Category: VIA Idea

Pronunciation: \ˈfō-(ˌ)mō\

Definition of FOMO: noun, informal: fear of missing out : fear of not being included in something (such as an interesting or enjoyable activity) that others are experiencing; a sort of social anxiety that occurs when one is concerned with missing a social interaction, experience of value, talk-worthy event, or monetary gain.

This April, Merriam-Webster announced the latest additions to the company’s unabridged dictionary. Among the 2,000 entries this year is FOMO, the acronym for the “fear of missing out.” As a species, we are prone to the anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, which is often heightened by posts seen on Facebook or Twitter. Could your marketing plan be suffering from FOMO too?

According to the latest data from the Grant Thornton International Business Report, a survey taken in 36 countries of more than 2,500 business leaders, more businesses are driven by the FEAR OF MISSING OUT than by a positive desire for growth when expanding.

When it comes to making a marketing plan, business owners can sometimes forget the essence of human behavior. Essentially, we forget that we are marketing to other humans. Our goal should be to start a conversation, attracting our consumers on a deeper level and putting the consumer at the heart of it all.

You believe the more ground you cover, the more you can achieve.

When we choose how we market our products or services, we can sometimes focus too much on statistics and only look at the quantity of people on each marketing channel. We lose the vision of how people are actually interacting on each channel. Just because certain channels are more predominant than others, doesn’t necessarily mean they are the correct channels for your product. Don’t let your “image” get the best of you in having a successful marketing plan.

Target better, tighter.

Understand your business and the problems that you solve. Once you have a good idea what this looks like, you can see who is most likely to benefit from your services or products. Try grouping your audience by location and market sector. Define them in as many relevant ways as possible: Where do they live? What is their income? Are they other businesses, maybe manufacturers? Are they golfers? mothers? Without limiting the market it would be impossible to know where to start.

Now, take a look at your particular areas of expertise: Do you have exclusive capabilities or knowledge? What about you is unique to provide a service or product?

Know who your audience is and study their behavior—they may not be engaging with the most popular channels. You should pick a strategy that is the most appealing to your audience. We live in the world of niche and our audiences are no longer captives of traditional marketing channels such as television and radio. For instance, the web is fantastic at delivering a personalized, more effective strategy through tactics such as targeted email blasts and paid digital ads to your specific demographics.

Here at VIA Marketing,
we can help answer these questions and tell your story. For a targeted marketing plan that details your special place in the market and delivers your ideal audience, please contact us…and avoid FOMO today.

Yext PowerListings is a popular and award-winning online listing management service. After you enter your company details, they will propagate in various online local search platforms like apps, maps and social media. Yext has made arrangements with directories such as Apple Maps, Bing, Facebook, Yelp, Citysearch, DexKnows, etc.

The advantages of Yext are speed and consistency. Speed, because you can have your business listed across dozens of internet directories almost instantly. Consistency, because all of your listings will have the same information, plus they will all be updated at the same time should you make a change.

Disadvantages include a high price for what can be considered a rental arrangement. Yext’s best value is the “Complete Package” and it costs $499 per year. Once you leave, your listings revert back to what they were before you signed up. Here is a link to their plans.

Do You Need Directory Listings?

Listings in quality directories give you a higher ranking in Google’s search returns. Most people search in Google, not in the directories themselves. Organic and behavioral factors will influence your rankings more than these citations will. Having rich information about your products or services, good links, and more and better reviews than your competitors also plays a large role in determining Google rankings.

On some of the directory sites, Yext is just one way to update your info. On other sites, Yext is now the only way to update or add a listing. Today Yext may be the most popular service with exclusive directory agreements, but rest assured, competitors will arise. Directories won’t want to limit their sources to Yext alone, and will want to grow their data-assets by making arrangements with other sources, too.

Two Alternatives

1. You can use one of Yext’s competitors. Single Platform and Where 2 Get It are Yext’s biggest competitors. Yext offers a monitoring dashboard that the others don’t. I think most of you will probably never look at it.

2. You don’t need to pay for this service. If you spend the time to do it yourself, the listings will be there forever. Most of the directories are free; some charge a one-time fee of $5.

VIA’s Recommendation

With most things, you either have time or money. If you have money, Yext will save you a ton of time.

If driving people to your location isn’t important to your business, DIY is better. After your tech savvy staff member (assuming you have one) gets the hang of entering your listing, expect that employee to take about a half hour per listing. I always approach large, tedious projects by biting off a little at a time. If you post one listing a week, it won’t be long until you have conquered the most important ones.

Not all directories make sense for every business. We can help you look through the directories to see which ones make sense for you. Here is a link to a list of top citation sources.

Rich Media is a digital advertising term used to categorize ads that use video, audio, or other elements to interact with and engage the user. The ads use HTML5 programming and can expand, float, peel down, etc. Marketers often include multiple levels of content that will help achieve the client’s goal, whether it is to send simple brand messages or generate clicks.

There are many kinds of engaging rich media ads. Listed below are examples of common ad formats:

Expanding:

Starts as one size within a standard ad placement on a web page and then expands over the page content automatically or when a user interacts with it.

Push-Down:

Starts as one size on top of a publisher page, then expands like the expanding example only this pushes down the page content when a user interacts with it.

Floating:

Floats on top of a publisher’s web page (also known as an interstitial ad). Because it isn’t assigned to a fixed ad slot, it can be almost any shape or size, and you can place it anywhere over a publisher’s content. The ad usually disappears after about 15 seconds if the user doesn’t interact with it.

Digital ads are served directly to your target audience and are programmed by specifying a variety of criteria including geography, income, gender and even interests. Choosing your budget amount for each audience, you can target and test a variety of messages.

If you are considering buying digital advertising, we hope you find this helpful. For a broader survey of ad types, take a look at Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) 2015 Ad Unit Poster.

To maximize your company’s online ad exposure, look to VIA for rich media advertising solutions. Contact Julie for more information on rich media.