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How to Find the Email Address on Anyone Online on the Internet

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By Christian Somcio.

There is always that time when we have to find someone else’s email address. We may simply be looking for a way to contact an old acquaintance via email, reach out to a business that is unable to conveniently provide their contact details, or maybe you just want to fill in the gaps in your email list — the list goes on and on.

More often than not, email addresses can prove to be rather elusive creatures, but do not ever let that frustrate you. There are so many ways to track down the address of anyone online, and here are some techniques that you will certainly find useful in your quest:

Do some googling

If you are looking for someone’s email address online, using search engines like Google to do so is anyone’s logical first step. You can start with this very useful search format:

“Person’s name”+“email”

You can also add in their company’s name or their job title. If you want to go more in-depth with your search, however, you can always use one of Google’s really handy search operators such as site:, inurl:, and double quotes (“”).

Ask a mutual acquaintance

If you know someone who are acquainted with the person whose email address you are looking for, you can simply ask the former for the latter’s email address. This especially works if the said mutual acquaintance is your friend or one of your colleagues. You can also ask them to introduce you to your prospect prior to any attempts at email outreach. In this way, they will end up anticipating your email and be more receptive.

Find it in your prospect’s company website

Some company websites provide the contact information of some, if not all, of the members of their staff. This is especially true with educational institutions, who tend to list down in their site every single one of their employees. As such, it will be wise for you to start looking for your prospect in their company’s site. The About Us page, in particular, often holds a treasure trove of staff email addresses. Now, if the email address that you are looking for is nowhere in the site but the staff emails present follow a consistent format, you can simply refer to this format to make an educated guess.

Look in your prospect’s social media page

It is quite unheard of these days for someone to not have a social media profile, and a good chunk of these social media users own a page. Page owners, usually people who run a business or lead a cause, often display their contact information — including their email addresses — in their pages. That said, if your prospect happens to run a page, don’t waste time to head over to their page and, hopefully, uncover their email address.

Use an email search tool

Perhaps the fastest way to find anyone’s email address is to invest in a good email finder tool like ContactOut. This, however, is the most expensive option in the list as email search tools tend to be SaaS (software as a service) that costs a certain recurring payment. This is best if your efforts to find email addresses result in profit, e. g. if you are building an email list or are updating an existing one.

Supplied by Christian Somcio.

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Elizabeth Pearson: “Dance with the one who brought you”

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By Ben Ari

A company must ensure everyone on the team is working to support your brand promise — what it is that you are committing to delivering for your ideal customer. The more a company consistently delivers on that promise, the more its value will grow in the minds of both their customers and employees.

Aspart of my series about the five things a business should do to create a Wow! customer experience, I had the pleasure of interviewing Elizabeth Pearson, Executive Career, and Mindset Coach. Elizabeth Pearson is a professional life coach, spiritual seeker, writer, wife, and mother. Elizabeth specializes in getting women “unstuck” so they can achieve their highest goals in all aspects of life. Throughout her 13-year sales career, Elizabeth has built brands such as Vitamin Water and Coca-Cola, as well as managed national accounts such as Amazon, Target, Whole Foods, Walmart, and others. Elizabeth parlays her corporate and entrepreneurial success into her coaching of Powerhouse women in C-suite and above level roles.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I owe my “start” to a couple of people who took a risk on me when I was a junior at The University of Missouri-Columbia. If they hadn’t given me an internship in Boston with a then startup Vitaminwater, I’d never be where I am today. Those key figures become mentors and friends who I relied on throughout my 13-year sales career — a career where I managed incredible brands like Smartwater, Coca-Cola, Pirate’s Booty, and Skinfix.

I had achieved both professional and personal success — a handsome and successful husband, two healthy daughters, and financial security — but in 2013 I had a realization that none of it felt like enough. It was then that I started on my journey towards a deeper understanding of who I was and what I was put on this earth to do — because my gut was telling me it wasn’t to sell things.

My awakening led me to follow my passion for helping women uncover their purposes, so I began my coaching business. Fast forward 3 years later, my husband and I moved our kids across the country to sunny southern California, my coaching business is thriving, and I’m writing my first book — life is good.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take always’ you learned from that?

I don’t know if it’s funny “ha-ha”, but the biggest mistake I made was expecting everything I set out to achieve to manifest very quickly. I have never been a patient person but becoming an entrepreneur has really forced me to check myself and surrender to whatever timeline the universe has mapped out for me. When I’ve tried to force things to go faster, it never ends well. Now, I try to go with the flow.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful to who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

I’m going to cheat and give you two people: my husband and my mentor, Mike Repole.

My husband, Ryan, is the most steadfastly supportive person I’ve ever known. He listens to my non-stop flow of new business ideas and offers brilliant, loving advice.

Mike Repole was the co-founder of Vitaminwater (and current co-founder of Body Armor) and is one of the most inspirational people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing or working for. When I was a young and inexperienced intern, he spoke to me with respect and actively listened to my ideas on how we could better target new accounts.

He taught me to take risks, chase my dreams, and never forget the “little guy”. He’s wildly successful but remains humble — often rejecting credit for his achievements and is always quick to return a text or email.

Thank you for that. Let’s now pivot to the main focus of our interview. This might be intuitive, but I think it’s helpful to specifically articulate it. In your words, can you share a few reasons why great customer service and great customer experience is essential for success in business?

Customer loyalty is everything — period.

The effort and money it takes to acquire a new customer is typically a significant drain on a company’s resources — making it critical to retain customers and turn them into repeat purchasers.

It’s not good enough to deliver at the customer expectations; You must consistently over-deliver in order to solidify their brand loyalty. The competitive landscape we now have with Facebook and social media ad targeting make it essential to keep customers engaged and feeling appreciated so they are less likely to go to a competitor brand.

We have all had times either in a store, or online, when we’ve had a very poor experience as a customer or user. If the importance of a good customer experience is so intuitive, and apparent, where is the disconnect? How is it that so many companies do not make this a priority?

