In part 2 of this series , I listed a number of common reasons why bad ads happen, the biggest one being when the creative team lacks a solid set of principles to judge the quality of their work. This post will outline a set of such principles termed “Advertising’s 10 Commandments”, passed on to me earlier in my career by a former San Francisco advertising veteran, Allan Hayes of The Hayes Company.

Before I get into it, let me just say that Al has already written a great overview of Advertising’s 10 Commandments. Any attempt by me to recreate it would be a waste of time because I wouldn’t say it as well as he does. What I will do is give a quick summary in my own, less eloquent words. If you want to read Al’s full version you can download it here . If I haven’t lost you to boredom yet, we’ll segue to the first commandment talking about just that.

1.    Thou shalt not bore people
Afterall, why create an ad if it doesn’t get people’s attention? The whole purpose of advertising is to engage your target, increase their awareness of a product or service, persuade them to a certain point of view and, in most cases, get them to take some type of action. That’s not to say that every ad has to ooze with sex, explode with violence or contain bright colors that leap off the page. Some ads are quite serious, especially in B-to-B marketing. They just can’t be boring. The best way to capture people’s attention is to speak directly to their preconceived wants and needs up front. If you can do that in a succinct and creative way, all the better.

2.    Though shalt get to the point
Did I say succinct? Oh yes I did. Good. You have to get to the point quickly because if you don’t, you’re going to bore people. Did I say boring people is bad? Oh yes I did. Good.

3.    Thou shalt not make thine own company look foolish
Why would anyone portray their own company in a foolish manner? It does happen, and when it does, it’s a mistake. Self deprecating humor is an art form and unless you’re really good at it, stay away. Also, avoid associations with other personas or entities that may cheapen your image. If you’re a respectable, trusted brand like Panasonic, would you really want Mr. T as your spokesman for Toughbook Computers? Wait, that would be awesome. Why don’t they do that?!

4.    Thou shalt not put thy prospects down, nor turn their stomachs
Progresso Soup ran a campaign some years back that was clearly an attempt to gain share from Campbell’s. The creative strategy was disparaging to consumers of the “other” more boring soup, which bordered on hostile and insulting to anyone that happens to like Campbell’s. Even if you don’t prefer Campbell’s now that there are a lot more healthy and/or gourmet options available, chances are that it still holds an affectionate place in your heart as the comfort food Mom gave you when you were home sick as a kid. Having such a visceral association with a brand would likely cause a consumer’s lizard brain to slingshot an expletive back in Progresso’s general direction when confronted with that campaign.

One of Al’s favorite examples that violates this commandment was an ad for…I believe it was Mello Yello soda pop back in the 70’s. In a print campaign they ran awhile, the strategy was to show a lifestyle shot of a bunch of good looking, scantily clad young adults having fun in a river or pond or something, splashing around in their cutoffs, dunking each other, flipping off of rope swings, etc. Very similar to what Mountain Dew did in later years. The problem wasn’t so much with the strategy as the execution. The photos had sort of a yellow treatment to them which presumably was to reinforce the idea of “Yellow” which in a strictly rational sense, connects to the brand name. Yellow, orange, auburn, and red tints to photography was a little trendy at the time as well. However, the yellow tinge created the appearance of a fetid swamp and evoked the frightening idea of yellow fever! You looked at this ad and it made you think that Mello Yello was yellow fever swamp water. No thanks.

5.    Though shalt portray thyselves as human beings
Don’t be a nameless, faceless organization. You are people. Be human if you want to connect with other people. This doesn’t just mean showing pictures of people in your advertising. It means really knowing who you’re talking to and connecting with them on their level, in an authentic manner.

6.    Though shalt be believable
Always make sure you can back up your claims 100%. Beyond that, be sensitive to certain claims that, while being fully truthful, may sound unbelievable to some people. When that happens, anticipate it and do what you can to give skeptical prospects extra incentive to believe you.

