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The best organic marketing strategies for small business

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Learn which marketing strategies for small business to use

You’re ready to market your small business, and you have several strategies available to you. Will you market yourself through Facebook or Twitter, pay for ads on Google Search, invest in great website content, or start to build out your email list?

When you’re developing your marketing strategy and funnel, and utilizing the best CRM software to keep track of your project, it can be helpful to split your approaches into two broad areas:

  1. Organic marketing strategies for small business, which help your website, articles, and other content appear on search engines and arrive in people’s inboxes
  2. Paid promotion, where you pay for ads to be shown next to search engine results, on websites, and in social media feeds

Getting a foundation in small business marketing

Below, we’re going to discuss organic marketing strategies for small business, and how these can become an essential part of your overall marketing strategy. We’ll dig into the three main organic channels, and look at the best resources, software, tools, and platforms for each one.

We’re building on topics we’ve explored in our previous guides, specifically:

We recommend you scan through the above posts to get a good grounding on the concepts we’ll be exploring in this guide.

Let’s get into it.

The basics of organic marketing

person using Google Search on laptop

Utilizing Google Search is just one part of organic marketing strategy (Image credit: Unsplash)

Organic marketing is about promoting your business in three main ways:

  • Website content marketing that you post on your website or other sites that will attract people to your online business
  • Social media content that you share into various social media networks, so that your followers and fans can see and react to that content
  • Newsletter and email content that you send to people who have joined your mailing list

Organic marketing is distinct from paid advertising, because you don’t pay for your content to be shown to your audience. You may still need to pay for the original content creation, but once you’ve done that, you’re relying on organic search, social media feeds, and emails to promote your business.

Website content marketing strategies

laptop open on website on table

Website content marketing can come via your own site, social media, and a range of other third-party mediums (Image credit: Unsplash)

You can use website content marketing in several ways:

  • Create content that you publish on your own website, so that your pages show up in organic search when people are looking for keywords related to your industry, products, and services
  • Create content that you publish on other websites, with a link back to your website to help boost the likelihood of appearing in search (by creating backlinks)
  • Create content that you publish on third-party platforms like YouTube, Medium, Reddit, and so on, which drives interest in your business
  • Create organic social media content (we’ll get into that a little later)

How to create website content marketing

Here’s a breakdown of the steps you can follow to develop excellent website content marketing:

  1. Develop a content strategy: You don’t just want to be creating content at random – it should all be part of a cohesive marketing strategy. That means building a marketing plan, and aligning your content and channels so you’re communicating in the right way, to the right people, at the right time.
  2. Decide on the type of content you want to create: You have plenty of options here, including: blog articles; videos; explainers; landing pages; images and illustrations; podcasts and audio; branding and graphic design; website design; and more.
  3. Define the content and create instructions: Decide on what you want the content to be, how it should look, the approach it should take, and other key factors.
  4. Find someone to create the content: Depending on your skills and abilities, you can create the content yourself, get an employee to do it, or bring in outside freelance help. For example, the author of this article is a freelance writer who specializes in business and technology.
  5. Work together to create the content: Go through a content draft, creation, review, and feedback process, so that you get the content you want.
  6. Decide where you will publish the content: You might choose to publish on your own website, on a related site as guest content, or on a third-party platform.
  7. Publish the content and track results: Use analytics and other tools to see how your content does, so you can tweak, refine, and create high-performing content in future.

Best content marketing software and tools 

  • Project and content tracking: GatherContent, Monday.com, Clickup, Asana
  • Content creation: Adobe Creative Cloud (Illustrator, Photoshop, Premier, etc), MS Office, Google Office Suite, Canva
  • Tracking visitors to your sites, how they got there, and what they did: Google Analytics
  • Content marketing keywords and tracking: Google Search Console, Google Analytics, HubSpot, SEMRush, and other tools

Best freelance content marketer hiring platforms and companies 

The best platforms and companies to find and hire freelance content creators from include Fiverr, Fiverr Pro, Upwork, Toptal, 99Designs, LinkedIn, and individual job websites.

Social media organic content marketing strategies

A group of cubes all displaying social media logos

Social media marketing takes multiple forms, including content creation, forums for discussion, and much more (Image credit: Shuttestock/Bloomicon)

You can use social media marketing through several different methods:

  • Building an overall social media strategy of what you’re going to post and when
  • Setting up pages, groups, and accounts that your audience can like and follow
  • Creating and sharing content on your favourite social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn
  • Managing groups and discussions on social media
  • Engaging with customers, comments, and other interactions with your brand

How to manage your social media organic marketing 

You’ll follow some of the same steps with organic social media marketing as you would with regular website content marketing, so we won’t get into too much of that detail here. Instead, it’s helpful to focus on content marketing approaches that are specific to social media. You will want to:

  1. Develop an organic social media content strategy: As per website content marketing, but with a focus on the social networks where your customers are likely to hand out.
  2. Decide on the type of social media content you want to create: As per website content marketing.
  3. Define the social media content and create instructions: As per website content marketing.
  4. Find someone to create the social media content: As per website content marketing, except you’ll want to find someone who specializes in social media content creation, as it’s a very specific skill set.
  5. Find someone to manage your social media: Hire a social media marketing manager/coordinator who can monitor, manage, and communicate through your social media accounts.
  6. Work together to create the social media content:  As per website content marketing.
  7. Decide where you will publish the social media content:  As per website content marketing, except you will need to match the content with the social media channel: for example, very visual posts for Instagram and Pinterest, professional posts for LinkedIn, short posts for Twitter, and so on.
  8. Publish the social media content and track results:  As per website content marketing.

Best social media marketing software and tools 

  • Social media content creation: Adobe Creative Cloud (Illustrator, Photoshop, Premier, etc), MS Office, Google Office Suite, Canva
  • Tracking visitors to your websites, how they got there, and what they did: Google Analytics
  • Social media marketing, monitoring, and tracking: Google Analytics, HubSpot, Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social

Email and newsletter organic content marketing strategies

man writing out email marketing steps on whiteboard

Creating marketing strategies for email and newsletter campaigns means promoting yourself to existing leads (Image credit: Unsplash)

Email and newsletter marketing are slightly different from the other methods we’ve mentioned, as you’ll be marketing to people who have already signed up for your email list. This does mean a slightly different approach, as you’ll be sharing information with leads who already know about your business. The process tends to work as follows:

  • Encourage people to sign up to receive emails from you, normally by incentivizing them through a lead magnet or similar marketing
  • Build an email list of interested leads
  • Create an email marketing campaign that sends out helpful news, guides, and information about your products and services
  • Setup email automation to send out your emails
  • Track the effectiveness of your email campaigns

How to create emails and newsletters 

You’ll follow some of the same steps with newsletter and email marketing as you would with regular website content marketing. We’ll cover that briefly, but focus more on the aspects that are unique to email and newsletters.

