The team from Studio1Design shares its website mistakes to avoid in this infographic.
Here are a few that make their list:
Check out the infographic for more.
By Jennifer Liu
Artificial intelligence is the hot new skill on the job market, and even those who don’t work in tech could use it to open up a new world of job opportunities.
The U.S. is leading the way in artificial intelligence and generative AI jobs, according to data from the global job search platform Adzuna. Many roles fall squarely in tech, like software engineer, product designer, deep learning architect and data scientist.
But there are plenty of non-technical roles where having the emerging skillset can give you a leg-up, says James Neave, Adzuna’s head of data science. One fast-growing role where there’s “absolutely a shortage” of qualified applicants is tax manager. Accounting and consulting firms are looking for candidates with a mix of financial and AI skills to make their business more efficient using large language models.
It can be a lucrative move, too: The average tax manager job that’ll use AI pays $100,445 a year, according to Adzuna, and the average job using the skill in general pays $146,244.
Experts say there’s also lots of opportunity for AI to be used in customer service, writing, HR, education and health-care jobs, to name a few.
As such, Neave says it would be smart for non-technical workers to consider picking up AI skills and learning how it could apply to their work: “There are brilliant opportunities for people out there who want to get their hands on these tools and get experience,” he says. “Suddenly, your employability options go through the roof.”
Neave says generalist workers can build their AI skills, and boost their employability, in three steps:
Overall, Neave says, “if a future employer is looking at your CV, it’s going to be much more powerful if you can say you’ve gotten hands-on with ChatGPT using it for a certain purpose. That’s going to be the most compelling thing for potential employers.”
Feature Image Credit: Gorodenkoff | Istock | Getty Images
Bureaucrats love their key performance indicators (KPIs) – metrics that presumably allow them to gauge the health of various business activities. And to be fair, they can be quite valuable as part of an overall strategy that prioritizes data analytics and data-driven decision-making.
But listen. There’s a big problem with glorifying KPIs — or at least relying on them too much. And too many companies today are falling into this trap.
Okay, let’s be reasonable here. KPIs can be useful — and powerful for guiding an organization’s direction. When used properly, KPIs are objective, easy to interpret and measured with specific intent. These are truly reliable data points that can be used to empower decision-making.
However, even in this hypothetical perfect scenario, it’s important for organizational leaders to use these metrics properly. You should never use a single metric to fuel your decision-making, and you shouldn’t use metrics alone to guide all of your visions for the future of the company.
You can think of KPIs as being different types of food in a well-balanced diet, or as different assets with different strengths and weaknesses as part of your overall investment portfolio. They’re incredibly useful, but they’re only a portion of your strength in organizational decision-making.
Why have we deviated from this vision? There are a few explanations worth exploring. Personally, I think it’s mostly about disproportionate evaluation. Collectively, we’ve come to see KPIs as being more powerful and informative than they actually are. That’s not to say that they’re not powerful or not informative; this is merely an assertion that we’ve overestimated and misinterpreted them. Let’s take a look at some of the specific ways this manifests.
Vanity metrics are a prime example of how KPIs can be misused and misinterpreted. Put simply, vanity metrics are metrics that make you feel good about a specific outcome or strategy, without really providing information on how things are running.
For example, follower count is a commonly tracked vanity metric in social media marketing. It does have some value, and it certainly feels good to see your follower count increase. But your number of followers has little to do with more measurably impactful things like follower engagement, brand awareness, conversions or revenue generated.
Sometimes KPIs carry ambiguous meanings. Let’s take a commonly used one in the customer service and customer experience world: net promoter score (NPS). Hypothetically, NPS helps you estimate consumer sentiment, and you measure it by asking people how likely they are to recommend your business to others. But sometimes, these answers have little to do with consumer sentiment. It’s nice to know that some of your customers would hypothetically recommend your business to others, but why would they do this? What’s driving them? And how likely are they to follow through on this?
There are tough complexities to work out with almost any KPI; attempting to boil down large, complex topics into a single measurement is an exercise in futility.