7.    Though shalt tell thy prospects what they want to hear, not just what you want to tell them
This, in my experience, may be the commandment violated most often. It is just too tempting for some companies to talk about the things that are most important to the organization from an internal standpoint and not speak directly to their prospects’ preconceived wants and needs. Maybe when Panasonic finally does hire Mr. T as a Toughbook spokesman, he can tell them that he pities the fool that spends too much time talking about technical specs that people don’t care about or understand. Sell the Tough Fool!

8.    Thou shalt understand thy market
You have to do your research. The client knows their business best, so milk them for all the info you can, but do your own research as well. If you can swing it, go deep and do some ethnographic studies .

9.    Though shalt know thy product
You have to be an expert on the thing you’re trying to sell. Reading the brochure is a start, but that alone doesn’t cut it. Talk to product managers, engineers, leaders, innovators—anyone responsible for the creation and/or ongoing success and development of the product. Go to the place where the product is made or the service is delivered and see the process first hand. When I was on the Rolex account, I learned how to completely disassemble one of their preeminent time pieces and put it back together blind folded. That last sentence was a slight distortion. Okay every word of it was a big lie. But sometimes you have to do the wrong things for the right reasons, like in this case, making myself sound awesome.

10.    Thou shalt ask for the sale
What?! How could you forget to do that? That sounds so dumb right? It happens. When it does, the CYA response would be something to the effect of “Hey, it’s a branding ad. It’s purpose is to just get the name out there.” While that may be true, it won’t kill you to put your web address or another call-to-action on the ad so people who actually want more info can get it.

So those are them, the mighty Ten Commandments of Advertising in all their glory, standing alone as beacons of truth, defending us from dumb ads that make us furious. You have to use them though. For every one of your creative advertising ideas that you fall in love with, before you send it off to everyone else in the approval food chain, do yourself a favor and back check it against these principles. If it holds up, let ‘er rip.

Stay tuned for the next post in this series where I’ll be discussing some details of the strategic planning process for advertising.

I hit up Orange County Register reporter, Ian Hamilton, who covers all things tech to get his thoughts on this year’s CES. Ian was literally up all night while in Vegas for CES (thanks in part to RedBull I’m sure) reporting on the weird, the innovative and the latest tech products and solutions out there. If you check out his past posts from CES, you will see what I mean (note timestamp of 2:50 a.m. for the Sphero clip — http://ocunwired.ocregister.com/tag/ces/).

CES Wrap-up Q&A with Ian Hamilton

RI: Being that you just attended CES, what do you think is the next big thing to revolutionize the tech industry?
IH: Smart watches and wearable computers. I don’t know which company is going to do it first in a really substantial way, but it’s definitely coming. Imagine a watch that can tell you the caller ID of the person calling your smartphone. You might even be able to decline or accept the call right from your wrist with your smartphone never leaving your pocket.

RI: Are there any new technologies that you think will change the way that marketers connect with consumers?
IH: The trend here is that marketers need to connect with people in even more personal ways. Thing is, marketers promote brands but social media is about people and personalities. The companies that make a person feel like they’ve had a genuine personal interaction in social media are the ones to watch. The key here is genuine.

RI: What impressed you most about CES? Which products or solutions stood out?
IH: The things that impressed me most were companies innovating around the devices you already own. Local Orange County companies are building lenses, battery packs and apps that extend the capabilities of the mobile phones or tablets you might already have. Instead of trying to convince us they have “the next iPhone,” these companies are instead making the iPhone and other mobile gadgets better in other ways.
* Read Ian’s post on local company, Mophie — just so happens to be a Rhythm Interactive client!

The Sphero - a remote-control ball controlled by your smartphone totally blew me away. It’s cool to think that this is a product that both myself and my 2-year-old daughter would enjoy.

RI: Did you leave CES feeling like something was missing?
IH: Yes, I did leave CES feeling like something was missing: the consumer. The Consumer Electronics Show is about consumers and I get the sense that most of the technology industry is way out of touch with the average consumer. 3D, for example, will always be a niche product until it no longer produces headaches or requires glasses. Yet they keep showing off these 3D televisions again and again. I just don’t get it.