  1. Develop an email and newsletter marketing campaign: You’ll want to put together a step-by-step marketing strategy and campaign for the specific mix of emails you send out, together with a timeline for emailing after a customer has signed up.
  2. Decide on the type of email content you want to create: As per website content marketing.
  3. Define the email content and create instructions: As per website content marketing.
  4. Find someone to create the email content: As per website content marketing, except you’ll want to find someone who specializes in email and newsletter content creation; also consider the other parts of the email campaign, as these emails will “drip” out and build on each other.
  5. Work together to create the email content: As per website content marketing.
  6. Use email software to automate your drip campaign: We’ve listed some helpful software below.
  7. Send out your emails and track results: You will want to measure open rates and how often people click through.

Best email marketing software and tools 

  • Email content creation: Adobe Creative Cloud (Illustrator, Photoshop, Premier, etc), MS Office, Google Office Suite, Canva
  • Email marketing and tracking: Constant Contact, MailChimp, and other tools

Marketing automation software can be incredibly helpful for managing your organic channels. From scheduling social media posts to sending out emails on the right timeline, here’s a guide to creating an automated marketing flow that works for you.

Organic marketing is incredibly useful for businesses. Used well, it can create powerful connections, share helpful information, and build trust—which are great starting points for selling your products and services.

Feature Image Credit: Unsplash

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Paul is a professional writer who creates extensively researched, expert, in-depth guides across business, finance, and technology. He loves the challenge of taking complex subjects and breaking them down so they are easy to understand. He can quote ‘The Princess Bride’ in its entirety and believes the secret to good writing is Earl Grey tea.

Sourced from techradar.pro

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6 Reasons Infographics Can Help Your Content Strategy

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Sourced from Katy Times

(NewsUSA) – It wasn’t that long ago that Infographics were the “It” tool for public relations and marketing – until they weren’t.

To understand why infographics should still be a viable campaign strategy for clients, we need to understand the history behind them.

In 2012, everyone was producing infographics — usually of low-quality design, although as agencies became more versed in how effective these could be as a sales to market a client’s product, more high-design infographics began emerging. In fact, according to one experienced UK-based SEO and content provider says he was creating 200 to 300 infographics per year in 2014.

In 2016, the industry became flooded, and journalists began rejecting pitches that included, to date, these time-tested marketing strategies.

Fast forward four years, and there remains an argument for keeping infographics as a viable marketing tool in your stable of resources that you pitch to clients. Here’s why:

  • They have a visual appeal. It’s no surprise that visually presented information is more appealing to the eye than a mountain of text, which means that a graphically-told story will usually pique a reader’s interest before any information is processed.
  • They are easy to comprehend. The brain is wired in such a way that visual are able to be processed much faster than language. In fact, according to studies, people can follow visual instructions more than 323 percent better than written instructions.
  • They are easily recalled. If you’re trying to make an impression on a would-be customer, know this: according to studies people can recall only about 10 percent of written content three days after reading it versus 65 percent of information presented in visual form.
  • They are shareable. Infographics can break down potentially complex information into the bite-size pieces that we have become accustomed to in a visually-appealing format that has the ability to be recalled. In this way, people are more likely to share the content of the infographic.
  • They can help to increase sales. Go back to the bullet point on recall because it’s worth repeating: the human brain is better at retaining visuals more than text. This means that if you have a complex product or service (think an IT company such as Oracle), it would stand to reason that presenting processes and benefits of using a company’s product might be better presented visually in an infographic, rather than a block of text. This in turn, will help you to stand out from your competition.
  • They aren’t being promoted as heavily today. There’s no better time than today to start using a tool that has, for many been shelved at worst, and been put on the back burner at best. Think of it this way: if your competitors aren’t using this sales tool, why wouldn’t you? As long as you use a format that is visually appealing to tell your client’s story or present a product or service, it remains a great way to not only attract attention, but for potential customers to remember you.

The bottom line is that infographics continue to be a solid tool when used correctly and can potentially add fantastic benefits as part of a wider content marketing strategy.

Sourced from Katy Times

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The Relationship Between Reputation and Brand

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Brand reputation is the determining factor that decides whether consumers will pay and recruits will apply.

“I don’t know why you are. I don’t know your company. I don’t know your company’s product. I don’t know what your company stands for. I don’t know your company’s customers. I don’t know your company’s record. I don’t know your company’s reputation. Now, what was it you wanted to sell me?” – McGraw-Hill

The quote is from one of the most famous advertisements in which McGraw-Hill brings forward the thought that a company’s reputation is a requirement for the successful selling of a product or service. Sales must start before the salesperson calls on the would-be customer. That is possible only when the brand has an admirable and first-rate reputation in the market. A brand having a good reputation contributes to the enhancement of its products and services’ value. Likewise, a bad reputation devalues products and services and brings in further decline. Furthermore, if a brand is consistently projecting a lucid image of itself, it is more likely to build a more substantial reputation and be remembered in the future.

Brand reputation is the determining factor that decides whether consumers will pay and recruits will apply. A poor and weak reputation will negatively affect a company, while on the other hand, a good reputation will help a company both operationally and financially. In contrast to corporate image, brand reputation is owned by the public.

Reputational strategy

Whether the reputation of the brand will be strong or weak will depend on the quality of the strategic model adopted. As the profession of public relations moves more and more toward being a reputation-managing function within organizations and is less often considered an exclusive part of the marketing mix, strategizing becomes an increasingly important tool for brands.

A brand’s strategy model affects the nature of its corporate reputation. A market-oriented understanding of strategy will produce market-oriented PR. A reputation-and-relationship-oriented knowledge of strategy will build reputation-and-relationship-oriented PR. It is at the moment of strategizing that crucial and defining choices must be made about the range of people who are essential to the brand, the balance of one-way and two-way communication in a campaign, the emphasis that will be placed on reputation-building and relationship-building outcomes, the values or critical ethical principles, the general timeframe within which goals will be measured and what kind of entity the brand sees itself as being.

