to this specific search term or terms relative to it, also referred to as search engine optimization or SEO.  So, if you recently wrote a blog entitled I HAVE A PIPE LEAK or you have a well-written section on your website about WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU HAVE A PIPE LEAK, you may also appear on the first page of the search results and accomplished a very important and valuable feat in the world of marketing.

That seems so very simple, doesn’t it? Why, then, is SEO a $65 billion dollar industry annually?

Well … because it’s not that simple. Whereas I appreciate everyone who weathered the first five paragraphs of set up on this blog (Hi Steve! Hi Kent!) I do want to assure you that there is a pay off of sorts coming. Here it goes …

Optimizing your website for search is typically done by marketing professionals. This is very much dependent on the size and/or complexity of your business. A plumber, for instance, is a highly competitive industry reliant on search as the need arises. (I HAVE A PIPE LEAK) What do you do if you are a small business owner that doesn’t have the money to pay someone to optimize their site?

You do these four very simple steps to help your business be easier to locate for people who may type any number of things into a search bar when looking for your product or services:

1. Keep your website properly maintained. Websites are like cars … you need to keep them running properly by keeping everything updated. It’s not that difficult to do, take a little time each month to make sure your load speeds are not hindered by broken links or other issues that can happen to aging websites.
2. Don’t host your site on a cheap hosting platform. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of them out there. Bad hosting negatively impacts the searchability of your website as bad (aka cheap) hosting platforms slow down your load speeds which is off-putting to search engines.
3. Make sure you are creating fresh content for your website. This can be done by writing a blog or refreshing copy on your site to include terms that consumers use to find you.
4. Answer common questions in the fabric of your site that consumers may be looking for answers for. This is where a FAQs page becomes a valuable component of a simple portfolio site serving a small business.

You literally don’t have to call us or help to make Erin’s mortgage payment so that new customers can find you. You do have to practice some sensible tactics that will keep your site running smoothly and make yourself more visible in the search space.

Need more help or have questions about anything we talked about here? Ask Steve Melde or Kent Earle … they read every blog I write and are super smart guys. If you can’t find them, send me an email at ed.olsen@rethincadvertising.com. I’ll get you the answers you need to keep your website optimized for free!

Is it fair to call ourselves a leading ad agency in Phoenix? ‘Leading’ is a fairly subjective term, right? I mean, we’ve garnered a fair amount of awards and recognition over the years. I’m proud of our team’s efforts being honored by the American Advertising Federation, American Marketing Association, Ranking Arizona, and others.

We’re fortunate to have a very talented group of hipsters who get after it every day for our clients while drinking a ridiculous amount of coffee. (author’s note: I have never drank coffee in my life but am now finding myself drinking coffee on the regular) More importantly, we’re fortunate to have super amazing clients who have entrusted us with their brand development as well as their marketing outreach for some thirteen years now.

If that’s not ‘leading’ then I don’t know what is.

How Did We Get Here and How Do We Stay Here?

Marketing is a dynamic industry that changes with great propensity. (author’s note: I have wanted to use that word in one of my blogs now for like five years … this coffee thing is really paying off.) Constant change demands constant learning. One way we stay apprised of change while also being able to deliver marketing excellence is through a commitment to learning. Each month our super cool hipsters pour themselves a big cup of coffee and unplug from their duties in order to plug into expanding their abilities.

This is admittedly very difficult to do as our workload can be very demanding. What’s critical to this process is having resources that provide the type of training that we need either to develop a new skill or to enhance an existing one. We also do a lot of different things for our clients from email execution to web design, to pay per click to traditional media buying. I mean, you don’t get to be a ‘leading’ ad agency by being overly monolithic, right? (author’s note: technically, that’s not the right word but when you’ve got caffeine pursing through your veins it definitely sounds right.)

What are Some Great Learning Resources for Ad Agencies?

