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3 Common Mistakes Brands Make With Representation in Marketing and How to Avoid Them

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BY SONIA THOMPSON

Over the past year, a lot of brands have started to do a much better job when it comes to representation in their marketing. Whether it is in diversifying the speaker lineup at conferences or ensuring the visual imagery portrayed in ads and photography looks more like the people who are attending the conferences and or consuming the content, there is a noteworthy positive change.

For instance, a few months ago, I talked to the chief marketing officer of one brand whose team had even gone so far as to put clear metrics in place as to what representation should look like, by matching it to the latest population demographics of various groups from an ethnicity standpoint, and noting that negative stereotypes should be avoided.

Even though there is plenty of progress happening on the representation-in-marketing front, there are some common mistakes being made that prevent the brands creating them from getting the results they seek.

1. Including the token diverse person

When you’re looking through a conference lineup, and you see the same usual speakers and then one person who is part of an underrepresented group, it feels like the brand did it to check their “diversity and inclusion” box. As a consumer, it feels kind of insulting.

Same goes when you’re looking at the makeup of a brand’s internal team, and they’ve got one person who looks different from all the rest.

If you really want to signal to your customers that they belong with you, particularly your diverse and niche consumers, don’t make representation feel like an afterthought or something you have to do.

Instead, focus on diversifying your network and circle of influence so you’ve got plenty of diverse talent to feature for events and to work with on your team.

2. Thinking that photography is enough

I recently conducted a representation-in-marketing research study with more than 1,000 consumers. One thing that came through loud and clear was that consumers want more than just representative photography from a brand.

Your customers want features, storylines, and more in-depth content from people who look like them and have backgrounds similar to theirs.

That may mean featuring more diverse experts in your educational content, spotlighting the stories of your customers from a number of different backgrounds in your ads and social media content, or showcasing testimonials from your diverse and niche consumers on your sales pages.

Photos can be bought, but real stories and expertise from real people cannot.

If you want to make diverse and niche consumers feel like they belong with you, go deeper than the photos. David’s Bridal does a great job of this. They feature a lot of user-generated content on their social channels that features a broad variety of customers. And on their website, they feature the wedding stories of an impressive cross-section of their diverse customers.

3. Not building a truly inclusive brand

Increasingly, consumers are looking beyond just a brand’s marketing in terms of the products, services, and experiences they deliver to determine whether or not they are truly representative.

They are turning their attention to the internal teams and board of directors to see if they are representative as well. If representation only matters in your marketing, and not in your team building, then consumers get the signal that diversity, inclusion, and belonging aren’t as important to you as you would have them believe.

The fix is to build an inclusive brand from the inside out. Your customers, particularly diverse, niche, and marginalized consumers, want to spend their money with a brand that aligns with their values. They prefer to steer clear of the brands that are only being representative in their marketing just to get diverse and niche consumers to spend money with them, and those they don’t feel truly value or care about those who are a part of their community.

Representation matters. More and more, this is becoming accepted. But not all representation is created equal. Avoid the mistakes above to ensure your representation efforts are seen as authentic and by the customers you want to serve.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

BY SONIA THOMPSON

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE STRATEGIST, CONSULTANT, AND SPEAKER@SONIAETHOMPSON

Sourced from Inc.

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Posters And Parties: What Marketing Is And What It’s Not In 2021

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By Melissa Pepper,

My first real marketing job was at a law firm with about 40 attorneys. It was their first marketing role, too, so we learned together how to do this marketing thing.

One of the sayings I used over and over again when working there was, “Marketing is more than posters and parties.”

Yes, marketing can and may always have a bit of party planning and sign making. It’s part of the territory. But what elevates marketing to become a strategic partner with leaders in your organization is moving beyond these conversations to key questions and imperatives for the success of your business.

Let’s break down what I believe are the key components of marketing in 2021.

1. Digital-First Strategy

Whether your business is B2B or B2C, your customers are likely finding you and interacting with you digitally. But how do we change the ways we market in a digital environment to increase our lead generation?

The first place many often look is through a better optimized, modern website. A client asked me the other day if websites are even relevant anymore. I answered yes, because while new media has come about to connect consumers with brands, company websites still are a primary way leads in your sales funnel learn about you and travel through their decision-making process. The better your website keeps them engaged, the more apt they may be to buy your product or service.

I also recommend focusing on a variety of digital activities, such as email automation, pay-per-click and landing page campaigns, and social media advertising. You may find that a different mix suits you, but regardless of your industry, think critically about the intersection of your sales and marketing functions and how strategic digital marketing can efficiently capture leads to hand to your sales team.

2. Holistic

Marketing cannot operate in a silo. To make your marketing effective — which means to do activities that lead potential customers to become customers — your marketing team should be welcomed into your sales and operations. Marketers can tell a good story, if we know the story to tell. Empower your marketing person or teams to really learn the business so they can adequately communicate your unique value proposition to potential customers.

For example, at my law firm job, this meant meeting with the practice area leaders and attending practice group meetings regularly. I had a weekly habit to make “rounds” to learn what the attorneys were working on, ask questions and understand how they communicated. This habit allowed me to delve into an industry that was foreign to me when I started and to craft messaging that would speak to their potential and current clients.

