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Millions of Chinese Smart TVs Scanned WiFi Every 10 Minutes, Sent Personal Data to Company

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Millions of Chinese smart TVs were scanning users WiFi and sending personal data to a data analytics company.

According to the South China Morning Post, a user of the Chinese developer forum V2EX published a post last week detailing that his Skyworth smart TV was scanning data every 10 minutes and gathered information such as the WiFi network the TV was connected to, the user’s IP address, device names and network latency.

“I felt that the TV was a bit slow before, and I looked at what background services were turned on. I found that there is something called “GoZheng Data Service,” and I don’t know what it is,” the user wrote on the developer forum V2EX.

“The TV is an Android system. I researched the packet and found that this thing scans my family’s connected devices every 10 minutes, and sends back the hostname, mac, ip and even the network delay time. It also detects the surrounding wifi SSID names, The mac address is also packaged and sent to this domain name of gz-data.com.”

As the user’s post noted, the data collected was being sent to the Beijing-based firm Gozen Data, which is a data analytics company that collects TV viewership data.

The Gozen Data website, gz-data.com, states that its data collection service operates in 149 million households, 140 million smart TVs and covers 457 million Chinese residents. The data analytics firm has been working with smart TV manufacturers since 2014. It is unclear if Gozen Data operates on any smart TVs sold in the U.S.

Shortly after the post on the V2EX forum gained traction, the smart TV manufacturer and Gozen Data faced backlash, with users accusing the two of spying on them.

In response to the criticism, Skyworth and Gozen Data issued statements apologizing for the issue.

According to the South China Morning Post, in a post to its WeChat account, Gozen wrote that it has collected data for viewership purposes, including “television ratings for households and individuals, viewership analysis, advertising analysis and optimization.”

Gozen also apologized and said the company will “improve our user privacy policy and ensure we are collecting information with users’ consent and within the scope of legal compliance.” Gozen published a separate web page to outline 21 different data types that it collects from users.

In a statement sent to the South China Morning Post, Skyworth wrote: “Data security and user privacy are our highest priorities … we will continue to safeguard our users’ privacy, data, rights and interests.” According to the Post, the statement also noted that Skyworth’s TVs sold in Hong Kong were never pre-installed with the Gozen Data application.

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Sourced from Newsweek

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5 Things Online Stores Need To Focus On Post-COVID

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By Rodney Laws.

While lockdowns and quarantine restrictions drove online shopping to an all-time high, as the world starts to open up again it’s important that ecommerce businesses prepare and adapt. These are five of the most important things for online stores to focus on post- COVID.

Establishing a clear brand identity

As more and more online stores have opened up during COVID and ecommerce continues to grow, it’s crucial that your shop can stand out from the competition. Establishing a clear brand identity is going to help you differentiate yourself and build up awareness of your online store.

With so much choice when your target customers are shopping online you want your store to be instantly recognizable so that it sticks in people’s minds.

To effectively establish your brand you need to do some research into your target market and your competition, identify your values and mission and also incorporate your business’s personality. You then need to outline your brand and put together brand guidelines that cover everything from your logo and brand colours to the messages and tone of voice you want to use.

Brand guidelines will help you to be consistent across all aspects of your business such as your content marketing and social media posts so that everything has a clear brand identity that your target customers and existing customers will be able to recognize.

Streamlining operations

People’s expectations when it comes to online shopping are continually increasing — they expect websites to be easy to use, a simple checkout, speedy delivery, and convenient returns. With so many online stores out there now, if any part of the ordering or delivery process is too difficult or takes too long, then your shoppers are likely to go to one of your competitors instead.

Post-COVID you need to look at ways in which you can streamline your operations and make sure that they can scale as your business grows and orders increase.

One of the key aspects is to make sure you’re using the right ecommerce platform to run your store. It needs to have all the right tools and features so that you can effectively manage your website, process and track orders, and monitor inventory levels.

If you need to upgrade your ecommerce platform then two good options are Shopify and Squarespace. They offer all the essential tools, the ability to customize your site, as well as additional plugins and features that can help you with things like customer service and marketing.

Omnichannel strategy

Focusing on omnichannel marketing is another key way to ensure you give your customers the best possible experience with your brand and stand out from the competition. Shopping needs to be a seamless experience across every channel and device and it needs to be as convenient and simple as possible for people to make a purchase.

This means that if someone comes across your brand when they’re scrolling through social media on their phone, they can easily click through to buy your products. If they don’t buy straight away, the next time they’re on their computer they’ll see a targeted ad for the product so they can pick up where they left off.

As people’s buying journey becomes more fragmented, it’s important that you’re focusing on catching people on whatever platform, channel, or device they’re using.

Building strong relationships with customers

Once someone has made a purchase from your online store it’s important that you build up loyalty so that they’ll keep coming back. They have so much choice when shopping online that providing a great shopping experience isn’t enough, and many people will just look for the best price for an item if they have no connection with a particular brand. You need to follow up with your customers, stay connected, and provide them with more value that ensures the next time they buy from you again.

Post-COVID you can focus on customer retention by encouraging shoppers to create an account with your store, improving customer support, and following up after they’ve purchased.

You should encourage shoppers to sign up to your mailing list so that you can send them relevant products or promotions that encourage them to come back again. Use an email marketing tool like Hubspot or Mailchimp to streamline the process. Setting up a loyalty program is also a good way to increase customer retention and it can motivate them to purchase more often to earn rewards. You can use a platform such as Kangaroo to create a loyalty program that’s simple to run and easy for customers to use.

Focusing on building up customer loyalty and increasing retention is going to be important post-COVID as online competition increases and shoppers have so many different options.

Planning for future disruption

Many businesses were caught off guard at the beginning of the pandemic because everything changed overnight. Now it’s important that your online store focuses on planning for future disruptions and crises. Your plans should cover:

  • Handling disruptions to supply chains and operations
  • Communications strategy for keeping customers informed
  • Key staff and business operations you need to keep things running
  • How to effectively operate remotely
  • Monitoring customer trends and reacting to them

Going forward your online store needs to be flexible and reactive so that you can easily adapt when things change and stay competitive in a crowded market.

