editor, Author at Mediastreet

In News

Charting The Journey: The Hurdles In Mapping The Customer Path

October 1, 2020 No Comments

Mapping the customer journey is no job for amateurs. But most firms are trying it, or planning to, judging by Customer Journey Mapping, a study released Monday by Ascend2.

Of the brands surveyed, 26% have and are using defined customer journey maps, and 24% are building or testing them. Another 30% plan to create and use maps in the future, and 20% have no such plans.

And, of those active in mapping, 28% say they’re very successful at it, or best in class, and 59% say they are somewhat so.

Only 13% rate themselves as unsuccessful.

That’s not bad, considering the many challenges companies face in journey mapping:

Lack of time/staff/resources to execute — 48%
Lack of quality data — 35%
Lack of budget — 33%
Inability to measure customer experience — 32%
Lack of appropriate technology — 27%
Attribution of ROI — 21%
Decentralized data/data silos — 20%
Executive buy-in — 19%

Email is by far the most actionable touchpoint in the customer journey:

Email — 52%
In-person meetings — 40%
Social media engagement — 39%
Phone calls — 38%
Search/website — 35%
Reviews/sharing — 29%
Product demos — 23%
Live chat/chatbots — 20%

Of those polled, 50% regularly update their email campaigns, and 13% every one to two years. Another 24% update them on an as-needed basis. And 12% rarely if ever review them.

How do companies collect data for the journey mapping process? They use:

Customer feedback, surveys — 58%
Service/product usage analysis — 47%
Measurement of KPIs — 44%
Customer feedback interviews — 42%
Market research — 41%
Focus groups — 19%
Internal workshops — 18%

Meanwhile, the study notes that journey maps are often based on personas associated with the target audience. A large majority — 87% — have five or less defined journey maps. But 46% have between three and five, and 9% have between six and 10.

When it comes to organization, most firms seem to be taking a healthy cross-departmental approach.

For instance, 66% say their marketing departments are critically involved in the process.

Also very engaged are sales (53%), customer service (49%) and the executive/C-Suite (39%). In addition, 24% say their product departments are very involved.

Ascend2 and its Research Partners surveyed 273 marketers. Of these, 42% were B2B, 29% B2C and 29% were equally active in both.

By Ray Schultz.

Sourced from MediaPost

In News

The New Rules of Marketing

October 1, 2020 No Comments

By Heather Park.

Marketing your business is both an art and a science — and the industry is rapidly evolving as the audience you’re trying to reach is changing.

In some ways, this makes it one of the sciences with the fastest rates of turnover, since you are actively trying to match, or exceed, the pace of the culture to which you’re marketing.

But if you aren’t able to adapt to or anticipate the pressures of the market, your marketing efforts are essentially setting money on fire.

As a company — especially now in the wake of COVID-19 — you can’t afford to be inflexible with your voice and presence when reaching customers.

While adaptable, your marketing efforts also need to be a tight ship. You don’t want your messaging to come across as insensitive.

The newest generation of customers is highly alert, especially of their influence as cultural drivers, and they will quickly shut down any brand they perceive as “invasive.”

Here, let’s dive into the new “rules of marketing” you’ll want to lean into as you move forward in your marketing efforts in 2020 and beyond.

Download Now: Free Marketing Plan Template [Get Your Copy]

Rules of Marketing

While the marketing landscape is ever-changing, there are some foundational elements that are timeless: static ideals that aren’t going to become obsolete.

For instance, one of the unchangeable rules of marketing is that you must use personal context in your marketing efforts to receive the highest quality results. The difference now is how you plan to deliver that context in a relevant way.

This means you need to be more aware of the needs of your client and consumer than ever before. Access to the internet and its complete integration into our culture means that your customers have a greater ability to research exactly who you are — and they aren’t afraid to use it.

Therefore, your marketing team needs to be as active and alert as the consumer you’re trying to target — and it means your marketing approach needs to be genuine, relevant, and customer-focused. This is the heart of modern marketing, also referred to as “inbound marketing.”

1. How you treat people with your marketing is a reflection of your brand.

I think we’ve all heard the phrase “the customer is always right” a time or two in our lives. That might be a cliché, but it’s one that rings true. Even when potential or existing customers are upset, they’re paying attention to how businesses react to scenarios that they directly identify with or feel represents them.

To avoid the kind of negative press that comes with saying one thing and doing another, your marketing needs to hit home that it’s there to meet your customer’s needs while actively following through on that unspoken promise.

To do this, you might start by creating a marketing campaign that includes:

Responsive live-chat messaging that gets answers to your customers sooner.
Upbeat customer service emails — without canned generalizations — and modern signature etiquette.
Curating careful content that takes an empathetic stance on an issue relating to your client — or no stance at all.
Following up on every customer review with a positive response and solution showing your appreciation for their feedback and business. This one needs to be both organic and professional.

For more information on building an empathetic, helpful brand, take a look at The Ultimate Guide to Branding in 2020.

2. More than ever, you need to get to know your customer.

You need to dig into what makes your customers tick — but not only in the moment. The core values each of your clients have drive their current and future responses to your marketing.

If you were a doctor, this would be like trying to treat the cause rather than just addressing the symptoms.

This is very easy to get wrong — with disastrous results for those who miss having the right “tone” in their marketing.

To do this correctly, take the time when developing your strategies to ask yourself:

What kind of deeply-ingrained pain points do my ideal clients have?
Do I offer products, services, or other solutions that solve these problems?
Which keywords are going to attract and engage customers and support my inbound marketing approach?
What kind of in-depth research do I need when creating a marketing persona that accurately reflects my potential clients?

To conduct research and fully understand your customers’ challenges and interests, take a look at How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business [Free Persona Template].

3. Give your customers results-oriented content.

Once you know more about who you’re trying to serve, you can deliver better service.

