editor, Author at Mediastreet

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7 Biggest Marketing Faux Pas Of All Time (And How To Steer Clear Of Them)

January 22, 2020 No Comments

The way you market your business can mean the difference between failure and success. If done right, you can increase revenue, attract new customers, and retain your current customers. If done wrong, you’ll be left screaming, “Ugh, I’ve made a huge mistake!” and trying to pick up all of the pieces.

To keep your business on the road to success, learn what marketing mistakes you need to avoid at all costs.

7 Marketing Faux Pas, And How To Avoid Them

If you want to avoid some of the biggest marketing blunders of all time, you have to know what they are and how to steer clear of them. Here are seven marketing faux pas you need to watch out for in your business.

1. Spending Too Little Time On Marketing

How much time are you spending on your marketing efforts per week? Some of you might say a couple of hours. Others might say diddly-squat. Spending too little time on marketing can spell doom for your small business.

If you want to avoid this faux pas, start devoting more time to your marketing efforts. Just like with anything else in life, you have to work hard at marketing if you want to see results.

Set aside more time to build, implement, and analyze your marketing campaigns. Use that entrepreneur determination I know you have in you to boost your marketing efforts and spend more time marketing your business.

2. Failing To Track Results

I get it—you’re a busy business owner who gets caught up juggling a million and one tasks at once. So, tracking your company’s marketing efforts and conversions might not always be at the forefront of your mind. I’ve been there, too. But, failing to track marketing results is one faux pas you don’t want to make.

If you don’t track your marketing tactics, you’ll never know what does and doesn’t work. Not to mention, not tracking your marketing mistakes can lead you to make the same mistake time and time again.

Here are a few things you might want to (or need to) track at your small business:

Website users
Conversion rates
Pageviews
Blog or social media subscribers
Organic traffic
Social media followers and engagements

At my accounting and payroll software company, Patriot Software, our marketing team tracks various goals in a spreadsheet. At the beginning of each month, they meet to discuss whether or not they’ve reached their monthly goals and how they can improve moving forward.

3. Picking The Wrong Target

Ah yes, you just started your new business. Everything is sunshine and rainbows. Is that a butterfly over there? I remember those days. The days where you think “Everyone can be a potential customer!” If you’re still in this mindset, I’m going to kick you out of it right now.

One avoidable mistake plenty of amateur business owners make is thinking that everyone is a potential customer. Because they believe this, business owners around the world get their target market and audience all wrong.

While it might be true that your offerings appeal to a broad audience, they absolutely won’t appeal to everyone.

When it comes to marketing, you need to narrow down who you’re going to target. Instead of trying to sell to everyone, do some research to hone in on potential customers as well as their needs, interests, and demographics.

You’ve come this far. Don’t make the mistake of not getting to know your target customer inside and out.

4. Not Setting Yourself Apart

When it comes to being a player in the market, you have to be willing to set yourself apart from the competition. Otherwise, why else would your target market choose your business over another?

One big blunder is blending in with other businesses. Don’t blend into a market. Instead, diversify your business and stand out.

Take a look at your competition. How do you differ from them? What makes you stand out from the crowd of competitors? Use your answers to these questions to build on what makes you different.

Tell your target audience and potential customers what makes your business unique from all of the other ones out there. Take things to the next level and create a USP (unique selling proposition) for your business. Your USP should make your business shine and attract buyers based on your selling points.

Put yourself in your target market’s shoes when you think of your USP. What’s going to benefit them the most? What will appeal to their emotions?

If you want to avoid this rookie mistake and diversify your business, come up with an effective USP that your market can relate to.

5. Blowing Your Budget

As you’ve likely learned by now, money does not grow on trees. So, don’t start acting like it does when it comes to your marketing budget.

According to one source, you should devote 2-5% of your sales revenue to marketing. A blunder many business owners make is blowing their business budget on unnecessary or even spontaneous marketing tactics. Now don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy a little spontaneity every once in a while. But, I don’t blow through my business’s budget just for the thrill of it.

If you want to avoid this faux pas, establish a clear marketing budget, do some research on different marketing options and strategies, and track what does and does not work for your company.

Organize your budget in a document or spreadsheet. Record how much you spend—and for what—and track the results. If a marketing strategy doesn’t work for your business, don’t keep rolling with it. Instead, use your hard-earned cash to invest in calculated marketing efforts.

6. Not Having A Marketing Plan

As an entrepreneur, you know how important it is to have a plan in place. When you started your business, you likely created a business plan (or multiple business plans) to get your startup on the right track. But, have you taken the same steps with your marketing efforts? AKA, have you created a marketing plan for your company?

Solid plans are roadmaps that can lead your business to success. If you want to be the best, you have to establish a plan and (try to) stick to it. One major mistake small businesses make is writing off the idea of a marketing plan.

Take a look at this scary statistic: 50% of small businesses do not have a marketing plan. That means half of you are already making this major marketing mistake!

Let’s play a little game of “Did you know?” Did you know that a marketing plan can:

Help you analyze marketing strategies
Create a set of brand standards
Provide marketing direction
Measure marketing success
Help you understand your target audience and market

As you can tell from above, creating a marketing plan has a lot of perks. The solution to this marketing blunder is easy enough: write up the dang marketing plan!

7. Ignoring Your Competition

Sure, you might not like them. In fact, you probably despise them. After all, they’re going after your target audience and customers. Wait … who are we talking about again? That’s right: your competitors.

Even though you can’t stand them sometimes, your competitors can sure teach you a lot. There is a ton of information (and business lessons) you can learn from scoping out your competition. Instead of ignoring them, pay attention to what they’re doing right and wrong.

Keeping up with your competition can only help you in the long-run. Rather than steering clear of your competition altogether, conduct some research and dive deep into your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. That’s right, folks. I want you to revisit the SWOT analysis. But this time around, use it to dissect your competition.

What are your competitors’ strengths? Do they have any threats in the market? How can you use your competitors’ weaknesses to benefit your business?

If you want to avoid this marketing mistake, stop letting your competition slide by and start doing your research now before it’s too late.

Feature Image Credit: Getty. Keep your business on the path to success by avoiding major marketing mistakes.

