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Booking’s Very Expensive Marketing Piece of the Pie

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By Dennis Schaal

Travel bargain hunters are a fickle bunch, visiting more than two dozen websites on average before they book. Booking.com and its rivals spend billions annually to woo those travellers who wouldn’t otherwise click over to their platforms.

Online travel is a weird industry when it comes to its outsized marketing spend as compared with other types of businesses.

None of this is shocking because it’s been the pattern for many years, but a BTIG investor report published Thursday put Booking Holdings’ marketing spend in a different context.

Booking Holdings, which owns brands including Booking.com, Kayak and Priceline, spent around $6 billion on marketing in 2022 — and that was about 35% of its total revenue. BTIG stated that Booking gets around 50% of its traffic direct; around 20 percent from free search engine listings; roughly 15% from social media, email, display ads and referrals, and 15% from paid search engine marketing — “and it spends billions annually to get that last piece.”

That’s worth repeating: Booking Holdings spent around $6 billion on sales and marketing last year to attract just 15% of visitors to its platform. (Sure, it directs some of that spend toward goals other than luring travellers to its platforms, but you get the general idea.)

How Expedia and Airbnb Do It

Over at rival Expedia Group, its marketing spend was even more top-heavy — around 47% of revenue last year.

Airbnb is an outlier in the online travel agency space because around 90% of its customers come directly to its website or app, as well as from free listings in search engines. You’ve heard the company’s talking points ad infinitum: Airbnb is so mainstream that it’s “a noun and a verb.”

So Airbnb focuses on limiting its paid search engine marketing on platforms like Google and Bing. Airbnb shelled out a very modest 18% of revenue on marketing in 2022.

Yes, before the hate mail arrives, it’s true that the three companies calculate marketing spend differently, but the basic points about their marketing spend as a portion of overall revenue hold true.

Airbnb Smart, Booking Foolhardy?

All of this is a contrast to most U.S. industries, according to a 2022 Gartner survey, which found them planning to spend a relatively minuscule 6-10% on marketing as a percent of revenue last year.

But before you leap to the conclusion that Booking’s strategy (35% of revenue on marketing) is dumb, and Airbnb’s approach (just 18%) is valedictorian-worthy, consider that Booking’s profit margin was considerably higher than Airbnb’s or Expedia’s last year.

Booking’s 2022 EBITDA margin was 31.3% compared with 23.2% for Airbnb, and 11.9% for Expedia. (True, their businesses are different as they sell some different things, and they are spread out across different geographies.)

Booking “has historically had an advantage in paid channels with a higher conversion rate, allowing it to bid more efficiently,” the BTIG report stated.

Another way to look at Booking’s advantage over Expedia is in marketing spend as a percent of bookings, not revenue, and by this metric Booking was more efficient, 4.9% versus 5.7%, according to BTIG.

Marketing as a Percent of Bookings, Booking Versus Expedia

Regarding these companies’ big-stakes marketing programs, now you know how strategic it is for them to try to attract more free, direct traffic to their websites and to coax more app downloads. It’s all in the hope that their customers won’t stray once they land on their websites, and won’t have to be enticed with billions of marketing dollars all over again.

By Dennis Schaal

Sourced from Skift

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How to allocate your start-up’s advertising budget effectively

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By Guru Sakthi

Unlock the secrets to optimising your ad spend and driving business growth

Starting a new business can be an exciting journey, but it also comes with its fair share of challenges. One crucial aspect of any start-up’s success is the effective allocation of the advertising budget. As a start-up, you might have limited resources, making it vital to make every penny count when it comes to promoting your products or services.

Here’s a guide on how to allocate your start-up’s advertising budget effectively,

In today’s competitive business landscape, simply having a great product or service is not enough. You need to make sure your target audience is aware of your offerings and compelled to choose your start-up over the competition. This is where a well-thought-out advertising strategy plays a pivotal role. By allocating your advertising budget effectively, you can reach your target market, drive brand awareness, and generate valuable leads.

Set clear goals and objectives

Before diving into advertising channels and budget allocation, it’s crucial to set clear goals and objectives for your marketing efforts. What do you aim to achieve with your advertising campaigns?
Is it to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, generate leads, or boost sales? Defining your objectives helps you align your advertising budget with your business goals. Additionally, understanding your target audience and their preferences is essential in crafting effective advertising messages.
To allocate your budget effectively, you need to research and analyse various advertising channels available to your start-up. Each channel has its unique characteristics and audience reach. Start by evaluating traditional advertising channels such as print media, television, radio, and outdoor billboards. Consider the cost, reach, and effectiveness of these channels based on your target audience demographics and psychographics.
Simultaneously, explore the opportunities offered by digital advertising. Digital channels, including social media platforms, search engine marketing (SEM), display advertising, and email marketing, provide targeted and cost-effective options for start-ups. Analyse the behaviour and preferences of your target audience to determine which digital channels resonate with them the most.

Determine budget allocation percentages

Once you have researched and identified potential advertising channels, it’s time to determine the budget allocation percentages. Start by setting a realistic overall advertising budget based on your start-up’s financial capabilities. As a general rule of thumb, allocate a percentage of your projected revenue or a fixed amount suitable for your industry. Next, consider the effectiveness and reach of each advertising channel. Allocate a higher percentage of your budget to channels that have a proven track record of generating results and reaching your target audience effectively. Keep in mind that budget allocation should be dynamic, and it’s essential to monitor the performance of different channels regularly and make adjustments as necessary.

