There are all sorts of crazy marketing myths swirling around that might make you question advertising’s effectiveness.

And we have to admit: You can’t believe everything you see on TV or hear on the radio (or read online for that matter).

Pretty ironic coming from a full-service advertising agency, right?

But that shouldn’t keep you from advertising on TV, radio, or anywhere else. So, let’s shine a light on those lies that are hurting your company’s bottom line.

Myth 1

Video Production Is Just Too Darn Expensive

There was a time where we would’ve agreed. Today… well, not so much — and no, it’s not because of AI!

It really comes down to working with a full-service advertising agency (like Stealth Creative).

Here’s why.

We edit, film, and produce commercials in-house whenever possible because this cuts out the middleperson 95% of the time — and that can cut costs in a big way without sacrificing quality at all.

Plus, it turns out your business really can’t afford not to have some sort of video presence for lots of reasons.

83% prefer to get information from watching a video instead of reading
Shoppers are nearly 2X more likely to purchase after watching an online demo
Videos on social media generate 1200% more shares than text and images combined.

“Some of our most memorable spots were also some of our most creative not only in terms on concepting, but working within our clients’ budget.”
-Jeff Schaeffer, Senior Video Producer

Myth 2

Media Buys Cost An Arm and Two Legs

Not so fast.

The truth is, some media buys cost more than others.

For example, in traditional media like television, there exists a finite number of commercial breaks. A limited number of spots to fit a specific amount of time. So yes: it tends to be a bit pricier. There’s no escaping that harsh reality — it’s the (not so) free market in action.

Conversely, digital media buys can cost just pennies per thousands of views! And radio buys can actually be more affordable than you think.

However, budget-sensitive marketing heads realize they need a media strategy if they want a real shot at success. So, what do they do to make the cost more bearable? They try doing it themselves.

That's a bold move, Cotton

We appreciate that “can do” attitude… we just want to caution you.

Media agencies can save clients up to 35%

35% in savings is an absolutely huge number! It could mean literally thousands of dollars — or more! That’s the same as being able to broadcast your commercial or message more often.

By working with Stealth Creative’s media buying team, you can:

Target

Identify your real target audience

pinpoint

Pinpoint where they’re most likely to watch, listen or read

Benefit

Benefit from the hard-nosed negotiating skills of your buyers

Produce

Experience a more collaborative approach between media placement and the spots produced

“The effectiveness of the message can be more important than the out-of-pocket cost alone. Ineffective impressions reaching your audience (even if they cost next to nothing) are not valuable. Agencies have the strategic experience and tools to develop these solutions to recommend the optimal Media Mix and tactical solutions to deliver against your goals.”

-Lisa Smith, Media Director

Myth 3

Proofreading is Overrated

What do an erroneous letter and missing zeros have in common?

They’ve all led to losses in the millions of dollars.

That’s right. Millions.

Take for instance a Yellow Pages ad (remember those?) from 1988. Banner Travel Agency wanted to promote their exotic travel packages. Someone at Pacific Bell swapped the “x” for an “r” and changed the message completely.

Proofing Cost: $10 million

Then there’s the fiasco involving Alitalia Airlines in 2006. They wanted to promote flights to Cyprus for $3,900. What they actually promoted was flights for $39. Who could pass that deal up? Answer: no one, which led to a nosedive in profitability.

Proofing Cost: $7 million

So, yes. Details matter quite a bit. And when you hire an agency, every piece of work gets read by multiple people before you lay eyes on it — proof that proofreading is worth it.

“Few things can sour your audience’s perception faster than an obvious typo. It makes them question your company’s professionalism.”

-Jeff Ryals, Creative Director

Myth 4

Your Business Should Be On Every Social Media Platform Ever

We won’t dispute the effectiveness of social media. That’s why Stealth Creative has a team of social media specialists!

Sure, your business could create a {insert newest social media platform here} profile. But do you really need to?

Let’s think about it, shall we?

Time

Time:

The more platforms you’re on, the more:

• Content you need to create
• Posts you need to schedule
• Comments you’ll need to monitor

Commitment

Commitment:

Creating a profile implies you’re going to be active and engaged. If you’re not up to the challenge, your image will potentially look unprofessional.

Relevancy

Relevancy:

A lawn service company should focus their efforts on Nextdoor instead of LinkedIn.

“Now more than ever, it’s important to be where your audience is. Social media is a very saturated place, so you want to make sure you stand out against the competition with content that your target market will resonate with. The more focused you are on the profiles you’re utilizing, the higher the likely quality of the content. Don’t spread yourself too thin – especially if your effort is being used on a platform your audience doesn’t frequent!”

-Kirsten Hackett, Social Media Director

Myth 5

My Company is Too Small to Hire an Agency

This is the myth we want to banish more than any other.