Customers want to see results, but the modern consumer also wants to know how you arrived there — and if the convenience and relief they are paying for comes from an ethical standpoint.

This also gives you an opportunity to circle back and delight your customers by reminding them why you’re worth what they pay. This is something that can be carefully managed with automation, depending on your client base — but your marketing team should always have their fingers on the pulse of your programs and be ready to make changes.

At Rent Bridge, this is one of the many reasons why we love working within the HubSpot framework: it allows our marketing team to make quick, responsive changes on the fly both for our property management customers and ourselves alike.

To provide results-oriented content, consider trying some of the following tips:

Show your customers how your business’s products or services solve their problems in a way that acknowledges them as more than a dollar sign.
Stay current without appearing opportunistic: your clients are smart, and they can tell when you’re being real with your sense of understanding or if you’re just milking the moment.
Continue to provide well-researched content for your clients to drive organic growth, and update what isn’t working to keep your quality consistent.

Digital Marketing Rules

You already know by now how crucial your online presence is when trying to reach your ideal customer. If you haven’t already invested some of your marketing resources in email, social media, and your website, your business may suffer unless you make this a priority moving forward.

However, some methods are more successful than others when it comes to engaging with the modern customer. Take a look at a few of our digital marketing rules, below, as well as the The Who, What, Why, & How of Digital Marketing.

1. Provide quick insights.

Customers can usually tell within three to five seconds whether your website contains what they’re looking for — or if they should be giving your content a hard pass. In marketing, this is often referred to as “The Blink Test” and it makes infographics one of the best ways to deliver value to your customers.

This kind of imagery is not only scannable, but it delivers critical information that your customer needs. People process digital messages 60,000 times faster than text, making infographics one of the most effective ways of engaging with customers — especially on social media.

However, you also need to make sure that your content can be interacted with by a diverse range of customers — including those who might not be able to see your content. The last thing you want your business to appear to be is exclusionary.

2. Make finding you easier.

More than 60% of smartphone users have tried voice search services at least one time within the past 12 months, and 55% of teenagers use it daily. Many of these services include Google’s voice search, Alexa by Amazon, and Apple’s Siri.

That means digital marketers must focus on keyword research that supports voice search. That way, their business shows up in results when their audience utilizes these services.

Email Marketing Rules

If you’re doing your email marketing right, there’s no need for it to be boring.

At Rent Bridge, we tap into email as a core component of our “delight” approach to marketing (another facet of the inbound marketing philosophy). Email should be a crucial element of any future marketing campaigns you intend to build.

If you consider the statistics available from Oberlo that by the year 2023, the number of consumers with ready access to email is expected to be 4.3 billion, then you’ll quickly see that this is still a powerful tool to reach current and future clients.

With such a high number of users turning to email for their communication needs, that means you must know email marketing etiquette and how to implement this successfully.

1. Make your call-to-action pop.

If you want your potential and current customers to act, your call to action (CTA) must be to the point.

Take a look at The Complete Checklist for Creating Compelling Calls-to-Action for more tips on CTAs.

2. Focus on one product or service.

Offering more than one product or service in an email confuses readers and inundates them with too much information. Too much choice in an email can also muddle the effectiveness of your CTA.

3. Make sure it’s personalized.

In addition to the greeting, the customer’s name should be in the body of the message as well.

For example, when talking about your product or service, insert the customer’s name in the middle of a sentence to engage them at a deeper level. If you’re using automation for your marketing emails, this is crucial to include.

4. Create clickable images.

Creating clickable images with a tracking URL helps you understand when readers are clicking internal links and images in messages. Alternatively, you might try embedding video and keeping track of who clicks on the video in your email.

5. Use plenty of space.

Instead of clustering links or other content close together, space things out to make the message easier to scan and links more clickable.

6. Keep it simple.

While we all might love creating colourful email messages full of imagery, video, and other content, that isn’t optimal for those with a slow connection. So, offer faster loading email options for those who prefer plain text.

7. Don’t forget the subject.

Subject lines should pique interest, give clients a sense of urgency, and be relevant to their needs.

Social Media Marketing Rules

Learning how to market on social media platforms is an integral part of your business’s success in 2020 and beyond. Digging into the statistics for each platform is an excellent way to understand trends and where you should be focusing your efforts.

According to Statista, during quarter one of 2020, Facebook reached 2.6 million monthly active users.

However, data also reveals that the United States leans heavily on LinkedIn, with active users totalling 160 million as of April 2020.

The platform you choose depends completely on understanding more about your ideal client.

1. Develop content your audience finds valuable.

Your audience doesn’t want to see posts about your products or services. They want to see stories about ways your company can solve their pain points.

2. Focus on reputable content.

Does the content you’re posting put your company’s reputation at risk? Are you responding to comments in ways that are damaging?

Social media focuses on conversations, no matter if they’re in groups or happening one-on-one. Your content should focus on stirring up that engagement in a positive way.

3. Collaborate and engage.

Your social media marketing should include authenticity and transparency each time you engage with your audience. Look at the conversations happening in your network and think of ways your company can contribute valuable information.

4. Don’t force engagement.

In today’s business climate, your audience has the convenience of interacting with your company on their terms. That means businesses aren’t talking “at” their customers to force engagement.

Instead, they’re developing deeper relationships that foster targeted conversations. This ties right back into the principles of inbound marketing.

5. Automate within reason.

While you should have some content prepared ahead of time to keep engagement high, the platform you post with should allow you to be flexible enough to change your content at the drop of a hat.

Now that you know the direction marketing is heading, how will you respond as a company? Your response to the changing desires of your clients should always address their fundamental needs.

This allows you to build a business that is both agile and stable, rather than directed by whim or whatever new marketing technique catches your eye. At Rent Bridge, we call the latter “random acts of marketing,” and it’s one of the easiest ways to dilute your message as a business and sabotage your brand-building efforts.

