Quitting Social Media: Is there a digital exodus? 

Various news outlets have reported on the influx of younger people (Millennials and Gen Z) quitting social media. While it is true that many younger folks are aware of the pitfalls of too much screen time and the emotional strain associated with social media, it’s not as dire as marketers may believe.  

The act of “quitting social media” can mean many things to younger people. For some, it means taking action to delete all accounts on every platform. For others, it could mean deleting accounts from specific platforms. Based on data compiled from the past few years, it appears that people tend to “come and go” from social media. For example, a person can come to the realization that they’re dedicating too much time to networking sites like Facebook or Twitter and back off for a month or two. Some may simply reduce their usage by turning off notifications and making a cognizant effort to check their social platforms on an infrequent basis, too.  

Why are people quitting social media? 

Based on surveys conducted by non-profits, social media platforms, and marketing agencies, there’s several reasons why people abandon social media. These reasons can include: 

  • Wanting to redirect attention to one’s career or allocate more time for family 
  • Desiring to improve one’s mental health—specifically to reduce anxiety or depression associated with negative interactions online or making comparisons to another user’s seemingly perfect life 
  • Fearing a loss of privacy  
  • Feeling overwhelmed by notifications, interactions with other users, and prolific advertisements 
  • Experiencing boredom with social media in a general sense 

Demographics most likely to quit (or drastically reduce) social media use are Millennials and Gen Z. It makes sense that younger people, who have had access to social media for most of their lives, would crave a lifestyle less reliant on the internet for socializing.  

What This Means for Marketers 

Although people are certainly taking a hard assessment of how their time is spent online, the majority of people aren’t quitting social media en masse. In fact, tens of millions of people check various social platforms on a daily basis. Digital marketing is still an important component to consumer outreach. As we press on in the coming years, it will likely become apparent that digital marketing will need to focus on quality over quantity since digital fatigue is an issue. Digital marketing will need to center on thoughtful communication that is personalized and anticipates the needs/wants of an individual. Fortunately, advanced technology can make personalizing content and predicting consumer preferences much easier and more accurate.  

Beyond digital outreach, it’s important for brands and businesses to look toward tried-and-true advertising methods like direct mail. Utilizing direct mail is a great way to make thoughtful contact with consumers while evoking feelings of trust and nostalgia for a simpler time. Another great selling point for direct mail is the fact that it provides a sensory experience that digital mediums cannot compete with. Like digital advertising, direct mail can be personalized for the consumer thanks to sophisticated software.  

The printing experts at Pel Hughes can help you develop effective and personalized direct mail campaigns to engage with your ideal consumer. In addition to direct mail, we provide graphic design, cross media marketing, database services, campaign automation, and retargeting.  

We serve businesses in an array of industries as well as non-profit organizations and educational institutions. You can request a quote online or call us at (504) 486-8646 to learn more.  

Higher Education Marketing Strategies: 3 Tips for 2023 

It’s no secret that COVID-19 affected enrollment in universities and colleges around the world, including the United States. This reality paired with economic uncertainty and a highly specialized labor force, has made attracting students in higher education far more competitive than in years past. One way to combat these stark realities is to utilize robust higher education marketing strategies that resonate with younger generations and give your institution a competitive edge.  

Following are three helpful higher education marketing strategies to consider in 2023.  

3 Higher Education Marketing Strategies You Should Know About  

Understand the Power of SEO 

Search engine optimization is a powerful weapon in digital marketing. Search engines use complex algorithms to rank web pages. These rankings are used to ensure that internet users’ search results are relevant to what they are searching for. A well-optimized website should have keyword-rich copy along with software plug-ins that integrate tags and keywords into a website’s code to help search engine algorithms scan and organize the content on a website. Properly executed SEO means that your website can rank on the first page of search results for specific topics and keywords, which can drive a substantial amount of visitors to your website. SEO can be a complicated endeavor so it’s best to collaborate with reputable digital marketing firms for best results.  

Track Helpful KPIs 

Although an increase in enrollment is an ideal key performance indicator (KPI) of your marketing efforts, it’s not the only metric you should consider. Other important KPIs include engagement on social media, from where your website visitors originate, and call-to-action (CTA) conversion rates.  

These metrics help evaluate whether your marketing messaging is resonating with prospective students. Tracking engagement on social channels such as new followers, likes, comments, and more on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok can help determine what type of content attracts attention. You can also organize engagement by topics. If similar questions keep coming up in comments sections or private messages, these could be compiled into helpful content in the form of a FAQs webpage, blog, or even an informative video.  

