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In 2020, marketers will find a middle ground between agencies and DIY

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By Kristina Monllos

In recent years, marketers have been on a tear to take back control of their brands. Much of that has been in the form of taking various agency functions in-house — creative, social, programmatic, even media buying — in the hopes of not only saving money but becoming more nimble. But doing so isn’t a quick fix, nor is it as simple as it may seem. As marketers start to wake up to that reality, they will start to work with agencies again — albeit in a hybrid model.

The CMO’s pitch to taking marketing in-house to CEOs and CFOs will certainly be more difficult next year as the challenges of handling marketing services in-house are no longer theoretical. As more and more major marketers have tried it, the difficulties of doing so have become clearer, especially for programmatic. There are myriad issues. Staffing is chief among them. Marketers not only have a hard time finding talent but retaining that talent. Others find that it’s not the cost-saving solution they thought it would be. And with former in-house success stories such as Intel’s Agency Inside and Thomson Reuters’ GSC dismantling their in-house teams as well as major marketers like Uber reducing their internal marketing headcounts, the question of long-term viability of in-house teams is starting to come into focus.

Marketers all year have voiced some of the issues with in-house teams. “If you want to take something in-house, it takes a lot of work and eventually you’re going to need the amount of headcount you have at your agency,” said one marketer.

“Whatever you do [in-house or agency], you get the best work when you’re working with a team who will tell you no or that your idea is bad,” said another, adding, “sometimes bigger corporations need an agency to step in to tell them that something is a bad idea, that they don’t have the pulse on culture.”

Another put their in-house issue bluntly: “Agencies will always do a quick turnaround. We can’t reach in-house talent on weekends.”

That doesn’t mean the business will shift fully back to agencies. Instead, marketers and agency execs believe that a new hybrid model will rise. Work will likely be split between in-house teams and external agency partners with those teams working together at times so that marketers get the best of both worlds. Anheuser-Busch, the world’s largest brewer, is already running a hybrid model of sorts. Over the last year or so, A-B InBev built out its own in-house team but doing so hasn’t been with the aim of reducing its agency relationships. Instead, the company has looked to build out a new hybrid model with its in-house and external agency teams so that it “frees up time for the big creative agencies to focus on big things” like Super Bowl, A-B InBev CMO Marcel Marcondes previously told Digiday.

That model of agencies taking the lead and in-house teams handling the day-to-day will likely become popular among marketers, said Sandra Duff, svp of strategy, activation and operations for consulting firm Jackman Reinvents. That may be especially true for marketers that have in-housed creative functions as over time those teams can lose their original intent and become more like a production house. “So the cycle may be turning in 2020 with agencies taking the lead creative role once again, delivering bold thinking for brands and using a smaller scaled internal team for smaller executions,” per Duff.

That’s not only the case for creative services handled in-house. “What we’re hearing from our members is that at the current level of in-housing many of them are finding ways to partner with these in-house resources and that the in-house resources are actually becoming clients themselves,” said Matt Kasindorf, svp of agency management services for the 4A’s, adding that he predicts it will “slow down” and that a hybrid model will likely be more popular going forward.

How agencies and brands will manage the hybrid model in the long-term is still yet to be seen. Of course, the looming threat of marketers moving services in-house doesn’t seem as bad if there’s still some work for agencies. “Movements in business may plateau or even perish, but a new synthesis nonetheless prevails. It’s no different with the matter of in-housing,” said David Rolfe, head of integrated production for BBDO. “I think we’re entering a new era of client-agency collaboration, optimized through operational co-dependence. And agencies will recognize that there’s opportunity on all fronts: responsiveness, proactiveness and complementariness.”

By Kristina Monllos

Sourced from DIGIDAY

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Three Ways To Make Your PR Campaigns More Data-Driven

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By Jodi Amendola

The marketing world has become increasingly data-driven. Just ask anyone who has innocently searched for a product online only to be inundated by ads for said product in their email, social media, visits to websites that accept advertising, and even in their dreams. (OK, the dreams part isn’t quite true yet — although I hear Google and Amazon are working on it.)

The one segment of integrated marketing that has been less cut and dry when it comes to measuring outcomes is public relations. While agencies have always tracked results, the ROI of media exposure that you earn (rather than buy) has never been as straightforward as measuring exposure and lead generation from marketing and advertising. With digital marketing, an email campaign and most other marketing strategies with a CTA, there’s generally an immediate, easily traceable action taken by prospects.

With PR, though, there is often no immediate action for readers to take (although sometimes readers are so impressed by a thought leadership article, for example, that they check out your website based on its inclusion in the “about the author” information).

PR is typically leveraged to build visibility and credibility — maybe you or someone on your executive team is quoted in an article or contributes a vendor-neutral thought leadership piece. The goal is to create awareness so when the time is right for a purchase, your company is included on the shortlist. But how do you measure that?