Ultimately, to be a profitable company, you need your marketing to be both genuine and trendy, stable and flexible. This dichotomy in business is partially what makes inbound marketing paired with a careful amount of automation so powerful for the growth of companies today.

Shelter your efforts from instability by returning to your “Why” with your marketing efforts (one of the new rules of marketing), and your content will be genuine from the start.

By Heather Park.

@rentbridge

Sourced from HubSpot

In News

How to Reduce Abandoned E-Commerce Carts With Email Marketing

October 1, 2020 No Comments

By Skye Schooley.

Learn how to use email marketing to recover e-commerce cart abandonment and increase sales.

We’ve all been there – you’re browsing an online store, you put some items in your cart, and then you exit before hitting “purchase.” This phenomenon is called cart abandonment, and even though it is common among all e-commerce stores, you can mitigate it with a tactful cart recovery strategy and email marketing campaign. Learn the leading causes of cart abandonment and 10 ways to improve your marketing strategies to convert abandoned carts into online sales.

How do you recover abandoned carts with email marketing?

Instead of viewing abandoned carts as lost sales, think of them as opportunities. Just because a customer leaves your site doesn’t mean you should stop communicating with them. One of the best ways to win over a potential customer who previously abandoned their e-commerce cart is through strategic email marketing.

Recent surveys show that 45% of all cart abandonment emails are opened. Additionally, the average abandoned cart email click-through rate is 21%, and the abandoned cart email conversion rate is roughly 10% (although rates vary by industry, device and recovery tactics). This gives you a great opportunity to create savvy and timely cart abandonment emails that resonate with your audience and increase conversions.

“Assuming the user is logged in when they abandon the cart, you will have their email address and can send them a reminder to complete their purchase,” said Harry Thakkar, partner at Avatria. “This type of email typically includes a list of items they left behind, some marketing copy focused on creating a sense of urgency and/or showcasing the products’ benefits, and potentially also a discount code to entice the user to come back and finish the transaction.”

Garin Hobbs, director of deal strategy at Iterable, suggested 10 ways to improve your cart abandonment email campaigns:

Replicate the abandoned cart in the email, showing the exact items the shopper left behind. Visually depict what they’re missing out on by abandoning their cart. There is often emotion at play in retail purchases, so use that to your advantage.
Display similar in-stock items to the customer at lower price points and/or with faster shipping. Give them the chance to add reliable and attractive replacement options to their cart.
Close the shipping gap by offering cheaper or faster shipping alternatives, such as curbside or in-store pickup, in your follow-up email. Of course, we are in the middle of a global pandemic, so provide high-touch options with caution.
Offer single-click, in-email purchase completion capabilities for customers to facilitate a faster purchase.
When you analyze your cart abandoners, segment those repeat gamifiers (customers who have a history of abandoning their cart and then converting when you offer a competitive coupon). Once you identify these customers, make sure to send them modest coupons. Recognize their value, appeal to their money-saving tactics, and make the sale.
Offer discounted shipping as an incentive to complete the purchase. This is a motivator to both the procrastinator and the proactive customer.
With companies like Amazon offering free one-day shipping, consumers expect the same from every brand. If a customer is concerned with shipping, follow up with an offer of free shipping if they reach a certain cart spend. This will not only incentivize greater spending, but show that your brand can compete with the conglomerates.
Synchronize messaging across email, mobile and web channels to create a reengagement ecosystem and a layered messaging scheme. This reactive workflow will enable you to message customers based on a series of anticipated user behaviors.
Use lifestyle content and imagery to illustrate how the product might fit into and improve the shopper’s day-to-day life. Brands that are not aware and empathetic won’t connect. We see the relevance of this tactic today; consumers are working from home, so fashion retailers that don’t shift to a casual style are losing loyalty.
When sending discounts and options to customers, remember that you must A/B test different messages, offers and calls to action in real time to determine what resonates with each consumer, down to the color of the button that generates more engagement. You’ll need to do this test for any campaign you run, at multiple intervals during the year. As customers change their preferences, change your marketing strategy.

“With the right optimization of timing, frequency, cadence, channel, and personalized content, offers and context, abandoned cart email performance can be improved up to an industry-standard recovery rate,” said Hobbs.

By Skye Schooley

Sourced from Business.com

In News

What’s next for the online economy?

September 30, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from the Association of Advertisers in Ireland.

By July, e-commerce in Ireland had seen 4 years growth in 4 months. How much of this online spending was temporary and how much will remain?

How have consumer spending patterns evolved throughout the pandemic? How does Ireland’s online economy compare to the UK and US?

Join the AAI and Wolfgang Digital for this webinar on the following link at 10:00am on Tuesday October 20th.

Tuesday, Oct 20, 2020 10:00 AM

About Alan Coleman:

Alan fell in love with search marketing in 2007 while applying for a job in Google. He didn’t get the job but was so smitten with the marketing opportunity he taught himself “Google AdWords” and started a freelance business on his kitchen table.

This has gone on to become Wolfgang Digital, a 50 person organisation, who are among Europe’s most awarded digital marketing agencies today.

Outside of the digital marketing agency Alan has enjoyed entrepreneurial adventures via Wolfgang’s online sex toy shop and is currently working on launching Wolfgang Forestry, a not for profit aimed at addressing climate change via reforesting Ireland’s native woodlands.

Alan enjoys hopping on every fad going: morning pages, mushroom tea, Wim Hoff breathing and fecal microbiota transplants are the flavour of 2020.

In Uncategorized

Three Things To Consider When Hiring A Social Media Influencer

September 30, 2020 No Comments

By John Turner.

You can grow your business in countless ways using social media. Influencers are one of the most common yet underutilized social media marketing tools at your disposal.

Influencers are internet personalities who promote your content to their audiences in exchange for cross-promotion, cash payment or a free sample of the product you want them to show. This strategy can help you generate more leads and sales. People who follow influencers trust them, so their recommendations are like getting a suggestion from a friend.