Post-COVID online stores are facing a lot more competition and tighter profit margins, so it’s important that you focus on improving the way you run your business so that you can streamline operations and offer a great service. But you also need to be focused on your customers — building up a strong brand that sticks in people’s minds and establishing loyalty with shoppers is going to be key to succeeding as things go back to normal.

Feature Image Credit: Pexels

By Rodney Laws

Editor at Ecommerce Platforms www.ecommerceplatforms.io

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3 Insights You Can Pull Out of Bad Customer Reviews

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By Matt Doyle,

Bad reviews can hurt, but every one of them can tell you a little about how to do better.

Bad reviews are a serious matter for any business. They could be dangerous to your reputation, even when they are only passed through word-of-mouth. These days, they can live forever online.

I build homes as a business, so when a single customer relationship falls apart, it can affect my team for an entire season– or even longer. It is worth it for me to do a deep dive on every bad review that happens. In doing so, I’ve learned that they can be highly informative.

In this short guide, I’m going to cover three significant insights that you can pull out of bad reviews.

1. They Can Help You Identify Communication Breakdowns

Sometimes, you’ll be aware that a bad review is coming. It may be because you dropped the ball or because the customer simply didn’t understand the service. The reviews that really hurt, though, are the ones that come out of nowhere.

When these bad reviews happen, it’s often because the customer was left stranded. They may not have received an email reply to an important question they asked. They may have tried to call you, only to get a busy signal over and over.

Communication is essential to resolving any problem before it escalates, so you should act immediately if you ever receive a bad review because a customer couldn’t reach you. Review your policies, train your staff, update your contact information — whatever you need to do to make sure every customer can reach someone.

2. They Can Help You Craft Better Messages About Your Services

Bad reviews can happen because the customer didn’t understand the service and, as a result, had unrealistic expectations about what was possible.

In my home building industry, tension can happen when a client doesn’t understand the limits of building codes and zoning restrictions. It’s simply not possible for me to give them everything they want without violating safety standards or the law. Even if a client is angry about something that resulted from a misunderstanding, it can be an opportunity for you.

Use these reviews as a guide to improve how you describe your services. You can’t assume that every client is going to be aware of the limits in your industry. Bad reviews like this can tell you where knowledge gaps exist so that you can explain your services better.

3. They Can Help You Direct Your Training Resources

Sometimes, bad reviews happen because a client is angry about the treatment they received from one of your team members. If you have team members who are ever abusive to clients, a bad review may help you identify them. However, sometimes your team members are just limited by inexperience and inflexible guidelines.

You can use these bad reviews to learn where your training may be failing everyone. One common source of interaction complaints is clients who have to hear the hated phrase: “Hold on, let me transfer you.”

This can happen when your team members don’t have the information they need to answer important questions. They may also not have the authority to make requested adjustments. Consider carefully how you can train your employees to provide more direct service in the future. Sometimes, it just takes trusting them more.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Matt Doyle,

VP and Co-Founder of Excel Builders, a custom home builder.

By Young Entrepreneur Council@yec

Sourced from Inc.

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10 Email Marketing Tools For You To Consider

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By Elena Osipova,

Email Marketing can be challenging. I learnt this lesson from my experience in the digital marketing sphere and being a support representative at an email software company. Why? There are a number of reasons. They come in different forms and from various places and refer to segmenting an audience, finding contacts, designing a perfect subject line, to name a few.

Such activities require from marketers tons of creativity, consistency and research. Yeap, email marketing is still one of the most efficient marketing channels due to ROI. This fact only fuels the competition in the industry, leading to seeking new solutions.

Notably, email campaign software has become the go-to option for many brands and businesses. Automation interferes in many spheres and enterprises, while digital marketing is not an exception. Email campaign software makes a difference there.

However, how many email platforms are there? A lot. I have been working in digital marketing for some time and understand why one can find very confusing the amount of software available before marketing teams.

That’s why I have designed a list of the top email marketing software that can add to your small business, start-up, or long-term campaign. This post will be helpful for those who have doubts about which email marketing to use or have just started a journey into the marketing world.

Top Email Marketing Services

Before all, the automation tools I am listing in this post are different and answer to similar needs of a marketer. Some of them are all-in-one solutions; others aim to facilitate a specific issue. Interestingly, you can combine one tool with another.

How to choose the best marketing software? Pick the one that will help your business needs or goal. The right email marketing tools are about answering the challenges. What are some that marketers consider crucial? Scheduling, organization, personalization, segmenting and data collection. Each of them is equally important for the open and click rates within lead generation.

At the same time, many of you have struggled with email templates; there are tools for it as well. Among other things, the platforms help to track results and report on valuable data. All in all, it is what a reliable marketing tool is to be expected of.

Let’s look at the options that can help you with the email marketing objectives.

1. Constant Contact 

Constant Contract is at the beginning of the list as it has a specific focus on email marketing and has been long enough in business. Despite the idea that I had used it only for a while, many colleagues of mine refer to it as an excellent solution for small business. Why is it good?

First of all, it puts simplicity and accessibility in email campaign designation. For instance, the particular platform offers the management of emails, sending schedule, and content. It refers to template and newsletter creation, together with the insertion of CTA buttons. Importantly, it has integrations with Shopify underlining its usability for small businesses.

Also, it offers email list management and segmenting for better targeting. In the end, it is used by many small companies to generate leads. However, what I heard is that their users wish they paid less for the simplicity the particular platform offers.

2. GetProspect

Have you ever struggled with your email list enrichment? I bet you are. GetProspect email finder may be a solution with its simple interface, easy-to-use functions, and extracting possibilities. I have worked at this company for some time and must say it does a pretty good job in what they offer. What exactly is it, and what value does it provide to your business?