By Mike Kappel

I’m founder and CEO of Patriot Software, LLC. I have over 30 years of entrepreneurial experience across five startups. I started Patriot Software in the basement of a factory and grew it into a multi-million dollar company that serves small businesses all across the United States. I know what small business owners and entrepreneurs face because I’ve faced it myself. For more information, please visit Patriot Software or Follow: @PatriotSoftware on Twitter.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

These tips make text-selection on iPhone and iPad far less frustrating

January 22, 2020 No Comments

By Charlie Sorrel

iOS 13 (and iPadOS) fixed the frustrating text-selection tools on the iPhone and iPad, but only if you know how to use them. Selecting a single word or sentence is still way easier on a Mac, because you have a mouse and keyboard permanently attached. On the iPad, though, you can still find the text selection slipping and jumping like an oiled fish.

Use these iPhone and iPad text-selection tips to highlight words and paragraphs the easy way in iOS.

iOS text limitations

iOS text selection: Seriously, Apple? — Seriously, Apple?
Photo: Cult of Mac

There are a few text-selection oddities in iOS 13. The most annoying is that, when you tap in the middle of a word, the text-selection cursor appears at either the end or the beginning of the word. On the Mac, if you click the cursor between the letters M and A of “Mac,” that’s where it goes. On iOS, you must tap the word first, then grab the cursor to place it where you actually want it.

This happens even when you hook up a mouse to your iPad. And worse, the initial cursor placement can end up either at the beginning or the end of the word you tap, depending where on the word you tap. This means you must assess the position before acting. All this, for a simple text insertion!

However, there are some excellent shortcuts that will make selecting text a lot easier on iPhone or iPad. Note, these shortcuts and gestures work in actual text fields, where you can edit text yourself. They don’t work on non-editable text — in an email or on a web page, for example.

Quick-Select

When you are in a text field, i.e., when you are typing text yourself, in something like Notes or Pages, you can use the following tap gestures to select whole blocks of text:

Double-tap a word to select the whole word/
Triple-tap a word to select the sentence containing that word. This includes the trailing period.
Quadruple-tap does the same as a double, only it selects the entire paragraph.

Smart-select taps

One of the most annoying text-selection tasks in iOS is trying to copy a URL, a phone number or an email address. If those strings are on a webpage, good luck. You can continue to struggle with them. Have fun as you try to copy them, and instead they all open a new email message, or launch Safari, or cause your iPhone to call the person whose number you’re trying to copy.

However, if this text is all included in an editable text field, you can just double-tap on any email address, phone number or URL. iOS is smart enough to recognize these strings, and to select them automatically. You can then safely copy them, or share them. It even works with phone numbers including spaces, brackets and + characters.

Get Drafts

From this... — From this…
Photo: Cult of Mac

Given that text is much easier to work with in a text editor, it makes sense to move text into an editor as soon as you realize you need to do more than just read it.

Drafts is a fantastic iOS (and Mac) app designed for just that. The idea is that you either start typing in Drafts, or you send text to it from elsewhere. Then, you can work on that text, and send it out to another app.

... to this. — … to this.
Photo: Cult of Mac

In our case, Drafts is ideal as a way to quickly capture text from an email or web page, and open it in a text editor. This means you can highlight some non-editable text, send it to Drafts, and then work on it in peace. Better still, Drafts has a share-sheet extension.

Imagine you’re looking at a web page covered in email addresses, phone numbers and so on. You need to copy those to use somewhere else. Just highlight everything on that page, tap the share arrow, and pick Drafts in the list of apps. Your selection will open in a Drafts window, right there in the current app! If you want, you can capture it to Drafts for later, but you can actually use all of the above tricks and shortcuts in this floating Drafts panel.

Hopefully you’ll now find text-wrangling on iOS 13 a little less annoying. You still wouldn’t want to edit an entire book on an iPad, but at least you won’t want to throw your expensive device across the room next time you just want to copy an email address.

Feature Image Credit: Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

By Charlie Sorrel

Sourced from Cult of Mac

In News

How to use Microsoft Planner to manage your projects

January 21, 2020 No Comments

By Lance Whitney

Microsoft Planner can help you create and share business plans and projects. Here are the steps for using it.

Microsoft Planner offers you a visual way to track and manage projects and other work among business teams. Available on the web and as a mobile app, Planner serves as a hub where all team members can create business plans and organize tasks so that other members can view and access them. How does Microsoft Planner work, and how can you and your fellow team members use it to manage your projects and tasks? Let’s check it out.

Microsoft Planner requires a Business, Business Premium, or Educational subscription to Office 365. Users of the Home plan or other consumer versions of Office 365 will not be able to access it. If you do have a qualifying Office 365 account with your organization, sign into the Microsoft Planner site with your Office 365 username and password. At your Microsoft Planner website, your first step is to devise a plan. Click on the button to Create A Plan (Figure A).

Figure A

At the New Plan window, type a name for your business plan. Choose one of the two access options: 1) Public – Anyone In My Organization Can See Plan Contents; or 2) Private – Only Members I Add Can See Plan Projects. Click the Options arrow and add a group description if you wish. Click the button to Create Plan (Figure B).

Figure B

Your next action depends on which option you chose–Public or Private. If you chose public access, then you can start assigning tasks. If you chose private access, then you may want to take this time to invite other people to the project plan. For the latter, click on the ellipsis icon and select Members. That action opens Outlook with your project group listed. Click on the link to Invite Others.

You can invite people internal or external to your organization. People outside your organization are invited as guests who will receive email notices and can access content in the group project. Click on the Copy Link button to copy a shareable link, or click on the Email button to send an invitation email to the people you’d like to join the group (Figure C).

Figure C

Alternatively, click on the link to Manage Group Members in Outlook. Then click on the link to Add Members. Choose the members you wish to add and click the Add button (Figure D). Then close the window.

Figure D

Close Outlook and return to Microsoft Planner. Click the button to Add Task. Type the task name, enter a due date, and then assign the task to a group member. Click the button to Add Task (Figure E). Continue to add and assign tasks this way to members of the group.

Figure E

Next, you can create buckets to organize the different tasks by type of work, department, or other criteria. To do this, click on the link to Add New Bucket. Type a name for the bucket. You can then add tasks directly to that bucket (Figure F).

