Hello, I'm Jim Person and welcome to the TNT Report Podcast: Marketing Tips, News, and Tools for Small Business. This is Episode 07 for the week ending Feb. 18, 2022. Let's get started … 

 

Today is Friday, Feb. 18. It’s National Drink Wine Day, National Caregivers Day, National Battery Day and Pluto Day, recognizing the Pluto was discovered on this date back in 1930. Meanwhile, on this date, Feb. 18, 1885, Mark Twain publishes his famous — and famously controversial — novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Saturday, Feb. 19, is World Whale Day, Iwo Jima Day and National Chocolate Mint Day; and Sunday, Feb. 20 is National Muffin Day and National Cherry Pie Day, but also Clean Out Your Bookcase Day as well as Love Your Pet Day.

 

How can brands leverage QR codes to connect with customers? That’s the question perhaps many marketers are asking these days, especially after Coinbases’ Super Bowl 60-second ad that featured a floating and colorful QR code bouncing around the screen that generated so much traffic to the site, that it briefly crashed its app for about an hour. 

 

The pandemic made QR codes more essential and ever-present. They have become an attractive tool for marketers, thanks to their ease of use and higher adoption rates. 

This data suggests that marketing and advertising strategists should focus on creating QR codes that enable more innovative, enjoyable, and useful customer interactions. 

 

eMarketer says this can be achieved through gamification (including games to obtain discounts); access to promotions and deals; and information about product origin history and traceability, capabilities, or reviews. 

You can get more from the eMarketer story; you’ll find the link in the show notes, as well as the link to eMarketer’s “QR Codes Forecast and Trends 2022” report.

 

THIS WEEK’S FEATURED TIP – Creating Instagram Engagement 

Optimize your Instagram marketing in 2022 thanks to hundreds of data points, trends, and insights collected from analyzing 110+ million Instagram posts. While the report data is based on global Instagram users, it also goes in-depth on regional trends in North America, the UK, and Ireland. Here are some of the report’s highlights: 

Grab your copy of the report at Hubspot to get all of these insights and more.  

 

This tip by the way is just one of the tips I provide each week in my TNT Report newsletter. Find all those tips online at https://jimperson.com/tnt. 

 

Online Prices Increase for the 20th Consecutive Month
Online prices increase in 13 of 18 categories in January 2022. Online grocery prices rise 5.8% year over year and increase for 24 straight months. Online prices in January increased 2.7% compared with January 2021, according to the Adobe Digital Price Index. January 2022 marks the 20th consecutive month of online price increases, and online prices in January increased 1.1% across the 18 categories Adobe tracks compared with just a month early in December 2021, according to Adobe. 

Source: Digital Commerce 360

 

Do Listeners Get Their News From Podcasts?
According to a Pew Research Center survey – as reported by the Podcast Business Journal – about a quarter of U.S. adults (23%) say they get news at least sometimes or often from podcasts. 16% say sometimes, 7% say often. 56% say they never get their news from podcasts. The study says some groups are more likely than others to get news from podcasts. One-in-three adults ages 18 to 29 say they at least sometimes get news from podcasts, compared with 12% of adults 65 and older. About three-in-ten adults ages 30 to 49 (29%) get news from podcasts at least sometimes; nearly one-in-five adults ages 50 to 64 (18%) say they do the same. Men and women get news from podcasts at similar rates (25% and 21%, respectively). 

 

Marketers Say Instagram Tops TikTok in Importance
Nearly 70% of marketing specialists surveyed by HypeAuditor ranked Instagram above TikTok and YouTube in terms of importance. The study also found that Instagram largely attracts users 34 and younger, while TikTok primarily appeals to users under 24 years of age, and those 18 to 34 years of age make up 70% of YouTube users. On TikTok, nanoinfluencers make up a slight majority of users, but megainfluencers yield the highest engagement, according to the study. Source: PRWeek

 

And in “other headlines” this week:

You can get the links to these stories in the show notes. And for more of this week’s marketing and social media news, check out this week’s “TNT Report” newsletter at https://jimperson.com/tnt.

