Born in 1911 and expelled from Oxford in 1931—who would have thought that David Ogilvy would know so much about marketing with social media?
Sure, he probably never dreamed of the vast interconnected social networks that exist today, but after writing ads for companies like Lever Brothers, General Foods, American Express, and Shell and becoming the most prominent figure in advertising (besides Don Draper), David Ogilvy sure did know a lot about marketing. And even though he wasn’t speaking about social media specifically, we here at N5R certainly believe his lessons apply. That’s why we’ve created:
N5R’s List Of David Ogilvy’s Best Social Media Marketing Lessons.
- "Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea."
Wonder why your campaign is failing to capture the attention of its audience? You probably don’t have a big idea. Yes—it can be tough to quantify what a big idea is, but you can be sure that when David Ogilvy said big idea he wasn’t just talking about the loudest or most controversial ones.
When you’re trying to figure out if you have a big idea a great rule of thumb is to ask yourself a few questions. Does our idea feel average? Can you explain your idea in a sentence? If the answer to either question is no, start over.
Most importantly, a big idea will work in any medium. Take you’re big ideas into the digital world and use them to start conversations with your customers on social networks.
-
"In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create."
You could be a marketing genius, but no one will ever realize it unless someone buys into your ideas. In other words, the pitch is key. Just being creative and full of ideas that youknow will work isn’t enough. Your client also needs to believe your idea is going to work. That’s not always easy, especially when you’re trying to leverage Social Media.
Social media marketing is new and different and can be difficult for a lot of clients to understand. If you don’t know how to sell your social media marketing idea, figure it out.Explain the benefits of social media—the enormity of your audience, the ability to target directly, and don’t forget to mention the cost savings associated with social media marketing too. Your clients are going to love that. If want to learn more about the benefits of Social Media Marketing, our free downloadable Ebook, Lovable Marketing Campaigns, is a great place to start.[link]
-
"I abhor advertising that is blatant, dull, or dishonest. Agencies which transgress this principle are not widely respected."
What should you take away from this? Only create work you can be proud of. This is not to say that every piece of marketing you produce needs to be respected and admired for generations to come, but it should always grow your brand.
Social Media is no exception. Social networks have a lot of power—don’t let that power work against you. Don’t produce social marketing that’s going to produce cash in the short-term and headaches in the long-term. Be creative and exciting, but at all times be honest. This is the only way to assure that your efforts will earn respect for your brandand for you.
-
"Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals."
Testing was important then and it’s even more important now. Lucky for you, when it comes to social media marketing, testing is cheaper and easier than ever. Try using A/B testing. It’s easy to do, easy to understand and it works.
For every piece of content you create with your social media marketing campaign, create an alternate version and send each version out to a different list of targets. Track the responses and leads you get from each option and when one outperforms the other you know you’ve got a winner. Never stop testing and you’ll never stop creating more compelling marketing for your target.
-
"If we hire people who are smaller than we are, we will become a company of dwarfs. If we hire people who are larger than we are, we'll become a company of giants."
A good team will produce good work, but a great team will produce great work. With the digital world changing so rapidly, this is even more true today than it was for Ogilvy. Make sure you’ve got a team that is up to date with current social media trends and knows how to stay on top of them. More importantly, make sure your team knows they can speak their mind. There’s no point hiring all these tech savvy social networkers if you’re not going to take their advice. Keeping an open mind to new ideas will keep your marketing innovative for years to come.
Interested in learning more about social media marketing and how you can leverage it to create condo sales? Apply to Roman Bodnarchuk’s Condo Mastery and find out the secrets that allowed Roman to sell out 150 projects in 10 countries and 30 cities—producing over 4.7 billion in sales.