Why? Because in business, as in life, it’s not where you start but where you finish.

Let’s face it: Most companies aren’t an overnight success. They spend months, maybe years, building an audience and carving out a niche, slow but steady.

Then, whether through a website redesign that emphasizes user experience, a breakthrough idea for a commercial or one savvy media strategy, they captured the market’s attention — and odds are an advertising agency helped somehow.

“Smart, strategic marketing can be the great equalizer — and it’s not reserved for household brands. If you’re hungry for growth, it can only help to get input from people whose career is helping businesses become more successful.”
-Dan O’Saben, Owner

It’s a Fact: We’re Ready to Market YOUR Company

And Stealth’s advertising case studies prove that we can make a difference for clients.

Reach Out
Brian Reinhardt

Brian Reinhardt

Brian Reinhardt is a Senior Copywriter at Stealth Creative whose first unpublished story was penned at the age of eight. Yes, it involved hoverboards, lasers and robots. His days are filled with researching, content creation and SEO strategy. His nights are spent with family, reading and managing too many fantasy sports teams. Nine is his favorite number.

Can you believe how many changes the social media world has seen lately?

Neither can we. That makes now as good a time as any to fine-tune your social strategy!

Why?

Because social media means more to the brand-consumer relationship than ever before – and there’s always opportunity to strengthen those customer connections.

Social media users are switching between seven social networking platforms, and they’re spending almost 2.5 hours per day on average glued to their profiles. In a shock that comes to no one, younger generations use this medium more than any other.

Time Spent Using Social Media, per Generation

Can you imagine the possibilities for reaching your ideal audience? We can.

Here’s how to become a social media socialite.

#1 Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

We get it. Change can be hard. Especially when that change means doing things like getting in front of a camera.

But remember: Your customers want to see you. Don’t sweat being filmed. You’ll be talking about what you know best: Your business. And unless you’re doing a live stream, you can hit “Record” as many times as you need before publishing. (That’s what we do!)

#2. Know where your people are

Does your business need to be on every single social media platform? Maybe a long time ago, but not today. Whether you have an established business or are in the middle of building one, you should know who your ideal consumer is. Once you know that, it’s a matter focusing your efforts on where they spend their time.

Don’t know where that is? We do.

#3 Listen to Your Audience

If you’ve never heard of social media analytics, all you need to know is they help you listen to your audience. Most platforms offer their own analytic tools and insights, but you can also use third-party resources depending on your needs.

The best way to understand what resonates with your audience is knowing what makes them engage. For example, examine a post with a lot of comments. What kind of post is it? A conversation starter? Does it show personality?

Take the attributes of successful posts and recreate them. You don’t want to duplicate the exact same post, but consider how you can adapt the voice, message and imagery into your next social gem.

#4 Stop Their Scroll

You have three seconds to gain the interest of a social media user. That’s right: THREE. If you don’t grab attention off the bat, you’ll likely be ignored.

So how can you make sure this doesn’t happen to you? We’re so glad you asked.

Now that you know who your audience is and where they spend their social media time, put yourself in their shoes. If you were them, what would YOU want to see on your feed? Something eye-catching, right?

Right.

Whether it’s educational or entertaining, your content’s first impression can make or break its performance. A good introductory hook does exactly that – it grabs hold and doesn’t let go. And hopefully, it leads them to your profile to become your newest follower.

Let’s Get Social

Whether you’re a social media whiz looking for some inspiration or are just now starting to dabble, Stealth Creative’s team can help. Remember, it’s never too late to get your social strategy on target.

Source: Sprout Social,  Hootsuite, Statista and McKinsey

Picture of Kirsten Hackett

Kirsten Hackett

Kirsten Hackett specializes in social media marketing and loves to focus on building social communities for our clients. She has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and an MBA with a marketing specialty. When she’s not working, she’s likely hanging out with her family, baking or crocheting.

Recently we shared how social media is quite different than traditional marketing. This marketing effort is intended to build awareness, drive engagement, develop loyal brand ambassadors and serve as a key facet to your integrated marketing plan. And it’s table stakes in today’s socially savvy world.

Millennials and Gen Z account for more than one-third of the workforce, with that figure expected to increase to more than half in the next decade, making the younger generations the most dominant in the workplace. And keep in mind 48 percent of younger generation managers are your decision makers at a director level or higher.* As consumers and business decision-makers continue to get younger and younger, having a solid digital marketing and social media marketing game are the crucial first steps in your marketing foundation. They are what everything else should be built upon.

Think about it like a house. You wouldn’t build a house by simply adding rooms on top of stilts without a solid foundation in place because they would all tumble to the ground in a heap. The same thing is true for marketing: Focusing on marketing tactics without building your website and social media foundation first ends in the same result. And by the way, we can help with both! Just give us a holler.

