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5 Trends Shaping the Future of Digital Marketing

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By Ashlee Sierra

Here’s a little-known secret about the Brafton content marketing and strategy teams: We can see the future. That’s because our company car is a customized Delorean and we have regular training sessions on navigating the space-time continuum.

Obviously, that’s not entirely true. It’s actually a Camaro because we couldn’t find a Delorean.

Regardless of how we get there, what matters is that we’re here to help you see into the future of digital marketing. Come with us on a journey to tomorrow, where we’ll explore evolving digital channels, new applications of automation and a customer journey defined by your ever-changing target audience. Just remember not to run into your future self along the way!

The Current State of Digital Marketing

Before we jump into our time-traveling Camaro, we need to have a clear view of the present. That way, we can be sure we return to the proper timeline.

The same is true for digital marketing: You always need to know what’s happening in the industry before you can make any predictions.

With that rule in mind, let’s take a look at the current state of digital marketing campaigns and their target audiences:

Social Media Habits

Social media platforms are effective distribution channels for your brand story — mostly because there are 4.65 billion social media users worldwide. That’s almost 59% of the global population.

But platforms go in and out of style depending on all kinds of factors, from local trends to mobile device software updates. According to an Semrush ranking of all websites, the most popular site overall in February 2022 was YouTube. Here’s how it and other social media platforms stacked up when compared to websites of every kind:

  • YouTube was #1, with 50 billion total visits.
  • Google was #2, with over 39 billion total visits.
  • Facebook was #3, with 9.34 billion total visits.
  • Twitter was #6, with 5.62 billion total visits.
  • Instagram was #9, with 3.19 billion total visits.
  • Pinterest was #18 with 1.43 billion total visits.

Utilization of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) may still sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but it’s a huge part of today’s digital marketing landscape. Check out these AI statistics that prove it:

  • 40% of marketing and sales teams prioritize AI for success — more than any other department.
  • 34% of marketing leaders say AI is the biggest game-changer in the industry.
  • 71% of marketers say AI could help personalize the customer journey.
  • Chatbots were responsible for 85% of customer interactions in 2020.
  • Experts predict AI will lead to a 26% increase in the global gross domestic product by 2030 — an estimated $15.7 trillion.

The use of AI in digital marketing is already pretty impressive. Companies like Magnolia Market, the retail destination operated by Chip and Joanna Gaines, use augmented reality to let customers virtually place products in their homes. It’s like a test drive for home décor. Meanwhile, Unilever used AI to uncover the connection between ice cream and breakfast, leading it to develop a line of cereal flavours for Ben & Jerry’s.

Personalization Preferences

Another reality in modern-day digital marketing is the preference for personalization. Citizens of the online world are tired of cookie-cutter experiences, and now they’re demanding tailored, interactive content that appeals to their unique perspectives. This is especially relevant for your content marketing strategy, including video content, social media posts and more.

Take, for example, YouTube recommendations. With a little help from artificial intelligence, the #1 site in the world (at least according to Semrush) keeps its competitive position in the social psyche by constantly providing 2 things:

  • Video content we’ve already expressed interest in.
  • Video content we didn’t know we were looking for, but that aligns perfectly with our tastes.

Say I’ve been watching videos about the new Ford Bronco (which may or may not be true). If you were a Ford dealer, you’d be able to use this preference and YouTube automation to provide video content that caters to my off-roading daydreams. I’d be more likely to interact with this than, say, a video about a minivan.

Many social media platforms play by similar rules. Using automation and algorithms, these sites recommend content users are likely to engage with — including your brand’s social media content (if you have the right digital marketing strategy, of course).

3rd-Party Data Regulation

Although personalization is an increasingly important part of content marketing, it’s also an increasingly difficult one. That’s because consumers are taking control of their data in new ways.

A good example of this is the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which gives people more power over what they do and don’t share with a digital marketer or other 3rd party. The CCPA can be summed up in 4 basic rights:

  • The right to know what personal information is collected and why.
  • The right to delete this personal data.
  • The right to opt-out of the sale of data.
  • The right to non-discrimination when exercising the other 3 rights.

Tech leaders like Apple and Google are following suit, implementing stricter limitations on the kinds of data that can be collected, the methods that can be used and whether consumers have direct control over this.

While increased privacy may be great news for those of us who don’t want to share the number of times we’ve searched basic slang to make sure we’re using it right, updates like the CCPA are not so good for content marketing. That doesn’t mean the future of marketing is hopeless, though — your personalization and targeting techniques just need to get creative. (More on that later.)

The Future of Digital Marketing: 5 Trends To Watch

Now that you have a firm grip on the present, it’s time to take a trip into the future. Let’s hop into our time-traveling Camaro and get ready to see some of the innovative marketing techniques, trends and ideas that we expect to shape tomorrow’s digital marketing campaigns:

1. Smarter AI

As artificial intelligence gets smarter, so too will digital marketing campaigns. You won’t just find new technology — you’ll also leverage familiar tech in better, more effective ways.

For example, by 2029, search engines are expected to be capable of fully understanding the underlying meaning of queries instead of just analysing keywords. As a result, your content marketing strategy can focus more on addressing searcher intent, providing answers to implied questions and ultimately addressing a user’s real needs.

Of course, the future may also hold systems and solutions we haven’t even begun to dream of. Who knows — maybe your social media marketing will someday be run by the same automation strategy that identified the “ice cream for breakfast” trend.

2. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is already a big deal, but we’re pretty sure it’s going to become even more critical to your digital marketing strategy.

That’s because influencers help create real connections with your audience. Users show interest in an influencer’s opinions, commentary or even just their top-notch jokes — and when you leverage that interest by teaming up with the influencer, you’re delivering personalization on an entirely different level. As consumers show increasing interest in the humanization of their favorite brands, influencer marketing is likely to become key to boosting engagement.