In my opinion, companies who aren’t investing in customer experience are focused more on quantity than quality — a “turn and burn” model, if you will. The potential downside of focusing on driving new sales, versus retaining their existing customer base, is that they put themselves at risk for an onslaught of negative reviews and feedback, which can ultimately drive them out of business.

We all remember seeing that viral video of the man being forcibly removed from a United flight, right? In one fail swoop, United’s reputation for customer service went out the window with that viral video. It’s an example of how a company’s image can plummet — 1.4 billion dollars in United’s case — if they don’t value customer experience and satisfaction above all else.

Do you think that more competition helps force companies to improve the customer experience they offer? Are there other external pressures that can force a company to improve the customer experience?

Absolutely. Zappos is a perfect example of a hugely successful company that’s made customer satisfaction the cornerstone of their brand image. They’ve trained customers not to expect to pay for shipping — which no-doubt has inflicted some pain on other online shoe retailers.

They’ve invested in live, 24/7 customer support and are quick to refund a customer’s money if there is even a hint of a problem with their order. You can’t buy that kind of brand loyalty — not with an ad campaign or “influencer” marketing. Zappos has made it so any other online retailer almost automatically has to offer free shipping if they hope to convert a customer to make a purchase with them.

Can you share with us a story from your experience about a customer who was “Wowed” by the experience you provided?

It’s always been my missing to over-deliver for each and every one of my clients — whether it be a 1:1 coaching client or business I’m conducting a workshop or delivering a keynote for. It’s not lost on me that they are inundated with options when they seek out a coach, so I make it my priority to give them an incredible return on their funding.

It’s hard to pinpoint only one example of this, but some ways I ensure clients’ feed is supported is by giving them my cell number and allowing them to access me by text 24/7. I know this may seem like I need to establish better boundaries with clients, but I want them to know that any concern or question they have is one we share, and I’m always here whenever they need me — day or night.

Did that Wow! experience have any long-term ripple effects? Can you share the story?

The long-term effects of consistently over-delivering for clients are that they happily refer me to their friends and colleagues. I’m proud to say that my business is now 90% referrals — which means I spend almost nothing on advertising and marketing, and I have the pleasure of coaching my ideal clients.

I never even have to ask them for referrals. Rather, new clients actively seek me out and happily pay my fee because they have confidence in my abilities after hearing their friends sing my praises.

Ok, here is the main question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a founder or CEO should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience. Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Target a specific customer

We’ve all heard that you can’t be everything to everyone — but often companies are so focused on profits that they make the mistake of playing to the masses and not focusing their marketing towards their ideal customer base.

When I started my coaching business, it was very tempting to cast a wide net and label myself as a “life coach” — and try to get as many clients as possible. Thank goodness I listened to the advice of my coach at the time and played to my skillset and focused on career coaching for executive women — a group I had the most experience with.

2. “Dance with the one who brought you”

It’s a huge mistake to shift focus away from the group of a company’s initial customers — AKA the ones who brought them to the dance in the first place. Product and service evolution must happen in order to remain competitive, but be careful not to tweak your product or service so much that you lose your initial customer base.

An example of this would be if I all of the sudden started creating content and programs that were more specific to a male audience. My clients are a specific group of Senior Director to C-suite level women — not male hedge fund managers, so if I started doing videos about things that aren’t front-of-mind with women, I could risk losing my customer base.

3. Define your promise

A company must ensure everyone on the team is working to support your brand promise — what it is that you are committing to delivering for your ideal customer. The more a company consistently delivers on that promise, the more its value will grow in the minds of both their customers and employees.

In my coaching business, our brand promise is to fully support each client, so they feel that they are the only client we have. I never want a client to feel as if they are competing for my attention. I want them to feel as though their success is my singular focus and I’m constantly working to get them to their goals — which I strive to do. Even though I can have as many as 20 one-on-one clients at a time, plus workshops, speaking gigs, and press — I never want them to see me tired or unenthusiastic about their journey. The truth is, each of their journeys is incredibly personal to me and if they don’t feel like they got a huge return on their funding— I see it as a personal failure.

4. Be accessible at all times

I’m not saying everyone needs to give out their cell phone number, but I do think it’s hard to create a memorable customer experience if the customer can’t get a hold of anyone when needed. Often, email support or a live chat will suffice and ensure the customer feels “heard” and valued.

I have a policy that I will always respond to an email from a client within 24 hours of receiving the inquiry. In case an email falls through the cracks or gets buried, they are encouraged to text me or my assistant and will get an almost immediate response. This shows them they are important to me and I value them — and it’s not enough to say it, you must walk the walk every day.

5. Utilize social platforms

Companies must use Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram in order to serve the customer “on-demand”. This goes along with being accessible, but it’s important to separate these platforms as a whole other area of customer support that will need attention.

Why? Because there will be customers who, when they don’t get the service they feel they deserve, complain. They may not complain to you, but they’ll complain to the rest of the world on Instagram about how displeased they are with you or your product.

There is an upside, though. I’ve had past clients rave about me on their social media, which has led to — you guessed it — new clients.

Are there a few things that can be done so that when a customer or client has a Wow! experience, they inspire others to reach out to you as well?

Absolutely. I always encourage clients to speak about their experience to others who they feel could benefit from their story.

There still seems to be a bit of a stigma about admitting you work with a coach or sought some sort of external help — which is ridiculous. I think the more people can proudly share their path to success, the more they can inspire others to expand their professional support system — which can ultimately increase their joy and fulfilment.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Acceptance — not tolerance. I think our world would benefit tremendously if everyone strived to practice radical acceptance… of others and ourselves. We are all connected and the sooner we acknowledge that, and act accordingly, the more love and freedom we will all enjoy.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Instagram: @coach.elizabeth.pearson

https://www.instagram.com/coach.elizabeth.pearson/

YouTube channel: Elizabeth Pearson

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBww3qVC3hqXbRq2B8-ppjg?view_as=subscriber

Facebook: Elizabeth Pearson Executive Coaching

https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.pearson.1694?ref=bookmarks

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Elizabeth Pearson

www.elizabethpearson.com

[email protected]

LinkedIn

Instagram

By Ben Ari

Ben is a columnist at Authority Magazine

Sourced from Thrive Global

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A Press Release Can Still be One of the Most Effective Marketing Tools—If You Have the Right Contacts

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Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe.