3. Goal-Oriented

Marketing often comes under fire because it’s been historically hard to measure. Digital-first strategies have changed that because we have data to understand how our marketing efforts are reaching (or not reaching) consumers. How we measure marketing, then, should be a function of the data available to us. Ensure your goals are tied to your overall company strategy and that there is a person in your organization who is held accountable to meet them.

As your business grows, you can seek out more sophisticated marketing metrics. If you’re just hopping onto the measurement bandwagon, I’d suggest starting small with only a few metrics. Be sure to optimize your website to track conversions. You can also track contact forms and conversions on your website. Measure your email open rate. Keep an eye on engagement and bounce rate.

At the end of the day, marketing is a strategic driver for new and returning customers. Can posters and parties bring you that outcome? Yes. But only if you are also considering a digital, holistic and goal-oriented marketing approach.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Melissa Pepper,

President at Total Solutions and Founder of Lead(h)er. Read Melissa Pepper’s full executive profile here

Sourced from Forbes

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Woman Shares The Most Ridiculous And Crazy Facts From The Marketing World, Her Series Goes Viral (10 Pics)

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We all know that brands and companies don’t quite play with their cards open. And while we can only suspect what happens behind their tightly shut doors, TikToker Selena Wright, @selenawrightcreative, has a lot to say on the matter. In fact, she has made a whole series of videos listing the craziest marketing facts that have amassed hundreds of thousands of views.

The social media manager from New Zealand covers anything marketing-related, from failures our fave brands can’t afford to make but they did to smart design strategies, smart trickeries, and clever product inventions.

Selena’s selection of facts reveals a whole new world of marketing we didn’t know, where every tiny detail has its purpose, and where brands fight in an ongoing Mortal Kombat to get our attention. Let’s read Bored Panda’s interview with the author of these videos right below!

@selenawrightcreativeWho knew this?! #socialmediamanager #instagrammarketing #marketinghack

♬ original sound – selenawrightcreative

 

#1

Crazy-Marketing-Facts Original Sears catalogues were purposefully smaller than Montgomery Ward catalogues so housewives would naturally stack them on top.

selenawrightcreative , David Valenzuela Report

We reached out to Selena Wright, a freelance photographer and social media manager from New Zealand who loves all things creative. “I work with brands to create custom content and get their socials looking perfectly unique to their brand,” she said and added: “I am a self-taught photographer that began shooting on my Mum’s DSLR years ago and went from there.”

#2

Crazy-Marketing-Facts In 2012 Dunkin Donuts released a marketing campaign in Seoul, Korea where scent spray devices on buses would release the aroma of warm coffee when triggered by the sound of Dunkin Donuts radio jingle. The marketing campaign reached more than 350,000 people and sales by bus stops increased by 29%.

#3

Crazy-Marketing-Facts In 2008 Shreddies launched a marketing campaign launching their new “Diamond Shreddies”. The company was pretty open about the fact that this was basically a joke since they had just just rotated the image of the square Shreddies and it that it was more about getting people talking about Shreddies again. It seems pretty successful as they got an 18% rise in sales.

#4

Crazy-Marketing-Facts The T-shirt was invented in 1904 and marketed to bachelors that couldn’t sew or replace buttons.

When asked how she got an idea for her ‘Crazy Marketing Facts’ series, Selena said it was inspired by “a similar series she saw many other creators doing about different things you can do on Canva. I liked the idea of teaching in my own niche while adding a little entertainment value as well.”

And it’s specifically the creative side of things that got the TikToker interested in the marketing industry. “Paid advertising has its place but I really enjoy creating and engaging with high-quality content that tells a story and has a lot of character for brands,” she said.

#5

Crazy-Marketing-Facts Joanne Rowling, better known as J.K. Rowling, doesn’t have a middle name according to her birth certificate. The decision to use initials on her book covers was designed so it was more acceptable for the boys to read, who were less likely to read a book written by a women.

#6

Crazy-Marketing-Facts Philadelphia cream cheese was invented in New York, and was never produced in Philadelphia. In the 1880s it was known as a marketing trick, because Philadelphia was known for high quality dairy products.

#7

Crazy-Marketing-Facts In 2009 Tropicana invested $35 million to change the packaging of their Orange Juice. Within 2 months their sales dropped by 20% and they lost significant market share. So they switched back to the old packaging. The failed marketing campaign cost them over $50 million!

From the marketing facts Selena has posted so far, the fact that she finds the most fascinating is that “Blackberry paid actresses to flirt with men in bars to promote their phones by ladies getting men’s phone numbers and showing off their Blackberries when they saved them.”

#8

Crazy-Marketing-Facts In 2011 Jell-O monitored the amount of smiley faces and frowny faces posted on Twitter. When the national average for smiley faces was below 51% Jell-O would release discount coupons for those who had recently tweeted frowny faces.

#9

Crazy-Marketing-Facts There’s a rumour that BlackBerry hired actresses to flirt with men in bars in order to push Blackberries on the public. Referred to as stealth marketing, so they would go to bars to get phone numbers and them to put their numbers in their Blackberries, trying to show off how cool they were.