You can use data to support just about any argument you want. For example, let’s say we’re using data to compare the effectiveness of different marketing strategies. There is one strategy that’s very challenging to pull off, but if you use it successfully, it’s incredibly powerful. If you want to make the argument that you should use this strategy, you can cherry-pick the best case studies and prove how powerful it can be. If you want to make the argument that you should not use this strategy, you can take a measurement of the average results and show that typically, this strategy isn’t worth using.
In this way, data points can sometimes become crude tools with which we simply assert our previously formed opinions. In their best applications, KPIs should challenge us and force us to think critically.
Embedded growth obligations (EGOs) drive countless companies forward, forcing them to grow, grow, grow. And on a smaller scale, organizations are sometimes held back by a focus on incremental change, shackled by the KPIs that guide them.
Once you identify that a KPI is important, the organization becomes incentivized to keep pushing that KPI higher. The goal is usually to see a change of at least a few percentage points after each predefined time period. Obviously, incremental growth is a net positive in most cases, but sometimes, it’s better to take a short-term KPI loss in pursuit of a more fundamental, disruptive change that leads to better long-term results.
In other words, obsession over incremental changes can limit the true potential of organizational development.
One final problem to note about KPIs is that they sometimes lack actionability, or a “so what” factor. It’s great that your organization is seeing higher CSAT, but what does that mean for the organization, how should it change your decision-making, and where do you go from here?
None of this is meant to suggest that you should stop tracking KPIs or using them as part of your approach to organizational decision-making. But we need to get real about our obsessiveness and misuse of these sometimes-trivial and sometimes misleading data points.
Let’s be better data analysts.
Anna Johansson is a freelance writer who specializes in social media and business development.
A lot of users, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, don’t agree with Twitter and Elon Musk’s latest claim.
Twitter has an advertising problem. The social media platform is still dealing with a negative cash flow and significant debt due, according to Elon Musk, to a 50% drop in advertising revenue. Recent data from Emburse found that even as ad spend on Twitter fell, it rose on other, more “Gen-Z-oriented” platforms.
Companies — including Ben & Jerry’s — are interested in advertising on platforms with high value and “low tumult,” according to Emburse. And since Musk acquired the platform and loosened up content moderation, gutting the teams previously responsible for that task, the platform has been tumultuous. And, according to many users and some researchers, more hateful than ever.
Despite this, Twitter said Tuesday that hate speech has dropped significantly on the platform, adding that “99% of content users and advertisers see on Twitter is healthy.”
The reach of the hate speech that does exist on Twitter, the platform said, continues to be limited, representing an “extremely small fraction of the overall conversation.”
The Bird app partnered with Sprinklr in March in an effort to measure hate speech on the platform; in May, according to Sprinklr’s models, the average daily reach of English-language hate speech impressions was .003% between Jan. and May 2023.
“We estimate hate speech impressions are 30% lower on average vs. pre-acquisition,” Twitter said.
Twitter’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, went further, attempting — in a lengthy tweet — to disprove a recent Bloomberg article that highlighted the rise in hate speech on Twitter as the most significant thing keeping advertisers from returning to the platform.
Users, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have remained skeptical of Twitter’s claims, with some calling for greater transparency, specifically in terms of how Sprinklr’s AI model defines “hate speech.”
“I have never experienced more harassment on this platform than I do now,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “People now pay to give their harassment more visibility.”
One user explained that his timeline used to consist of movies, news and people he followed. Now, the Twitter algorithm recommends “misogynistic, sexist, racist, homophobic and inflammatory tweets from Republicans.”
As of February, more than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers have abandoned the platform. Advertisers, according to several advertising executives that Vox spoke to at the time, are concerned with tarnishing their brand reputation by placing ads on a platform that allows hateful and offensive content.
But Musk, in his own words, is a free-speech absolutist.
“I’ll say what I want to say and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it,” he told CNBC in May.
Ian Krietzberg is a breaking/trending news writer for The Street with a focus on artificial intelligence and the markets. He covers AI companies, safety and ethics extensively. As an offshoot of his tech beat, Ian also covers Elon Musk and his many companies, namely SpaceX and Tesla.