Linking News is a press-release service that gets your info noticed by media outlets that matter.

One of the most challenging aspects of running a business is getting the word out about your product or service. You may be sitting on something that is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but if people don’t know about it, they can’t buy it.

Of course, thanks to the Internet and social media, there are more ways to market your business. However, if you’re looking for something tried and true that guarantees exposure on the biggest news and media sites, you need to take a look at Linking News, the press release service that can get your info noticed by the media outlets that matter.

Linking News is a white label press release distribution service that gets your press releases published on hundreds of top tier media outlets, including ABC, NBC, FOX, USA Today, MarketWatch, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Buzzfeed, the Associated Press, Yahoo, and many more.

Why press releases?

Press releases have been an essential marketing and public relations tool for entrepreneurs and business owners for more than a century. And while you might think they’d be outdated in the age of digital media, the opposite is true. The rise of social media has actually created more publishing options for press releases, making them even more valuable.

Amazingly, the basic idea behind a press release has not changed much over the last century. A press release is still an official statement created by a business or organization and issued to news outlets for the purpose of informing the public about something noteworthy, whether that’s an upcoming event, an innovative new product, or a new business undertaking. What has changed is how entrepreneurs and businesses make use of this tool.

Before the rise of digital media, if your company didn’t have any contacts or connections in journalism, your only option was to submit a press release to as many news outlets as possible and hope that one of them would agree to run it. Today, press release distribution services like Linking News do all the legwork for you and provide guaranteed access. All you have to do is make sure your product and pitch are on point.

Today, the press release is especially useful for startups, entrepreneurs, and small businesses that are just starting out and trying to build a brand. It’s basically the modern equivalent of making cold calls or selling your product or service door to door, only instead of telling one person at a time, you’re telling an audience of thousands and sometimes even millions of people.

Linking News’ white label press release service

Linking News

Image credit: Linking News

When you publish a press release with Linking News, you get access to a network of more than 300,000 publications, 900,000 journalists, and 90-million social media influencers. Exactly which media outlets your press release gets published on depends on which package you subscribe to. However, all packages guarantee publication on over 100 sites, including many top tier outlets, within 24 to 48 hours. And all clients receive a full publication report with live links within one-to-three days.

Best of all, unlike other press release distribution services, with Linking News all publications are strictly white label. That means your press release will not be published on linkingnews.com, and their brand will not be mentioned in your press release and report. All your press releases will appear under your brand, so your clients, customers, and competitors will never know you used a third-party distribution service.

So if you’re looking for an easy, cost-effective way to build your brand, take a look at Linking News White Label Press Release Distribution. It could be just what you need to take your business to the next level.

Feature Image Credit: Linking News

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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Hulu Starts Creative Services Effort For Small, Medium-Sized Businesses

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Following up on its effort that allowed small businesses to buy advertising times through a self-serve ad manager, Hulu has launched creative advertising services for small and-medium-sized businesses.

The effort looks to either repurpose existing video for streaming TV or to provide services for businesses that want to start from “scratch.”

Hulu will provide these businesses with access to creative partners who can create unique commercials — rather than ads from standard-looking “templates.” Creative partners include video services — Genero, Shuttlerock, QuickFrame and VidMob.

In July, Hulu began offering the Hulu Ad Manager program for small and medium-sized businesses in a beta effort.

Companies can make media deals for as little as a $500 media campaign on Hulu.

In June, Hulu announced a new video advertising management platform — Disney Hulu XP, available October 1 — that allows marketers to make cross-media deals across all Disney networks and platforms.

Hulu pulled in $670 million in paid advertising — and $1.27 billion in subscription fees — according to an analysis of Walt Disney’s yearly 10K filing for 2019.

Hulu has said it has made advertising deals overall with the top 200 brands in the United States.

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Sourced from MediaPost

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FIVE WAYS TO FIND THE SUPERPOWERS THAT SET YOUR AGENCY APART

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By Matt Lumb.

Imagine this: You step into an elevator and find yourself face-to-face with a potential client such as P&G. You have just a few floors to win their interest, just a few floors to make an impression and convince them you are worth a second look. Beyond your agency name, what would you tell them?

Some agencies want to showcase everything they do, hoping that something will stick. But my advice, after speaking to dozens of small agencies, is that you should focus on your “superpower”-that thing your agency does that it’s especially good at and that clearly differentiates it from other agencies. It’s your superpower that will be most memorable when being considered for a new project.

So how do you know if your agency has a superpower? Many small agencies tend to work incognito, like Clark Kent. So, to help you discover your superpower, I suggest looking in these five areas:

1. Your heritage story:

What premise was the agency founded on? What has been the heritage and history of the agency? What is the story behind the name of the agency? Any of these can give a prospective client insight into your philosophy and approach-and lead you to the answer of what sets you apart.

2. Your client base:

Do you attract a certain type of client or category? Some agencies have multiple clients in healthcare, food or beauty. These multiple projects demonstrate a proficiency that might be applicable to the new project. Or maybe your agency has developed a strength among a specific group of consumers, a geography or even a style of advertising. This by no means is designed to pigeonhole you into always working on that kind of project, but it can indicate where your superpower might be hiding. Many superpowers can translate into adjacent areas that clients may be looking for. Maybe you have a talent for dealing with taboo topics or new products, or maybe comedy is your preferred advertising tone.

3. Your best work:

What is some of your best work and who were the clients? When you showcase this work, what is it that makes it your best work? What are you most proud of? Is there a common thread?

