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In News

How To Appear in Google Featured Snippets: 5 Tips for B2B Marketers

June 5, 2020 No Comments

“Google it.” If your friends, families, or colleagues are anything like mine, there’s a good chance you hear this phrase on a daily or at the very least, weekly basis. While it’s sometimes used in jest, the reality is, we can count on Google to help us answer all types of questions.

Much of this thanks can be given to Google’s “Hummingbird” algorithm update, which focused on improving “conversational search” at its core. At the time of the announcement, Google said that Hummingbird would be paying closer attention to every word in a query, to better understand the true meaning behind the user’s intent.

Since Hummingbird, featured snippets have become much more prominent in search as Google has become smarter and aims to provide information quicker and more effectively than before.

Google’s featured snippets have been a welcomed addition to the SEO community as well. As a content marketer, I see these as empty plots of prime real estate calling my name. If you’re unfamiliar with what I’m referring to, let’s take a look at what appears when we search “what is B2B content marketing?” in Google.

The image below is an example of a featured snippet:

What are Google Featured Snippets?

Google says “featured snippets are special boxes where the format of regular listings is reversed, showing the descriptive snippet first.” Content for featured snippets is automatically pulled by Google from indexed webpages that Google believes matches the user’s intent.

For SEOs looking for ways to simply mark a page to be featured, Google says, “You can’t.” Not surprisingly, they aren’t offering up much more detail than that.

In translation: If you want to appear in Google featured snippets, you have to get out there, do some research of your own, put on your content marketing hardhat, and get to work.

That’s exactly what we have done here at KoMarketing for a number of our clients, and we can proudly say that we have had success.

Why Featured Snippets are Important for SEO

There are a few difference-makers when thinking about how featured snippet listings can impact SEO performance and results.

First, let’s go back to our above-mentioned definition of featured snippets, where we say “content for featured snippets is automatically pulled by Google from indexed webpages.” It’s important to note that your page does not have to be in the top position of organic results to be displayed in featured snippets. We have seen many client examples where blog pages or other educational site content that ranks further down page one begins to rank for featured snippet results.

Why is this so important? Well, oftentimes, the top few spots of organic rankings, especially for competitive terms, are taken up by websites with a massive business (and domain authority) behind them. Featured snippets allow smaller websites and organizations to compete for that essential search real estate.

The second primary benefit of featured snippets to SEO is simply the clicks and traffic that come from organic search when appearing in a listing. Industry research shows that about 9% of clicks go to featured snippets when there is a listing present.

At KoMarketing, we have been able to validate this research with several case examples. In fact, we recently landed a client’s webpage in featured snippets for a competitive question-based result, and have seen click-through-rates average between 10-25% for a variety of queries.

Here’s a snapshot of organic traffic to this page since it was picked up by featured snippets.

And finally, once you have pulled visitors to your site via featured snippets, you should capitalize by adding CTAs where they naturally fit. Since most of the queries that serve up featured snippets are considered to be “top of the sales funnel,” we often suggest adding banners to related whitepapers or other more buyer-centric content. Doing so allows us to push the site visitor further down the sales funnel, and will hopefully get them more interested in the organization’s offerings.

What are the Different Types of Featured Snippets?

To date, we have seen three primary types of featured snippets. These include:

1. Definitions: These snippets provide the user with a clear and concise explanation, specifically relating to the search term(s). We often see definitions appear for “what is” queries.

2. Tables: Google also commonly serves up tables as featured snippet results. Users are most likely to find these types of results when searching for dimensions of a certain item.

3. Lists: When information can be easily presented in a series of data points, or steps to explain a process, Google will use lists in featured snippets. You will find both ordered (numbered) or unordered (non-numbered) lists depending on the result.

Google Featured Snippets: SEO Best Practices

Here are the steps we have learned to be critical (content marketing-specific), regardless of the query being searched.

Select a Relevant Query
Create Relevant Content
Focus on Structure
Remember SEO Best Practices
Be Patient

Step 1: Select a Relevant Query

Before anything else is done, you must first identify a query to target. Since questions are very common featured snippets results, one place to start is working across the organization (sales, marketing, customer service) to identify a handful of frequently asked customer questions.

From there, look for long-tail search queries that have volume (Keyword Planner is a helpful tool) and can be included in the question itself. Make sure this is a question that requires an answer with some depth, as Google is starting to bake answers to questions like “what time is it in California?” directly into its results, with no SEO value.

If you’re looking for some other ways to identify common customer questions, type a keyword associated with your business into Google and look for the “People also ask” results (see below) or use this tool, which is one of our favorites here at KoMarketing.

Step 2: Create Relevant Content

When creating content for featured snippets, you must first and foremost focus on the query at hand. Make sure the piece of content (whether it’s a blog post or a landing page) is created with only the most relevant material and supporting detail specific to that query in mind.

Sprinkling bits and pieces of an answer throughout a less-targeted post will cause Google to work harder to decipher your content and will reduce your chances of appearing in the featured snippet for the query.

The “quality over quantity” rule also comes into play here. Your piece of content does not have to be thousands of words long for it to appear. We’ve had content with less than 500 words appear and drive an abundance of traffic to our clients’ websites.

Step 3: Focus on Structure

In addition to the overall quality of the content, we believe the format of the post is just as critical.

Before creating your content, research your query and see what formats (if any) are appearing in the featured snippet. Regardless of the query you’re targeting, make sure you include it in the title of the content. Ideally, the title of the content (including the H1 tag) will be the target query itself.