In today’s fiercely competitive and optimization-obsessed market, understanding and enhancing the customer journey has emerged as a crucial aspect of success. Customers have come to expect personalized, proactive, and anticipatory experiences. Delivering exceptional customer experiences throughout the entire journey is the key to building strong relationships, fostering loyalty, and driving sustainable growth.
The customer journey has become a pivotal concept that empowers organizations. With marketers embracing the idea that excellent customer experiences can be the best advertisement for a brand, customer journey mapping has become an obligatory aspect of go-to-market planning.
To create the seamless experiences that customers have come to expect, marketers dissect customer needs and aggregate an amalgamation of data: marketing metrics to define the details of how customers have been acquired, user research for a step-by-step analysis of the shopper journey, market research gleaned by interviews with customers and survey data, and details on how a buyer persona uses a product. There’s also a treasure trove that can be gleaned from customer touchpoints including email interactions, social media engagement, abandonment of part-filled shopping carts, returns to the site after abandonment, or chats with sales or support representatives.
The customer journey, once linear, has been replaced by a complex matrix of touchpoints with the customer at the centre. Somewhere along the way, customer journeys have gotten so fluid that we’ve forgotten who and what we’re serving. Marketers need to strive for a dynamic, collaborative, and socialized customer journey that works harder and smarter.
As brand marketers, we often witness clients invest significant time and resources into (and apply painstaking detail to) defining a brand strategy, only to hit a crossroads when socializing the direction among other departments. They fall in love with a vision but struggle to evangelize colleagues with the same energy, vigour, and inspiration.
For companies to live up to their brand promise and keep up with ever-evolving consumer demands, they need to be aligned and involve each division and department. While completely breaking down silos isn’t realistic, a collective journey map can be an effective bridge to connect teams and disciplines. Still, there are a few principles to position the customer journey as a tool for internal alignment.
The customer journey shouldn’t live within one department. A customer journey is best used as a tool for building consensus, and a contract between each discipline as to what they’re ultimately working towards.
The map should provide the business with a common language and understanding of how all efforts intersect. All initiatives should stem from the journey by translating customer needs into business rationale.
A customer journey map should outline not only how disciplines intersect but also how specific individuals in the company support customers’ needs. This is particularly impactful in healthcare marketing, where it’s been shown that when employees understand how they impact patients’ lives directly, it leads to higher job satisfaction, employee retention, and overall marketing and sales effectiveness. Naming clear roles and responsibilities, escalation protocol, and internal systems creates a sense of collective ownership.
Brand strategies can often fail in implementation. Your brand is everything that you do, so it’s crucial to thread foundational brand elements into the journey. Beyond characterizing your customer, you can also use a journey map to humanize the brand. For instance, we can imagine and define how a brand archetype would behave at critical moments that matter, based on its values and focuses.
Remove the purchase funnel and think about what a customer is really doing before they’re engaging with or thinking about the category. Customers enter and re-enter the funnel at various points, and with different states of mind and needs. Designing these pre-entry points helps us to imagine what motivates a customer, and when.
At times, imagining a category-agnostic customer journey can help widen the aperture to identify moments and touchpoints that can bring a customer into the journey at various stages.
While there are many schools of thought, training courses, and step-by-step guides to creating customer journeys, marketers and brands looking to create a competitive advantage and win need to break convention in favour of utility. Want to create customer journey maps that are enlightening, inspiring, and effective? Flexibility is the key to success.
Feature Image Credit: Amirali Mirhashemian via Unsplash
Posting about your brand on social media has become an essential part of any business marketing plan. But if you’ve let your blog lapse because longer-form content seems like too much of a commitment, you’re missing out on a major opportunity to connect with your audience — and convert them into customers.
