“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
Programmatic media buying and the vagaries of the digital media ecosystem hit the headlines again recently with the publication of PwC’s research report for ISBA. The study found that only 51% of UK advertisers’ programmatic ad spend actually reaches publishers and around a third of all supply chain costs could not be attributed.
The ISBA study tells a story about programmatic media that we already know well, the story of an ecosystem characterized by a high degree of complexity that rarely delivers results. There are many more practical starting points for unlocking value in digital media spend than analyzing trades at a transaction level.
We now have a much better understanding of what makes digital display advertising so ineffective. While most advertising is digital and 90% of digital display is traded programmatically, marketing analysts and econometricians still find it challenging to identify positive ROI on digital media investment.
My primary concern is that there’s a genuine risk that all this talk about the programmatic supply chain will mean brands lose sight of where the real value drivers lie in digital marketing effectiveness. Disclosure and transparency can help advertisers achieve greater control, but they don’t guarantee that programmatic media buying will deliver better results.
Advertisers can and should prioritize a number of key drivers that sit well outside the programmatic ecosystem. Excessive automation, coupled with poor briefing and misalignment in campaign strategies, mean that programmatic has become highly tactical as opposed to strategic, certainly with little brand thinking involved.
The real crisis in programmatic trading is that much of its value is lost beyond the tech stack.
Attention: Too many ads fail to attract consumer attention. Ads should be created that capture and hold attention on a brand. That attention can be measured with eye tracking studies, A/B tests or even using AI-based predictive solutions. CPMs should increasingly be related to and adjusted for attention. Remember, more than 90% of display ads are currently viewed for one second or less.
Brand safety: Marketing spend is wasted, and brand equity placed at risk, when ads run in non-brand-safe environments. These are also placements with high risk of ad fraud, a potentially very large problem. To ensure brand safety and reduce the risk of fraud, marketers can whitelist the right environments and cut out the long tail.
Context: The wrong context can render an ad ineffective. To increase receptivity to a creative message, consumers need to be reached in the right context. Context trumps the false promise of microtargeting.
Functionality: There is no one-size-fits-all ad format. Brands must produce creative executions that work in the media in which they run. Repurposing TV commercials to run on digital video platforms does not work. Branding and product need to be visible. You don’t have time to tell complex, nuanced stories online.
Targeting: Poorly targeted ads increase the potential for irrelevant messaging. Avoid retargeting consumers who have already made a purchase. Remember that half of ads are off target and targeting too narrowly at the expense of reach can end up being costly for many business models.
Viewability: An ad can’t have an impact if it is never viewed. Sixty-five percent of ads are not viewed, and half are not even viewable. Excessive frequency leading to bombardment irritates consumers and leads to low viewability.
As with any complex problem, the solution requires a broad, diverse worldview. Brands should take a holistic approach to improving the value they get from programmatic media. It’s only by addressing challenges holistically that advertisers can truly optimize effectiveness in digital display.
The past couple of months of this global pandemic have brought up no shortage of questions for entrepreneurs: “How long will it last? When can I go back to work? How can I keep working through this crisis? My cash flow has essentially stopped; how can I save money—and my business?”
I really can sympathize with all of the above, because I asked myself similar questions during the 2008 financial crisis. Back then, I was just starting to get my business footing, and when the economy came crashing down, I, like many entrepreneurs across the country, found myself staring at very slim pickings.
So this time, I want to address the elephant in the room during times of economic uncertainty: Should you keep marketing your business to an audience that may be struggling financially, and is it even worthwhile to market your services when people aren’t in a position to buy?
My response to both is a resounding YES!
When the country was going through the recession of the housing crisis, I was not the branding expert I am today, but I still remember seeing so many businesses around me pull back on their marketing. In 2008, ad spending dropped 13% — that’s huge, and a huge mistake! I know what they were thinking because I’ve heard it all the time from business owners I’ve taught and coached over the past decade: cutting costs to save money as a way to survive during lean times feels like the right thing to do.
But I’m here to tell you that your marketing should be at the bottom of your cutback list.
Recessions and crises like the one we’re all in today are when you really need good branding and committed marketing, even more than in good times. Yes, a slowdown in business is happening or inevitable, but a slowdown in marketing is something you have total control over—so own it!
I’ll give you 3 reasons why you don’t want to cut out marketing, especially when the future is shaky:
#1 – Marketing for Leverage
If you’re considering kicking marketing to the curb, know you’re not alone. It’s a knee-jerk reaction when your revenue tap goes from flowing to dripping. You start cutting expenses, and because marketing is one expense you’re never that sure about the ROI of anyway, it’s usually the first thing to go.
But consider for a moment that your competitors are in the exact same boat and making that same decision. When they’re not spending on marketing, they’re also not getting visibility. This is what opportunity looks like. It’s never going to be safe or comfortable. This is a perfect “in” for you to steal the spotlight and soak up all the attention for yourself. Remember, fortune favors the bold!
This can give you an increase in eyeballs and an advantage over your competitors, especially when business is slow and small businesses are slashing their marketing budgets.
NOW is your time to capture more of the available market share because you’re willing to invest time and effort that others are not. The economy will (eventually) pick back up again, though it’s anyone’s guess as to how long this will take to happen. That’s why investing in gaining leverage now that will pay off in the short AND long term.
#2 – Marketing for Image
If you want to bolster your brand image, keep marketing during tough times. Putting money into your business in the form of marketing that puts you in front of people when profits are uncertain says a lot about your confidence. It projects an assertive, roll-up-your-sleeves and tackle the problem head-on attitude while most are falling back into fear-based decision-making. And depending on your business, what you sell or your industry — you could even find that a pandemic or recession is ripe with profit.
An entrepreneur friend of mine here in New York has an awesome online art class business, and she’s actually more than doubled her sales during the lock down. Because more people are staying home and need fun stuff to do, she’s used this as an opportunity to amp up her Facebook ad marketing and, as a result, has grown her email list 10X and earned quite a bit of notoriety and social currency as well.
Not all businesses can do this and do it with real confidence. Most are facing financial despair and are forced to pull back somewhere, but if you can avoid cutting your marketing and have means to lean forward, by all means do it! Here’s a quick way to start improving your online presence.