If you decide it’s best to use a list-style post, be sure to include the list towards the beginning of the post. If you think the answer to the question is best suited to be presented in a paragraph format, make sure the answer is offered as early in the post as possible and in the most concise manner possible. ‘

To summarize:

Include the question in the URL, title, and appropriate SEO tags
Present the most critical information at the start (no fluff!)
Think about using lists when answering “How” queries
Think about using paragraph format when answering “What” queries

Step 4: Remember SEO Best Practices

While Google suggests they are simply looking for the best content with this initiative, SEO best practices should not be forgotten. Include things like links to reputable sources, well-optimized titles and tags, and Schema markup. Schema markup is code that’s put on a website to help search engines return more informative results. (For more information on Schema, give Derek’s post a read).

Most of the results we see appearing in featured snippets come from a result on the first page of SERPs. However, as we mentioned, you don’t have to be in the first organic spot to get the answer box result:

With this in mind, broader SEO factors like mobile-friendliness, link profiles, and domain authority also play a factor in the bigger picture.

Step 5: Be Patient

As is the case with most things related to SEO and content marketing, patience is critical. One of our clients was recently placed in featured snippets for a competitive query a full year after the content went live. If you consider these above steps and do the work to identify an opportunity that can be attained, there’s a good chance your content will be featured in what some now are calling “position zero,” and the benefits can be substantial.

Final Thoughts

There are many other posts on the web that speak to the best ways to be featured in Google’s featured snippets, and we encourage you to check those out as well. But, from our experience in the field, the steps listed in this post are essential to success.

By Ryan Young

Sourced from KM KOMARKETING

In News

Have Marketers Given Up On The Job Of Keeping Customers?

May 29, 2020 No Comments

By Paul Talbot

When customers are taken for granted, they have a knack for vanishing. So it seems strange that as we move into an era of vanishing, or at best, shrinking marketing budgets, attention paid to existing customers appears to be eroding.

I recently asked Lana Busignani, EVP of U.S. Analytics at Nielsen, to shed light on recent research which reflects the waning importance of marketing built to keep current customers active and engaged.

Paul Talbot: Survey respondents indicated, by a fairly wide margin, that acquiring new customers was more important than retaining existing customers. Do you have a sense as to why?

Lana Busignani: One potential explanation is the distortion of attention and energy to mastering the capabilities being enabled by the digital, addressable world. The growth and sophistication of the digital advertising ecosystem has enabled marketers to target audiences and buyers more precisely with the objective of converting interested/engaged buyers within the category to their brands.

Talbot: Little interest was expressed in reducing churn. The report states, ‘This lack of focus on churn is a missed opportunity for marketers.’ Can we quantify the size of this opportunity, and why doesn’t the tactic of reducing churn generate the focus you believe it should?

Busignani: Perhaps some may be chalked up to how marketers define churn, whether they are concerned with it or not. Is it a completely lost buyer, a lost trip to a competitive brand, or a reduction in brand loyalty? Any lost sale should be considered churn and for consumer brands could drive a 10-20% reduction in sales among current buyers which would need to be offset by new client acquisition or switchers from competitive brands.

Marketers should balance client acquisition with activities that remind buyers about their brand and keep their brand top of mind for when consumers are making buying decisions.

One potential explanation as to why reducing churn is rated lower among marketers, is that some marketers have adopted philosophies which prioritize penetration and brand popularity over activities designed to drive brand loyalty or customer retention. The philosophy accepts consumer switching and lack of loyalty as a dynamic prevalent in the marketplace and so these marketers focus their activities on driving new buyers and penetration among consumers.

Talbot: Do we have any historic context for these viewpoints? Do we know if customer retention and reducing churn was any more or less important to marketers ten or twenty years ago?

Busignani: While we don’t have historical figures to cite as our CMO survey is only a few years old, there is evidence to support that customer retention was an important priority for marketers in the form of loyalty programs which proliferated during that time frame.

Markets were also less fragmented at the time, with fewer competitors and consumer choice so perhaps retention, or protecting established share of wallet was more achievable for marketers or was considered a more worthwhile investment than it is today. We do see great examples of modern loyalty programs designed to drive customer retention with the proliferation of apps designed to offer convenience and rewards to consumers such as Starbucks and Target’s shopper app.

Talbot: The classic marketing rule of thumb that suggests an investment in creating a new customer is greater than an investment in keeping an existing customer. Has this been relegated to the quaint thinking of a bygone era? What do the media investment numbers actually reveal?

Busignani: Marketers are under increased scrutiny to prove the value of marketing investments in driving growth for brands to justify marketing spending.

Given the amount of wasted marketing dollars, reaching wrong audiences with irrelevant messages, products and offers, we do see marketers increasing investments in new digital ad vehicles which offer the promise of growth and the ability to reach consumers with relevant, personalized offers.

Traditional vehicles like television, which reach broader audiences, are more difficult to tie to sales outcomes today. However, as television becomes more addressable, it will enable marketers to more directly prove the value of their marketing investments in driving consumer action and purchasing.

By Paul Talbot

Minus strategy marketing staggers. I am a somewhat reformed ex-media business executive, with tours of duty at AOL, CBS Radio, and Nationwide Communications. I’m a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Boston Red Sox, the Principality of Liechtenstein, fried clams, fog, and prices that end in the number 7.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Meredith is rolling out an expanded ad-effectiveness guarantee for marketers. Here’s how it works

May 25, 2020 No Comments

By Simon Dumenco.