This works in both the business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) landscapes. In B2C, consumers want to know that people like them can trust your brand. B2B buyers want the same assurance, but they also need to see that you’ve served their industry before, worked with teams resembling their own, delivered on key performance metrics (KPIs) and more. That means B2B influencers can be anyone from industry leaders to up-and-coming players in the landscape.

It’s also important to recognize that influencer marketing goes hand-in-hand with video content, especially on social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube. Here, you can take advantage of artificial intelligence and automation to get your videos in front of the right people, all while catering to an audience that’s already looking for this specific type of engagement.

3. Thought Leadership

Thought leadership has an important role to play in any content marketing strategy, but it’s only going to become more valuable to your target audience.

Why? It’s simple: As time goes on, our favorite digital channels will continue to be inundated with content that feels repetitive, unimaginative and just plain boring. Thought leadership will stand out as something fresh — a new perspective on a familiar topic, a valuable approach to an industry challenge or even an open conversation inviting your audience to chime in.

Plus, thought leadership gives you yet another opportunity to connect with consumers on a more personal level. When you post a blog written by one of your expert employees or let someone from a different department take over your social media for a day, your audience gets to see the people behind the brand — and these days, that human connection is more valuable than ever.

4. 1st-Party Data

Remember when we talked about privacy updates wreaking havoc on traditional marketing campaigns? There’s good news: The end of 3rd-party data doesn’t mean the end of life as we know it. Instead, things are likely to get even better.

That’s because the future is likely to bring opportunities for 1st-party data — information willingly and knowingly given by your target audience in exchange for a highly tailored experience. You can gather this data through surveys, focus groups, informal chats and more, meeting customers where they are to find out what they’re really feeling and thinking.

This approach has 2 big benefits:

  • It gives you richer, more valuable data to guide your digital marketing strategy.
  • It shows consumers you’re taking an active interest in their preferences and responding to their needs.

Long story short, we expect you won’t even miss 3rd-party data once it’s gone.

5. Creative Digital Marketing Campaigns

The final — and perhaps most important — trend to keep an eye on is the progression of digital marketing campaigns themselves. As companies get more comfortable with new technologies, they’re likely to come up with new ways of leveraging those solutions to tell bigger, better stories.

The key is to embrace your role as a consumer. What social media post are you talking about with your friends? Which digital channels are you drawn to when shopping or researching products? Where do brands succeed in making you feel like you’re the only customer who matters to them? Questions like these allow you to use your own experiences as a digital marketing experiment and decide what might work for your approach.

As you explore other brand stories, don’t forget to look outside your industry for marketing inspiration. For example, maybe you have no idea what SaaS marketing even is (hint: it’s all about software-as-a-service offerings like Slack or DropBox), but you can still learn from the techniques and approaches being used in this space.

Shape Your Own Digital Marketing Future

You don’t need a time-traveling muscle car to see the future of digital marketing. In reality, that future is coming up fast, which means you have 2 options: sit and wait for it, or start shaping it yourself.

If you’re anything like us, you’re probably leaning toward the latter.

The first step in creating your digital marketing future is to understand the present. The next step is to keep an eye on trends like those we’ve covered today. But from there on out, it’s up to you — which means you’re free to blaze your own trail, tell fresh stories with new technology, try out the latest marketing strategies or change them up to suit your needs.

And if you need help along the way, just keep an eye out for a Camaro driven by a content writer — and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest on digital marketing today, tomorrow and beyond.

By Ashlee Sierra

Ashlee Sierra is a writer and editor from Boise, Idaho. When she’s not buried under her giant dogs, she can be found playing video games, telling ghost stories and having passionate discussions about the Oxford comma.

Sourced from Brafton

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How to Solve the Competition Problem in Digital Marketing

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By Timothy Carter

There are possibly hundreds of digital marketing strategies for businesses to use, and most of them have significant potential to be profitable. Search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, and other forms of online engagement are you able to boost the visibility of your brand, help you reach new people, and ultimately win more sales.

That said, entrepreneurs and marketers delving into the world of digital marketing often find that seeing these results isn’t as straightforward or easy as they first imagined. One of the biggest problems they face is competition – but why is competition such a massive roadblock in your digital marketing strategy, and what can you do about it?

The Competition Problem

Let’s start with an explanation of the competition problem in digital marketing. In business, competition is a well-known and well-studied threat; if a competing business offers a similar product for a lower price and does a better job of reaching your target audience, they could easily wick away much of your customer base.

But for our purposes, we’re going to be focusing exclusively on how competition interferes with your digital marketing strategy. Ultimately, there are three main issues:

  •       Higher costs. Dealing with competitors usually means higher costs, both in terms of time and money. If you’re competitively bidding on advertising, and many of your competitors are aggressively bidding on the same keywords as you, the cost of an ad for those keywords is going to increase. If you’re trying to outrank a competitor on a major search engine, and they already have a decade of experience at the top, it’s going to take an enormous amount of time and resources to challenge them. Existing competition can also threaten the return on investment (ROI) you see from your existing marketing strategies, since your impact may be reduced by the visibility of competing offers.
  •       Lower visibility. Competition also lowers your visibility in at least some contexts. If you end a competitor have ads side by side, users may only take the time to fully read one of them, or they may feel overwhelmed or bombarded by advertisements, choosing to skip over them altogether.
  •       User confusion. If a user sees a video demonstration of your product in action, then immediately sees a video demonstration of a competitor’s similar product in action, they may walk away feeling confused. They may remember one or neither brand or mistakenly associate one brand name with the other product. This isn’t good for either one of you.

Obviously, you can’t push a magic button and instantly remove your competitors from the market. Instead, you’ll need to find creative strategies to deal with the competition problem in the digital marketing space.

These are some of our best recommendations.

Get to Know Your Competitors

The first step to take is always to get to know your competitors better. The better you understand your competition, the better you’ll be able to handle them.

Understanding their strengths and weaknesses will give you a clear path to optimizing your offers and your presentation. Noting their most powerful marketing strategies can help you decide whether you want to avoid those specific areas or lean into them and double down.

