Anderson Marketing Blog

As my good friend Tracy likes to say, flat is where it’s at. And she’s right—flat design is everywhere you look.

In order to succeed with marketing, you must consistently work to evolve your processes and strategies to account for changes in your target market, taking into consideration new technologies and the potential changing demographics of your market. Much of that involved the creative design and overall user experience. New technologies are emerging all the time, and often these new technologies come from a great idea, but have many initial barriers to usage.

To bid or not to bid. That is the question. It seems there’s a big debate about bidding on competitors' keywords when engaging in paid search campaigns. Anderson believes you shouldn't bid unless you know a few things in advance. The following provides you with a list of best practices for bidding on competitors' keywords.

Customers and colleagues have been pondering the LinkedIn endorsement feature and wondering if it’s good or bad. There’s even a rumor that people get points for endorsing their network. I hope that this article sheds some light on the positives and negatives of the feature and dispels some of the rumors surrounding it.

Earlier this month, 8,000 people from around the world gathered in Chicago for DMA 2013, The Global Event for Data-Driven Marketers. The theme was Big Data. Bright Minds. Best Practice—and there were many great presentations about data, analytics, technologies and trends.

There is so much to learn. And if we’re listening and open-minded, we’ll learn something new every day. From new emerging technologies, to new media, to relationship-building skills, our teams are hungry to improve their skill sets. Quite frankly, that makes us very happy. But it also begs a question. “How does a business educate their employees and get the best ROI on their training budget?”

Marketing strategies and tactics are often defined by Segment (B2B or B2C), Channel (Email, Direct Mail, Social, etc.) or Industry. However, one of the most important categories to understand is Target Audience and one of the most commonly marketed target audiences are High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI’s)… also known as millionaires, rich or wealthy. HNWI’s have $1,000,000+ of investible or liquid income/assets (excludes Real estate, IRAs, durable/consumable goods, collectables) and represent 3.35 million households in North America*. These households collectively have approximately $11.4 trillion in investible or liquid income/assets and they account for more than half of all consumer spending.

In a recent presentation to the Undergraduate Marketing Association (UMA) at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), I challenged students with 10 Action Items to Become Successful in Marketing. My goal was to provide them with ideas that they could apply immediately or strive to achieve to become more marketable for their first job after graduation.

‘Tis the season to think about the year ahead and how you can best maximize those marketing dollars (and your ROI). Let’s face it; it’s not easy looking into that crystal ball. To lessen the time spent developing your plan as well as to improve the plan’s accuracy, consider the following marketing planning tips:

For the past 8+ years Anderson has proudly assisted Crystal Cruises with their direct marketing planning and execution. While I have had the great pleasure of working on this account for more than two years and am therefore familiar with Crystal’s copious accolades, I often wondered if they could possibly all be true.