The magazine publisher’s partnership with MRI-Simmons builds on the Meredith Sales Guarantee to track business outcomes

Meredith Corporation, the multimedia conglomerate known for its stable of glossies including People and Better Homes & Gardens, is moving to convince marketers of the value of continuing to advertise even as the pandemic-spurred recession bears down, by rolling out something it’s calling MAAG: the Meredith Audience Action Guarantee.

Basically, the Des Moines, Iowa-based company is guaranteeing that a specified number of readers will take action in response to seeing campaigns in Meredith magazines, in their May through December issues, with benchmarks and performance targets determined on a category-by-category basis. MAAG expands on the company’s existing ad-effectiveness-tracking program, the Meredith Sales Guarantee, and is designed, per a company spokesperson, “to help advertisers during the current crisis.”

Ad Age spoke with Doug Olson, president of Meredith Magazines, to get some specifics on MAAG. At one point, Olson threw the mic, so to speak, to Catherine Levene, president of Meredith Digital, to answer questions about digital traffic; her response, which she supplied by email, appears at the end of this post.

The following has been lightly edited and condensed for publication.

Walk us through how the Meredith Audience Action Guarantee will work. What sorts of business outcomes are you tracking, and what external solutions are you deploying to monitor consumer actions?

We’re tracking the engagement of our readers through MRI-Simmons’ Starch AdMeasure, and measuring the specific number of readers who have taken an action as a result of seeing a brand campaign in our magazines. By “action,” we know if our readers have clipped an ad, visited a brand website, looked for more information, recommended the product, considered/purchased the product, and the like. For instance, the consumer may have talked to a doctor or taken a photo of a QR code or visited a social media site.

We’re working closely with our advertisers as they navigate this crisis. They want to know that our readers are taking action and their investment in print advertising is working.

How does this build on what you’ve already been doing with the Meredith Sales Guarantee program?

At Meredith, we stand behind the power of our brands to drive action for our partners. That accountability was first established a decade ago when we introduced our Meredith Sales Guarantee, which proves that Meredith’s print, digital and video properties impact sales and deliver ROI. We’ve executed more than 200 successful campaigns.

MAAG allows a broader number of advertisers and categories to be included. Examples of categories include financial services, prestige beauty and entertainment—for example, tune-in ads.

If a given campaign doesn’t live up to the “action guarantee,” how do you compensate?

We’ll provide a “make good” in print.

Let’s talk for a moment about the Meredith magazine portfolio, which of course primarily targets a female audience. You’ve got a set of titles that are actually quite well-suited to self-quarantine and staying in. Better Homes & Gardens and Real Simple, for example, have always been about making the best of your home life.

We believe our brands’ focus on food, family, home and entertainment reflect consumers’ desire for normalcy and the kind of transportive experience they’re looking for during this time. From providing meditation/yoga guidance and other workout-from-home exercises, as seen in Health and Shape … to suggestions for getting dinner on the table from Allrecipes, Better Homes & Gardens and EatingWell … to sharing tips on cleaning and organizing your home from Real Simple, or how to set up a home office, as seen in Reveal’s current issue. Our brand content across platforms is resonant right now.

Now tell me how you’re dealing with consumers’ widespread lack of access to newsstands during lockdown. What’s your overall subscription/newsstand mix?

Meredith brands possess one of the highest direct-to-publisher rate bases in the industry. Our strong, longstanding relationships with more than 36 million subscribers allow us to enjoy an approximately 96 percent subscriber / 4 percent newsstand split, which insulates us from a downturn in newsstand sales.

So what have you seen at the newsstand?

We experienced an uptick at newsstand in the early days of this crisis, though mid-March, though the newsstand is currently soft and has been so during the past couple of weeks. For more context, the bulk of our brands’ newsstand sales are generated at major grocery chains, Walmart and Target, which remain open and are currently receiving considerable traffic. Though there’s no traffic at newsstands at airport terminals and at Barnes & Noble.

Are you sticking with your existing frequency schedule across your titles?

There’s currently no change in our publishing schedule. We continue to closely monitor the situation across our supply chain, including the paper and printing areas, and we fully expect to maintain our circulation rate base delivery.

There’s been a lot of coverage of how TV viewing is up during quarantine, which you’d totally expect, and is obviously good for Meredith’s TV stations. What about magazine readership?

We’re seeing increases in consumer engagement with our print editions as we track how the coronavirus is impacting women’s daily lives. Thirty-five percent of women are reading more magazines as a result of the coronavirus, according to data from our Meredith Consumer Pulse: COVID-19 tracking report.

NOTE: As mentioned above, in response to specific questions about Meredith’s digital traffic, Olson connected Ad Age with Catherine Levene, president of Meredith Digital, who emailed to say:

Our most recent estimates, as of Sunday, April 12, show that our April month-to-date traffic across the Meredith Digital network was up 40 percent year-over-year. Social alone was up 30 percent MTD. Video has also experienced a stellar month so far, up 150 percent YOY. The week that ended on Saturday, April 4, represented Meredith’s biggest week ever on YouTube, with more than 13.4 million views. March was the biggest month ever for our brands on YouTube, with over 46 million views across the portfolio.

We’re working together across disciplines to identify and address our consumers’ real issues and current needs. The data team is pulling real-time trends and predictive insights; the content team is leaning into those trends; and the growth team is driving traffic via search, social, email and browser notifications, and they are driving new emails sign-ups and membership. It’s the perfect circle.

Feature Image Credit: Credit: Meredith Corporation

By Simon Dumenco.