Take note that competitive research isn’t a one-time ordeal; many entrepreneurs rate the competitive research section of their business plan, then never return to it, but this is a mistake. Your competitors are always growing and evolving, just like you are, so you need to keep researching and updating your understanding accordingly.

Differentiate Yourself

Possibly the best way to deal with competition in digital marketing is to differentiate yourself. Making yourself extremely different or pursuing different strategies will immediately distinguish you from your closest counterparts. In some cases, this allows you to find inexpensive alternative paths to reaching customers.

In others, it’s more about making sure there is no confusion for your target audience. In any case, differentiating yourself could help you seize control.

Think like an entrepreneur and get creative here. There are many different ways you can differentiate yourself, though these are some of the most common:

  •       Geographic location. For starters, you could target a different geographic location than your competitors. If one of your competitors has a national presence, you could focus exclusively on one metropolitan area.
  •       Target demographics. You can also target different demographics. If you already have a firm target audience and your marketing campaigns have always been built around them, this may be a difficult transition to make. But sometimes, targeting a different age group or a different socioeconomic class is all it takes to immediately distinguish yourself.
  •       Buyer intent. Your marketing strategy probably includes specific targeting tactics for different stages of buyer intent. You can competitively differentiate yourself by focusing more heavily on one of these stages.
  •       Brand, image, and voice. Another option is to revitalize your brand, changing your image and your voice to stand apart from your competition more strongly. For example, if all your competitors seem to have a stuffy, overly professional voice, you could offer something more casual and laid back. This is especially powerful if you also update your demographic targeting in the process.
  •       Quality and support. Consider setting yourself apart from the competition by offering better product and service quality, better support, or both. Make these distinctions the centrepieces of your digital marketing strategy moving forward – as long as you can back up your claims.

Outspend Where Appropriate

Thanks to automation and other scalable, high-tech tools, digital marketing is relatively cheap. A small business or an individual can get started with a basic digital marketing strategy for just a few hundred dollars. But if you want to compete on a national scale with some of your biggest competitors, you’re going to have to spend far more.

Many entrepreneurs and marketers are too intimidated to attempt such a bold gambit, but there are cases when outspending your competition is the wisest strategy. If a competitor spent $50,000 to reach rank one for a specific keyword, there’s probably a good reason they did – and spending $60,000 to outrank them could be the best use of your resources.

Use the Competition to Your Advantage

It’s natural to think of your competitors as enemies or threats, but they could also present new opportunities to you. Consider tapping into the power of your competition, rather than simply avoiding or dominating them.

For example:

  •       Content collaborations. partner up with one of your competitors and collaborate on a piece of shared content. It could help you both improve your visibility.
  •       Partnerships. Form a partnership with one of your competitors to expand your reach and provide mutual benefits.
  •       Branded keyword optimization. It’s possible to optimize for your competitors’ branded keywords, or even pay for ads that display when users search for your competitors’ branded keywords. This is a bit of a dirty strategy, but it could be a valuable trump card if you’re having trouble beating your competition in other ways.

Focus on Retention

You can get more value out of your current digital marketing strategies by focusing on retention. Remember, customer retention is less expensive and more effective than customer acquisition. If you’re already spending a hefty sum on your digital marketing strategies, you should maximize the value of each new customer you attract to your brand.

Offering more support, customer loyalty incentives and stronger client relationships are great places to start. Also, consider setting up a referral program, so you can naturally attract more loyal customers to your brand.

There are many ways that you can adequately address the competition problem in your digital marketing work. Some are naturally going to be more favourable for your brand than others. It’s up to you to study your competition carefully, set the right budget, and analyse your effectiveness to choose the best path forward.

Feature Image Credit: Pixabay; Pexels

By Timothy Carter

Sourced from readwrite

 

 

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The future of digital marketing isn’t what you think: 5 trends

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By Stas Pamintuan

The landscape of digital marketing solutions changes so frequently that it’s almost impossible to imagine its future. For entrepreneurs and businesses, it’s become even more of an opportunity to gain a competitive edge in the market. Stas Pamintuan of agency Digital Ethos looks into this future, looks at five trends every marketer should keep abreast of.

As many companies transitioned to remote work throughout the pandemic, digital marketing became essential to most businesses’ survival.

This is still the case, as many have stayed remote or moved toward hybrid working. Fast-growing means ever-changing and evolving, so in order to venture into the future of digital marketing, keeping with the times is essential for adaptation to your target market’s wants and needs.

1. Expanded reach in generation Z

As generation Z starts to mature, businesses must reconsider their marketing strategies. That generation wants memorable experiences, and digital marketing solutions have to be more precise in their purpose.

One way to do this might is leveraging user-generated content to create a sense of exclusivity for your product or service. This will make it something they can relate to and more likely to side with, especially if they have FOMO.

2. Omnichannel and integrated approach

As consumers become more aware of what they want, market expectations have become more specific. This is evident on digital platforms and channels. It’s even more important in the way you market to your target audience. Whether that’s through social channels, PR or content, there are plenty of opportunities to maintain a unified omnipresence.

A unified omnichannel marketing strategy enables you to create an irresistible online presence for your brand – collectively, that’s the goal of digital marketing.

3. Personalization

Make sure your campaigns are personalized. While it’s obvious that most consumers value privacy, they also favour personalization. You can see this in appreciation for tailor-made Spotify playlists and Netflix recommendations.

Each element of the campaign is essential, allowing you to deliver value via storytelling. Personalized campaigns see higher rates of engagement, conversions and reviews from customers. The first step in obtaining this data is allowing customers to opt-in for data tracking and analysis, so they are aware of how their data is being used, before analysing it.

4. Micro-influencer marketing

Influencer marketing has hugely grown in recent years, with top influencers on Instagram, YouTube and Twitter attracting millions of followers and making a decent income from brand deals. While this offers great ROI compared to traditional advertising channels, there are still some issues.