Embrace digital advertising

In today’s digital age, digital advertising has become a crucial component of effective budget allocation. Digital channels provide extensive targeting options, allowing you to reach specific demographics, interests, and behaviours. Social media advertising offers advanced targeting capabilities, allowing you to tailor your ads to your audience’s preferences and maximize relevance.
Search engine marketing (SEM) is another powerful digital advertising tool that ensures your start-up appears prominently in search engine results for relevant keywords. By embracing digital advertising, you can leverage the vast reach and targeting options available, reaching your audience where they spend a significant portion of their time—online.

By Guru Sakthi

Sourced from YOURSTORY

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Your PR Is Doomed Without a Consistent Digital Strategy. Here’s Why.

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By Evgeniya Zaslavskaya

Here’s why launching a digital PR campaign won’t make sense until you’ve established a solid and consistent digital strategy.

As a head of a PR agency, I’m often reached out to by brands asking me to launch a full-scale digital PR campaign. Rather unexpectedly for them, sometimes I decline or suggest they push their plans back a bit.

The reason is that I firmly believe PR won’t make sense if a brand hasn’t established a solid digital strategy. Getting featured in some top-tier media is nice, but it won’t necessarily result in many new leads, increased online visibility and skyrocketing revenue. Top-tier publications alone won’t bring you clients or brand awareness, especially for brands that hardly have any digital presence.

Imagine you’ve got a car and want to level it up and tune it. Ah, the neon lights and shiny car rims. Are you good to go? Maybe. Only if you are certain that all the rest performs well. Gear unit, engine, headlights — are you sure these work fine? PR is the tuning that you make while ignoring all the rest.

The “Featured in top-tier media” bar on your website is good, but it won’t matter if this is not part of your consistent digital presence strategy.

Think long-term, and align efforts with other teams

Including PR in the long-term digital marketing strategy is the number one thing I recommend to the brands. Pavel Katz, CEO of growth marketing agency Digital Bands, also emphasizes the importance of having a content strategy that covers all digital channels and making sure PR publications are aligned with it: “Outline a very particular content plan with specific dates and leave some place for the unscheduled posts and announcements. Press releases and planned publications should be reflected in it too. I know this sounds like quite a lot of work for several teams, but this will take your digital marketing efforts to the next level.”

Things only start here. After the content strategy is ready, there are a number of other steps that will help brands enhance PR efforts.

Talk to sales. Talk to marketing. Talk to SEO and business development teams. Your digital presence might diverge unless your efforts align with the other departments. Tip: Schedule a call with a sales/business development lead, and ask them to help you map a buying persona. That’ll help you know [rather than guess] who your target audience is. Even if you do B2B, there’s always a particular person behind this “B” who will decide whether to cooperate with you. Know the pains of this person, address them, talk to them, and help make a well-informed decision through PR.

Level up your socials

Along with the PR publications, social media is your brand’s front face, which clients and other stakeholders judge you upon. Ensure your online reputation strategy syncs with the PR and social media teams. Hints: Agree on the tone of voice, discuss crisis management steps in advance, and discuss what kind of brand image you broadcast through socials and PR efforts.

Don’t forget to show your PR publications to your social media audience. You can launch a paid social campaign that showcases the PR mentions and target a particular audience that you’d like to see your posts. It allows you to increase your PR reach and tweak the ad displays as per your targets. For example, you can show Facebook ads with a PR mention to people who submitted requests on your website. It also doubles as a solution to an eternal PR metrics problem: You can track how many people have seen and engaged with your publication through such ads.

For instance, after my previous article was featured in Entrepreneur, I posted a link to it on my LinkedIn along with a catchy intro that encourages my connections to read the entire post (you can do better than “I was featured in /media/, read the entire piece here,” but most intros do boil down to that). Journalists appreciate when their pieces are placed on social media and get additional coverage. I noticed it got decent traction and engagement from my colleagues and friends, so I launched a small-scale paid social ads campaign on LinkedIn, which gave my post a proper boost. It’s a win-win for me and the media: The article is seen more often, gets more hits, and I can track down how many people saw my feature.

Technicalities and HyPRlinks

Audit and fix your website. That’s an art in itself, but leveraging Google Analytics is a good start. This way, you can identify how your website performs and what can be improved. Example: We had a client whose website sucked when it came to its technical performance; it just didn’t load quickly enough. All the hreflangs, XMLs, javascripts and other front- and back-end incantations might damage your website performance and hence hurdle PR. No one wants to deal with trudging through sloppy pages.

Digital PR implies media linking to your website; thus, exploring your current backlink profile makes sense. You need to know which websites have already linked to you to gain momentum by securing new links. Often, links from niche websites will get you more reach than from top media.

You can use SEO tools for both technical website audit and backlink profile exploration. These may seem tricky, but as I advised earlier, you’ve talked to the SEO team, right? PR + SEO is a secret weapon neglected by 9 out of 10 PR specialists I speak to, so be among the few who use it.

Take your time

As I mentioned in the beginning, I often advise my clients not to start the PR campaign right away. After all, the odds are they won’t even need PR at their current stage, and it’s fine. Sometimes we prefer to ramp up our efforts gradually, and the first steps can be pretty straightforward. Linking back to your website in your YouTube video descriptions is PR, too. Asking a partner you’ve cooperated with to announce your cooperation on their social media also matters.

