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4 Free Marketing Hacks Most First-Time Entrepreneurs Fail to Utilize (and It Costs Them Big-Time)

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Here are four free marketing hacks most first-time entrepreneurs gravely underestimate and underutilize, plus a fifth bonus hack that can make you millions.

Many entrepreneurs are great visionaries, proficient builders and competent operators; however, when it comes to being creative, flexible and innovative marketers and salespeople, many of us — especially first-timers — fall flat. I can’t tell you how many entrepreneurs have come to me with the assumption they’ll simply “run ads” or “pay influencers” to grow from an idea to multi-million-dollar profits. While I’m not suggesting ads and influencer promotions can’t work wonders for some companies, it should come as no surprise that with their ubiquitous proliferation, their efficacy has waned.

Audiences have come to expect, and therefore oftentimes ignore, these marketing methods, which means a lot more capital (money) may be required to reach a critical mass of prospects to arrive at an acceptable conversion rate that ultimately leads to actual profits. That’s a long-winded way of saying pay-to-play digital marketing is doable, but oftentimes more difficult, time-consuming and costly than first-time entrepreneurs expect.

That said, the vast majority of first-time and early-stage entrepreneurs fail to recognize or take advantage of the multitude of free, highly-effective marketing tactics sitting at their fingertips. These commonly overlooked growth hacks can yield millions in low-CAC (customer acquisition cost) sales, and I’ve experienced this firsthand, as have a handful of my fellow profit-focused founder friends. Here are four underrated, free marketing hacks you can utilize to catapult your venture’s growth — plus, a fifth bonus hack that made my friend millions without a dime spent on ads or social media.

1. Customization

This first hack isn’t scalable, but it is a great launchpad. When you’re first building your business, the most important thing is creating happy customers, even if that means doing the unreasonable or unscalable. Why? Because these first customers will create the testimonials, reinforced confidence, potential referrals and the overall inertia to push you from a handful of customers to hundreds of customers to thousands and so on. One of the biggest mistakes forward-thinking entrepreneurs make is attempting to build a well-oiled, scalable machine at the expense of the customer experience.

Simply put, customization is one of the greatest free hacks you have at your disposal as a first-time, early-stage entrepreneur and CEO of a small, fledgling venture. While you shouldn’t plan or expect to bend over backward for every customer as you grow, doing so for a few key clients early on can pay dividends for months, years and even decades to come. Don’t be afraid to win over your first customers with unscalable customization; it may pay off tenfold (or more) if you leverage it wisely.

2. Leverage customer testimonials

Speaking of leveraging unscalable customization wisely, that all begins with robust client testimonials. One of the most devastating missed opportunities I’ve witnessed far too many entrepreneurs suffer is the lack of testimonials, simply because they never thought to ask the customers. It is ten times harder to track down customers weeks or months later and reach them, let alone actually capture an enthusiastic, contagiously positive testimonial in comparison to doing so during a customer’s current experience with your company.

One of the most strategic moves I made early on was to include a customer testimonial and feedback form that all clients have to fill out before the last piece of their service is delivered for one of my companies. In so doing, my team has garnered hundreds (maybe thousands) of detailed glowing testimonials without lifting a finger. These are in your own backyard if you act swiftly.

3. Tap into your former clients’ networks

Along the lines of leveraging former customer testimonials as a growth hack (to wildly increase your free marketing content and purchase conversions, due to the plethora of credibility and social proof), you can also tap into those former clients’ networks. One mistake I’ve made in serving a client base who may compete with one another is capping their likelihood of recommending others for our service. If, however, you serve a broad client base that isn’t competitive with one another, then offering an attractive (lucrative) affiliate incentive program to those early customers can be a great way to grow sales passively, thanks to your motivated crew of evangelist former customers who love your product, money, and spreading the gospel of their positive experience with their friends (for a financial upside).

4. Don’t underestimate email marketing

People can knock email and the written word all they want, claiming video or audio is all that matters these days, but as someone who’s sent close to 100 million emails over the past three years — and profited handsomely from them — my results prove otherwise. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make with email marketing is to assume that sending one, three or even “seven” (that’s commonly touted as the magical number) emails is enough to judge a sequence’s success. There are customers who were on my company’s email list for over two years, received over 60 messages from us and ultimately spent hundreds or thousands of dollars when that right time, subject line or message hit them. There are also customers who purchase within the first few emails they receive, making up for the former.

The point being: If you’re willing to be patient, experiment and analyse the data from your email marketing, it’s entirely possible to build a marketing strategy all around the written word. It won’t, however, likely happen overnight, and you can’t simply pay your way into accelerated success with this channel.

5. This free tool built my friend’s multi-million-dollar agency (ad-free)

Though my current companies don’t employ this method, I have peer founders and friends who’ve built multi-million-dollar businesses all around DMs (direct messages) on channels ranging from Facebook groups to LinkedIn. No, they didn’t have large followings prior; they simply identified the right audience, crafted a client-centric message (or many) and began testing their luck. Similar to email, this strategy is a bit of a numbers game and will surely take some trial, error and improvement — but it’s a free option first-time founders shouldn’t sleep on.

The early-stage advantage

So many bootstrapped, first-time and early-stage (pre-revenue or pre-profit) founders lament their lack of funds or marketing muscle. While capital can surely expedite some methods of marketing, it’s oftentimes a crutch used to minimize the amount of time and hands-on effort founders need to put into marketing. That said, one of the advantages of being a first-time, bootstrapped and early-stage founder is that time, creativity, flexibility and resourcefulness should all be growth hacks you have on your side. You may not be able to out-spend a VC-backed startup’s digital marketing blitz, but you can out-strategy them if you’re willing to get a little bit creative, roll up your sleeves and do a few things that may not scale.