From fake followers to big-name influencers losing their power as they take on more and more sponsored posts, consumers perceptions of authenticity (and the relevance of influencers’ recommendations) can be affected. As consumers continue to value individual recommendations over being marketed at, it makes sense to invest in micro-influencers – social media users who have a smaller but dedicated audience who are trusted to deliver authentic content. Influencers’ power will be measured not by the number of followers they have, but by their personal relationships with their followers.

5. Video to overtake digital channels

Savvy marketers have recognized the power of using online video in their digital marketing solutions for years. We’re not quite at the peak yet, but video is proving itself as a powerful medium; we’ve seen a massive rise in live streaming video, especially over the last year or so.

From social media to SEO, digital marketing continues to impact billions of people. And with more advanced tools and changes in best practices, digital marketing solutions will continue to propel businesses to step up their competitive drive in the market. That’s the beauty of this space. It’s about adapting and delivering tailor-made marketing strategies to keep your online presence flowing.

By Stas Pamintuan

Sourced from The Drum

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The 6 biggest mistakes made by newbie digital marketers

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By Tom Welbourne

Digital marketing is an ever-changing world, with new platforms and algorithms constantly shifting the goal posts. Tom Welbourne, founder and director at agency The Good Marketer, tells us how to avoid rookie mistakes.

The constantly-shifting digital marketing landscape is exciting and full of opportunities. But this presents room to make costly mistakes, from underestimating the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) to lacking clarity about social media marketing goals. Gaps in your marketing plan can make otherwise promising strategies fall at the first hurdle.

To avoid making mistakes, the key is knowledge. We’ve compiled the six biggest mistakes that newbie digital marketers make to equip you with the knowledge of what to avoid – and how to do things the right way.

1. No clarity on audience

Think you know who your audience is? It’s time to rethink your assumptions and get more specific. Most people have an idea of who their audience is, but this is useless if you don’t clearly define their age, gender, and interests as well as broad audience categories.

For example, a mortgage provider will have multiple audiences, from first-time buyers looking for their first mortgage to more mature homeowners who have had mortgages before but are looking for a new agreement.

Use analytics tools like Google Analytics to find out who your audience really is, rather than who you think they are.

2. Lack of clear goals

You won’t get to where you’re going if you don’t know exactly where that is. Clear goals give you a clear destination and help to map where you need to hit along the way. If you establish that you want to reach 10,000 followers on Instagram, you can break this down into what you need to achieve month-on-month to achieve that overall goal.

Digital marketers use the ‘Smart’ (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goal framework to create well-defined growth goals that will give a direction to take and the basis to measure your campaign’s success.

3. Setting unrealistic goals

Perhaps the most important aspect of Smart goals is the ‘achievable’ aspect. Having clear goals is important, but you will always end up falling short if your goals aren’t realistic.

If you currently have 500 followers, setting a goal to gain 10,000 followers organically in six months is always going to leave you disappointed and feeling like you’ve failed.

To ensure your goals are realistic, evaluate based on past experience; do some research about similar businesses; or speak to other people in your industry about what could be achievable.

4. Ignoring SEO

Everyone loves an aesthetically-pleasing website, but how many people prioritize SEO when building their site?

SEO is an essential digital marketing strategy used to increase the online brand visibility on search engine result pages (SERPs). When someone searches a keyword related to your business, SEO improves the likelihood of making it to the top of those results.

When newbie digital marketers hear about SEO, they can mistake the acronym as something too technical for your average marketer, but they’d be wrong. SEO is something that even a beginner can do comfortably when equipped with the right knowledge.

5. Overlooking quality content

You’ve heard it over and over and will continue to: content is king. Your marketing strategy is nothing if you haven’t taken the time to create quality content that works for your audience.

Ultimately, your digital marketing strategy will succeed if your content can provide value to your audience. Whether you’re solving a problem or providing valuable insight, take time to reflect on how your content conveys value.

6. Lack of recorded strategy

Often, newbie marketers have a strategy in mind for how to reach their goal, but leave it undocumented and not fully developed. A written strategy gives you a clear outline of how to grow your brand or business, and how to leverage your USPs to achieve your vision of success.

Being a digital marketer is a learning curve. The mistakes will probably be plenty, so the best you can do is equip yourself with a solid framework that provides a path to follow. The best marketers are able to use the same process of goal-setting, strategizing and implementation no matter the project. Once you get to grips with how these stages can benefit you and your work, the world is your oyster.

By Tom Welbourne

Sourced from The Drum

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These 6 Classic Marketing Tactics Stand The Test Of Time

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By NisonCo

In the age of digital marketing, it seems influencers, email marketing, SEO, and social media reign supreme. Are there any classic marketing tactics that have withstood the test of time? The answer is yes — there are quite a few “old school” marketing moves that still pack a punch. Let’s look at six tried and true marketing tactics you should still consider using in the modern era.

1. Networking and Relationship-Building

Networking online or in-person is just as important in the modern-day as it was in the past. Strong networking skills are essential for any marketing professional or business owner. Successful networking generates referrals and leads, encourages steady client retention, and helps to build a positive reputation among peers and patrons, alike.

Attending conferences in your area is a great way for you to meet other people in your industry and build connections with local businesses and clients that are geographically nearby. Attending national networking events or conferences can also help you expand your network across the country and meet prospective clients and professionals that are doing similar work and perhaps can partner with your business or brand to form a mutually beneficial relationship.

2. Actual Facetime with Your Audience

No, we’re not talking about FaceTime with screens. Investing in facetime with your audience or customers is still a necessary part of doing business and can be greatly beneficial to your relationship with clients, collaborators, and partners. You will develop stronger circular regional relationships by curating interaction opportunities as well, which in turn helps to build more resilient local economies.

When you have face-to-face time with clients or business partners you’re able to pick up on things that are often missed in emails or audio calls such as facial expressions, body language, and other social queues that can get left out in written text or audio-only interactions. This can help build trust and deepen relationships which can yield fruitful business opportunities.