Brand reputation consists of four crucial factors: reliability, responsibility, credibility and trustworthiness. Many theorists also argue that a brand’s culture hugely influences strategy implementation, reputation and performance. As such, brands should concentrate on building a magnificent culture. The strategy should address reputation weaknesses through evolution, not revolution — aiming to achieve understanding rather than adoration from the public.

Protecting reputations and relationships

The legal and communication environments in which practitioners operate have been globalized — or at least internationalized. Communication techniques are moving away from mass-market campaigns to targeted activities that depend on relationships and reputations.

Information exchange and storage are now integral to forming effective relationships and allowing brands to ‘individualize and personalize’ messages. The increasing reliance on computer-stored information to target communication strategies has seen information privacy emerge as a critical legal risk for public relations practitioners. Consumers are more willing to trade their personal information with those brands which have a good reputation. In addition, there are strong commercial reasons for brands implementing effective privacy policies. However, a targeted approach is recommended to address privacy concerns that take account of a wide range of problems relating to privacy. Brands must investigate the patterns of consumer sensitivity regarding information privacy, incorporate these concerns into existing databases and align communication strategies (including direct marketing).

Four key segments

Companies should consider the following four key segments to analyse a rising concern that may threaten their brand reputation:

1. The elements of the brand

  • Positioning of a brand in the marketplace: A problem that becomes more dangerous if the situation gets weaker — for example, market shares or favourability in the corporate sector.
  • Strengths or weaknesses of a brand: If a brand can be distinguished at an extreme level, the better it is for the company affected unless the vital demarcation element is the subject of concern.
  • The fundamental meaning of the brand.

2. Situation of crisis

  • The intensity of the situation from the beginning: If a problem affects many people, or if it is an alarming issue. For example, finding salmonella in food products leads to severe health problems or even death.

3. Initiatives taken by a company

  • Effect on brand: All activities carried out by a company influence the brand, especially communications.

4. Evaluation of results

  • Measuring efficiency: In terms of recuperation/reopening, rebranding or shifting market share.

Related: How to Leverage Artificial Intelligence in Public Relations

The legal environment

To manage the reputation of a brand, PR practitioners must operate in a legal framework. Legal advice must be interpreted from a PR perspective to ensure that quality decisions are made. Working with legal input, PR practitioners can move towards a systematic approach to dealing with the law. Brands should develop a legal strategy for their specialty area, setting best practice benchmarks in potential areas, such as contract law, intellectual property, defamation, contempt and consumer protection law. Developing a legal strategy and compliance systems will not eliminate legal problems, but it will go a long way towards minimizing the harm that may arise from these problems.

Litigation public relations

Sometimes parties to litigation or brands charged with offenses look to public relations to “control the damage” of proceedings. Communications strategies adopted during the litigation process to manage the effect/impact of proceedings on a brand’s reputation are commonly referred to as “litigation public relations”. Litigation PR aims to counteract negative publicity, present a client’s viewpoint, ensure balanced media coverage, help the media and the public understand complex legal issues, defuse a hostile environment and help resolve conflict. Any practitioner engaged in litigation public relations must be aware of the legal status of any case and factor the contempt of court laws into any advice offered to brands seeking strategies to minimize potential harm. Liaising with court public information officers will help practitioners to keep track of proceedings.

The public relations duty of care

Many brands establish contracts with PR agencies, in which particular standards of care are specified. If these standards are not met, then the brands have a right of action in the contract. Professionals are obliged to give skilled advice based on the possession of a body of knowledge. In public relations, a duty of care will arise where advice is provided on a brand matter; the adviser knows or ought to know that a brand will rely on the advice given. A practitioner’s obligation to exercise proper care also extends to third parties who can reasonably be expected to rely on this information and advice, including shareholders and investors.

Public relations has a vital function in developing various corporate activities, which results in promoting brand reputation. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is one of the schemes opted by PR for targeted audiences to boost corporate reputation. Ultimately, it would be safe to say that PR practitioners cannot build and maintain a good reputation for a lousy brand; it will not last. Practitioners must bring appropriate policies and ensure good quality of products or services. If asked to do so, PR professionals should be transparent to the management of the brand by revealing its reality and proposing new favourable policies.

By

A recipient of numerous leadership and innovation awards, Krishna Athal has a BA in business and enterprise, an MBA in leadership and management and is currently a PhD candidate in leadership and entrepreneurship.

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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Pinterest’s comeback could still be on pause, analyst warns in downgrade

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By Emily Bary

Guggenheim analyst sees signs of continued weakness on user trends

Pinterest Inc. shares have lost roughly half of their value over the past 12 months, and a snapback may have to wait.

While the social-media company proved popular early in the pandemic as stir-crazy internet users looked for inspiration online, Pinterest PINS, +0.86% had trouble maintaining that momentum once COVID-19 conditions improved and people started leaving their homes more. The company saw disappointing user trends in its two most recent quarters, and Guggenheim analyst Michael Morris is concerned that the company is still suffering from weak dynamics.

Morris downgraded Pinterest shares to neutral from buy Tuesday, while also cutting his estimates on user trends. He now expects the company to report 438 million monthly active users for the fourth quarter, whereas his prior estimate was for 447 million.

Shares of Pinterest were down 9% in Tuesday trading.

Morris looked at data from Pinterest Ads Manager, which indicated to him a decline in “aggregate global audience reach” from November to December and marked the second straight month of sequential drops, though October admittedly saw the “largest total audience reach of 2021.”

He also looked at third-party data from Apptopia, which pointed to a fourth consecutive month of sequential declines in average daily app downloads through Dec. 15.

“With shares under consistent pressure since reporting below-consensus user trends in 2Q21, we have been hesitant to downgrade in front of potential user stabilization,” Morris wrote, but the “data indicating continued usage weakness and another quarter of below-consensus” prompted his most recent call.

He still sees opportunities for Pinterest to capitalize on its “high-purchase-intent user behaviour” but has concerns as well about the company’s positioning: “[W]e don’t see the platform’s use case as developing as rapidly as peers, creating risk that competitors improve their social commerce offerings more quickly than Pinterest capitalizes on its position.”

Feature Image Credit: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

By Emily Bary

Emily Bary is a MarketWatch reporter based in New York.