PR has always been difficult to quantify, let alone track. Fortunately, today there are tools to help measure, track and assess. Following are three steps you should take to leverage a data-driven approach to measure the success of your PR campaigns.

1. Align PR measurement with business goals.

In our data-happy age, there are all kinds of metrics you can track, but it’s a good strategy to focus on the ones most important to your business.

For example, you may want to measure how much media coverage you’re earning versus your competitors (“share of voice”). It’s important to not only grab more share of voice than your competitors, but to ensure it’s the right kind of attention.

Look for media monitoring and analytics tools to measure not only share of voice, but also the current sentiment — neutral, positive or negative — and whether it changes after launching your campaign.

If one of your PR goals is to reach specific decision-makers to increase awareness, you can track media outlets that mention your company/products/services. Multiply that media coverage by the total circulation of each outlet and weight by the importance of the media outlet by your target audience.

Another approach to see if your efforts are moving the dial on your business goals is to do a pre-campaign survey of your market, focused on brand awareness. Once the campaign is active, survey your market again to see if statistics are trending up.

If you start by aligning your PR goals to your business goals, you’ll get valuable guidance that can make a real difference in the business.

2. Establish what you’re going to measure before launching the PR campaign.

Nothing is less effective than setting goals after a campaign has launched. In PR, it’s particularly crucial because you don’t have as much control over when placements land. Unlike marketing campaigns, it’s up to reporters and editors when the thought leadership articles or quotes from interviews with your thought leaders will run in media outlets.

It’s just like taking a trip. If you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t want to start driving before you set the GPS. You could be starting out in the wrong direction entirely. Determine what you want to measure, and then put the mechanisms in place to do it.

3. Set your KPIs.

Once you know what you want to measure, you need to know how success will be defined. And you must be sure all stakeholders agree.

Some common KPIs include:

• Web traffic changes on days when PR materials (press releases, thought leadership articles, thought leadership quotes in articles) go live.

• Coverage by type of activity.

• Share of voice.

• Positive/negative/neutral coverage.

• Traffic to landing pages vs. engagement (e.g., a request for more information and/or downloads of high-value marketing materials such as a white paper or case study).

• Social media shares/retweets by month.

• Social media @ mentions or hashtag use.

It’s best to start by focusing on three to five metrics that most closely align with your business goals or that you believe will help you move the needle. You can always reevaluate and change them later.

Show Me The Data

If you’re not ready for a subscription-based media monitoring and analytics tool, Google Analytics has a lot of free tools. For example, you can use Google Analytics to measure web traffic when PR materials go live.

You can also use UTM codes to see how much web traffic a specific placement drove. To do this, simply create a custom URL to a homepage or product page with the UTM code embedded in a link, and include it as a hyperlink for PR efforts such as press releases and social media. Google Analytics will track where users come from if they click through to a page on your website using a link with the code.

Evaluate, Rinse And Repeat

The purpose of data-driven PR measurement isn’t to determine if PR is “right” for your organization. You should already have made that decision before the campaign launches.

Instead, its purpose is to help ensure your PR campaigns stay on track and that you’re optimizing your program to deliver the best possible performance based on your business goals and KPIs. If it is, great! Keep up the good work. If it isn’t, determine what needs to change, and then pivot.

Finally, remember that business goals change, as do audience perceptions. Evaluate the structure and performance of your program constantly, and you’re far more likely to create PR wins for the organization over the long term.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Jodi Amendola

Jodi Amendola is CEO of Amendola, an award-winning healthcare and technology public relations and marketing agency based in Scottsdale, AZ.

Sourced from Forbes

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15 Smart Writing Tips For Crafting Copy That Sticks

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Sourced from Forbes.

In a fast-paced world consumed by digital media, it can feel impossible to grab someone’s attention. Companies often struggle to stand out among all the noise to busy consumers. Sometimes they only have a few brief words to gain someone’s attention.

To help you do this well, 15 members of Forbes Communications Council gave us their tips for writing short, quick copy that will stick with your audience long after they’ve read it. Follow their tips to improve your marketing copywriting.

1. Add An Element Of Intrigue

“Bad writing transfers the burden of understanding onto the reader.” While I agree clarity is king when it comes to copywriting, sometimes an element of confusion provides the necessary hook for readers to inquire further. When you only have a few words, write to engage before writing to inform. Practice this method with caution, though — there’s a fine line between great hooks and clickbait. – Lucy Mehrtens, Templafy

2. Refine Your Key Messaging Hierarchy

Short copy is tough because you’re working with fewer variables and it may be more difficult to determine what is and isn’t working. One thing you can test, however, is your key messaging hierarchy. Whether you want to improve clicks or conversions, you can always test benefit messaging versus a call to action. Depending on what you’re selling, these copy elements will vary in appeal. – Daniel Lalley, Brondell Inc.