Keeping an eye on what drives visitors to your websites is also a helpful KPI. Your website’s visitors could come from a variety of places including specific social platforms that post content from your website, Google and Yahoo searches, and hyperlinks/QR codes embedded in e-mail campaigns, direct mail pieces, and other print materials. Knowing where your website traffic comes from helps you nurture the points of origin that brings visitors to your site. Similarly, monitoring CTA conversion rates, such as when a e-mail address or phone number is supplied for further communication helps your marketing team better understand what messaging spurns interest and action from prospective students.  

Personalize Your Messaging 

Personalization is one of the most powerful higher education marketing strategies an institution can utilize. Everything from direct mail pieces to email marketing can be personalized. For example, you can segment your audience into specific groups such as those with undecided majors, those with specific career paths in mind, and students returning to college after a hiatus. This level of personalization makes it possible to ensure that your messaging resonates with a prospective student’s needs, which can increase the likelihood that they commit to attending your university.  

Pel Hughes can help you implement these higher education marketing strategies. We offer database services, campaign automation, cross media marketing, personalized messaging, and direct mail. Give our helpful experts a call at (504) 486-8646 to learn more.  

Marketing Trends to Watch in 2023 

When it comes to attracting customers, having a great product or service is just half the battle. Today’s consumer favors companies with strong values and a great customer experience. Marketing trends in 2023 show that developing a robust content strategy, prioritizing open communication, and delivering a unique customer experience attracts new clientele and fosters brand loyalty. Following are three marketing trends you should consider implementing in 2023.  

3 Marketing Trends You Should Know About  

Focus on Quality, Useful Content 

The quality of your content matters in both print and digital marketing. Where digital marketing is concerned, having top notch content will help your website rank higher in Google and Yahoo searches. It will also help create a great user experience that spurns consumer action. With print, your content helps introduce consumers to your brand and incentivize further interaction on other channels. All of your content should be original and well-written.  

Copy that showcases what makes your enterprise unique and offers helpful information to consumers should be prioritized. For example, if you operate a dental practice, a good portion of your content should be dedicated to patient education. Your direct mail, social media posts, and website content should inform patients on oral health conditions and treatments.  

Ideally, you want your content to create space for a connection between your business and your clientele.  

Interactive Marketing 

Interactive marketing has become wildly popular in the last few years and continues to resonate with consumers across many demographics. Implementing an interactive approach can be as simple as offering polls and surveys on direct mail and social media. Personalized PDFs and PURLs can also enhance the interactive experience. Interaction helps create an environment where consumers feel included and valued. Infographics can also have interactive elements when particular areas are clicked or tapped on a touchscreen.  

Types of interactive touches can vary depending on your industry. For instance, boutiques and retailers can allow users to digitally dress an avatar to see how clothing pieces and accessories look together while auto dealerships can use interactive calculators to showcase a vehicle’s affordability. Some brands even develop game-like interfaces where customers can compete against one another with fun tasks for coupons and discounts.  

Prioritize the Customer Experience 

A poor customer experience could terminate your relationship with a consumer. According to a survey by Invoca, 76% of consumers will cease purchasing from a brand after a bad customer experience. It is important to understand that the customer experience involves much more than just how easy it was to make a purchase or how useful a product or service is. The customer experience entails everything from responsiveness on social media and customer support along with the quality of your packaging and how quickly items are shipped. The customer experience also entails a consumer’s experience interacting with brand representatives and service providers.  

In a nutshell, the objective of prioritizing the customer experience is to make a customer feel valued. Something as simple as sending a direct mail piece celebrating a repeat customer’s birthday can go a long way in developing a loyal brand-to-consumer relationship.  

The pros at Pel Hughes can help you incorporate these marketing trends to give you a competitive edge. We offer cross media marketing, personalized direct mail, database services, graphic design, promotional apparel, and customized packaging to help you cultivate an impeccable user experience and brand image. Give our team a call at (504) 486-8646 to learn more.  

5 Benefits of Cross Media Marketing 

Are you leveraging digital and print marketing to your advantage? Combining print and digital marketing, also known as cross media marketing, offers unique advantages for your business. Some key benefits of cross media marketing include: expanding your brand’s reach, improving data collection for measuring the effectiveness of your campaigns, and retaining clientele with increased customer service. 

Following are five benefits of cross media marketing that you should consider.  

Five Great Benefits of Cross Media Marketing 

#1 Broaden Your Brand’s Reach 

Modern consumers are inundated with messaging across dozens of channels. From radio and television to e-mail, social media, and their mailbox, the world is an oyster of information and promotion. This onslaught of information can overwhelm consumers or simply become lost in a sea of advertising. Utilizing cross media marketing, such as sending direct mail campaigns in addition to social media and e-mail marketing can help your brand reach the people who need your products and/or services.  