#3 – Marketing for Value
Do you know why people plant date trees? That’s right, date trees. It’s not because they want to run a successful date farm—it’s because they want their kids to. That’s because it takes 4-8 years for a date tree to grow and then up to 10+ years for it to fruit. That’s quite an investment of time and money in a business without much to show for it for quite a while. The point is that if you ever want to eventually reap the kind of rewards that can’t be gained overnight, you have to start, stick to it, and be patient.
The same is true with marketing to cash-strapped people who can’t buy from you right now. Marketing is not going to get you immediate sales, no matter what you hear from marketing campaigns that sell marketing services.
More realistically, marketing is for building awareness and value over the long-term to accumulate sales over time through consistency and commitment.
When done right, they WILL remember you when the time comes for your service and when they are finallyready to make a “yes” decision, you will be right there, in their mind, and their inbox.
It’s Never Too Late
Marketing and branding support each other and can do the heavy lifting of carrying your business to safety when times are lean, and clients and cash are scarce. Even in a global economic crisis, it’s not too late to strengthen your brand to inform your marketing. And when the next crisis hits (because there will always be a next one), you’ll be glad you did the work. Start HERE by downloading the Brandshrink!
Feature Image Credit: “How can this be happening? I cut my marketing budget!” STEVE WASTERVAL
I am a partner and brand strategist at Worstofall Design where we build brands that turn expertise into profit. Unlike most branding firms, we build entire brands in days instead of months, and only work for 1-3 person service businesses. Our unique process and niche positioning has helped us to overcome the hurdles we struggled with when we were starting our business, reliably attracting a steady flow of high paying clients and allowing us to enjoy the freedom that inspired us to become entrepreneurs in the first place. At Forbes, my goal is to clarify and simplify the elusive idea of “branding,” and share practical tips and tangible steps to help businesses find their unique brand voice that leads to profit.
All entrepreneurs and marketers know how valuable time is.
The more time you spend engaging in activities that don’t directly bring any return on investment (ROI), the slower your growth.
You should choose your marketing approaches taking into account efficiency and available amounts of time.
Lack of time and the need to increase efficiency are the two main reasons why you should consider automation as a part of your Instagram marketing strategy.
Managing an Instagram account and promoting your products or services on this social network is a difficult task. You should not only provide your followers with fresh high-quality content on a regular basis but also reply to comments, monitor posts where users mention your brand and deal with many other time-consuming tasks.
Instagram is the fastest-growing social media platform with more than 1 billion active monthly users. There are thousands of influencers from different niches, along with thousands of businesses that put a lot of effort into building a strong presence on Instagram. All these businesses have to compete for a greater audience and to make sure that their posts will satisfy Instagram’s algorithm.
If you use the right Instagram automation tools, you’ll be able to improve the efficiency of many processes significantly. For instance, you can schedule your posts so that your target audience can always see your content when they are most active. There are also many tools that can help you analyze engagement and provide the exact content your followers are looking for.
Now let’s take a look at the best Instagram automation tools that can help you improve your Instagram presence.
1. Hashtagsforlikes
Sorting hashtags is a time-consuming task. Many businesses even decide to outsource it. To use the right hashtags, you should analyze hashtags that are trending in your niche and determine which hashtags can be associated with your brand.
Even though developing an effective hashtag strategy is difficult, it’s still very important for the visibility of your posts in your followers’ feed.
Hashtagsforlikes is an organic tool that will help you use the best hashtags for your products, services, promotions, and other types of content. This is a search engine that also provides analytics on each hashtag so that you can choose the right ones.
2. Kicksta
Kicksta is one of the best organic automation growth tools that has proven to deliver great results, enabling users to get real followers.
Some solutions imitate success by using fake followers, but this is not the case with Kicksta. You can be sure that your brand gets genuine engagement and that all your followers are actual people.
Kicksta will help you promote your products or services to the right audience so that you will have more time to create authentic content.
3. Ingramer
One of the main advantages of Ingramer is that it combines effectiveness with simplicity.
This software comes with a variety of automation tasks, including a hashtag generator, automated likes and follows, and data analysis.
Ingramer is based on an algorithm that simulates the activity of real people and only considers information on customers or active followers. If you’ve never used such services before, you can contact the support service and get answers to any of your questions.
In addition, this solution can help you analyze the performance of your account so that you can promote it more effectively.
4. SocialCaptain
SocialCaptain is one of the best solutions for Instagram automation. This Instagram automation software focuses on attracting real audiences and increasing engagement rates.
It comes with several tools for targeting and real-time analytics. It also includes an AI-powered module that boosts its performance.
The best thing about this solution is how fast it works. For instance, if you opt for the Turbo plan, this software will deliver the desired results 10 times faster than the majority of other automation solutions. If you need to grow your follower base quickly, you will certainly appreciate this tool.
5. Upleap
Upleap has proven to be reliable and effective. Before you decide whether or not you want to use this solution, you can try a free 3-day trial to familiarize yourself with its main features.
Every client gets a personalized account manager so you can always ask real people about any issues and get timely help.
Another reason why Upleap is more popular than many of its competitors is that it offers good pricing options. The prices start at $39 per month, and when you choose this solution, you know what you’re paying for.
6. Instavast
Instavast is a complex solution that includes a variety of features. For example, you can use an Instagram bot that deals with comments, likes, and follows. There is also an automated direct message sending tool and a post scheduler that you can customize according to your needs.
All the tools are priced separately, and the company offers a 100% money-back guarantee.
You might also want to check out the free Instagram automation tools on Instavast’s website. For instance, there is a media downloader, a hashtag generator, and a list of banned hashtags.
7. Agorapulse
Agorapulse is a full-suite social media management software.
It allows you to pre-load Instagram posts and schedule them to go at the exact time you need. You can also schedule posts for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. It’s a huge time-saver.
Agorapulse also provides detailed reports on all of your social media activity.
Common mistakes
To achieve good results on Instagram, you should not only use automation tools but also know how to use them properly. For example, you should make sure that your comments are personalized so that your followers won’t have to read generic comments that have obviously been written by a bot.