3. Effective Emotion

Effective copy is just that — it has an effect on its intended audience. First, determine your end-game emotion and make it specific: Will your readers be surprised? Seasonally delighted? Nautically inspired? Next, write five versions, then shut your computer. Like a fine wine, good copy has to breathe. When you return with fresh eyes, you’ll be able to discern the headline that just works. – Melissa Kandel, little word studio

4. Humor Consumers

Use humor. Do something that makes the reader crack up. Humor is a way to make a quick emotional connection with the consumer. It breaks them out of the rut of endless cookie-cutter copy and will make them remember you and your brand. – Seema Kumar, servicechannel.com

5. Use Everyday Language

I have said it before and will say it again: Use small words and short sentences. Everyday language helps to avoid confusion. Formulating brief, catchy, memorable copy that speaks to customers will capture their attention nearly every time. That is why Nike’s slogan, for example, stands the test of time. – Marija Zivanovic-Smith, NCR Corporation

6. Be A Drama Queen

Humans have emotions and like drama — there’s no communication without storytelling and storytelling without drama. Create some drama and play with emotions. Too much copy out there is plain flat, has no substance and doesn’t trigger any emotion. Create some drama and intrigue in a way that itches in your audience’s brain. – Hugo Macedo, Unbabel

7. Speak To Their Pain

To get their attention, you must speak to the pain your customers are feeling. First, envision your customer. Who do they want to be, ideally? Second, identify their problem. What is it that’s keeping them from their ideal? Third, incorporate both of those things into a single line and then let them know how you can help. Be as clear as possible about their needs and cut out everything else. – Kate Barton, Clearview Advisory

8. Avoid Clutter

In our experience, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to copywriting. However, we see the most success with copy that’s concise and helpful to the customer. When guests are looking for answers, they don’t always want to dig through cluttered content. In this scenario, less is more. – G’Nai Blakemore, Mattress Firm

9. Crawl Public Social Media Data

Chances are your audience may already be talking about the topic on social media. Use topic-specific keywords to crawl public social media data, run word clouds and identify the most common words your audiences use while conversing about this topic. Draw some inspirations from sample social media posts driving these words. Now you get some inspiration to write the attention-grabbing copy. – Prashant Saxena, Isentia

10. Know What You Want Them To Leave With

Ask yourself and write down the answers: What is the audience thinking about my brand going into the conversation? What do I want them to think about us and/or what do I want them to do after seeing my message? And last but not least, what should I tell them to bridge the gap? Then read it out loud. This methodology forces you to write down the ideas and read them out loud to can check its effect. – Valentina Marastoni-Bieser, Cuebiq

11. Ride The Coattails Of A Trend

If your copy is intended for short-term (that is, part of a campaign and not your brand fundamentals like a tagline), try twisting a current pop culture trend or phrasing to your benefit. It will make an instant association in the reader’s mind which will help it stand out, strengthen their affinity and pique curiosity. Even better if you can twist it to be clever and tongue-in-cheek. – Ellen Sluder, RingBoost

12. Promise Solutions To Problems

The best way to attract and impact readers is by promising solutions to a challenge. Know your target audience and then write it in a way that solves their needs. It’s effective because people are hungry for answers to problems. They don’t want “fluff” but rather actionable ways to improve their experiences. If the headline follows best practices, people will not only read it but also tell others. – Stacy Sherman, Schindler Elevator Corporation

13. Show How You ‘Relieve The Pain’

The best copy means that it resonates with your audience and you are showing why their attention is valuable. If you write copy that highlights how you “alleviate the pain,” you are more likely to capture your target buyer’s interest. – Alyssa Kleinman, CipherHealth

14. Deliver On Your Value Proposition

Consumers are bombarded with messaging. One effective way to cut through the noise quickly is to deliver something helpful to your audience — a nugget of wisdom, a solution to a specific problem, an idea that will free up their time. Storytelling has become the buzzword of the day, but don’t forget the value proposition. – Eric Hadley, iHeartMedia

15. Get To The Point

Just like a brand elevator pitch, be short and to the point. Ask this question before you create your copy: What is the one thing I want to convey that is important to the person I am targeting? Then write your answer using direct and simple language. – Teri Llach, Krome Photos

Sourced from Forbes

 

 

 

 

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How top marketers will do their jobs better in 2020

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Sourced from AdAge

CMOs go on record about their New Year’s pledges

According to an oft-cited statistic from U.S. News and World Report, 80 percent of people will fail to stick with their New Year’s resolutions by February. But that did not stop us from getting marketing leaders on record. Our question—name one thing you will do better in 2020 than in 2019—was met with a variety of responses, from getting more sleep and meditation to “buy more brave ideas that move the needle.” What we did not tell our subjects is that we will be checking back with them in 12 months to see how they did. Pressure’s on.