At the content marketing agency I co-founded, I’ve seen just how incredibly powerful (and successful) blogging has been for clients like OXO and Nutanix that incorporate it into their business strategies. In fact, 68 percent of marketers find blogging more effective than it ever has been, according to data tracking tool Databox; brands that post content on blogs produce about 67 percent more leads than those that don’t. That’s because blogging can be one of the best ways to drive visitors to your site, whether it’s through organic search or the call to action you include in your posts on another platform — I like to think of both of those as free digital foot traffic.
If the idea of having to write blog posts regularly feels overwhelming, keep in mind that one of the best parts about blog content is it can be repurposed in so many ways. You can rework blog articles into social media posts, LinkedIn thought-leadership pieces, and editorial-style newsletters, helping to fill several channels at once and reach different audiences. Even if you don’t have the time to post very often, as long as you do it with some regularity, you’ll build a body of work that serves to tell your brand’s story and lets customers feel more connected to you.
There are lots of excellent blogging platforms out there, and they serve different needs. These are five of my favourites.
This might be the first site you think of when it comes to blogging. That’s because WordPress made a name for itself in the early days of self-published websites and blogs. Now, 43 percent of all websites are built using the platform.
WordPress has ready-made themes and layouts but also has a treasure trove of customization options. It’s easy to manage and maintain, thanks to the number of tutorials, and also has plug-ins that can help you drive sales, create newsletters, and more. The platform supports various types of media, so if you want to spice up your blog posts with images and videos, WordPress can handle it. Another plus is that most creators already know how to use the platform, so if you’re thinking of hiring someone to help write your blog posts, they’ll most likely be able to jump right in–no training required.
WordPress is best for those who want heavy customization, greater control over the function of the blog, and search engine optimization features. You can set up a site for free if you don’t mind the “.wordpress.org” tacked on to your URL. If you’d prefer your own domain name, you can do that starting at $4 a month.
If you’re not too concerned with customization, Wix is the platform for you. The drag-and-drop builder plus the ready-made layouts mean you’ll soon be able to get down to writing. The platform is optimized for mobile, so once you get your feet wet, if an idea for a post strikes you, you can write and publish even when you’re on the go.
Though Wix wasn’t always known for good SEO tools, a recent update means you can now optimize your blog posts. The paid plan is free for the first year and $22 per month thereafter. So you can play around and get up to speed at no cost, and once the paid plan actually kicks in, you may already be seeing the ROI.
Squarespace is the place for e-commerce businesses that want to leverage content to help them reach potential new customers and boost sales. And Squarespace is one of the best platforms for e-commerce functionality. With its easy-to-use platform (like Wix, it is drag and drop) and e-commerce features (including integrated shopping carts and product pages), Squarespace is ideal for that combination of selling products while sharing your brand story. Prices start at $16 a month, but the platform does have a free trial, so you can give it a test drive before committing.
You may be surprised to see a career platform on a list about blogging, but you can easily create “article” pages from your own personal account or business page. It’s as simple as typing up your article, choosing a header image to go with it (always a best practice to include an image!), and clicking publish.
I personally use LinkedIn as my blogging platform because it has the best engagement with our client base at Masthead Media and has allowed me to build a stronger connection between the LinkedIn community and my company. I highly recommend it if you already have a large following and if SEO isn’t your top priority.
If writing is something of a passion for you, and you like to share insights and opinions about your industry, Medium is your platform. Unlike WordPress and Wix, Medium won’t give your company a homepage with a unique URL, but it comes with an already-engaged audience who receive a daily email promoting the best new stories posted to the site. You simply write your piece and publish it, and it has the potential to be shared with millions of readers.
The platform has also rolled out a new payment model whereby popular pieces can earn you money. So if your blogging objective is to share your thought leadership with a broad audience, check out Medium.
Feature Image Credit: Getty Images
Co-founder and managing partner, Masthead Media@mastheadmedia
Tensions are escalating as Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Whatsapp, Threads, and Instagram grows increasingly distant from news publishers, sparking widespread concern.
This move comes amidst a shift in strategy where the technology titan has been giving less attention to politics and current affairs on its platforms, while simultaneously shrugging off governmental calls for increased payments to media outlets.