Well, small businesses usually struggle with getting contacts of their target audience. If you are a b2b service, they may be business owners, CMOs or CEOs of firms. If you are a marketer or SEO specialist, they may be influencers or bloggers. Lastly, if you already have an extensive database, you may need to verify it. GetProspect has these functions. With it, you can extract the emails from Linkedin or any corporate website.

It’s not the only email finder on the market. Still, it can be integrated into other CRMs by Zappier and has a very minimalistic design. Thus, you can extract your groups of contacts, transfer them to the greater platform and produce the campaign you want.

Many of its users say that that simplicity and straightforward solution to email enrichment captivate them.

3. Mailchimp

You probably have heard of this marketing tool. It is one of the leaders for a reason. If I haven’t mentioned this in my post, it would be a mistake. Why is it good? There is a free package, providing valuable functions, while paid options are to bring even more.

I used Mailchimp for its easy-to-use tracking and email building. Particularly, it has the drag-and-drop feature, which can help a lot if you are new to email design.

Simultaneously, Mailchimp can be handy in segmenting audiences. I had to use it on my first marketing assignments and was very glad it had a drag-and-drop function. Making discount coupons and give away campaigns required much less time, thanks to a large collection of templates.

However, looking back, I can say it has basic analytics and segmentation, while for the advanced ones, the user should pay. Notably, a friend of mine had some issues with the support department and their responses. Bad luck, possibly.

Lastly, integration capabilities with other platforms can significantly add to the user’s experience, though. It will be a great choice if you are supposed to level your email creation before entering a larger market and nurturing more leads.

4. Hubspot

HubSpot is another popular solution that many businesses use. The pros of this email marketing software lie in its universal nature. The particular software offers an all-in-one automation solution for many marketing platforms. However, it as well as a separate email marketing tool that is free.

Similar to Mailchimp, it provides assistance in preparing visual materials and producing the body of emails. Some of my colleagues did like the interface and the follow-up sequences upon purchasing via websites. However, as it is a free tool, though, by a recognized company, it has some limitations, while the full version can be costly for small firms.

I would be using it if I have plans of enlarging my business, where email won’t be the crucial part of my marketing activity but add to the social media strategy. At the same time, it would be great if you are trying and experimenting with email marketing or considering unifying all of your channels under one CRM system. Then, Hubspot will be the perfect solution.

5. Sendinblue

Sendinblue has made it to this list due to its surprising features, considering the time we live in. Who sends SMS messages today when we have messengers? However, the particular tool does! It as well facilitates email campaigns management, having automation and personalization possibilities. In short, it is excellent for transactional messages sending. I had my team use it for one event project, and it did great.

Simultaneously, the template options are not as advanced as the top marketing email services above provide. Thus, choosing this option would be suitable for those who have their template game on an adequate level. That is one downturn among some other ones.

They refer to a limited free package and multiple logins only under advanced packages.

Still, it is affordable and should be a good choice if it suits your goal and strategy.

6. Sender

In regard to this email marketing software, you may want to use it if you pursue your deliverability improvement. The algorithms behind Sender focus on tracking delivery rates. At the same time, there is a facilitator for template creation. One can add different visuals that will for sure optimize the engagement rates of the campaign. The service pays attention to details making your email marketing campaign bright.

Still, I heard that they had some lags within their segmentation feature, which the company is likely to have taken care of. Why? Their customer support is friendly and lends a helping hand irrespective of the issue’s complexity, despite that the pricing is relatively low.

7. Drip

You may think that this tool can be helpful in drip campaigns. This mailing campaign software has a powerful segmenting focus and synchronizes with many website constructors.

Such a combination makes Drip useful for many entrepreneurs or small business owners that conduct their business online. In addition, they have a bunch of personalization features. That’s why many consider it ideal for firms with small operations in specific niches.

One of the cons is that it can be a bit pricey. Yet, it offers some educational materials for users. Again, the data analytics, targeting features, and personalization within this email automation service can become a game-changer for an owner of a small firm.

8. Convertkit

Convertkit is another email marketing tool that is handy in email campaign designation. As Drip or Mailchimp, it is excellent for segmenting the audience. However, compared to them, this service offers it through tagging. Some colleagues of mine have said that it is easier to have different groups and target them by tags at your display, especially if there is only one product of yours.

On the other hand, the particular instrument can be challenging to use at first. You may need some time to comprehend all the functions. This happened to me, and I decided to go for another solution. Still, if you want to enhance your lead generation funnel, this can work.

9. Aweber

Aweber is a traditional and straightforward mailing campaign software that was designed solely for email marketing. It has both advanced and drag-and-drop features for template creation. Besides, as it is a long time on the market, it has an extensive knowledge base and support.

Moreover, it has all the standard features referring to personalization, follow-up automation, listing and segmentation. Notably, what is the most important thing is its simplicity.

I believe I have started my email marketing journey with this tool, and for me, as a newbie in marketing, it was pretty easy to use. That’s why it can be a universal tool for tiny companies who just start selling their product and have not developed large lists yet.

10. Omnisend

Omnisend can be a great choice if you are developing your business on several channels. Although it has a basic set of features, it has SMS automation features and can work with numerous platforms.

You can have different campaigns, while the Omnisend reporting system will show from where you got the revenue. It is essential for prioritizing the campaigns and offers for the customer groups.

Except for simplicity in management, automation and the beautiful design of templates, it can offer affordable packages. Suppose a person needs something for a small business related to visually pleasing products, like jewellery or craft. In that case, they are likely to benefit from the templates of this email campaign software.

Lastly, if you want something that would better align with other strategies or website designing, another option can be a better solution for you.

Bottom Line

There are many email marketing software, and picking the right one depends on your goal and your business. You may need an email marketing tool solely for email campaigns or contact research. The best is the one that is the most efficient. I have made this list due to what I experienced and heard from my colleagues.

When choosing the best tool, look at what challenges you have or how a tool can give you an advantage. If the issue refers to contacts extracting, then, Getprospect is a solution. If you have multiple products and many platforms or channels, MailChimp or Hubspot can be a pick.