4. Your people:

Look around your office at the people you have attracted. Is there something consistent in the interests, experience or skill sets of your team that can help you identify the agency’s superpower? Are you animal lovers, copywriters, fans of improv, foodies, musicians or escapees from big agencies? Do you tend to hire more makers, illustrators, writers or data analysts? Look around the office. What adorns the walls? Is there a clue to your superpower for potential clients to see?

5. Your products:

What are your clients willing to pay for? Is there a certain service or product that brings clients in the door? When you complete a project, what service gets the most praise? This may help you zero in on where your agency brings the most value.

These are a few tips for finding your superpower. Personally, I find it far more memorable and helpful to hear about an agency’s superpower as brands and clients are often looking for something specific versus an agency that can do everything. Those superpowers are often the best thing to showcase what you can do. So, what are yours? We only have a few floors, and we really want to know.

But please, leave the superhero costumes at home.

Feature Image Credit: Bruno Kelzer/Unsplash

By Matt Lumb.

Matt Lumb is vice president, Brand Building Integrated Communications department at The Procter & Gamble Company, an in-house strategy, production and communications consultancy, consisting of seasoned professionals. In his more than 25 years with P&G, Matt has worked on numerous global brands and his career has taken him from Australia to Asia and the U.S.A. View all articles by this author

Sourced from AdAge

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How to Pitch an Idea, According to an Oscar-Winning Actor

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BY CARMINE GALLO,

Matthew McConaughey brings his communication skills to the classroom

After a nearly 30-year career in acting, Matthew McConaughey has learned the art of pitching an idea. His tips will help you sell your next idea or product.

McConaughey recently joined the faculty at Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas, Austin. He participated in a video series that covered topics in advertising, marketing and public relations.

McConaughey packs a lot of information in his video titled, “Crafting a story to sell your product.” Here are three points that stood out for me.

1. Know your audience.

 When McConaughey pitches a movie, he explains it differently to his wife, a studio head or his kids. “Pick your target, study your target and sell your product the best way they will understand it,” he says.

This is a key point that I stress with all the entrepreneurs I’ve coached. A concise elevator pitch should be relatable to a particular audience. Consider age, educational level, and experience in your industry.

Think back to your favorite high school or college class–and the ones you didn’t like. Your favorite teachers didn’t use jargon that went above your head. They made the topic come alive by making it relevant to where you were in your life, using contemporary examples and analogies.

2. Start with why.

McConaughey says a great pitch should start by answering why questions: Why is your product needed?

“What problem are you fixing? How are you making someone’s life better? Is your product more convenient, more sustainable, more enjoyable? Help me understand why I need it as a consumer,” says McConaughey.

I was thinking about the why when I read about America’s fastest-growing privately held companies. OneTrust tops the Inc. 5000. Technically, OneTrust builds a platform to operationalize privacy and security. There’s a lot of jargon in the space. For example, privacy laws are an alphabet soup of compliance regulations: CCPA, GDPR, ISO27001, etc.

Founder Kabir Barday explains why his product is useful for thousands of customers before he dives into the details.

According to Barday, OneTrust builds a suite of digital tools that gives companies a clearer view of all the user data they gather. “This enables them to comply with privacy laws, like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), that give consumers greater control of how and whether com­panies use their data.”

Giving your investors and prospects a clear picture of why your product is needed will help them understand how the product works.

3. Tell a story.

“To get to the head you’ve got to go through the heart,” says McConaughey. “You’ve got to make people feel before people think and choose act on something.”

This is where most business pitches fall short. All too often, entrepreneurs assume that investors want to see data, numbers, charts and forecasts. While that’s true, investors are skeptical of numbers–like potential sales numbers– because they know there’s a fair amount of guesswork in creating those numbers.

Stories are more powerful than numbers in early stage companies because they help investors and potential partners understand where the idea or product fits in the world. One customer story speaks volumes.

If you have a product you believe in, build a story around it that’s relevant to your audience. You’ll be far more successful in selling it.

Feature Image Credit:Matthew McConaughey introduces a special screening of his new film “The Gentlemen” at Hogg Memorial Auditorium at The University of Texas at Austin. Getty Images

BY CARMINE GALLO,

KEYNOTE SPEAKER AND AUTHOR, ‘FIVE STARS: THE COMMUNICATION SECRETS TO GET FROM GOOD TO GREAT’@CARMINEGALLO

Sourced from Inc.

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The future of work is here and there is no going back

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By Jeanniey Walden,

In March, everything changed in an instant. And now, for the past six months, we’ve been living in a remarkably different kind of world.

Our living rooms became boardrooms; our business lunches became Zoom chats and the supply chain was, for a time, crippled. The global pandemic changed the way we lived and the way we worked. While some of us thought the change was only temporary, maybe for a few weeks, we were actually experiencing the dramatic onset of the theoretical topic we all called “the future of work.”

Working from home is no vacation: Productivity is up

Prior to the pandemic, there was a stigma around working from home. There was a notion that it was merely an excuse to have a free day out of the confines of the office. But recent research tells a different story: Now that we’re in the home office, we’re actually working longer, harder and being even more productive.

According to a DailyPay survey — polling employees whose companies give them the option to work remotely — the majority said they work longer hours and claim to be more effective.

Of the respondents, 60 percent said they work more hours from home, with 33 percent of those saying they work eight or more hours per week remotely — that is, more than 400 hours a year. Meanwhile, 48 percent said they are more effective when working remotely compared to 14 percent who claim they are less effective.

So, does the future of work translate into the eradication of offices permanently?

Not exactly: only 25 percent of the respondents expect to be working from home for the foreseeable future. And for the essential workers, who kept the economy running — and saved people’s lives — and almost certainly for teachers soon venturing back into the classroom, working from home might not ever be a full-time reality.

Employee benefits are transforming in interesting ways  

From 401k to educational stipends, employers have changed a number of offerings to retain and attract staff in trying times.