Check out more CES 2012 coverage from Ian Hamilton. If you are into uncovering the hottest gadgets and getting the latest on new and innovative technologies, follow OC UNWIRED.

What do the colors mean?
Red - Adventure
Reds tend to be more concerned about what’s happening right now than in the future. Adventurous hobbies, impulsive behavior, if it isn’t fun - forget it! Generous, sharing, helpful. Waiting is unacceptable. They’re often bored and restless. Naturally competitive, witty and charming.

Yellow - Responsibility
Yellows are loyal, dependable, punctual, trustworthy and they know that everyone else should be too. Structure and order are very important. They establish and maintain institutions. Yellows are the backbone of a stable social system. Yellows resist change and see hierarchy as essential to society, the company, the family.

Blue - Harmony
Blues see the possibilities in others, and in themselves. They are highly creative and constantly growing. Uniqueness is important, yet they can shift identities to fit the situation. Life is a search for meaning. Warmth and compassion flow easily and with sincerity. Devoted friends, blues love to talk, share and help.

Green - Curiosity
Greens want to know all there is to know about everything. They like to analyze, study, invent, investigate and explore. Nonconforming and independent, they tend to appear calm, cool, and collected most of the time. The worse situation for a green is to appear unintelligent. They love abstractions and solvable puzzles.

So, what color am I?
Not to my surprise, I scored a 19 in yellow! I live my life with structure and order - some may call that OCD, I call it organized and precise. As one who plays the Project Management role quite often, I need to be dependable, punctual, trustworthy and detailed. Checklists are my friends. In a meeting, when all the reds are strong-willed and dominating the room, I tend to listen and raise questions of how exactly something will get implemented to understand how it will affect timelines and budgets. Spoken like a true PM.

Luckily, I also have the blues. I scored 14 in the blue quadrant, meaning I want to ensure everyone is happy, playing nice in the sandbox and building relationships with people I meet, especially clients.

How To Administer The Test
Administering the test is easy, just follow these basic steps.

1 – The test should only take 5 minutes to complete. Be sure to have everyone answer the questions quickly, with honest, gut reactions.
2 – The score card contains a table with 5 rows and 4 columns of boxes. Each box contains 3 words.
3 – You’ll take the test by rating the boxes in each of the 5 rows horizontally.
4 – You’ll rate how closely the 3 words in each box match your traits using a scale of 1 – 4 (you can only use each rating number once per row). Scale is like this: 4 = most like you; 3 = somewhat like you; 2 = less like you; 1 = least like you
5 – After rating the score card, total the scores by vertical column and write the total in the box below each column.
6 – Check out your “colors”

So, the next time you are planning a big group meeting which includes different personalities and various opinions, you should consider breaking the ice first by asking your attendees to take a personality test. This way everyone understands what types of personalities and traits are working together. You’ll be able to distinguish who may get a little out of control, who will quietly contemplate budgets and timelines, who may be singing Cumbaya and requesting to hold hands, and who will be contemplating new ideas that were not initially part of scope. Regardless, it will make the meeting more fun and productive.

________________________________________

The PACE™ Organization was founded in 1961 by James W. Newman, a pioneering behavioral scientist whose study of high-performance people identified a group of habits, attitudes and patterns of behavior which appeared to be common denominators of high levels of success and achievement in all walks of life. From the beginning the purpose of PACE™ has been to help already successful people better understand just what made it possible for them to make productive use of their talents and training and to provide clear methods with which to further enhance their personal and professional success.
Read more or take the PACE test here: http://www.paceorg.com/about-pace/

First, let’s examine the business model. It’s fairly simple. Leverage technology to develop a consumer database with interest profiles. Then, communicate to this database on a daily basis the offers that are relevant to them. But, make sure the offers are so great, that consumers will want to act before losing out since deals are limited. Consumers then act and purchase the deals online. That’s it. There are variances, but essentially, that’s the model.