You may be thinking about reaching out to influencers to promote your business, or maybe you’ve been contacted by an influencer and want to know what you need to consider. Either way, we are going to take a look at several things you should think about before you sign a contract with an influencer.

Let’s get started!

Content Niche And Format

First, think about the niche and format of the influencer you want to hire. Both of these elements will play a role in deciding whether this person will be a good fit for your brand.

Always work with people who have a similar target audience to your own. It wouldn’t make sense to promote your email marketing firm with an influencer who plays video games. You would want to find someone who talks about finance or teaches subscribers about marketing.

If your product doesn’t resonate with the audience, there’s no chance that they will click your link in the description and buy your product. Your main goal should be to find influencers who work in a space where your target audience is likely to spend their time.

Format plays an essential part in the equation, too. You likely wouldn’t spend too much time promoting your email marketing business with Instagram because there are limitations due to not having a physical product to show off. But if your company sells items like clothing or pet supplies, there are countless Instagram influencers you can contact.

Audience Size

Social media influencers can be classified by their audience sizes. There are four types you should know:

• Nano: < 1,000 followers

• Micro: 1,000 to 100,000 followers

• Macro: 100,000 to 1 million followers

• Mega: > 1 million followers

Each size segment has a unique benefit that you can use to your advantage. For instance, macro-influencers don’t have the reach of a mega-influencer, but they tend to have more rapport with their audiences.

Normally, you want to work with a mega-influencer because your goal is to spread brand awareness, which can help budding businesses. Macro-influencers can help you get more eyes on your website and improve your conversions. The slightly smaller audience means you have a better chance of reaching people interested in your product.

Micro- and nano-influencers are excellent for small-scale, targeted campaigns. If you want to promote a beta test of your software, put codes out to someone with less than 1,000 followers. Sending out the code to more people than that could cause the beta to break, which isn’t helpful for consumers or developer teams.

Tracking Progress

Progress drives every business. Successes and failures are often determined by how much we can accomplish over a specific period of time. Metrics across your website, email and social media all point to the progress you’re making as a company.

Social media influencers have their own metrics that you should track consistently. You need to know how many people are landing on your website from the influencer’s content. Create special short links that are connected to each influencer so you can track their progress over time.

Seeing their performance as it relates to your site is vital to fine-tune your campaign in the future. For example, you should know if an influencer posted sponsored content for your brand for three months, but still never managed to get a click-through. Knowing this information means you’ll have the option to swap out influencers, look for new opportunities and steadily grow your brand.

Your decisions should ultimately boil down to your goals. Think carefully about your goals and expectations. What do you hope to accomplish by hiring a social media influencer? Do you want to spread brand awareness, or is your goal more about securing sales? Maybe it’s a mixture of both. Once you determine your goals, you can start considering the points mentioned above.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY

By John Turner,

The founder of SeedProd, the most popular coming-soon page solution for WordPress used by over 800,000 websites

In News

12 Clear Signs Your Current Marketing Strategy Isn’t Working

September 30, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from Forbes

To set your company apart from its competition, you need to tell a unique story. Sharing the “why” of your business helps bring humanity to your brand and it’s something that will resonate with your clients. This storytelling is critical, but sometimes your chosen narrative just isn’t working.

Fortunately, you can always pivot your campaign and reconnect with your audience. Below, the members of Forbes Business Council share 12 warning signs your marketing strategy isn’t resonating with customers, and how you can fix the issue.

1. You’re Not Meeting Your Objectives

Data is our biggest ally to see whether a strategy is working or not. If objectives are not met, it’s a big warning sign. If conducting market research to identify the underlying root cause isn’t an option, a test-and-learn approach can help uncover solutions. For example, run a pilot in less expensive geography with similar characteristics to your target market to gain insight into what works. – Trevor Testwuide, Measured

2. You’re Not Measuring Success In The First Place

Whether or not a marketing strategy is working is dependent on what you’re measuring to assess its performance. Is the goal to build awareness? Is it to change or have a positive impact on the persona of the brand or company? Is the goal to take a specific action, purchase the product or service or to give a testimonial? The goal first has to be determined and then measure the results to see if it’s working. – Sharon Lynn Livingston, The Livingston Center for Professional Coaching

3. You’re Attracting The Wrong Audience

If you’re fishing for salmon and pulling in minnows, you know you’ve got the wrong bait. When this is the case, be sure you are understanding what is meaningful to your audience and that you’re engaging with them where they are. Adjusting your strategy isn’t a bad thing, but not measuring and tracking to know when to correct your approach is. – Mary Conway, MKC Strategies, LLC

4. Leadership Hasn’t ‘Bought In’ To The Narrative

Choosing a narrative is not marketing’s job in my opinion. That comes from the CEO or the founder of the company. If the founder isn’t fully invested, the narrative won’t work. It’s marketing’s job to help communicate it after it’s realized, but if there’s no buy-in from the entire leadership team, it’s not going to work. – Sandra Lewis, Boldly Premium Subscription Staffing

5. People Are Asking For Clarification

If people ask you to clarify what you mean or for you to simplify the language in their terms, it means the messaging just isn’t resonating with your intended audience. For example, we take the often complex topic of government bidding and simplify our messaging and communication for different business sizes and industries. Make sure anyone can understand what you are trying to say! – Maurice Harary, The Bid Lab

6. You’re Not Seeing Conversions

Companies need to be agile in their approach to marketing. If your marketing outreach is not converting, that’s a red flag. This is where smaller companies have an advantage. Often, putting yourself in the shoes of your customer gives a fresh perspective. No one wants to be sold, but everyone loves to buy! If your marketing is not informing and delighting your customers, it’s time to pivot. – Judi Hays, Judi Hays, Inc.