If you need some help with templates, picking an email automation service focusing on their designation would increase your engagement rates. Lastly, if you lack segmenting, Drip and Convertkit have efficient mechanisms and reporting to work with contacts’ data.

By Elena Osipova

Sourced from Data Science Central

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How the world’s biggest advertisers are spending (or not) as industries adapt to the coronavirus pandemic

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By Seb Joseph,

There are good signs from the first-quarter earnings season.

So far expectations of a fast and sharp rebound have been justified. Companies smashed forecasts despite rising costs. And the future looks just as bright. From further relaxations of lockdowns on both sides of the Atlantic to the protracted recovery of the beleaguered travel sector, it’s clear that the global economy is mending — even if the recovery will come at a substantial cost.

Digiday analysed the most recent earnings updates from the top 10 ad spenders in the world, according to COMvergence data, which is based on net estimated offline paid media monitored data for 2020 combined with digital paid media estimates based on its own proprietary methodology.

Procter & Gamble: Balancing marketing efficiencies with growth (total net media spend 2020 — $7.9 billion)

The world’s largest advertiser is squarely focused on making its marketing dollars count coming out of the pandemic. It increased marketing spending, which is primarily padded (padded?) media, by $270 million over the first quarter. The investment was somewhat offset by overhead and marketing savings, which totaled $160 million. This is in line with how P&G has managed its ad spending throughout the pandemic; making cuts in some areas to fuel ad spending elsewhere. Put another way: P&G is trying to balance growth, particularly as profitability swells, against sustainable marketing spending in a post-pandemic world.

Take online sales: P&G’s e-commerce business is one to watch. Online sales for the company rose by 50% in the first quarter versus the same period last year.

Unilever: Coming out of conservation mode (total net media spend 2020 — $4.3 billion)

The company warned investors that its margins would take tank in the first half of the year as it doubled down on marketing to capitalize on pockets of growth. That said, inflation will also squeeze those margins and make the prospect of finding sustainable growth easier said than done. Still, Unilever believes aggressive marketing will come through for the business over the coming months — not least for online media. Indeed, Unilever has the second biggest dataset on Amazon’s cloud, said CEO Alan Jope on the company’s latest earnings call who added that the company is stepping up efforts to make sense of it all.

“We’re now really learning how to extract value from that and we’ll continue to invest in the digital transformation of Unilever,” said Jope. “But it won’t be net incremental because we’re making savings elsewhere.”

L’Oréal: Convenience is the driver of e-commerce growth (total net media spend 2020 — $2.8 billion)

The cosmetics giant has got off to an encouraging start in 2021 thanks in part to gains in China, where consumers have seemingly put the pandemic behind them, and online sales have taken off. In fact, e-commerce sales, which cover both sales on the advertiser’s own sites as well as other retailers, rose 47% in the first quarter.

These sales now account for 26.8% of group sales. It’s a validation of the company’s digital nous, which saw online sales compensate for 50% of its revenue from brick-and-mortar stores last year. It’s no surprise, then, that the advertiser plans on pouring more of its media dollars into those platforms where people are buying goods, from retail media networks set up by some of the biggest retailers to social commerce on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

Amazon: Another blowout quarter (total net media spend 2020 — $2.7 billion)

Amazon’s influence over e-commerce seems to get stronger with every passing quarter. The company’s sales for the first three months of the year jumped 44% over the same period last year to $108.5 billion. Interestingly, the company’s growth rate in the first quarter was the same as the one before that benefits from festive shopping.

Nevertheless, Amazon has never been the type of company to rest on its laurels. It dropped $6.2 billion on marketing in the quarter, up on the $4.8 billion it spent over the same period last year. The company seems all too aware that the growth of e-commerce is a double-edged sword. Yes, it opens up a lot more sales to the business, but it also opens it up to a lot more competition, whether it’s companies like Walmart setting up their own media businesses or supermarkets and other platforms building their own e-commerce businesses.

Nestlé: A strong start but wary of a shaky finish (total net media spend 2020 — $2.6 billion)

Nestlé’s sales benefited from a caffeine shot in the first quarter when sales grew 7.7% compared to the 4.3% over the same period last year. A large portion of the growth was thanks to a surge in home coffee drinking. Sales of Nespresso products, alongside a jump in demand for instant coffee and its Starbucks-branded coffee range, rose 17.1%.

Despite these gains, Nestlé isn’t getting ahead of itself. After all, there’s still the matter of inflation it needs to navigate, which will have an impact on its marketing.

As its CEO Mark Schneider warned: “We now see broad-based inflation across our various commodities, packaging materials and transportation costs. Not all of these items can be hedged, and our hedging cover for a number of commodities will run out over time. We are raising prices where appropriate, but usually, there’s a time lag associated with pricing. We are on top of the situation and my raising this issue should not give you alarm.”

Volkswagen: prepping e-commerce to drive sales forward (total net media spend 2020 — $2.5 billion)

Volkswagen is on the road to recovery. Sales in the first three months of the year rose 13% compared to a year earlier to nearly $79 billion. Like many other companies, the company believes more of those sales will come from online stores now that more people are accustomed to buying a variety of products online.

“We intend to significantly increase our share of digital sales, although we consider them, let’s say, omnichannel sales,’ Christian Dahlheim, head of group sales at Volkswagen.

Even so, its unlikely there will be many purchases made entirely online. As Dahlheim explained “we won’t see many exclusive digital or off-line customers. Most customers will use both channels. It absolutely provides opportunity for a reduction of cost of sales.”

Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance: Stuck in the slow lane (total net media spend 2020 — $2.3 billion)

It was an uneven quarter for the automotive trifecta.

Renault’s sales slumped 1.1% to €10 billion over the period.

Nissan’s admitted its production output was likely to drop by 500,000 vehicles between April and September because of a semiconductor supply crisis that has kneecapped rivals including Volkswagen, Ford and Stellantis.