Sourced from MarketWatch

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Commerce Anarchy: What Is It And Why Should Retailers Care?

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By Gary Drenik

Let’s face it, today’s retail landscape is pretty confusing. Some brands are closing brick and mortar locations while others are reopening after a multiple-year hiatus, all while having to provide solid customer experiences regardless of where they’re taking place. Today, we’ll take a closer look at the role technology plays amid all of this chaos and bring to light some solutions for brands to apply as we kick off the new year.

In this Q&A, we’ll hear from Marcel Hollerbach, chief innovation officer at Productsup, an ecommerce data integration company, on why this industry in particular is faced with constant anarchy and how brands can learn to cope.

Gary Drenik: It’s no secret the retail landscape is evolving. Can you outline some of the most common challenges brands are facing today?

Marcel Hollerbach: In 2021 alone, our industry received a complete makeover. Digital natives like Amazon expanded their in-store presence, supply chains were strained, shopping on social platforms moved mainstream, and the metaverse took on a new level of prominence – 32% of US consumers are interested in shopping in the metaverse, according to Raconteur’s Future of Retail report. Ecommerce is booming, and brands are realizing more than ever that they need a long-term strategy to seamlessly integrate online and in-person selling channels to maintain a competitive edge.

The hybrid shopping experience requires brands to cultivate enjoyable customer experiences at every consumer touchpoint that the ‘shopping’ takes place – ranging from social channels like TikTok to marketplaces like Google Shopping, retargeting platforms, price comparison sites, and more. But this is easier said than done, as the path between a company and its customers has become significantly complex with thousands of marketing and selling channels.

To complicate matters more, companies have been using a piece-meal approach, adding on a tech solution here and there to ‘optimize’ their omnichannel strategy. But new research shows business decision-makers are concerned with the consistency of product information passing through their tech stack. Inconsistent, inaccurate, and incomplete product information across channels prevents brands from creating a compelling presence on the various platforms their consumers spend time on.

Without a firm strategy to navigate this chaos, also known as commerce anarchy, brands are susceptible to slowly losing credibility and distinctiveness. Brands can thrive in the chaos by embracing this concept with a clear understanding of the problem and developing comprehensive solutions that tackle it head-on.

Drenik: You mention ‘commerce anarchy’ as a term that accurately describes the daily struggle brands experience as they navigate omnichannel B2B, B2C, and D2C processes. What are some current, real-life examples of commerce anarchy in the industry?

Hollerbach: Commerce anarchy is everywhere. We see it in our everyday lives but often don’t realize these results from mismanaging product information value chains. You can identify commerce anarchy through inaccurate product descriptions, low-resolution images, or price errors, which can cost brands money and customer loyalty. Keep in mind, product information is usually handled by an average of four systems in each organization, creating data silos and the potential for a misinformation disaster.

Even some of the most prominent players have fallen victim to commerce anarchy, like Nike messing up the use of Greek letters on one of its shoes. Or on the micro-level, someone accidentally sold a Bored Ape NFT for $3,000 instead of $300,000 because of a misplaced decimal point.

Drenik: Thanks for outlining some examples of the chaotic retail industry. I think it’s safe to say every brand has experienced commerce anarchy in some form! In fact, recent Prosper Insights & Analytics data found only 13.6% of US adults had an ‘excellent’ in-store shopping experience this holiday season. How do you propose we fix this problem? In other words, what can brands do today to get ahead of the commerce anarchy issue?

Hollerbach: I mentioned that organizations use four systems on average to manage product information. This inefficient operation is a perfect opportunity to streamline communications and tackle commerce anarchy head-on.

To address the need for a fresh approach, Constellation Research recently identified a new category of technology solutions, product-to-consumer (P2C) management, that aims to simplify the process for companies to reach consumers with their products. Many brands are missing opportunities to expand into new channels, like social media, because not only do they lack a comprehensive understanding of the product data requirements to sell in those channels, but they also don’t have the human resources or technology to tailor product experiences. P2C enables companies to manage a two-directional flow of product information across more than 2,500 marketing and selling channels in a single, centralized system. Cutting a straight path for data to flow between suppliers and buyers can eliminate up to 50 different categories of applications inside organizations.

Drenik: We’re familiar with B2B, B2C, and D2C strategies. You mention P2C management as a winning strategy for brands looking to tackle new and established retail challenges. Can you share more about what a P2C strategy looks like and how brands can adopt them effectively?

Hollerbach: A successful P2C management strategy helps brands of all sizes maximize the information flowing throughout their commerce ecosystem to enhance customer experiences and minimize miscommunication. There are three crucial components of this strategy necessary to yield the results brands need to drive sales and maintain long-lasting customer relationships.

First, it is imperative to optimize consumer reach by implementing real-time product content syndication to every channel customers use to find inspiration, browse, compare, make decisions, and ultimately complete transactions.

Then, ensuring the information communicated across these platforms is up-to-date, consistent, and accurate requires regular improvements. This process happens through automated tracking, analytics, reporting, data mapping of system flows, and syndication.

Finally, brands need the complete picture of every information source involved – including sellers, manufacturers, and customers. A successful P2C approach allows companies to incorporate all key messaging, product data, and customer feedback into one streamlined portal that distributes one clear, consistent story.

Drenik: According to a recent Prosper Insights & Analytics survey, new consumer shopping trends are taking flight, with over 40% of US adults regularly using ‘shop now’ features to buy products advertised on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat. Can you share a few predictions you have for the 2022 retail landscape? How long are we likely to see commerce anarchy progress, and does it have the potential to transform into something else?

Hollerbach: 2021 was a preview for what we’ll see more of in 2022 – both as it relates to commerce anarchy and the transformation of brands. I see this being the year of customer experiences – a time where brands are forced to implement strategies like P2C management that work with them rather than against them. We know this evolving landscape is ripe with opportunities, so the brands who gain control over their current tech stacks will be in a good position to explore new technological advancements, thus staying ahead of the competition. For example, moves toward a metaverse future will be the big plays to watch in 2022. While it isn’t clearly defined yet, the development of the metaverse is moving rapidly, prompting brands to take it seriously. Think back to the rise of ecommerce or the internet – many organizations are still paying for the mistake of not adopting these trends early on.