Sourced from AdAge

In News

UK ad spend hits lowest ebb since 2009 crash, but recovery is set for 2021

May 12, 2020 No Comments

By Rebecca Stewart

Over the past three months, UK marketing budgets have declined at their fastest rate since the 2008/9 global financial crisis. However, marketers’ spending is poised to start recovering from the shockwaves of the pandemic by 2021.

According to the quarterly Bellwether report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) – which draws data from a panel of around 300 UK marketing professionals from the UK’s top 1000 firms – the spread of Covid-19 has caused sweeping cuts to all forms of marketing activity from UK firms.

The IPA found that a net balance of -6.1% of UK companies had slashed their budgets since the start of the year. The sum was calculated by tallying the percentage of respondents showing an improved revision to their marketing budgets minus those that indicated a fall. 25% of respondents recorded a budget cut, compared to 18.9% signalling growth.

The figure marks a notable swing from the final quarter of 2019 when the net balance stood at +4.0%, buoyed by a degree of political certainty presented by Boris Johnson’s decisive election victory. The figures also come at a time when big global brands including Coca-Cola, Budweiser and Airbnb are freezing or reallocating advertising spend.

When it comes to which areas have been impacted most, market research budgets were identified as the worst hit by Covid-19 cutbacks, with a net balance of -21.0% of companies reporting a downturn.

This was closely followed by events at -15.9%. Elsewhere, PR was the next worst off at -14.3%.

Though not a single strand of the marketing mix has seen growth since January, for British businesses, direct marketing and sales promotions were among those to observe the slowest reductions, with net balances of -6.6% and -7.2% respectively.

There have been repeated warnings from the likes of Warc that Covid-19 could bring about a global ad recession. The accompanying suggestion is that marketers should invest in brand-building campaigns if they wish to emerge from the crisis in a strong position, a strategy that’s been adopted by the likes of clothing retailer Next. However, the IPA noted that the key brand-building category (which includes online video, TV, cinema and radio) had recorded its strongest downward revision since 2009 at -9.9%.

‘A sobering snapshot’

For the IPA’s director general Paul Bainsfair, the numbers offer a “sobering snapshot” of the initial impact the global pandemic has had on advertisers’ budgets.

He observed how fieldwork for the Q1 Bellwether Report closed just a few days after UK government enacted the official lockdown, adding: “These are undoubtedly the toughest overall trading times that any business and indeed any marketer will have ever experienced, but while we suspect the fuller, sharper extent of this global pandemic to be captured in Q2 data, the hope from this report is that we will see a more upbeat end to the year.”

Given the extreme degree of uncertainty surrounding the UK at present, the IPA Bellwether Report ad spend forecasts could be subject to “substantial revision” in the future as the impact of coronavirus on the UK economy becomes clearer in line with the release of official data statistics, which at present are lacking.

The IPA Bellwether Report has used IHS Markit’s latest forecasts for GDP, consumer spending and business investment which assume an extended lockdown to May but then a gradual reopening of parts of the economy.

IHS Markit estimates that GDP will contract by -4.3% in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, under which scenario the historical relationship with ad spend implies a -13.7% decline in expenditure. However, as the current situation is clearly unprecedented, there is an unusually high degree of uncertainty pinned to these forecasts, with risks tilted to the downside.

Consequently, 2021 may also pose a difficult year for marketers as the recovery spills over and Brexit negotiations creep back in. The IPA Bellwether Report forecasts that ad spend will rise modestly in 2021 (by +1.0%), before seeing more robust growth in 2022 onwards when the economy is more stable.

To achieve this return to growth will require UK marketers to make “bold decisions,” asserted Bainsfair, who acknowledged that when recession looms it is “understandable” if businesses try and shore up short-term profits by tightening the purse strings.

“However, as our evidence from past downturns shows, unless companies are saving cash simply to survive, or because they can no longer supply advertised services, cutting ad budgets – relative to competitor spend – is a high-risk strategy,” he went on.

“Such a move exposes firms to losing market share, forgoing sales and delaying the recovery of profits in the long term. Those brands that hold their nerve will gain extra share of voice which will achieve competitive gains.”

‘Survival mode’

The Bellwether data also showed a sharp deterioration in both company-specific and industry-wide financial prospects during the first quarter. This will come as a blow to agency giants, who in line with diminishing client budgets have had to introduce a series of cost-cutting measures to safeguard their own businesses.

Sentiment around own-company prospects moved into negative territory, reversing the marginal improvement seen at the end of last year which followed the partial decline of political uncertainty after the general election.

A net balance of -26.0% of firms felt less optimistic towards their company-specific financial prospects, down sharply from +1.0% in the previous quarter to the lowest since the global financial crisis in 2009. Almost half (46%) of panel members were pessimistic, compared to approximately 20% who said they still foresee growth.

Fran Cowan, vice-president of marketing, International Advertising Association (IAA) the report, though far from optimistic, offers an opportunity to apply learnings from previous times of crisis.

“Companies that maintain some marketing efforts will most likely reap the rewards and rebound quicker,” she said, agreeing with Bainsfair. “However, it’s important to do this in a controlled way. Now is the time to carefully consider where marketing budget is best spent, to look after employees, partners and suppliers as well as protect brand images.”

She continued: “Luckily in the UK, we have an industry that pulls together during these times. We’ve already seen some great collaborative thinking and initiatives that support the notion of ‘advertising for good’.”

Joe Hayes, Economist at IHS Markit and author of the report said firms are still very much in survival mode, reallocating funds to service liabilities and keep the business alive.

“This is critical to ensure that they can keep staff on the payroll, which will give their businesses the best chance to recover when the time comes. It will also support the economy on a broader scale if people remain employed and are earning, as they will be in the position to go out and spend when the lockdown is over.