Meanwhile, Mitsubishi reported a $12.6 billion revenue loss for its fiscal year to March. The downturn continued in the first quarter of 2021, with revenues sliding to $25.5 billion, a 32% plunge on the same period last year. Nevertheless, the advertiser seems to determined to spend its way out of the slump.

“We will aggressively invest in growth from this fiscal year such as advertising cost for new car launches and new product development to launch from 2023 onwards,” said Mitsubishi Motors CEO Takao Kato

General Motors: Pandemic puts moral philosophy to the test (total net media spend 2020 — $2.1 billion)

The automotive advertiser expects a strong first half of the year despite a wobble in the first three months. Revenue was down slightly from $32.7 billion in the first three months of last year to $32.5 billion for the same period this year.

Unsurprisingly, the company will rely on marketing to pick up the pace. Plans are already underway to return its marketing spending to pre-pandemic levels. The advertiser cut its annual marketing budget by $1 billion last year as it looked to manage its cash flow through a turbulent time. But coming out of this period won’t be straightforward. Not when General Motors has come under fire from critics who believe its pledge to spend more dollars with black-owned media owners is nothing more than virtue signaling. The pandemic is putting profound moral questions to the test for the business.

Reckitt Benckiser: Covid disinfected boom continues (total net media spend 2020 — $2 billion)

Sales for the consumer goods company rose 4.1% in the first quarter, down on the 13.3% rise during the same period last year. The business looks set to benefit from how the pandemic has changed people’s attitudes toward hygiene, having expanded Dettol and Lysol into new markets like Austria and Belgium as well as added business customers like WeWork.

Sales of hygiene products, like the disinfectant brand Lysol, were up 28.5% over the period. As ever, more of those sales are happening online. So much so that there was a 25% jump in e-commerce sales to push it 13% of its net revenue. Understandably, Reckitt Benckiser spent considerable time over the period searching for specialists in the area to pinpoint the opportunities.

GlaxoSmithKline: Waiting for the shot in the arm (total net media spend 2020 — $2 billion)

As Covid-19 cases are rising in some markets, people are increasingly worried about the outbreak of new variants. And yet these are uncertain times for the companies tasked with developing treatments for the infection.

Revenue for GlaxoSmithKline (GsK) fell 18% across the group leading to total sales of £7.4 billion ($10.4 billion). Surprisingly, the company’s pharmaceuticals arm saw a 12% decline in turnover to £3.9 billion (5.5 billion).

These falloffs will put even more pressure on GsK’s marketing over the coming months. Like other advertisers, GsK made various tweaks to branding and media buying during the peak of the pandemic, from reorganizing its brand portfolio to tweaking its e-commerce plans. Needless to say, the company’s problems are far from over.

By Seb Joseph,

Sourced from DIGIDAY

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Two Strategies For Content Marketing Success

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By Joel Goobich,

As marketers, we’re always on the hunt for the latest and greatest content marketing tactic. Whether we’re switching from short-form to long-form content, diversifying our link portfolio or taking advantage of artificial intelligence, there’s always some new strategy to try.

But most of these tactics are fleeting.

And, in the content marketing world, long-term success is always the goal. I believe the secret to sustainable content marketing success can be distilled down to two factors.

• Content frequency

• Developing a library of quality content

By directing more of your energy toward these two aspects of content marketing, you won’t need to rely on trendy tactics or last-minute efforts.

Quick content marketing trends are often unsustainable.

Content marketing is an ever-changing field. Remember when we used to stuff our articles full of keywords in an attempt to rank? Thankfully, we don’t use this tactic anymore.

How about when we’d try our hardest to write a viral piece of content rather than focusing on creating high-quality content that produces lasting results?

Trying to leverage the next “quick fix” or marketing trend won’t usually transform your content strategy into a success. It can leave it struggling to reach goals or drive actual results.

In my opinion, the two secrets to content marketing success will always be to:

• Adhere to a content frequency that your audience comes to expect.

• Strategically build a content library of original and third-party content.

Content frequency leads to content consistency.

You’ve heard the phrase “timing is everything.”

That remains true even in the content marketing world.

Content marketing success is not only about choosing the right topic for the perfect audience on the best distribution channels — it’s also about creating a content schedule on which your audience can rely.

Publishing and distributing content on a specific schedule keeps your brand top of mind with your audience. This is likely due to a series of psychological principles, as Mark Zimmer explains on his blog. As potential customers get consistently exposed to your brand and content, your audience will begin to see your company as an authority on various industry topics.

For example, you know that your favourite TV show will air every Thursday at 8:00 p.m. You know the morning paper will arrive around 6:30 a.m. every morning. You can rely on a podcast series to publish the next episode every Monday at 12:00 p.m.

As we train our audiences to expect our content at a specific time, it becomes part of their daily routine. We’re all creatures of habit, and content marketers should use this to their advantage.

Determining the right frequency for your content strategy will take time and thorough experimentation. Don’t expect the content frequency and consistency to happen overnight.

I recommend matching your content to the day of the week — developing a consistent schedule to which your marketing team can easily adhere. Then, adjust based on your results as you see fit.

Building a content library allows you to maintain a consistent posting frequency.

To truly accommodate a consistent frequency, however, brands need to have a reliable library of content. Since many companies also do not have the resources necessary to develop solely original content, they often rely on relevant and engaging third-party content.

Using third-party content allows marketing teams to fill in the gaps throughout their content schedule when original, branded pieces are not available.

Additionally, if your brand plans to use B2B marketing channels like Twitter, you’ll need a wealth of content to share. Sending infrequent tweets on a random schedule won’t leverage the true power of these tools, which could leave your brand struggling to compete.

But finding quality third-party content can be a burden if you don’t have the right tools, so some brands choose to use third-party content curation engines like Vestorly, Curata and others to aid in building their content libraries.

But in order to share the right content at the right time to the right audience, brands need a substantial inventory of content to pull from.