 

This week’s podcast is brought to you in part by the Postcard Program. What’s the postcard program you ask? Create influence and connection by celebrating people in your life by sending unlimited photo postcards, stamps included, anywhere in the world for one low monthly price. Send these physical postcards from your computer or easily right from your smartphone! As a business tool, this is more powerful than most online marketing systems that cost $1000/month or more – and you don’t have to become an expert. And with photo postcards, you’ll enjoy a 100% open rate. Think about it, when you go to your mailbox and receive a stack of mail, the postcard will stick out because it is already open. Get more details on the postcard program at https://jimperson.com/postcard. Again, that’s https://jimperson.com/postcard.

 

THIS WEEK’S FEATURED TOOLS – Snapdrop and Pixnio

If you don’t own an iPhone — meaning that you don’t have AirDrop — you should definitely check out Snapdrop. Open the webpage both on your laptop and phone (the website will automatically connect the devices), drop the files you want to transfer, and they’ll appear on the other device ready to be downloaded. Quick, simple and easy.

 

Pixnio is a source for free public domain images. High quality copyright friendly images, not copyrighted and no restriction for their use. Images explicitly placed in the public domain, no any rights reserved. Public domain images can be used for whatever you want, use it freely for any personal or commercial use. 

 

Those were just two of the tools covered in this week’s newsletter. See all the tools at https://jimperson.com/tnt.

 

If you’re a subscriber to the TNT Report, you know it’s more than just tips, news, and tools. Since the newsletter is published on Friday afternoons, I also include a “Friday Freebie.” And today’s “Friday Freebie” is a Facebook Marketing Course: How to Develop Effective Organic and Paid Strategies. This course – from Hubspot – includes everything you need to know to improve and optimize your paid and organic Facebook efforts. This course is meant for marketers looking for actionable and impactful ways to use this popular social network to grow their business. The free Facebook marketing academy, designed to teach what it takes to craft a stellar Facebook organic and paid marketing strategy: 

 

If you’re enjoying this podcast, please subscribe at jimperson.com/tnt-podcast. You can also find this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart and numerous other podcast apps. 

Now for some “bonus content” for you as a podcast listener. This is something not included in the weekly TNT Report newsletter.

 

From Morning Consult comes this story: Consumers Are Becoming More Open to Buying Vehicles Online, and Traditional Retailers Have Much to Learn. Bottom Line: Members of the public looking to buy a car are looking beyond traditional dealerships and increasingly buying online. 

 

Rising vehicle prices and reduced selection last year, along with health concerns deterring visits to dealerships, have fueled interest in a fully online vehicle-buying experience. Consumers are increasingly turning to — and reporting positive experiences with — online retailers such as Carvana, driving the digital transformation of the automotive industry.

 

Sixty-two percent of those who plan to buy a vehicle this year said they would be interested in buying entirely online, although dealerships still are popular among those who wish to test-drive a new car or negotiate the price. Millennials and Gen Zers are especially enthusiastic about online car retailers like Carvana and CarMax, which both saw their net promoter score — the likelihood that a customer would recommend a brand to someone else — jump last year. 

 

While negotiating deals and test-driving remained sticking points for many — favored by 66 percent and 76 percent of respondents, respectively — two-thirds of prospective buyers prefer to gather information about a vehicle online, and 30 percent prefer financing online. Given these findings, it’s important for automotive retailers to get on board with online enthusiasm — even in areas where it is just starting to grow — and out in front of online purchasing trends. Traditional dealerships should keep track of these trends toward online buying and start to embrace it themselves, especially as fears around COVID-19 have reduced in-person activity and the global chip shortage has impacted inventory on dealer lots. If you want more on this story, you can find the link in the show notes.

 

Alright. I think that's going to do it for this week's TNT Report Podcast, Thanks for listening. If you’d enjoyed this podcast, please follow, like or subscribe so you don't miss next week's episode, and leave a rating or review in your favorite podcast app. Until next time ... I'm Jim Person. Thanks for listening. 

 

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