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Sourced from Entrepreneur

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16 Pieces Of The Inbound Marketing Process Agency Clients Often Need Help With

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Sourced from Forbes

When a company partners with an agency, leaders working on marketing typically have ideas about what they think their business needs. If the business sells directly to customers or clients, for example, its leaders know a strong inbound strategy is key. Often, a company will opt to handle certain inbound marketing tactics in-house, leaning on agency partners to help integrate both their efforts into a more comprehensive strategy.

After a client contracts with an agency to help define and shape the strategy for nurturing prospects’ journey through the funnel, it sometimes becomes clearer how invaluable their agency partners’ expertise in the inbound process really is, and the client starts wondering about other ways they could leverage the partnership. Here, 16 members of Forbes Agency Council share specific parts of the inbound marketing process that their clients frequently need more help with than they realized at first, and why this is the case.

1. Content Strategy

Companies often focus on turning out content and don’t do enough to make sure it is the right content for the right audience. Any inbound campaign will generate leads, but how you convert the leads to a purchase is key. This requires programmatic structure, strategy and content, identifying buyer personas and key performance indicators to nurture leads with content through the pipeline to purchase. – Maria Orozova, MODintelechy

2. A Social Media Presence For Marketing

The pressures of owning and operating a business are immense. Operational and service challenges aside, building a presence on social media for marketing is even more challenging. Those who approach social media as a side marketing effort to maintain relevance find little returns. Companies must invest the time, money and energy into a balanced marketing effort—including social media—to succeed. – Cagan Sean Yuksel, Dream Space

3. Audience Research

Usually, the understanding of the audience is based on anecdotes from leaders. Rarely is it rigorously researched and backed by reliable data. Everything flows from understanding target audiences. Spend time and money conducting both quantitative and qualitative research. It will make all of your inbound marketing more effective. – Gyi Tsakalakis, AttorneySync & EPL Digital

4. A Clear Messaging Framework

Too often, organizations jump into tactics before they have a clear understanding of their strategy. A great communications program is built on a foundation of a clearly defined objective, a targeted audience and a strong message that aligns your audience with your objective. Taking time to answer the basic questions and hone the messaging framework at the outset makes the tactics easier to execute. – Nathan Miller, Miller Ink, Inc.

5. Content Creation

Content creation is often one of the most difficult things for companies to execute. We often think, “How hard can it be to write such and such?” The reality is that good content is difficult to execute consistently and frequently. Writer’s block is a real problem for those who don’t do it regularly, and sometimes for those who do it professionally. Save yourself some frustration and outsource your content. – Jason Wilson, Strategy, LLC

6. Effective Copywriting

Many companies drastically underestimate their copywriting needs for organic search, product detail pages, marketplaces and other marketing channels. Companies love the low-cost traffic that SEO brings, but often think it’s a one-and-done project, or think it can be pulsed on and off. It’s a workstream, and many brands only have one copywriter on staff to address all copy needs across their business. – Antonella Pisani, Eyeful Media

7. The Call To Action

There’s a lot to be said around the importance of the offer/call to action when creating inbound marketing content. After a prospect has read your blog post or article, an effective CTA will move them further down the funnel (whether that’s to a sign-up form or an e-book download). Your CTA should be benefit-driven, action-oriented and tested regularly to optimize conversions. – Erik Koenig, SeQuel Response

8. Blog Production

Blogs remain a direct, effective tool for inbound traffic. But we often underestimate the strategy, TLC and even outsourcing they require to generate the desired return on investment. Before launching your blog, write down actionable goals, a distinct purpose and a deployment plan. Cover your bases on a topic bank, publishing frequency, audience, tone and delivery, writing and editing roles, SEO, and analytics. – Samantha Reynolds, ECHO Storytelling Agency

9. Thought Leadership

Thought leadership is the one area where companies seeking inbound marketing results need the most help. Mainly, this is due to their concern of giving away a competitive edge. Their concern is misplaced—being a great resource is its own competitive advantage. Your potential customers need help, and thought leadership is the best way to provide it. – Roger Hurni, Off Madison Ave

10. A Newsworthy Angle For PR

Coming up with your own newsworthy angle isn’t easy. Before they get in contact with me, so many entrepreneurs have tried to do their own PR and have failed because they haven’t identified a strong media hook about themselves. Everyone has their own unique story, and PR is all about bringing this story out of each individual and making sure it’s conveyed in a newsworthy manner. – Adrian Falk, Believe Advertising & PR

11. Personalized Landing Pages For Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is an incredibly effective way to drive inbound traffic to a brand’s website. A key part of the strategy is ensuring the destination you’re driving followers to is fully optimized for the desired action. Personalization of a landing page and clear calls to action may seem like table stakes, but companies often need a greater level of counsel to achieve success in this area. – Cooper Munroe, The Motherhood Inc.

12. Unique Brand Creatives

A brand always needs to invest in creativity, as the rest of any inbound marketing layers are purely process-oriented. Anything that is process-specific can be iterated quickly, except creativity. If your content lacks creative charm and fails to connect with customers, the rest of the inbound marketing process cannot rescue your brand from an apparent failure. – Candice Georgiadis, Digital Day

13. Search Engine Optimization

SEO is an incredibly integral part of discovery for many brands. It is not a set-it-and-forget-it project, as search engines are constantly retooling and revising the algorithms that determine search engine results. SEO requires knowledgeable and dedicated technicians who regularly adjust and integrate the latest best practices for optimal SEO success. – Jonathan Schwartz, Bullseye Strategy

14. Analysis Of Funnel Stages Where Leads Drop

The most common thing in inbound is that leads drop at a specific funnel stage where companies need more help than they realize. Finding out the actual reasons for leads dropping is not very easy, as it takes a lot of time to understand the user behavior. Even after doing everything correctly and by the book, when the leads drop, businesses realize that they actually need help with it. – Ajay Prasad, GMR Web Team

15. Conversion Rate Optimization

One area that applies to almost every inbound effort that is usually overlooked is conversion rate optimization. How many site visitors are converting into leads? How many blog readers are subscribing? Beyond this, CRO helps uncover the friction points through most inbound processes. CRO helps brands focus on what will move the needle. – Bernard May, National Positions

16. A Cohesive Web Profile Across Platforms

Creating a cohesive Web profile across various platforms is essential for a presence deemed trustworthy by search engines such as Google or Bing. A revamped SEO strategy should account for social media profiles and Web content, including service pages and blogs. In addition to presenting a unified brand experience to consumers, your organization will also be ranked better on SERPs. – Evan Nison, NisonCo

Sourced from Forbes

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The First 90 Days: Marketing at a Startup–People and Mental Processing

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By Chauncey Zalkin

Step one of the first 90 days of marketing at a startup–finding clarity and finding your place in the team.