7. There’s No Engagement From Your Audience

One of the most common failings of a brand’s storytelling is that it fails to drive engagement or responses from your target audience. Often, the key reason for this is that a brand is talking in a self-directed manner rather than celebrating its customers, partners or the beneficiaries of the impact work. In short, a brand must be the celebrant, not a celebrity of its stakeholder community. – Simon Mainwaring, We First

8. Your Business Isn’t Getting Traffic

One of the telltale signs that your marketing strategy is not working is not getting or rather not attracting traffic to your business despite the effort you put into advertising your business. A simple fix is to understand your target market and offer a solution for the needs of your target audience. Encourage questions and suggestions on how to better the service or product you are selling to them. – Chastity Heyward, Sylvan Learning Center

9. Your Customers Are Telling You It’s Not Working

Listen first and understand where things aren’t working. Then go back to your consumer, and enter the conversations already in their head. This will help with how you communicate over what you communicate so that it resonates with them more and makes the strategy more relevant. – Brian Chew, OC Wills and Trust Attorneys

10. You’re Not Seeing ROI

Marketing is about driving sales. If you are not getting the ROI you were expecting, things need to change. Build your story around your “why” instead of your products or services. Focus on your purpose and the impact your company is having on this world. It is about creating emotion and connection with your target audience. Share stories about the lives you have impacted with your solution. – Andreea Vanacker, SPARKX5

11. Your Metrics Are Baselining

A telltale sign a campaign isn’t working is when metrics start to baseline. This can happen when companies focus on the end of the customer journey and not enough on the attraction and awareness stages. The hook is never fully set and prospective customers slip away. The best thing to do is to ensure that the first brand touch is as strong as possible by looking at the experience as a whole. – Byung Choi, MarcomCentral

12. The Story Isn’t Relatable To Your Target Audience

Sometimes we think that the stories that we tell are relatable, but they may not be because they either are not relatable to that segment of your audience or because your audience is not ready to hear that story. That is why it is just as critical for us as sellers and storytellers to research our audience and find what their current needs and wants are. – Kamil Sattar, E-commerce Mentoring

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Coupon-Clipping and Printed Catalogues Fade Into History as Covid-19 Accelerates Digital Shift

September 30, 2020 No Comments

By Tim Hughes.

Another day, and another part of the old analogue world dies. Digital transformation accelerated by Covid19.

Coupon clipping is on the way out according to this article and Argos, the stalwart of the catalogue world, has just killed it’s catalogue.

It looks like iOS14 will hammer another nail in the coffin of advertising.

We’ve already seen the demise of cold calling through the introduction of GDPR and iOS13. GDPR also having an impact on email marketing.

So while it is a long time before “advertising”, “cold calling” and “email marketing” can be called dead. We know that the results we get deminise each year. The only way you can keep up the results is to spend more money on ads, send more emails and make more calls.

Which we know, adds (no pun intended) to the noise. If every company makes the same increase, the cross industry noise just increases, which means more people will turn to ad-blockers, unsubscribe and turn on the cold calling blockers on their iPhone.

As advertising, email and cold calling go the same way as coupons and catalogues, is there an alternative?

We can present to your management team an alternative that world beating companies are turning to.

What would that look like?

Social Media Has Changed How We Live and Work

At DLA Ignite a presentation will consist of some context, so research that shows the way that social media has changed the way we live and the way we work.

We are not saying things have changed, the figures from the research show how the world has changed. For example …

We Have Transformed In Work and Play on Social

In this report by Simon Kemp he outlines the extent that social media has become part of our lives.

Linkedin have just announced there are now 706 million people on Linkedin.

How You Can Make a Difference?

We then talk about how you can make a difference.

Using ourselves as a case study, we show you what we do to “social sell”. We don’t advertise, we don’t cold call and we don’t send spam emails. We social sell.

We always point out that we are presenting to the Board of the business, through our own use of social.

Explaining with examples, of how we use social, is a great case study. Everybody who works for DLA Ignite has to be a “high water mark” of social. Why? Because if we are to stand up in front of your sales team and say “do this”, it will be a short conversation if we are not exhibiting those behaviours.

(Somebody just launched a social selling business this week by sending an email. Would you really buy from a company that sold social selling, that didn’t use social selling?)

What are Your Competitors Doing on Social?

Next we show how your competitors are using social. Everybody is interested in what their competitors are doing and we can show you an analysis of what your competitors are doing. Most of them are invisible to the digital customer, so this allows you to see the competitive advantage and revenue potential. If you move into the digital space, you are out manoeuvring and out selling the competition, which is a good thing, right?

Who’s Doing This? – Case Studies

We then walk you through the companies and the people that are doing this already. The actual $ the people have achieved.

I often write about BMW, while this is B2C it is a considered purchase and they use LinkedIn to generate leads. In November 2019, they got 28 pieces of inbound from Linkedin and converted 14 of them. Let’s assume a BMW is $50,000, then that’s an additional $700,000 of revenue for zero marketing spend.

This is in the same month that Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) complained they couldn’t make any sales and were closing down production.

My point being that even before Covid19 there was clear winners and losers.

We do have NDAs in place with all of our clients, as you can imagine this is a massive competitive advantage, but there are details, like the one above, we can share.

If anybody tells you there is no Return on Investment (ROI) from social selling, they don’t know what they are talking about.

Next we talk about the opportunity and show a list of target accounts … companies that you currently don’t have relationships with, you could sell to with social and digital.

Target List and Accounts and People

In this meeting it ended up with us giving a presentation on Sales Navigator. Not a technical presentation, but focused on your business. Using certain search criteria, we pulled up a list of 800 people all of whom are possible target people / companies. They are all are people that could buy from you. It surprised this business, that they were not connected to any of the people. Again, this gives you some idea of the potential you have.

Where Do We Go From Here?

At the end of the meeting the MD stood up and thanked our person and said “We went into lockdown analogue, but we will come out of it digital”.