Keep in mind that the main purpose of automation tools is to help you with repetitive tasks so that you can focus on tasks that require well-developed creative skills. Bots won’t be able to produce high-quality content.
Another common mistake is setting impossible goals so that your account will get unnatural numbers of followers too quickly. Solutions that enable you to promote your account in such an aggressive way can often create problems. Sometimes, accounts that are promoted too aggressively may even get banned. We recommend that you focus on stable growth and manage your expectations.
Wrapping up
Instagram marketing is extremely time-consuming so there’s no surprise that more and more businesses and influencers choose various automation tools that can help them automate repetitive tasks and focus on other important things.
I hope that this list of the best Instagram automation tools will help you get more followers and achieve your business goals.
Anna is a specialist in different types of writing. She graduated from the Interpreters Department, but creative writing became her favorite type of work. Now she improves her skills while working as a freelance writer for Pick The Writer, Writing Judge to assist a lot of students all over the world and has free time for another work, as well. Always she does her best in the posts and articles.
Covid-19 has caused an economic crisis. According to a Mckinsey study, more than 20.5 million jobs have been lost in the United States since the start of the pandemic. In some cases, however, a crisis can present new opportunities. Design thinking can help you develop a disruption mindset.
Design thinking is a method of creative problem-solving that focuses on customer empathy. While it is usually applied to develop new products and services or make current products more appealing, the ideation process can be used to solve any problem. In the current unpredictable climate, design thinking can help companies address the financial crisis in a more empathetic and collaborative way.
There are many tools to create solutions, but the keys of design thinking are the focus on:
1) People: design thinking prioritizes empathy and the human aspect of the solution; it is a human-centered approach.
2) Processes: Making sure the idea is technically feasible
3) Business: financially viable.
Through a continuous trial-and-error process, ideas are tested quickly to ensure these three aspects are covered.
There are different ways to approach design thinking. The most simple is to divide the process into three stages: exploration, ideation, and implementation.
Exploration phase: observe and listen
A multidisciplinary team made up of people from varied backgrounds, such as designers, accountants, engineers or psychologists, observes human behaviour, considers a problem they have, and mulls a solution.
The team should have no more than ten members; the more diverse, the better: different backgrounds, ages, cultures, and seniority. Define together the major challenge facing the company; from high costs to employee engagement or a product that is now obsolete in the post-pandemic world. Then investigate what’s behind the problem. Explore the suppliers, the customers, the processes. Look at the details. For example, look into how the customer has changed their behaviour. Are they buying another product? Are they buying it differently? Ask questions. Take pictures, record answers and meet with the team to analyse the findings.
Ideation Phase: brainstorm multiple ideas
In the second phase, ideation or creation, think of how the team could solve the problem. Here is where the tool SCAMPER is very useful. As per The Innovation Answer Book by Teresa Jurgens-Kowal, SCAMPER is an acronym used to trigger alternate associations of existing solutions in addressing a problem. Use it to find different approaches to the problem. It can be like a virtual brainstorming.
Substitute: can you substitute or exchange parts, material or components of the existing solution? Many companies, for example, are replacing permanent human resources and employee development departments with consultants to reduce fixed costs and improve training quality. Other companies are taking the opposite approach and using current employees to do jobs that would otherwise go to a contractor in order to reduce project costs.
Combine: can you combine different steps or processes? Telehealth is a solution that is combining experts, new technologies like Zoom or Facetime and apps to make health checks more affordable and accessible. Another combination in manufacturing is TPM (total productive maintenance), which combines the skills of the maintenance department and operators to prevent problems and reduce idle hours.
Adapt: can you adjust a specific task or product for better output? Many ideas in a company were ideated during informal conversations. Working remotely that kind of interaction is less frequent or not possible. Many companies have created virtual spaces where employees can meet. From an informal breakfast on Zoom to Slack channels, or specific tools like StarMeUP, these intimate connections can still be promoted only by making small adjustments to the current communication process.
Modify, minimize, or magnify: how can you adjust the whole process? Two-hour meetings online are more disengaging than face-to-face gatherings. Can you minimize them to a 30-minutes meeting? Or can you turn 4-hour learning modules to 15-minutes smaller pieces that can be delivered online?
Put to another use: use products for another purpose, recycle waste or choose a different target market. Let’s take Airbnb. It has a booking system that is now almost obsolete because nobody can travel. Can Airbnb pivot their system to provide home-office spaces for parents that need to focus? Can single people rent rooms or desks during the day through the same app?
Eliminate: this is my favourite, so simple and still so hard to accept. Can you remove parts or eliminate unneeded resources to improve a process? How many things were you keeping that now seem irrelevant? Have you found yourself noting you didn’t need broken tools, old-fashion clothes or duplicated steps? Use the 5S method to sort needed from unneeded. Now not only booking rentals but also a doctor or coaching appointments have gone online, eliminating the process of waiting or various emails back and forth discussing the best time for a meeting.
Reverse: rearrange parts or reverse the process. The command and control process would require the C-suite to come up with solutions for problems. Now, agile teams require that solutions come from the bottom-up. The ones that know the processes better are the employees, why not let them figure it out? It is the first change to a successful design thinking.
Implementation: iterate until you solve the problem
And the last stage is implementation. At this point, you should have tons of ideas. Ten team members by 7 Scampers, that’s around 70 ideas minimum! Prioritize and test these ideas quickly. Use pilot teams or focus groups to try them out and see what works best. Contact a coach to help you facilitate meetings to make them more effective if needed. Iteration is part of the process, so implement them right away and make adjustments as needed.
In Japanese, to write the word crisis they use two signs: danger and opportunity. Maybe, this is the time for your company to fight the threat and find creative ways to unleash this opportunity.
Feature Image Credit: BY MIGUEL Á. PADRIÑÁN FROM PEXELS
I am Lu Paulise, culture coach, speaker and author. I am an MBA, Quality Engineer and Certified Scrum Master. As a passionate book writer, I regularly contribute to Forbes as well as other multiple international media outlets such as ThriveGlobal.com, Medium and Infobae in Latin America. As the founder of Biztorming Training & Consulting LLC and TheWeCulture.com, I have helped a wide range of companies, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies, to transform their culture to become more agile, engaged and innovative. I also enjoy giving back to the community participating in non-profits. I am currently Regional Deputy Director for the ASQ and VP of Innovation for the Argentina-Texas Chamber of Commerce. I live in Texas, and I also speak and write in Spanish.