It’ll be much easier to gain traction in the media you want to be featured in if your overall digital presence is solid and your brand’s digital efforts are aligned. There are no details that won’t matter. Before you make it to the main page of the media you dream about, you’ve got to do your digital homework.

By Evgeniya Zaslavskaya

Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor. Evgeniya Zaslavskaya is the founder and CEO of ZECOMMS AGENCY, a communications agency that provides PR services for companies and startups in the field of IT and investment in the regions: North America, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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What on Earth is Nike doing with its wild new branding?

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By Joseph Foley

People just don’t get it

‘Just Do it’ is one of the best-known brand taglines around. It’s been serving Nike since 1988, and it’s just as recognisable as its swoosh logo, one of the most famous textless logos. Many would say it didn’t need any other intervention, which has left people perplexed as to why Nike appears to have jumped on a recent typography trend.

People have been commenting on social media to ask why the brand placed a couple of apparently random gothic Blackadder-style letters on a post featuring Spanish tennis star and current men’s singles number one Carlos Alcaraz. But it’s not the one advert. Nike has been changing up the ‘D’ in several recent adverts.

Adaptive logos are having a bit of a moment right now. It’s something that MTV logo did so well back in the 1980s, and the LA28 Olympic Games logo has resurrected the concept with a design that can take on infinite interventions, including, controversially, from the games’ sponsors.

Nike appears to be taking up this idea and running with it, not on its logo, but with the ‘D’ in its ‘Just Do it’ tagline. But people are confused (and not just because of the incorrect punctuation). “What’s with the random Blackletter E and D? Totally unnecessary and adds nothing,” Studio Koto CEO and founder James Greenfield commented on Twitter about the recent advert featuring Alcaraz. Some people even wondered if the design was a real Nike advert or an amateur proposal.

Feature Image credit: Nike

By Joseph Foley

Sourced from CreativeBLOQ

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Instagram Will Now Allow Users to Download Publicly Posted Reels Content

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After testing it out over the past few months, Instagram’s now rolling out the option to download publicly posted Reels to your camera roll, which will provide another way to share Reels content.

As per Instagram chief Adam Mosseri (on his Instagram channel):

“In the US, we’re rolling out the ability to download reels shared by public accounts to your camera roll. Just tap the ‘Share’ icon on a reel you love and selected ‘Download’.”

That’ll enable broader sharing of TikTok content, which, even without a direct link back to the creators’ profile, can still help to boost their branding, with the inclusion of their username on the clip.

Though there are some limitations. Some users have reported audio issues with some Reels content, which could be linked to Meta’s music licensing agreements. We’ve asked Instagram for further clarification on this element.

Creators can also opt out of enabling downloads of their content in their Account Settings, so not all videos will be downloadable, while you can’t save privately posted content.

And it’s only available to selected users in the US, at least for the time being. But outside of that, it’ll add another pathway for creators to maximize the reach of their content across platforms, following the lead of TikTok, which has enabled video downloads since forever, basically.

As such, the only real surprise is that it’s taken IG this long to enable the function – but it was likely looking to better protect creators by enabling linkage back to their original posts in the app. Or it was hesitant to allow users to download and re-use IG posts elsewhere – but either way, it’s here now, so stop asking so many questions.

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Advertising watchdog bans Hyundai and Toyota electric car ads

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Campaigns made misleading claims about charging times and rapid-charging points in UK and Ireland, ASA says

The UK advertising watchdog has banned campaigns by Toyota and Hyundai for exaggerating the speed at which electric cars can be charged and misleading consumers about the availability of rapid-charging points across the UK and Ireland.

The Japanese car firm Toyota ran a marketing campaign on its website for its bZ4X model with the text “making electric easy”. The site claimed the vehicle could be charged to 80% in about 30 minutes using a 150kW fast-charging system.

Toyota said drivers could “easily find rapid-charging points in a number of public locations”, especially in areas where “drivers were most likely to need them”, such as main travel points on motorways and large arterial roads.

Hyundai ran a similar campaign – using its own website, a digital billboard in London’s Piccadilly Square and a YouTube film featuring footballers from the Premier League club Chelsea, which the South Korean car manufacturer sponsors – promoting its Ioniq 5 model electric car.

The campaign claimed the vehicle could be charged from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes using a 350kW charger.

An image from Hyundai’s brochure which prompted a ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority.
An image from Hyundai’s brochure which prompted a ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority. Photograph: ASA/PA

The Advertising Standards Authority received complaints challenging whether the charging times, which both companies admitted were achieved in perfect factory conditions, were achievable in the real world.

The claims about the availability of rapid-charging points across the UK, which would affect the likelihood of consumers achieving the claimed charging time, were also challenged.

Toyota said that at the time it ran the ad campaign, Zap Map, which shows where charging points are located, did not show the precise locations of rapid 150kW chargers but showed that overall there were 419 charging points at 134 locations across the UK. However, there were just seven in Scotland, two in Wales and none in Northern Ireland.

Similarly, the Charge myHyundai website showed that there were 37 ultra-fast 350kW charging locations in Great Britain, six in the Republic of Ireland, “limited numbers” in Wales and Scotland, and none in Northern Ireland.

The bZ4X electric car pictured beside a beach
The bZ4X electric car from Toyota. Photograph: Nathan Leach-Proffer/AP

The companies said their claims were not misleading as it was unlikely that drivers would need rapid-charging points on shorter journeys, meaning they could use the more widely available slower charge points, with many people using points fitted at home.