3. Offering Freebies and/or Discounts

People like free stuff. It’s as simple as that. This is a marketing tactic that won’t be retired any time soon because it has proven time and again to be effective. Freebies and discounts allow your target audience to interact with your brand or business and engage more actively with your services and content or sample your products.

It also offers an excellent opportunity for free advertising. When hosting a contest or free giveaway you can get entrants to repost the contest on their social media accounts, follow your brand’s account, and tag other people to spread the news — extending your reach and engaging your target audience in a fun way. Everyone wins.

 

The USPS created a guide titled

The USPS created a guide titled “Still Relevant: A Look at How Millennials Respond to Direct Mail” (PDF) to help companies understand why millennials respond to mail and how to create an appealing mail piece.

4. Direct Mail Lives!

If you think paper mail is dead, then you would be wrong. It turns out everyone really does love mail. Direct mail is still a great way to reach out with the right purpose in mind, even for younger generations.  There are several benefits to using direct mail. Direct mail campaigns give a high return on investment (ROI)—even higher than paid ad campaigns.

It is possible to reach your target audience with the right information at the right time. Direct mail campaigns can work solo or in conjunction with a digital marketing campaign such as by integrating online sales or QR codes, and it is very easy to track their progress.

5. Radio Advertising

Audio is making a significant comeback, so don’t sleep on this medium! Listen to what the founder and CEO of NisonCo Evan Nison had to say about the benefits of radio advertising in Forbes:

The resurgence of radio-based advertising has become increasingly apparent. Podcasts and web-based streaming audio ads can reach national and global platforms. Radio ads can be used to target very specific local regions and varied audience segments.

For those with a brick-and-mortar business location especially, radio advertising is the fun, affordable option of choice for hyper localized advertising. For those looking to level up their findability in the technological age, look into optimizing your local SEO performance.

6. Testimonials and Reviews

People are generally more attuned to the tactics used to get them to buy things or engage with a brand. Testimonials provide both credibility and accountability for brands and businesses because customers are naturally more likely to trust feedback from other consumers. Creating space for testimonials and reviews allows for clients to leave positive feedback or bring attention to issues that can then be addressed to help better the brand or business. In addition to these benefits, bringing them into the modern era by dedicating time to respond on social media sites and to poor reviews will aid in your local SEO strategy so your site will rank better on search engine results pages.

Conclusion Caveat: It’s a Modern World

It is imperative to examine the past for the lessons it has to offer our present, with the caveat that the world we live in exists today in the here-and-now. Each marketing strategy — old and new — has strengths and weaknesses when placed in different applications and contexts. If your brand is uncertain what blend of old-school and digital marketing strategies to employ, reach out to our team of PR, SEO, and Content Writing specialists today to begin crafting a comprehensive plan.

This article was submitted by an external contributor and may not represent the views and opinions of Benzinga.

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How brands can stand out in the customer experience economy

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By Morgan Mitchell

Online customer experience is changing like never before. So, brands need to decide: adapt or die, writes BOSCO™’s Morgan Mitchell.

The new customer experience economy is set to be the making or the breaking of not just newer brands but established ones too. Since 2020, the customer experience (CX) online has evolved dramatically. The need for a winning online CX is essential for success and is proving to be one of the most important and fundamental elements of marketing in today’s digital landscape.

With 81% of retailers increasing their investment in CX over the past two years, what does that mean for brands, consumers and the long-term relationship between the two?

The BOSCO™ index measures the online footprint of brands and benchmarks how effective they are with their paid and organic media channels. Using third-party data, BOSCO™ generates a score between 0-1,000 to determine how successful brands are in the digital space.

What is online CX and what does it include?

Online CX refers to the digital customer experience of your brand. It includes every stage of the consumer buying journey, including pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase.

Online CX is a huge part of brand perception as it encompasses every interaction a customer has with you digitally. That could be from first finding your Instagram page to using your online chat function to troubleshoot an order problem. While that may sound overwhelming, online CX is really just about providing a persona to your brand and carrying this through every customer-facing element of the business. And as we’re sure you know, consistency is key.

Why is online CX changing?

Unsurprisingly by now, the online and digital space is changing. Major steps have been brought forward by the Covid-19 pandemic as the world moved solely online as a result of international lockdowns. The need for online customer support skyrocketed and brands that previously didn’t have a digital-first approach scrambled to catch up.

Plus, it’s getting even more difficult for brands to retain consumers. 94% of sales and marketing professionals say that their business is effective at nurturing newer relationships during the ‘interaction’ and ‘awareness’ stage of the buyer journey. But that all changes at the advocacy stage, where professionals feel they are only 77% effective. What that tells us is that it’s harder to sustain long-term consumer relationships. This is where online CX comes into play.

So, how are brands adapting and strategizing to fit this new customer experience economy? What can we learn from these insights and consumer behaviour patterns?

Instant messaging & online chat functions

As the pandemic hit in 2020, consumers moved their lives entirely online in a way that hadn’t been seen before. We couldn’t pop into a shop to see a product, make a return, or just speak to an employee. Phone lines became jammed, so consumers turned instead to online messaging.

Since then, brands and retailers alike have amped-up their online messaging capabilities. Whether that be a live chat function on their site or through their social media, messaging became the go-to way to interact with brands online. In fact, between 2019 and 2020, social messaging rose in popularity by 110% – that’s huge.

Implement an omnichannel CX approach

Businesses fail to form meaningful, positive relationships with consumers when processes become tricky to navigate. For example, support tickets are passed from department to department without proper follow-up.

Let’s put that into context. A consumer messages you on social media with a complaint. The social team pass this on to customer service where the consumer has to explain the issue again. This then gets passed on to a complaints department and once again, the consumer must explain the problem. This could go on and on, meanwhile, the consumer is becoming more and more annoyed at the lack of communication within your business.

Instead, an integrated omnichannel CX system is seamless. Agents can easily transfer customer messages between apps and departments without the need to start from the beginning every time. This creates an easy, problem-free interaction that solves problems quickly, efficiently and, most importantly, leaves the consumer with a positive experience.