Among the most talked-about introductions have been zero-cost benefits around pay. The antiquated system of waiting two weeks to be paid, sometimes with a paper check, now seems as outdated as office buffet lunches. Top Fortune 500 companies are already offering their employees an on-demand benefit that enables their staff access to their pay as they earn it. This provides them with more control over their finances and the safe, contactless digitization that they have come to expect in the new world. In fact, recent research shows that 74 percent of employees noted they are less stressed about their finances with a daily pay benefit.

Employers will almost certainly continue to offer new and interesting benefits. Any way to reduce employee stress can be a game-changer when it comes to the unpredictable nature of events, especially when there is absolutely no cost to the employer, and no needed change management either.

Contactless technology is a life-saver for essential workers

For essential workers in hospitals, supermarkets and fast-food restaurants, the workplace is becoming an increasingly contactless environment that highlights safety and efficiency.

Instead of high-touch punch cards or touch screens for which employees have often had to wait in line, employees can now simply wave an ID card or their cell phone to sign into work.

In supermarkets, scan-and-go technology has accelerated the mobile checkout experience — enabling staff to be re-deployed in other areas of the store — and also creates a safer experience for both the employee and the customer. The new technology comes at an opportune time, too. According to DailyPay’s “Rehire America Index,” the supermarket industry has seen a 63 percent increase in employee levels since January 1.

The hospitality industry is also prioritizing safety through new technologies. For hotels, guests can now use contactless technology to check-in and skip the dreaded long line that is often waiting for us after a long day of traveling. This measure creates a safer and more time-efficient experience for the customer and front-desk employee, who can now tend to more pressing needs of guests.

Diversity in leadership is now a must-have element

In a year that featured important cultural discussions regarding racial inequality,  we also experienced a shift in the need for our companies to reflect society. The business that prioritizes diversity and champions inclusion is more aligned with their customers and better positioned for success.

Research clearly demonstrates that the future of work features more diversity in the C-suite and in the general workforce. Among the respondents, 65 percent said diversity in the overall staff makes a company better-positioned to relate to customers, and 63 percent said having female leaders in a company is good for business. And two-thirds of those surveyed said diversity in company leadership is important when deciding on where to apply for a job.

2020 has been unlike any year in memory. The workplace we know has been remade, but the change also represents a unique moment to reflect and change the way companies operate, from the inside out. Long-entrenched views on such things as remote working and digitization have changed. Diversity in the C-suite is now considered a prerequisite for a company’s viability and long-term success. If the future of work arrived faster than business leaders could have anticipated, they can still take a deep breath — and embrace it.

By Jeanniey Walden

Chief Innovation & Marketing Officer, DailyPay

Sourced from DIGIDAY

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Digital marketing is accelerating – so what’s next?

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By Julio Taylor.

In 2019, Hallam, Google’s Premier Partners Growing Businesses Online 2019 award winners, published one in a series of eBooks: The Future of Digital Marketing: 2019 and beyond. Covid-19 has ground the world to a halt, but has accelerated digital marketing, taking it down paths that have not been ventured before.

The team at Hallam recognises that and we’re at a stage where there is even more to add to this eBook. The Future of Digital Marketing 2.0, contains interviews with several industry experts and aims to break down exactly what the future of the industry looks like, and highlights what businesses and brands need to be prepared for ahead of digital marketing’s next big shift…

An introduction from Julio Taylor, CEO at Hallam

The latest change to digital marketing is something we have been building towards for some time now, and there are several factors behind that.

There is a massive generational change in the workforce, with 70% now millennial or younger.

We’re living in a world where, for the first time in history, the vast majority of the population is born into a digital world as standard. Digital transformation, for me, is the absolute priority and the audience is demanding it.

Because of that, there is a huge amount of complexity when it comes to digital marketing and the skill required to deliver deep and meaningful impact. You need expertise in all areas to make that happen, whether that be UX, SEO, PPC, PR, advertising, content marketing, strategy, or technical.

There is also the pace of change to consider. Factors like technology, automation, and user expectations are moving incredibly quickly. The things that were groundbreaking just a couple of years ago are now old news. Some of the topics that were hot just four years ago are now expected.

Within that, the demand for privacy is growing exponentially – partly because of the Cambridge Analytica situation, and partly because audiences are just getting smarter with it.

That has led to changes in legislation, which is restricting the use of third-party data and cookies but has also led to changes in browser design and the technology of devices – meaning it is more difficult to advertise to people, compared to how it was a couple of years ago.

Everybody is advertising, so it’s going to be about what makes you and your brand different from everybody else. That is going to be determined by the creative and the experience.

For me, it’s about precision and persuasion. That’s something we always talk about, and both are important. They are two sides of the same coin. They are extremes. But we’re heading towards an age where both need to be applied effectively.

There is so much more to this topic than the six we have outlined. We will be updating and re-releasing our Future of Digital Marketing eBook very shortly and these six key themes give you a flavour of how much our industry is going to be changing…

ePrivacy will shake the industry up

Arianne Donoghue, our strategic consultant, says: the reality is that advertising has become so focused on data and being able to target users easily that it’s really hard to see how it is going to change.

The issue now is that it may be forced to. What impact will there be if cookies disappear? Cookies, by no means, are the only solution.

There is a technique out there called browser fingerprinting, which takes so many elements of data from your browser like the fonts on your machine, the time zone and the screen resolution. It even looks at little things like the emojis a user uses.

All that data can be pulled through to form a digital fingerprint of who you are. It’s more reliable than any cookie out there. For those interested, there are a number of different sites you can use online to have your fingerprint assessed to see how unique and traceable you are around the internet. This data can also be tracked through your VPN (Virtual Private Network).

The whole point of a VPN is to store your internet history so it is harder to find and track you, but a browser fingerprint can circumvent your VPN. While somewhat terrifying, a lot of this is covered under GDPR and the ePrivacy regulation that is likely to come into force in 2021.