However, the ASA said the manufacturers had given the impression it was “relatively straightforward” to access rapid-charging points across the UK.

The watchdog also found that numerous factors affected charging times in the real world, including the age and condition of a battery, the ambient temperature, and the battery temperature, all of which were controlled by the manufacturers in the tests used to make the claims.

“If any of those conditions were less than optimal, then charging times would likely take longer,” the ASA said.

The car manufacturers said it was essential that they be allowed to promote EV potential charge times to consumers to address obstacles to consumer take-up, such as range and charge anxiety, and a lack of awareness of the rollout of charging infrastructure.

However, the ASA banned the ad campaigns, the first ban it has instigated against electric car advertising claims, and told Toyota and Hyundai not to mislead consumers about battery charging times in future.

“We concluded that because the ads omitted material information about the factors that could significantly affect the advertised charging time and the limitations in relation to availability … the claims had not been substantiated and were misleading,” the ASA ruled.

Feature Image Credit: Willy Kurniawan/Reuters

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Is the Barbie movie a bold step to reinvent and fix past wrongs or a clever ploy to tap a new market?

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After a months-long marketing blitz, the much-hyped Barbie movie is released this week.

From a Malibu Barbie dreamhouse listed on AirBnB, an AI tool that transforms selfies into Barbie movie posters and multiple Barbie-themed brand collaborations ranging from nail polish to roller skates, Barbie is everywhere.

She has even gone viral as a fashion trend known as Barbiecore, exploding across social media with people embracing vibrant pink hues and hyper feminine aesthetics. A Barbie world is upon us.

Although some have criticised this saturation strategy, it is a very deliberate marketing ploy to revitalise and redefine a brand with a contested position and history.

As well as attracting adults who grew up with Barbie and are curious to see what’s changed, the reinvention is drawing in those younger fans swept up by the tsunami of marketing and merchandise.

Despite being one of the most trusted brands with a value of approximately $US700 million, Barbie has long attracted feminist criticism for fuelling outdated and problematic “plastic fantastic” sexist stereotypes and expectations.

The Barbie backlash

Only a few years back, Barbie was a brand in crisis. Sales plummeted across 2011 to 2015 against the cultural backdrop of a rise in body positivity and backlash against a doll that represented narrow ideals and an impossible beauty standard.

After all, at life-size Barbie represents a body shape held by less than 1 in 100,000 real people. In fact, she is so anatomically impossible that, if she were real, she would be unable to lift her head, store a full liver or intestines, or menstruate.

The backlash has also been in response to growing concerns about how she influences child development, particularly how and what children learn about gender. Barbie has been identified as a risk factor for thin-ideal internalisation and body dissatisfaction for young girls, encouraging motivation for a thinner shape that damages body image and self esteem.

And despite the multiple careers Barbie has held over the decades, research highlights that girls who play with Barbie believe they have fewer career options than boys. This speaks to the power of toys to reinforce gender stereotypes, roles and expectations, and how Barbie has imported narrow ideals of femininity, girlhood and womanhood into young girls’ lives.

Reinventing a long-established icon

In response to this backlash, Mattel launched a new range of Barbies in 2016 that were promoted as diverse, representing different body shapes, sizes, hair types and skin tones. This was not without criticism, with “curvy” Barbie still considered thin and dolls named in ways that drew attention foremost to their bodies.

Hot pink dresses, shirts and other Barbie-inspired clothing on display in a shop.
Barbie merchandise on sale at a clothing store in Ireland. Shutterstock

From a white, well-dressed, middle-class, girl-next-door with friends of a similar ilk, Barbie has since been marketed as a symbol of diversity and inclusion. To signify the extent of the transformation, Mattel’s executives gave this project the code name “Project Dawn”.

Mattel – like many other brands joining the “inclusivity revolution” – knew that diversity sells, and they needed to make their brand relevant for contemporary consumers.

Diversity initiatives included a line of female role model dolls, promoted as “introducing girls to remarkable women’s stories to show them you can be anything”.

Barbie was also given a voice in the form of Barbie Vlogs, where she expressed her views on issues including depression and the sorry reflex. A gender neutral collection called “creatable world” was added in 2019 to open up gender expression possibilities when playing with Barbies.

Such efforts were crucial to undoing missteps of the past, such as a “Teen Talk Barbie” that was programmed to say “Math class is tough!”, or the compulsory heterosexuality that Barbie has long advanced.

The latest step in Barbie’s transformation

Barbie the film is simply the next step in an evolution to make brand Barbie inclusive. And with a rumoured film budget of $100 million, the supporting marketing machine provides a critical opportunity to reset the Barbie narrative.

Fair skinned and dark skinned Barbies sitting in wheelchairs.
Part of the range of Barbies introduced in 2016 to promote diversity and inclusion. Shutterstock

With Greta Gerwig, acclaimed director of female-led stories such as Little Women and Lady Bird at the helm, and a diverse cast of Barbies of different races, body types, gender identities and sexual preferences, the film and its creators have sought to assure audiences of the film’s feminist leanings.

Addressing the complicated history of Barbie is crucial for audiences who grew up and played with the doll and are grappling with introducing her to the next generation of doll consumers.

Yet, Robbie Brenner, executive producer of Mattel Films, has explicitly stated that Gerwig’s Barbie is “not a feminist movie”. Indeed, the main character still represents a narrow beauty standard – tall, thin, blonde, white – with diverse characters in place to support her narrative.