And as for Selena’s plans for the future, the social media manager said that she has “a big passion project announcement coming soon that will be documented all over my social media and TikTok,” so keep your eyes out! Also, be sure to check out her awesome photography work right here.

#10

Crazy-Marketing-Facts Before mass marketing of tobacco, doctors considered lung cancer a rare disease. The amount that large tobacco companies spend per HOUR has reached $940,000.

By Justinas Keturka

Author, BoredPanda staff

Justin is a photo editor at Bored Panda. He was fascinated with visual arts and arts in general for as long as he can remember. He was obsessed with playing and making music in his teens. After finishing high school, he took a gap year to work odd jobs and try to figure out what he wanted to do next. Finally, around 2016, he started learning how to use Photoshop and hasn’t stopped since. He started working as a visual advertisement producer in 2017 and worked there for almost two years. In his spare time, he creates graphic collages and even had his first artwork exhibition at “Devilstone”.

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Piggybacking Is the Viral Marketing Trend Putting Tat on Your Timeline

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“Get yourself an Ocean Galaxy Light” is the equivalent of tweeting “wow, this blew up, check out my Soundcloud”. But does it work?

Brands often ask the people marketing their content to make it “go viral”.

This, unsurprisingly, is no easy task – there’s a reason you don’t regularly see “Persil Non-Bio” trending on Twitter. However, brands have cottoned on to a new strategy that basically involves riding the coattails of something that’s already gone viral. That strategy is called “piggybacking”.

When a tweet goes viral, you’ll often see the original user tweets again, plugging whatever they want to plug (“wow this blew up! Check out my Soundcloud”). Now, though, you may see an advert for the kind of tat usually sold in a high street gadget shop, like star light projectors and slime.

Companies are approaching ordinary people on Twitter who just happen to have gone viral, and offering them cash or commission in exchange for the opportunity to piggyback their temporary Twitter fame. It always seems to be the same few companies, but what they offer to users in exchange for advertising space varies.

The legality of this practice is questionable, with online advertising regulations varying wildly across the world, but none of these tweets are marked as an advertisement. So are these viral tweeters actually getting paid? And if so, how much?

A huge star light projector, called Ocean Galaxy Light, is one of the products most frequently advertised using this method; @shaggavelli was offered £15 through Paypal to post two pre-written tweets about it. Vir Guards, which makes face masks, also offered £15. Standardized, an anime merchandise site, offered him a code through which he’d get a small commission. However, a month after his viral tweet, he’s yet to make any money from the link. “I’ve heard they sometimes give the person £5 first, then give commission, but personally I didn’t receive that treatment,” he said.

Some tweeters are offered promo work off the back of one viral tweet. Others do it more regularly. @engxl had already worked with brands when one messaged him about piggybacking off his tweet about an extremely magical old lady. Unlike others on Twitter, he was able to negotiate for more money and time limits.

Slime Clean is a gooey substance that you roll over a dusty keyboard or grimy car interior to pick up dirt. @enyxl was offered $20 (£15.50) to tweet about the product and leave the tweet up for 24 hours, but because he’d done promos with the Slime Clean representative before, “I asked him for $25 [£19.30], since I knew the tweet was gaining a lot of traction.” Slime Clean agreed and paid him through Paypal.

“If he wants it to be there for another 24 hours, it would be another $25,” @enyxl explained. “Galaxy Light approached me from their official Twitter account and asked what my price was to promote. Since I had already done one for $25, I asked for $30 [£23.15], and they paid me through Cash App. They never mentioned anything about recurring days, so I have an alarm set for when to delete the tweets unless I get compensated again.”

Pay-outs differ between users, with some getting more than others. @putinaspliff was also offered advertisements for Vir Guards and Ocean Galaxy Light for his viral tweet. But despite having around the same metrics as @shaggavelli when the ads went live, with roughly the same number of likes and retweets, he was offered substantially less by one of the brands. Why this was is hard to say, but it could simply be the brand testing just how little they can get away with paying.

Most users make a little money after firing off viral tweets – but those tweets aren’t specifically designed to appeal to advertisers. This is where the micro-influencer makes their entrance.

Unlike others I spoke to, @titanbaddie – real name, Sisa – is a pro. He regularly works with brands and has standards in place for the minimum he’ll accept. “My standard is $30 a tweet, but I’m adaptable depending on how big the brand is, and the expectations,” he says. “For example, I have brands that will pay me weekly fees to interact with their accounts, and those are normally brands that are trying to build online traction. Normally, when it’s a product, you’re paid per post, and normally when you [make] viral content they’ll reach out to you.”

Sisa explained that there’s a growing influencer culture in South Africa, where he’s getting work. At the moment it’s a new industry, and relatively unregulated, meaning influencers can make decent money if they work for it.

“I only recently started accepting promo offers from SA, because I just joined a promo team, but on some campaigns I’ve done before it can be anything from R250 (£11) a week to R2,000 (£95) for three posts, depending on how big the brand is and how long you work for them. I’ve been very lucky, in that I work with more international businesses and forums, so on an average week now I make about $200 (£154) from viral attachment tweets and paid posts.”

While there are clearly ways to make money from viral tweets, for the average joe who just happens to have blown up, it’s not going to be a big earner. As for the products themselves, I can’t find anyone who has actually tried them. Aside from one tweet from a parent whose kids enjoyed the Galaxy Lights, no one seems to be buying them. As for Slime Clean, the majority of tweets about it seem to be asking one question: how on earth are you supposed to clean the slime?

By Bethany Fulton

@bkafulton

Sourced from VICE

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How To Create an Action Plan To Achieve Your Home Business Goals

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By Sabrina G. Anwah,

Starting a home business is an exciting prospect for many, but only a fraction of would-be entrepreneurs succeed in making and running an enterprise. Coming up with a great idea is good, but doing your research, setting realistic goals, and creating a workable action plan is what transforms “could be” into “is.”

Setting goals can be helpful in every area of your life. Goal-setting can enhance motivation, self-confidence, and independence.1 When it comes to establishing a business, having a plan is crucial.

According to Bernard Ferret, a senior business counsellor with George Mason University’s Small Business Development Centre, good goals are “based on solid research, provide a clear direction, and set expectations for all involved.”

In this article, you’ll learn what an action plan is and how to create one that really works for your home business.

What Is an Action Plan for a Home Business?

An action plan acts as your guide to ensure your organization’s vision and goals shine through. It often describes the way your business will use strategies to meet already-set objectives. A good plan not only addresses what needs to be done, but the how, when, and who of what is involved with the task as well. It should clearly outline strategies to meet your objectives, and include deadlines and possible obstacles.

NOTE: Your action plan will need constant revision as your business evolves. When you are creating an action plan, work to make it as complete, clear, and current as possible.

To create a successful action plan, you need to go into the process fully prepared, Ferret said. Prior to joining George Mason University, where he advises hundreds of clients and leads business counselling workshops, Ferret ran his own successful home-based business.

“There are two things they should ask themselves: ‘Is this business a good idea?’ and ‘Can it be successful?’ ” Ferret said. “The only way to know is to speak to people about it. Conversations reveal habits, likes, dislikes, etc.”

Ferret suggests talking to at least 100 people about your ideas, products, and/or services before diving into the concept. According to him, the more people you talk with, the better. In addition, educate yourself with help from books, online courses, or videos surrounding your industry.

When done correctly, your written action plan will break down the steps you need to take to meet the objectives you’ve set for your business. For instance, to establish your home-based business, you likely need a permit and license from your local government.

NOTE: In most cases, businesses are required by the IRS to get an employer identification number (EIN).2 The online portal from the IRS makes it easy to apply, and helps with filing your taxes.

The Power of Marketing

According to Ferret, a key factor many new small-business owners neglect to think about when creating their action plans is the importance of marketing. Along with this, many new entrepreneurs don’t realize how long it may take before they break even on their investments. According to Ferret, no matter the industry you are in, an action plan should focus extensively on marketing strategies.

“Branding is a long-term, strategic practice that includes the company’s image, logo, and look, but it also includes the opinions of your customers,” Ferret said. “Spend time on developing a marketing communication strategy based on what you learned from those 100 conversations.”

As the business owner, it is important you take a leadership role in setting goals. According to a recent study, your marketing ability has an impact. The study found that in small- and medium-sized companies, if an entrepreneur had strong marketing skills, it had a positive effect on the company’s ability to successfully meet goals.3

TIP: There are many online resources you can use to set goals, both as an individual and for your company team. PositivePsychology.com, for example, offers three free Goal Achievement Exercises you can download on your smartphone or computer.

Set SMART Goals

When working on your action plan, take extra care to clearly define your goals, and make them SMART. This concept—S.M.A.R.T. goals—was first introduced in a 1981 article written by three professionals: George Doran, Arthur Miller, and James Cunningham.4

  • Specific: It’s important to make your goals detailed and precise when creating them. If you’re in sales, for example, a possible goal may be to sell 100 widgets in the month of May, rather than simply “sell more widgets.”
  • Measurable: As illustrated in the example above, set goals that can easily be quantified.
  • Attainable: Make your goals realistic based on your current financial situation, experience in the industry, and access to resources. Don’t be so conservative that you limit yourself; you should challenge yourself yet still be realistic.
  • Relevant: Think about whether the action you are planning to take will move you closer to where you need to go. Is it going to be effective? With limited time and resources at your disposal, you need to keep your efforts specific to what works.
  • Time-Bound: Setting hard deadlines for accomplishing tasks will keep you focused on the goal in front of you.

In addition to setting SMART goals, it takes a certain amount of discipline as well as the development of good habits to yield results.

“Even if you are not at an office, you should be working eight hours a day,” Ferret said. “Multitasking is the death of effectiveness.”

TIP: To ensure your business is thriving, consider creating a home workspace, if possible. By having a dedicated space to conduct business, you’ll limit distractions and focus on the goals in front of you. It also is beneficial to stay organized with the help of digital calendars, reminders, and notifications.

Find a Team and Hold Each Other Accountable

Finding a team as a home-based business owner can take some effort, but it’s an essential part of a successful business. This doesn’t mean you have to have several employees. Even if your business is a sole proprietorship, there are other ways to create a support system.

Whether online or in-person, there are various business-oriented communities you can join. These groups can offer support, share experiences, and also provide mentoring opportunities. A few examples include:

There are Small Business Development Centres in every state, as well as SCORE, a non-profit that seeks to foster vibrant small-business communities through mentoring and education. SCORE, in partnership with Constant Contact, has created action plan templates during the global health crisis to assist small businesses and organizations in recovery.

Evaluate Your Progress

Having SMART goals is important, but making the time to review and update those goals regularly is key. At prescribed times, whether weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly, take some time to evaluate various elements of your action plan. What is working? What isn’t? Are you meeting the deadlines you’ve set for yourself?

As you gather experience and learn new information about the industry, your products or services, yourself and your employees, you may realize some adjustments are required. Don’t be afraid to make a course correction—it may help you see better results. Revising your action plan can make it much more useful, and also make you a better business owner.

Feature Image Credit: The Balance / Ashley Deleon

By Sabrina G. Anwah

Sourced from the balance

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How To Double Down on Personal Branding in 2021

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By Julian Paul

A proven 3-step approach to personal branding

Recently I took the Marketing New Realities and the Personal Brand class by the great

as part of my MSc High Tech Entrepreneurship at

. There were many brilliant concepts covered. But the core centered around how the world increasingly emphasizes this fact: A brand’s credibility and existence now rely on what customers say and do rather than what the brand wants them to do.

Before going into my three main takeaways, let me share two case studies I felt were quite impactful to myself and the broader class.

The North Face — Question Madness

The North Face video ad campaign with extreme athletes as the stars. YouTube

What an ad! This campaign portrays the uncomfortable and scary truths. Something not often seen from big brands… pain and broken bones are ugly, but they define the daily lives of extreme athletes. The North Face knows this and shows the entire world they understand exactly who their customers are.

Further, The North Face decided to take a user-generated content (UGC) route with a strong focus on empathy which translates directly into a sense of belonging with their core audience. Because of this, they literally did not need to put any product front and centre. Rather, their brand and product is the athlete — no matter where they are. As a result, their entire brand now resembles the safety and support system that allows athletes to survive extreme conditions — which translates into their secret sauce:

  1. The customer is the hero.
  2. The customer is the marketer.
  3. They helped people belong.

Heineken — Worlds Apart

A short video on Heineken’s “Open Your World” Campaign. YouTube

Phew! What a shocking video and context. Mark posed some great questions to this case study. Who is the target audience? Why would this sell more beer? Let’s get into what I think about it…

The target audience is those who think our differences are greater than our potential to connect. It’s a beautiful analogy to the way the world is seemingly trying to divide us among our identities. And it offers the antidote: Heineken Beer. Heineken is treading a thin line between encouraging alcoholism and highlighting the culture it enables.

I personally believe it is clearly the latter. As a beer consumer myself I can relate to the environment filled with deep conversations that occur in a typical pub, bar, or even at home… I think you know what I am talking about. So the answer to the second question is also very clear to me: this campaign would definitely sell more beer. Its message is inclusivity from all political or ideological ends.

My 3 Main Takeaways

Building on these two case studies, I collected three main takeaways that resonated most with me. Now, if you know me, then you understand how much I love mental models and processes. So, my takeaways are designed for a personal branding beginner (like myself). And personal branding begins with producing inhuman amounts of content… the following points relate to a process I have identified from this class and am applying to myself. They are meant to be applied top to bottom. Let’s get into it.

1. Apply AIR with your initial content

I know it’s cliché, but content is king! Simple, right? Not really. Creating content that actually connects with people is difficult. AIR makes this easy:

  1. Authentic = Are you real? Is what you’re sharing honest?
  2. Interesting = What value does it add? Is it tangible?
  3. Relatable = Does it connect to your target audience?

People believe and trust in what they see and experience. AIR relies on consistency and trust. The key to AIR is community-driven.

Be of the community, not just in the community.

Once you nail AIR, you create acts of advocacy that will move customers to connect and communicate with other customers. This only comes from creating and sharing content, increasing buying decisions as a result.

Mark says this best:

“Know who your super sharers are and tailor your content angle towards them.”

I say in addition, you need advocates, not followers.

2. Define your customer island

Personal branding is the marketing of today. And marketing is about all things human. It’s about emotions. So you should aim to create the marketing of no marketing: enable your customers to create and share your/their stories. Do this by understanding what they are into. And once you define that, you can group them into customer islands (imagine a Maldivian atoll as a reference), where the name of the game is word of mouth (WOM) marketing.

This might seem very difficult, but there is a simple solution: Think about creating talkable stories and approach the following types of influencers: celebrities, creators, and advocates. Each has its unique use case and its effectiveness will depend on your application.

Once you understand your customer islands and which influencer type you need to gain access to each, you will receive feedback from a whole range of customer segments that were totally agnostic to your personal brand. Beautiful, right? So analyze carefully and choose wisely.

If you create your personal brand, you create your island. And those who identify with it, will come to you.

Mark categorizes customer islands under human-centered marketing, which he built a beautiful manifesto for. Check it out here.

3. Leverage RITES to scale your content

Expanding on the ideas of customer islands and creating your first consistent content series with AIR, I loved this model as a way to scale bigger and broader as a creator. Once you’ve ticked all of the five RITES boxes, you will be able to connect with your island like never before:

  1. Stay Relevant
  2. Be Interesting
  3. Be Timely
  4. Be Entertaining
  5. Become Superior

Mark goes on to state that your personal brand is a business. So, as with any business, you should know that the customers are in control. Even more so in the age of personal branding. Be wise and make your personal branding efforts less about ego and more about the people on your island. RITES allows you to discover and frame the type of content you need to grow your personal brand to new heights.

The internet is all about giving away value and enabling others

Coming Full Circle

I hope you enjoyed this article as much as I did writing it. Needless to say, the ideas put forth are interpretations and learnings I took away from Mark’s class. However, the approach and condensation of them are my own. My hope is that you receive the same amount of value as I did. Thanks so much for all of these concepts

. It’s been a pleasure!

More insights from Mark’s class

My final realization

Personal branding is here to stay. So why not master it and create the island thousands of people are waiting to join?

Feature Image Credit: Austin Distel on Unsplash

By Julian Paul

Sourced from BetterMarketing

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4 Marketing Campaigns that Changed the World

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By Kenny Tripura, 

The advertisement industry has seen many revolutionary times when the campaigns changed the face of the earth. From banners ads to digital ads, the average American is exposed to a few hundred to a few thousand ads every day. The use of new technologies helped the businesses to win millions of new customers and even helped the candidates to win the elections.

The advertisement industry has seen many revolutionary times when the campaigns changed the face of the earth. From banners ads to digital ads, the average American is exposed to a few hundred to a few thousand ads every day. The use of new technologies helped the businesses to win millions of new customers and even helped the candidates to win the elections. Direct mail campaigns proved to be the biggest player in the whole marketing game. Even in the age of digital ads, print mail still proved to be the most useful marketing method for every business.

Here are some marketing campaigns that made the biggest impact on the global communities.

1. The Pause that Refreshes by Coca Cola

The current idea of the Santa Clause is thought to be introduced by Coca-Cola. In reality, the same concept of Santa Clause has been around for years. Coca-Cola simply put all the ingredients in a compelling way to showcase the idea to the world.

The ad campaign by Coca-Cola gave a whole new idea to the world. Since then red costume of Santa Clause has become an essential part of events.

2. Real Beauty Campaign by Dove

This was an intelligent move by Dove where they used visual content to describe the fact that only 4% of the females consider themselves beautiful.

FBI agent draws the woman after she explains herself and then another stranger is asked to describe the same woman. The drawings from both subjects are totally different.

3. Red Bull Stratos

In 2012, Red Bull ran a promotion where Felix jumped from 24 miles in space. He became the first person to break the sound barrier without using any type of vehicle or rocket.

This ad took over the internet and attracted millions of new customers from all over the world.

4. McDonald’s’ “Our food, your questions”

McDonald asked the users to ask a question about the products. McDonald also answered all of these questions so the doubts can be cleared.

This was a bold move but this campaign helped to strengthen the trust of users in the food items offered by McDonald’s.

The Use of Print Media in Your Marketing Campaigns

Direct mail has always been on the top of the list of every company and brand. Print mail has been used even in presidential elections. When it comes to influencing the masses, direct mail has always proved to be the most effective and useful method. The twist was the use of APIs that made direct mail marketing whole better. Since the use of APIs for marketing, the world has seen a whole new phase of advertisement.

Conclusion

Most of the marketing campaigns were meant to offer special results for a specific event or period. Concepts and technologies like APIs for print media are going to stay here for long. Now, almost every marketing agency and campaign are somehow using the power of APIs in one or another way.

By Kenny Tripura, 

Co-founder and managing partner at Toronto Digital Marketing Agency Edkent Media. I write about anything related to digital marketing.

Sourced from Thrive Global

The Thrive Global Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.

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4 Ways to Automate and Streamline Your Marketing With Advanced Tech

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By Frank Landman

When marketing becomes too much to handle, most businesses assume that they need to hire an employee or outsource to a contractor. But don’t be so quick to grow your payroll. It’s possible that you could automate many of these tasks with streamlined digital solutions.

4 Powerful Ways to Automate Your Marketing

By its very nature, marketing is an activity of scale. In order to successfully build up your business and grow your brand, you have to get in front of as many people as possible. But if you’re trying to handle all of your marketing efforts manually, you’re probably exhausted. There’s simply too much for any one person (or department) to handle alone. And this is where automation comes into play.

Automation – which is basically the strategic combination of software, applications, and artificial intelligence to streamline time-consuming processes and produce results at scale – is a powerful tool that is not deployed nearly enough by small businesses and growing brands. But if you can pick the right spots to automate your marketing, it could change everything.

Whether you’re nursing a small start-up or you have a booming business that’s bursting at the seams, the following solutions could provide exactly what you need at this precise moment in your company’s life:

1. Automate Email Campaigns

Did you know that more than 68 percent of businesses spend seven days or more on the production of just a single email? (It takes 14 percent of businesses a month or longer to push out an email!)

Or did you know that most companies are in the process of producing between one and five emails at a time?

We’ll let you do the math…but that’s a lot of time spent building and sending emails. And yet nobody is denying the value of email. So the question becomes, how do you automate your email campaigns so that you can enjoy the benefits without unnecessarily wasting hundreds or thousands of man-hours each year?

One answer is to leverage an email marketing platform that allows you to use automations and triggers to streamline these touchpoints. Any major email marketing platform is going to have similar features, but we’ll use a tool called ActiveCampaign to illustrate how effective this can be.

Within the ActiveCampaign platform, you can create individual campaigns that are automatically managed using “triggers.” A trigger is any event that your business can track – like subscribes, unsubscribes, form submissions, email opens, web pages visited, links clicked, purchases made, or specific dates (like a birthday or customer anniversary).

Once one of these triggers is “tripped,” you can create an automated email sequence that’s sent out to that user. This sequence can include anywhere from one message to a dozen or more (sent out at predetermined times and intervals).

Once you draft the email copy and create the campaign, it all happens automatically…at scale. Whether you have 10 people on your email list or 100,000, everything happens flawlessly. It can literally save you thousands of hours every year.

2. Automate Content Promotion

Content promotion is another time-consuming element of marketing that we hear a lot of people complain about. And while it is time-consuming, it can be automated without much effort. You simply have to develop a plan and create the right processes on the front end.

Here’s one dead-simple process you can replicate:

  • Step 1: Sign up for a social media management tool like Buffer or Hootsuite, which allows you to manage all of your accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) from one place.
  • Step 2: Create an account for a tool called Zapier. This is an automation service that makes it easy to connect apps and create powerful automated workflows. It works great for marketing and content promotion.
  • Step 3: Create an automation process (called a “Zap”) that connects your blog’s RSS feed to your Buffer or Hootsuite account. Optimize it so that your blog post is shared to each of your social networks every time the RSS feed refreshes with a new blog post.

That’s just one example of how you can automate content promotion using Zapier. There are literally dozens of other ways to spread your content without lifting a finger. If you haven’t explored these opportunities yet, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

3. Automate Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is the lifeblood of successful companies. Unfortunately, most businesses don’t collect enough data to produce meaningful insights and takeaways. And of the companies that do, just a small percentage are able to make sense of the data they collect. Automating customer feedback and analysis could be a vital decision for your business moving forward.

There are plenty of ways to automate your feedback loops, but we’ll touch on just a couple. The first approach is to use an advanced SMS text survey software like Delighted to procure instant customer feedback in a convenient and streamlined process. Here’s how it works:

  • You craft a simple survey within the Delighted platform and initiate a campaign.
  • Each customer receives the survey in an SMS format.
  • Customers reply with a numerical score to each question.
  • The Delighted platform responds with a free-form follow-up question.
  • Customers can provide a more detailed explanation in their own words.
  • Data is organized for easy analysis.

If you have a Zapier account, you can trigger surveys to be sent out after specific actions are completed in a customer’s lifecycle.

You may also find it helpful to automate feedback related to customer churn. (This is especially important for subscription businesses that rely on customer retention to sustain revenue.) There are tools that can be leveraged to send out exit surveys any time a customer cancels a subscription and/or fails to upgrade from a free trial. These surveys won’t do anything to keep the customer, but they can give you a good idea of why people are leaving.

A third option is to automate your feedback analysis by using a “customer sentiment” tool. Services like MonkeyLearn can “read” your feedback and effortlessly organize all responses into general theme-based buckets. This lets you identify and group common pain points, which makes it easier to track customer sentiment and address pressing issues as quickly as possible.

4. Automate Lead Generation

You might assume that automation stops at lead generation, but you’d be wrong. While there are certain aspects of lead generation that can’t be handled by an algorithm, this list is growing smaller by the year. Thanks to advanced technology and artificial intelligence, lead generation automation is more practical than it’s ever been.

Chatbots are among the fastest-growing technologies in this niche of advanced tech. They can be used to automate and enhance the overall customer experience by increasing engagement and initiating high-value touchpoints that would otherwise go ignored.

One of the more impressive use cases for chatbots involves the use of Facebook’s native Messenger platform. Because regardless of how much experience you have or what type of skills you possess, you can create interactive chatbots with no coding required.

Facebook chatbots are basically automated customer service agents/sales reps that empower your business to engage with Facebook prospects at scale. And while you’re probably not going to close deals on Facebook Messenger, these bots are excellent “setters.” They can indoctrinate prospects into the funnel and provide a steady flow of pre-qualified leads to your actual sales team.

Here are some examples of powerful ways you can leverage Facebook Messenger chatbots to assist with lead generation:

  • Blast out content and share it with your most loyal followers
  • Conduct quick webinar signups and get people to show up to live events
  • Automate your drip campaigns and nurture leads
  • Send out appointment and event reminders so that people never miss an engagement
  • Provide powerful customer service (including answering FAQs and giving out directions)

As mentioned, you can build your own bots for free (and it’s relatively easy for anyone to learn). Rather than having to code, you simply create logical workflows that operate on an if/then basis. These bots can take some time to build (depending on how intricate you want to go), but will ultimately save time when deployed on a large-scale basis.

Reduce Bloat With Automation

Automation can’t solve everything, but it can provide relief in areas where you need it most. Advanced technology, like the solutions outlined in this article, prevents bloat and allows you to scale without having to continually add more people to the payroll. It’s an efficient way to manage resources and grow in a timely and sustainable manner that respects both the brand and the bottom line.

You don’t have to implement each of these solutions today, but it would be wise to take action as soon as possible. Pick one area where you stand to improve the most and put that strategy to work.

Then, once you have that piece in place, move on to another one. It’s through this diplomatic yet proactive approach that you’ll find results.

By Frank Landman

Frank is a freelance journalist who has worked in various editorial capacities for over 10 years. He covers trends in technology as they relate to business.

Sourced from readwrite

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How creativity can drive business results: Adobe, Lego, Unilever, IBM and Diageo will show the way

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By amit bapna

A year on from Covid-19’s first lockdowns, nations and economies seem to have better control and growth is on the mind as a semblance of recovery is in sight, particularly in Asia Pacific.

Even within this chaotic situation, the region has shown signs of faster recovery than many other parts of the world and are even providing learnings to other parts of the world on how best to navigate through the challenges. While that is heartening news, it also leads to the question on how ready are brands from a creative standpoint to navigate this new and emerging reality?

To help marketers unravel this critical puzzle, The Drum and Adobe have put together a power-packed panel with senior representatives from formidable brands like Lego, Unilever, IBM and Diageo. These top brand leaders will come together for a 60-minute session with live Q&A and deep-dive into the key challenges that the marketers and creatives are facing in producing content that engages customers as well as connects with them, at scale.

The session will discuss how a good mix of talent and technology can help in unlocking the answers to these challenges and allow collaboration to thrive in a new hybrid way of working. It will also look at the following key themes:

  • The changes that the brands have had to navigate and adapt to since the pandemic began
  • ​The evolving creative approaches
  • Raising the role of creativity in driving business goals
  • The emerging face of creative collaboration in the new world

The discussion, on 21 April 2021, will be moderated by Charlotte McEleny, The Drum’s Asia Pacific publisher, who will be joined by Michael Stoddart, director, strategic business development (APAC) at Adobe, Grace Astari Italiaander, creative lead – innovation at Diageo, Primus Nair Manokaran, head of creative at The LEGO Agency (APAC), Kartik Chandrasekhar, global brand vice president of Lifebuoy at Unilever and Isabella Bain, sales and creative associate director at IBM.

By amit bapna

Sourced from The Drum

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We Need More Empathy in Marketing Right Now

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By Pat Timmons

McDonald’s and GoFundMe do it well

In today’s digital world, we are constantly bombarded with noise, information and marketing, making it near impossible to remember every message that you scroll past on social media. However, if they do it right, you remember what those brands made you feel.

People do not want to be sold to.  They want to feel safe. They want to feel heard. They want to feel some sense of normalcy.

No industry practices empathy marketing better than the music industry.

Think about the latest album that you listened to on repeat. What made you love that music so much? Most likely the campaign, music or artist made you feel something. The artist and their team use empathy to relate to their target audiences, and they frame the music in a way that makes the album/single super relevant to their audience. Even in music, there are campaign best practices. There is no one end-all-be-all growth hack to make a song soar to the charts. What made artists successful was their ability to connect with their audience on an emotional, intimate and meaningful level.

For example, Justin Bieber put out a song called “Lonely” this year, and it spent 23 weeks on Billboard’s Global 200 Chart and peaked at Number 5. Bieber used vulnerability to share his own story and empathy to connect with us all on a deeper level.

So how does this translate to brands? How can brands embody empathy to build trust with their audiences? Here are recent examples of brands doing it well:

McDonald’s has been leaning into the most impactful emotion there is: nostalgia, making us crave their experience as we scroll through social. Something as obscure and random as popping the buttons on a soda lid conjures up the emotions associated with McDonalds, e.g., road trips, memories with friends, etc.

GoFundMe felt the fear and anger of the world as cases of hate crimes toward the Asian American & Pacific Islander community surged. They did not simply make a statement, but they also used their platform to build the AAPI Community Relief Fund to create a centralized resource for people to turn to and support. They felt the universal emotions of fear and anger and acted upon it with empathy.

Webflow created a whole new event experience for its community. The company used empathy to understand that its community was burned out. Zoom fatigue was real. Webflow created a custom Gather Town space that made the event interactive, gamified and fun. The physical action of sitting at their desks was the same, but the experience was personal and full of empathy and will be extremely memorable for the company’s guests.

You can use your superpower of empathy in a meaningful way. It’s the importance of writing to people’s emotions, not just the target demographic. By using language that involves them and makes them the focus of the conversation, you can make your audience feel something.

By Pat Timmons

Sourced from ADWEEK

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