What does that regulation mean for digital marketing?

If cookies disappear, the industry as it has worked for the last 20 years, will just fall over. The reliance there has been on targeting users is not going to be available anymore.

So, for marketers, it is about figuring out what is next. There have been discussions about how contextual advertising is yielding good results in the market space dominated by big players, but we’re not seeing that filter down to the average advertiser.

I’m sure Google and Facebook have a plan and maybe we will see the first steps of that when IOS 14 is released later this year. It feels like we’re waiting for the ‘big five’ to lead and the rest will follow.

A zero-click and visual change to the future of search

Strategy director Ben Wood believesGoogle wants to give the best possible results. But they also want to give the best possible experience on their platform, which is essenially their search results page.

What we will see is that it is going to get more difficult to gain clicks from search because Google is wanting to bring everyone’s content on to their results pages wherever possible.

Take holiday bookings, mortgage calculators, or finding recipes, as an example. Zero-click search will be much more impactful in these areas because you will be able to book flights or tables on Google, demolishing the traffic those websites would otherwise be getting.

Others, like B2B software, will be totally different because Google won’t be able to replicate everything that is on their website. The levels at which clients will be impacted by some of these trends will vary depending on the industry but these features just go to show how susceptible businesses are to the evolution of Google’s search product, and highlights the importance of a diverse traffic acquisition strategy.

Something else we need to be wary of is visual search, which is still not being taken as seriously by SEO’s in the way that I expected.

Visual search has been on the rise for years with platforms like Pinterest evolving their features with a focus on lens technology. Google has latched on to that idea and invested in piloting Google Keen – a new visual way of building boards to track interesting topics.

What I think will be a game changer for many industries is lens/image recognition technology, which allows you to take a picture of something and search for it. Visual search is much easier than manually typing out and, as a service, I think that will continue to improve especially in retail, fashion etc.

Visual search and optimisation should be considered as a key part of SEO and right now, that’s not the case. We will see that grow a lot over the next two years and for more SEO’s to take image optimisation seriously and invest in adapting web usability to cope with new features such as visual search functionality for ecommerce just like larger retailers such as Macy’s have started to do by partnering with Pinterest to use their lens (visual search) technology.

Development is no longer just for building websites

Jon Martin, our technical director, says that one of the big things taking shape right now in the digital marketing community is the programming language, Python.

Only a few years ago it was all about PHP because it was open-source, anybody could use it and you didn’t have to pay to learn it. Python, however, is now becoming the go-to tool because it’s nice to work with, easy to learn, and is allowing SEO professionals to do what they want to really quickly.

Developers and SEO professionals need to have a strong understanding of Python, but also have a holistic view of the landscape and understanding of SEO and PPC. Certainly in the future, developers are going to be important in helping businesses and brands automate things that were previously manual.

UX is becoming a ranking factor, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you need a new website

Joe Powell, our creative director, explains thatUX is one of the most important elements of digital marketing and underpins everything we do as an agency. The demand for UX consultancy has been increasing through the need for user-ability testing from our clients to validate their theories and mitigate risk before making a decision.

User testing allows us to learn where things have gone wrong, so we’re not making the same mistakes again. A typical flaw of businesses is that they have objectives they want to achieve, but they don’t consider what impact that will have on the consumer. It’s a delicate balance between representing the stakeholder and the users’ needs.

The less resistance you add to the user experience on any platform – whether that’s in-store, on a digital interface, website, or even a book – the easier it is to use, the more intuitive it is, and the higher the probability that it will convert into a sale or enquiry.

There’s a common misconception that improving UX means you need a new website build. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. UX can be practised on a single page or a website and you can make conversion-focused enhancements to existing websites.

There are other options, however. If you’re happy with your current website’s design, but want to increase engagement, then our advice would be to review the experiences of certain areas and make ad-hoc changes to those sections to improve the offering.

A lot of sales teams are interested in getting new websites, but sometimes smaller changes can make the world of difference to CRM.

UX is an immensely important thing to get right. It’s not something that can just be picked up. It is acquired through years of experience and moving through different disciplines, like brand, design, copywriting, development. Every decision has to be made with one question in mind; does this add value? If it doesn’t, it’s not worth pursuing.

SEO and PPC are evolving and will face some challenges

Charlotte Tomlinson, media director, explains:SEO and PPC, for a long time, have been very separate disciplines. There has been a big effort across the industry this year to address that because the results, when the disciplines are combined, are clearly better.

What we’re going to see is SEO and PPC come together to form integrated search and shared data campaigns, which will, ultimately, save money for businesses and brands in the long run.

A great, but simple, example of this is taking the data from a business’ paid campaign to make decisions around what SEO should be optimising in order to drive conversions.

What we’re seeing, quite often, is that what businesses didn’t think was important is actually becoming more so, allowing the teams to pivot accordingly to target audiences and keywords that hadn’t been considered before.

The relationship between businesses and their PPC agencies is also going to change significantly, and that is down to the growth of automation. PPC is going to become very strategic, creative, and consultancy-focused, rather than manual.

There needs to be an education piece around that. Google is at the forefront of that automation and PPC professionals will face a lot of questions by clients when it comes to value for money. It is down to us to deliver that value that in-house teams simply cannot get.

Again, though, that comes back to down integration; design teams and PPC working together to create awesome creative that is going to make advertising more successful than it has been before.

Headless will be the future of web development for the next decade

Martin says that while it has been around a while, Headless, including its various platforms, including Ghost, is a concept that lets you decouple the back and front end of a website.

For example, this allows you to have a WordPress driven website, but your front end looks completely different and you’re not reliant on the WordPress templates to do that. This gives you a huge amount of flexibility when coding, but the big benefit is around speed, performance, and usability of the site.

Essentially, you’re cutting a lot of the time that would be spent loading up WordPress and, instead, focusing on these small, nimble, pages that take far less time to load. This is predicted to be the future for the next decade of web development in the same way responsive web design was previously.