Which begs the question: are these inclusion initiatives simply emblematic of diversity washing, where the language and symbolism of social justice are hijacked for corporate profit? Or do they represent a genuine effort to redress the chequered history of a brand that promotes poor body image, unrealistic ideals and rampant materialism?

What is clear is that in today’s climate where brands are increasingly rewarded for taking a stand on socio-political issues, brand Barbie’s attempts to reposition as inclusive have paid off: sales are now booming.

Seemingly, Barbie’s famous tagline that “anything is possible” has shown itself to be true.

Feature Image Credit: Ryan Gosling (left) and Margot Robbie who play Ken and Barbie in the “Barbie” movie. Shutterstock

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Marketing to Everyone: Why Accessibility Matters for Your Digital Marketing Strategy?

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By Emma Jones

The digital marketing strategy is one of the highly comprehensive and important tools for businesses. One of the essential features of any digital marketing strategy is accessibility. But very few companies know about digital accessibility.

Digital accessibility covers all about offering the full experience of the brand to different customers irrespective of their special needs. Let us explore digital accessibility and how it matters in the digital marketing strategy of any business. Starting with what is accessibility in digital marketing.

What is Accessibility in Digital Marketing?

Accessibility in digital marketing includes the different design practices that make it easy for people with special abilities to get the best out of the brand. Hence, it is a crucial step to ensure that everyone can enjoy the services, products, and brand.

The secret behind the accessibility in digital marketing is the expansion in the reach of the business product and services to potential customers. Further, it has a positive impact on the customers that the brand is doing enough for the people with special abilities. Businesses from certain areas must comply with regional accessibility standards.

Digital accessibility ensures that every person has a similar access to the content which remains to be the king in digital marketing. But which types of disabilities are catered to by digital accessibility?

Disabilities Handled by Digital Marketing Accessibility

People with the following disabilities the best benefited from digital marketing accessibility:

  • Learning

It covers memory loss or learning disabilities.

  • Thinking

This includes Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other mental illnesses including loss of mental function.

  • Communication

It covers the inability to talk or speech impairment.

  • Movement 

This includes loss of a limb, paralysis, and limited movement due to different issues.

  • Hearing 

It covers hearing loss or deafness.

  • Vision

This includes people having difficulty seeing or blindness.

Examples of Accessible Marketing

After having a quick overview of accessibility in digital marketing, time to have an overview of its successful examples:

  • Inclusive Experiences

Any digital marketing strategy should be equally accessible to offline and online users. It confirms and restricted use of the digital marketing initiatives for attracting business through both channels.

  • Email Marketing Accessibility

Email campaigns can be made highly accessible with the inclusion of certain features. These include proper headings, alt text, descriptive subject lines, and plain text versions.

  • Social Media Accessibility

The guidelines for social media accessibility are offered by the prestigious Princeton University. It focuses on making social media content highly accessible for people with special abilities. These guidelines are valid for audio, visual, text, and image content. 

  • Video Content Accessibility

The accessible videos are viewed more by the audience. Hence, many businesses prefer to add captions and transcriptions in their video to make them highly accessible. Some other features include adding music or sound effects.

  • Content Accessibility

It ensures easy readability and optimized SEO benefits to businesses. The use of proper heading tags, sub-headings, headlines, and lists facilitates easy reading and scanning. The use of descriptive link text and accessible file uploading increases content accessibility. For social media content, it is easier to include that descriptive image text in the post.

  • Web Design Accessibility

Web design accessibility is an eternal part of digital marketing accessibility for any business. It includes a selection of the perfect fonts, improved navigation, and optimized call-to-action (CTA) buttons. Many prefer to go with the Sans serif font as these are easiest to read with no ornaments. The font size of 12 is good for readability. The use of keywords can facilitate web navigation.

These include using them in menus and buttons on your web page. The CTA should be accessible for a quick click by the users.

  • Image and Graphic Design Accessibility

The audience which is unable to see should be able to understand the image and graphic design in the digital marketing content. It is ideal for situations when the audience is having visual issues or the website is not loading properly.

Some of the common methods to ensure immediate graphic design accessibility in your digital marketing strategy are infographics, complementing colours, and adding alt text. All the infographics should be exported as PDFs as images can’t be read by different assistant devices.

It is important to use different design elements using the text and buttons to eliminate the colour issues for the audience having colour blindness or low vision. Some other methods are using different border patterns or sizes to communicate the content.

The alt text improves the overall SEO initiatives with the addition of at least one keyword in the total content images. It makes people understand the image when it is not displayed to them or they are unable to see it.

Requirements for Digital Accessibility (web accessibility)

Web accessibility is governed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These offer single and standard requirements for the digital accessibility of the websites. According to them, any website should be:

  • Perceivable

Any website must be easily readable and easy to see by visually impaired persons.

  • Operable

Websites should be easy to operate and receptive.

  • Understandable

The information on the website should be easy to understand and present.

  • Robust

The website should be highly interactive with the different technology tools.

Importance of Accessibility in Digital Marketing

Before jumping to the importance of accessibility in digital marketing, it is essential to go through the main risks of inaccessibility.

With around 23 percent of people not using the internet from their digital devices, many businesses are missing their significant audience. A major factor for this figure is digital inaccessibility.