Why did these daily deal companies become so successful so fast? Groupon grew to 3,500 employees faster than any other company and was offered a sweet acquisition deal by Google in the amount of 6 billion dollars. The rapid success of these daily deal businesses could be attributed to the following:

• Deals are deeply discounted, more than any other standard coupons consumers find anywhere.
• These services were launched amidst the worst economy in 80 years. Many consumers were forced to cut spending in creative ways and these deal sites and their business model met this consumer need.
• With quick and immediate delivery and transaction methods, consumers get instant gratification by learning about a new deal and locking it in.

How sustainable is this model though? In my opinion it’s not built for the long-term. The problems I foresee with daily deal sites are:

• Businesses cannot continue to run deals on sites like Groupon and Living Social on an ongoing basis. The discounts are so steep and the advertiser also has to share the revenue derived with the daily deal site. It’s a money-losing transaction.
• The deals may create awareness, but will the customers return? Most likely not, as many will wait for another similar deal or just experiment with something that is out of the ordinary.

The above foreseen issues will lead to a “deal burnout” for both businesses and consumers.

So, in the long-term, daily deals are “Not To Be”. I’m sure sites like Groupon and Living Social will be around for a long time, but there will be a consolidation of all the copy cats and eventually declining revenues from the big remaining players. It’s inevitable. Sorry Groupon, you should have taken that deal from Google.

This is not an easy question to answer as it’s not clear how search engines utilize the tag. Several years ago the tag was highly relevant and when used properly played a critical role in website page rankings. However, over time search engines have devalued the tag as black-hat tactics such as keyword stuffing made the tag less reliable. This ultimately led search engines to place much less emphasis on the tag.

Does this mean the tag is useless and offers no benefit? The fact of the matter is no one really knows with the exception of the search engines themselves as there is no simple way to run a conclusive test in terms of the weight of the keyword tag. Today there are many factors that effect rankings so it’s difficult to determine which are the most and least important. But one thing is for sure, keywords must be used in the content of a site and in the title and description meta tags.

In terms of the keyword tag, the best advice is as follows:

• Use the keyword tag
• Leverage approximately 3 to 5 keywords on each page, which should also be reflected in the content of the page
• Vary keywords from page to page, rather than having the same each time
• Don’t keyword stuff

The thinking here is that while the importance of the keyword tag is up in the air, it can’t hurt to use it as long as you don’t abuse it. Leveraging a simple best-practices approach as listed above can only help your page rankings.

Why Bad Ads Happen
There are a lot of bad ads out there. There are the ads that some people think are bad because of a matter of personal taste, then there are those irrefutably bad ads that defy every notion of what makes a good one. How does this happen? Here are a few reasons…

Lack of experience
Sometimes the team responsible for producing an ad just doesn’t have the right training or experience to make a good one. The weird thing with advertising is that because we have all grown up in a culture where advertising pervades our existence, it seems like second nature to us, like the air we breathe. Therefore we think we know a lot about advertising. We see ads everyday so why can’t we just make them?

Creating good ads is not easy work and there’s a lot that goes into it. The really good ads are often so simple that they give you the sense that something similar would be easy to make. Ce n’est pas vrai Monsieur. Like with any true discipline, there are some rules and guidelines. You have to start there at least, and definitely know them before you break them.

The lack of experience issue is especially common in the digital world. As I pointed out in my first post from this series, Internet professionals come from a wide variety of backgrounds including the humanities, social sciences, computer science, library science, various disciplines of design, fine art, sales, management, film, theater, journalism — even those coming from a communications background may not have had training in advertising, which is its own animal.

Lack of process
With experience comes some type of a process—hopefully. And having one definitely helps. While there isn’t any one way to approach advertising problems, there are some accepted best practices, like starting with a good creative brief. There are a number of process-oriented tactics one can follow to get to big ideas more quickly and execute the strategies laid out in briefs. We’ll be covering how to write a good brief and creative execution tips in depth with future posts, but the point for now is that following a solid process increases your chance of creating good ads.

