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 that it’s March? Neither can we. But it’s never too late to finetune your social media strategy for 2023!

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 95 minutes per day on average searching their socials.

Bar graph showing social media time spend by age group, women ahead in all age ranges.

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

Let’s get started with three ways you can sharpen up the rest of your 2023 on social media.

#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 keep this in mind: Your customers want to see you. And if getting in front of a camera makes you break into a sweat, remember you’ll be talking about what you know best: Your business. Unless you’re doing a live stream, you can hit “Record” as many times as you need before publishing.

#2. Know where your people are

Does your business need to be on every single social media platform? There might have been a time when the answer was yes, but that time has passed. Whether you have an established business or are in the middle of building one, you should have an idea of who your ideal consumer is. Once you know that, figure out where they spend their time and go there. Now.
Chart showing social media platform usage by age demographic

#3 Listen to Your Audience

You’ve heard of social media analytics, right? All you really need to know is how much 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. Obviously, you want to see your follower count grow quickly. But it doesn’t always happen that way, even if you go viral – but that’s a topic for another day. The best way to understand what resonates with your audience is to see what makes them engage. For example, examine a post that has 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.

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

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.

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