In a pivotal turn, Meta has distanced itself from the traditional news sector, despite years of appeasing key publishers through the funding of non-profit journalism initiatives and forging partnerships with entities like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
This alteration in stance manifests in Meta’s latest product release – Threads, a text-based application designed to rival Twitter. In less than a week, Threads managed to draw in an astounding 100 million users, thanks to its integration with the globally popular Instagram platform.
Much like Instagram, Threads prioritizes content from creators and friends over hard news or political stories. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has firmly declared the platform’s intent to avoid promoting news content.
In a controversial move, Meta has decided to exclude news from its feed in Canada, as new legislation demanding platforms pay for content from publishers and broadcasters comes into effect.
This law was formulated to uplift smaller news organizations with limited bargaining power. However, the law has been met with resistance not just from Meta, but also Google, which threatens to impose a news blackout in Canada.
The corporate tussle has elicited backlash from a host of advertisers in Canada, some of which are threatening to withdraw their advertisements. The implications for Meta are significant, given that Canada contributed approximately $3 billion to the company’s $117 billion annual revenues in 2022.
Historically, Meta has made attempts to ally with publishers through various initiatives, such as deals for content to be featured on Facebook’s News Tab product.
However, the senior leadership at Meta has concluded that the company’s interests conflict with those of the news industry. This stems from the notion that the growth of the company’s digital advertising business is perceived as a contributing factor to the global revenue decline experienced by newspaper groups.
Additionally, Meta’s internal research has revealed that users gravitate more towards short-form videos and content from influencers rather than news and political content. Consequently, the tech giant has reduced the presence of political content in users’ feeds since 2021.
Despite its ongoing withdrawal from the news industry, the ramifications of Meta’s actions are far-reaching.
With allegations that the company’s inadequate moderation of its applications fuelled discord surrounding the election of former US president Donald Trump, as well as the 2021 Capitol building riots, the technology behemoth is treading on thin ice.
As a result, industry insiders argue that Meta will eventually suffer from the escalating rift with news publishers. The absence of reliable news sharing could potentially isolate the firm from real-world happenings, leading to the question of whether its strategy will prove sustainable in the long term.
As the tension unfolds between Meta and news publishers, the future of news content on social media platforms remains uncertain.
However, one thing is clear: the technology titan’s standoff with news organizations and governments alike is set to redefine the relationship between social media and the world of journalism.
Jai Hamid is an enthusiastic writer whose current area of interest is the blockchain sector. Whenever she is not reading or writing, you can find her tending to her plants in the garden. She strongly believes that crypto is going to transform the world for the better.
Publishing thought leadership content on LinkedIn is a game-changing strategy.
The platform is the beacon of expertise in the ever-evolving realm of professional networking and personal branding, and the influential power of its extensive network rewards thought leaders with organic growth and lead generation.
Whether you’re a seasoned executive, a budding entrepreneur or a subject matter expert, let’s explore why LinkedIn should be your digital podium for sharing insights, igniting meaningful conversations and leaving an indelible mark in your industry.
There’s lots of buzz around thought leadership, but it’s often misused and misunderstood.
Thought leadership is an essential part of any successful content marketing strategy. Companies and entrepreneurs in all types of industries can benefit from the many advantages of thought leadership to build a more competitive reputation and ultimately drive more revenue.
This type of content strategy is essential and can be a game-changer, especially in B2B companies. This is because of the complexity and length of the decision-making process and the many people involved. Leaders can use LinkedIn to create authentic and personalized relationships, while also elevating their authority on the platform.
A few benefits of creating thought leadership on LinkedIn are:
The beauty of LinkedIn lies in its vast network of professionals spanning various industries and sectors.
You position yourself as a knowledgeable authority by consistently sharing insightful and valuable content, unlocking unparalleled opportunities to amplify your reach and connect with individuals who can elevate your career.
And more: This helps you attract the attention of like-minded professionals, potential clients, employers and industry influencers actively seeking valuable insights and expertise.