Figure F

As you and other group members accomplish tasks, just click on their circles to indicate that they’ve been completed. You can then check on completed and ongoing tasks a couple of different ways. Click on the Charts header to view the progress of all tasks (Figure G).

Figure G

Click on the Schedule header to see a calendar view of assigned tasks and flip through the months to see the status of all tasks (Figure H).

Figure H

Click the ellipsis icon for a specific task. From the menu, you can assign a color label to it, assign it to a different person, copy the task, copy a link to the task, move the task to a different list, or delete the task (Figure I).

Figure I

Click on the task itself. You can now add more details, including a start date, progress on the task, the priority, notes, and an attachment (Figure J). Close the task window when done.

Figure J

Next, click on the ellipsis icon for a specific plan. Here, you can add it as a favorite, export it to Excel, add it to your Outlook calendar, and run other commands (Figure K).

Figure K

To create a new plan, click on the New Plan entry in the left sidebar. To view all your plans, click on the Planner Hub entry in the sidebar. Click on the My Tasks entry to see tasks assigned to you.

Finally, you can use the Microsoft Planner mobile app to track and work with your plans and tasks. To get the app, click on the Get The App Button in the Planner Hub and enter your mobile phone number. Alternatively, grab the app directly from Apple’s App Store for an iPhone or iPad, and from Google Play for an Android device.

Feature Image Credit: Image: iStockphoto/Tanya St

By Lance Whitney

Sourced from TechRepublic

In News

Gideon Spanier: Booming advertising world is riding high

January 21, 2020 No Comments

By Gideon Spanier

Growth is forecast to rise 6% in 2020 and digital promise fuels confidence in the future…

Get Brexit done — Boris Johnson’s election-winning slogan, proved the power of an effective marketing message and the UK ad industry begins the new decade in optimistic mood. Rapid changes in technology and consumer habits caused huge disruption in the last decade but digital advertising has been a growth engine as the UK, enjoying ten years in a row of rising ad expenditure. Here are some key trends for 2020:

A Boris ad bounce?

Even before last month’s decisive election result, leading agency groups were forecasting ad growth of around 6% in the UK in 2020 — in line with recent years, and ahead of most Western countries.

Advertisers keep ploughing money into search and social media as the UK is a leader in ecommerce and mobile.

Outdoor billboards are also generating more revenue as poster companies invest in digital screens. Greater “certainty” at Westminster could boost confidence, according to WPP’s media-buying arm, Group M, which sees “some potential for unlocking of advertising budgets — at least in the short-term”.

Brands are still obsessed by digital disruption

Some agency folk say the ad industry should stop talking about “digital” because it is no longer a silo and should permeate everything, but plenty of clients disagree as they grapple with transforming their businesses. Unilever has just appointed Conny Braams as its chief marketing and digital officer — with “digital” added to her job title as the FTSE 100 company behind Dove and Marmite emphasised it wants to become a “future-fit, fully digitised organisation at the leading edge of consumer marketing”.

Similarly, drinks giant Diageo is in the final stages of a global review of its ad-buying account as it seeks to be “at the forefront of media planning and data-driven marketing”.

The rise of streaming and “chasing the missing viewer”

The streaming wars will hot up when Disney+ debuts in the UK on March 31 as a rival to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Subscription video on-demand is a worry for advertisers because many of these services carry “no ads”, as the marketing for BritBox, a joint venture between ITV and BBC, boasts.

Zenith, a media agency whose clients include RBS and Disney, has warned “available audiences” for advertisers are shrinking as consumers “replace television viewing with non-commercial video”. One marketer talks about “chasing the missing viewer”, who is now on Netflix, surfing the web or playing video games.

Too much targeting?

Another worry is getting the balance right between mass marketing to big audiences and data-driven targeting of niche groups. Some brands, including Adidas and TopShop, have admitted in recent months that they have focused too much on digital, performance marketing to drive sales, and neglected brand-building. Truth is, advertisers want both. ITV, led by Carolyn McCall, plans to launch a targeted, online video ad-buying service, Planet V, in February.

Holding tech giants to account

Governments and advertisers have struggled for years to hold Google and Facebook to account but the UK’s Competition & Markets Authority could take a lead when it completes a big inquiry in July — with the potential to recommend regulation. The CMA warned last month that “a lack of real competition” in the digital ad market could be harming consumers and other media companies such as news publishers.

Agencies must adapt

Ad spend is rising but some clients are using technology to bypass agencies and “legacy” players are struggling to adapt. Publicis Groupe, Dentsu and M&C Saatchi all warned of poor trading before Christmas. The future for agencies is to be nimbler, more consultative and more strategic, which is creating room for new entrants.

Luke Smith, co-founder of Croud, a Shoreditch-based digital agency that has just sold a £30 million stake to private equity, says bullishly: “There are very few industries globally that have as much energy as the digital marketing space in London.”

London versus the regions

The number of people working in UK creative industries grew 30% in the past decade to two million — with half of them in London and the South East. However, some rebalancing away from the capital towards the regions is likely to be a theme in post-Brexit Britain.

Channel 4 will complete the opening of its new, national headquarters in Leeds this year, Dentsu is to move hundreds of jobs out of London in a cost-cutting move and WPP is planning a “campus” in Manchester to drive expansion.

Advertising matters

All of this change and growth is exciting because new, British disruptors from Starling Bank to On The Beach are using advertising to build their brands and it can add value. Shares in US exercise bike company Peloton, another “new economy” brand, slumped after the poor reception for its “sexist” Christmas ad campaign.

Ultimately, advertising matters because it is how a company communicates what it stands for. And, unlike Brexit, it’s a job that is never done.

Feature Image Credit: Gideon Spanier: Brands are still obsessed by digital disruption when it comes to advertising ( AFP/Getty Images )

By Gideon Spanier

Sourced from Evening Standard

In News

Why brands can’t keep consumers in the dark on data tracking

January 21, 2020 No Comments

By Thomas Hobbs

Marketers are still not doing a good enough job explaining to consumers how their data is being tracked.

Speaking on a panel at The Drum’s Programmatic Punch event earlier this month, Belle Cartwright, director of data strategy for EMEA at Essence, said that even though GDPR is changing how brands approach data, many are still banking on consumers being willfully ignorant. She argued that this was the “wrong strategy.”