Putting Social Media Best Practices to Work for Your Business

Social Best Practices_shadowSo, how do you ensure you’re following social media best practices for your business to stay on point with your brand’s personality and the expectations of each social platform? You can start by checking out this social media best practices infographic we put together, or even reach out to us to help with your entire social media strategy, campaign and editorial calendars, execution, community management and analytics reporting.

We often get asked to share social media best practices with our clients as part of our marketing engagement or social media marketing strategy work. So, we thought, why not make those same best practices available to you?!

It all starts with the right approach, which looks like this:

  • Develop a social strategy that not only supports your overarching marketing strategy, but also your business goals and objectives. Everything should align from top to bottom.

  • Determine overarching key messages that reflect your brand’s personality and attributes, while ensuring any content you develop reinforces your primary messaging, keeping everything consistent in your marketing efforts.

  • Craft your editorial calendar by month, showing all platforms, date/day, subject, copy, call-to-action, hashtags and any associated links. This ensures you have the full snapshot of the month across all platforms – again, to ensure marketing consistency.

  • Post unique content on each platform. Let me say that again: Post unique content on each platform. This is important. Why? Because each platform has its own language and expectations, which we dive into in the infographic. It’s also important to ensure your content varies by channel because chances are the same people will follow you on all your platforms, and they’ll quickly lose interest or unfollow you if your content is the same across the board. It’s okay to post similar topics, but vary your copy.There is one time when it’s acceptable to cross-post the same content: If you have a social media channel and do not have the resources to devote to it, but want it to stay active, you can cross-post to ensure there’s activity on the channel.

  • Be consistent in your posting schedule. Due to the way the platform algorithms work, consistency is king. After 30 days or so of consistent posting, the algorithms will realize you’re being active, and recognize your content as ‘valid.’ This helps with organic visibility, as well as helps your audience know when to expect new info from you.

  • Engage with your audience. This is not a post-it-and-forget-it kinda gig. If you want a loyal audience and attract the right kind of followers (those who will engage with your brand), then you must engage with them. It’s called ‘social’ for a reason.Think about your social channels as a cocktail party or networking event. You wouldn’t walk up to someone, and say: “Hi, my name is Bob, and I sell widgets. Wanna buy one?” You’d ease into that. Get to know more about them and their interests. “Hi, my name is Bob. What’s yours?” You engage them back, ask questions, get to know them, understand them, and that will help you eventually present your products/solutions.And keep in mind, the rule of thumb on social is: Post nine non-product- or solution-oriented posts to one that ‘sells.’ And please don’t brand your posts. Organic social is about connecting – not selling/advertising. Save that for your paid social or digital ads. The more authentic and real you can be, the better.Additionally, your audience may have questions or comment on your posts. Answer them, comment back, engage with them, and you’ll start to develop a much more loyal following.

  • Monitor quarterly analytics/trends. Quarterly is the key in that sentence. Social media is fickle. One month engagement and impressions may be up, the next down. Typically, you’re going to see a fluctuation of 5% either way, which is considered ‘static.’ The objective is to grow the KPIs positively, and keeping an eye on the analytics quarterly allows you to see trends and adjust content accordingly.

So, check out the rest of the best practices to keep in mind by channel in the infographic, and then feel free to reach out with questions, to request a social media audit or even engage us to take social off your plate!

As always stay tuned until the next time we go Off the Radar.

*How millennials and Gen Z are reshaping the future of the workforce, CNBC.

We’ve heard the legend countless times: The lone social media marketer, tapping away at their phone keyboard deep into the night. They are essential, but your company – and that lone wolf – deserves more.

To all the coffeepot-ed crusaders out there, we salute you. We know running a successful social media campaign can be challenging, especially if you have to go it alone.

For some reason, a lot of companies don’t truly understand the exorbitant amount of time and work that goes into developing and running a successful social media strategy.

Just because Facebook accounts are free, doesn’t mean social media marketing is.

While Bruce Wayne might be able to single-handedly clean up the streets of Gotham, a social media team of one (no matter how tragic their backstory) won’t make any significant headway on the interwebs – even with stellar content.

The current situation that pits small companies against established behemoths might be criminal, but we’re going to crack the case for better social media practices wide open.

The Deep Freeze

It’s diabolical. It’s repugnant. It’s…actually a pretty smart marketing ploy on their part.

No, we’re not talking about a supervillain’s plan for world domination (although some people might see it that way). We’re talking about Facebook’s algorithm that makes it virtually impossible for businesses to engage in organic marketing with their customers. According to Facebook, content from family and friends is prioritized in the newsfeed over content from public pages and businesses.

As expected, this has a rather chilling effect on how simple posts on social media translate to exposure or conversion for many brands. Of course, that’s the point. Platforms want you to fork over the big bucks to participate in their advertising program or to boost your posts. Either way, it means using Facebook is technically no longer free for businesses.