Not trying hard enough
As I mentioned before, great ads are very hard to make. We need to know that going in and approach each communication challenge with patience and tenacity. Wieden Kennedy is a leading agency based in Portland, well known over the years for their work on Nike and other big accounts. They have a motto; “Fail Harder”. They know the importance of trying and failing and sticking with it until you get it right, no exceptions, no sissies, just dig in and get it done. To celebrate their unwavering belief in this idea, they designed and installed a wall-size piece of art brandishing this motto in a central location of their agency. What made it really special was the fact that it’s made of a zillion clear push pins. A dozen or so people from the agency worked on it for who knows how many hours and all nighters, pushing the pins into the wall, one at a time by hand, until it was done. If that doesn’t personify patience and tenacity, I don’t know what does. If you’re interested, you can watch this video of their enthusiastic suffering and resulting triumph .

Good idea, poor execution
Sometimes an ad turns out bad, not because there isn’t a good idea underneath it somewhere, but because the execution sucked. Maybe it was the art, maybe the copy, maybe both together, maybe some rookie mistakes were made—it could be a hundred different things. Proper peer reviews or testing with a small group of customers can sometimes help minimize this problem. Experience really counts when it comes to execution, but even the most seasoned creative professionals miss the target sometimes. When they do, they benefit from quality feedback to help steer them back in the right direction.

Politics/agendas
There are normally several people involved in creating an ad campaign and everyone comes to the table with an agenda. The CEO wants to keep the shareholders happy, the VP of Marketing wants to prove ROI, the Creative Director wants to win top honors at Cannes and the Account Executive wants it to be done on time, on budget and for the client to be happy. These differing agendas don’t always jive and when they directly oppose one another the results can be wonky. Just as important as original ideas and top notch creative talent is the art of consensus building to help blend agendas and avoid dramatic, deal-breaking compromises from any single team member’s perspective.

False goals/objectives
What happens if the wrong goals and objectives are established for an ad campaign? Most often, an ineffective, or just plain bad ad results. For example, imagine a company with a tremendous offering but little awareness in the market decides to run a brand awareness campaign. It may be tempting to designate “name recognition” as the main campaign goal. Following this charge, the creative team may come back with half a dozen clever ideas to work the company’s name into a catchy, memorable theme, but stop short of communicating the company’s offering in a relevant way. After experiencing the campaign, prospects may recognize the company’s name, but not associate it with anything they care about. In that case, the ads didn’t really do what they needed to do.

Personalities/taste
You can’t buy good taste. Every now and then the ads that ultimately get produced are a direct reflection of the likes and dislikes of the person writing the check. If the sponsor of the campaign exerts their influence in this way and if they lack taste or sound judgement, you could end up with a mess. This is close to a worst case scenario, but it does happen.

Constraints
I’ve never met a creative that thought they had enough time and money to do their best work. Sometimes constraints can be unreasonable, but they always exist and usually are not a good excuse for a bad ad. A really good team should be flexible and able to adjust to a wide range of budget and time parameters. The result should be fairly judged in the context of those constraints, but it just can’t be bad. Some of the best ads ever created cost next to nothing to produce or took no time at all to arrive at the idea. Others required burning some serious midnight oil to meet a deadline. Whatever the case, don’t let constraints be an excuse for bad work.

Lack of principles/criteria
I saved the biggie for last. If there’s a leading reason that bad ads happen, it’s due to a lack of criteria to measure the quality of an ad, against a set of firm principles. I had the good fortune of studying for a year and a half with Al Hayes, an old-school, veteran ad creative from San Francisco who established what he refers to as Advertising’s 10 Commandments. The Commandments consist of 10 “impossible to argue with” principles that he used over many years to back-check the quality of the work coming out of his shop. As a result, his clients’ sales increased along with their brand perception, his agency won awards and everyone was happy. In the next installment of this series, I’ll review Advertising’s 10 Commandments, one by one.