Some of the common risks for businesses due to accessibility in digital marketing initiatives include the following:

  1. Portraying a poor company reputation
  2. Legal actions due to non-compliance with the accessibility standards
  3. Failing to convert potential customers due to poor user experience
  4. Missing out on a large segment of the audience

Several businesses are leveraging the different benefits of digital accessibility. Some of the key points focusing on the importance of digital accessibility are:

  • Avoid Legal Issues

Firstly, it is easy for companies to avoid different lawsuits and complaints related to accessibility issues. Countries have strict laws protecting the interest of the differently abled paper. Hence, if you are not compliant with your regional accessibility standards, then you may attract legal issues.

The best solution in this case is to comply with the regional accessibility guidelines and the standard accessibility guidelines. You may standardize your website with W3C and WCAG guidelines.

  • Increases Branding

The key purpose of digital accessibility is to increase the overall business branding. There is no secret to understanding that customers would like to buy from a branch that takes care of differently-abled people.

It not only increases the business marketing initiatives toward a specific section of the audience but creates a long-lasting impact on others also. Customers are in love with brands that care about their special needs.

  • Increases Search Engine Rankings

Achieving high search engine rankings is the pain point of many digital marketers. Google indexes rely on text to understand images and media content. Hence, there is no better way than including digital accessibility in increasing the search engine rankings of your website.

You can go for adding alt text to videos and images. Thus, the Google algorithm will find your content easily and make it rank above inaccessible content.

  • Increases Return on Investments

Who doesn’t want to increase return on investments when it comes to digital marketing strategy? The best method to increase the return on investment is to see the help of digital accessibility.

Many businesses argue that the costs associated with digital accessibility may or may not balance their returns. However digital accessibility, when planned precisely, can easily bring amazing returns on investments.

  • Increases Usability

Your business website is not usable unless it is accessible to the people. Thus, it is important to take care of the users with different limitations like movement, hearing, vision, understanding, and others.

A clean and simple website prepared using accessibility standards is all that you need to make your business website a success.

Best Practices to Include Accessibility in Digital Marketing

Moving ahead in your exploration of accessibility in digital marketing, below are some of the best practices to include it:

  • Including Accessible Designs

Firstly, less is more when it comes to accessible web page designs. So, all you need to do is avoid complexity and prefer simplicity in the different digital marketing initiatives. You must take care of the special needs of people with special abilities according to their types of impairments.

  • Offering Transcripts and Captions for Videos

The video and audio content can be quickly made available to people with special abilities using the transcript. The captions along with a time-stamped transcript offer a detailed description of the video. All you need to do is ensure that the transcripts and captions are effective and highly accurate. This helps people with vision and hearing problems to understand the context of videos.

  • Including Screen Reader Coding

People with special abilities use screen readers for your web page content. Hence, it is essential to include the coding for this assistive technology on your web page. These assistive tools are highly useful for people with cognitive reading, or visual disorders. It is one of the important steps in including accessibility in your digital marketing.

  • Including Proper Contrast Ratio

Nobody wants to be on a web page having a drastic contrast ratio. Thus, all you need to do is maintain the amount of contrast between the background and the foreground colours of your web page. According to the WCAG guidelines, text and images of the text can have a contrast of 4:5:1. Businesses can use different colour contrast checkers available to maintain a suitable contrast ratio for their web pages.

  • Including Captions and Alt Text for Informational Graphics and Images

It is essential to add alt text for different images and graphics. It is highly beneficial in cases when your web page is not loading or is viewed by people with vision impairment. Alt text should be accurate, descriptive, and have short details of the image offering its context with the content.

Concluding Thoughts

Thus, it is safe to conclude that accessibility matters in the digital marketing strategy. It is all about reaching the unreached audience by making your content accessible to the mass. There are different types of accessibility like website accessibility, email accessibility, video accessibility, content accessibility, and many more. The W3C and WCAG standards offer the best standards for website accessibility.

It is easy to understand the importance of accessibility in marketing and the best practices to include it. So, all you need to do is keep accessibility in mind while taking any big or small step in your digital marketing strategy.

By Emma Jones

I am Emma Jones; I live in New York. I am a content writer. I am passionate about writing and have been in the industry for several years. My goal is to ensure that individuals with disabilities or impairments can access and interact with technology, digital content, physical spaces, and other aspects of daily life with ease. It is from my experience that I have concluded using accessibility audit services and accessibility testing services are the go-to solutions to achieve accessibility. And I am keen to learn about new technologies, marketing, and businesses and help the public know about the same through my blogs. As a content writer, I create clear and concise content accessible to all.

Sourced from readwrite

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How to engage Gen Z just like Adidas and Walmart

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By Kolawole Samuel Adebayo

What are the most effective ways of engaging a group whose spending and consumption habits aren’t exactly traditional?

Gen Z make up 40% of the global consumer population, according to global research and consulting firm McKinsey. The Influencer Marketing Factory reports 97% of Gen Z turn to social media as their main source of shopping inspiration. Another report by Statista shows 54% of Gen Z say social media is better than online search when it comes to discovering new products. With this demographic wielding increasing buying power, brands know better than to ignore them.

The question is not whether companies should market to Gen Zs—it’s how? What are the most effective ways of engaging a group whose spending and consumption habits aren’t exactly traditional? Although most brands are still asking these questions, legacy companies like Adidas and Walmart, which have thrived through countless market fluctuations, technological upheavals, and cultural shifts, may already have the answers.

Selling experiences, not products

Product-focused sales have become tacky, especially for a generation that values authenticity and engagement. And, as Jeremy Finch wrote for Fast Company way back in 2015, “Gen Z have a carefully tuned radar for being sold to and a limited amount of time and energy to spend assessing whether something’s worth their time.” What works instead is creating immersive narratives that offer unique journeys, personalized services, and memories that transcend the product’s functionalities.