We’re only touching the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the influence of AI

Kieran S-Lawler, head of marketing, explains: This is a topic that gets spoken about a lot. AI has got a big role to play in the forecasting of data-driven content. It is still learning – doing so at a supernatural rate – and it will get to a stage where it’s finding patterns and analysis far faster than we ever could.

That forecast might not be 100 percent accurate, but it will give you insight into what life for a particular sector could look like. It’s also got a big role to play with interactive content, too, and how marketers use AI systems to engage and interact with customers.

We’re seeing it with bots already. Bots are not AI, but it gives you a flavour of what we can expect from AI in the future. On the flip side, there’s a general feeling that marketers and content creators are going to be redundant because of the advanced technology, but, for me, that’s far from the case.

Someone is going to be required to feed that AI and inform them what is right and wrong. It will make our life easier and provide us with data and insight that we would otherwise have to spend multiple hours trying to find.

I think we’re only touching the tip of the iceberg with what is achievable with this technology. There’s a lot more to come. Right now, it’s not totally accessible and it isn’t in a format that is easily digestible for marketers to truly use and understand.

Final thoughts

Just as marketers are only touching the tip of the iceberg for AI, we’re also only touching the tip of what the future of digital marketing looks like. The industry continues to develop at a rapid rate and from the future of Google and privacy, to the next steps in platform advertising, data, automation and content, it will all be covered when Hallam releases its new eBook, The Future of Digital Marketing 2.0, this autumn.

By Julio Taylor

Sourced from The Drum

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Targeting Households Using Addressable TV Advertising Is Being Tested

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By Brad Adgate.

After several years, advertisers, content providers, ad tech companies and program distributors have been busy laying the groundwork for dynamically inserted television advertising. Addressable TV allows advertisers to deliver more targeted ads to individual households via cable, satellite or telco set top boxes or web-enhanced “smart” TVs.

The potential for addressable TV advertising could be big. Mitch Oscar, the director of advanced TV strategy for USIM says currently, there are about 54 million MVPD (cable, telco or satellite) households that are linear addressable and 35 million that are ad supported video-on-demand addressable households. As a result, Oscar estimates there are 66 million unduplicated addressable TV households. In addition, Mitch Oscar also notes there are also about 25 million homes with web enhanced TV sets currently capable of receiving addressable TV advertising via automated content recognition (ACR). Some of these homes however, may also be an MVPD subscriber.

Using addressable advertising, an automotive ad can promote a different car model to different households. A politician can insert a different campaign issue to different voters or a prominent packaged goods marketer can advertise different products to different households.

Addressable advertising could give the TV ad industry a much-needed revenue boost. In the first six months of 2020 another 3.8 million homes cancelled their cable TV subscription, resulting in a loss of subscriber fee revenue into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, the ratings for many top tier entertainment networks have been in decline, as viewers migrate to content from streaming video providers. The loss of audiences has also impacted ad revenue, especially during a recession.

In recent years, annual TV ad spend has been stagnant at around $70 billion. Some industry analysts project ad spend for addressable TV advertising could grow from $1 billion in 2017 to over $5 billion by 2021. The cost of an addressable TV ad would be greater than a typical linear ad, with the idea being a more relevant ad message would elicit a more emotional response to an engaged viewer, resulting with an increase of sales. A study from Bill Harvey Consulting found addressable TV advertising has a higher return-on investment than either digital media or linear television.

In the past, addressable ads were limited to the local two minutes each MVPD sells every hour. These MVPDs use their own set top box tuning data, first party data from an advertiser (or third-party data from Experian and Acxiom), as well as other technology to send targeted ads based on zip codes, cable zones or even down to individual households. The amount of addressable advertising inventory will increase notably as national networks, which sell about 14 to 15 minutes of commercials every hour, get more involved.

There are two industry trials currently taking place in the smart TV universe; Project OAR and Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising.

Project OAR: One initiative in addressable TV advertising is Project OAR (standing for Open Addressable Ready) which was created in March 2019. The goal of OAR is to set standards for addressable TV advertising using an open source. OAR is a consortium started by TV manufacturer Vizio and includes many prominent content providers; Disney Media Networks, NBCUniversal, CBS, WarnerMedia’s Turner, Hearst Television, Scripps and AMC Networks. These programmers account for 80% of all linear TV viewership.

Inscape, a data-tracking company owned by Vizio, developed OAR’s technology using ACR. In June 2020, OAR began the first phase a live test which provides more relevant ad messages for both linear and on-demand on smart TV’s. Participating were Fox, ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal, Scripps, and AMC Networks. A second phase is scheduled for mid-August 2020 and will include Disney Media Networks, Discovery, Hearst Television and WarnerMedia.

Project OAR is available on 10 to 13 million web-enhanced Vizio TV’s. One of the goals, is to build scale by allowing more partners into the consortium with hopes they will be available on all “smart” TV’s. This will require the participation of TV manufacturers Samsung, LG and Sony. Also, as part of the OAR consortium are TV ad delivery companies; Comcast’s FreeWheel, AT&T’s Xandr, Google Ad Manager and Invidi that are implementing technical integrations.

Nielsen Advanced Video Advertising: In February 2019 Nielsen launched AVA, focusing on addressable advertising for web enhanced TV sets. The announcement had come after Nielsen acquired addressable TV technology provider Sorenson Media, which was in bankruptcy protection. Nielsen integrated Sorenson with ACR technology from Gracenote and Qterics, a smart TV software and privacy management company, to accelerate their addressable TV initiative.

AVA will be using 15 million smart TV sets from LG Electronics. The addressable initiative has the participation of nine national content providers; A&E Networks, AMC, Discovery, Disney, Fox, NBCUniversal, Univision, ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia. They account for about 90% of all linear viewership. Nielsen had launched a two-phased beta version in January which has been extended until the end of 2020 due to the pandemic. Mitch Oscar notes, as a long-time ratings supplier, Nielsen may be serving ads and verifying the impressions, instead of using a third-party, this could be an issue for advertisers.