Here are a few resources we use to sharpen our skills and keep the ‘leading’ moniker in everything we do:

Adobe Creative Cloud – is a set of applications and services from Adobe, Inc. that gives subscribers access to a collection of assets used for graphic design, video editing, web development, and photography. adobe.com/creativecloud.html

Google Skillshop – this platform will walk you through all things search while also providing tutorials and certifications for using the Google platform. skillshop.withgoogle.com

SEMRush – this online platform offers solutions for SEO, PPC, content, social media and competitive research. semrush.com

Skillshare – this online learning platform is full of thousands of creative classes taught by experts and professionals to help you learn new skills. skillshare.com

We also find a wide array of articles, tutorials, and webinars online that enhance our skills while also giving us the knowledge we need to continue providing cutting edge marketing executions to our clients. Other resources like the Ad Age, the Phoenix Business Journal, and Adweek help to keep us apprised of trends while also providing resources for us to keep learning. (author’s note: why yes, I’d love a second cup…)

Everyone Should Go Back to School

I strongly encourage all businesses to adopt this very important practice regardless of your size or industry. The benefits are quite profound. It keeps your employees learning, it advances the capabilities of your business, and it enhances your overall culture.

Yes, you are paying co-workers to unplug from doing work for clients in order to work on themselves and yes, ultimately that co-worker may move on to another company and apply their new skills for them. That’s 100% OK by me as my co-workers don’t exist to make me money, they exist to build a better life for themselves by applying their skills to our clients’ needs.

If you have a good business or want to build a good business, ongoing learning must be a fundamental component of your business operations. If you are interested in learning more about what we do or how we do it, there’s plenty of room in the classroom for you!

You would think that running an advertising agency in Phoenix is a highly complex operation given the multitude of platforms we engage to achieve marketing excellence for our clients.

It is … it absolutely is. I mean, every day we are launching new ad campaigns with NASA-like complexity that is not for the faint of heart.

But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.

Everyone involved in the business of marketing would be better suited to tell their constituents that they are in the business of storytelling. That’s what it boils down to. We interpret, create and subsequently tell a brand’s story to the audience most likely to engage their product or service. Which, when you say it like that, doesn’t seem like rocket science at all.

Except that it is.

When you stop to think of all the various platforms both traditional and digital that you can use to reach audiences these days you can see how my reference to NASA makes some sense. Further challenges are created when your marketing funds are limited, which … to date, is everyone we’ve ever worked with in the last 13 years. (We have yet to land a federal government account.)

So, what gives? How do you generate response in a convoluted marketplace with an audience that is fragmented and over-stimulated? Oh, and do so with someone who doesn’t have access to the U.S. treasury?

Good copy.

An answer that hasn’t changed in whatever is the recognized lifespan of advertising. It truly all boils down to putting forth a message that resonates with your target audience. This, regardless of platform, is the secret sauce to marketing. I’m kind of sorry that you had to read 232 words of my dribbling on to get the answer that I think some of you already knew. (BTW Happy Birthday Jim Knapp).

Here’s how it works.

When we engage a new client we endeavor to get to know them. This process transcends the personality of the decision maker and gets into how the brand is currently perceived in the marketplace. We then get into how we want that brand to be perceived moving forward. This takes effective messaging on relevant platforms with consumer behavior changing incentives like price, item, and convenience. Sounds easy, right? Well yes, it’s easier than putting Tom Hanks in a rocket and blasting him to the moon, but it’s also not a walk in the park either.

Great copy should accomplish many things, including but not limited to:

1. Engage your target audience
2. Reinforce the value of your brand
3. Differentiate your brand from your competitors
4. Motivate consumers to take action
5. Educate a consumer who lacks awareness of your brand
6. Tell your story (sometimes in 4 words or less)
7. Put forth your most prominent brand attributes
8. Make your mother proud of you
9. Be memorable at the point of sale
10. Be easy to understand

At ReThinc, we have a team of people responsible for creating your brand’s copy. That process starts with you (the client). We then apply our interpretation taking into account your target audience, the platform we need to use to deliver said message, and the goals of our campaign.

Beyond that, your copy may be scrutinized and influenced by the hippies in our creative department, the nerds in our digital department and ultimately Gina Rossi, our content specialist who sounds like she may be the host of an Italian cooking show on HGTV. Gina majored in English with a concentration in creative writing. She speaks with a nearly imperceptible German accent despite her Italian heritage and has a complexion that would make a Maybelline model jealous.

You probably didn’t need to know all of that … or maybe you did? Regardless, it’s good copy.

Our goal is to create effective copy that does all the aforementioned things listed above. More importantly, the real goal is to fulfill our promise to grow your business. In the highly complex world of rocket science … I mean advertising, it always comes down to great copy.

Client: “Whew! Three (or was it six?) months of back n forth and my beautiful new website is finally finished. Now I can move on to other important marketing matters and not give this another thought.”