Ed Pilkington, chief marketing and innovation officer, Diageo North America

Keep exploring new places! There’s always more to see, do and learn by visiting cities and states that are “firsts”—not only is it valuable for the job, gaining new insights and greater understanding of what makes our consumers tick, but it’s just great to travel and see new places. Also, in my line of work,  it’s a great excuse to go to amazing bars all around the country!

Allyson Witherspoon, VP of marketing communications and media, Nissan North America

In 2020, I would like to spend more time learning and testing the next round of consumer behavior and marketing trends so we can anticipate and optimize quickly instead of mostly reacting.

Colin Mitchell, senior VP, global marketing, McDonald’s Corp.

Get out and about more. I want to spend more time in our restaurants talking to our customers and our operators and our crew.

Michelle St. Jacques, chief marketing officer, Molson Coors

Buy more brave ideas that move the needle.

Martin Renaud, global CMO, Mondelēz International

Live our purpose by helping our brands take a stand on issues that matter to our consumers: sustainability, mindful consumption and diversity and inclusion.

Jenna Lebel, CMO, Liberty Mutual

In 2020, I’m focused on explaining the ‘why’ more so my team can more effectively build on the ‘what.’ I’ve quickly learned that my job is really to provide my team with context on our marketing strategy, our business and our category so they can be more empowered and inspired to innovate.

Vineet Mehra, global CMO, Walgreens Boots Alliance

My resolution is to continue investing in our people to cultivate and develop unicorn marketing talent from within.

Meredith Verdone, CMO, Bank of America

In 2020, I resolve to continue to advance diversity of thought and an inclusive culture in my organization, and require the same from my agency partners, so we can tell the stories of the people we serve across our businesses and communities.

Raja Rajamannar, CMO at Mastercard

Sleep for at least seven hours a day!

Diego Scotti, CMO at Verizon

My focus for the year is on scaling up ways to leverage these technologies, particularly those powered by 5G, to shape the future of our marketing and customer experience.

Stephanie Buscemi, CMO at Salesforce

Our team will find a way to top Dreamforce 2019. It’s like planning a music festival—you change the acts every year, but you get people to come back because they know it will be a great experience.

Matthew Anderson, CMO at Roku

Today, one in three Americans doesn’t have traditional pay TV; we expect that to rise to around half within five years. One of my 2020 goals is to attract the next generation of full-time streamers and help fellow CMOs reach this large audience that no longer watches linear TV.

Susan Vobejda, CMO at The Trade Desk

I want to increase my offline connections with my team in 2020, as I find that personal relationships generate the best global collaboration that our team needs to thrive. It’s critical to build that level of trust and transparency so that anyone can reach out to me directly when they have a great new idea or question.

Matt Staneff, executive VP, CMO at T-Mobile

As my 4-year-old constantly reminds me, I am not in control, great ideas can come from places you least expect and there’s always a path to ‘yes.’ You just have to be creative, committed and caring enough to find it. For me, 2020 is about applying those lessons at T-Mobile, listening to customers —whether that’s with sophisticated analytics or just talking over a beer­—and giving them what they want.

Ann Lewnes, CMO at Adobe

In today’s hyper-intense world, you need to focus on the needle movers. To make the space for that, I need to be better at creating boundaries and saying no. When you’re an executive, you have a lot of demands on you coming from every direction—employees, customers, press, media companies and partners. I have a tendency to say yes to too many things and I’ve come to understand that I just can’t—and shouldn’t—do everything. That means resting more responsibility on my incredibly capable team and spending my time on what’s most critical to Adobe’s success.

Sherina Smith, marketing VP, American Family Insurance

In 2020 I want to work on being a better leader by focusing on more mindfulness, meditation and getting out of my comfort zone. Team dynamics are often a reflection of the temperament of the leader, and as we continue to challenge ourselves to be better, we have to be comfortable pushing out of our comfort zones. And that starts with the leader. I find when I set aside quiet time for meditation and mindfulness I’m better able to help my teams maintain focus and perspective on what matters most and help them navigate new and innovative solutions to solving business problems.

Lorraine Twohill, CMO at Google

Read more. Not only because it is good for me and I learn a lot. But because I discover different points of view and perspectives. And it makes the work we put out into the world way better. That, and my reusable water bottle.

Feature Image: From top l to r: Ed Pilkington, Allyson Witherspoon, Colin Mitchell, Michelle St. Jacques, Martin Renaud, Diego Scotti, Stephanie Buscemi, Matthew Anderson, Susan Vobejda, Matt Staneff, Jenna Lebel, Vineet Mehra, Meredith Verdone, Raja Rajamannar, Ann Lewnes, Sherina Smith, Lorraine Twohill. Credit: Submitted

Sourced from AdAge

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AAIToolkit – Breaking the Sound Barrier with Damian Loscher

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“Breaking the Sound Barrier”

AAI Nuts and Bolts of Advertising seminars form part of the AAI Advertisers’ Toolkit, an initiative to help advertisers and marketers keep up-to-date on important advertising topics and useful marketing questions.