“You have to inform consumers properly on how their data is being used. How many of them know, for example, that their device ID on their smartphone is being stored so brands can look at their viewing habits to programmatically target them in the future? My guess would be not many,” Cartwright explained.

“We need to do a better job explaining why this data is collected and what the value exchange is to the consumers. Banking on them to not ask any questions is the wrong strategy and will only cause more damage in the future.”

Yet Tim Hussein, managing principal at Ebiquity Tech, questioned why marketers would heavily invest in this kind of programmatic advertising in the first place. He called out “mistruths”, likening them to lies told on the infamous ‘Vote Leave’ bus in the Brexit campaign, which give marketers a false impression of the true power of programmatic.

“Generally programmatic ads perform worse than other types of media. A lot of advertisers can pull back from programmatic and it won’t effect their ROI at all,” he claimed. “Publishers are selling programmatic with mistruths. Big DMP companies say it will make your efficiencies go up X amount, but then their cookie pools are inaccurate or these projections aren’t applied to all campaigns. There’s a lot of half truths being told.”

He added: “Right now there’s two extremes out there: you either get told programmatic is the best thing since slice bread or it’s a disaster. The reality is it’s somewhere in the middle.”

Also on the panel was Nick Stringer, vice president of global engagement and operations at Trustworthy Accountability Group, who claimed marketers should brace themselves for even more changes around data and GDPR.

“Yes, in theory, GDPR should cover the challenges we face around data, but it was only six years in the making and with the rapid rate of change we’re seeing technologically, it will almost certainly be altered soon,” he advised. “You would hope policy makers would put something in place that is more robust and covers things like the privacy directive, and reforms electronic communications much more deeply.”

The biggest looming threat approaching programmatic advertising will be the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which comes into place at the start of 2020, according to Jacob Eborn, privacy consultant manager at OneTrust PreferenceChoice. Although it won’t affect the UK, it could well set the tone for global changes.

Echoing Stringer’s comments, he concluded: “Everyone needs to be aware that how you define requirements for GDPR today probably won’t be the same in 18 months time. Thanks to the CCPA, it could soon be a lawyer who makes the case that a brand has been doing some unlawful. If you are a marketer and not comfortable with privacy litigation then you need to get comfy, and fast.”

By Thomas Hobbs

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Persuading Customers To Take Action: 14 Useful Tips

January 20, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from Forbes

A company only closes a deal after the customer buys their product. One of the most critical parts of any marketing material is the call to action. Whether it’s a video, audio or an article online, calls to action provide a point of contact where the business attempts to sway the consumer’s opinion.

The difficulty in compelling a consumer to act is directly proportional to how much commitment the buyer needs to make. A long-term commitment may need more persuasion than a quick action, but is also likely to see better returns over time.

To help businesses guide their customers toward making the decision that benefits both parties the most, 14 professionals from Forbes Communications Council offer insight into their most effective methods of persuading customers and why they are so useful.

1. Speak To Their Values

Customers typically won’t sign up for a product if there’s not a strong value proposition in terms of the end payoff. But if there’s a long journey between the sign-up and the payoff, it strikes us as particularly important to speak to users’ personal values. When users identify with the mission of the company (and vice versa), delayed gratification becomes an easier pitch. – Max Kornblith, Radvocate

2. Explain The What And Why

Members of my customer experience team are focused on calling customers at “moments of truth” to request feedback about their brand experience and level of satisfaction. We’ve achieved survey volume goals (thousands annually) by explaining why we’re asking for feedback and what we’ll do with it. It’s an effective tip because people will share their precious time when understanding the value and benefits. – Stacy Sherman, Schindler Elevator Corporation

3. Break It Down Into Smaller, Digestible Actions

When persuading customers to take an action, the first step is the hardest and most critical. If it is not a quick action, consider breaking the customer flow into smaller steps, such as expressing interest with an email address. This allows you to follow up with a customer (even in different channels) when there are additional steps or the customer action requires a commitment. – Vincent Phamvan, Simplr®

4. Listen More Than You Talk

It’s been my experience that “persuading” customers is a bad idea. The most effective way to impel action is to identify what the customer wants and/or needs and address it. If you aren’t doing that, nothing you say will matter. Whether you are talking directly to customers through research or simply picking up the phone, the information you’ll get will make an impact. – Laurie B. Timms, B2B Tech Comms

5. Show, Don’t Just Tell

Show, don’t just tell, the benefit the action will bring to the customer. People will not commit their valuable time to an activity with no promise of return. Regardless of whether the incentive is emotional, physical or tangible, make it easy to visualize and feel the reward. Paint a familiar scenario in the customer’s mind and illustrate how they will feel as your reward eliminates their pain point. – Jeff Grover, Best Company

6. Create An Engaging Customer Experience

Consumers today have higher expectations when it comes to brand engagement. Although your product or service may speak for itself, creating an exemplary customer experience sets your company apart from the rest. Engaged customers are more likely to make a purchase and become brand ambassadors who reinforce marketing efforts. – Marija Zivanovic-Smith, NCR Corporation

7. Create Scarcity And Urgency

I’ve found the best way to prompt customers into taking action is to create scarcity and urgency. Not using vague, “limited-time” verbiage, the offer should be personalized and tied to a specific deadline and available to a select “few” who are able to take advantage of said offer. This tip is effective because if interested, customers won’t want to miss out on a good offer (FOMO). – Lin Grosman, GoDataFeed.com

8. Inject Doubt

Customers are not ready to change. Actually, they most likely don’t want or need to. The space for a new commitment comes from removing certainty from their first choice. Show them a door in the wall, with light filtering from behind it, indicating an opportunity worth exploring. Only after they cross the door, can you hit them with the full discovery of the new option. – Matteo Atti, VistaJet Ltd.