It’s not just about problem-solving either. Great online CX is more about being proactive rather than reactive. A great example of omnichannel CX is Zara’s (BOSCO™ score: 731) use of ‘Store Mode’ in its app. This allows users to only see products available in their local Zara store which they can then buy online and pick up in that store on the same day. This real-time shopping perfectly blends both online and offline channels using GPS and QR technology to its advantage.

Be open and responsive to feedback

When it comes to consumer feedback, there tends to be only two options: incredibly positive or incredibly negative. No one bothers to leave feedback or a review for an average experience, but they have plenty to say when everything has either gone right or wrong.

Being open to and receiving feedback is a huge part of uncovering valuable insights into your consumer base. While you may think your online CX is bulletproof, your consumers are the people who can really put that to the test. What they have to say is a massive part of the digital evolution of your brand. Plus, that open-ended communication helps you to build that relationship further and patch up damaged ones. Often, your next clever CX move will be the result of real-time feedback directly from the consumers themselves.

Uber (BOSCO™ score: 738) is a leading example of using customer insights to improve its online CX. The business makes around 22,000 tweaks to its app every month to customize it in every city it operates in. It does this using incident and reliability reports to tailor how the app operates based on where its user is. This eliminates data problems early and lets users know it is listening and adapting.

The key to digital transformation

Standing out in the digital space isn’t easy, and with the rapidly changing online CX expectations of consumers, brands need to fast decide their strategy.

The first step is to stay up to date with changes and developments as they happen. Take note of other brands that are adapting their online CX well and look at how you can implement something similar. With 58% of consumers expecting more from services than they did pre-pandemic, the need for integrated, omnichannel CX with room for personalization is key to digital transformation.

BOSCO™ is an AI learning platform that integrates your cross-channel digital marketing data into one personalized dashboard. The data allows marketers to make better digital marketing spend decisions with the help of data-driven insights, forecasting and mapping tools. Unlock your BOSCO™ score, today.

By Morgan Mitchell

Sourced from The Drum

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How to Effectively Manage Multiple Social Media Accounts

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By Greg Tuohy

Many of us are aware that social media channels represent some of the most powerful tools to employ within the world of digital marketing. Not only are these portals capable of reaching a broad audience base, but they can often be used without dipping into your revenue streams. However, another caveat needs to be mentioned.

It can be exceedingly difficult to manage multiple social media channels. Keeping track of the latest news, evaluating feedback, promoting offers, and interacting with visitors may detract from other in-house operations. This is when a bit of consolidation is in order. Here are five steps you can follow to help run each one of your accounts.

Employ an Editorial Calendar

One of the most common (and avoidable) mistakes when dealing with social media accounts is failing to understand when and how often to post. For example, you may wish to post Facebook updates three times each week while other platforms such as LinkedIn may require content only once or twice a month. This “digital juggling act” can lead to costly errors. You might even sacrifice conversions as a direct result.

It is therefore a great idea to create an editorial calendar. These calendars will remind you when it is time to post on a specific site. Let’s also remember that many calendars can be shared between different marketing teams. This centralised form of oversight will help to ensure that you remain ahead of the curve. 

Social Media Management Software Bundles

These packages are must-haves for any business that hopes to leverage its social media presence. Their main intention is to simplify the entire marketing process through automation. For example, a single post can be created and subsequently shared across multiple platforms. This saves a great deal of time and effort. Furthermore, you will be ensured that previous posts are not repeated. Here are some useful (and free) packages to consider:

  • Later
  • Hootsuite
  • TweetDeck
  • Canva
  • Buffer


The user-friendly nature of these tools is also beneficial for those who possess a limited amount of experience. 

All About Documentation

Coordination and accountability are important when creating a far-reaching social media marketing campaign. The only possible issue is that it can be tough for multiple team members to remain on the “same page”. Metrics such as policies, the type of content to be posted and the desired style all need to be considered. This is when a bit of oversight can go a long way.

It is important to develop a dedicated social media strategy. These guidelines should then be provided to all relevant personnel. If a question or issue arises, it can be dealt with in a timely fashion. When we remember that different social media pages are often associated with different goals, it becomes clear to understand why a centralised approach is crucial.

Actively Engage with Your Audience

Ironically, one of the most common social media marketing mistakes involves failing to communicate with followers. Real-time monitoring is critical if you hope to appreciate the unique needs of your client base. While this is a core component of any omnichannel marketing strategy, it is even more important when dealing with live interactions.

We are not only referring to responding to feedback in this sense. Proactively following the results of a marketing campaign will need to address other factors. These include (but are not always limited to) mentions, hashtags, keywords, and which posts have attracted the most attention. This enables you to better appreciate if any approach might need to be slightly modified.

Another massive benefit of active engagement will involve how the company itself is perceived. For example, customers are more likely to remain loyal if a question or complaint is quickly resolved. In terms of brand reputation, developing a working relationship with your audience is paramount to success. 

Analyse, Assess and Adapt

We need to remember that not every social media marketing strategy is evergreen in nature. Some approaches may need to be modified while it might be better to entirely discard others from time to time. This is when the power of objective analysis comes into play. Here are some of the metrics which should be evaluated regularly:

  • Engagement rates
  • Reach (how many visitors have seen a post)
  • Impressions (the number of times an individual clicked on a post)
  • Likes, shares and follows


These will provide you with an accurate “barometer” of how a strategy is being perceived. Which accounts are being viewed the most? Are there any campaigns that have received the lion’s share of attention? What do customers have to say about a certain product or service? Answering these questions will allow you to manage multiple channels more effectively. 

Remaining One Step Ahead of the Competition

As this article notes, there are currently more than 4.33 billion active social media users. As they are present across numerous channels, developing a centralised method of oversight has never been more important.

Of course, not every business can leverage the talents of a dedicated in-house social media marketing team. Therefore, adopting clear and efficient strategies from the very beginning is critical. The fact of the matter is that social media is here to stay. If you wish to keep abreast of the competition, learning how to effectively monitor different accounts represents one of the keys to long-term success.