Agency person: “Well, yes but no…”

ReThinc Advertising loves to build highly functioning, properly optimized, and aesthetically pleasing websites for our clients (not necessarily in that order). We are especially happy to do this for our clients that require pay per click (PPC) advertising to attract new customers.

A new website with optimized landing pages and a solid user experience helps to make your PPC campaign more effective.

Regardless of what your overall needs are, our website building experience starts with a comprehensive deep dive into your business. This helps us to identify the role that your site will play in your overall marketing strategy as well as formulating the proper user experience for your site.

Our goal is to build you a website with ‘lasting power.’ One that will exceed your needs while also not having to be rebuilt for as long as possible. We design ‘responsively’ which is a fancy way of saying your website will look great on a cell phone (or other devices) which is important as our phones continue to take over our very existence.

OK, back to my point. We build you this really awesome website and then we have nothing to do but watch customers come pouring into your business.

Right? Wrong.

Once the site is completed there is work required to make sure the site remains stable and functioning properly. Essentially it’s just like keeping apps updated on your phone. This work is typically done by the site designer/developers but can be done by you folks playing at home. If, and only if, you know what you’re doing. Updating your site ensures that all aspects of your website are working as designed.

We do this monthly for our retainer accounts and of course my friend’s account in Chicago that knows all the horrific details of my adolescence. (Hi Carl!)

We do not ‘host’ websites, nor does any other ad agency that I know of. Whereas it’s a common practice to offer this service, it’s typically just a front for agencies to make more money. At ReThinc, our digital team will set up your hosting and provide you with all the credentials you need to gain access to your backend. Again, for our accounts on retainer, we’ll also troubleshoot any issues you may have related to hosting.

So, it’s important to know that once your site is completed you need to conduct routine maintenance on it just like you would your car, your pool, and your marriage. If we are not kept on retainer or if you don’t have carnal knowledge of my behavior as a 17 year old, you must do this site maintenance on the regular. Failure to do so could result in your site losing its functionality or worse, making your brand look janky for people visiting your website.

Beyond updating your site, we also recommend adding fresh content by way of posting blogs. Blogs are a great way to keep your audience engaged and to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. This is also a great way of making sure that your site stays organically relevant to those very important people who we call potential customers. We talk more about the importance of blog content here.

Simply put, websites are our jam. Designing and developing a site is just part of a bigger process that keeps you and your customers interacting with your brand in a favorable way.

Have an old site that needs an update or just want to learn more on how to keep your site up to speed? Send me a note anytime … ed.olsen@rethincadvertising.com.

A HA! Got you to open the email … which is exactly this month’s blog topic. Writing a blog is one thing. Having it edited by a bunch of hyper-critical millenials and subsequently sending it out via email is not as easy as you might think.

Wait, that’s actually pretty easy. The hard part is getting YOU to open it and actually read it.

More and more brands are relying on email to keep you loyal to their brand, which is a nice way of saying buying their stuff. Whereas we don’t need you to buy anything at ReThinc, we do appreciate access to your inbox so that we can keep you informed and stay top of mind.

Email is used in lots of different ways. For instance, we send out our blogs as well as updates on our company and samples of our work. Some of our clients use it to drive traffic or purchase by announcing specials, sales, and other offers designed to get consumers to act. This takes us to the eCommerce function of email. A whopping 66% of us (that’s 2 out of every 3 people for you Sun Devils out there) have made an online purchase directly from an email. Email literally offers the very best ROI in all of digital media. Research shows that over $306 billion dollars are spent annually on email marketing. That’s an enormous amount of emails considering it’s a fraction of a penny to actually send an email.

Self service platforms and companies like us make sending emails easy.

So, easy is one thing, but how do we make sure your recipient actually opens it? Well, we use magic words like “new” “improved” and “Stephanie” to increase our open rates. The average open rate of an email hovers somewhere around 15%. An effective subject line can make a huge difference in your open rate and ultimately your reach.

Let’s look at a few sample subject lines that were deemed effective by people smarter than us:

1. Guess: Don’t Wear Last Year’s Styles
2. Jeremy Gitomer: How Have You Progressed Since Third Grade
3. La Mer: Age-defying Beauty Tricks
4. Open Table: Licking Your Phone Never Tasted So Good
5. Sephora: Product That Celebs Are Wearing
6. ReThinc: New & Improved Stephanie … (OK, just kidding)

At ReThinc, we put a lot of effort in balancing clever with compelling. This is not for the faint of heart mind you. Email subject lines sometimes take longer to come up than the actual content. (That’s not true actually, but it certainly was an effective embellishment … no?) Think about it, you’re busy, you’re maybe a little tired, and you’re bumping through your inbox and something comes up that’s not a mandatory read. Most people are going to hit the delete button unless the subject holds something of interest to them.