9. Up The Stakes

As human beings, we’re all inclined to take the path of least resistance. This means, when trying to get customers to take multi-action steps, incentives along the way can prove particularly enticing. Whether it’s an iPad sweepstakes or a discount on service, give them something for their effort and you’ll see a much stronger response. – Melissa Kandel, little word studio

10. Live Or Die

One of the most helpful tips I have been given is to not care if you live or die (get the sale or not). Customers buy for their own motivation, not yours, so approaching with an attitude of living without the sale shows the customer that you are not there just pumping your product. You want the sale, but you are not so eager that you will take anything — you need the customer to be right for you. – Sarah Lero, Peerless Products Inc

11. Remove The Guesswork

Reduce your customer’s cognitive load through the engagement process. When you need them to act, remove all distractions and make it as simple as possible for them to take the next step. Keep the customer focused and relaxed by removing unnecessary elements from the page, using sequential form fields and straightforward calls to action so there’s no room for confusion. – Devin Henry, Nomadic Real Estate Investments, LLC

12. Think About The Opportunity Cost

Think about the opportunity cost — what are you leaving on the table by not taking action? What are you missing out on? Along with that, share a case study illustrating how a client capitalized on a similar choice and providing proof of success to bring the customer into the comfort zone. – Valentina Marastoni-Bieser, Cuebiq

13. Reframe The Conversation

Customers don’t like being forced into anything. It’s important to reframe the conversation around the risk of not doing anything. This approach allows the customer to feel more in control. The risk of standing still, especially in the digital age, is often much greater in the long run than the risk of trying something new and failing. – Jennifer Kyriakakis, MATRIXX Software

14. Build A Habit And Earn Loyalty

The best marketing is top-notch customer service. When your company proves it’s there for customers during every moment, and all the micro-moments in between, customers are more likely to return the favor, taking time out of their days to tend to a time-consuming task. You’ve earned their trust through your own efforts, and they’re willing to make the investment back. – Brie Tascione, Relay Network

Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only, fee-based organization for senior-level communications and public relations executives. Find out if you qualify at forbescommcouncil.com/qualify. Questions about an article? Email [email protected].

Sourced from Forbes

In News

The top design trends for 2020

January 20, 2020 No Comments

By Joseph Foley.

As we enter a new decade, we look at where design is heading.

A new decade brings new trends, and the evolution of existing ones. Last year saw exciting developments across the spectrum of visual design that will develop and evolve in the new year.

Here, we look at what’s hot in design right now and how we see it developing in 2020, covering everything from web design to fun fonts to graphic design and UI. Here are seven of our biggest predictions for what we’ll see happening in design this year. You heard it here first.

01. Branded animation

With GIFs now part of how we communicate, anyone designing for digital knows that people love movement. Illustration has become big for social media and web design over the last few years, but there’s now growing demand for the illustrations to move as shorter attention spans need to be satisfied.

GIFs can be a powerful way to bring brands to life. In 2020, we expect to see more fully branded motion graphics, from micro-interactions to moving logos to animated GIFs celebrating milestone events on social media.

Animations will also get more continuous. The safety video from Delta Airlines (above) shows the direction branded animation is going in, with one scene rolling into the next through fluid dynamic transitions that evolve and tell a story. The trend to build each scene out of the previous one takes viewers on journeys through a transforming world. And animation doesn’t only live online or on a screen.

Branded animations designed by London-based Animade were an integral part of Mailchimp’s rebranding in 2019, including the monkey logo that winks when you move the cursor over it, but the animators also created this interactive wall art. Interactive illustrations will offer a chance to reinvent communication and tools and engage with illustration in real-world environments.

02. Ultra minimalism

design trends 2020 — Calendly’s ultra minimalist landing page focuses attention on the call to action (Image credit: Calendly)

Minimalism seems like it will never become passee. It looks clean, sleek and for websites, it reduces loading time and scores better in search results. Services like Slack, Monday and Calendly are aware of this and have been leading the trend for minimalist landing pages that put the focus on the call to action and conversions.

With no distracting background elements, their sites are easy to navigate and make it easy to sign up. The trend is to complement the white space and simple message with an illustration – Calendly uses a modern looking line drawing to add to the clean feel, Monday opts for an animated demo with pots of colour to draw the eye, while Dropbox dispenses even with the illustration, dedicating half the screen to the sign up form. Other sectors are following the trend, opting for simple and direct approach, which will stay with us in 2020.

03. Combining realism and flat design

Recent years have seen a huge trend for flat design, and over the last year, isometric design has been the big thing, led especially by design for cryptocurrency sites, while 3D has been getting better and better. Now we’re starting to see more of a tendency to get the best of both worlds by layering elements of flat design and realistic 3D images. This can be through combining 3D design and flat design or through collages that combine flat design and photography like the beautiful dreamy posters created by Magdiel Lopez.

His work bridges the gap between the simplicity of flat design and the complexity and authenticity of realism, and communicates interaction between the real and digital worlds. The combination of 3D and flat design can also be a way to bring goods to life, such as on the urban trekking shoe company Déplacé Maison website or highlight blended learning experiences like on the Ocean School website.

04. Playing with the elements

In web design, there’s a growing tendency to play with water, air and light to create engaging effects, which follows a trend in design in general towards rejecting rigid geometric lines and shapes in favour for soft, flowing lines. It’s fun and playful, approachable, easier on the eye and still feels new.

The design and text on the Beyond Beauty project’s website seem to float around the space, conveying the sense of freedom that the project embodies. Expect to see a lot more free-floating elements in 2020 as we say goodbye to gravity. The theme for flowing shapes and lines is taken up also in the use of water and lights, for example, with cursor-controlled shimmer and ripple effects like in this site from property developers Azure The Oceanic. The Barovier & Toso website also uses cursor controlled liquid ripple and shimmer effects to give a sense of mystery and luxury to its products.

05. Heavy but simple fonts

The trend for big and heavy fonts is not going to move easily. With people spending more of their time online on small screens, big fonts are practical, but it’s a trend that extends to the world of graphic design and even packaging, since they also look great and give personality to text. When it comes to thickness, the rule for 2020 will continue to be the bigger and bolder the better, with text taking centre stage and overtaking image and video as the main element.

Designers are using bold or extra bold fonts paired with simple backgrounds or much lighter text to create interesting contrast in a design. Text may even go beyond a composition’s edges, and be split into multiple lines. CPGD, a list of direct to consumer brands, is on trend with a site that uses bigger Helvetica Now Display much bolder than most ecommerce sites, which can often suffer from lots of small text.