What’s certain is that more and more consumers will immerse themselves in digital environments this year, and they will be eager to see how their favorite brands get involved. This migration to digital is already happening in the form of NFTs, where brands can leverage digital products to fuel a more exhilarating customer experience. Some major brands are already doing this. For example, Asics introduced collections of digital sneakers to the NFT marketplace, and Adidas Originals followed suit. Cavalry Ventures also recently launched an NFT collection using Productsup’s Metaverse enablement solution. But commerce anarchy will only heighten as digital assets become mainstream, so brands wanting to take the leap into the virtual world need to get their P2C strategies in check.

Drenik: Thanks, Marcel, for giving us the lowdown on today’s retail landscape. There are certainly a lot of moving parts, but with some of the tools and solutions you named, brands can feel prepared to tackle commerce anarchy in 2022.

Feature Image Credit: Retail Landscape, AdobeStock_430022528

By Gary Drenik

I cover consumer-centric insights and analytics that provide executives with solutions needed to drive strategy. I am the CEO of Prosper Business Development where, for more than 20 years, we have provided market leadership and developed contemporary solutions to help Fortune 500 companies navigate change that impacts their business. I got my start in the radio industry.

Sourced from Forbes

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How to make your Gmail account self destruct, and why you really should

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By Jack Morse

At least one part of your digital permanent record doesn’t need to outlive you.

What happens after you die doesn’t need to be a mystery. At least when it comes to your email, that is.

As we move through life there are few things that we truly take with us. A family heirloom, perhaps. Your loved ones, if you’re lucky. And, more and more frequently, one of those things happens to be an email account steadily filling up with personal correspondence, bills, medical records, and embarrassing moments from your past.

And thanks to the modern wonder of cloud computing, that collection will likely long outlast you. Unless you set your entire Google account to self destruct after your death — which, thanks to Google’s Inactive Account Manager, you can do.

Why you should enable Inactive Account Manager

Take a moment to think about the contents of your email account. Likely spanning from the quotidian and mundane to the extremely revealing, as the years progress your email account will accumulate evidence of the life you’ve lived.

Which can be extremely useful. It’s also extremely personal. Once you’re gone, is there really a reason for this compendium of deeply revealing data to sit for who knows how long on Google’s servers?

Notably, Google insists it doesn’t do anything too creepy with the contents of your inbox.

“[Per Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s] blog post in June 2020, we don’t sell your information to anyone, and we don’t use information in apps where you primarily store personal content — such as Gmail, Drive, Calendar and Photos — for advertising purposes,” explained a Google spokesperson over email.

However, that statement reflects an updated privacy policy from Google. Google announced in only 2017 that it would stop scanning the contents of users’ Gmail inboxes for advertising purposes. Policies, in other words, can change given enough time. And there’s a lot of time after you die.

Setting your Gmail account to self-destruct after you die can be just another part of getting your affairs in order. No one wants to leave behind a mess, even if it’s only a digital one.

How to enable Google’s Inactive Account Manager

Turning on Google’s Inactive Account Manager is a quick process, but as there are various settings you can tweak you want to make sure you do it in a way that makes sense for you.

But before we get into that, it’s important to understand what this setting actually does and how it works. It doesn’t magically know when you’ve died, for example. Instead, it uses inactivity as a proxy. So, for example, if you don’t log into your Google account for a predetermined amount of time it’s only then — after Google attempts to contact you — that the Inactive Account Manager goes into effect.

“We will only trigger the plan you set up if you haven’t used your Google Account for some time,” explains Google.

Got it? You’re not going to flip this switch by mistake, in other words.

So, to set up Google’s Inactive Account Manager:

Screenshot of Google's Inactive Account Manage page.

Start it up for when you’ve wound it down. Credit: Screenshot: Google
  1. Log into your Google account.
  2. Go to Google’s Inactive Account Manager page.
  3. Select “Start.”
  4. Choose how long Google should wait before it considers you gone — dead, or otherwise. Twelve months of inactively seems like a good amount of time, but tweak that setting to your liking.
  5. Now, because you don’t want your account being deleted on accident, Google gives you the option of entering a cell phone number as a backup contact method. “Before we take any action,” explains Google, “we’ll contact you multiple times by SMS and email.” Enter your cell phone number here.
  6. Decide which “contact email” you want to use.
    SEE ALSO: How to encrypt your computer (and why you should)
  7. Select “Next” and then choose who, if anyone, besides yourself you want Google to notify and share your data with after your account is officially deemed inactive. “You can choose up to 10 people for us to notify if your Google Account becomes inactive,” explains Google. “You can also give them access to some of your data.” A spouse? A child? No one? It’s up to you.
  8. Select “Next” then toggle the option which says “Yes, delete my inactive Google Account.” This only happens three months after your account is declared inactive.
  9. Select “Review Plan,” make sure everything is in order, then select “confirm plan.”

By Jack Morse

Sourced from Mashable

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The metaverse is a second chance to right the wrongs of social media. Here’s how

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By Fran Roberts

The metaverse is in turmoil, and it hasn’t even been built yet. Facebook, now Meta, recently announced plans to lay the foundation for a grand new digital world. These intentions have been met with scepticism, especially in the wake of former Facebook employee-turned-whistle-blower Francis Haugen’s revelations—the latest in a growing list of controversies. Consider the litany of ongoing issues with social media—the highlights include, but certainly are not limited to, questionable user data privacy, slapdash UX design, and a deeply flawed notion that any engagement is good.

Do we really want these platforms designing an even bigger, more complicated house, when the first one seems well on its way to burning to the ground?

The problem with platform-first design

Rightfully so, the end-user experience usually takes centre stage in the discussion of defining the metaverse. But another aspect to consider is the role of brands. What will brands—as creators and communicators—be able to do (and be allowed to do) in the metaverse? What responsibilities will they need to assume to ensure the metaverse is a platform for good?

Historically, a small number of companies—mostly social media, with an assist from broader Big Tech—have crafted the functional language of digital communication, narrowly defining what’s possible in terms of design and often strongly prioritizing their own platforms over UX consistency and best practices. Just think about the persistent buttons over videos on TikTok.

This kind of approach leaves brands at the mercy of platforms in which their stories will always play second fiddle, having to be shoehorned to work around each platform’s idiosyncrasies.