If you’re a Fortune 500 company, you can walk it off no problem. But if you’re a small fish in a big pond or just starting out, you may not have Wayne Enterprises’ levels of dough needed to throw at your social campaigns.

Not to worry! There is a way to trick the system. But you’re not going to like it…

The Bane of Algorithms

The best way to use social media to your company’s advantage is to perfect the art of storytelling.

Story-centric posts seem more natural, are more appealing to customers and can sneak by Facebook’s rigorous ad detection algorithms.

This approach requires you to spend more time and effort when crafting your posts. You can’t just throw up a link to your deals page anymore. You need to create content that will encourage your consumers to engage with you.

Here’s the catch: Excessive linking to websites, calls to action and comments are out.

We said you weren’t going to like it.

In the process, they’ve quashed what they term “Engagement Bait.” So links, CTAs, and requests to like, comment and share will tip off the Facebook ad police, and your posts will get banished to the land of eternal under-exposure.

But in the story-driven content approach, your story is your ad. So make sure the stuff you’re posting is interesting enough to make people interact with you in a more natural way.

Denny’s X (Twitter) feed is the poster child of this strategy. Notice how they don’t link to their website in every post, or continuously nag you to go buy food from them (although they do make you want to go buy food).

Learn from them; be molded by their experience. Don’t merely adopt the story. Become the story.

Riddle Me This

What’s free, only requires a Facebook account and a phone to use, and is something you’re currently not doing? Two words: Facebook Live.

More and more of social media is starting to move towards live interactions. Whether it’s gamers on Twitch, YouTubers doing charity live streams or celebrities hosting in-depth discussions on X Spaces, the answer to more effective social media usage has never been clearer.

And when data shows that live video gets 40X the interaction as other posts and rank higher in customer newsfeeds, there’s really no question: You should be live streaming.

This method is both cost effective and simple to use.

It does require a little more day-to-day planning and dedication, but you can’t argue with results!

Don’t Call Us Jokers; We’re Serious

If you’re part of a small social media department, chances are your company doesn’t have the time or resources to plan out your social media strategy. And this is no laughing matter.

It’s amazing the difference something as simple as creating a content schedule that supports your social media, marketing and overarching business strategies can make.

Scheduling a quick meeting every once in a while to brainstorm content ideas that support your defined strategy and putting them on the calendar is all it takes to set yourself up to keep an active – and consistent – feed across multiple platforms.

Whether it’s tips and tricks on your blog, numbered lists of dos and don’ts on LinkedIn, or email drip campaigns with news and updates, taking time to plan out your themes for the year for your social media accounts, and crafting monthly editorial calendars ensures you always have something to say that’s on point, on brand and supports your business, marketing and social media strategies.

So stop clowning around, and get planning! You really have no excuse.

Still feel like a social media marketing vigilante? Have no fear! Stealth Creative is here to back you up.

We offer social media strategy development, editorial calendar creation and execution, monitoring, and reporting of social media. We also have a successful track record with creation and implementation of consumer interactive opportunities.

Want to learn more? Drop us a line and stay tuned for more great tips from Stealth the next time we go Off the Radar.

You may have noticed how obsessed with real-time video content everyone is these days. The ability to simultaneously record content and broadcast it to viewers is literally changing the world.

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A few years ago, my marketing director and I had the opportunity to pitch the idea of social media to my then boss, who was the head of sales. I’ll never forget his response: Twitter? That’s that thing where people say they just had a tuna sandwich for lunch? No thanks.

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Marketing to millennials: Top 5 essential components

Millennials. Those mystifying individuals born between 1980 and 1999. Once dismissed as a non-entity in the business world, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers have little choice these days but to sit up and take notice to this generation who now holds 20% of the management roles in companies – and, who recently surpassed Gen Xers as the largest generation in the U.S. workforce.

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While press releases have been around since the Model A, there’s a quicker, smarter way to get your message to the masses while increasing your web traffic and social engagement through a little something people in the know call “the interwebs.”

The traditional way involved a sizable company submitting a perfectly crafted release into the hands of editors who may or may not decide to run it in whatever newspaper space was available. Even when it was accepted, the results (which often couldn’t be tracked) usually didn’t outweigh the cost.

Mercifully, the times have changed and small-and-medium sized businesses can reap the reward of the shifting digital landscape.

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I find it increasingly important to have a basic understanding of digital marketing language. I’m not saying you have to know how to code using HTML, but at least understand what it does and how the technology is used.

This same idea applies to terms such as CSS, JavaScript, SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing), CMS (content management system), social seeding and Google Analytics. As the call for digital marketing services becomes more prevalent, the ability to have a knowledgeable conversation with a client about digital marketing tactics is in higher demand.

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