“Positively, it seems that a number of firms expect a quick economic recovery and are planning to boost marketing budgets later in the year.”

Feature Image Credit: The IPA found that a net balance of -6.1% of UK companies had slashed their budgets since the start of the year

By Rebecca Stewart

Sourced from The Drum

In News

‘The economy needs marketers’ during the coronavirus crisis: Wake-Up Call

March 27, 2020 No Comments

By Judann Pollack.

Plus, How China’s agencies are going back to work and will your phone track you in the name of public health?

What 9/11 can teach us about marketing in the time of coronavirus

With the economy reeling and uncertainty lingering, there may be a tendency to put brand plans on hold and freeze spending. But Bradley Johnson, looking at the current crisis through the lens of 9/11, maintains that would be counterproductive. “The economy needs marketers and marketing,” Johnson writes, recalling General Motors’ “Keep America Rolling” campaign (see next item) in 2001. “Marketing helps drive commerce. Marketers have an opportunity to give consumers a reason to spend—deals, products, services—even when we are bunkered up and hunkered down.” Johnson points to how comments from industry executives in 2001 seem eerily familiar (“We are on hold, and taking it day by day. Nothing is typical anymore.“) and recalls Ad Age’s counsel to the market just days after 9/11.

“Time stood still during other crisis events,” Ad Age wrote to readers at the time. “After each, we sought explanations, took actions and grieved. We did not forget those times, and we will never forget what happened Sept. 11. But we moved ahead for the good of the nation in the wake of other crises. So it must be now.”

General Motors looks to roll again

General Motors is taking a page from its own “Keep America Rolling” playbook mentioned above. According to Automotive News, the company is offering 0 percent interest, 84-month loans and deferred payments of up to 120 days to customers in top credit tiers. Ford and Hyundai have announced similar programs aimed at helping buyers as the coronavirus pandemic causes economic uncertainty. The programs “demonstrate for customers that we’re there for them,” GM spokesman Jim Cain told Automotive News. “The financing offers are a way to reinvigorate people.”

China could lead the way back

While the U.S. and much of the world is just beginning to feel the full extent of the coronavirus, agencies in China are starting to return to their offices for the first time since January. “Chinese agencies and marketers started [preparing] early and thankfully finished early,” R3 Co-Founder and Principal Greg Paull tells Ad Age’s Lindsay Rittenhouse. “By extending Chinese New Year and strictly following government guidelines, it’s meant that life is more ‘back to normal’ now than any other client-agency ecosystem on Earth.” Read the story here to learn how local agency executives are beginning the recovery process.

Ad Council jumps into action

The Ad Council is teaming up with the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to “provide critical and urgent messages to the American public,” the group said in a statement. These will be disseminated by media companies and digital platforms who have donated inventory on their TV channels, radio networks, social pages, outdoor space and other digital media. “National broadcast PSAs featuring the U.S. Surgeon General will communicate the ways Americans can protect themselves and those most at risk,” writes Jeanine Poggi. “That script, developed by Group SJR, will also be made available as a template for media companies to create assets with their own local and state public health officials.”

ViacomCBS, meanwhile, is using its airtime to explain the importance of social distancing with a push called #AloneTogether via the Ad Council. The push encourages people “to find comfort and connection through entertainment” and reminds people that social distancing doesn’t have to mean social isolation. Read more here.

Is your phone spying on you?

While technology is allowing widespread working from home, it may also take a darker turn as quarantines, curfews and lockdowns take hold in many areas around the country. The Washington Post is reporting that the U.S. government is “in active talks with Facebook, Google and a wide array of tech companies and health experts about how they can use location data gleaned from Americans’ phones to combat novel coronavirus, including tracking whether people are keeping one another at a safe distances to stem the outbreak.” The idea, says the Post, is to collect the data anonymously in aggregate to map the spread of infection. But as the ad industry well knows, privacy concerns are a major flashpoint with consumers.

Just briefly

PHD scores a win: Diageo chose Omnicom Media Group’s PHD as its agency of record across the majority of its global media business following a “closely contested review,” says Isabel Massey, the brand’s global media director. The review, which kicked off in September 2019, involved longtime incumbent Dentsu Aegis Network’s Carat. The incumbent agency had previously handled media responsibilities for North America, Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Life after Lesser: AT&T’s John Stankey sent a note to employees this week reassuring them on the future of the company’s Xandr ad unit following the departure of CEO Brian Lesser. “While I am disappointed Brian will not be with us for the next chapter, I want you to know that our commitment to making advertising matter has not changed,” Stankey, who is president and chief operating officer at AT&T and CEO of WarnerMedia, wrote in a memo obtained by Ad Age.

Home cooking: Amazon is pausing shipments of non-essential products to its warehouses as it tries to manage its supply chain strained by coronavirus-related demand, writes Garett Sloane. But what’s essential might be up for debate. Among several Amazon Fresh items ordered by this writer, only one was limited: Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

Feature Image Credit: GM

By Judann Pollack.

Sourced from AdAge

Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, adaily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. If you’re reading this online or in a forwarded email, here’s the link to sign up for the Wake-Up Call newsletters.

In News

Challenge Accepted: The Top 5 Obstacles B2B Marketers Face

February 6, 2020 No Comments

By Shannon Prager

Business-to-business marketers are responsible for raising awareness, generating leads to drive revenue and differentiating their organization from its competitors. A B2B marketer faces a different set of challenges with each campaign. If these challenges are not combatted, they can significantly lower the business’s efficiency and revenue.