How brands can get the metaverse right

For brands that want to dip their toes into these nascent worlds, creating an experience that enhances the functionality of their product or service is a smart way to go. AR, in particular, is excellent for this. It has the capability to help beauty customers mix custom foundation colors, first-time homebuyers envision their lives in current listings, foodies plan the perfect Instagrammable meal, and any number of things that help users bridge the gap between aspiration and realization. Adidas has deployed AR to let shoppers virtually try on shoes, while Ikea has been integrating it for years to let people visualize furniture in their own homes.

Where AR offers accessibility, extension, and functionality, gaming and VR sit at the other end of the spectrum, delving into the emotional and immersive. Luxury fashion brands have taken first steps in exploring what’s possible. Balenciaga dipped into Fortnite by co-releasing a limited collection and an in-game cosmetic drop. This is an incredible opportunity to make inroads with a young audience that might not have the capital now, but will one day. Meanwhile, Burberry launched its first NFT collection last summer. These brands don’t necessarily expect the end result to be a purchase; the bigger win is the chance to build a brand pathway, develop a relationship, and begin a more engaging, deeper dialogue with audiences.

This is the fledgling beauty of the metaverse. Brands will have the potential to build complete, immersive digital worlds. Gucci can, literally, construct Gucci Land, and then invite consumers inside (or in the case of AR, outside!) to play.

Avoiding the dystopia trap

To really get the metaverse right, though, these spaces can’t just become yet another ad platform. We must, at all costs, avoid the dystopian outcomes that social media has inflicted on its collective self.

That means brands have to think about platform but also strategize past any platform. Designing bespoke AR and VR experiences will increasingly be a powerful way to fully craft every aspect of the user experience with your brand, uncompromised by an overlaid social or ad platform.

It also means staying cognizant of the metaverse “arms race” that will inevitably take place as new platforms emerge—”metagalaxies,” if you will—and compete to dominate. Rather than focusing on engagements, conversions, or other transactional data, it will be crucial to consider a given platform with a longer-term view. Fundamentally, how well does the platform align with your core brand values? How well does it get out of the way, receding into the background of the experience, so you can present your brand narrative? And how open or closed is the platform: Does it embrace open industry standards, or is it a walled garden?

Experientially, brands also have to be open to redefining conventions. They need to design digital experiences that are totally logo-free, demonstrating the kind of confidence in which having your brand essence felt carries more value than your logo being seen.

They also need to recognize the potential (and responsibility) of how communication will evolve in the metaverse. The metaverse’s most potent value comes when users are given agency to generate content, or interact with a brand’s content, in a way that makes the output able to be owned, as an emotional investment or even literally by way of NFT minting. Businesses must be prepared to let their users make the brand their own. By doing this, there’s the chance to build a real relationship that transcends measurement by sales or tracked engagement. This isn’t about dropping a cookie and following their every move online, it’s about planting the seeds of experience, dialogue, and trust that turns users into followers, customers, and hopefully one day, brand evangelists.

But to avoid the dystopian, advertising-riddled echo chamber that social media has devolved into, users—not just platforms—will also need guardrails. That means that before brands launch AR campaigns, they need to have conversations about how they’re actively working to create an inclusive and hate-free space. Being thoughtful about which platforms you work with is part of that conversation.

What’s next for the metaverse?

It’s essential that brands start strategizing for a future in which the metaverse takes centre stage, understanding that there will be some growing pains along the way. For now, hardware is still a roadblock, especially on the AR side. In many ways, this will evolve to act as the experiential onramp to the metaverse. Mobile devices still come up short, and headsets aren’t there yet.

But the tide will soon turn on this problem, and when it does, the game is on. And this is a beacon of hope in better defining what the metaverse looks like. Hardware makers are uniquely positioned to act as stewards of the metaverse, by defining the types of interactions possible, as well as the means through which users will access platforms.

A second chance for digital brand experience

The metaverse’s ascendancy is still likely years away. But brands need to start adding it to their playbook now—even if it’s only as a sidebar at this stage.

Not only will early entrants to the metaverse have an edge on the competition, business-wise, these brands will also have the power to shape the future of brand experience for the better. We may be too late to save social media, but the future is still bright for digital brand experience—as long as we’re willing to light the way from the start.

Feature Image Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

By Fran Roberts

Fran Roberts is creative director at Trollbäck+Company.

Sourced from Fast Company

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A Look at the Way Organizations Are Using Voice of the Customer

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By Phil Britt

Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs are evolving from basic survey and customer feedback programs to more comprehensive programs that companies are using in a variety of ways for a mix of benefits.

In the 2021 Insight Voice of the Customer Survey,  global venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners found that half of the companies it surveyed had VoC programs.

Those that aren’t could be missing out because VoC programs have the potential to drive considerable company ROI by driving product innovation, demand gen, and higher rates of retention, Insight Partners said in a blog. “As a company’s customer base grows, VoC offers a scalable customer engagement platform that doubles up to generate rich customer insights while also fostering customer-centricity, brand affinity, and product stickiness.”

According to Levi Kugel, Quantum Metric director of customer success strategy, accelerating customer satisfaction is a key element but what’s going on in the trenches out there in organization’s. In a recent roundtable, a couple of Insight’s portfolio companies discussed their uses of VoC programs.

Using Voice of the Customer to Influence Strategy

VoC was in the founding DNA of the company with simple customer onboarding and exit surveys, said Real CMO Lynda Radosevich. “Then we started doing qualitative surveys to get more insight into what people were happy or unhappy with. Our VoC influences our product direction and strategy. What I most appreciate is that we have data going back to the beginning. Don’t be afraid to start gathering, even if you don’t have a strategy yet. You will find uses for it. We’ve used data for investors, we’ve used it for product roadmaps, we’ve used it to completely change our quarterly goals.”

Beyond the different VoC uses discussed by Quantum Metric and Real, other organizations are deploying VoC programs for other uses.

Creating and Organizing Comprehensive VoC Feedback

“VoC is an ‘essential’ — brands need to meet their customers where they are, whether that’s SMS, web, mobile app, social, or other digital channels, in order to fully capture the right insights at the right moment across the right channel,” said Jonathan D’Sousa, Emplifi vice president, product, social commerce cloud and service cloud. “It’s increasingly important to have VoC platforms support omnichannel feedback, and to be able to scale and support new channels on the horizon. This is especially the case with social media channels and their constant evolution.

VoC is becoming an integrated capability, D’Sousa added. “Customers are moving away from stand-alone survey tools, and look to VoC capabilities integrated within their marketing, customer service, and social commerce software tools and platforms. This is because ‘customer experience’ is relevant throughout the customer journey from marketing to sale to service to loyalty, and these touchpoints (and associated data) help shape VoC research.”