LinkedIn has earned its stripes as the go-to platform for professionals seeking to establish credibility and authority. As you provide valuable content that educates, inspires and solves problems for your audience, you position yourself as a trusted source of knowledge in your industry, demonstrating your expertise and your ability to provide meaningful solutions.
The platform professionally sets the stage for meaningful interactions and paves the way for valuable connections with like-minded individuals, potential clients and industry influencers. This helps to establish your credibility and sets you apart as a thought leader in your industry.
LinkedIn is not merely a platform for self-promotion; it’s a hub of intellectual exchange and robust dialogue. By publishing thought leadership content, you invite others to engage in insightful conversations and challenge conventional wisdom. Sparking discussions around your expertise allows you to gain new perspectives, refine your ideas and strengthen your professional network.
LinkedIn’s messaging and commenting capabilities enable you to contact individuals directly to initiate conversations, explore partnership opportunities or seek mentorship. Your thought leadership content can serve as an icebreaker and a reason for professionals to engage with you.
As your content gains traction through likes, comments and shares, LinkedIn’s algorithm recognizes your authority and rewards you with increased visibility in users’ news feeds and search results as your content gains traction through likes, comments and shares. This expanded reach allows you to connect with a larger audience, amplify your message and increase your chances of being discovered by individuals who may have otherwise never come across your profile.
Set aside 30 minutes daily to engage with industry-specific groups, participate in relevant discussions and like your network’s content, leaving meaningful comments when possible. Share insights that resonate with your audience and watch your engagement and connections grow.
LinkedIn empowers you to showcase your expertise and leave an indelible mark on your industry. Your ideas can shape the direction of your field, inspire others and generate positive change, positioning yourself as a thought leader.
Don’t miss the chance to become the driving force behind significant industry advancements: In today’s fast-paced business landscape, leaving a lasting impact is crucial.
In today’s dynamic professional landscape, LinkedIn stands out as the ultimate platform for harnessing thought leadership power. It provides professionals a unique opportunity to establish credibility, expand their reach, foster meaningful conversations and leave a lasting impact in their respective industries.
Now that you understand the untapped potential of LinkedIn as the ultimate platform for thought leadership, it’s time to start putting your thought leadership strategy in place. As you embark on your journey to become a thought leader, you can unlock your ability to captivate audiences, drive engagement and propel your career to new heights. Embrace the platform’s potential, ignite conversations and leave an indelible mark on your industry.
Get ready to seize the reins of your industry and establish yourself as the go-to expert in your field, unleashing your thought leadership potential on LinkedIn, transforming your career trajectory and shaping the future of your industry.
Megan Thudium is an American marketer working in Berlin, founder of MTC | The Content Agency. As a branding, content and LinkedIn B2B marketing specialist, Megan works with innovative tech brands in Germany and throughout Europe.
Netflix said Wednesday that its quarterly revenue and subscriptions rose, as efforts to curb password sharing took hold.
Here’s what the company reported for the second quarter versus what analysts expected, according to Refinitiv:
The streaming giant said it added 5.9 million customers during the second quarter amid its broader crackdown on password sharing in the U.S. Netflix said it would roll out its new policy to the rest of its customers on Wednesday.
Netflix’s stock fell as much as 8% in after hours trading.
The company reported revenue of $8.19 billion, up 3% from $7.97 billion in the prior-year period. Net income of $1.49 billion climbed from $1.44 billion in the year-ago quarter.
The earnings report comes soon as investors look for more information on the rollout of Netflix’s ad-supported streaming tier and push to boost subscriptions by rooting out account sharing.
However, Netflix said it was too early to report a breakdown of revenue from the ad-supported tier — which was introduced late last year — as well as the accounts that have come from the new password policy.
Netflix said Wednesday it expects a boost in revenue in the second half of the year as it begins “to see the full benefits of paid sharing plus the steady growth in our ad-supported plan.”
Netflix said it now forecasts revenue of $8.5 billion, up 7% year over year, for the third quarter. It attributed the expected revenue growth to more average paid memberships.