Obviously at this point a company needs to decide how they implement this.

We think that having being do this for 4 years, we are no fly by night company, it gives us a great track record. We have a proven methodology and all our customers get results. The methodology is repeatable and predictable as to the results. We are giving people a life skill, so they and you get these results, forever.

And finally, it’s all we do.

If you went for knee surgery and found the best knee surgeon in the world, then that would be perfect. If the knee surgeon said they were also a ini cab driver and a gardener. In fact, the longer the list of “services” he provides the more likely you won’t use him. The same goes for your “full service marketing agency”. I’m sorry, but they are not experts on social. But all you have to do is look at their social profiles and compare them with ours.

How We Experienced 10 years’ Worth of Digital Growth in Just Three Months

We all know the world has changed and the fact we have “experienced 10 years’ worth of digital growth in just three months” just proves you cannot be doing the same as you were, pre-covid.

You have to stand up in your organisation and tell people that things have to change. You need to raise as sales meetings, management meetings, leadership meetings and board meetings that you need to be social selling.

And you need help from a reputable company that understands change and is totally focused on getting results, though social, for it’s clients.

By Tim Hughes.

I’m contactable here

https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothyhughessocialselling/

Sourced from dla

In News

Think Strategically About Your Content Model

September 29, 2020 No Comments

By ROBERT ROSE.

I’m going to give you the secret, revealing question to make the business case for content strategy. Are you ready? Here it is:

How much did you spend on content last year?

Go ask your CFO. When they toss you out on your ear without an answer, know you just made the most compelling business case for a strategic approach to content. Though the dollar amount is difficult to calculate, your business probably spent more on the creation, management, activation, promotion, and measurement (or lack thereof) of content than just about any other expense.

How the heck are we ever going to get organized around content? It seems overwhelming. We are simply drowning in the amount of content the business creates every year. How will we ever measure all of it?

As our annual research has shown repeatedly, a successful content marketing program is strategic, has involvement from the highest levels, focuses on building audiences, and uses content at all stages of the buyer’s journey. In short, businesses successful at content marketing integrate a combination of changes to install the function of content as a business model.

Successful #contentmarketing integrates changes to make content function as a business model, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. #ContentStrategyCLICK TO TWEET

Evolved business model of content

In my book with CMI founder Joe Pulizzi, Killing Marketing, we offered the historical, strategic value of owned media (your content marketing) as a function in the business. We identified this idea as follows:

In a post-innovation world, as the production and distribution of content becomes more commoditized through technology, the business value of original, high-quality content increases. Put slightly differently, as “reaching audiences” becomes more difficult, fragmented, and filtered, the capability to generate and hold attention with original content becomes increasingly more valuable to the business.

As #content becomes more commoditized, the business value of original, high-quality content increases, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. #ContentStrategyCLICK TO TWEET

You can certainly see this happening at tectonic scale. Amazon, Apple, Google, AT&T, and Verizon are quickly becoming the largest media companies on the planet. Why? Because their content gives direct access to audiences, providing tremendous value and competitive advantage.

You can see it happening at the smaller level as well. Salesforce recently acquired The CMO Club, and the Girl Scouts launched a new media brand for women. Neither initiative has to do with enhancing their existing product lines. Both organizations are adding those content opportunities to more easily reach and engage audiences without having to rely on rented media.

Put simply: All these incredibly successful companies have installed owned media as business models within their company.

Incredibly successful companies are installing owned media as a business model, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. #ContentStrategyCLICK TO TWEET

But, OK, if content marketing is best structured as an integrated business model in your company – what is the best way for you to structure it?

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Why care about content models

As part of CMI’s consulting and education practice, we’ve worked with companies for the last 10 years on figuring out the right method of mechanizing content marketing for companies.

Recently, we established a bit of a new framework for companies to consider when looking to structure their content marketing business model. We took huge inspiration from the remarkable media strategy work of PwC’s Deborah Bothun and John Sviokla expressed in summer 2016.

As they looked at the overall structure of owned media, we looked at four internal business models for content marketing against two scales. The critical conclusion? No model is better than another (though perhaps there is a maturity curve to be seen).

Rather, the insight is this: Businesses integrating content marketing more deeply in their strategy have clarity around how they are balancing and prioritizing the models they are installing.

Each model has a different investment strategy, optimal team structure, discrete measurement goals, and road map. Thus, communicating which model you pursue helps deliver a clearer content strategy.

But, OK, won’t we figure that out as we go? Perhaps you should ask: Why should we care? You might say to yourself, “We’ve got so many demands and so much content to produce, why take the time to plan? Let’s just get to it!”

Image source

Well, as it turns out, Steven Sinofsky has the answer. Steven is a product marketing guru and former president of the Windows division at Microsoft. He is most famous for saying, “Don’t ship the org chart.” It’s great advice.

Make sure what you’re offering – whether it’s software like Windows, a device like a phone, or something less tangible like content and customer experiences – is built to satisfy the customer needs and desires instead of reflecting your internal organizational structure, your silos, your turf battles, your budget constraints. It just makes sense.

But as it turns out, when Steven said, “Don’t ship the org chart,” he didn’t mean you shouldn’t ship the org chart. In fact, he meant the opposite. It is not a warning about something to avoid. It is a statement of fact about something that is, well, unavoidable.

It is inevitable. It is inescapable. It is preordained. It’s like a natural law. And in fact, Steven was deliberately invoking what’s called Conway’s law. Melvin Conway was a computer scientist and developer. In 1968, he noted that “organizations that design systems … are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.”

In other words, operational design is product design. Marketers’ products are content and communication. And Steven and Melvin teach: Since we are inevitably going to communicate in the way we are organized, you better organize and operate in the way you want to communicate to customers.

Our experience with this organizational constraint is summed up in what I might humbly call Robert’s communication razor:

“How well a business communicates is in direct correlation with how much importance it puts on the strategy of content.”