As the president of a marketing agency, here are the top challenges I’ve observed B2B marketers are facing today and how you and your team can combat them:

1. Generating Quality Leads

In today’s digital era, many platforms exist to publish and promote marketing content. The digital space is so cluttered with content, consumers no longer have to seek out information. Push notifications, geo-targeting, customized ads and messages, and site pop-ups deliver tailored content to every user.

B2B marketers can struggle to create enough demand for their content. Because of the plethora of content syndication opportunities available today, B2B marketers often lack understanding of which channel is right for their message.

An effective way to address this problem is doing research on the type of content your target audience actually wants — such as video, blogs, etc. — about the topics that are keeping them up at night. Creating high-quality content that provides the reader with value will gain their trust, and they will come back for more.

2. Knowing The Right Target Audience

Strong marketing strategies should satisfy the needs of customers at every level of the customer journey. You must know your audience and what they care about in order to reach them. But, there’s a lot that goes into a B2B buyer’s decision-making process, such as how their company does business and their personal preferences. This can make it challenging to determine your target audience.

Studying your customers’ buying process enables you to segment your buyers by their pains and their needs, so you can deliver a more personalized experience when communicating and marketing to them.

3. Proving ROI

Return on investment attribution remains one of the most common challenges facing many B2B marketers. In order for a marketer to comprehend the effectiveness of each piece of content, each campaign and the overall strategy, a marketer must be able to attribute a relatively accurate amount of revenue to them.

B2B organizations often find it difficult to prove ROI because of the multiple points of contact a marketer must make before a business purchases their product or service. B2B purchasing decisions often involve interacting with a number of professionals within a company in a variety of ways, so the sales cycle is much longer and more complex. Tracking the revenue that these interactions generate can be extremely time-consuming and convoluted, as the purchase process is not linear and the financial benefits of the marketing effort are often not reaped until long after their execution.

I advise organizations to tackle this issue by facilitating two-way communication between your company’s marketing and sales teams, in addition to implementing reporting tools into your regular analysis.

4. Optimizing Your Website

A B2B company’s website is a marketing asset that is working all day, every day, to generate traffic and convert prospects into customers. Keeping your site functional, fast and user-friendly is essential for any B2B business.

This is an umbrella issue that encompasses a variety of challenges, including:

• Optimizing SEO;

• Producing strong messaging that speaks to the pains of your buyers;

• Engaging website users with your content;

• Designing pages in an easy-to-read, yet appealing style.

It takes different skill sets to effectively manage all these types of projects, so having strong marketing partners is important to ensure you can get the right skill for the right role.

5. Strategic Marketing Planning

To plan or not to plan? While it takes time, I firmly believe that to effectively market to your customers, you must know them inside and out and plan accordingly.

Ask yourself the following questions about your customers:

• How do your customers form their plans?

• How do they evaluate solutions?

• Where else do they search for information to educate and later purchase?

• Where do they get recommendations and purchasing advice?

I believe by conducting buyer persona research, you can overcome the common challenge of marketing to the wrong consumer or marketing with the wrong message at the wrong time. Customers’ answers to these questions can inform email marketing, social media, outreach to influencers and more.

So, you have some or all of these challenges. Now what?

From creating a personalized website experience to generating quality leads, marketers face a different set of challenges. A seasoned team of marketing strategists can help you identify and overcome the marketing challenges your B2B is facing. Whether it is an in-house marketer at your organization or employing a marketing agency to fill your unique gaps, surround yourself with those who are professionals in the space so you can get the results you need.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Shannon Prager

Shannon Prager is President of Leadit Marketing, a marketing and demand gen agency focused on B2B tech and professional services companies. Read Shannon Prager’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

What B2B Marketers Need to Know About Experiential Content

January 29, 2020 No Comments

By Lane Ellis.

Experiential content will help drive 2020’s digital agenda, and savvy B2B marketers should take notice.

Experiential is a word with subtly differing meanings depending on which setting it’s used in, however at the core of each definition is the fact that it all boils down to experiences.

Experiential content makes us a central part of a story, and not just a passive subject receiving a one-way brand message.

Use of experiential content has grown over the past several years as online technologies have reached a level capable delivering vibrant and engaging motion and sounds alongside clickable, swipable, and all other manner of interactivity to put you front and center.

TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden recently mentioned experiential content in his annual list of the top ten B2B digital marketing trends for 2020.

“Visual, experiential content that is easy to find and satisfies business buyer’s needs to be informed, entertained and inspired will continue to be areas of focus.” @LeeOdden Click To Tweet

With 98 percent of consumers more likely to make a purchase after an experience (Limelight), and 77 percent having chosen, recommended, or paid more for a brand that delivers a personalized service or experience (Forrester), why haven’t more B2B marketers begun to use experiential content?

Experiential Content’s Advantages

In a seemingly million-message-a-minute online world, experiential content offers a number of advantages.

It removes us from all other messaging, if only for a short while, and allows us to enter a world under our own control, where we can interact as we see fit, learning or buying at our own pace, all while creating a story that intertwines us with brand information and messaging.

In 2020 experiential content comes in many forms, no longer limited to just the real-world selfie booths and similar elements of the past, with just a few examples listed here:

Virtual Reality (VR)
Augmented Reality (AR)
Cloud-Based Digital Assets from Ceros and Other Platforms
Quizzes and Polls
Interactive Flipbooks and eBooks

In a way online gaming has been leading the way for decades when it comes to digital experiential content, and only recently have brands and marketers started to bring this power to B2B advertising campaigns.