The company also anticipates paid net subscriber additions in the third quarter will be similar to the second quarter. Meanwhile, Netflix expects revenue growth in the fourth quarter to “accelerate more substantially” as the efforts to curb password sharing gain steam and as advertising revenue grows.
In May, Netflix began alerting members about the policy to deter the use of other people’s accounts. Subscribers can either transfer a profile to someone outside of their household so they can pay for their own account, or the member can pay a $7.99 additional fee per person.
The company’s subscriber base rose in the weeks following the sharing policy rollout, according to a report from Antenna.
Netflix executives declined on Wednesday’s earnings call to give specific information on the rollout of its paid sharing initiative so far.
Co-CEO Greg Peters said Wednesday that the company will not see the full effect of the policy for several quarters.
“It’s not an overnight kind of thing,” Peters said on the call. “In part because of interventions that are applied gradually, and in part because some borrowers won’t immediately sign up for their own account, but will do so in the next month or three months or six months or maybe even longer down the line as we launch a title that they are particularly interested in.”
The executives noted that the password sharers who have started their own accounts have similar characteristics as longstanding customers, leading the company to expect a high retention rate.
Netflix introduced both the new sharing policy and ad tier in the last year as part of its response to its first subscriber loss in more than a decade in 2022.
Netflix’s stock has risen with the rollout of the initiatives. The company’s shares have climbed more than 60% this year, and it notched a 52-week high on Wednesday amid expectations it would show growth this quarter.
The company on Wednesday said it hopes the changes will help to “generate more revenue off a bigger base,” adding it wants to use the additional funds to reinvest in the platform.
In May, Netflix said it expanded its paid sharing policy to more than 100 countries, which account for more than 80% of its revenue.
“The cancel reaction was low and while we’re still in the early stages of monetization, we’re seeing healthy conversion of borrower households into full paying Netflix memberships,” Netflix said Wednesday, adding it would address the issue in the remainder of the countries that it is available.
Meanwhile, media companies have turned more to ad-supported streaming as a way to get to profitability.
During its pitch to advertisers in May, Netflix unveiled few details about its ad-supported tier, albeit enough to push its stock higher. The company said it had 5 million active users for the new tier, and 25% of its new customers were signing up for the tier in areas where it’s available.
On Wednesday, Netflix confirmed that it removed its “basic” ad-free plan, making its standard plan with ads its cheapest option at $6.99 a month. The standard and premium tiers without commercials cost $15.49 and $19.99, respectively, a month.
These initiatives come as the media industry goes through one of its most tumultuous periods in some time.
Industry analysts have long suspected the industry could consolidate, particularly through mergers and acquisitions.
On Wednesday, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said Netflix looked at opportunities to buy intellectual property and build its content library.
“Some of those assets are stressed for a reason,” Sarandos said of potential media companies or assets up for sale. “Our M&A activity would mostly be around IP that we could develop into great content for members. Traditionally, we’ve been very strong builders over buyers and that hasn’t changed.”
Netflix is also contending with the potential fallout of the Hollywood writers and actors strikes.
Analysts expect Netflix to fare better than other media companies during the work stoppage due to its deep bench of content, particularly from international sources.
As a result of the strike, Netflix increased its free cash flow forecast to $5 billion for 2023, up from a prior estimate of at least $3.5 billion due to lower spending on content this year.
Sarandos said during Wednesday’s call that Netflix has a lot of fresh content in the pipeline, but did not say how long that stream would last. Still, he said the strike needs to reach a conclusion.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do. There are a handful of complicated issues,” Sarandos said. “We’re super committed to getting to an agreement as soon as possible, one that’s equitable and one that enables the industry and everyone in it to move forward in the future.”
Feature Image Credit: Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
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Brand marketing is complicated—not only because it has many moving parts but also because most marketing professionals continue to confuse it with other marketing activities.
Brand marketing is not the same as advertising. It’s also not the same as direct marketing. Brand marketing encompasses something bigger and more nebulous. One way to approach brand marketing in such a way that you have focus is to think about the three audiences for any brand:
1. New potential customers (acquisition).
2. Existing customers (retention).
3. Internal team members and stakeholders (inspiration).
As you develop your marketing program, keeping these three target audiences in mind will help you define a brand marketing campaign.
