Strategy Director @thecbcagency. I write practical advice & deep dives that make you a better marketer. Download the report: https://t.co/YWi5rJOR3q
Feb 13 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Ebay accidentally stopped bidding on $20m of branded keyword searches.
Instead of traffic and sales crashing, all the traffic from paid ads just shifted to organic instead.
Branded search is... a scam? ianbarnard.ca/post/why-you-s…
Apr 26, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
How are you supposed to measure brand campaigns?
The dashboard we use for digital-video has 4 sections that let's you track different goals... 1. AWARENESS
The goal of a brand campaign is to reach ~80% of your total market 1-3 times. The top left quadrant shows videos that are being fully watched, but not engaged with. This is great for changing brand perceptions or just increasing awareness and familiarity.
Oct 12, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Here's the problem with ROI...
The Brown Bread company is trading comfortably and is looking for modest growth. The new finance director asks marketing to maximize ROI, and they produce the three plans in the table below.
Plan A maximizes profit and cash flow.
Plan B significantly enhances ROI.
Plan C maximizes ROI in the sense that, with no marketing expenditure at all, ROI is infinite.
Which should they choose?
Jun 16, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This is a violent roller coaster of emotions because I find myself strongly agreeing and disagreeing with every alternate statement. It's a good read for anyone trying to grow a brand, and interesting to see the challenge of growing a brand through a different perspective.
"Those mega brands were established in a time before the internet when TV ads were more common and not skippable. " YES - different environment now, no doubt
Digital marketing alone will never make you a household name.
It should be every D2C brand’s goal to get on TV.
Why TV specifically?
Because it’s the fastest way to become famous.
You want to sell to as many people as possible.
To do that, you need to be known by as many people as possible.
In other words, you need to become famous.
Sep 6, 2020 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
Despite marijuana being legal in Canada for 2 years, Canadian cannabis brands are having a tough time getting consumers to notice them.
This is a case study of bad marketing strategy that highlights the importance of strong brand management.
Let’s see what went wrong. (1/n)
Pot producers spent millions in marketing trusting that people would flock to their brands in an emerging $6 billion market.
Most of that money was completely wasted. A survey that polled 3,000 Canadians in the Q1 of 2019 found that brand awareness remains low.
Aug 16, 2020 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Here are my top Marketing Strategy tweets so far.
(will update throughout the year)
1/ A step-by-step guide to segmentation for any brand in any category
Organic social media is a complete waste of time for 98% of brands.
No matter how good your content is, it will never be able to reach enough people to have a significant impact on your business.
I can prove this using napkin math (1/n)
Let’s assume an average SaaS brand in the US market that sells B2C and B2B.
Their customer base: online businesses and shoppers in the USA.
Their main social platform: Twitter
Jul 21, 2020 • 18 tweets • 5 min read
Google has a new report on online shopping behaviour.
It’s a meaty and fascinating report with some surprising findings.
Here are the key points and takeaways. thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insig…
Using their huge repository of search data, Google asks the question:
How do people actually shop online, and how do they decide what to buy?
At a glance, most online consumer journeys don’t look like an orderly funnel. They’re a chaotic, messy scribble.
Jul 10, 2020 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
POSITIONING 101
Brand values, DNA, essence, personality… They are different words to describe the same concept: positioning.
It sounds easy, but a good positioning statement is surprisingly hard to create.
Here’s how you should do it…
Positioning is the 2-3 things that pop into a person’s head when they think about your brand.
It (hopefully) explains why someone should buy your brand over another.
Think of it as the core message you want to deliver on every medium.
Jul 1, 2020 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
TARGETING 101
If segmentation is about understanding the market, targeting is deciding where to play within it.
This is the start of strategy - you are choosing what, and more importantly, what not to do.
Here’s how it’s done...
Marketing Thread 1/n
Make sure to read the segmentation thread first.
Let’s continue with the fictional D2C DoggoTreats, with their organic SuperPooper dried dog food priced at $45.99, $10 less than other non-organic dog food brands.
Segmentation is often misunderstood or misused, which is a shame because it’s a vital ingredient in any good marketing strategy.
I’m going to show you how to properly segment any market.
Marketing Strategy Thread 1/n
Market segmentation kills the ‘average’ customer in order to look at actual ones.
We are breaking the mass market into submarkets of people with common needs.
Segmentation becomes a map of your market as a whole.
Jul 3, 2019 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
I'm going to commit #DigitalMarketing heresy and suggest that branded search is a complete waste of money. At the root of branded search is an idea that Google and every digital ad agency don't want you to understand... #Marketing THREAD:
Picture this: a woman walks into the beauty section of a large department store. She goes up to the counter, and asks if they have the newest Chanel perfume.
The employee reaches under the counter, pulls up an ad for Chanel’s newest perfume and says “You mean, this perfume?”