By Greg Tuohy

Greg Tuohy is the Managing Director of Docutec, a business printer and office automation software provider. Greg was appointed Managing Director in June 2011 and is the driving force behind the team at the Cantec Group. Immediately after completing a Science degree at UCC in 1995, Greg joined the family copier/printer business. Docutec also make printers for family homes too such as multifunction printers.

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Businesses get the message – email is crucial to successful marketing

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By Michael Nutley

Many businesses turned to email to connect with their customers when pandemic measures sent so many people online. Now with increased privacy concerns for marketers and a need for joined up omnichannel marketing, email is about to be catapulted back into the limelight, finds a new report.

Email marketing in 2022 is more important, more integrated and more mature than ever, but email marketing teams still need to be faster, more efficient and better at personalization. Meanwhile the biggest concern marketers face – privacy – is also email’s biggest opportunity.

That is the snapshot of the discipline provided by a new report, Email In 2022 – The Trends, Behaviors & Benchmarks Driving Email Forward, published by email sending and deliverability platform SparkPost.

The report puts email’s growing role in the context of the recovery in business activity. It found almost a third (63%) of marketing leaders globally saying their budgets reflect pre-Covid levels. However, the pandemic has left its mark. Priorities are shifting, says the report, in that advertising and wide-net marketing efforts are too much of a gamble for organizations. Instead, businesses are investing in branding, CRM and email marketing. Content remains as high a priority as it was last year.

Email shines during lockdowns

Businesses certainly turned to email when pandemic measures sent so many people online.

“Email became a critical tool for organizations of all kinds to contact various stakeholder audiences with the combination of flexibility, speed, precision, and low cost not available through other modes of communication,” says George Schlossnagle, email evangelist and founder of SparkPost.

This crucial role continued into 2021. Three-quarters of marketing leaders (76%) say their email marketing program made a positive impact on the business in 2021, compared to 58% in 2020. And email’s increased importance is reflected in a greater maturity in the way it’s measured. Almost three-quarters (70%) of leaders said they changed the way they measure email marketing last year, compared to half (51%) who said the same thing in 2020.

Just as importantly, the pandemic also accelerated the integration of email with other marketing channels. Almost everyone who took part in the 2021 survey (95%) said their email marketing was aligned with other marketing disciplines, compared to half the respondents in 2020.

Intriguingly, this acceleration has happened despite the massive switch to remote working at the same time. Despite the fact that only 10% of the world’s companies are fully back in the office, almost everyone surveyed said collaboration is the same or better (98%) and that communication is the same or better (96%) than they were before remote working became a necessity.

Greater integration also ties in with the growing importance of an omnichannel approach to marketing. This means talking to customers on the channels they prefer and breaking down the silos between channels in order to deliver a coherent, consistent customer experience across every touchpoint. This is ‘absolutely the future of marketing’, the report says, particularly with the impending demise of the third-party cookie and the rise of first-party data.

The future is private

Indeed, privacy and data are the biggest concerns for email marketers in 2022.

“What we’re seeing now is only the beginnings of a paradigm shift that will continue to drive marketers to rethink data collection and usage practices,” adds Schlossnagle. “Changes in privacy regulations and a shift in consumer perception of personal data are big factors in marketing leaders’ commitment to investing in earned and owned marketing channels.”

The report found that the biggest concerns for respondents were the fear of existing digital marketing assets being unusable in the future; the threat of having to overhaul existing systems; and the need to re-do things from scratch.

More specifically, email marketers are most worried about Apple’s iOS 15 changes (a medium to high concern for 81% of respondents), Google’s third-party cookie tracking (77%), and government regulations and the deprecation of app tracking data (both 72%).

Email returns to centre-stage

Despite these concerns, the report predicts another impact of these changes will be to thrust email marketing even further back into the limelight. Companies leaning more heavily on first-party data and on the channels that are closest to their known customers – like email – creates an opportunity to build better profiles. In turn, these will drive longer term loyalty and engagement, leveraging audience behaviour on the company’s own website or app.

Email has the ability to be the glue between consumers and brands.

“The demise of third-party cookies puts a tailwind behind channels that leverage first-party data – email being the most pervasive,” says Schlossnagle. “We should all be gearing up for more investment in email and SMS because owned data is about to be more valuable than ever.”

Budget pressures demand greater efficiency

All this talk of a bright future for email marketing comes with a downside. The resources to support all this extra work haven’t necessarily arrived just yet. Two-thirds (69%) of leaders say their teams are busier than ever, but only 5% of respondents report having higher budgets in 2021 compared to 2020.

The result is even greater pressure for marketers to be more efficient – email marketers included. It’s one reason for the push for closer alignment of channel teams. Another effect is the increase in the proportion of companies bringing email marketing in-house. In 2020, just over half (55%) of leaders said they relied on agencies for their email marketing. Last year that fell to under a third (29%).

In addition, one of the key trends identified in the report is the increasing use of email design systems. These are pre-created and optimized selections of HTML templates. As the report explains, all the coding is done before marketers start creating an email – which means you can crank out high quality emails quickly. But it also notes that ‘there are clear opportunities for faster, more intuitive martech solutions, streamlined email marketing processes, and improved collaboration between stakeholders within the marketing team.’

One thing is clear. Email has long been seen as boring and unfashionable, but the current convergence of such trends as more time being spent online, increased privacy concerns and the need for joined up omnichannel marketing are just about to catapult it back into the limelight.

To explore this and more findings from SparkPost’s Email In 2022 – The Trends, Behaviors & Benchmarks Driving Email Forward report, click here.

By Michael Nutley

Sourced from The Drum

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How to Choose a Digital Marketing Strategy

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Sourced from BOSS Magazine

Are you moving on from the olden days of traditional marketing and looking forward to this new age of digital marketing? Do you want to know more about digital marketing and how to choose the best strategy for your business?

