December 15, 2023
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This Week's Top Marketing News

10 Outstanding Marketing Campaigns from 2023

Marketing is a lot like baseball.

The first thing you need to do is agree to step into the batter's box.

Yes, there’s going to be a fair share of ground outs and strikeouts, but that’s all part of the game.

Winning is accomplished with lots of singles in between those K’s and grounders. Sure you’ll take the occasional triple or home run when they come but you cannot expect to win by hitting only dingers.

But… it’s the long ball that makes highlight reels because that’s what we want to see.

The same goes for marketing.

Brands make calculated decisions in their “at-bats”. Sometimes they swing and miss. Other times they launch a towering 455-foot bomb into the upper deck.

2023 had its fair share of marketing home runs. Practical Ecommerce put together 10 Outstanding Marketing Campaigns from 2023 for us to enjoy. Now, where’s that popcorn?

Here are a couple of our favs:

1. McDonald’s: Grimace’s Birthday - McDonald's resurrected a fan-favorite character from back in the day by celebrating Grimace’s Birthday. A Grimace Birthday Meal featured a limited-time purple milkshake and Grimace merchandise was also available to purchase. This one tugs all the nostalgic heartstrings of any 80s kid who had a birthday party at McDonalds.
2. Barbie’s Selfie Generator - Another oldie but goodie made headlines this year with the release of the Barbie movie. The Barbie marketing team blanketed the world turning everything pink and cleverly positioning the most popular doll ever, front and center. Warner Brothers partnered with an AI photo editing app (PhotoRoom) that lets fans turn themselves into Barbie characters. This was a big user-generated content win.
3. Apple’s ‘Shot on iPhone’ - To showcase the upgraded capabilities of the new iPhone 15 Pro, Apple showcased awesome videos that were shot and edited using nothing but the iPhone. This campaign created the need for this new upgraded phone with a growing audience of people producing their videos to share.

Be sure to check out the rest of the article to see other campaigns like Ben Affleck’s Dunkin’ commercial and Heinz + Absolut Tomato Vodka Pasta.

Fish Food: The takeaway here is that you need to focus on singles and every once in a while, you’ll smash that long ball. You just have to make sure you're continually willing to step into the batter’s box and take some swings. You’ll never get a hit if you don’t.

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Vote Neon Goldfish as the Best Web Designer/Developer in Toledo

A big thank you to everyone who has reached out and congratulated us for being nominated. We appreciate your support and votes. Remember, you can vote for us one last time today, December 15th! Not that we're asking you to do that, but it would be super sweet if you did.

Vote Neon Goldfish Best in Toledo

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10 Types of Customer Feedback (+Examples) - Your best source for feedback is from your customers. They have experienced the buying cycle resulting in the purchase and use of your product or service. HubSpot offers 10 ways you can leverage feedback from your customers to improve your business with examples of each. Some of these include customer surveys, interviewing customers, and customer reviews.
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X will thrive in 2024 despite Musk telling advertisers to ‘go f**k yourself’ - Elon Musk is a walking headline. Love him or hate him, the world’s richest person seems to consistently come out ahead. Elon has repeatedly been in the spotlight with controversial statements or antics that would bury most people. So, how can someone tell advertisers, the very soul of a social media platform like X, to "go f**k yourself" and get away with it?

Boathouse’s Geoff Gates believes that both Musk and X (formerly Twitter) are too big to fail and the platform will thrive in the upcoming year. Musk is in a unique position where he can bear a lengthy stretch of turmoil and has the financial resources to weather the storm. X also happens to be an established platform that imitators cannot seem to mirror no matter what the leadership team decides to change that day. Time will tell but Elon’s desire to turn X into the “everything app” does not appear to be in jeopardy at the moment.
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How To Train ChatGPT To Write In Your Brand’s Tone of Voice [Infographic] - ChatGPT is a tool that you can use to make mundane tasks easier. The effectiveness of the tool heavily depends on the input or instructions you give it. One of the challenges many ChatGPT users face is getting the output to deliver a unique tone of voice and not sound so vanilla or robotic. This infographic from Social Media Today provides some ChatGPT prompts you can use to generate content better aligned with your brand. They break down a brand’s tone of voice into 12 different notable character types that you can instruct ChatGPT to write like. For example, if you want to generate content with an innocent tone, you could use a prompt such as “Write like Bob Ross…” with additional instructions on the content you wish to create. Give it a shot and see how it impacts the output.
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How To Create a Coming Soon Page With Examples (2024)

A “Coming Soon” page is also known as a pre-launch page.