Many tools now provide templated surveys and feedback frameworks on everything from website design, product design, employee response surveys to typical service representative or brand experience feedback — this allows organizations to focus more on analysis and less on survey design.

Better Organization of Customer Journey Feedback

Too often feedback is merely thrown at executives without the proper context of who gave it, when it was received and where along the customer journey the feedback came in, according to David Ciccarelli, CEO of Voices.

To better organize such feedback, whoever is leading the VoC program needs to distill the customer journey into four or five steps, Ciccarelli said. “By keeping it high level and everyone agrees that those are the critical touch points, then plotting feedback along the journey will provide the missing context. By doing this it’s easier for executives to see and understand where the issues are and the volume of feedback at key touch points.”

Companies are then organizing the customer journey and highlighting comments in speech bubbles, coloured red, yellow or green depending on the sentiment.

Voice of the Customer Is Helping to Replace Cookies

“As the death of the cookie slowly overtakes advertisers and developers’ plans, first-party data has taken on a role of increased importance –– with the Voice of the Customer leading the charge,” said Anatoly Sharifulin, AppFollow CEO and founder. “Average rating and reviews are the most honest source of feedback from users and should be considered as the window to the voice of the customer. Understanding how users are feeling, and how they are communicating their ideas and perceptions is key to opening important conversations about your product.

Final Thoughts

Your customers hold the key to your business’ success. Voice of the Customer is an essential way of cracking that customer code to help improve your product, services and support.

Feature Image Credit: Unsplash/Roman Kraft

By Phil Britt

Sourced from CMSWire

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B2B brands must embrace digital tools to thrive in ‘the great reshuffle’

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By Penry Price

The pandemic and emergent technologies are transforming the future of work. LinkedIn’s Penry Price writes about how B2B brands can leverage existing tools in order to remain ahead of the curve.

People are actively rethinking their careers, including where, how and why they work. We are in the middle of a ’great reshuffle’ and B2B brands are facing new challenges, including targeting prospective buyers who are leaving jobs for new opportunities.

B2B marketers have to face what’s in front of them: thousands of moving or vanishing sales targets. As of August 2021, 55% of the workforce was looking for another job. For B2B players that have spent the last few years building out prospects lists, such employee migration means many of the targets in which they have invested time and resources to identify have since left or are thinking about leaving their current employer.

For B2B advertisers, this employee migration can be frustrating because you’re starting over from scratch for a decent chunk of your target audience. For B2B sales managers, it brings up another conundrum – are your top sales pros taking their lists with them? While these issues may keep some B2B players up at night, this industry is prepared to adjust and thrive during the great reshuffle.

Investing in digital

In the past year and a half, marketers have gone from in-person conferences to online marketing outreach, webinars, paid advertising and more. That means that today’s B2B marketers need digital engagement tools that build relationships with groups of buyers and other decision makers. Marketers also need to invest in tactics to reach business prospects with meaningful, relevant content that drives interest and sales faster than traditional wining and dining.

B2B brands need to know how to reach the right audience with the right message to show their value, drive connection and demonstrate consideration in ways that are only possible with the frequency that online content and advertising makes possible. Therefore, B2B marketers must invest more in digital tools today than ever before, not only because of the global shift we’ve made online, but also because it’s efficient, personalized and measurable.

Leaning into buyer intent

At the same time, that crash course in all things digital prepared B2B players for this moment. B2B marketers think more and more about leveraging first-party data on their owned digital properties and combine it with the intelligence of other digital platforms to organize customers and prospects into buyer groups based on professional attributes, similar to how B2C segments online audiences.

But buying groups are only one piece. Given that only 5% of potential buyers are in-market to make a purchase, marketers and sales professionals must rely on signals to understand how, when and where to reach their audiences. That’s where buyer intent becomes even more critical.

Buyer intent allows marketing and sales teams to better understand how likely customers and prospects are to purchase a product. For instance, let’s say the marketing and sales team works for a retail-focused chatbot supplier. This intelligence allows them to avoid taking a list of 1,000 and making an irrelevant offer to most of them, wasting time and resources, and instead focus on the right 100 retail CTOs with the right message.

This precision can transform full-funnel strategies in significant ways. Since casting a wide net to capture as many leads as possible is a thing of the past, B2B marketers can now spend their budget more wisely and deliver a more targeted cohort of prospects, enabling sales teams to more efficiently build relationships with qualified leads rather than going from one proverbial fishing hole to the next. All of this allows B2B players to move prospects down the funnel in a more efficient, nurturing way for both parties, which should lead to more deals being closed.

For those who spend their days thinking more about B2C marketing, buyer intent is essentially the equivalent to the purchase intent that revolutionized the retail and CPG space 15 years ago with the advent of online search advertising via Bing, Google and other platforms. Indeed, buyer intent, coupled with a real understanding of buyer groups, is a powerful data point that B2B marketers need not only in this post-pandemic world, but also in the privacy-first environment that we live in.

Connecting with smarter conversations

The players that made it through the steep learning curve of the last 20 months should feel heartened. Even if they’re concerned about reaching the right buyers at the right time as a result of the great reshuffle, we’re in the middle of a pivotal moment for both marketing and sales professionals. The good news is, marketers can now target in a much smarter way.

Indeed, stronger marketing efforts are in reach, which will make buyer-seller conversations more intelligent and efficient. And that seems to be an underlying lesson of the last 20 months – everyone wants their time to be well spent.

For more, sign up for The Drum’s daily US newsletter here.

By Penry Price

Penry Price is vice-president of marketing solutions at LinkedIn.

Sourced from The Drum

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How Brands Can Enter the Metaverse

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By Janet Balis

There are quite a few people who believe that the latest paradigm shift for the internet is already well underway: the metaverse, they say, is almost here. When companies investing in a space and the media declare a moment, it’s reasonable to take a beat and see whether the reality can live up to the hype. But, if this is the “meta” moment — that is, if it offers something that people really want — it is safe to assume that a lot of companies are wondering what the metaverse really is and whether they should be a part of it. For brands thinking about how to navigate this new frontier, even knowing where to start can be daunting.