Cash flow is a central issue for all businesses — balancing your income against your expenses to ensure you have enough cash available to continue operating can be very complicated. Many businesses, especially startups and small businesses, can underestimate just how important cash flow management is.
We’re going to run through exactly why your business needs to manage your cash flow and ways in which you can improve it.
Why is cash flow management important?
Cash flow isn’t a clear indicator of how well your business is doing — you’ll be making long term investments that pay off at a later date, or a large portion of your money is tied up in stock.
And while these are necessary expenditures in running a business, if you invest too much money you might not have enough to pay out in the short term. Rent, suppliers, and employees all need paying regularly, and you can’t wait until you have the cash available to pay.
Lack of cash reserves is one of the top reasons that startups fail. Cashflow is a clear indicator of how safe your business is, and what you have to fall back on if your investments don’t pay off.
It’s particularly important for new businesses when you have endless outgoings to get things up and running. You need to have a clear idea of when you will start to see some sales or income. Seasonal businesses also rely on good cash flow management as any profits will need to cover periods with reduced or little income.
What’s the difference between cash and profit?
It’s pretty easy to get confused between profit and cash. On paper, your business might have income, but it’s not necessarily always physically available as cash that you can access and use. Profits won’t ensure you’re able to pay your bills. You might have sold products or services and billed customers, which is considered profit, but until it’s been paid you don’t have the cash.
How to improve your cash flow management
Whatever type or size of business you’re running, cash flow management is something that needs to be prioritized. These are some starting points for improving your cash flow management:
Reduce your expenses
While some expenses such as wages for your existing employees are set in stone there are a number of expenses that can be reduced.
If you’re renting an office space, you could look at moving somewhere new for a better deal, or consider downsizing the office if some of your employees would prefer to work from home. And if you own the property, make sure you keep on top of renewing your mortgage so that you’re always getting the best rates.
When you’re looking to hire more staff, look at hiring graduates or candidates with less experience that are willing to learn. You can save some money, but also employees that receive regular training and learn new skills on the job feel valued and they’re more likely to stick with your company long term. HR analytics can also help to optimize your costs.
For bills always use a comparison site like Uswitch to ensure you’re getting the best possible deal for your broadband, gas, and electricity. And if your business involves a lot of driving, then a fuel card like the DCI card can provide competitive fuel rates. Fuel card comparison site, iCompario, will help you to find the best one and clearly explain the benefits.
Don’t invest too much money
It’s easy to get carried away when money starts coming in to just invest it all back into the business. However, it’s no good having a warehouse filled to the brim with stock but no money to pay the rent. Use inventory management software like Veeqo to monitor stock levels carefully and only order the stock that you’re going to be able to sell.
Keep on top of your invoicing
If you’re running a business where you provide your service or products before receiving payment then it’s important that you have a reliable system in place for collecting your money.
Don’t allow customers to go long periods without paying off their account, and don’t let them rack up a huge bill – you need regular payments. Most accounting software such as Xero will have invoicing features that can send out invoices, payment reminders, and provide online payment options.
For a subscription business, consider how monthly or annual billing will affect your cash flow – if you choose annual will you have enough cash to cover the months with fewer payments.
No business should underestimate just how important cash flow is. Follow these steps and spend some time thinking about your cash flow management – reduce your expenses and keep an eye on your finances to ensure you’re never short on cash.
Covid-19 has accelerated the digital shopping experience. Retailers will need a strategy re-think.
Retail has been a highly competitive sector for many years now. The rise of the internet has given consumers more choice and flexibility than ever before, so retailers and brands must work harder to deliver a first-class customer experience if they want to retain their existing customers and attract new ones.
Recent Nuxeo research with UK shoppers revealed that more than half of shoppers would switch to a competitor if the digital customer experience didn’t measure up. Furthermore, almost two-thirds of shoppers would be more loyal to retailers and brands that deliver an exceptional customer experience.
For many shoppers, the retail experience has become increasingly digital. With many high street retailers around the world forced to close because of the pandemic, it has only served to make that digital experience even more important. People are shopping online more than ever and the need to deliver the right experience is growing too.
What constitutes a memorable and impactful digital experience in 2020 and how can retailers and brands deliver it in an increasingly competitive environment?
What makes a good digital customer experience?
Consumers have high expectations in 2020. The increasing maturity, sophistication and choice of the modern e-commerce experience and increasingly convenient digital purchasing aids, make it very easy for consumers to switch their loyalties if their needs aren’t being met.
When you then factor in the challenges brought about by the pandemic – supply chain issues, high street stores closed during the lockdown – then it’s clear to see how retailers and brands have moved even closer to an all-digital model, accelerating what already had been happening in the sector.
Nuxeo research showed the importance of the digital customer experience. Predictable contributors to a positive digital shopping experience included easy navigation, rapid search, and clear pricing, but today’s consumers also expect a detailed view of products – with images and video, as well as well-worded accurate descriptions.
Shoppers increasingly expect easily digestible access to information about products. Online, consumers increasingly want to be able to view products from different angles, to replicate as much of the physical shopping experience as possible. Fashion-wise, it might be the ability to view items in other colours not currently available in store.
Retailers and brands struggling to bring new product innovations to market quickly, or to respond in a timely way to new trends, risk losing valued customers to rivals. Yet too often this is the reality for suppliers: the inability to quickly and efficiently generate and distribute relevant product information, and enticing visual experiences which help to contextualise or personalise content for target customers, means they are not ready for consumers as their latest desires and demands are forming. In many cases, it can take brands and retailers many months to bring a new product to market, with all the positioning and promotional materials required to support the launch and subsequent sales.
A suppliers’ ability to bring the latest products to market quickly remains a high priority. The research found that if a retailer or brand could not yet launch the latest market-trending product, the vast majority of consumers would not wait. Rather, they would quickly redirect their search to an alternative source.