Back in the olden days of website design, it was common to see an “Under Construction” page that had a clever image of an orange construction cone or yellow hard hat. Sure, this was an upgrade from the default parked domain page if you published nothing but it was far from helpful to anyone who happened to stumble across your domain name.

So, what’s the difference between a Coming Soon page and a circa 2006 Under Construction page?

Opportunity is the difference…

The time between now and when you have your website or product ready for the public to see is time you can spend building excitement about what’s to come.

Here are a couple of ways Shopify recommends using a “Coming Soon” page:

• Begin marketing your brand, product, or website
• Start building your email list
• Get early feedback

Fish Food: This is a prime example of how putting in just a couple extra ounces of effort can make a world of difference. It takes time to create a brand-new website or finalize the details of a product before it’s ready to formally launch. Rather than hanging up a curtain that no one can see behind, why not begin to build excitement and talk about what’s coming soon? Share progress updates and provide sneak peeks to generate engagement. All these little extras by means of your “Coming Soon” page will provide you with an audience anticipating the day you launch.

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Oscar Mayer, Mint Mobile dole out free bacon for national campaign - An odd marketing matchup between a mobile phone provider and meat processor brings us the Mint Mobile and Oscar Mayer promo. This 15-second spot offers a coupon for free Oscar Mayer bacon to anyone purchasing a three-month Mint Mobile plan stating that everything should come with a side of bacon. We don’t disagree. Bacon makes everything better.

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Google Answers If Domain Age Impacts Rankings - Google’s John Mueller recently noted that the age of a domain name has nothing to do with how it ranks. This debunks a common belief by SEOs for years that domain seniority held favor with the search engine algorithm. This belief was mostly backed by the strong correlation between high-ranking domains and their age.

Mueller references a patent Google filed called Information retrieval based on historical data. In the patent, it notes Google looks for domain-related information that can help identify potentially spammy sites. Normal (non-spammy) websites tend to be registered for a longer period of time whereas sites that might be used for deceptive measures in tricking the search engine’s algorithms have a tendency to be registered for shorter periods. His answer weighs heavier on devaluing newer domains rather than awarding longer-tenured domains but I guess you can interpret some truth in his statement.
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Here’s What Separates a Good Marketer from a Bad One

Marketing is one of those industries without a lot of barriers to entry.

The wide array of tactics that fall under the marketing umbrella leaves the door wide open for self-proclaimed marketing experts the second they have a droplet of success in one tactic or complete the latest and greatest online training course.

So, how can you sniff out a good marketer from a bad one?

Most of the time, you can tell based on some of the claims that are made and usually by the too-good-to-be-true cost. This does not mean that expensive = experience, but most people understand the general connection between value and price.

Dave Kaufman from Meta outlines some key things that can help you sort out the good from bad marketers in this article published on Marketing Dive.

Here are some the the key takeaways:

• Good marketers understand marketing is constantly evolving, requiring ongoing learning and expertise. Bad marketers focus on the latest trends without a sound foundation.
• Good marketers understand goals and KPIs. Bad marketers have a hard time communicating what’s working.
• Good marketers are not afraid to say “I don’t know”. Bad marketers BS their way through uncertainty.
• Good marketers are hard to find. Bad marketers are a dime-a-dozen.

Fish Food: Almost every business has had a bad experience with a bad marketer. It’s kind of like the dating game where you try to find what works best for you and your business goals. You will know when you find a good marketer and solidify that relationship for the long term.

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