Over the next couple of columns, I’m going to go into my approach to the first 90 days of marketing at a startup. Silicon Valley coined the phrase “building the plane while flying it.” You have to iterate and do good-enough stuff while making the sparkly shiny thing in the background. You’ve got to connect with people. You’ve got to make choices and you have to execute while managing. It’s a tough balancing act and never perfect, but with good communication and a little patience and compromise, you can find your way through.

The first things I’m going to talk about are finding clarity and finding your place in the team.

The Best Part of Waking Up–The Morning Routine

One of the keys to maintaining perspective is that every morning I wake up and write for 20 minutes or three full pages, whichever comes first. Some mornings with kids as a single mom, I only have 10 or 15 minutes and I take it. I write first thing after the coffee boils, the dog’s been out and the cats have had their breakfast. I do this while the kids are asleep or just waking up. It has helped me see holes in my thinking and be a better listener.

In my morning writing, my worrying mind will record things the founders have said, and they will come back out on paper as problems to solve. Sometimes I find solutions at that moment and my day is completely altered by what my mind has told me in the morning. My day is more impactful as a result. Morning writing is kind of a miracle and I highly recommend it. Whether you call yourself a writer or not.

People Person, Not Politicking

At a startup, different than corporate culture, there is not a lot of coddling going on and not a lot of processes. In my life, that’s a good thing. I am highly entrepreneurial, and I’ve been around long enough to know what I need to do to get things started and where I’ve made mistakes in the past. I am both an extrovert and an introvert. I can spend days alone writing and working and forget to see people until suddenly panic hits me that it’s time to see people again and I start making plans and reaching out again.

Knowing that’s who I am, I made sure to initiate one-on-ones with everyone whose role I would impact and whose role would impact mine. In a lean startup, that means business development and sales, UI/UX, the product owner, and operations and finance–the people creating the math that makes it all work. Pretty much everyone who is not a developer.

I sought to listen before speaking. I had a boss who struggled with that himself tell me to “understand before seeking to be understood” before every meeting. This is not easy, but it is imperative. Also, if you’re new somewhere whether you are in a leadership role or not, you really don’t know anything yet. You need to swim in the pool with the other fish and get a tour of the lake. At the same time, you can’t just sit there completely silently because people need to know who you are and what you will do.

A fellow Chief member in our core group suggested I ask people what they had really wanted to do that had been shelved or abandoned. Knowing what people are passionate about is an amazing way to understand their value and see opportunities at the company that might be getting lost in the shuffle. You can sort through the sands of lost projects and look for gems before starting from scratch.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Chauncey Zalkin

Sourced from Inc.

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4 Reasons Why You Need to Hire a Digital Marketing Agency to Level Up Your Brand Power

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If you are not an expert, outsourcing your marketing efforts to a digital marketing agency is a great solution. With remote work flourishing, outsourcing your digital marketing to a specialized agency with talent and resources in place is a great way to propel your business growth without having to grow your team first.

Finding the right people to help you grow your business might be a challenge. That is why I recommend looking outside of your company for talent. Outsourcing important tasks to experts might be the push your business needs to grow quickly. One of the key tasks you can outsource to experts is marketing.

You might feel hiring a marketing agency is a risk. It’s understandable to feel hesitant at first when first engaging with a team outside your organization. But certain risks are worth it when the benefits outweigh them.

1. Not hiring a digital marketing agency could be costing you more

The number one reason companies shy away from hiring a marketing agency is they think it’s expensive. Often a marketing agency can be a cost-effective strategy when you take into consideration a full-time employee’s salary, benefits, taxes and PTO time.

Hesitating in hiring experts might delay your company’s growth unnecessarily. A marketing agency can help your business grow quicker and start generating revenue faster. It will free you up to focus on working with your clients and running your business effectively.

2. You get to decide what marketing efforts you’d like to outsource to a marketing agency

A digital marketing agency would typically have a menu of services. The advantage of contracting a marketing agency is it would have resources you would need that would take much time and effort to build up in-house.

Instead of wasting your time gaining expertise in digital marketing, you can access an agency’s experience and resources. Since marketing is its bread and butter, the agency will have people and tools in place to start executing your vision as soon as possible.

Talk to the agency representatives so you can agree on what services and resources would be best for you to leverage, given the stage of your business development. For example, you might want to outsource specialized aspects of digital marketing such as SEO, media buying or email marketing campaigns.

Shop around for a digital marketing agency to see what each can do for you and negotiate the budget.

3. Help them help you reach your marketing goals

For a digital marketing agency team to be most helpful to you, they need to understand your vision. If they don’t get what you are about, your values, your brand image and your goals for marketing, their efforts won’t produce the results you are looking for.

Ensure the hired team has enough material to learn about your brand so they can design campaigns in your voice. Develop branding guidelines for them to follow, reflecting the look and feel of your brand. This way, no matter who joins their team, they all have the same understanding of your brand.

The agency will also need to understand your tech stack and the tools you use to collect and analyze your company’s performance. They will need access to your ways of reporting and your data. Establishing clear channels of access, sharing and communication will decrease friction, increasing efficiency and speed of execution of your vision on their end.