Digital marketing is one of the most important aspects of any business. It allows companies to reach a large number of people with their message and can help boost sales and profits. However, many businesses still don’t take full advantage of digital marketing and experienced SEO agencies like Finsbury Media, which is a mistake.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss why digital marketing is so important, and provide tips on how businesses can get started by choosing an effective strategy. Stay tuned!

Know Your Goals

If you are new to digital marketing and this is your first time trying to navigate the digital marketing world and choosing a strategy, you may be confused as to what the best strategy to choose is or may even take your chances with choosing multiple different digital marketing strategies. While this may seem like a good idea, it often doesn’t work out very well and it is in your best interest to take it slowly.

One of the first things that you should take into consideration when it comes to choosing the best digital marketing strategy for your business is knowing exactly what your goals are. Are you trying to reach a specific target audience? Are you trying to grow your business? Are you trying to sell a specific product or service?

All of these questions and more will give you a good starting point when it comes to choosing the right digital marketing strategy, as they give you the chance to eliminate strategies that will not work for you.

Know Your Audience

The next step when it comes to choosing a digital marketing strategy is knowing who your target audience is and who it is that you want to reach. This is important because different types of digital marketing strategies reach different demographics of people, and you want to make sure that you are reaching the right audience.

Does your audience check the emails frequently? Are they spending a lot of time on various social media platforms? These questions, along with others, are a great way to figure out who your target audience is. However, as a business you should already have an idea of who your general target audience is, and research will best show how to reach them.

Know How to Read Metrics

Metrics plays a big role when it comes to digital marketing as this is essentially how you can gauge whether your strategy is working well, or if you need to change something up. These metrics can also show the growth of your business through your social media strategy.

With that said, it is important to learn how to read these metrics and how to understand them in order to implement this knowledge into further marketing that is done for your business. Not taking these into consideration could be foolish of you, as this information can be incredibly helpful.

Know Which Platforms Are Most Popular

If you choose to go the route of social media marketing, it is a good idea to know which social media platforms are the best and the most popular to do this on. Today, there are a handful of incredibly popular social media platforms that all reach hundreds of millions of people, if not billions of people every month. These platforms include Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and even YouTube.

Each social media platform reaches a different demographic and are popular among different demographics. With that said, you should take the time to understand the different platforms and learn which one would be most suitable to your business.

Know the Types of Strategies

Last but not least, if you want to start making use of digital marketing strategies, you need to know all about the different types of strategies and what they have to offer. Digital marketing as a whole refers to any kind of online marketing.

Different digital marketing strategies include social media marketing, email marketing, push notifications, marketing on different websites, and more. It is important to know all of the different strategies that are available to you in order to choose the one that is best for your business.

Sourced from BOSS Magazine

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5 Digital Marketing Trends to Know for the Decade

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The things we thought we knew about the digital landscape have proven to be the tip of the iceberg.

The past two years have shown a major increase in the amount of money allocated to digital marketing and communications, which has created challenges for senior-level marketers who have not been able to keep up with the changing times. The speed at which new techniques in digital advertising, social media marketing and SEO are growing and changing is faster than it has ever been.

People who have worked in marketing and communications for twenty years or more need to check their skills and knowledge. Don’t let practices you learned a decade ago become a weakness as you fight to be heard in an electronic community nearing four billion users.

Marketing in 2010

Remember MySpace? Friendster? These were just a couple of social platforms that were “out” by 2010. Facebook and Twitter were on the rise and YouTube was creating video game stars. Google AdWords was being used by some, but the world of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising was still developing.

In 2010, we advised our clients to set up Facebook pages and Twitter accounts if they felt comfortable doing so. Some individually branded businesses and people in the arts were not comfortable “putting themselves out there” in a giant global picture book or communicating in 140 characters or less.

Just posting regularly was considered effective on social platforms. Facebook was a couple of times a week and Twitter was three to five times a week. What a difference ten years make.

When 2020 took an unpredictable turn, I decided it was an opportunity to find out what is current in digital marketing by enrolling in a master’s program in business school. Here are some things I’ve learned about how digital has affected marketing in the 2020s.

Job roles and teams in a digital world

1. Roles have changed so that there are more demands on marketing departments to share some of their work with the public relations teams and vice versa. When I was working in a corporate environment, there was a clear division between marketing, public relations and design. Separate these key components today and it is difficult to get anything accomplished.

2. Digital marketing and design thinking have created opportunities for businesses to conduct strategy meetings and prepare plans for launching new products more thoughtfully. Now, it should be a standard practice to have representatives from all departments in a room. Bring your post-its in multiple colours to keep track of all the great ideas your diverse team will conceive.

3. It takes a village to launch a product. When I started, most marketing departments had designers, copywriters, ad planners and researchers. A digital marketing team needs writers for long-form content and copywriters. You need a search engine marketing person, web designers (who understand search engine optimization), analysts to pull data from the social media and web platforms, researchers, PR people to manage messaging and the brand, content schedulers, real-time social monitors who engage in real time, designers and producers who can edit video and audio.

Consistent planning and rapid growth

4. Decide on a plan and stick to it until you have a chance to see how it is working. Too often, I see digital marketers shift tactics and direction because a client or manager expresses concern or has a new idea. Without a plan and some data about the progress to review, digital marketing is like playing whack-a-mole.

5. Growth is great if it is sustainable. There are new businesses that take off quickly and generate nice profits in the first five years. This is especially true in a marketing environment where word-of-mouth takes place in seconds. However, if you do not have a marketing plan for the long term, you will not continue to do well. As fast as you might grow, there are a dozen other products right behind you that are researching and planning their attack.

There is much to know about digital marketing and not a lot of time to learn. It is an exciting time in the field of marketing and communications, but continued learning is key to being effective.

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Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor

Claire McKinney has been working in PR for 25 years. She has appeared on Today and CSPAN as an expert on publishing, and she travels to speak to audiences about digital and traditional PR. She is an entrepreneur and author, and she will receive an M.S. in digital marketing in May 2022.

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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