Even more compelling is the fact that merging print and digital marketing is ideal for including consumers across numerous demographics. Inclusivity is essential for staying afloat in today’s hypercompetitive business climate.  

#2 Leverage Data and Tracking for Better Messaging 

One of the best benefits of cross media marketing is data tracking. With technology, you can compare response rates across your campaigns—including print. Embedding QR codes, promotional coupon codes, and PURLs (personalized URLs) on your direct mail campaigns is a great way to evaluate the response to a particular mailer. These tools can also drive traffic and engagement to your digital channels. Once your data is collected, you can also enlist our help with database services to further segment your audience for more personalized messaging and retargeting campaigns.  

#3 Improve Customer Service 

Developing a presence across multiple channels can optimize your customer service. Before the Digital Age, customer service was relegated to brick-and-mortar establishments and call centers. Today, however, a good deal of customer service occurs on social media platforms and in e-mail inboxes. By making your brand more accessible to your customers—on platforms where they feel most comfortable—can make a world of difference.  

#4 Make Personalization Easier 

Personalization is more than just a buzzword. Consumers expect personalized attention. Psychologists believe that consumer focus on personalization comes from a need to feel seen and heard in today’s rapidly changing world.  

Did you know that more than 60% of consumers who receive a personalized experience become repeat customers? Personalization builds brand loyalty. Fortunately, technology makes it possible to personalize a consumer’s experience beyond in-person interactions. For instance, variable data printing ensures that your direct mail addresses a consumer by their legal name. E-mail messaging is easily personalized, too with variable fields for recipients. Data can also help with personalization. With data, you can track a particular customer’s purchase history, items viewed on your website, and much more. This makes it easier to make product recommendations based on their unique consumer preferences. All of these personalization tools offer opportunity to enhance your consumer’s experience for the better.  

#5 Maintain Contact with Existing Customers 

With an influx of ways to communicate with consumers, it might be tempting to place the ball solely in your customer’s court. While it’s important to avoid overwhelming your clientele, it can be difficult to stay in contact with customers across various channels. For example, a long-time customer of yours may deactivate his or her Facebook account. Over time, this deactivation could lead to less exposure to your brand. One way to combat this potential revenue loss is to establish other means of communication with repeat consumers. Offering coupons for signing up for e-mail newsletters or reaching out to longtime customers via direct mail is a great way to maintain contact when one method of communication dries up. The best way to maintain contact with lapsed customers is to incentivize them with coupons or promotional deals.  

The pros at Pel Hughes offer an arsenal of services and tools to help you reap the benefits of cross media marketing. You can learn more about our services, including graphic design, campaign automation, direct mail, and database management by visiting our blog. Feel free to call (504) 486-8646 to speak with one of our friendly experts.  

 

Five Must-See Inspirational Ad Campaigns 

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Inspirational ad campaigns can leave a lasting impression on the general public. This form of advertising is great for for-profit and non-profit organizations—especially when inspiration is executed with authenticity. Inspirational ad campaigns can generate powerful responses, brand loyalty, and increased sales. Many times, inspirational ads go viral because their content is share-worthy on social media or discussion-worthy over the water cooler in workplaces. Following are five inspirational ad campaigns that the experts at Pel Hughes love.

5 Positive & Inspirational Ad Campaigns

#1 Stabilo Boss 

In 2018, Stabilo Boss launched the “Highlight the Remarkable” ad campaign. These ads literally highlighted women in history who made noteworthy contributions to society that were overlooked in their time. In the example below, Stabilo Boss highlighted Katherine Johnson in a group photo at Nasa. The ad featured copy discussing her contributions as a mathematician for NASA’s Apollo 11 mission. Katherine Johnson’s calculations were instrumental in the safe return of astronauts to Earth. This ad campaign won numerous awards and went viral on social media.

Image Source: Ad Week

#2 Always 

The Always “#likeagirl” campaign turned a common, gendered insult on its head. These series of ads showcased women and girls playing a variety of sports. This campaign juxtaposed common insults such as “run like a girl” or “throw like a girl” with footage of young athletes performing their respective sports very well. Utilizing a hashtag in the #likeagirl campaign was a brilliant way to increase the virality of the advertisements while inviting social media users to share their own experiences with gendered insults and sports performance.

Image Source: Always

#3 The Movember Foundation 

The Movember Foundation is a non-profit organization that raises awareness for men’s health concerns, particularly mental health, testicular cancer, and prostate cancer. On World Suicide Prevention Day, the Movember Foundation launched a PSA on YouTube called “Unmute & Ask Him”. This short video featured a man speaking about his mental health struggles while the subtitles displayed grilling tips. This jarring disconnect between perception and reality highlighted the fact that societal pressure and gender norms led to men stifling their feelings. This PSA was a call for people to check on the men in their lives and encourage them to speak candidly about their wellbeing.