How well a business communicates directly correlates with the importance of its #content strategy, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. #ContentStrategyCLICK TO TWEET

So, you should probably think through how to design your content operations.

4 operating models of content

In our client work over the decade, we have identified four types of business models:

Performer
Platform
Player
Processor

Is your business model for #content the Performer, Platform, Player, or Processor, asks @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. #ContentStrategyCLICK TO TWEET

When content strategy succeeds, it typically happens in one or more of these four content operating models along two axes. On the Y axis, models are more internally focused, building audiences that can be monetized over time. Along the X axis, models are departmental (e.g., siloed) services shading into integrated business services.

The quick and easy way to explain and distinguish the models is to look at the output.

Player content model

In the lower left quadrant, the Player model is certainly the most common. Often two or three people – although it can be many more – are tasked with fulfilling the needs of the business by creating, producing, and merchandising content. The Player model team creates infographics, e-books, sales sheets, blog posts, and often presentations for the CEO. This team is the “creator of assets.”

Example: Read how software company Symantec evolved from a successful Player, campaign-focused business model to a Performer center-of-excellence model.

Processor content model

In the lower right quadrant, the Processor model is content-as-a-service. Internally focused, this model leans toward a more integrated business service that the whole enterprise uses. Maybe a team or teams work on SEO strategy or localization, scalability, best practices guidelines, protocols, etc. They set the standards for how content will be created and managed in the organization or by outsourced agencies.

Example: Read how Carlos Abler led the content enablement initiatives at 3M.

Performer content model

Moving to the upper left quadrant is the Performer model. The focus is on building external audiences through content products. An editorial team may manage a resource center or a dedicated blog, magazine, or video channel – discrete, immersive experiences aimed at building or moving audiences.

Example: This is the model that software company Frontline created with its original research institute.

Platform content model

Finally, in the upper right, is the Platform model or content-as-a-business model. Content is not only created as a marketing and sales tactic but might be an integrated product or business strategy. The Platform model could have a revenue stream too.

Examples: Of course there is Red Bull Media House. But also read about Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter.com and Arrow Electronics.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Not a maturity model

Now, it’s tempting to look at the four models across a maturity scale where you start with baby steps in the Player model and grow up to become a Platform model content business. While this has some element of truth (e.g., you almost always start out in the Player model and aspire to Platform), it’s misleading to see these models as stages.

The idealized content operation should be seen as a balanced combination of all four models. It’s not a question of which one you are now and how you grow to a new model as quickly as possible. Rather an intelligent content strategy is about which balance of the four content models makes sense both today and tomorrow.

Perhaps when you look to the balanced goals of your business’s idealized model, you choose to balance more heavily toward a Performer model.

Your content team focuses more on the product development of content experiences, such as blogs, websites, e-newsletters, etc. It might be balanced with a smaller effort of team members who repurpose the creative assets for the content products as marketing campaign-oriented content. And another team may focus on making sure that all this content is structured well, translated efficiently, and optimized to the degree it can be.

Yes, you can scale and measure enterprise content

As you might expect, we see the future of strategic content marketing as a scalable, measurable business strategy. As we move through 2020 and beyond, the beloved practice will permeate the function of not just marketing but every department of the business. It is the strategic use of content that will not only build audiences and drive the creation and retention of customers but do so at a profit for the business.

Content as a distinct business model will evolve the practice of marketing and can move some or all the functions of marketing from cost center to profit center.

As Joe wrote in the introduction of Killing Marketing: “This is the future of IBM, of General Motors, of Cisco Systems — creating owned media that not only can generate more leads and opportunities but is so good that the marketing pays for itself.”

That’s something you can hang a career on.

Hear directly from Robert Rose and other content marketing experts to grow your skills and improve your company’s content marketing. Join them in October for Content Marketing World. Sign up today.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

By ROBERT ROSE.

Robert is the founder and chief strategy officer of The Content Advisory, the education and consulting group for The Content Marketing Institute. Robert has worked with more than 500 companies, including 15 of the Fortune 100. He’s provided content marketing and strategy advice for global brands such as Capital One, NASA, Dell, McCormick Spices, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Robert’s third book – Killing Marketing, with co-author Joe Pulizzi has been called the “book that rewrites the rules of marketing.” His second book – Experiences: The Seventh Era of Marketing is a top seller and has been called a “treatise, and a call to arms for marketers to lead business innovation in the 21st century.” Robert’s first book, Managing Content Marketing, spent two weeks as a top 10 marketing book on Amazon.com and is generally considered to be the “owners manual” of the content marketing process. You can catch up with Robert on his popular podcast – The Weekly Wrap. Follow him on Twitter @Robert_Rose.

Sourced from Content Marketing Institute

In News

Making Your Own Product and Marketing Videos Can be Easy with This Innovative Kit

September 29, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from Entrepreneur Store.

Consumer demand for video continues to grow. Whether your business specializes in selling a specific product, many products, or could benefit from some higher quality branding, it’s worth investing in tools to make in-house videography and photography possible. People respond to quality imagery and outsourcing your design and branding efforts to third parties gets expensive.

From product photography to full-blown ads, the MOZA Slypod 2-in-1 Monopod & Rotation Slider can be a huge asset for your business.

The MOZA Slypod is a two-in-one motorized slider and monopod. The carbon-fiber body makes it extremely light and easy to carry so you can set up production anywhere, while the built-in geared motor provides the kind of precise, steady, smooth movement you’d see on a Hollywood set. No matter what kind of camera you have, the Slypod can raise its capabilities significantly.