Large text is not only for headlines and titles, but sites like that of Germany agency Polar Gold show a trend to beef up the size of the text in paragraphs too, and expect to see more incorporation of movement too like in the bold and playful Piano Trio Fest site.

06. Dynamic live data visualisation

Data visualisation has been a growing trend for years. And there’s much more to come. In 2020, complex live data – like dashboard stats – will become even more immediately available, and designers will need to showcase information in a way that adapts to changes and dynamically animates. In the past year, The Economist’s Reimagine the Game offers visualisation of fans’ reactions in the stadium during football matches providing a kind of timeline of the match complete with goals and yellow cards. In 2020, expect data visualisations to go dynamic live, interactive and to cover everything.

07. AR and VR finally go mainstream

It’s been a long time coming but VR is finally coming into the mainstream and is expected to become one of the most consumed technologies of the next few years. What’s exciting for design is that more than being a trend, virtual reality offers a whole new medium to design for. UI and UX within VR is huge area in which to explore not only how we touch a screen but how we move around inside it.

Expect big opportunities in holographic 3D design and virtual reality e-commerce solutions, while AR will increasingly offer more demand for digital animation, with magazines like The New Yorker bringing pages to life through our phones’ cameras and Apple and Google introducing their own AR development platforms, ARKit and ARCore. And whatever happens in the areas of VR and AR is also bound to have an effect on wider design.

By Joseph Foley

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

In News

The major battle of the 2020 streaming wars will be over ads

January 20, 2020 No Comments

By Jeff Beer

Both platforms and advertisers are experimenting with new ways of getting our attention. Can they find the format that will let users embrace it?

If we ran a survey asking people what they do when they pause a show they’re watching on an on-demand streaming service, the top answers would likely be

1) get a snack;

2) take a washroom break.

Then, much further down the list—waaaaaay down,

down,

no, keep going—

you’d find “stare at the screen for 30 seconds to receive a commercial message.”

Everything we know about actual consumer behavior—and heck, logic—from the last decade (and maybe the last four) is that people will do just about anything, and buy just about anything, to avoid ads. DVRs, ad blockers, and Netflix have all seen their rise fueled by a desire for ad-free entertainment.

Yet as we enter the next phase of the streaming wars—with AT&T’s HBO Max, Peacock, and Quibi coming online this spring, all of which have promised ad-supported versions (with some of them even stating that their ad-supported versions would still carry a monthly subscription fee), this pause moment has once again become one of the newest advertising opportunities on TV.

Last month, AT&T announced that its Xandr ad-tech arm is now selling video ad time during pause breaks. Hulu, which is majority-owned by rival Disney, had already been using that pause to post static ad images, but the AT&T announcement signaled that the old-school commercial break was alive again.

The difference here, as Xandr CEO Brian Lesser told Variety, is that these pause ads don’t interrupt your show. “That’s a noninterruptive ad,” he said. “It’s very high value. It’s very brand safe. It’s 100% viewable, and our sales team is in the market now with that product, and it’s gotten great reception.”

Well, that’s one way to look at it.

Within Media Gulch, there’s a reason for that great reception. One, it’s a new ad format. Two, it’s currently for linear and cable TV customers, which means it’s a way to extract more value from the holdouts who have not yet cut the cord. Finally, it points the way forward for perhaps a new revenue source for streaming services.

Traditional broadcast television created predictable commercial break standards; now platforms and brands are searching for ways to shoehorn ad opportunities into the streaming experience.

Welcome to the fight of 2020.

Streaming is an unproven business model

Why? Well, the streaming wars are expensive! There are all the costs associated with running your own technology service—from infrastructure to billing to customer service. Then there’s the content itself. With the expansion in competition among streaming services comes a content arms race; billions are being spent to lure the best and brightest to create content that audiences want to watch. Netflix, for example, has more than $12 billion in debt to fund its content ambitions. Disney has estimated that it’ll lose several billion dollars annually on its effort to establish Disney Plus, ESPN Plus, and Hulu as major platforms. It anticipates turning a profit in 2o23. WarnerMedia, a division of AT&T, which has approximately $134 billion in debt on its balance sheet, projects that its forthcoming HBO Max streaming service will reach profitability in 2025.

What’s notable about almost all of the new entrants in the streaming wars is that they come from the traditional cable television business, where they are used to having the dual revenue streams of subscriber fees plus advertising. WarnerMedia, Comcast, Disney, and former Disney exec Jeffrey Katzenberg (who is Quibi’s founder) are not ready to abandon advertising revenue. Given the unproven economics of streaming media, it’s no surprise that even the most ardent antiadvertising players, such as Netflix, are also experimenting with how they can score advertising revenue without interruptions, with commercial messages that don’t look like ads as we’ve seen them for 70 years.

The $70 billion spent on TV advertising annually has to go somewhere

While it’s easy to blame old media for clinging to a tried-and-true business model and trying to port it into the future, brand advertisers are perhaps even more concerned about how they’re going to reach consumers in a streaming future. A recent study by IPG’s Magna Global found that while 29% of TV viewing is done via OTT services (these are services that reach viewers directly via the internet, bypassing platforms such as cable and broadcast—via streaming, in other words), just 3% of TV ad budgets are spent there. Still, in 2018 OTT ad revenues exceeded expectations, growing 54% year over year, to hit $2.7 billion. That forced Magna to revise its OTT ad spend forecast upwards, predicting 39% growth, to $3.8 billion in 2019, and 31% growth, to $5 billion, by 2020.

This coming year will show just how creatively they plan to spend that money. Whether it’ll be on status quo ads we barely watch—or something much different—could determine some of these platforms’ very survival.

The determining factor in which platforms will survive and thrive—and which will either shut down or get acquired—will come down to finding the right balance between the experience of the three major stakeholders: the platforms, the audience, and yes, the brands. “If there’s an ad experience that makes advertisers happy, allows the platform to further monetize itself, and consumers are down with it and finding utility from it, it certainly sounds like it could be a win, win, win,” says Bill Durrant, managing director of media agency Exverus Media. “But only if it’s done in a way that goes hand in glove with the actual user experience while they’re watching and doesn’t try to force a different type of experience on them.”