That is where content curation comes into play. In order to curate content effectively, you should:

1. Find and follow trustworthy sources: Scouring the internet for compliant third-party content can be time-consuming and cumbersome. Instead of frantically searching for specific articles or videos, start by creating a list of reliable and compliant resources. These sources can range from thought leaders in a specific industry to research organizations. Content curation engine users can save these resources within the software and call upon them when looking for third-party content. You should also continuously trim and remove content sources that don’t meet your criteria.

2. Filter content by keywords: When curating content, you need a well-conceived set of editorial guidelines you can use to filter content. Creating a list of keywords and sentiments (positive or negative) will help you decide what content to reject and what content to use. By implementing this process, marketers will only capture content that meets their specific editorial criteria rather than sorting through all potential content.

By curating the right content and storing it in your content library, your brand can consistently meet your audience’s frequency demands with high-quality, authoritative content.

Conclusion

Skip the quick gimmicks and focus on long-term content marketing strategies by:

• Consistently adhering to a content frequency that your audience expects and your team can execute on.

• Building a robust library of top-quality original and third-party content to meet content frequency demands.

• Sharing the right content with the right audience at the right time by building a content curation strategy.

Remember, two important factors for content marketing success are frequency and building a content library. Without these two components, your strategy may struggle to produce results.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Joel Goobich,

Joel is Head of Sales & Marketing at Vestorly, an AI-driven content curation engine. He writes about leveraging content effectively. Read Joel Goobich’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

 

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How To Double Down on Personal Branding in 2021

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By Julian Paul

A proven 3-step approach to personal branding

Recently I took the Marketing New Realities and the Personal Brand class by the great

as part of my MSc High Tech Entrepreneurship at

. There were many brilliant concepts covered. But the core centered around how the world increasingly emphasizes this fact: A brand’s credibility and existence now rely on what customers say and do rather than what the brand wants them to do.

Before going into my three main takeaways, let me share two case studies I felt were quite impactful to myself and the broader class.

The North Face — Question Madness

The North Face video ad campaign with extreme athletes as the stars. YouTube

What an ad! This campaign portrays the uncomfortable and scary truths. Something not often seen from big brands… pain and broken bones are ugly, but they define the daily lives of extreme athletes. The North Face knows this and shows the entire world they understand exactly who their customers are.

Further, The North Face decided to take a user-generated content (UGC) route with a strong focus on empathy which translates directly into a sense of belonging with their core audience. Because of this, they literally did not need to put any product front and centre. Rather, their brand and product is the athlete — no matter where they are. As a result, their entire brand now resembles the safety and support system that allows athletes to survive extreme conditions — which translates into their secret sauce:

  1. The customer is the hero.
  2. The customer is the marketer.
  3. They helped people belong.

Heineken — Worlds Apart

A short video on Heineken’s “Open Your World” Campaign. YouTube

Phew! What a shocking video and context. Mark posed some great questions to this case study. Who is the target audience? Why would this sell more beer? Let’s get into what I think about it…

The target audience is those who think our differences are greater than our potential to connect. It’s a beautiful analogy to the way the world is seemingly trying to divide us among our identities. And it offers the antidote: Heineken Beer. Heineken is treading a thin line between encouraging alcoholism and highlighting the culture it enables.

I personally believe it is clearly the latter. As a beer consumer myself I can relate to the environment filled with deep conversations that occur in a typical pub, bar, or even at home… I think you know what I am talking about. So the answer to the second question is also very clear to me: this campaign would definitely sell more beer. Its message is inclusivity from all political or ideological ends.

My 3 Main Takeaways

Building on these two case studies, I collected three main takeaways that resonated most with me. Now, if you know me, then you understand how much I love mental models and processes. So, my takeaways are designed for a personal branding beginner (like myself). And personal branding begins with producing inhuman amounts of content… the following points relate to a process I have identified from this class and am applying to myself. They are meant to be applied top to bottom. Let’s get into it.

1. Apply AIR with your initial content

I know it’s cliché, but content is king! Simple, right? Not really. Creating content that actually connects with people is difficult. AIR makes this easy:

  1. Authentic = Are you real? Is what you’re sharing honest?
  2. Interesting = What value does it add? Is it tangible?
  3. Relatable = Does it connect to your target audience?

People believe and trust in what they see and experience. AIR relies on consistency and trust. The key to AIR is community-driven.

Be of the community, not just in the community.

Once you nail AIR, you create acts of advocacy that will move customers to connect and communicate with other customers. This only comes from creating and sharing content, increasing buying decisions as a result.

Mark says this best:

“Know who your super sharers are and tailor your content angle towards them.”

I say in addition, you need advocates, not followers.

2. Define your customer island

Personal branding is the marketing of today. And marketing is about all things human. It’s about emotions. So you should aim to create the marketing of no marketing: enable your customers to create and share your/their stories. Do this by understanding what they are into. And once you define that, you can group them into customer islands (imagine a Maldivian atoll as a reference), where the name of the game is word of mouth (WOM) marketing.

This might seem very difficult, but there is a simple solution: Think about creating talkable stories and approach the following types of influencers: celebrities, creators, and advocates. Each has its unique use case and its effectiveness will depend on your application.

Once you understand your customer islands and which influencer type you need to gain access to each, you will receive feedback from a whole range of customer segments that were totally agnostic to your personal brand. Beautiful, right? So analyze carefully and choose wisely.

If you create your personal brand, you create your island. And those who identify with it, will come to you.

Mark categorizes customer islands under human-centered marketing, which he built a beautiful manifesto for. Check it out here.

3. Leverage RITES to scale your content

Expanding on the ideas of customer islands and creating your first consistent content series with AIR, I loved this model as a way to scale bigger and broader as a creator. Once you’ve ticked all of the five RITES boxes, you will be able to connect with your island like never before:

  1. Stay Relevant
  2. Be Interesting
  3. Be Timely
  4. Be Entertaining
  5. Become Superior

Mark goes on to state that your personal brand is a business. So, as with any business, you should know that the customers are in control. Even more so in the age of personal branding. Be wise and make your personal branding efforts less about ego and more about the people on your island. RITES allows you to discover and frame the type of content you need to grow your personal brand to new heights.