4. Collaborate and connect via project management tools

The project management tools, such as Trello, Slack, Asana, Monday or Clickup, don’t just serve as tools of efficiency. They also provide your team and your marketing agency with a unified place to work in, creating a sense of a teamwork environment.

Trello, for example, serves my team as a central hub for communication and collaboration. My team can communicate and work together efficiently through comments and tags on specific tasks, and everyone can track progress.

A sense of cohesion among the team, aided by the digital tools, will help create a sense of common purpose. This way, each member of your team and the team you are outsourcing to will be invested in helping you achieve your goals and committed to the bigger picture, not just their assigned tasks.

It’s rewarding and gratifying to have your whole team working in unison and collaborating with an outside agency smoothly.

Level up your brand power

Growth requires more people power. Sometimes, that power can be found in outside agencies. Hiring a digital marketing agency might feel uneasy at first. Once you make the first step, however, you will find that outsourcing allows you to free up your time to work on scaling your business.

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Sourced from Entrepreneur

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The Golden Rule of Marketing Isn’t About Consumers

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By David Baldwin

Back in the 1970s, people encountered 500 to 1,600 ads daily. If that number seems mind-blowing to you, set your mind fire extinguishers to full geyser because today the average person comes across somewhere between 4,000 to 10,000 ads in a single day.

It makes sense, right? In the ‘70s you had fewer, mostly analog media choices compared to today where you have all the traditional outlets plus tons of social media feeds, podcasts, satellite radio, banners, product placement, and all the digital hoohah serving you ads at an ever-escalating rate. We are swimming in advertising not to mention being tracked and cookied to death. (Cookie-less world, sure.)

In fact, I’d argue that social media has outkicked its coverage with advertising. Because we’re on the receiving end of such a nonstop barrage from these platforms that they don’t really exist – in any recognizable way – for the reasons they started in the first place. Remember when Facebook was about connecting with friends and Instagram was about sharing photos? Until we say, “Enough!” there will never be enough for the feeds.

So, the question is: What and how are we being fed?

First, let’s clarify, I’m an advertising guy. I’ve been doing this for going on (almost) four decades. I love advertising. When it’s good, it’s great and when it’s bad, it’s annoying – a very simple equation. But in my mind, that’s the game. Try to do the good stuff that people like and you can change everything.

It doesn’t take a raft of research to realize that most advertising these days now comes from the direct marketing wisdom of the ages: ROI-driven, tried and true rules. Never mind that the history of direct marketing is littered with campaigns that bucked the system and engaged its consumers with wonderful content and won big results. But sadly, that work has never been the norm, and it certainly isn’t these days.

And maybe I just committed what might be the problem: The word “consumer” and the idea that we’re “consumers.”

How did we – human beings with thoughts and feelings, wives, husbands, children, families, relationships – ever allow ourselves to be relegated and chained to the idea of consumption?

Are you a consumer? Really? Is that why you exist, to consume? Look at your little children, are they consumers? Are you a locust descending on a field to consume all in your path? I hope not.

And you might say it’s just a word but my orientation as a copywriter is that words are everything and how we label things bends perceptions. And man, have we bent our perceptions to think of ourselves as “consumers.”

Seriously, count how many times you hear the word “consumer” during your day. I counted once and it was something like 63 times in one day. It’s on the news, in economic forecasts, and in the papers. You can find it all over the pages of the Wall Street Journal and on just about any news site you can name. It’s everywhere.

The word is ubiquitous, and we don’t even question it. Maybe the situation was summed up beautifully by Howard Gossage who said, “I don’t know who discovered water, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a fish.” We’ve lost perspective and don’t see it anymore; we just accept the notion that we’re here to be consumers.

So, what’s the alternative? What if we start using different words to think of our customers?

What if we think of them as collaborators, co-conspirators, co-creators, or some better descriptor? Let’s treat them like human beings – your friends, family, brothers, sisters, moms, neighbours – not demographic statistics. David Ogilvy famously said, “The consumer is not a moron, she’s your wife.” We know this in our bones, let’s act like it.

What kind of value are you creating in people’s lives with your brand and your marketing? Start there.

Maybe, on a fundamental level, we replace consumption with collaboration. This is a facet of the diamond put forward by Michael Porter known as “Shared Value” – the idea that business is in a better position to make the world better than non-profits, NGOs, and even churches because what business does is solve a problem and then scale the solution. If business gets on the track of making things better, it’ll happen much faster than any other way. This doesn’t negate other organizations doing good, far from it. It just might offer a quicker route to making a difference by using market forces.

But a good first step might be to stop thinking of people as a number to achieve an objective. I call it the Golden Rule of Marketing:

“Market unto others the way you’d like to be marketed to.”

We have a responsibility to engage, to inform, to create quality experiences – not run into the room, drop a grenade and scream at people, exhorting them to call or click on us, dammit! It’s exhausting and unrelenting.

There has never been a better time to create work that has a point of view, a message, and leaves the viewer/reader with a positive experience or better informed. We have an opportunity to make people feel good about what we make, what they buy, and why they buy it.

Rather than consume or buy, just maybe they’ll buy into what you’re making and selling. And isn’t that better for everyone?

Feature Image Credit: Jingxi Lau

By David Baldwin

David is an author, film producer, entrepreneur, and one of the most awarded copywriters and creative directors in the ad business today. The founder of Baldwin&, co-founder of the Ponysaurus Brewing Co, co-founder of Take Your Seat, and author of the Amazon bestseller The Belief Economy, David is also the former Chairman of the One Club, and his work has been recognized by Cannes, One Show, D&AD, Clios, Effies, and more. His film work (Art & Copy, The Loving Story) has won two Emmys and a Peabody Award.