Here’s some important tips from the experts:

Just a little over half of you open your email on a mobile device where the subject line is not as long as if you open it on a desktop. iPhones show somewhere around 35 characters when held upright (common) and 80 when you hold it in landscape mode (uncommon). Samsung Galaxy has slightly less than that. These are things you need to think about in a world that is increasingly mobile.

There are other considerations that we must take into account when engaging an email campaign. Things like the day and the time we send it … both are additional factors to consider when you’re sending marketing messages via email.

A good best practice is to A/B test subject lines. We’re probably doing that right now. Essentially that means we pit two subject lines against each other to see which one achieves a higher open rate. This helps you to better understand your audience and therefore create better subject lines in the future.

So, like a lot of things marketing, email subject lines are a little more complex than what you might initially think. As always, we’re here to help. If you’re doing an email campaign on a self serve platform and need a little direction, send me a note and we’ll get you squared away!

I feel like before I even begin that I’ve already won a metaphor contest. I mean, anyone that’s even spent a semester in college knows what the proverbial sock on the doorknob means. It’s a not so subtle request for privacy and digital platforms are handing the sock to millions of consumers.

A Cookie-Less Digital World

What’s that mean for you as a business owner using these super efficient methods of attracting customers? While we’re on the subject, what does it mean for digital marketing firms chock full of intelligent hard-working hipsters who’ve made a decent living in promoting brands on digital platforms?

Let’s establish right out of the gate that this is not, in fact, the end of the world. I believe that’s scheduled for later in the decade and contrary to what you might have heard, does not involve marketing at all.

What it does mean is that consumers who opt out of sharing their user data will no longer be served ads relevant to their interests using their digital fingerprint. Couple this with ad blocking software and everyone may get an ad free scroll devoid of super compelling content devised to separate you from your money.

This is a good thing, right? Well … yes and no.

Capitalism vs. Privacy and the End of the World

This new emphasis on privacy robs Big Tech of some of the profits they pull in for being really bad people. I mean isn’t it their fault that Trump got elected in the first place? And not only that … didn’t they also kill Jeffrey Epstein? I had also heard that they are also destroying the rainforests which explains why there are only 27 Rainforest Cafes left in America.

I digress yet again, sorry.

But remember, when you don’t pay for something … you are the product. So as we move to eliminate advertising from content you must somehow still pay for said content. Let that settle in for a bit before you continue reading.

And while we’re on the subject … know that the Big Tech super villains are working to make sure you still opt-in for relevant ads so that they can continue their plan for world domination until of course, the world-ending meteor-comet-pandemic-nuclear war-Charlie Sheen/Lindsay Lohan reality series on Bravo occurs in 2028.

Spoiler alert.

What? Us Overreact?

The real truth is that these changes will affect the way ReThinc’s hipsters currently execute our digital marketing efforts. Whereas some efficiencies may be lost, platforms will still be able to deliver valuable audiences capable of making a purchase with a simple keystroke or swipe of their finger.

A handful of solutions are already in the works. The most promising looks to use grouping as a way of maintaining individual privacy while still being able to market with the level of efficiency the industry is known for. This ‘cohort behavior’ will keep your personal information secret while clustering your interests into groups which will be sold to yours truly. That’s me, or better stated, that’s my company for those of you scoring at home.

My intelligent and hard-working hipsters are safe … for now.

It most certainly will require us to manage our campaigns differently than we have in the past. It will not, however, make digital marketing any less impactful to a well structured and properly integrated marketing campaign.

We’ll need to make some assumptions when it comes to audience behaviors based on more limited data than we’ve had in the past. We’ll also look for other sources and methods that provide us key behavioral insights that were historically a little easier for us to access. Simply put, there will not be the level of specificity that an individual cookie browser afforded us.

So, just like the movies the cookie-less digital universe will have been saved at the last minute by some person living in Silicon Valley with a lot of consonants in their name. The hyper-sensitive privacy advocates will need to move on to yet another problem plaguing our society … perhaps they can address the depressing lack of Rainforest Cafes in our country?