The Heinzeroth Blog

Back in the “olden days” the consumer purchase journey was pretty cut and dried. You went to a local brick and mortar store, shopped the brands and their respective assortments on the shelves and made a purchase. If you didn’t see what you were looking for, you drove to or called other stores until you found it. Competitive brands “differentiated” their products through shelf placement, pricing strategies and point of purchase materials. National TV ads, print ads, newspapers and circulars also educated consumers about product choices and available brands. Word of mouth recommendations from family and friends were the key trusted sources of product reviews. Special order catalogs were also in circulation and presented additional options for product purchases.

The old adage “Change is the Only Constant” hardly seems to capture the rate of change that has impacted consumers and brands since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rules of retail are in a state of flux as consumers learn to navigate new social behavior requirements, working from home or job loss, financial uncertainty and home-schooling children. How does a brand ensure that they will not just survive but thrive?

There are many ways to build brand awareness through early adopters and others we might target to achieve positive product reviews and referrals as well as more frequent sharing of your product story. Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Videos and Influencer Marketing are some of the techniques considered to be effective in getting the conversations started. Within that spectrum of person-to-person initiatives, Advocacy Marketing is a tool specifically intended to harness the power of consumers who are already sold on your brand.

To connect with key influencers in social media and spark their interest in sharing your brand story, the first step is to know who they are. There are several ways to identify and reach out to bloggers and other influencers that impact your product or service in social channels. And not all of these methods require subscribing to costly social media publishing and monitoring platforms.

Will your products sell successfully in another channel? It’s a common question and perhaps a tempting option to pursue if your products are nearing the mature stage of their lifecycle. Before you invest in a new channel initiative and get your team working on campaign materials, you might think first about how your business model would fare in another channel. If your company and brand strengths don’t transfer well, it’s likely that your products will need more than a marketing push. 

Another product line review? So soon? If your company’s channel marketing strategy involves big box retailers, it seems that there is nearly always a product line review on the dashboard. In our research and creative support for companies that have been participating in these annual (or more frequent) “trips to the shark tank,” we’re seeing a few things about the process that have been changing the past couple of years. Among those changes:

To energize your PR campaigns with the multiplier effect of blog articles, social media shares and other earned media exposure, there are some basic tactics that tend to fuel conversation and engage customers with content they generally trust more than ads and traditional news coverage. While these tactics do require some extra effort and hands-on attention, many of the techniques can be applied by B2B as well as consumer brands.

As unsettling as it may seem, the instant access that consumers now have to product reviews and pricing comparisons can represent some new opportunities to outmaneuver your competitors and kick start a new era of sustainable growth. Here are some tips for getting to the next level in a changing consumer marketplace.

How does Google+ stack up against Facebook?

Google+ came screaming out of the gates when it was released in June. Excitement over the social networking tool appears to have cooled somewhat since the launch, but membership is still nearing 10 million, although “active usage” is still nowhere near Facebook’s. For comparison, Google+ has 32 million unique monthly visitors while Facebook enjoys 700 million (nearly 22 times the traffic).

For the second consecutive year, agency president Loren Heinzeroth was chosen to serve on the 6-member judges’ panel for the 2011 NRHA Packaging and Merchandising Awards. Reviewing entries from more than 130 manufacturers from across the U.S., panel members evaluated packages and POP displays for their effectiveness in driving consumer engagement and encouraging sales. “There were many outstanding entries this year from a wide spectrum of categories,” Loren said.