Adidas is appealing to Gen Z through digital assets like NFTs. “For many brands and consumers, the value of NFTs doesn’t come from the token itself, but from the sense of community built around it,” says Rohan Handa, senior vice president for business development at Horizen Labs Ventures, a digital asset advisory and solutions platform. “It creates a shared experience and exclusivity that draws people in [and] for a population that evolved with Web 2.0, social media, and the mobile-market Web, it is normal that Gen Z users value their digital identity more than people from Gen X, who sometimes don’t even have one.”

This is why Adidas’ first NFT launch in 2021, themed “Into the Metaverse,” minted all 30,000 of its NFTs and amassed up to $22 million in sales in hours. Fast forward to 2023 and the brand has launched the third and final phase of the project, with perks like exclusive access to certain offers and increased interactions.

Walmart, on the other hand, has plans to create two immersive Roblox gaming experiences—Walmart Land for buying virtual merchandise and Walmart’s Universe of Play for toy games. This, according to Walmart’s marketing chief William White, is a strategy to “increase brand favourability with younger audiences” and “drive relevance in cultural conversations.”

“Gen Z is a digital-first cohort [and] digital identities matter to these participants,” says Horizen Labs Ventures’ Handa. “Digital avatars like those done by Ready Player Me, in-game skins/assets similar to the ones in Fortnite and Roblox, ticketing and token-gated sales by Ticketmaster, and collectible NFTs like NBA top-shot are some top-of-mind use cases, and where a lot of Gen Z is headed.”

But if selling products, do it socially

The market size for social commerce—that is, a form of e-commerce that combines social media, online communities, and user-generated content—was estimated to be valued at $584.91 billion in 2021 and is set to grow before the end of the decade, with a projected market value of $6.2 trillion in 2030.

The idea of social commerce is a relatively new phenomenon characterized by its use of social media platforms to facilitate the buying and selling of products and services. While social commerce is still in its early stages, it has the potential to revolutionize the way we shop online.

“It is more important than ever for brands to implement a social commerce strategy that captures their young and increasingly influential audience,” says Roy Avidor, cofounder and CEO of Cymbio. “To a large extent, this booming shopping trend is due to Gen Z, who dedicate a lot of time to browsing social channels.”

Avidor recommends that businesses that want to succeed in the social commerce space must leverage influencer marketing, simplify payment options, and prepare omnichannel marketing. “Brands seeking to connect with younger audiences in the social commerce space must leverage the reach and engagement of influential social media users, ensure payment methods are up-to-date and easy to use, and implement omnichannel strategies by integrating social media into their overall commerce strategy,” adds Avidor.

With inflation and the cost of goods rising, it’s more important than ever for retail businesses to retain existing customers, especially when the cost of acquiring new ones can be up to five times higher. This is where social commerce can help brands of all sizes.

Communicating with Gen Z

Whether it is from their favourite brands or persons, genuine and transparent interactions are necessities for Gen Z. In the words of Avi Pardo, cofounder and chief revenue officer at communications platform LeapXpert, “More than anything, Gen Zers just want to be seen. . . . Should a Gen Z member feel like they are merely a statistic in a customer relationship management system, they will disengage.”

For businesses, this means meeting Gen Z with the information they need in the places they use frequently—especially on social media and mobile messaging platforms. Pardo says leading brands are able to engage Gen Z by creating a personalized experience, which means, among other things, the ability to use any social media or mobile messaging platform to reach out to their personal rep at any time. “These brands don’t make Gen Zers call a desk phone number, a directory line, or reach out through a dedicated company portal. Instead, they have dedicated, personal representatives available to Gen Zers on their time, and on their preferred channel, be it iMessage, WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram, or Signal.”

New insights on mobile messaging are spotlighting significant opportunities for increased brand and customer engagement. For instance, a 2021 report by Statista showed that an estimated 3.09 billion mobile phone users communicate using mobile messaging, while another report by Klaviyo discovered that not only is text messaging the most important form of mobile communication, many customers (especially younger ones) feel secure interacting with brands over texts.

For Adidas, moving personalized interactions to WhatsApp in 2015 was a strategy to connect with the different subcultures of their young audience across the world and grow hyper-local communities within these countries. This, according to Laura Coveney, managing editor at Adidas, “allowed us to build relationships . . . in an ongoing way that [didn’t] feel transactional.” Through WhatsApp, the sportswear brand has launched several campaigns that allow it to engage organically with users.

Similarly, Walmart’s recent “Text-to-Shop” mobile-marketing strategy provides a convenient and accessible way for customers to shop without the need for a dedicated app or website. With a Walmart account, customers can browse products, add to their carts, review recommendations, and eventually make purchases—all via text. Because a Walmart account is linked to your payment information and even location, you can have your items on your doorstep in no time.

Making hiring more engaging

As a generation group expected to account for a third of the workforce by the end of this decade, companies that intend to be around for a long time are actively seeking to leverage their talents and potential. Compared to previous generations, there is now a world of difference in the strategies used to hire and retain Gen Z employees.

“Gen Z are used to instantaneous experiences,” says Benjy Gillman, cofounder and head of innovation and strategy at the candidate experience platform, myInterview. “They can order a taxi, find a date, or book a hotel in minutes on their mobile phone. At the same time, the application process also needs to be as engaging and instantaneous to engage this generation.” And this is what leading brands like Adidas and Walmart are doing—taking a candidate-first approach to recruitment practices.