The internet is all about giving away value and enabling others

Coming Full Circle

I hope you enjoyed this article as much as I did writing it. Needless to say, the ideas put forth are interpretations and learnings I took away from Mark’s class. However, the approach and condensation of them are my own. My hope is that you receive the same amount of value as I did. Thanks so much for all of these concepts

. It’s been a pleasure!

More insights from Mark’s class

My final realization

Personal branding is here to stay. So why not master it and create the island thousands of people are waiting to join?

Feature Image Credit: Austin Distel on Unsplash

By Julian Paul

Sourced from BetterMarketing

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4 Marketing Campaigns that Changed the World

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By Kenny Tripura, 

The advertisement industry has seen many revolutionary times when the campaigns changed the face of the earth. From banners ads to digital ads, the average American is exposed to a few hundred to a few thousand ads every day. The use of new technologies helped the businesses to win millions of new customers and even helped the candidates to win the elections.

The advertisement industry has seen many revolutionary times when the campaigns changed the face of the earth. From banners ads to digital ads, the average American is exposed to a few hundred to a few thousand ads every day. The use of new technologies helped the businesses to win millions of new customers and even helped the candidates to win the elections. Direct mail campaigns proved to be the biggest player in the whole marketing game. Even in the age of digital ads, print mail still proved to be the most useful marketing method for every business.

Here are some marketing campaigns that made the biggest impact on the global communities.

1. The Pause that Refreshes by Coca Cola

The current idea of the Santa Clause is thought to be introduced by Coca-Cola. In reality, the same concept of Santa Clause has been around for years. Coca-Cola simply put all the ingredients in a compelling way to showcase the idea to the world.

The ad campaign by Coca-Cola gave a whole new idea to the world. Since then red costume of Santa Clause has become an essential part of events.

2. Real Beauty Campaign by Dove

This was an intelligent move by Dove where they used visual content to describe the fact that only 4% of the females consider themselves beautiful.

FBI agent draws the woman after she explains herself and then another stranger is asked to describe the same woman. The drawings from both subjects are totally different.

3. Red Bull Stratos

In 2012, Red Bull ran a promotion where Felix jumped from 24 miles in space. He became the first person to break the sound barrier without using any type of vehicle or rocket.

This ad took over the internet and attracted millions of new customers from all over the world.

4. McDonald’s’ “Our food, your questions”

McDonald asked the users to ask a question about the products. McDonald also answered all of these questions so the doubts can be cleared.

This was a bold move but this campaign helped to strengthen the trust of users in the food items offered by McDonald’s.

The Use of Print Media in Your Marketing Campaigns

Direct mail has always been on the top of the list of every company and brand. Print mail has been used even in presidential elections. When it comes to influencing the masses, direct mail has always proved to be the most effective and useful method. The twist was the use of APIs that made direct mail marketing whole better. Since the use of APIs for marketing, the world has seen a whole new phase of advertisement.

Conclusion

Most of the marketing campaigns were meant to offer special results for a specific event or period. Concepts and technologies like APIs for print media are going to stay here for long. Now, almost every marketing agency and campaign are somehow using the power of APIs in one or another way.

By Kenny Tripura, 

Co-founder and managing partner at Toronto Digital Marketing Agency Edkent Media. I write about anything related to digital marketing.

Sourced from Thrive Global

The Thrive Global Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.

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How to Tell in Less Than 1 Minute Whether You’ve Made a Great First Impression, Backed by Science

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By Jeff Haden,

We all want to make a good first impression. But how can you tell if you succeed?

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Jeff Haden,

Sourced from Inc.

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Amid Supply Chain Disruptions and Demand Shifts, Brands Rethink Pricing Strategies

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By Mark Hamstra

Optimizing sales and promotions via tech will be a key goal for businesses going forward to price right and maximize margins.

Why it matters:

  • Amid a changed economic landscape, traditional brands can no longer rely on pricing strategies based on an annual seasonal calendar.
  • Many consumers will continue to feel economic pressure, while others have savings and pent-up demand.
  • Against that backdrop, brands can use this time to go back to the drawing board to optimize their pricing and promotional strategies via data analytics.

As the economy slowly lurches back toward what many describe as a “new normal,” brands will have to deploy their pricing strategies carefully amid a minefield of variables that could impact consumer behaviour.

One strategy that brands remain committed to is promotional optimization. With production costs rising, and pent-up demand for many products rising as well, companies need to protect their profit margins and make sure they are not using promotional pricing unnecessarily to drive sales that might have occurred anyway at full price.

There are also opportunities to use promotional analytics to drive sales of “affinity” items, which are those products that are associated with the promoted items. Some companies, including Kohl’s, have cut back on promotional activity and instead focused more on everyday value and more personalized offers.

The year ahead also poses other unique challenges for businesses pricing strategists. Traditionally, brands base their pricing on annual patterns that are adjusted for changes in their costs and tweaked to reflect other considerations, such as competitive activity in the market. This year, however, comparisons with last year — or any previous year, for that matter — are irrelevant.

“Companies can’t go back to that whole one-year model,” Ellen Kan, partner in the New York office of consulting firm Simon-Kucher & Partners, told CO—. “Decisions can’t be made with a long lead time. Companies, especially big companies, have to think about more ways to be agile and nimble.”

In addition, she said, companies will have to make some assumptions about which consumer shopping behaviours that changed during the pandemic, such as relying more heavily on e-commerce, will continue in the years ahead.

Food retailers, for example, saw sales surge last spring and fall as consumers stocked up on shelf-stable items, made fewer trips overall to the store and shopped online more often. Those companies will need to decide how they will use pricing as a tool to drive traffic back into the stores or to retain those online shoppers.

[Read here on how to set a pricing strategy.]