Delivering digital CX
It’s clear that customer experience needs to be more to the fore than ever – retailers and brands must provide all the relevant and valuable content that shoppers need to make their purchasing decisions, and they must also be innovative and aim to stock the latest products in good time.
The good news is that the technology exists today to satisfy all these requirements. With a coordinated approach to Digital Asset Management (DAM) across the customer journey, retailers and brands can give customers the confidence and appetite to purchase and to keep coming back.
DAM has long been an important technology in terms of marketing, but in recent years has become invaluable when looking at the larger product lifecycle and has evolved into product asset management (PAM) approach. PAM is a strategy to leverage enterprise digital asset management technology across the product lifecycle.
By providing a common platform for critical product information (both assets and data) at key points in the product lifecycle (design, packaging, campaign development, etc.). The result is that the role that digital assets and data play in helping retailers and brands bring new products to market more quickly has grown and will continue to do so as consumers demand this.
Adopting a PAM strategy enables companies to bring new products to market more quickly by eliminating previous analogue dependencies and bottlenecks (e.g. physical samples) and enabling a true, digital supply chain. In today’s environment companies with more digital supply chains are better able to persevere and even thrive than competitors that stick to a more traditional analog supply chain.
Implementing a PAM-based approach drives real value by connecting the product data with the associated content assets in an intelligent way. PAM supports a consistent view of product-related assets and associated data throughout the product value chain, in turn driving revenue growth through reduced time to market.
With consumer demands growing around digital experience, PAM becomes an even more important strategy moving forward. It takes content beyond the marketing department, connecting it to data and other assets across the entire organisation. This connection means that PAM informs the digital experience across different business functions and at multiple touchpoints, making it easier to be more consistent in message and tone, and better meeting consumer requirements regarding the digital customer experience.
Conclusion
The pandemic has been hugely impactful on many elements of our lives, and at first glance would appear to have affected the retail sector more than others. But in many ways, it has not changed things that much, especially as countries around the world begin to emerge from lockdown and start to navigate their way through the new normal. Retailers just need to double down on the things they have always needed to.
Overall, our research findings only reinforced the need for retailers and brands to deliver on the things most important to consumers – a first-class digital customer experience, personalised and valuable content, bringing products to market quickly and providing detailed product information. These are important now but have been so for many years. PAM can help retailers and brands deliver the experience that will keep those customers loyal, both now and in the future.
When it comes to reaching new customers, an excellent paid media strategy starts with setting goals. If you don’t know where you’re headed, how do you know where to go?
Do you want to grow your business and reach more audiences that convert into leads? Then a tactic that can help expand your business is paid media, a method of using promoted (paid for) content such as social media posts, video ads, pop-ups, etc. to reach target audiences. Essentially, paid media is content that businesses pay for to reach more people.
For some, dipping their toes into paid media is intimidating, however, with understanding of best practices, you’re experience will be much more enjoyable. Here are a few tips to get you comfortable with paid media.
Establish goals.
An excellent paid media strategy starts with setting goals. If you don’t know where you’re headed, how do you know where to go? To start building a paid media strategy, you’ll need a basic understanding of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs are a measurable value that indicates progress in achieving the overall goal. Some examples of KPIs are impressions, conversions, and website traffic. These metrics can give you insight that helps determine how well your content is performing.
If you’re still unsure how to develop a list of goals and KPIs for your paid media campaign, consider what the overall goal is that you’d ultimately like to achieve through this content. What are you advertising? How are you hoping your business benefits from your ads? Keep your vision in mind and let it guide your objectives.
Build a keyword list.
Keywords are a tactic used to get your content in front of your target audience. The success of your paid media content depends on keywords because they help you reach as many potential customers as possible. Conduct extensive research into keywords to be sure they’re relevant to your business and advertisement.
As you continue to publish paid media ads and campaigns, update your keyword list with terms that perform well. If a keyword hasn’t been successful in reaching your target audience, toss it out so it doesn’t affect your ads negatively in the future.
Choose your channels.
Not all of your audience loves Tik Tok, or any other channel as a collective group. Every consumer is different in their preferences, and you’ll want to cater to that by selecting the channels for your paid media carefully. Research—the magic word—can help you to understand which channels should successfully reach your audiences. Google is a great platform to include, but go beyond the obvious and search out what channels your audience spends time on.
If you’re targeting ads at a Gen Z audience, consider Tik Tok or Instagram, which has become a wildly popular platform for paid media due to influencers and the visual aspect posts provide. Or, let’s say you’re advertising a service that’s used by working professionals—LinkedIn should be one of the first channels on your list. It’s overwhelming to think of all the places your audiences could potentially be (virtually) hanging out, but with some research and intuition, it’ll become easier to narrow down the list as you go along.
Create landing pages.
So, you’ve created a beautiful ad and a potential customer has clicked on it, but where do they land? The answer isn’t your website’s homepage (sorry to disappoint). The user should find themselves at a landing page. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, a landing page is a webpage that is dedicated to converting leads. Designing a landing page that is relevant to your paid media will keep a clean, consistent transition and experience for the user.
Along with including content that is relevant to your paid media ad, make sure your landing page is engaging as well. Users should want to take the desired action on your page, whether that’s entering an email or purchasing your latest product. Track conversions from your landing page to help you adjust for better performance as needed.
Optimize your ads.
As your paid media ads run over time, you’ll learn more about your audience and exactly how to reach them successfully. This information is like gold—and arguably more valuable. Use the insights you gain to improve targeting for future ads and campaigns. Tweaks you may need to make include refining your message or editing the design to make your ad stand out more.
Adjusting your ads as you learn more about audiences is crucial to building successful paid media content. There’s a learning curve to monitoring your audience’s behavior, but don’t let that scare you away. Any optimization you can provide for ads should help you generate leads, so keep your chin up and post on!
Measure your ads.
The only way to know how your content is truly performing is by tracking their success. Remember KPIs? Great, here’s where you’ll put them to use.
Measuring how your paid media performs is vital to the continued success of your ads. Decide your how often you’d like to measure your ads (weekly? monthly?) and study how your ads have performed against the KPIs you selected.
