We reached out to the amazing Marty Weintraub who is the founder of Aimclear, a well-known & respected leader in the online marketing industry and, we are proud to say, a speaker at Pubcon. We asked him about psychographic targeting, social media advertising, PPC and asked about what he will be teaching our attendees at Pubcon. There is much to learn from his answers below, so check them out!
1). Can you tell us about the areas of marketing you and your company specialize in?
Aimclear is dominant in audience targeting and customer acquisition. We build, track, and convert laser-focused audience segments, seeing targets through to conversion via omni-platform cookie pools, segmented by audiences.
Our agency drives web traffic and tracks merged social psychographic/search personas. Because Aimclear also distributes to influencers for buzz, links, and earned-media, the agency has evolved to be the missing link unifying search, social, PR and psychographic display.
The short answer is we’re a kick-ass paid and organic search, social, PR + retargeting filtered by psychographics agency steeped in classic creative marketing values.
2). Do businesses need to invest in social media advertising to be seen on social today?
Well, businesses can be seen on social without advertising, so yes. That said it has become increasingly rare to be seen enough to sustain social marketing ROI. In the history of the Internet every channel, platform, engine, community, network, community, etc. that EVER gave marketers organic units driving users external to a site monetized said organic units, making them paid. That’s why Google and Facebook are the biggest money players, not you and I.
SO, as a rule, anything valuable marketers get for free ends up costing money. Social media prominence is no different. Without paying, some people will see, just not enough.
3). What is Psychographic Targeting?
As an industry we have finally arrived in the holistic-user-targeting future! Psychographic variable research is now the gold standard by which to hold marketers accountable. Now and forever, best-in-class execution means paid and organic campaigns that deliver seriously sliced and tagged traffic by empirical attributes holistically across social and search. Haven’t heard of psychographics? Well, you will.
Psychographic variables are any attributes connecting users’ personalities, values, attitudes, interests, affinities, proclivities, predilections, politics, lifestyles, freaky geeky shit, etc. Some intellectuals also refer to psychographics as IAO (interests, activities and opinions) variables.
Psychographic variables complement and contrast classic demographic variables (like gender and age). They spill into behavioral attributes (like loyalty and usage habits), and firmographic variables (such as industry, seniority and functional area). Psychographics are deeper and should not be confused with classic demographics. For example, the age of a user may not be defined just by years. Perspective is also gleaned by psychographic attributes like mindsets and cultural criteria.
Aimclear has been been marketing with psychographics, starting with Facebook, since late 2007. In tandem with retargeting layers which can also be filtered by psychographics, the concept of whole-customer targeting has gone mainstream, baby!
Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, StumbleUpon, display networks, boutique demand-side platforms (DSPs) and other emergent channels’ targeting (combined and mashed into multi-channel retargeting layers) form powerful grids of attributes to define customers. Understanding nodes of the whole customer means that marketers have fascinating strategic and tactical tools at hand.
4). Facebook advertising, what do businesses need to know and how can they learn to succeed at it?
Pubcon is a great start, with several sessions addressing social psychographic display and content amplification. Aimclear Blog has many swell articles surrounding psychographics. We also speak all over the world at conferences.
There is no replacement for careful trial and error. Define your target personas. Use a spreadsheet and make lists of their most important qualities. If there are multiple buyer or lead personas, map them out. THEN head into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Custom Affinities Audiences, and DMPs like BlueKai and The Trade Desk. Dial in layers and test banners and/or social posts to these audiences.
5). Can anyone handle social PPC or should they hire a company to run it for them?
Anyone CAN handle social PPC, dependent on talent and tolerance for learning curves. I know one marketer, now a corporate leader, with a decade long search background who told me for years, “I’m just not into that Facebook thing.” I shared a few techniques and Facebook became one of the largest makers in the business. NOW, she manages an external agency that handles social PPC. I personally am a huge fan of knowing how to do things, especially when there’s a team in place to execute.
6). With the massive increase of social media should business owners still be focused on well-developed websites and SEO?
Absolutely, yes, having an effective website is crucial. After all, your business’s site is where social PPC fulfills, including landing pages and content. SEO? What the hell is SEO now anyway? Using the right semantics to win in Hummingbird semantic cluster space is important and difficult to game. We still need links for SERPs prominence. Organic conversion certainly dilutes the cost of paid marketing. So yes, SEO is still very important :).
7). What recommendations would you have for a business that wanted to learn how to be successful at community management?
A– Don’t send the intern or new hire in to be the public voice in social for your company. No matter the company’s size, have the highest level employee in the company handle the Facebook wall, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Community management spans social media, PR, Influencer distribution AND sales.
B– Don’t be a big gushy licky puppy dog. Act as if you would in person and stick to accepted social convention. After all, you’re dealing with real people.
C– Mirror the real world events happening in your company, from hires and new products to what’s happening in your physical or virtual community.
D– Don’t poke incorrigible trolls. Ban them and be quiet.
E– Take pride in every post, as if you were paying to post it. Even if you’re not buying social amplification ads, the cost of sucking will be in the business objectives you can’t accomplish.
F– My Wiley/Sybext book, “The Complete Social Media Community Manager’s Guide: Essential Tools and Tactics for Business Success,” cowritten with Lauren Litwinka, is still highly relevant and considered a go-to resource by many.
8). You will be teaching Psychographic Targeting at the Pubcon Masters Training Workshop this year. Can you tell our readers what they will learn?
Learn to send awesome traffic to your website (on the CHEAP) for conversion, refined retargeting, content marketing, SEO and friendship!
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- Implement razor-sharp, internet-wide psychographic targeting.
- Define and cultivate audiences, inject them deep into your sales funnel, and convert them to customers.
- Generate more attributable conversions faster and at a lower cost
- Spawn links and social signals crucial for successful SEO
- Drive awareness from influencers (journalist, bloggers, prominent community members), enhancing your PR effectiveness
- Earn social followers from relevant psychographic audiences
- Prove the value of branding activities, including socialization
- Perfect social metric comprehension and understanding >> WAY beyond “engagement”
- Conduct multivariate social voice testing, much the way SEOs use search PPC to improve SEO funnels
- Execute advanced visitor data management, merging “first hop” targeting (including search keywords) with filtered psychographic retargeting & RSLA remarketing to build curated “Follow” lists segmented by audiences
- Develop powerhouse reporting to boil performance down to key metrics that give your KPIs the storytelling life you need to take to your stakeholders
9). What are 3 conversation starters that you recommend for Pubcon attendees that would like to meet you?
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- Mention this blog post.
- Ask for input as to what sessions or speakers would be most cool for their objectives
- Say hello, smile and say, “Hi Marty.”
- (Bonus starter) Say, “Hey Marty, I think your book bag is on fire!!!!”
See Marty at Pubcon Las Vegas 2016
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- In the Masters Group Training Workshop on Psychographic Targeting on Monday October 10th.
- Psychographic Display For Successful Lead-Gen Tuesday at 4:20-5:30 in Salon E
- See Marty’s company Aimclear in our Expo Hall Tuesday and Wednesday.
More about Marty
Marty is an entrepreneur, author, International speaker and musician. His speaking/teaching style is unique and also extremely effective; industry leaders never want to miss his sessions. Marty’s two books Killer Facebook Ads and The Complete Social Media Community Manager’s Guide are needed in every marketers library. You can find Marty on Twitter @martyweintraub, on LinkedIn and Google+.
Melissa Fach
Pubcon Social and Community Manager