You can view the “Unmute & Ask Him” campaign on YouTube.

#4 P&G 

P&G (formerly known as Procter & Gamble) is one of the largest companies in the world with dozens of household brands such as Crest Toothpaste, Dawn, Always, Bounty Paper Towels, and Pantene. As a worldwide manufacturer of popular consumer goods, P&G sought to highlight the sacrifices of mothers across the world by showcasing how their nurturing and support helped Olympic athletes achieve their goals. The “Thank You, Mom” series of ads showcased video footage of mothers who raised champions. Launched in 2010, the “Thank you, Mom” ad series was the most successful campaign in P&G’s 175-year existence. It resulted in a $500 million increase in global sales and earned over 74, 000,000 views.

Image Source: Business Wire

#5 Dove 

In an effort to promote body positivity and inclusion, Dove launched the “Real Beauty” series of advertisements. Featured in photographs and videos, the “Real Beauty” campaigns showcased ethnically-diverse models as well as models with a variety of body types and sizes. These ads also featured women of different ages. This shift toward promoting diversity and inclusion was ahead of its time when Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign launched in 2004.

Image Source: Live Oak Communications

Positivity, gratitude, and inspiration can go a long way with consumers. Incorporating stories of triumph and inclusion can be a winning formula in your next advertising campaign. If you need help with your cross media marketing, direct mail, or graphic design, give the friendly pros at Pel Hughes a call at (504) 486-8646 to request a quote. We offer a wealth of resources to businesses and non-profits alike, including campaign automation, database services, and full-service printing.

Cross Media Marketing with Smarter Direct Mail 

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Smarter direct mail campaigns should be a part of every enterprise’s cross media marketing strategy. While conventional direct mail offers a high ROI, its effects are further enhanced when direct mail implements tracking metrics like QR codes and PURLs along with digital outreach in the form of e-mail marketing. As regulations change the way data is gathered and analyzed to accommodate consumer privacy concerns, many businesses are turning to conventional marketing methods to ensure that their brand messaging reaches their target demographic. Merging digital outreach with direct mail can help increase sales, strengthen brand recognition, and maintain loyal consumership with your customers.

How to Integrate Direct Mail with Cross Media Marketing

Direct mail is a tactile, three-dimensional form of advertising that connects a consumer to your brand in a visceral way. Conventional direct mail alone, however, doesn’t yield as good of results as mail pieces that integrate modern technology. One of the best ways to merge digital with print is to make following your digital channels part of your mail piece’s CTA.

Requesting that mail recipients follow your business’ social media accounts or subscribe via e-mail for special offers and promotions is a great way to connect your customer to your business in-person and online.

Another great strategy for improving your direct mail’s ROI is to place QR codes and PURLs into your copy. A QR code is a scannable icon that can take your recipient straight to a landing page of your choosing, such as an e-mail subscription form, an exclusive coupon or discount, or to view a short video. Additionally, PURLs—which involve generating personalized URLs for each mail recipient—can direct users to personalized shopping carts based on previous purchases, special offers like BOGO deals, or to complete a customer satisfaction survey. Since QR codes and PURLs are customized to each recipient, these tools provide reliable metrics for analyzing the effectiveness of your direct mail campaigns.

Benefits of Smarter Direct Mail

Smarter direct mail can make a big impact—especially when it is used as part of a comprehensive cross media marketing strategy. Pairing smart direct mail with digital marketing gives businesses a competitive advantage. One aspect of direct mail marketing that is especially powerful is the fact that this mode of communication occurs in real-life. Your mail piece is a physical representation of your brand that extends far beyond the web. When you integrate direct mail with digital marketing, you can cultivate stronger brand recognition among consumers, which helps set your business apart from others. The increased visibility afforded by robust cross media marketing helps foster long-term and loyal relationships with your customers.

The ROI on direct mail is higher than digital advertising but when direct mail is sent shortly after digital outreach, its ROI increases even more. According to research conducted by AI Technology Insights, businesses saw a 60% increase in ROI when digital interactions were followed up with personalized direct mail campaigns. An example of following up with direct mail after digital interaction involves sending personalized discounts in the mail after a consumer makes a purchase online. This tactic promotes brand loyalty and higher engagement. Gallup found that syncing direct mail with digital interactions increases consumer loyalty by 25%.

If you’re interested in developing a winning cross media marketing campaign that includes smarter direct mail, give the experts at Pel Hughes a call. We pair cutting-edge technology and advanced printing techniques with client-driven service. We offer database services, campaign automation, smarter direct mail, and graphic design. Call us at (504) 486-8646 or request a quote online.