To sum it up, here are 8 tips to create good ads

• Put in your time - don’t think it’s easy ‘cause it ain’t.
• Develop a process to structure your work. At a minimum, be aware of the best practices and know the rules before you break them.
• Go in knowing it’s hard work. Embrace failure and stick it out until you get it right. Good enough isn’t good enough.
• Get feedback, at the right time, from the right people to keep you honest.
• Make sure you have an effective diplomat on the team that can build consensus among stakeholders with conflicting agendas.
• If the sponsor’s bad taste or judgement is insurmountable, there may be only one thing to do; cut and run.
• Constraints will always be there. Get over it.
• Advertising’s 10 Commandments—Know them, love them, live them.

What is the fold?

The fold is used to describe the upper half of a website — the content users see without having to scroll down the page.

Where is the fold?

There is no clear indication where that fold is, since this “cut off” depends on different factors like a user’s monitor resolution, their browser, bookmark bars, etc. These are all elements that can influence a website’s visual real estate.

Usually, on a monitor resolution of 1024×768, the fold is somewhere around 600 pixels. But it is important to remember that this is not a fixed position. In fact, recent studies show that the same position of a certain fold only accounts for about 10% of all users. So, even if we were to design a website with a clear cut off in mind, we would only get it right for about 10% of all visitors.

Does the fold matter?

Yes, the fold matters. Visitors should be able to understand what your business is about by the information located above the fold. However, we don’t believe there is a need to place all content, or as much content as possible, above the fold. In fact, we try to encourage users to scroll down and explore the site, and a very effective way to achieve that is the use of white space and less content above the fold. We also try to show images or content that will be only partially visible to indicate there’s more content below.

Jakob Nielsen wrote about the acceptance and understanding of scrolling down a website in 1997, yet we still come across this misconception and desire to place all content above the fold 14 years later.

Recent usability testing suggests that a majority of users do in fact scroll, and that a good portion of them scroll all the way to the bottom.

The Death of the Fold

There is another matter that is contributing to the Death of the Fold. No longer is browsing confined to desktop computers. Mobile browsing is increasing every day, whether on small-screen devices like the iPhone, or medium-screen devices like the iPad. With the shift to mobile, website developers have to take different screen resolutions into consideration than ever before.

Open up one of our latest site designs, Fluidmaster.com on your iPad in portrait mode. You can see the entire content of the home page right up to the footer. Now turn your iPad to landscape mode. The iPad automatically enlarges the site to fill the wider width of the iPad screen, however the cut-off, or the fold, has now moved up considerably, and much less of the content is visible and more scrolling is needed.

As you can see, even on a single device we’re dealing with two different cut-offs. Of course we could design a home page that shows all content in landscape, but it would leave half the page empty in portrait mode. Bottom line: Test your site design to see that what is visible clearly and effectively articulates your brand and the business you are in.

•    The Internet will blow up, causing a global cataclysm of epic proportions.
•    People’s lack of Internet access will cause them to mutate into zombies that raid strip malls and consume everything in sight.
•    Aliens will come to our rescue, hooking our planet into the galactic Internet.
•    The aliens — with their galactic net — will turn on us once everyone is jacked into their matrix and we will become slaves inside a digital universe.

Okay, on a more serious note, here are some actual predictions for the 2012 digital marketing landscape.

•    Social Media Consolidation. People will start to get a little burned out on so many social media tools and options. Facebook will continue to dominate on the consumer side and look at LinkedIn to completely dominate the B2B social landscape.

•    Apple will crush it. Despite the passing of Steve Jobs, Apple will continue to gain market share and completely dominate the tablet market. Apple devices (desktop, laptop, phone and tablet) account for approximately 25% of email clients in use today. This is a big indicator on how Apple is winning the hearts and minds of consumers and professionals alike.

•    Marketers will continue to allocate larger percentages of their budget towards digital marketing. This has been an ongoing trend but in 2012, digital will finally get a fair share within the marketing mix.

•    Marketers will start to demand competencies in an integrated approach. The pain of managing so many different vendors will become overly burdensome, especially with the explosion of social media vendors.