Not all ads will perform incredibly as soon as they’re launched, and that’s okay. Learn from the results of your analytics and be easy on yourself; not everyone is an expert right away. Work through what works best for your paid media, and continue to build a strategy from there.
Hire an expert.
If you’ve read the above and think you still may need more help beyond this blog, there are paid media experts that will take care of your content for you. Running a business takes a lot of time, and creating an effective paid media campaign is a full-time job. Paid media experts have extensive experience in this area, and can accomplish any related tasks without you having to do anything beyond hiring them.
So, how do you go about hiring a paid media expert? You can either go through a service that offers paid media help or search for one on your own. Both are great options, finding an expert may be time-consuming and present difficulties when it comes to paperwork, expenses, benefits, etc. When choosing a service to find your expert, ensure they vet talent ahead of time and can verify applicable experience.
If you’re wondering where to begin with paid media, there are plenty of best-practice guidelines to help you start successfully. Remember to have fun with creating your content. Once you’ve done your research and established a foundation, experiment with various designs to help your paid media stand out. And should you ever need extra help, remember there are experts that can help with the task.
Feature Image Credit: Thomas Barwick | Getty Images
With the cancellation of physical events, companies have been scrambling to host their annual conferences virtually. This is uncharted territory for many so I’ve reached out to several marketing leaders who have already made the leap to fully digital events. Alix Hart, global head of digital marketing at NVIDA, helped her organization convert its GPU Technology Conference (GTC) into a multi-week collection of live keynotes and on-demand learning sessions. Lisa Riley, head of events for Forrester, guided the annual SD Summit to a fully digital conference in only 45 days. And Mary Ellen Dugan, CMO of WP Engine, hosted the company’s annual forum last week.
Here are nine tips based on their experiences to help you plan your virtual conference.
Set clear goals – Riley outlined three clear goals for the SD Summit: provide compelling thought leadership content from its analysts, build a sense of community for its participants and create a marketplace to connect buyers with sponsoring sellers. She believed clear objectives helped them be agile, “We didn’t have the fear of failure because we knew we were heading in the right direction. And that was really important because we had to be brave and we had to make some decisions [quickly].”
Determine length of the event – The SD Summit retained its contiguous three day schedule but limited the times from 10:00-2:00 EST to maximize scheduled participation. NVIDIA took a different approach. Hart shared, “We elected to make GTC an extended conference and make it free. Our six-week event gave us time to develop the content, to work with our partners, and to work with the presenters to really make sure that we got the content right. Our keynote and our launches were six weeks after the start of the GTC event.”
Integrate events and digital marketing teams – Often digital marketing teams are responsible for the pre-event promotions and post-event follow-ups. Events teams manage the experiences from registration to tear down. Virtual events are different. Hart advised, “GTC became a ‘during’ activation for the digital marketing team. There were a lot more emails and social content as ways that we could connect and remind people what’s available and bring them back to the session catalog to plan the events they want to participate in.” Riley agreed, “I think the biggest learning for us was that we had to promote much more colorfully what our virtual event was. I think we probably could have shared a lot more of the experience.”
Balance live appointment sessions with on-demand content – Most live conferences are organized around main tent presentations that inspire a broad audience and break-out sessions that provide tailored information to smaller groups. Virtual events are no different. Riley shared that Forrester “put up our biggest thought leadership keynotes at the beginning of the day, at the beginning of the week.” and then scheduled 175 sessions to follow the keynotes. NVIDIA saved their big keynotes for the end but conducted on-demand Deep Learning sessions throughout its multi-week event. All sessions for both companies were available on-demand after their original air time.
Optimize sessions for virtual viewing – How do you keep participants energized and engaged in a virtual environment? WP Engine’s Dugan shared, “We streamed live music and had DJs from our own employees, which was a huge hit.” Riley added, “We took a very broadcast view of how we were going to create our experience.” She continued, “The TEDx model is successful for a reason. So we shrunk our sessions down to 20 minute from 45 minutes.” And don’t forget to schedule breaks so participants can get up and move periodically. They will stay more refreshed and attentive.
Facilitate participant interaction – One of the benefits of attending events is interacting with speakers and networking with others in your industry. Virtual events can accomplish the same goals using different techniques. Dugan explained, “We had the full video streaming of keynotes, but we also had seven chats rooms that people could go into, plus the full attendee one. We saw significant traffic in chat for those who wanted to network and ask questions.” Forrester facilitated chat sessions with every speaker after their presentations, including having speakers pose questions to their audiences. “It took attendees going through one or two sessions to understand the full capabilities. Once they got through that, it was fantastic!” said Riley.
Select supporting technologies – Given the different types of sessions, different technology platforms will be needed. Main tent live sessions and recorded break-out sessions can often use similar platforms. Q&A moderation may need to be a different tool. On-demand certification classes may leverage your existing infrastructure. Community building and sponsor showrooms may require identifying completely new platforms. Not sure where to start, here is a link to G2’s summary of virtual events platforms.
Make wayfinding easy – Programs and signage helps direct participants to their desired sessions at physical events. But the user experience is different for virtual events. The event platform UX is critical to assure participants can find the relevant sessions easily. Hart acknowledged this in an area that NVIDIA will enhance in the future. “We’ll try to get better about how you move from one session to the next. That might be user experience design, such as ‘If you like this then, the next thing you should be watching is this.’ We’re thinking about those kinds of recommendation engines, and how you navigate people from the first session to the next.”
Don’t forget the sponsors – The economic model of most conferences includes funds from sponsors who are willing to pay for targeted visibility and the opportunity to have conversations with prospects. Dugan explained, “We had separate demo rooms for each sponsor. They were there to talk to attendees and show videos. It was a great way to engage sponsors.” Forrester went event further according to Riley, “We knew lead generation was a big priority. So we were able to showcase presentations and sessions by the sponsors. They had community and chat functions so they could engage with attendees. And the wonderful piece about the digital platform is that we’re data-rich. We were able to provide almost real-time data not only about who they actually met, but also who went to the session so they could go back and follow up on the leads.”
