Fun with Seattle’s Metro Rankings

Posted by Deb on Thursday, July 7th, 2011 , Posted in Advertising, Clarity Posts, Featured , No Comments »

How close do you represent your market?

Needing to dig into the advertising section for the Seattle Times, I glanced through a list of Western Washington rankings comparing the Seattle-Tacoma Designated Market Area (DMA) to other metropolitan areas. Having a little summer fun, I looked it as a survey to see which ones applied to me. I would have had to answer “yes” to a lot of these questions if surveyed. Only one of the rankings surprised me: We’re 3rd in the nation for taking 8 or more cruises in the past 3 years. (Eight. Really?) Third of how many, we don’t know because we don’t get get to see the full rankings. Nielsen Media Research, which owns the trademark on DMA by the way, sells that data. But I can’t imagine the list of cities ranking high for people taking 8 or more cruises in three years can be all that long.

But the rest of the results didn’t surprise me in the least. Puget Sound is like a big lake, so yes, we sail and boat. We’ve got mountains both East and West of the metropolitan area, so yes, we hike. (The shot below is from a trail near Mt. St. Helens.) We’re home to Amazon, Expedia, REI and a host of top online retailers, so surprise, surprise, we shop online. In fact, we do pretty much everything online. We’re a bit geeky. But hey! We also rank 1st for gardening, and why not? Everything grows here — whether we want it to or not.

Wouldn’t you have expected Seattle to rank for coffee consumption? Or is that just assumed the world over? I would like to know why micro brews made the list but wine drinking did not. Shouldn’t Washington’s AVA get equal time with our micro brews? Disclosing my beverage bias. Here are the 15 rankings the Times wanted to highlight:

• 1st for buying music on the Internet
• 1st for gardening
• 2nd for shopping on the Internet
• 2nd for reading or contributing to blogs
• 2nd for drinking micro brews
• 2nd for 3 or more trips outside the continental US
• 2nd for sail boating and power boating
• 2nd for owning a cat
• 3rd for online banking
• 3rd for volunteer work
• 3rd for downloading podcasts
• 3rd for buying airline tickets online
• 3rd for taking 8 or more cruises in the past 3 years
• 3rd for online investment stock trading
• 3rd for hiking and back-backing

I did a very unscientific quick check of newspapers in markets close to Seattle/Tacoma area’s size. No other paper took this type of lifestyle approach to attract national advertisers.  It wasn’t the Seattle Times advertising department’s objective to make those of us who live here feel like we belong. But at least for me, they did!

I like living somewhere that ranks 3rd among the nation’s bigger cities for doing volunteer work.

Wonder how we rank for reading newspapers?

Need A Digital Media Playbook?

Posted by Deb on Monday, March 7th, 2011 , Posted in Advertising, Clarity Posts, Digital Advertising, Featured, Social Media , No Comments »

Advertising is very much not my expertise. I’ve dabbled, I follow developments, I get to judge commercials like everybody else. But when I need advertising work or even just advice, I go to the pros.  Fortunately, I know a fair number of them including my friend Marc Williams, owner of Seattle’s Williams-Helde Marketing Communications.

That’s how Steven Cough, Williams-Helde’s media director, wound up speaking to my MBAs last Wed. night.

“Technology has paved the way for advertising and technology drives the future of advertising,” said Steven. Showing a slide of cave paintings, Steven commented that we started out writing on walls. Advancing through the history of advertising to Facebook, he commented: “And now we’re back to writing on walls.”

Yes, we are. According to eMarketer, Facebook will reach the majority of US web users — 132.5 million — in 2011. (That’s more people than live in Japan, by the way.) By 2013, eMarketer says more than 47% of the overall US population will be on Facebook.

Even more millions writing on walls.

No fools, US marketers go where the masses congregate. They’re projected by eMarketer to spend $3.08B advertising on social networking sites this year with most of it, nearly $2.2B, going to Facebook.

While the future of newspapers as an industry gets debated almost daily, no one is suggesting abandoning traditional advertising tactics. On the contrary, the Merchant Circle Merchant Confidence Index Survey for Q1 ’11 reported mid Feb. found nearly 20% of respondents listed print newspaper as one of their 3 most effective marketing or advertising tactics. Print yellow page advertising was still up there with nearly 23%. Good old fashioned direct mail and coupons were still in the top 3 for nearly 24%. All three were among the top 10 most effective tactics.

The trick, Steven said, is determining what you really need your advertising to accomplish before you get wrapped up in any one ad idea. That’s particularly appropriate advice for budget-constrained entrepreneurs and small businesses. To set some objectives for your advertising and determine a strategy to maximize your spend, you first need a handle on what all the tools can do for you.

In the category of “handy resources that help things make sense” comes a great little Williams-Helde digital advertising tutorial ebook called the Digital Media Playbook. Snag a copy through the link.

Then go ahead and go right back to writing on walls.