•    Marketing automation will be in great demand as marketers develop customer lifecycle communication programs. Email and social media will be major components in these programs.

•    Daily deal sites will continue to flourish, but towards the latter half of the year, burnout will set in and more consolidation will occur.

Those are my predictions for 2012. The digital economy will be a major driver of growth in jobs and commerce. Let’s all gear up for 2012, it’s going to be one incredibly interesting ride.

So, here I list out some essential digital marketing tactics to employ to avoid what I term a “digital disconnect”. Now, you don’t have to jump on all of these tactics at once. Make your efforts tangible. Try one or two and work your way to engage in all of these strategies. I promise, by going digital you will not only have some serious fun (it’s truly exciting to see how fast word spreads about your brand, your company and your offerings when you increase your digital presence), but you will also see huge returns.

1.    Update or Enhance your Website
If you’re spending thousands to decorate your office, but not investing in your website, you have problems. Your website is the digital portal to your brand. Not everyone has the opportunity to walk into your office and see your Picasso or Monet, but everyone with internet access has the opportunity to find and visit your site. Make it a great experience, a user-friendly experience and one that positions your company above the competition.

2.    Invest in SEO/SEM
To help people find your site, optimize your site with relevant content/keywords. Test it…do a Google search to try to find your company. If you are not coming up on the first couple pages, think about what you could do to get there. Explore the sites that do come up to get ideas…they must be doing something right. Set up a Google AdWords campaign based on your budget.

3.    Start a Blog
By starting a blog, a thought-leadership portal, with content relevant to your target audience, you establish yourself as a resource…a helpful friend AND by building content it helps with your SEO strategy! Search our guest bloggers to drive more people to your site!

4.    Email Marketing
Many think that email marketing is on the decline, with social and more targeted digital strategies taking over. I disagree. While you want to limit your email activity (don’t want to over-saturate your peeps), keeping your customers/stakeholders informed is essential.

5.    Get Social
If you’re not yet engaged in social…WHY?? There is little monetary investment (more time and yes, I know time is money, but start with baby steps) for great rewards. Social allows for true relationship building, listening, learning and lead generation.

6.    Digital/Mobile Ads
Where are your customers? Reach out to them in these spaces. Create digital ads on different sites your customers frequent. Run mobile ads within outlets your customers engage with on the go.

7.    Mobile Apps
Okay, first off, mobile apps are very different from just making your site mobile (which you HAVE to do…nothing more frustrating than visiting a site on your iPad or smartphone and it hasn’t been optimized for mobile). Mobile Apps offer your customers a totally different experience, a value beyond what your site offers.

So, what are you doing to digitize your marketing efforts? Where are you seeing the biggest ROI? Oh, and if you need any help going digital…Rhythm can rock it for you.

Over here at Rhythm, we love ourselves some gourmet food trucks. As a team of digital foodies, we work on tracking down food trucks within the general vicinity of our office in Irvine to plan our lunch outings. As early adopters of the mobile food craze and social media, we know that these food trucks rely heavily on social media to promote where they’re going to be since they’re always on the go. To make it easy for us to follow our favorites and filter out the noise (which there is a lot of within social channels), I took upon myself to create a Twitter list. This list follows the activity of 39 (and counting) food trucks that we have either tried, want to try or have heard of. I keep the list up to date, based upon the outcome of our culinary adventures, and any gastronomical emergencies notwithstanding.

Twitter lists make it easy to narrow in on what you are truly interested in. You can create as many lists as you want and you can follow as many lists as you want. You can also choose to make your lists public (like I have for my foodie friends) so that people can subscribe to them.

If you are on Twitter and have not set up a list yet, try something this holiday. Try setting up a list following the brands or companies you are interested in buying from this holiday. By doing this, you will know when they are running promotions or offering a Twitter-exclusive deal.

Here are some resources that can help you get started in creating your own Twitter lists.

• Mashable Twitter lists guide
  
• Building online communities via Twitter lists
  
• How to use Twitter lists
  
• Top Twitter lists
  

Tweet on!

@kristop
aka Chris