Now may be the time to plan your first virtual conference. These marketers executed theirs with as little as five weeks preparation time. With new found agility and sensitivity to delivering great content in a digital environment, you too many be able to engage your customers and prospects in a new way.
I write about marketing change agents and how they can challenge the status quo. I even wrote a book on the topic – “The CMO Manifesto: A 100-Day Action Plan for Marketing Change Agents.” As CEO at Springbox, a Prophet company, and leading digital agency based in Austin Texas, I have the privilege of partnering with marketing leaders at some of the world’s most respected brands. Having been a marketing executive at Dell and IBM in the first half of my career, I am especially interested in how CMOs plan and manage initiatives to transform their organizations and to modernize how they engage with their customers in the digital age.
But what happens if you don’t have the luxury of time? Or you don’t have the financial resources to put in the effort that is truly needed.
What should you do?
Just forget about SEO?
Of course not. Today, I want to call out 11 tools that will help you get an edge over your competition. But unlike most lists, I am going to get very specific on the feature I want you to use within each tool to make your life easier and help you get results faster with less effort.
Let’s dive right in.
Tool #1: Ubersuggest Projects
You probably already know about Ubersuggest, but do you really have time to spend hours and hours each week to do your SEO?
Chances are you don’t.
So how do you improve your traffic with the least amount of effort?
You set up a project in Ubersuggest.
As you can see, it shows your SEO traffic over time. It will let you know if your rankings are going up or down, your link growth, and your SEO issues.
With so many things going on in marketing, you don’t have time to manually check your rankings or if things are going up or down or even what you need to fix.
Ubersuggest will do it for you all automatically and even notify you of what needs to happen through email. That way you don’t have to constantly check your SEO. Ubersuggest will do it all automatically.
More so, you’ll get notified of what you need to focus on each week to maximize your traffic.
All you have do is head to the dashboard and click on “Add Your First Project.”
It’s as simple as adding in your URL.
Then select the locations you do business in and want traffic from.
Then add in the keywords you currently rank for or want to go after.
And of course, set up your traffic preferences.
And then you’ll be good to go.
Then when things go great, you’ll be notified. And when things are going wrong, you’ll also be notified. Ubersuggest will even tell you what to fix.
That way you get the maximum results in the least amount of time.
Tool #2: Google Analytics Alerts
You have Google Analytics set up on your site, but how often do you log in?
And when you do log in, do you know what to focus on or what to look at?
And if you do, do you know what to do with that data?
Google Analytics is a great tool, but you don’t want to waste hours and hours looking at reports. Instead, you want to spend your time doing and getting results.
But if you set up alerts in Google Analytics, you can save tons of time.
If you watch from the 6:33 mark, it will show you how to set up alerts. I added the whole video as it will teach you how to set up Google Analytics in general in case you don’t have goal tracking set in place.
Once you set up alerts, you’ll again get notified when anything good or bad happens. I usually have alerts set up for only when things go bad, so I know when I need to focus on fixing my marketing.
Tool #3: Trello
You’re probably thinking how the heck is Trello a marketing tool. It really isn’t, but it is a good project management tool.
And with your SEO, you may have a team helping you out and Trello will help streamline the process, make you more efficient, and get your results faster.
I keep my Trello board simple by breaking it into 3 sections.
To do – what needs to be done over time.
Prioritized – what I need to be done now (tasks at the top are the most important)
Done – tasks that need to be double-checked to ensure they were done right.
It’s that simple. That way you don’t have to micromanage your team.
Some people have more complex Trello boards, but something simple like I have works too.
If you want to create a Trello board for your content marketing, assuming you want to write lots of content (such as 10 posts a week), this process works well.
The columns I use for content writers are:
Topics – this is where writers add topics they want to write about.
Outline review – writers submit their outline before they write for approval.
Draft – writers submit their rough draft.
Draft review – editors review each draft.
Uploaded, prepared, and ready to review – this is where the editor adds the post to your CMS (like WordPress).
Scheduled – this is where you schedule the content to go live.
Done – the content is now live.
We’ve found it effective if you are managing dozens of writers at once.
Tool #4: Content Decay Tool
Can you guess how many articles I write each week?
1.
Seriously, that’s it. 1 article a week which is roughly 4 to 5 per month (depending on how many weeks in the month).
And can you guess how many articles my team and I update each week?
21.
That’s roughly 90 a month.
Just think about it… why would I have a team of 3 people updating 90 articles per month when I only write 1 a week.
It’s because updating old content is an easier way to get more SEO traffic than it is to create new content.
It breaks down in order which articles you should update first, second, third… based on what will generate you the most traffic.
If you are wondering what is involved with updating content, just think of it this way:
Is there anything outdated within your post – if so, either update the outdated information and make it relevant again. If you can’t, then delete that part from your article.
Can you use media to improve the experience – do you need to embed videos, add more pictures, maybe even add an infographic? Use media to better tell your story and message.
Are you including the right keywords – a simple way to get more traffic is to integrate other popular related keywords within your article. Whatever your article is about, insert it into Ubersuggest and head to the “Keyword Ideas” report in the left-hand navigation.
Is there anything missing – try to poke holes within your content. What could you have done to make it better? What do your competitors talk about that you forgot to mention? What questions didn’t you answer that the reader might have? By asking yourself these simple questions, you’ll be able to make it better.
I’m not going to bore you with all of the features of the extension… instead, I am going to give you one thing that will save you time.
You know when you Google for information to learn more on any subject?
Chances are, sometimes you are Googling to learn something related to your space. And when you do, you’ll find that your site usually won’t be at the top of those search results.
And that’s ok.
But when you do a search, you’ll notice “monthly searches” in the Google search bar.
This shows you how often that keyword is searched.
So anytime you are looking up anything in your space, pay attention to that number. If you see a keyword with over 5,000 searches, it may be worth targeting.
And as you scroll down and start going through the sites that rank at the top, you’ll notice metrics under each site.
If you notice a web page with thousands of social shares and hundreds of links, it should reaffirm that you probably want to go after that term. And the listing that has thousands of social shares and hundreds of links is a good benchmark of a page that is high in quality and what people in your space prefer.