It’s a brave new world. You can create your own future, and the best retailers are doing that.

Matthew Pavich, managing director of global strategic consulting, Revionics, an Aptos company

New approaches to optimizing promotions

One grocery chain, 80-unit Shop ’n Save, is implementing a new pricing analytics solutions from Daisy Intelligence that seeks to optimize promotions from the perspective of their total-store impact, rather than the impact on the item itself.

Daisy’s “Halo Merchandising” approach considers the sales and margins gained from the addition of products to the shopping basket that are affiliated with the items promoted, for a more holistic view of the impact of promotions. A promotion on hot dogs, for example, might lead to additional sales of buns, relish, ketchup and mustard.

“Prior to bringing on Daisy, like all retailers, we made decisions on what items to promote based on single-item movement,” said Tom Charley, vice president of Shop ’n Save operator Charley Family Shop ’n Save. “While we have done the best that we can based on our tools, we understand there are more advanced ways of going to market today.”

Another retailer that has adopted a new promotional strategy is Dick’s Sporting Goods, which recently implemented the PromoSmart solution from Impact Analytics. With 850 store locations and thousands of promotions each month, Dick’s was seeking to move away from the repetitive promotions that it said were causing a decline in margins, according to a case study provided by Impact Analytics.

The new solution uses multiple machine learning models that analyse historical data to generate promotional recommendations that take into account seasonality and trends, as well as product affinities and cannibalization.

Implementing PromoSmart “helped us eliminate the toxic promos, adding millions to our bottom line,” the retailer said.

[Read here on five pricing strategies to woo customers.]

Leaning into an everyday value strategy

Kohl’s Corp. is another retailer that revamped its pricing and promotional strategy during the past year in an effort to improve profit margins, leaning into an everyday value strategy.

“We continue to reduce the number of general promotional offers and stackable offers [combined discounts], while increasing usage of price-led events to offer more value every day,” said Michelle Gass in the company’s recent year-end earnings call with analysts. “We are also leaning into more targeted and personalized offers to drive efficiencies.”

Chuck Davenport, a partner in the Atlanta office of Bain & Co., cited one example of a retailer, which he declined to identify, that took advantage of the changes in customer behaviour during the pandemic to reduce its promotional and discounting activities, and align its promotions between online and in-store.

In addition, the retailer added more premium lines, but made an effort to make sure there was a clear distinction between its higher-end brands and its legacy offerings.

“Because of the tightening of their promotional policies, they’re actually keeping each one of those categories stratified, and keeping the premium products in the premium lane and the lower-end products in the lower-end lane,” said Davenport. “It will be interesting to see if that is successful, but I’m glad to see that companies are starting to experiment with doing that.”

Other pricing strategies he sees emerging include B2B brands using technology to better control pricing, rather than leaving it in the hands of their sales teams, who are often incentivized to offer reduced prices to drive volume.

Adidas display section inside a Kohl's location. Kohl’s Corp. also revamped its pricing strategy, placing a heavier focus on everyday value along with targeted and personalized offers. — Kohl’s

One key pricing consideration: Rising production costs

A key metric underlying pricing decisions is rising inflation in the cost of commodities and other raw materials, which comes as a large portion of consumers are struggling financially to recover from the pandemic.

A recent report from data analytics firm dunnhumby found that 43% of U.S. consumers surveyed said they were paying more for food than they were before the pandemic, and many of those said they were taking some action because of it, including shopping at stores with everyday low prices, searching online for sales and coupons, buying larger pack sizes and stocking up on products that are on sale.

Some makers of consumer-packaged goods, including Procter & Gamble, have said that increases in the cost of ingredients are forcing retail price increases. P&G said in late April that it would implement price increases on certain products in September.

Many observers believe, however, that a large portion of the population has pent-up demand for goods and services, which will give some brands the ability to pass along higher prices without fear of hurting their margins.

One pricing case study to watch in the food industry will be how the plant-based meat alternative manufacturers, including Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, price their products now that they are ubiquitous, said Kan of Simon Kucher & Partners. The products have seen their sales continue to climb during the pandemic, even though they carry a premium price tag.

Now that they are gaining enough scale to lower their prices to be more competitive with traditional meat items, it will be interesting to see if even more consumers try these alternative proteins, she said.

Disruption in demand

Matthew Pavich, managing director of global strategic consulting at Revionics, an Aptos company, and provider of automated pricing solutions, said the disruption in consumer demand caused by the pandemic has had broad ramifications for pricing strategies. Some product categories, such as shelf-stable grocery items and cleaning essentials, have seen soaring demand, while others, such as fashion, have seen demand curve sharply in the other direction.

“We have a whole lot of different things going on, and it’s about being able to capture that and deliver a pricing strategy that translates to a customer’s need now in this moment,” said Pavich. “That’s the fundamental challenge, and it looks different for different retailers.”

Some retailers will use aggressive pricing to drive consumers back into their stores with greater frequency, and others will streamline their promotions. For many retailers, the new operating environment presents an opportunity to update their omnichannel pricing strategies.

“Companies have this unique opportunity to start from scratch and rebuild their pricing strategy,” said Pavich. “Whether they already had a fairly robust strategy with some analytics and some optimization and some consumer insights, or they are starting from scratch, there’s an opportunity now to take their data, take best practices, take what consumers are telling them and really invest.

“It’s a brave new world,” he said. “You can create your own future, and the best retailers are doing that.”

In general, the enormous challenges presented by current market conditions will force all companies to take a step back to carefully examine their pricing strategies, rather than pursuing business as usual.

“When everything’s good and the sun is shining on all companies, and everyone’s growing, [companies] can get a little lazy,” said Davenport of Bain & Co. “But when business tightens, and the supply tightens, it gives people a real motivation to get sharp.”

Feature Image Credit: Dick’s Sporting Goods’ new pricing strategy taps multiple machine learning models that analyze historical data to generate promotional recommendations. — Dick’s Sporting Goods 

By Mark Hamstra

Sourced form CO

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