The basic idea of the metaverse isn’t complicated. Put simply, the metaverse includes any digital experience on the internet that is persistent, immersive, three-dimensional (3D), and virtual, as in, not happening in the physical world. Metaverse experiences offer us the opportunity to play, work, connect or buy (and just to make things extra fun, the things we buy can be real or virtual). It is also perhaps a misnomer to say “the metaverse” as if it were a monolithic, connected, or even interoperable universe, because it is not. Each entity that creates a virtual world does so with its own access, membership, monetization rights, and formats of creative expression, so the business and technical specifications vary widely. The metaverse refers more to the concept across these individual worlds and experiences and the acknowledgement that we are entering into a more substantive, immersive landscape than ever before.

A handful of businesses are already shaping the landscape, with entertainment and gaming companies leading the way. Major console and PC gaming titles, such as Fortnite, from Epic Games, have normalized playing and socializing with people in virtual settings. Newer gaming platforms, such as Roblox, allow people to create and play across immersive worlds created, and often monetized, by users. Decentraland is an entire 3D virtual world owned by its users, allowing them to create virtual structures — from theme parks to galleries — and then charge users to visit them, all powered by Ethereum blockchain technology. Other companies, such as MetaVRse and Unity, are creating engines to power brand and gaming studios and accelerate development of AR and VR content creation.

The immersive environment of the metaverse isn’t just an opportunity for consumer-facing companies, however. From training future surgeons to rolling out product demos to retail employees, there are plenty of business applications. For example, the leadership of tech company Nvidia believes that investing in metaverse simulations of such things as manufacturing and logistics will reduce waste and accelerate better business solutions. And Microsoft is positioning its cloud services to be the fabric of the metaverse, using its Mesh platform to enable avatars and immersive spaces to thread into the collaboration environments, such as Teams, over time. With post-Covid hybrid or remote working environments, many of these more creative virtual business experiences are likely to become even more relevant to how companies connect to their people and to their customers.

For companies still waiting on the side-lines, it is important for each brand to find its place and balance the risk-reward equation. Doing so requires grasping what is possible, and the companies that are leaning in fast can both offer inspiration and act as test cases. For example, there are plenty of brands taking full advantage of the gaming part of the metaverse with branded experiences that are essentially virtual and immersive sponsorships. While Nike is a highly established brand, it is certainly leading the charge at the assertive end of the metaverse spectrum, filing for patents for virtual goods and the opportunity to build virtual retail environments to sell those goods, as reported by CNBC. More recently, they acquired a company called RTFKT that creates virtual sneakers and collectibles for the metaverse.

The commercial applications of the metaverse are even further heightened by the new behaviours that are surging around buying products and services directly from social experiences, also known as “social commerce.” Social commerce is becoming a larger percentage of U.S. e-commerce over time and is projected to be $36 billion in 2021 alone, following growth patterns like those in China.

In response, the social media landscape is keen to capitalize on the intersection of where people connect and buy not only in a traditional internet context, but also in a 3D, immersive metaverse. Virtual showrooms, fashion shows, and dressing rooms suddenly have the potential to shift from fringe experimentation to mass adoption. And people aren’t just selling physical goods — in fact, Sotheby’s recently announced its own metaverse gallery for curated virtual art, housed in Decentraland. New business models for influencers, virtual goods — including non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are one-of-a-kind creations traded and secured on a blockchain — and commerce on physical goods purchased in virtual worlds will all emerge in importance as capabilities scale.

Brands should always be in a test-and-learn mode, and the digital landscape in particular requires intellectual curiosity. The metaverse is potentially the next iteration of how humans use the internet to connect, communicate and transact — sitting on the side-lines too long is not likely to be an option.

Here’s what brands can do right now:

Pick your targets.

Think about how much your target audiences/customers are spending time in the metaverse and calibrate your speed of attack appropriately — brands focusing on younger demographics, for example, probably don’t have the luxury of sitting out the metaverse for long. Who are your target demographics, and what behaviors are trending with your current and prospective consumers right now that are indicators of how fast to move into the metaverse?

Watch the competition.

Start talking about moments when peer companies do things in the metaverse — like a showcase at a leadership meeting just to get the conversation going across the executive team. So much of the space can be intimidating, particularly when seemingly indecipherable concepts, such as NFTs or blockchain, are involved. Can you create a champion for these topics to bring approachable, tangible examples to every meeting?

Look for applications.

See whether the metaverse gives you opportunities as a company to not only try new things, but also to accelerate your purpose or long-term goals like sustainability, which is well suited to many applications of the metaverse. Almost every CMO already has made, or will soon make, a public commitment to sustainability-related ESGs, and they will soon be measurable. What can you pilot in the metaverse that allows you to test more sustainable approaches to serving your customers?

Plan your entrance.

Ask your agency team to begin formulating a point of view on how your brand should show up in the metaverse and when it might make sense. Holding companies and independent agencies are both keenly watching mass media behaviours and emerging trends, so it’s a great opportunity to ask them what they are seeing across their client portfolio. What tests could they put in place to enable you to get your brand exposed to the metaverse comfortably?

Keep your balance.

If you are already in it, prepare for the fact that all new spaces present risk and reward; manage accordingly, knowing that it may be super-unpredictable and lacking in standards. The good news is that the recent pandemic made us all way more agile than ever before. To state the epically obvious, there will be experiments that fail. Second Life offered the promise of the metaverse years ago and did not take hold, but the risk for the brands that participated was not significant or long term. So, if this is the right time, it’s important to consider how to be there.

***

Most importantly, people in brand marketing or leadership roles should start thinking about how to unleash their creativity and their storytelling. If the creative palette expands dimensions in the metaverse, we should be excited to create experiences at any point in the customer journey, from acquisition, to engagement, to transaction, to customer support, which have the potential to be both spectacular and stickier than before. And, someday, we will likely want to move from real to virtual worlds seamlessly. That will be the next frontier.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Ernst & Young LLP or any other member firm of the global EY organization.
Feature Image Credit: Artur Debat/Getty Images
Janet Balis leads EY’s consulting professionals in the Americas focused on the customer agenda and revenue growth, including commercial excellence, customer experience and product innovation and also leads EY’s CMO practice. She has also served as a partner at Betaworks, publisher of The Huffington Post, and EVP Media Sales and Marketing at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Balis is on the global board of the Mobile Marketing Association and the International Television Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she is also an advisor to the Harvard Business School Digital Initiative. You can follow her on Twitter: @digitalstrategy.

Sourced from Harvard Business Review

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