Ideally, you want to create something better than that one, as that is the main way you beat them over time.
Tool #6: Hello Bar
SEO is very different than paid traffic.
With paid traffic, you can drive people to a landing page with very little content, which makes it easier to generate sales or leads.
With SEO, Google prefers to rank content-rich sites.
But when someone lands on a page full of educational-based content, they are less likely to convert into a customer.
Hello Bar has a lot of features, but I just want you to use the top bar like I do on NeilPatel.com.
And as you scroll it moves along with you.
That one little thing allows me to improve my conversion rate from my SEO traffic.
You can easily adjust what you show with a few simple clicks within Hello Bar or you can even show people different messages based on where they are coming from.
Although SEO traffic doesn’t convert as well as paid traffic, it is much cheaper in the long run and does have a better overall ROI. And that one little Hello Bar will improve your numbers.
It’s responsible for 9.4% of revenue from NeilPatel.com.
Are you really going to keep up to date with all of them?
If you followed the first tool and set up a project in Ubersuggest, you’ll get notified when your rankings go down.
And if you set up alerts in Google Analytics (tool number 2) you’ll also get notified when your traffic drops drastically.
What you’ll find is that it’s overwhelming to keep up with all of Google’s updates and it could be confusing to figure out what you need to fix to get your traffic back.
This report on Moz keeps track of all of the algorithm updates and gives you an overview of what has changed or what the update is about. On top of that, you’ll want to check out the Mozcast if you get a notification of ranking or traffic drops as this tool confirms if other people are also seeing changes from a Google update.
Keep in mind that Google doesn’t announce each update, hence you’ll want to cross-reference what you are seeing with the Mozcast.
That way you don’t have to spend hours researching each update.
Tool #8: Detailed
Link building is a pain. There are so many link tools like this one… but let’s not kid ourselves… you just don’t have the time to spend 10 to 20 hours a week doing link building.
So, each minute you spend, you have to make sure it counts.
There’s a tool called Detailed that breaks down the best links for every industry.
All you have to do is select an industry and a site and it shows you all of the good links that are going to your competition.
You can then focus your efforts on reaching out to those sites to get links.
Sure, you will still need to have amazing content or a good product or service in order to convince those sites to link to you, but hey, if you don’t have any of that it’s going to be hard to do well in the first place.
So, don’t waste your time trying to search for links when Detailed will give you a list of hundreds of amazing sites to get links from within your space.
Tool #9: Site Speed Audit
Speed impacts rankings.
Google doesn’t want to rank slow websites anymore.
It doesn’t matter that technology has become better and you can now purchase satellite Internet. Not every location has blazing fast Internet.
For that reason, Google has an Accelerated Mobile Pages framework that helps with mobile load time.
But that’s not enough, you also need your website to load fast.
Whenever you perform a search on YouTube it will show you what’s popular, what keywords are being searched that are related to each video, and which tags people are using to get more SEO traffic.
I wanted to end this post with VidIQ because it’s not competitive.
See, unlike traditional SEO, it doesn’t take months to see results. YouTube SEO is the opposite in which it isn’t as competitive (yet) and you can rank at the top within 24 to 48 hours of releasing a video (seriously!).
Conclusion
They say SEO is hard and time-consuming. And I am not going to lie, you won’t get results unless you put in some effort.
But who says it has to be as time-consuming?
By using some of the tools I mentioned above you’ll save time. It really is that simple.
I know there is a lot and it can be overwhelming. So if you don’t have time to use all of the tools it is fine… just start at the top and work your way down (I put them in order based on what will save you the most time).
Throughout the past three months, with COVID-19 as a likely catalyst, influencers have been in trade publications frequently for perceived drama pertaining to seemingly abrupt changes to long-standing affiliate marketing programs. Journalists covering the space sought to understand the fallout between affiliate programs and influencers, campaign suspensions, and shifting compensation models. But as with everything in our space, understanding the truth is more dynamic than what may originally meets the eye. An evolution can be seen in retail marketers’ collective shift toward diversified programs and away from last-click overreliance. At the same time, influencers are responding to slashed upfront campaign fees by migrating to pay-for-outcome compensation models. These factors come together to seed a new relationship.
Over the last twenty years, affiliate marketing was heavily dominated by last-click coupon and loyalty publishers. But the affiliate marketing model made it too hard to assess the value of content creators and allocate compensation for their role in achieving a brand’s desired engagement—whether it be a registration or conversion. Affiliate technology was originally built to attribute compensation on last click. So for a long time, this system afforded no earning opportunity for influencers, simply because they were often the introducer touchpoint in the consumer journey.
As a result, the popular fixed fee monetization and commercial strategy around the creator marketplace was primarily developed as a defense mechanism.
For the dynamics between retail marketers and influencers to take hold, the affiliate industry needed to accelerate its evolution, to develop a way to prescribe value based on any given influencer’s explicit role in the consumer journey on the path to purchase, whether it be introduction or something more mid-funnel. The industry also needed to develop technology for precision influencer discovery, so that brands could find the right influencers based on specific attributes.
The welcome and collective move of brands and influencers toward pay-for-outcome models bodes well.
Now that affiliate technology is evolving beyond last-click publishers, there are opportunities for more sophisticated monetization. According to Pepperjam’s weekly indexing, over the last two months, content publishers, like influencers, have realized year-over-year gains not only in revenue performance but also in their percentage share of revenue across the affiliate pie. And brands are responding—by investing more on a variable compensation basis, upwards of 127% year-over-year. With measured and proven performance, affiliate tools are finally a real option for influencers—they present an opportunity for high-level compensation for playing a measurable role in the ultimate conversion.
Combined with other recent events like brands dumping their fixed-fee campaigns, this technology evolution within affiliate marketing has created an environment for influencers to readily embrace the pay-for-outcome model. Influencers certainly felt the impact of recent budget cuts, but there’s been a palpable realization that they can offset these losses with alternative revenue streams, like affiliate. This trend toward pay-for-performance models has persisted week over week, and we feel that this position as a primary sales and marketing channel will stick after the pandemic, having been put to the test during the most challenging of times.
This article was contributed and sponsored by Pepperjam.