Platforms that offer free streaming in exchange for watching ads will obviously continue to do so, and for many this is an attention tax to be paid to see the content. This is the bet that ViacomCBS has made with the free streamer PlutoTV, and Comcast’s Peacock service might be free (with an ad-free premium tier). Just last week, Comcast reportedly was close to acquiring the Xumo free TV app. There’s still value for platforms and advertisers in audiences who don’t want to pay for premium video.

The four emerging ad types we’ll see streaming in 2020

Pause ads may not be interruptive, but they do seem largely pointless and are likely not the answer.

But what might be?

One ad format with potential to, as Durrant puts it, find utility would be the shoppable ad concept. NBC started to use it in broadcast last May. Basically it’s a scannable QR code in the ad, which sends you to the advertiser’s site to buy that product straight from your phones. Moving this to streaming would make a lot of sense.

There’s also the brave new world of product placement, led by companies such as Ryff, which just raised $5 million in new financing in December. Ryff uses computer vision, machine learning, and rendering technologies to identify objects in a scene and replace them with branded products based on customer data. Meanwhile, Branded Entertainment Network uses AI to find the most contextually relevant influencer, streaming, TV, and film content to put a brand’s product in, and a company called Mirriad uses its technology to drop products into relevant scenes.

But according to ad industry insiders I spoke to, the most impressive example of how brands and streaming platforms can work together has been the partnership between Netflix and Coca-Cola on Stranger Things. Here we had a perfect storm: New Coke was already in the script, and the brand ran with it, bringing back the once disastrous formula for a limited run, and then using its own advertising to bask in the halo glow of one of the most popular shows in pop culture.

Of course, not every show has the cultural cachet of Stranger Things, and not every brand has such a clear—and relevant—connection to a show. It’s a relatively easy decision for major brands such as Nike, Burger King, and even the Chicago Cubs to hitch their wagon to a hit. The same goes for Netflix when it’s got a lineup of marquee marketers outside its door.

The billion-dollar question is how Netflix and other streamers leverage the quality of content they’re spending so much money on. Netflix, for example, is working to reverse engineer the ad content transaction, charging brands not to put ad content on the platform but for the right to use Netflix shows in their advertising and packaging outside the platform. Baskin-Robbins was nowhere to be seen in Hawkins, Indiana, but it had Stranger Things-inspired flavors in its ice-cream shops across the country.

As fun and creative as this model is when we’re talking big brands and hit shows, it gets decidedly less exciting, and much more difficult to pull off, when scaled across a wide slate of shows and marketers. Something tells me that the effect would be significantly diluted if we start seeing these Stranger Things-style promos happening with every show. Is Trojan going to make Sex Education-themed condoms? Is Ford going to create its own ads using the focus group guy from I Think You Should Leave?

Okay, those two could actually be great, but you get my point.

The next generation of branded content

A solution that might come closest to the win-win-win among stakeholders is actually a Holy Grail many marketers have been chasing for at least a decade: branded content that is actually part of the production. One of the best examples in recent years is Netscout bankrolling Werner Herzog’s 2016 doc Lo and Behold, but there are plenty of other examples that could point a way forward for streaming platforms’ quest for tolerable brand relationships. As the money spent by platforms on content rockets into the stratosphere, and our tolerance for ads continues to plummet, brands could help solve both by increasingly becoming production partners.

In September, National Geographic debuted a six-part documentary on global activism called Activate, featuring celebrities such as Pharrell Williams, rapper Common, and actors Darren Criss and Uzo Aduba, and highlighting the work of grassroots activists ending cash bail, eradicating plastic pollution, and more. The entire series was underwritten by P&G, and each episode mentioned work the company was doing to help each cause. Hugh Evans, CEO of Activate coproducer Global Citizen, told Fast Company that P&G “is genuinely committed to putting social good at the center of their business model. Activate was a logical extension of that model.”

Back in July, agency Observatory worked with comedian Whitney Cummings to create a three-part video series, funded by VCA Animal Hospitals, that lovingly parodies pet obsession. Observatory pitched the show to digital distributors, with no special emphasis on it being brand-funded, and after a bidding war between four different platforms, Refinery29 acquired the show. “Our economic interests are aligned from go,” says Observatory CEO Jae Goodman. “The show itself is both a great show for viewers who love their pets or who just love to watch shows about pets, and VCA is expressing its brand values through something that isn’t an interruption.”

It’s highly unlikely that the $70 billion spent on TV advertising will suddenly migrate over to producing new shows and movies. The bulk of it will still be spent on the kind of traditional interruptive ads we’ve been seeing for the last 70 years.

But if the successful experiments thus far to bring advertising to streaming tells us anything, it’s that platforms should be imploring brands to make advertising adaptations that treat audiences like actual audiences. If you want people’s attention, you’re going to have to earn it.

Feature Image Credit: [Photo: TPopova/iStock]

By Jeff Beer

Sourced from Fast Company

In News

Simplify Your Innovation Process Into 5 Phases

January 17, 2020 No Comments

By Lisa Bodell.

In a survey from Boston Consulting Group, 79% of executives ranked innovation as a top-three priority for their company. And yet, research suggests that most professionals are unclear about how to bring an innovative idea from concept to market. After more than 20 years in the innovation space, I’ve found that the process can be distilled into five distinct phases.

The first is often called idea development. This is when you gather raw ideas from sources like brainstorms, customer feedback, employee submission portals, etc.

Next is the concept development phase. Here is where you or your innovation team roughly expands the most promising raw ideas into concepts. By “rough expansion,” I mean that spending five minutes on a concept is too little time but investing five hours is too much. Through trial and error, you’ll determine the right amount of time for your organization to spend on this early phase.

During this phase, you’ll determine which ideas are aligned with your business strategy and you’ll apply any other criteria that your org uses to screen ideas.

The focus of your third phase is business development. Now is when you’ll build out the concepts that made it through Phase Two. That means researching and outlining customer requirements; market and revenue potential; competitive analysis; risks; feasibility; and design and patent considerations.

Phase Four is when technical development happens. This refers to design; features and functions; experimentation; prototyping; testing and feed-backing; manufacturing; and so forth.

Today In: Leadership

Your final innovation stage is market development. This is typically when final refinements are made and when your marketing team creates the product or service strategy. That includes the positioning, U.S.P., target markets, sales channels, pricing and more for your new innovation.