Seminar Details

In a world where our choice of media has continued to explode, why do we still listen to more than three hours of radio every day? Radio has proven to be more resilient than we could ever have predicted, or imagined. But the challenge for radio has not gone away and new services like Spotify are nibbling away at radio’s franchise, and may have taken a small bite out of younger audiences.

Breaking The Sound Barrier is a wide and deep examination of listening behaviour in Ireland. Derived from more than 3,000 interviews conducted during 2019, the dataset is rich enough to delve into every demographic and explore audio consumption in all its facets. And because this is not the first time this data has been collected, we are able to trend behaviour, thereby adding a new dimension to our understanding of how our listening has changed and is likely to change in the years ahead.

About the Speaker:

Damian Loscher is Managing Director of Ipsos MRBI (Ireland) and a Partner in the Ipsos Global Network. During his almost 30 years in research, Damian has directed more than 1,000 studies, covering almost every industry sector, giving him a unique perspective on the marketing questions that seem to challenge every business. He has a particular interest in media research and is involved in ongoing projects in the TV, Radio and Out Of Home sectors.

Damian is Ipsos MRBI’s chief methodologist and pollster, and writes regularly on polling and politics for The Irish Times. He is also a former Chairman of the Marketing Society.

Keep up to date and join the interaction 

Free to AAI Members – please register your attendance

€40 + booking fee for non-members
Book now  

Tuesday 28th January, 8.15am

Sourced from  Association of Advertisers in Ireland

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The Most Captivating Brand Campaigns We Saw on Social Media in 2019

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Unmetric analyzes dogs, K-pop and Colonel Sanders as engagement perfection

For the past decade, brands have been capitalizing on the pervasiveness of social media in consumers’ daily lives and shopping habits. And this past year was no different.

Social media analytics company Unmetric found that brands that promoted messaging with edge, savvy, conviction—and occasionally dogs—won the marketing game.

Of that messaging, video—particularly those with memorable storylines, guest appearances or creative approaches to addressing social issues—reined as the overall best-performing format for branded and original content, a consistent trend in their numbers since at least 2015.

Lux Narayan, CEO of Unmetric (now a Falcon.io/Cision company), observed that the majority of Facebook and Instagram’s top advertising posts this year were videos. However, the majority of brand posts on Twitter with the most engagement in 2019 were posts accompanied by images that involved controversy, humor and one-liners, riffing on trending topics or roasting celebrity personas and political figures.

Brands that were quick to troll kept their follow-up memes relevant while also retaining and promoting their core identity for plenty of retweets, like this SparkNotes tweet from July:

Per Unmetric, retweets on the platform are a far more valuable metric for brands than favorites.

To determine levels of engagement, Unmetric analyzes brand posts on a month-by-month basis across social platforms and scores them between zero and 1,000 based on variables such as the number of shares. For YouTube, there is no engagement score, but likes, views and comments are important. Unmetric’s own algorithms and human insights also figure into the ranking and paid, not organic, reach is measured.

Narayan pointed out that certain types of campaigns performed better than others in 2019, listing the most popular categories as social responsibility, satire, anything with animals, music industry partnerships and holidays and observances.

Here’s a breakdown by category of some of the social posts that Unmetric designated a perfect score of 1,000:

Social responsibility

Gillette’s “The Best a Man Can Be” campaign featured a 90-second spot created by AOR Grey New York this past January. Director Kim Gehrig beckons viewers to redefine masculinity and reconsider the age-old “boys will be boys” excuse. This #MeToo era twist on Gillette’s 30-year-old “The Best a Man Can Get” garnered thousands of retweets and YouTube views, making it one of the most engaging brand posts at the start of 2019.

Another top performer in this category was similar to the Gillette ad. Nike’s “Dream Crazier” spot, also directed by Gehrig, was also created to celebrate a 30-year-old slogan (“Just do it”) while focusing on the subject of gender. Narrated by Serena Williams, the 90-second spot acknowledges the double-standard female athletes are subjected to whenever they show emotion and are labeled as “crazy” instead of ambitious or passionate. Per Unmetric’s research, the ad was one of the most engaging brand posts on Instagram in February.

Click HERE to read the remainder of the article.

Feature Image Credit: Ray-Ban’s #ProudToBelong is a campaign ran across most of its social networks throughout 2019. It was one of the most popular YouTube ads this year. Ray Ban

Sourced from ADWEEK 40

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5 digital marketing skills to learn in 2020

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Sourced from engadget.