An example of experiential content comes in the form of our Break Free of Boring B2B Guide, featuring interactive insight from a variety of B2B marketing industry influencers. Click here to enter the full-screen experience.

Experiential Marketing Embraces Digital Storytelling

Experiential content is also intertwined with both storytelling and customer experience (CX), together forming an extremely powerful triptych of B2B marketing strategy.

As a key component of experiential content, storytelling becomes even more personal and memorable when you’re a key part of the messaging experience a brand is sharing, and being remembered is more important — as well as more difficult — today than ever, which is why forward-thinking B2B marketers are utilizing experiential tactics in their 2020 tool-kits.

The importance of storytelling in the customer journey has become less of a secret in the past five years, as marketing experts and the data to back up the fact have combined to make brand storytelling a trend for the decade ahead.

“Experiential content’s role in powerful storytelling will be an increasing theme among B2B marketers looking to drive next-generation brand efforts.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis Click To Tweet

Experiential Marketing Embraces Great CX

The other key element of experiential content — CX — appears to offer an ideal match, combining to form two important facets of successful B2B marketing.

What better way to deliver a stellar customer experience than by creating memorable brand storytelling using experiential content?

Two years ago we saw the rise of real-world physical pop-ups from the likes of 29Rooms achieving considerable success on Instagram and other social media platforms, however a shift to creating these worlds virtually online as immersive experiential content has taken place in 2019 and into 2020.

Experiential content also appears in WARC’s recently-released ninth-annual marketers report for 2020, which places it alongside purpose and product as three of the most important elements needed for brands to achieve greater success this year.

Some marketers and brands are pulling back from an over-investment in technology that has taken a certain amount of focus away from creativity, the same report’s survey data shows.

Indeed, among the survey’s respondents — almost 800 global client and agency-side executives — one of the top elements comprising experiential content, VR and AR, was seen as being one of the most important emerging technologies in 2020.

Another big part of experiential content is online video, a near-unanimous selection on most top marketing trend lists, as it continues to receive the type of swift growth in ad spend dollars that has helped make online video a big success for Instagram, YouTube, and increasingly TikTok.

Over 80 percent of marketers plan to increase spending for online video in 2020, with 33 percent planning to boost spending on TikTok this year, according to the WARC survey. In the U.S. alone digital video spedning is expected to increase by over 31 percent in 2020, to $5 billion. (Winterberry Group)

“Being creative while retaining consistency of brand is key to unlocking the benefits of brand-building: from forging emotional attachments, to driving long-term brand equity and sales influences.” — Simon Cook @Cannes_Lions Click To Tweet

Cloud-based experiential content platform Ceros offers both an overview guide and an on-demand webinar for learning more about the technology, and offers up their own take on just what the term means.

“Experiential content is digital content that is purposefully designed to create an immersive experience for its consumers through some combination of interactions, animations, embedded media, and storytelling. It encourages active participation in an effort to form memorable, emotional connections between the consumer and the brand or creator,” Ceros notes.

“Experiential content makes us a central part of a story, and not just a passive subject receiving a one-way brand message.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis Click To Tweet

Bake More Experiential Goodness Into Your B2B Efforts For 2020

via GIPHY

We’ve looked at what experiential content is, explored a few examples of how B2B brands are using it successfully, and showed how it is likely to see growing adoption in 2020 and beyond.

It takes considerable time, effort, and resources to implement a standout experiential content campaign, which is why many brands turn to a dedicated agency.

TopRank Marketing had the honor of being named by Forrester as the only B2B marketing agency offering influencer marketing as a top capability in its “B2B Marketing Agencies, North America, Q1 2019” report.”

Finally, here are several additional related resources we’ve put together to help you build your own interactive content:

By Lane Ellis

Sourced from TopRank Marketing

In News

Marketers Are Going To Be OK With Google’s Killing The Cookie (For Good)

January 27, 2020 No Comments

By Cory Treffiletti

Are you ready for a Google-centric advertising world?

That’s what is about to happen. Last week saw Google announce it will be phasing out third-party cookies from Google Chrome. Chrome represents almost 70% of the market for web browsers on a desktop and 40% in mobile. Safari, Firefox and Microsoft have the rest, and many of them already include ad blockers, cookie-clearing and other tools that hamper digital targeting.

Google is going to offer its own ways to target leveraging Google data, which means if you work at an ad-tech company not named Google (or Facebook or Amazon, for that matter) then your ability to deliver targeted ad messages is going to be severely impacted.

This news does not come as a surprise. It has been rumored for years. And now it is coming to fruition.

Some industry pundits will make claims that this creates an opportunity for new ways to reach targeted audiences by proclaiming their technology does X or Y. These will be versions of fingerprinting or ad-DNA.

In any case, these claims will fall on deaf ears. The truth is that most marketers will see this, understand the impact, and move on. Moving on means they will either work with Google, or not worry about targeting, instead focusing on price.

A world where a third-party solution like the cookie is gone means prices will be pressured to drop to account for the untargeted nature of online advertising outside the Google parameters.

Google will still offer targeting. That targeting will be at a premium because it offers one of the only accurate ways to deliver a specific audience at scale. Outside of Google, ads will be scattershot, delivered to anyone on a platform where they come up.

The only way untargeted ads will work for marketers is if they are lower priced, to account for lower response rates. Then, just maybe, they have a chance to compete.

OTT and digital video ads may still have the opportunity to “target” based on data or context, but display will take a step back because the performance will be harder to achieve.

