This article is based on an episode of The B2B Sales Tech Podcast with Morgan Williams: #003: Generating Better (and More) Leads From Events with Geofence Advertising From a Veteran of AOL, Monster.com, and Ad.com w/ Rob Andreski
Rob Andreski is the VP of Sales, Midwest for Enradius. Enradius is a local programmatic digital advertising platform that is bringing the value of programmatic display, mobile, video, and social to small and mid-sized businesses, non-profits, agencies and publishers.
Rob is a digital media and technology sales veteran with over 18 years experience working with advertisers, agencies, and publishers. His key areas of expertise are digital advertising including display, programmatic, mobile, and video. He started his career in digital media with the company that later became Monster.com.
We reached out to Rob to discuss the rise of programmatic advertising, other trends in digital marketing and the power of geofence advertising.
Rob got started in digital media with Monster.com and his career evolved from 1997 onward. At the time, monster.com was known as onlinecareercenter.com. Being an early employee he was able to watch as the business generated its first million in inventory and expanded to 20 countries.
Simultaneously he monitored innovations, took his first steps in ad networks at a time when they would purchase unsold inventory and then remarket and bundle it.
Lessons in Growth From the Early Days of Monster.com
Since that time, a great many changes have manifested. Yet working for the early online Pioneers revealed many great takeaways that still apply today.
The first takeaway is to always innovate. Monster.com lost sight of the technology behind the scenes, which was why job seekers and employers went to the website in the first place. As a result, companies like LinkedIn came in and took a chunk out of their share.
The second thing learned was that with online digital marketing you could specifically target and reach the people you want to now. It’s no longer a guessing game like it was in the early years. Businesses today can better understand and learn who their most valuable customers are and then figure out the best way to reach them.
The Rise of Programmatic Advertising
In the past, brands tried to place their ads in line with contextual relevance to impact customer awareness for their product. But to do that, they had to align with specific programmers.
Today if a company wants to target males, 35 years old with a specific $50,000 income level they don’t have to guess or leverage programmers. They know where their client might be and they can target those individuals based on demographics. This is programmatic advertising and it has become much more mainstream. Now larger marketers are pushing toward it.
There are many reasons for this. Programmatic advertising saves your company money because you know that you are targeting the right person. That means you can operate marketing more effectively without having to pay the prices businesses once faced for print advertising.
You get more mileage out of your dollars without a single dollar of your advertising or marketing budget being wasted.
Laser-Target Your B2B Ads to the Right Audience
Today a B2B company can use programmatic advertising to more effectively target the intended audience. Consider a mobile provider trying to reach out to midsize businesses with no more than 10 employees.
Using this method of digital advertising that mobile provider can reach those individuals or the employees who work in companies of that size very easily. Display ads through mobile devices allow those advertisements to be seen directly by the targeted individuals.
Local phone providers who might typically focus on one market or a handful of zip codes can now go over location data just to make sure they are hitting the proper businesses of the appropriate size. All while simultaneously overlaying that information with the target of geography. That type of tech is invaluable.
Monetize Your Content Marketing
There is a big drive today toward content marketing. The problem is that businesses simply can’t publish information or content on their blog or website and then sit back waiting for customer to arrive. Businesses have to think like publishers.
Publishers focus on driving revenue and businesses need to figure out ways to make money from their content. Branding a company means creating content that makes money and drives purchases. The fastest way to do that is with paid advertising, leveraging social circles, and targeting specific audiences with digital marketing.
Leverage Video Content to Grow Your Brand
Video content is one of the current marketing trends because companies that create high-value, high-impact short videos are making the most money from it. Recent digital studies reveal that 59% of executives, when given the option of reading content or watching a video on the exact same content, will pick video.
Over 90% of Twitter users watch videos and share them. Mobile devices and social media in tandem, account for the highest number of videos watched. The most successful of those are videos which focus on social issues, and specifically videos that are shorter than two minutes, as the average Facebook viewer will not watch videos for longer than 2 minutes, and they typically watch them without sound so graphics are key.
Wrapping Up
Overall businesses now have many options at their feet thanks to programmatic advertising and video content in particular. By continuing to innovate and stay cognizant of the technological changes behind the scenes, companies can make the most out of every dollar they spent.
Image Credit: https://www.rakacreative.com/blog/digital-advertising/3-digital-advertising-channels-to-focus-on/
Leave a Reply