Give yourself a leg up in 2020 with these e-learning packages covering marketing’s hottest skills.

You don’t need to work in the ad sales department at Facebook in order to understand the importance of digital marketing today. And, if you want to land any of the growing number of lucrative positions in this constantly-evolving field, you need to be up-to-date with the latest tools and platforms. That’s why we’ve rounded up five of the best and most popular digital marketing training packages around to give you a leg up and set you up for success in the field. Read on for details:

SEO

The Complete 2020 Google SEO & Growth Hacking Bundle

stack

MSRP: $1400 | Sale Price: $25 (98 percent off)

No matter what industry you’re in, it pays for your site to rank on Google’s front page. Learn how to drastically increase the traffic to any website with this 7-course bundle that offers 44 hours of training on Google marketing, Facebook advertising and much more.

LinkedIn Marketing

The Complete LinkedIn Marketing & Sales Bundle

stack

MSRP: $1600 | Sale Price: $34 (97 percent off)

LinkedIn is more than just a platform for professionals to network on. With the right know-how, you can supercharge your brand’s awareness and ultimately generate powerful leads. Through 8 courses and over 600 lessons, you’ll learn how to fine-tune your resume, build powerful profiles, network with top players in your field and more.

Facebook Marketing

The Facebook Marketing Master Class Bundle

stackMSRP: $1887 | Sale Price: $35 (98 percent off)

With a user base numbering over one billion, Facebook is a platform you can’t afford to ignore in your marketing efforts. Companies get this, which is why they pay top-dollar for experts who know how to connect with audiences on Facebook. With nine courses and over 570 lessons, this bundle will teach you how to promote your business or brand by creating powerful Facebook ads that will attract new customers and increase conversions on your landing pages.

Affiliate Marketing

The Complete Affiliate Marketer Bundle

stackMSRP: $1592 | Sale Price: $29 (98 percent off)

You don’t need to be part of a corporation to cash in on the marketing scene. Start earning a passive income at home by learning how to become an affiliate marketing master. This 19-hour guide will teach you everything you need to know through eight courses that show you both the fundamentals and more advanced elements of this booming field.

Instagram Marketing

The Instagram Marketing Mastery Bundle

stack

MSRP: $795 | Sale Price: $25 (96 percent off)

Instagram is another social media powerhouse with a booming user base. Break into the lucrative world of Instagram marketing with this mastery bundle that will teach you how to build best-selling content strategies while harnessing the latest affiliate marketing models.

Prices are subject to change.

Sourced from engadget

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These were the most-downloaded apps and games of the decade

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By Chance Miller.

We’re officially in the final weeks of the decade, and App Annie is celebrating with a look back at the biggest apps of the 2010s. According to the App Annie data, there were a few surprises, but some of it is just as you would expect.

App Annie’s charts are based on data from the iOS App Store and Google Play beginning in January 2012. Data through December 31, 2011 accounts only for iOS.

In terms of pure downloads, Facebook heavily dominated the charts for the 2010s. The Facebook app itself came in as the most-downloaded app, followed by Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram in second, third, and fourth places, respectively. Here are the full rankings for downloads from 2010 through 2019 – the inclusion of TikTok is especially notable given how much of a newcomer it is.

  1. Facebook
  2. Facebook Messenger
  3. WhatsApp
  4. Instagram
  5. Snapchat
  6. Skype
  7. TikTok
  8. UC Browser
  9. YouTube
  10. Twitter

What about the top apps in terms of spending? That list is heavily dominated by subscription applications, with Netflix coming in at number one. Even though Netflix ditched iTunes billing for new customers last year, it still has a large user base paying via iTunes.

  1. Netflix
  2. Tinder
  3. Pandora Music
  4. Tencent Video
  5. LINE
  6. iQIYI
  7. Spotify
  8. YouTube
  9. HBO Now
  10. Kwai

If you narrow things down to games, the most-downloaded list is a quite a nostalgic collection of some of the most viral games of the decade:

  1. Subway Surfers
  2. Candy Crush Saga
  3. Temple Run 2
  4. My Talking Tom
  5. Clash of Clans
  6. Pou
  7. Hill Climb Racing
  8. Minion Rush
  9. Fruit Ninja
  10. 8 Ball Pool

And the top 10 games in terms of consumer spending:

  1. Clash of Clans
  2. Monster Strike
  3. Candy Crush Saga
  4. Puzzle & Dragons
  5. Fate/Grand Order
  6. Honour of Kings
  7. Fantasy Westward Journey
  8. Pokémon GO
  9. Game of War – Fire Age
  10. Clash Royale

All in all, App Annie says the app economy is poised to continue growing as we head into 2020:

This decade has been a time of remarkable growth for the mobile economy. With a 5% increase in downloads, and 15% growth in consumer spend (excluding third-party Android) year-over-year in 2019 this looks set to continue in 2020

What were some of your favourite apps and games of the decade? Do any of the apps that made these lists surprise you? Let us know down in the comments. You can read App Annie’s full report here.

By Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac. Tips, questions, typos to [email protected]

Sourcerd from 9TO5Mac

 

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News publishers adopt ‘show don’t tell’ for marketing subscriptions

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By Max Willens

News publishers have reaped the early rewards from paywalls and are increasingly turning their focus on the overall consumer marketing challenge of marketing their products beyond the most hard-core loyalists.

Part of that is bringing in new talent. Witness Condé Nast hiring former Stitch Fix marketer Dierdre Findlay to be its new chief marketing officer. And part of that is more robust marketing strategies that move people down the funnel to purchase a subscription by emphasizing the product benefits.

“When we look at the number of readers who’d encounter a paywall or encounter an offer from us, it is a very small percentage of our total audience,” Washington Post CMO Miki King said. “And while I think that the public understand to some degree that the Washington Post is a paid news product, there are many people who won’t necessarily encounter a paywall. We are trying to find ways to introduce the commercial aspect of our business in ways that are not intrusive.”

Over the summer, The Washington Post assembled a 12-person team tasked with improving the way that content is marketed and delivered to subscribers, King said. The team includes members of the Post’s newsroom, marketing, audience, product and engineering, whose goal is “to translate everything we’re doing across the organization into ways we can deliver things to subscribers,” King said. That group, which was assembled from existing staffers who still report in to their respective lines of business, coordinates to ensure that big stories are promoted in a more extensive, timely fashion.

For example, when the Post released “Where the Pain Pills Went,” a large editorial project around where prescription opioid medications were distributed across the United States, the Post’s team had a several-days head start creating messaging around the project for the Post’s subscribers.

Whereas in the past the Post’s consumer marketing team would largely have to rely on marketing stories after they had come out, coordination among the new team ensured that the Post was able to create several emails’ worth of marketing messages around several of its largest projects this year, including its opioid database.

King said at the Post, a newsroom representative keeps the group apprised of stories or projects that could work, ideally giving the marketing and product teams a chance to develop messaging and schedule promotions that can go out at the right time.

But the sensitive nature of many newsroom investigations limits the amount of coordination possible. For example, The Guardian’s blockbuster story about Cambridge Analytica was one of The Guardian’s biggest drivers of reader contributions and subscriptions, said Mark Rice-Oxley, the Guardian’s membership editor in the U.K. But the story was a closely held secret even within The Guardian’s newsroom, which required the contributions team to develop messaging and chatter around it after the fact.

“Ninety-nine percent of editorial didn’t even know about Cambridge Analytica,” Rice-Oxley said.

New publishers’ impulse to tailor messages about how much consumer revenue is valued must be balanced with an impulse to create messages that are broadly applicable. The Guardian, for example, tries to frame its requests for revenue and messaging around subscriptions in ways are “clear over clever,” said Amanda Michel, The Guardian’s global director of contributions.

“We have to write these things in a way that translates regardless of someone’s first language,” Michel said.

Publishers’ recent focus on consumer marketing are designed to support ambitious subscription targets that many news publishers have laid out. The Guardian plans to double the number of people directly contributing money by 2022, to 2 million; The New York Times has vowed to amass 10 million paying subscribers for its portfolio of products by 2025.

“We’re telling the story of our work,” Michel said.

By Max Willens

Sourced from DIGIDAY

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HTML tags: A guide to the basics

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Find out how you should use popular semantic HTML tags to build better future-proof sites.

HTML is the foundation of every website on the web. It defines where the visuals should be placed, what they look like and what behaviour they should have. It is the first thing a browser receives, making it a crucial piece to get right even before the CSS and JavaScript.

It is the main driver of the Document Object Model that allows the browser to read the structure of the page and render its contents (see more about page layouts here). Elements are created by parsing the tags we write in the markup. Because of this, it’s important to make sure the HTML is correct. The language itself has been improved upon over the years to make sure the syntax used can describe the content within it accurately, and allow consumers to make sense of it.

As HTML has evolved, things that were once recommended could now be considered bad practice. It’s important for us to keep on top of the language we use to make sure it best serves the visitors to our sites. Incorrect HTML can cause more harm than good. By ensuring we get the right structure in place we can be sure the content we create is set for the future.

The <div> element is the most generic container in HTML. By default, it has no styling applied to it, no inherent meaning associated with it and every browser supports it. By applying our own styling, we make it look and behave however we like. While this may sound ideal for visitors in a browser, it comes at a cost to other users and consumers of that content.

Read on to discover the basic HTML tags you should be using, and what underlying advantages using the right tags will bring to your builds.