This does open the door for Facebook, strangely enough. Paid social is a channel where data can still be leveraged — although that will be using Facebook data on Facebook platforms. The dollars that were still hanging on for targeted display and native ads could easily be seen to shift to paid social, further padding the pockets of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Google said it has no desire to injure publishers looking to make money from ads, and it’s telling the truth. Its intent is to create a stronger sense of demand for Google products, and doing so does mean a negative impact on anyone not currently in its network.

The marketers are the ones who will drive this adoption. Marketers like to work with Google. No matter how many ad-tech companies call, reach out and proclaim to have an amazing solution, Google still gets the benefit of the doubt.

A marketer’s day is busy. There are many demands on our time, and we don’t have hours upon hours to decode and test a new vendor whose solution may be great, but has questions of scale.

Speaking from my own perspective, I like new ideas and new solutions, but I prioritize the ideas that have the most bang for the buck. Most of the time, that defaults back to the larger, established players we currently work with and who have proven to provide scalable value in the past.

So, what does that mean for the industry? It means cookies are about to (finally) become a relic of the past, along with popups, pop-unders and 468x60s. It means the gap between the large players and the smaller niche players is about to widen even further. It means OTT and digital video are about to become the final battlefield for the remaining digital ad budgets.

Here’s to seeing what happens in the next 11 months!

By Cory Treffiletti

Sourced from MediaPost

In News

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

January 13, 2020 No Comments

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

In News

Marketers need to focus on authenticity to beat influencer fraud

September 24, 2019 No Comments

By Aaron Brooks,

The Times recently reported that influencer marketing fraud costs sponsors, on average, £1 billion each year. This waste is attributed to social creators with inauthentic audiences. Brands are pouring their marketing funds into influencer collaborations which are broadcast to bot accounts, rather than receptive, engaged social audiences.

For anyone close to the influencer marketing industry, fake followers are old news. They are the unfortunate but inevitable hangers on that come with large social followings. Respectable influencers will regularly and ruthlessly delete them, knowing what a negative impact silent and inactive followers can have on the performance of their posts and their reputation. Manually checking new followers and gauging their authenticity is necessary admin for a social content creator – and the only way to keep the value in their followings.

On the other hand, some influencers still intentionally buy fake followers to enhance their follower count. It’s something that content and influencer marketing platforms – and Instagram themselves – have been cracking down on for years. The fact that someone has slapped a valuation on its impact has brought it back to focus.

Looking beyond reach

The practise of buying fake followers originated with brands’ obsession with reach. The bigger audience an influencer had, the more interest they got and higher fees they received. Attempts to ‘game the system’ were made by smaller influencers trying to get a crack at the big brand endorsement deals.

It didn’t take long for the wheels to come off this half-baked plan. As marketers realised engagement (likes and comments) was actually more valuable than reach, influencers realised that high volumes of silent and inactive followers were in fact causing their engagement rates to plummet. Fake followers can’t mimic the same engagement as a loyal and genuine following, built up over years of posting.

Despite this, some marketers remain hopelessly devoted to reach. I have no doubt that those still ploughing their budgets into influencers with large followings, without doing due diligence on whether they are actually real, are losing money.

Luckily there are no shortage of amazing influencers to partner with. There are just as many creative, professional and authentic influencers that will deliver results, as there are wannabes with falsely inflated followings. A considered selection process is key.

Focussing on solid ROI

A genuine following should be the minimum requirement for brands partnering with influencers.

Advanced analytics can now tell a brand where an influencer’s following is based and how old they are, so marketers can target their customers with precision. Relevancy is essential for an effective campaign. The focus shouldn’t be how many people see the posts, but rather how many of the right people see the posts.

Brands should also be aiming higher when it comes to the results of an influencer marketing collaboration. Reach and engagement should come as standard, a natural byproduct of a campaign that achieves solid return on investment, sales uplift or app downloads. These are far more valuable metrics to focus on and diverts attention away from the size of an influencers following.

The end of Instagram likes?

As the influencer marketing industry matures, Instagram is moving the goal posts too. Their recent trial to hide likes from public view caused a stir in the marketing press. While it’s only being tested in a selected number of countries, many asked whether it was ‘the end for influencer marketing’. But I believe it will make for a more authentic practise.

Firstly, it will force agencies and campaigns that have pinned their success on empty vanity metrics, such as likes, to up their game. Visible engagement can not and should not be used to justify an influencer campaign. Let’s look at the real, transparent return on investment.

I think it will also place a renewed focus on quality and individuality. Creators will no longer feel constrained by pressure to chase likes and will be free to make content that feels more authentic. Content that’s braver and doesn’t follow a tried and tested aesthetic. This renaissance in creativity is likely to spark a surge in engagement across the board. Weary social users – increasingly feeling as if they have seen it all before – crave this authenticity. They want to see something new.

Keeping the industry authentic

Brand ambassadors have been – and will always be – an effective marketing tactic. Thankfully software is becoming much more sophisticated and adept in spotting fraudulent accounts. But to preserve the power of the channel, all parties involved must uphold their responsibility to keep the industry clean. Just as influencers monitor their followings, brands must be just as diligent with their choice of partners. Do your background checks. Make sure that their engagement rate correlates with their following, or enlist the help of a platform.

With more conversion functions from Instagram – like shoppable tags and ‘swipe up to buy’ – the potential for influencer marketing is huge. Prioritise authenticity, practise due diligence and you can be sure your efforts will be rewarded.

By Aaron Brooks,

Co-founder of mobile content and influencer marketing platform, Vamp

Sourced from Global Banking & Finance Review