The process I’ve outlined has five phases, but other innovators use as few as three and as many as eight. Feel free to customize the structure according to your needs after you’ve utilized it a few times. For now, use it to navigate the innovation process — from the lightbulb moment to launch day.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstoock Start by gathering raw ideas from brainstorms, customer feedback, employee submission portals, and other sources.

By Lisa Bodell

I’m obsessed with simplification as a work and life hack. As founder and CEO of FutureThink in NYC, I’ve helped people at Google, Novartis and Accenture kill complexity and create space for innovation. When I’m not delivering a keynote or TedX talk somewhere in the world, I’m writing books (Kill the Company and Why Simple Wins) or reading them. I’m a board adviser for the Association of Professional Futurists, council member of the World Economic Forum and a carpooling mom of two. I’ve taught innovation and creativity at both American and Fordham Universities, and the North Pole is on my bucket list because it’s where every time zone converges.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

How to start your own business

January 17, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from Microsoft

Starting your own business. It’s thrilling, exciting – full of hope and possibilities. It’s a time in your life when anything can happen – and anything will. It’s a process marked by creativity, passion, and pure, unadulterated chutzpah. And that’s an exciting thing.

But before you pop the champagne cork, there’s a heck of a lot of work to be done. Because, after all, starting your own company takes more than just a dream and a kernel of an idea.

It takes capital – and plenty of it. It takes fleshed out plans, and roadmaps, and…, and…, and…. But don’t let all of those “ands” bring you down. You can do this! It’s all there – you just need to know how to organize and present it to potential investors, and your customers or clients.

So, let’s take a look at some of those “ands,” so you can start your business on the right foot.

Write your business plan

Starting a small business starts with a plan. And while it may sound daunting, it shouldn’t be. Business plans are fairly formulaic, and they’re designed that way for a reason: To help you understand your direction and attract investors. In general, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recommends seven segments for any business plan. They include:

Executive summary. It offers a brief look at what your business does and why it will succeed.
Company description. Gives detailed information about your company, the problems it solves and the consumers, organization(s) and/or businesses it will serve. In it, you should address any competitive advantages, experts on your team, etc. Use this space to talk to your strengths.
Market analysis. Provides details on your industry outlook and target market. It’s the area where you’ll outline what other businesses are doing, what their strengths are, and how you can compete for a share of the market.
Organization and management. In this segment, you’ll explain how your company is structured and who will run it.
Service or product. It gives you a space to deliver detailed information on the products and/or services you’re offering.
Marketing and sales. Here, you’ll address how you’ll market your business and provide details on your sales strategy.
Funding request. If you need funding, use this space to describe how much money you’ll need for next five years – and how you’ll use it.
Financial projections. Here, you’ll tell your financial story, provide well-founded projections, and balance sheets, statements, etc. (if you’re already an established business).
Appendix. Use this optional section to include things like résumés, licenses, permits, patents, legal documents, permits, etc.

If you’re still not sure how to start a business plan, or beginning one from scratch is more than you’d like to tackle, some document creation software offers comprehensive business plan templates to help you along the way.

Research the competition

Whether it’s for your business plan or your own on-going edification, understanding your competition before starting your own business – and throughout its life – is critical. Of course, you can use your favorite search engine to gather data, read trade publications, and follow them on social media, but there’s one other resource you may be overlooking: your word processing program.

Templates every business needs

Achieve your goals with professionally-designed templates for small and medium-sized businesses.

GET BUSINESS TEMPLATES

Depending on which you have, you may be able to perform research directly from your business plan or files. With features that help you find related subjects, and content from reliable sources, you can gain valuable information without ever leaving your document.

Claim your domain & social media handles

Once you’ve finalized your company’s name and gained understanding of your competition’s online (and offline) presence, you can prepare to compete for business – and funding. Which means that now is the time to claim your website and email domain names. By doing so, you’ll be able to begin work on your website, and communicate with clients, and potential investors from a professional email address (rather than a free online service), and begin building your electronic presence even before you’ve officially opened for business.

In addition to claiming your domain names, claim your social media handles. A study commissioned by Infosys found that “brand consistency across channels is a significant factor in consumer spend, with more than 63% of shoppers asserting that brand consistency plays a role in their spending. Additionally, 34% say a high level of brand consistency equates to a greater spend, while a lack of consistency reduces spend for 39% of consumers.”

Note: Ideally, your website domain and your email domain should be the same (or as near to identical as possible), easy to remember, and not too long. And your social media handles should be the same as your company’s name.

Build your financial forecast

Financial forecasting is not only one of the most important steps to starting a business, but it’s an on-going task that can help you understand where you are and where you’re going (financially), and help inform investors’ decisions, as well as your own decisions about certain aspects of your company. But while the idea of forecasting may seem overwhelming, you don’t need to be a PhD in economics to do it. In fact, some spreadsheet software allows you to create financial forecasts with just a few taps of the keyboard. All you’ll need to get started is some historical time- or date-based data, and your software can help you not only predict future sales, but can even go so far as to predict inventory requirements, and consumer trends.

Build your pitch for capital

When you’re asking investors for capital, a business plan and a dossier full of facts and figures can only go so far. Eventually, you’ll have to meet in person – and that’s where a good presentation can really help you shine. Yes, it will have to contain all of the important data, but it can (and should) also give you the opportunity to share your passion, your knowledge, your product and services, and all of your “reasons why.”

Just don’t overwhelm your audience with too much information. According to Forbes.com, a pitch deck should include no more than 20 slides, it shouldn’t be “too wordy” and it should feature quality graphics and a layout that’s easy to follow/understand. And that’s where the right presentation software can come in handy. With templates, easy editing features, and the power to include charts, graphs, words and pictures – and manipulate them to make them look perfect – the software you choose can make all the difference.

There are many steps to opening a business – and the road from your “big idea” to your official business launch can be stressful (and a little bit bumpy) – but it just might be one of the most exciting, rewarding things you’ll ever do. Of course, you may be nervous, and that’s natural, but with the right tools, and support, as well as your passion and commitment, you can make your dream a reality – and not only start a business, but develop one that will grow and thrive over time.

Sourced from Microsoft