What are the basic HTML tags?

In HTML tags, a semantic element is one that provides meaning to its contents e.g. <header>. A non-semantic element is typically used to apply styling and does not carry any meaning.

Before HTML5 introduced a new set of semantic elements, developers would use <div> to achieve the same effect e.g. <div id=”header”>. Adding a descriptive class to that element makes it clear to the developer what that element contains, but a computer would not be able to understand it.

We now have several semantic elements such as <nav> or <header> to help structure a page. We should be able to follow the structure by only looking at the tags being used – something that would not be possible with only non-semantic elements such as <div>.

This guide will help you make sure you are always using the right semantic tags for the right job. And, you could create your own HTML boilerplate template, so that your tags are always right and ready to go every time you start a new build.

The <header> tag

The header normally contains some kind of repeated content not directly related to the rest of the page. The specification defines it as “a group of introductory or navigational aids”, which could include a logo, site-wide navigation or a search function. There can be multiple <header> elements on a page. For example, a blog’s home page could contain a <header> tag for each post it displays.

The <nav> tag

Most sites will have an area dedicated to navigation. This can include links to specific areas of the site or a breadcrumb style hierarchy. Not all links need to be within one. Only collections of links in other parts of the page would be candidates for their own <nav> element, but this is dependant on the context.

A common pattern is to include links to a privacy policy or contact page in the footer. If this area makes use of the <footer> element, this is enough to identify these links as site navigation and there is no need to use a separate <nav> tag.

The <main> tag

The <main> element is the focal point of each page. Outside of the page’s header and footer, all other content should be inside here. There should only ever be one <main> on a page. Assistive technologies such as screen readers can detect this element and allow users to skip straight to the content.

HTML tags

Semantic tags such as <header> help the browser recognise specific content (Image credit: Matt Crouch)

The <aside> tag

As the name suggests, the <aside> element contains information that is related to the main content of the page. The information inside this element could exist separate from everything else and not lose context. The most common use for this element is a sidebar navigation or to run adverts alongside the <footer>.

A <footer> element contains any summarising information about the page. For many websites, this includes an address, copyright information or links to supplementary pages. There is no requirement to always have a single footer at the bottom of the page. It can be placed anywhere – including inside other sections – or not included at all.

The <article> and <section> tags

The W3C specification defines <article> and <section> in a similar way. Both are designed to group distinct pieces of a page together. A key difference is composition. An <article> is designed to be self-contained. The contents inside of it would make sense as a standalone piece. Examples of this include a blog post, a user comment or an embedded tweet.

In contrast, a <section> groups together multiple parts of a page together that would otherwise have no other semantic meaning. These would lose their meaning if separated. Examples of this include a group of related paragraphs, a chapter of a book or a single tab as part of a tabbed interface.

It is worth noting that an <article> tag could be comprised of multiple <section> elements.

Remember, semantic HTML is more than just the outline structure of a page. Almost every element provides some kind of meaning, which means there is often a good fit to be found. Only ever use <div> or <span> tags when nothing else will work.

Why does proper HTML markup matter?

HTML tags

Specific tags such as <summary> must contain the right content to be effective (Image credit: Matt Crouch)

Getting the right HTML tags and markup is vital. Here’s are three reasons why.

01. Improved discoverability

Search engines such as Google are constantly crawling the web, finding sites and parsing their content. They do this by looking for certain tags such as <h1> and <article> and using the contents of those to inform their algorithm. For example, searching for tickets for a concert may involve looking for headings containing the name of the event, <p> elements discussing the artist and <time> for the correct date. If they cannot find what they are looking for, the site will not show up in those search results.

Some browsers and services such as Pocket allow users to read websites in a distraction-free mode. These extract the heading, contents and media from the site and lays it out in a view that makes it easier to read. By using the correct elements to construct the page, it makes is easier for these tools to extract the right information and provide a better experience for the user.

02. Better for accessiblity

Some elements have defined behaviours associated with them. A <button> element, for example, is expected to be interactive and perform an action when clicked. If a non-interactive element such as a <div> is used instead, a parser would not know it could click it without some added attributes.

This affects those using accessible technologies as well. It can be slow to navigate a page without any visuals. These users may instead choose to navigate through websites by landmark or heading level.

A landmark is created either by using a sectioning element such as <nav> or by applying an equivalent ‘role’ attribute. Without these, or by using them incorrectly, the user will not be able to find the content they need.

03. Plan for the future

One of the primary principles of the web is backwards compatibility. All specifications are designed to be compatible with sites made many years ago and have considerations in place for changes that may happen in the future. By using the correct elements and tags now, we are ensuring our site has a chance to be understood, found and seen in the future.

Do you want to learn more about web design? Then subscribe to net, the world’s best-selling magazine for web designers and developers.

Feature Image credit: Future

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