On Addressability: In June 2019, Comcast, in partnership with Charter and Cox, formed On Addressability, an addressable consortium with a goal to develop industry definitions and standards, provide education for advertisers, and identify best practices and business standards for transacting on addressable campaigns. Also, the three cable operators hope to pool what they learned from offering addressable advertising to help other content distributors do the same. In June 2020, AMC Networks became the first content partner followed by Discovery in late July. Canoe Ventures provides the backend ad tech support. Collectively, the three cable operators have about 27 million addressable ready TV homes.

Measurement Challenges: With several trials taking place there are several industry issues facing addressable advertising such as inventory maintenance, revenue sharing and privacy. Another issue is audience measurement. Prasad Joglekar, the SVP & General Manager TV, cross platform products at Comscore says, “Addressable TV occupies somewhat of a middle ground between traditional linear TV and digital video advertising. Today, most addressable TV advertising is viewed as an evolution of TV. As such, the default measurement lens that gets applied is the traditional TV lens, which ratings and panel based. This leads to 3 significant measurement issues that various industry players are sorting out:

First, the things that make addressable TV interesting – the ‘breaking’ of the live spot, the delivery of multiple advertisements within the same unit etc. – are precisely the things that make it impossible to measure with a panel, or as a traditional age-gender rating. Trying to shove what is inherently an impression-based buy into a spot-based measurement scheme doesn’t work.

Second, for national addressability, a 30-second unit must be individually enabled in 3 to 5 different operator and distribution platforms. Each operator’s addressable insertion, pacing and reporting stack is unique. It is a hard and laborious process to measure each platform individually, and then combine the numbers to create a true national view.

Third, when an ad is made addressable, some impressions are targeted, but the vast majority are not. On average, ~30% of the impressions in a spot will be targeted. The impressions not targeted are seen as suspect or remnant and tend to be devalued. Decorating those impressions with useful, actionable audience attributes, across the 3 to 5 operators described above, is a measurement and planning problem that must be solved.”

As the industry continues to test addressable advertising and develop standards, Mitch Oscar agrees that similar to digital media, the currency for addressable advertising should be audience based, instead of ratings based, that has been the traditional measurement for linear TV for decades.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY IMAGES

By Brad Adgate

Brad Adgate is an Independent Media Consultant

Sourced from Forbes

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Why Social Commerce Could Eclipse E-Commerce

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By Bradian Muliadi.

Online commerce platforms have changed the process by which we discover and purchase a product. In fact, research has forecasted that e-sales will exceed $735 billion by 2023 as 81% of consumers search for products they need to buy on Instagram and Facebook, making the two channels a massive reference hub for shopping.

However, social commerce is not simply a way for social channels to increase traffic to your traditional sales channels. Instead, it is a new kind of commerce in which the entire shopping experience — from viewing to checkout — takes place in a social media channel. Traditional online store structures, such as websites or applications, are no longer the only way for consumers to shop online as the social media platforms that users love have become accessible storefronts. The surge in social commerce is likely due to the fact it benefits both the consumer and the brand: Social commerce cuts a significant length in a user’s buying journey by allowing them to take action immediately after seeing an advertised product, therefore eliminating the web sign-in process or app downloads, as well as reducing common issues for brands such as abandoned carts.

A Commerce Ecosystem Like Never Before

Since 2019, Instagram has tested in-app checkout. The Facebook-owned company also allows influencers to tag the products they endorse, which enables users to shop for products without even following the brand’s account. These influencers are an important factor in the social commerce industry. As we are expecting a market size of $9.7 billion in 2020 for influencer marketing, the ability to shop directly from an influencers’ post represents a massive opportunity for brands and research has shown that 63% of social media users between the ages of 18 and 34 trust influencers’ recommendations more than they trust brands.

Of course, that’s only a glimpse of how social commerce is charting a revolutionized shopping experience. Social media has an overwhelming amount of information that shows the likes, behaviors and relationships among users. This is increasingly important as users begin to expect personalized and algorithm-customized content. Roland Berger cited that almost three-quarters of users expect advertising content tailored to their preferences.

Social Commerce To Grow In Many Platforms

Instagram is one of the largest social media applications globally and a leader in social commerce as one-third of its users have bought something directly from an Instagram ad. eMarketer predicts that Instagram’s advertising revenue will increase by 47% in 2020, largely due to shoppable ads.

TikTok, dubbed the fastest-growing social app, has 800 million active users monthly. A large portion of its users are under the age of 30, making TikTok a viable channel to reach out to Gen Z, a market with $143 billion in spending power. The app is currently looking to test the social commerce functions that have succeeded in their Chinese-developed twin app, Douyin, such as the ability for users to zoom in on items that appear in a video and shop them directly on the app. Currently, the ability to link a post to a product page is available in most countries where TikTok is available. A “Shop Now” call to action has also been used by brands to turn creators’ content into in-feed ads.

Social commerce features that we have seen up to this point are only the beginning of a new era of shopping. Most social media apps are developing new ways that allow users to shop directly from their platform. Facebook allows cataloging products, managing sales and running ads for businesses big and small all over the globe. Pinterest enables ads with a “buy” call to action to appear in a user’s Pinterest board as well as targeted ads based on personal pins. Snapchat has partnered with Shopify to allow brands like Kylie Cosmetics to provide an in-app checkout option for U.S. users. It won’t end there.

Beyond unifying the fragmented online purchase experience to provide a smoother shopping experience for users, social commerce’s promise also lies in the democratization and empowerment of online sales for small to medium businesses, by providing a platform that enables an end-to-end purchase journey from product discovery to the final transaction. Although this means more competition among brands and platforms, it also means more consumer choice, which is always a good thing for online shoppers.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY

By Bradian Muliadi

Founder & CEO at Analisa.io | Instagram & TikTok Analytics. Read Bradian Muliadi’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

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