“Leading brands are making the entire application process mobile-first; they are making it more engaging by injecting interactive media such as video and audio within the application process, and most importantly, they are personalizing the candidate journey so it’s easier and more engaging to apply for a job at the organization,” notes Gillman.

Worthy of note is Walmart’s strategy to attract young talent by offering what they call a debt-free college education where employees enrol in online programs at three universities for $1 a day. But Gillman advises further that the candidate experience must be swift and seamless. “Waiting a week to get back to a candidate isn’t acceptable anymore,” he says. “In the battle for talent, brands need to be fast-paced and need a real-time approach to the candidate experience.”

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Kolawole Samuel Adebayo

Sourced from FastCompany

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20+ Cool AI Tools Just Added To Our List

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By Asif

Rask AI

Discover the power of AI with Rask.ai, your one-stop platform for full self-serve video localization. Harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence, Rask.ai streamlines the process of video localization, offering a time-efficient and cost-effective solution for content creators and businesses alike.

Wisecut

Introducing Wisecut: The genius behind captivating video creation. Wisecut, an innovative online tool, employs the brilliance of artificial intelligence and voice recognition to revolutionize how you edit videos. Unleash the limitless potential of AI and effortlessly craft mesmerizing videos with an incredible speed!

AdCreative.ai

Boost your advertising and social media game with AdCreative.ai – the ultimate Artificial Intelligence solution. Say goodbye to hours of creative work and hello to high-converting ad and social media posts generated in mere seconds. Maximize your success and minimize your effort with AdCreative.ai today.

Getimg.ai

Enter the captivating realm of Getimg.ai, where AI wields its magic to create extraordinary art, photos, images, and avatars. Unleash your creativity, generate original visuals, modify photos, expand boundaries, and craft custom AI models effortlessly.

Nuclia

Maximize your product’s potential with Nuclia’s AI-powered search and generative answers. Safeguard your data privacy while unlocking limitless insights. Embrace Nuclia for AI-driven excellence!

SoReal.AI

Introducing SoReal.AI, your gateway to mesmerizing AI-generated images. Unleash your imagination and witness the magic unfold before your eyes. Simply input your desires, and within moments, immerse yourself in a world of personalized, awe-inspiring visuals.

tinyEinstein

tinyEinstein is an AI Marketing manager that helps you grow your Shopify store 10x faster with almost zero time investment from you.

Slayer AI

Slayer AI revolutionizes podcasting by crafting tailor-made shows in mere seconds.

Sitekick

Sitekick: Unleash AI’s magic to craft stunning landing pages in seconds. No skills needed; just pure visual brilliance and high-converting results.

Cogniflow

Unleash Cogniflow’s prowess to skyrocket productivity! Seamlessly integrate AI into your workflow: classify interactions, extract info from text/images, identify objects in visuals, and transcribe audio with precision.

Balsa

Balsa: The ultimate software-building companion. With Balsa, ideas take flight, projects soar, and teams conquer together. Embrace the power of seamless organization, project tracking, and collaborative brilliance. Dive into Balsa’s realm and unlock the true potential of your workflow.

Fig

Introducing Fig: the cutting-edge, futuristic command line. It holds the ultimate knowledge base for your team’s hidden treasures, powerful scripts, and mystical SSH codes.

ProfilePicture.AI

Bid farewell to your unflattering profile image with ProfilePicture.AI, the ultimate AI-powered creator and generator of stunning profile pictures.

Slash Dreamer

Slash Dreamer brings to life AI-generated images exclusively for Notion! Elevate your Notion pages with our remarkable AI image generator, the ultimate tool for effortlessly crafting stunning visuals in mere seconds!

Magic Studio

Step into the extraordinary realm of the Magic Studio, a creation brought to life by your own hands. Discover the mesmerizing wand that has the power to transform your pictures into pure magic.

SaneBox

In today’s digital age, we’re inundated with a constant influx of emails that can prove overwhelming and time-consuming. Enter SaneBox, your trusted partner in email management, designed to simplify your life.

Pictorial.ai

Pictorial.ai: Create graphics effortlessly for your blog, social media, website, and ads. Get inspired and convey your message with reliable, ready-to-use visual masterpieces. No hassle, just captivating visuals.

Helicone

Helicone, a cutting-edge solution for harnessing the power of Generative AI, has become the go-to tool for numerous organizations looking to enhance the effectiveness of their Large-Language Model endeavours.

AI-Surge

AI-Surge ignites productivity with its cutting-edge solution, offering a dependable way to conquer the hurdles of data productivity. Experience the power of a user-friendly, versatile platform that effortlessly tackles data preparation and exploratory analysis in just minutes.

Motion

Motion is a clever tool that uses AI to create daily schedules that account for your meetings, tasks, and projects. Say goodbye to the hassle of planning and hello to a more productive life.

BIGVU

Unleash the power of BIGVU: concise, captivating videos with teleprompters, captions, and automatic subtitles. Connect with your audience effortlessly through social media, vlogs, emails, and chat messages.

InterviewMe AI

Introducing InterviewMe AI, an interactive AI platform for honing interview skills. Perfect for aspiring and seasoned Software Engineers alike, it offers the opportunity to practice interviewing in a captivating and immersive way.

By Asif

Sourced from aitoolsclub.com

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