When we talk about brand marketing, we are talking about building your brand by exposing it to as many people in your target audience as possible. Brand marketing builds your reputation and recognition, and it helps establish relationships with your target audiences.
Branding relates to how you talk about yourself and your image as well as how you drive value for customers and stakeholders. In many ways, brand marketing is about storytelling—explaining your brand story, what makes you different and how your brand makes people feel.
Your brand sets you apart from your competition—expressing your company’s personality, identity, values and value promise to your stakeholders. Your brand is an abstract that exacts an emotional response and a tangible response. For example, your brand could be a sense of refreshment that comes with the red label (Coca-Cola).
Once you have a brand story, you can use different marketing strategies to deliver the message. For example, brand marketing for Coca-Cola projects an emotional brand promise of joy, happiness and a consistently refreshing experience. In fact, in Mandarin, Coca-Cola can be translated as “Tasty Fun” or “Delicious Happiness.”
The brand message is delivered using other marketing strategies. The Coca-Cola advertising campaign, “The Pause That Refreshes,” exacts the emotional brand response of refreshment and associates it with the more tangible Coke logo and packaging.
Once you have defined your brand message, your brand marketing strategy needs to translate that brand promise for each of your three target audiences.
Matching your brand message to your target audiences can be one of the most challenging aspects of brand marketing. As you develop your brand, you should keep your target audiences in mind. The deeper you understand your audiences’ informational needs and emotional responses, the more you can focus your marketing programs and the more efficiently you can allocate your marketing budget.
1. New Potential Customers
Marketing programs are primarily designed to drive sales, and the number of new leads measures the success of most marketing campaigns. In fact, marketing professionals often use the number of qualified sales leads as the key performance indicators (KPIs) that dictate promotions and bonuses.
At the same time, customer acquisition costs (CAC) rose 60% between 2013 and 2019. Much of that increase can be attributed to the rising cost of content marketing. Online content through blogs, videos, social media posts, downloadable guides and other sources is expensive but highly effective. Content is proving to be the best way to deliver the brand message to prospects, enabling companies to help prospects make the connection between the brand promise and the value they get from the brand.
Using content to package your brand’s value proposition enables you to present your brand message where your target audience is most likely to see it, thus raising awareness. Once you have awareness, you can focus on moving prospects to consideration by showing them how your brand benefits them, ultimately allowing you to land them as customers.
2. Customer Retention
Too few organizations dedicate sufficient resources to customer retention. Customer retention costs five times less than customer acquisition, and increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%. The average customer retention rate for the top five companies in most industries is 94%, and the probability of upselling an existing customer is between 60% and 70%. That’s why reaching out to existing customers is more important than finding new customers.
Your current customers need to be reminded why they love your brand and are important to you. Use your brand message to forge an emotional connection with customers through e-newsletters, social media campaigns, promotions, contests, special offers only for customers and other means. Promote brand recognition by keeping current customers informed and entertained.
3. Internal Stakeholders
Don’t neglect your internal team members. They need to be kept informed and inspired as well. As J. Willard Marriott once said: “Take care of associates, and they’ll take care of your customers.” Keep your team updated on customer promotions and company news through internal newsletters, emails, posts in the lunchroom, etc. Remember that your team members are the bearers of the brand message, so they are vitally important.
Your internal team extends beyond the staff. Develop communications strategies for partners, board members, suppliers, friends and family. They are all part of the organization and carry the brand message in their own way.
Brand marketing is a collaborative effort—not only with your internal team but also with customers and prospects. Everyone who receives your brand message can become an evangelist in one way or another. That’s why it’s essential to be clear about your brand identity and the value it presents to each of your audience targets.
Feature Image Credit: Getty
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John Gumas is CEO of Gumas Advertising based in San Francisco and co-author of Challenger Brand Marketing. Read John Gumas’ full executive profile here.