Sourced from Brandingmag

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How Web3 Will Change Marketing Landscape Forever

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Web1 was the introduction of the Internet, where users could ‘see’ the revolution of communication, and Web2 allowed users to experience and interact with the revolution. Now we have Web3, in which we will be allowed to immerse ourselves in the experience, and for the very first time, users will be able to own the revolution.

At the beginning of the Internet, users relied on multiple software and services to accomplish a single task. To play a video game, you had to purchase an online game and connect with your friends via IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and Ventrollo. This is Web1 — a decentralized platform operating in a pluralistic framework. Now, all of the tasks mentioned can be accomplished on Twitch and Discord — this is Web2. Web2 enabled giants like Meta and Alphabet to consolidate crucial auxiliary objectives such as gaining followers, sharing updates, promoting products, and building an online persona into a single website/application.

Welcome to Web3

Web3, also known as ‘the new internet’ is a term used for a brand new rendition of the internet that presents the option of decentralization. You’ve surely read and heard about this brand new Internet, but how does Web3 embed into our properties? It’s pretty simple: through user behaviour.

Although it sounds like a succession — something like 3G, 4G, and 5G — Web3 is not an upgrade from Web2. Instead, it exists simultaneously and is supported by the Web2 frameworks. You don’t have to upgrade from Web3 to Web3.

The Need for Web3

Instagram is a great place to build your platform and gain followers, but it comes with its own cons. Web2 companies like Meta collect plenty of data on the backs of consumers. On the parallel side, these companies have now consolidated the platform and have a monopoly in the market.

The need for Web3 comes from people realizing the dangers of BigTech overreach. People are now interested in building tools that give the power back to the users. Context: for every dollar that YouTube advertising generates, creators get only 55%. Couple this with the risk of losing your entire work at the whim of a YouTube executive. Web3 is the solution to this precarious system. Instead of channelling money through centralized platforms, creators will now deal directly with the users.

Every time you stumble upon the Internet, sites like Facebook and YouTube get a hold of your data. This data is then sold to other companies. While Advertising isn’t entirely harmless, it is not the only space that gets a hold of your data. Here are some very scary examples:

· Ancentry.com retains the DNA of more than 26 million people

· Twitter fined for selling user data

· Apple sells data to Google

The strive for Web3 goes beyond privacy. It’s actually about what we can control. Not distributing our data to monopolistic companies has been a major point of infliction in the quest toward Web3. Just like a slippery slope can turn into an avalanche in mere seconds, giving a tremendous amount of power to a single entity can take an ugly turn in quick succession.

Why Web3?

Blockchain and Web3 is the emerging choice for the next generation of Internet users. Here are the main reasons why:

1. Privacy & Security: Web3 is an improved version of the web, built through the best cryptographic technologies that ensure that Internet users are able to secure their data from hackers and prying companies.

2. Storage Decentralization: The IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) is designed to store data in multiple devices to deter any breaching efforts. Each file storage has its own security and the system operates simultaneously around the globe.

3. Anonymity: Users can choose to remain anonymous and operate in seclusion, all the while high-stake businesses and social media reputations.

Key Features of Digital Marketing in Web3

1. Artificial Intelligence

Web3 operates on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and interprets data in a much more reliable form. This opens pathways for a more linear and consistent reading of data sets. AI is beautifully woven through the entire structure of Web3, and it bodes perfectly well with digital marketing campaigns that rely on human behaviour to target audiences.

2. Decentralization

The primary feature of Web3 is decentralization. In this realm, the data isn’t held by a giant database. Decentralization ditches the use of HTTP protocol to find pre-stored information on servers. In Web3, information is not restricted to a single location — instead, it is intentionally spread out.

3. No middlemen

Web3 allows individuals to take control of their data. Through this, individuals can directly exchange value with each other and require no meddling of an intermediator. We’ve grown used to operating on highly centralised platforms such as Meta and Google. Although they come with their own perks, they also leave users privy to security breaches and information manipulation. Web3 opens pathways to data ownership, which is an essential step to achieving complete freedom on the web.

4. No external authorization

Users on Web3 no longer have to rely on third-party authorization to view data. Imagine not having to share your information (and biometrics) with third parties for authorization. the removal of obstruction increases the chances of user security and privacy.

The Impact of Web3 on Digital Marketing

The buzz around Web3, NFTs, and Metaverse is seemingly inescapable now. I am constantly fielding questions on what it means for digital marketing and social media-based promotional campaigns.

Web3 is being marketed as its predecessors’ smarter, more sophisticated version. The new and immersive technology is targeted toward users who want to interact with brands and have a first-hand experience of distinct products.

Digital Marketing in the Metaverse

The Metaverse is here to create a surrounding and immersive space for consumers. The unbounded access is the luxury of this space and is a fun and personalized way of interacting with people far away from you. Yet the space comes with challenges of its own.

You no longer have to imagine being in an alternative space where space and geopoints dictate the level of access and communication. We are already there. Metaverse combines the marketing lessons of Web1 and Web2 to create a mature, more sophisticated experience on the Internet for users.

Marketing via Tokens

Marketing is all about engaging with people and delivering your message. The gist of old-school marketing is to be relatable, likeable, and authentic. The future of a brand’s marketing lies heavily on the authenticity of the marketing campaign. Tokens and Web3 marketing take it up a notch by ensuring that users can have an equal stake in the engagement, buying, and selling of products.

Summing Up

Blockchain and Crypto went from pipe dreams to billion-dollar innovations because they were able to gear the market toward universal ownership and direct linkage. Brands are discovering NFT markets and establishing unique bonds with their base based on their will to build authentic communities. While we may have been introduced to the platform, we’re still conflicted on the road to marketing on Web3. I think it will be a fascinating journey with space for many trials and errors. Regardless, I can faithfully predict that the biggest net gainer of the process will be the user.

Feature Image Credit: Pexels

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Good marketing needs a good story: Creators on effective branding

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The highlight of various panel discussions that took place at Brand Residency 2022 was that startups need good marketing with a strong story to stand out.