The Slypod features accurate position, speed, and motion control using a sophisticated algorithm, keeping your camera in line on even the most extreme, high-speed shots. Imagine if you’re trying to follow a skateboarder through the streets of Venice, the Slypod would be able to keep up. The Slypod can handle tracking automatically, but you can also manually adjust camera travel distance, speed, and acceleration through the MOZA Master app to program the rig in advance in order to accommodate specific creative decisions. The ultra-high power, density-geared motor can produce up to 1Nm of torque, so it’s fully prepared for just about anything.

Best of all, the Slypod is weatherproof, runs for two hours on a single charge, and is easily rechargeable with a power bank. That means all of your on-set productions can run as long as you want, even if they’re out in the middle of the woods. And you might just want to consider landscape shoots considering the Slypod offers amazing cinematic modes, from Vertigo Mode and Wide-range Shooting to Inception Mode and Fixed-Point Follow Focus.

It may sound complicated, but Slypod is easy to set up and reposition for any shot and is designed for amateur use. You shouldn’t have to be a professional cinematographer to make videos and Slypod puts the power in your hands to make high-quality videos (and photos) without needing any kind of professional training.

Take your business videography and photography to the next level. The MOZA Slypod 2-in-1 Monopod & Rotation Slider for Camera is normally $499, but you can save 13 percent off when you get it for $429.99.

MOZA also offers top-of-the-line gimbals for mobile use, including the MOZA AirCross 2 Professional Kit with Focus Accessory, now on sale for 15 percent off $519 at just $439.99, and the MOZA Air 2 Camera Gimbal Stabilizer with Focus Accessory, now on sale for 14 percent off $599 at just $510.

Feature Image Credit: Image credit: Entrepreneur Store

Sourced from Entrepreneur Store

In News

New Opportunities To Engage Older Consumers In Online Grocery Shopping

September 29, 2020 No Comments

By Alessandro Ricchiardi.

I never thought before Covid-19 that my 75-year-old neighbour knew how to turn on a computer, let alone shop online. It surprised me that she does! After receiving a friend request, I soon learned she spends much of her time trolling on social media like many of us do, liking and sharing posts, and even tagging friends.

My delightful neighbour shops her favourite brands just like the young folks do, and for the past few months, she has relished in the fact that she can have her groceries delivered to her door.

If you ask me, one of the most important lessons that 2020 has taught us so far is that all ages, including the baby boomer generation, are embracing technology. But for so long, it seemed we had counted out older consumers from the online marketing equation.

Data from 2019 shows that Americans 60 and older, many of them baby boomers, spend more than four hours a day in front of a device. As a result of the pandemic, nearly 45% of consumers from the baby boomer generation say they’re doing more of their shopping online, and 61% are using delivery services (e.g., Amazon Prime, Shipt) more than they used to.

Many consumers who are used to shopping at big-box grocery stores or even local supermarkets remain concerned about the health risk, despite social distancing and mask requirements. And those who do shop in the store often do not spend the same amount of time browsing as they previously did, which in many cases, may mean fewer products being purchased.

Shopping from home has allowed consumers to spend more time online and organically discover options they never knew existed, and based on what I’m seeing, this is especially true for those of the baby boomer generation. For online grocery retailers to take advantage of this emerging market, strategies need to be in place to lay the foundation for customer loyalty and retention.

Bring The In-Store Shopping Experience Home

Especially during this time, consumers may miss the ability to touch a product to check its firmness or taste in-store samples. They may long for the experience of engaging all of their senses while shopping for the best products.

So how do online grocery stores reengage the sensory experience of shopping in person from a device screen? It begins with creating content that is visually pleasing, much like fresh produce presented at the entrance of the store.

Since shoppers cannot get a feel for the product in their hands, the next best option is to offer a visual experience that displays a product from all angles. It seems like ages ago, but remember back before March how box grocery stores would have someone cooking the latest product with samples to try?

In our current situation, this is not an option. That is why video is key and the easiest way to accelerate engagement. Take the in-store experience a step further for those shopping online, for instance, and use video to show how the can of tomatoes will look after it is opened. Let customers get a preview of what is inside.

Once customers have an idea of what to expect, then it is time to educate. At this point, the customer might be thinking, “Oh, this looks delicious, but I don’t know what to do with it.”

At the digital marketing agency I co-founded, we have seen tremendous growth and increased customer acquisition across all digital channels for clients by leveraging the combination of recipe video content with products.

Typically, when shopping in person, after trying a sample, customers might throw away their toothpick or napkin along with the recipe card given to them, never to think about the recipe or product again. But with online grocery shopping, you have the advantage to engage and educate your customers with inspiring video recipes that can be saved and recalled again and again.

Take customers on a behind-the-scenes tour of where products are made or sourced. Post Consumer Brands has been using this concept as part of its marketing strategy for years in its cereal commercials. In 30 seconds, customers can meet the person who makes their breakfast and see how it’s made at the same time. The same concept can be applied to any product.

Talk with your suppliers to see if they can provide video content about where products are sourced, or of the factory where they are made. If it is a locally sourced product, that makes it even easier. All you need is a phone and a few hours to record and edit. Because of the pandemic, people are now accustomed to seeing videos from brands that aren’t necessarily shot with a huge production budget.

Consuming content like this can make the experience even more personal for your customers. It provides a human element to the story. Video is a way for brands to provide value to customers who are eager to discover and engage with new products. A person can tell someone how great a product is all day long, but if you want to capture attention and inspire action, you must create valuable content that is memorable and resonates with your audience.

Don’t limit video content to a website alone. Utilize your email list. Share with current customers the latest recipes featuring new products. Then use the same video as a lead magnet by putting some money behind it on social channels where your audience is searching.

Add video recipes to your emails and include links to demonstrated products. It provides easier user experience and keeps customers engaged in content longer — therefore increasing the likelihood of a conversion.

The way I see it, video marketing is here to stay. For online grocery stores and other retailers, it’s better to have low-quality videos than no videos at all, as this medium is fast becoming a necessity rather than a nicety for stores that want to stay afloat in the competitive online world.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY