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> The problem is that the outcome of some campaigns doesn't reflect in dollars, and still you have a winning campaign. All winning campaigns reflect in dollars

> The problem is that the outcome of some campaigns doesn't reflect in dollars, and still you have a winning campaign. All winning campaigns reflect in dollars. The question is when. That's why it's imperative to separate markets entirely. Radio ads for a "branding/awareness" strategy. Search ads for a direct response strategy. The majority of people viewing/hearing one should never hear/view the other. If it takes 6 months to properly test a branding campaign, decide ahead of time whether your organization has the patience to wait. If not, just stick with direct response. Also, Scientific Advertising was written in 1923.

libertine 6y ago
What I mean is that on today's standards for some SMEs, you either have a lead/sales generation campaign, or nothing. There's no space for brand positioning campaigns, or brand awareness, or anything that it's not tracked into a direct sale/lead. Like you said, branding takes time, with huge investments - and usually it's almost a leap of faith because of the sheer amount of budget and pressure it requires, namely in terms of GRPs. That's why testing used to be done in focus groups, and other forms of market research, to support a brand strategy. Maybe branding is a "luxury" SMEs can't afford, but the thing they don't get is: it's a long term investment.
- jlbnjmn 6y ago
  Ah, I see what you're saying. Yes, you're exactly right. Brand advertising has a much higher ROAS when done well. The challenge is doing it well, and knowing if you did. My experience has been that SMEs rarely have the appreciation for art necessary to do branding well, and without strong branding, brand campaigns are a waste of money. And it's not just a lack money. They'd rather spend the money on ads than on people. In some industries, that's a better strategy, but for most they would benefit greatly from recognizing that all customers, both B2B and B2C, are in fact humans. Founders have an advantage here, because they can operate on a longer time scale. (Side note, GM spent $3140000000 on ads in 2018.)
  - time0ut 6y ago
    Imagine having an ad budget of pi billion dollars...
    - jlbnjmn 6y ago
      I would launch a new $10,000,000 engineering bounty every Monday and a $30,000,000 race event every weekend. The engineering bounties would be for open source hardware, software, and tooling challenges, with a heavy focus on optimizing robots and social computer vision problems. The races each weekend would alternate between full size trucks in a strong man style competition, manned quadcopters doing search and rescue challenges, and autonomous cars in an urban race series. I would spend the remaining $10,000,000 from the week's budget on vocational scholarships and micro-loans for low income single parents. If anyone from GM is reading this, let's talk.
      - llsf 6y ago
        It might be pretty close to what Tesla is doing with its own marketing budget... beside, not open sourcing it or doing weekend races (although Nurburgring and other drag tests could count).
      - junius2020 6y ago
        still a better policy than what the fed is doing

libertine 6y ago

What I mean is that on today's standards for some SMEs, you either have a lead/sales generation campaign, or nothing. There's no space for brand positioning campaigns, or brand awareness, or anything that it's not tracked into a direct sale/lead. Like you said, branding takes time, with huge investments - and usually it's almost a leap of faith because of the sheer amount of budget and pressure it requires, namely in terms of GRPs. That's why testing used to be done in focus groups, and other forms of market research, to support a brand strategy. Maybe branding is a "luxury" SMEs can't afford, but the thing they don't get is: it's a long term investment.

jlbnjmn 6y ago
Ah, I see what you're saying. Yes, you're exactly right. Brand advertising has a much higher ROAS when done well. The challenge is doing it well, and knowing if you did. My experience has been that SMEs rarely have the appreciation for art necessary to do branding well, and without strong branding, brand campaigns are a waste of money. And it's not just a lack money. They'd rather spend the money on ads than on people. In some industries, that's a better strategy, but for most they would benefit greatly from recognizing that all customers, both B2B and B2C, are in fact humans. Founders have an advantage here, because they can operate on a longer time scale. (Side note, GM spent $3140000000 on ads in 2018.)
- time0ut 6y ago
  Imagine having an ad budget of pi billion dollars...
  - jlbnjmn 6y ago
    I would launch a new $10,000,000 engineering bounty every Monday and a $30,000,000 race event every weekend. The engineering bounties would be for open source hardware, software, and tooling challenges, with a heavy focus on optimizing robots and social computer vision problems. The races each weekend would alternate between full size trucks in a strong man style competition, manned quadcopters doing search and rescue challenges, and autonomous cars in an urban race series. I would spend the remaining $10,000,000 from the week's budget on vocational scholarships and micro-loans for low income single parents. If anyone from GM is reading this, let's talk.
    - llsf 6y ago
      It might be pretty close to what Tesla is doing with its own marketing budget... beside, not open sourcing it or doing weekend races (although Nurburgring and other drag tests could count).
    - junius2020 6y ago
      still a better policy than what the fed is doing