We live in an age of data and information abundance. There’s not a single industry that will not benefit from the use of data, so much that it is as integral to a business as oil is for an economy. And then there are social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter, which are treasure troves for brands building an online presence as they help create awareness. So, the tools and resources are in place and good marketing is all about using them smartly, putting the consumers at the forefront.

This was the common thread of thought at Brand Residency 2022, an initiative of YourStory’s Brands of New India, where marketing executives and content creators threw light on what goes behind marketing a brand effectively. For direct-to-consumer (D2C) startups, good marketing means good business, because consumers tend to relate better to smart advertising and catchy jingles, backed by a good story. Ultimately, a good story is what will sell.

One size doesn’t fit all

Ayush Wadhwa, Founder and Creative Director, Owled Media, said the biggest mistake brands make is adopting the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. Especially on social media, several brands tend to post one video across platforms. “Short videos on Reels do better on Instagram while longer narratives perform better on YouTube. Brands need to understand their target group’s needs,” said Ayush, on the second day of Brand Residency 2022.

He also explained why advertising needs to be personalised. “Brands make the mistake of using the same messaging across all kinds of advertisements. It’s important for new-age brands to have the right message on different platforms and for each touch point,” he noted.

Ayush Wadhwa

Ayush Wadhwa, Founder, Owled Media

Manish Pandey, a brand consultant and a content creator, shares a similar sentiment. He spoke about how content creators are fuelling the growth of startups, which is why influencer marketing is a top marketing choice for startups. He said brand building is as important for creators as it is for startups. “Take Ranveer Allahbadia (BeerBiceps) for example. He started with fitness videos on YouTube and now runs his own talk show with guests like actor Shahid Kapoor and spiritual leader Sadhguru. There has to be give and take of knowledge through your content,” he said.

Neel Gogia, Co-founder, IPlix media, said, “Every brand has a different purpose. Every platform has a different purpose. We decode influencers and brands on various platforms based on the need and category required.”

Creating a narrative

Prafull Billore, Founder, MBA Chai wala, elaborated the importance of sharing the brand’s story with the customers. Speaking from first-hand experience, Prafull noted that the audience connected better with the brand when they heard personal stories. “Share stories of your entrepreneurial journey with the world. You will be surprised to see how everyone loves passionate storytelling,” he advised young founders.

Prafull Billore of MBA Chai Wala

Prafull Billore, Founder, MBA Chai Wala

He also emphasised the importance of building a consistent network. “Entrepreneurs must remain in touch with old friends and acquaintances. This will not only help strengthen your network but will also show that the brand is true to its roots,” he said.

Anubhav Dubey, Founder, Chai Sutta Bar, said, “It’s the story that connects more with users when someone starts a new business.”

Consumer-focused and personalised marketing is the way to go. This is the secret sauce to building a successful D2C brand.

Edited by Swetha Kannan

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Permission Marketing: Best Practices in a New Age of Data

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By Rachel Done Cubillas

What is permission marketing, and how can it help you face marketing challenges in today’s privacy-focused world?

Seth Godin’s book, “Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends and Friends Into Customers” has revolutionized the way marketers perceive their customers, allowing them to “get in front of the digital revolution.”

As Godin defined it, permission marketing refers to a form of marketing where consumers are given the choice of opting in to receive promotional messages. You have probably seen it multiple times already, with companies offering incentives for following them on social media or subscribing to an email list for coupons.  It’s highly entrenched in our society.

What sets permission marketing apart from other strategies for reaching consumers is that it’s characterized as already having an engaged audience. Users wouldn’t choose to subscribe to your business’s newsletters, emails or social media unless they had a prior interest in your goods. It also has the benefit of being a low-cost way to create personal and relevant relationships due to it usually being done via digital communication tools.

Essentially, it’s the opposite of direct marketing, aka blind marketing, where sometimes the only thing consumers have in common is a zip code.

While Godin’s book is an essential item for every marketer’s toolkit, there’s no denying it was released quite a while ago — 23 years, to be exact.

During that time, a technological explosion — unimaginable in the era of Y2K — rocked our world. While marketers have generally kept abreast of these rapid changes, the landscape around them, including social media and data privacy laws, is going to change even more.

Still, the idea of allowing consumers to consent to be subjected to marketing, aka permission marketing, is more relevant than ever in this age. By enacting and adapting permission marketing to today’s challenges, brands can stay on top of these constant changes while catering to their number one priority: the customer.

Below we’ll take a look at some of the predicted challenges ahead for the industry, along with some best practices on how to tackle them with permission marketing.

Social Data Collection and the Privacy Uprising

Every marketer will say that the more details they have on potential customers, the more likely they will be successful in sales. For the last decade, a great deal of marketers have gotten the specifics on customers via data on social media.

Brands primarily used this data to create a synergistic relationship between their marketing efforts and their customers. People used social media, and companies could see what customers liked and disliked, which allowed those companies to fine-tune their ads.

Meta — arguably the largest social media company due to its ownership of WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook and Instagram — suffered a huge data leak in 2019, prompting a mass exodus of users and new concerns about data privacy.

To further complicate things, Apple saw two ways to gain from Meta’s loss. First, they launched a new marketing campaign with one major selling point — privacy. Users gained more control over how their data was tracked and used, a change that made a major impact on other companies and slashed ad return on investment by 38%, according to Forbes.

The second gain for Apple was to partner with other companies, like Singular, to tap into ways to model and analyse this newly missing data — something that sequestered other brands from the advertising game.

Keeping an Eye out for New Tools

Not every company can afford to use these now necessary data collection technologies. As such, when seeking out new tools for permission marketing, Annie Wissner, CMO at Avenue 10 and VP of marketing at High Level Marketing, said “the best…tactics are those that help your audience go faster, reduce costs, solve business problems or gain a competitive advantage. Any form of content, from a blog post to a podcast to a webinar to a newsletter, is good as long as it offers value, is fun to consume and is highly relevant to your audience.”

If any of your company’s current strategies don’t fulfil those metrics, it might be time to change where you’re spending your time and money.

One tried and true application for permission marketing is email subscriptions. Email marketers have to seriously compete for the attention of younger generations. On average, Millennials receive 6–50 emails per day, and Gen Z sees anywhere from one to 20. And the chances of getting them to open an email are low.

But that doesn’t mean these groups don’t like getting email, and companies shouldn’t abandon the communication medium. According to MediaPost, more than 66% of Millennials and 53% of Gen Zers want to receive email marketing at least once per week.

Wissner said email is a nice tool because it offers the ability to organize and search through content — something that’s necessary with the growing need to keep content structured across multiple communication channels.

She claimed that while email has its advantages, other channels might be a little more attractive for younger audiences, such as Slack and social media, as it offers the ability to get an immediate response to a question, concern or comment.

For instance, some companies use Facebook Messenger to send ads directly to consumers and keep it as a place where customers can reach out if they need help with an order. Slack, on the other hand, has recently been used at digital conferences as a way to communicate the logistics of the event and award prizes based on participation in the chat channels.

Be Mindful of Where Your Customers Are

Permission marketing is often the way companies can start and recircle clients into their sales funnels. But in the age where digital and physical are starting to blur, omnichannel marketing efforts will help consumers complete the sales funnel.

Wissner had another bit of advice for marketers on this subject: use an omnichannel strategy with your permission marketing. In many ways, permission marketing is the base concept of omnichannel — meeting the customer where they’re at.

By Rachel Done Cubillas

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Why Marketers Should Explore These 4 Emerging Technology Trends

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By Claudia Ratterman
Marketers should explore four emerging tech trends and how they impact customer data management and consumer privacy.

For brands, the pandemic’s initial disruptions are easing, if not absent, while spiralling inflation, talent scarcity and lingering supply chain challenges continue to contest marketers’ best laid plans.

Against this conflicting backdrop, marketers seek to balance between tried-and-true, personalized campaigns with novel digital experiences that differentiate their brands.

In contrast to the new customer acquisition strategies of 2021 and early 2022, the rest of this year and next will emphasize a more comprehensive view of the customer to unify cross-functional data to improve customer experience (CX), drive conversions and ensure retention.

New to this year’s Gartner Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing are four key technologies that will help marketers with this renewed focus of integrating customer data to drive innovation: generative AI, emotion AI, digital twin of a customer and customer data ethics.

Here’s how digital marketing leaders can incorporate these crucial technologies into their strategies.

Generative AI: Determine Initial Marketing Use Cases

Generative AI is a disruptive technology that impacts content development, CX enhancement and the generation of synthetic data. It learns from existing artifacts to generate new, realistic artifacts (e.g., video, speech) that reflect the characteristics of the training data without repetition.

In spite of third-party data depreciation, enterprises are still charged with both delivering a strong CX and influencing customer decisions. Generative AI can help marketers identify the core characteristics of customers to then target them with custom content in a privacy-compliant way.

In fact by 2025, Gartner expects 30% of outbound marketing messages from large organizations will be synthetically generated.

We see generative AI take hold in digital commerce; for example, where brands can generate human images for customers to try on clothes or makeup virtually. Avatars and virtual influencers can also engage customers on social media and in the metaverse to provide customer support.

Obstacles in digital marketers’ use of generative AI include potential government hurdles that seek to limit associated research, or the unfortunate reality of the technology being used for deepfakes, fraud and disinformation.

What can digital marketers do? Start by investigating how generative AI techniques benefit your industry and determine initial marketing use cases where you can rely on purchased capabilities or partnerships. Document the opportunities synthetic data could bring in terms of facilitating data monetization and lowering the cost of data acquisition.

Emotion AI: Explore Vendor Capabilities

Emotion AI uses computer vision, audio/voice input and more to translate behavioural attributes into human emotions, helping marketers better personalize digital communications. This is part of a larger trend we call “influence engineering,” which seeks to automate elements of digital experience that guide user choices at scale by learning and applying techniques of behavioural science.

Emotions play a key role in all phases of customer journeys. Access to emotion data delivers insights into motivational drivers that help them test and refine content, tailor digital experiences and build deeper connections between people and brands.

By 2024, 30% of marketers will use emotion AI, up from less than 5% today. Yet privacy concerns remain an obstacle to rapid adoption of many use cases, especially in live situations (versus lab/research environments). Hesitation around the manipulative power of emotion-aware algorithms and potential bias are prevalent, too. To avoid bias when using facial expression analysis, models must be retrained in different geographies to detect nuances due to different cultural backgrounds.

What can digital marketers do? Review vendors’ emotion AI capabilities and use cases carefully in order to enhance customer analytics and behavioural profiling. Appoint responsibility for data privacy in your organization to a chief data privacy officer or equivalent and ensure they work with your chosen vendor to avoid user backlash due to sensitive data being collected.

Digital Twin of a Customer (DToCs): Run Pilots, Establish Trust

A DToC is a dynamic virtual representation of a customer that simulates and learns to emulate and anticipate behavior. DToCs help data-rich organizations provide a more personalized, curated CX to customers, many of whose buying habits have changed due to inflation.

DToC can both transform and disrupt: Privacy and cyber-risk concerns may lengthen the time it takes DToCs to mature. Plus, it’s challenging for organizations to embark on customer data ethics initiatives, which are essential to the success of DToC projects.

What can digital marketers do? Begin by running a pilot and comparing results with and without a DToC and define the benefits to customers and establish trust. Explain how they can control, or cancel, data usage, and eventually integrate DToCs with existing marketing technology systems for maximum utility.

Customer Data Ethics: Be Transparent

Customer data ethics aligns business practices with moral and ethical policies that reflect a company’s values. The need for such arises from the often unintended social and environmental consequences of using customer data to maximize profits.

It’s clear that AI is a growing force within marketing as techniques for marketing automation and personalization. The public — and marketers — increasingly recognize the tendency of these techniques to amplify biases in customer data used to train them. As organizations expand their focus on privacy and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues, addressing the ethical challenges of algorithmic marketing practices becomes imperative to keep company practices and values aligned.

What can digital marketers do? Go beyond mere compliance and treat customer data ethics as an ethos that your company publicly shares with all stakeholders. Operationalize the ethical evaluation of all automated decision making and tailor global brand or corporate frameworks to specific geographies, audiences and societies. Establishing and monitoring long-term metrics that tie customer data ethics to economic factors (e.g., ESG ratings and brand equity measures) will ensure the most value is realized.

Conclusion: Determine Value for Emerging Marketing Technology Trends

While investment in such technologies continues apace, digital marketing leaders still grapple with the challenges associated with these powerful yet immature technologies. AI and machine learning (ML) are highly dependent on access to customer data, yet only 14% of organizations have achieved a 360-degree view of the customer. Furthermore, consumer and regulatory concerns about their ethical implications may erode trust among customers.

Digital marketers must take a critical look at each of these technology trends to determine what value they bring to their organizations, especially within the confines of economic headwinds.

By Claudia Ratterman

Claudia Ratterman is a Director Analyst for Gartner for Marketers, based in Los Angeles. She has over 14 years of experience building Social Media Marketing Strategies for billion-dollar brands such as Disney, Tide, Pampers, Olay and Amgen.

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Why Being Specific Is the Key to Successful Marketing (and How to Do It)

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The more specific your message is, the greater impact it will have on your intended audience. Here’s why.

As an entrepreneur or business owner, it’s easy to think your marketing salvation lies in the next quick tip or hack. You think to yourself, “If I just have the right tool, script or template, I can start winning.” But in reality, quick hacks only get you so far without the right marketing strategy or framework in place. You need a system to put them into, otherwise it’s nothing more than a mismatched collection of random techniques.

In building a marketing framework for your business, it’s important that you have a firm understanding of what makes successful marketing. And in this article, I’m going to discuss what I believe to be one of the defining pillars: specificity.

The “what” and “why” of specificity in marketing

If you’ve been around the marketing world much, or if you’ve taken a business class in the past couple of decades, then you’re probably familiar with the AIDA marketing principles. It’s an acronym that stands for Attention → Interest → Desire → Action. In order to move people through a sales funnel, you have to first grab their attention, then get them interested, then create desire, and finally, take action.

Most business owners and marketers focus on the “action” piece of the puzzle, but they ignore the “attention” component. The reality is that if you don’t grab a prospect’s attention — which is increasingly difficult to do in today’s noisy marketing landscape — you’ll never have the opportunity to move them to action.

The question is, how do you grab attention? While there are numerous ways to get a prospect’s attention, being specific with your messaging is a must. Here are some of the other benefits of emphasizing specificity:

  • Builds credibility: When your messaging is specific, prospects start to realize that you’re an expert in helping people like them. This enhances your credibility and gives you the perception of being the go-to business, product or service.
  • Persuades: Specificity typically involves the use of proof, data and statistics. As a result, your messaging is more clear and persuasive.
  • Increases conversion rates: Studies show that something as simple as optimizing your headline to be more specific can boost conversion rates. This holds true regardless of the industry or niche.

Unfortunately, most brands take a generic approach. In doing so, they miss out on the opportunity to grab attention and move people through their conversion funnels. If you can avoid this mistake, you can dramatically increase your chances of being successful.

The goal of successful marketing is to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. Here are four ways you can leverage the power of specificity to accomplish this:

1. Choose a specific niche

If you’re targeting everyone, you’re targeting no one in particular. With very few exceptions, it’s usually a bad idea to go after anyone and everyone. Unless you’re selling toothpaste, bananas or batteries, you’re better off picking a target audience and pursuing them.

When you have a niche, it becomes easier to tailor your messaging. You no longer have to account for everyone. You can get into the mind of your prospect and start pressing into specific desires, frustrations, pain points and goals.

2. Create a USP

With a niche in mind, develop a Unique Sales Proposition (USP) that clearly conveys how you help your target audience achieve their desires and overcome their pain points.

A good USP follows this formula: “I help [NICHE] achieve [DESIRE] without [PAIN POINT].” You don’t have to follow this script word for word, but it gives you a good general feel for which elements need to be included.

3. Death to the stock photo

If you’re still using stock photos on your website and in your marketing messages, please stop! Stock photos scream “generic” louder than almost anything else. It doesn’t cost that much to have professional pictures taken or to create your own graphics using a tool like Canva.com.

You can give your entire website a makeover by simply hiring a professional photographer to come out to your business for three or four hours one day and take pictures. Swap out stock photos with images of actual team members and customers. It’ll change the entire look of your website.

4. Improve your headlines

Finally, write better headlines. Research from Marketing Experiments shows that optimizing your headlines for greater specificity can improve your conversion rate by 73% or more. In the study, researchers tested the following five headlines against a control headline:

  1. Dental Plans for $8.33 a month. Acceptance Guaranteed.
  2. Over 55,000 Dental Care Providers. Acceptance Guaranteed.
  3. Dental Care Coverage. Best Price Guaranteed.
  4. Low Cost Dental Care for the Uninsured.
  5. Best Price Dental Care – Without Insurance.

Guess which headlines performed the best? Headline 1 showed a lift of 72.76% in conversions, while Headline 2 got a bump of 26.41%. The other three headlines all had a negative impact on conversions.

The moral of the story is to get specific with headlines. Whether it’s numbers, descriptive adjectives or compelling verbs, specificity sells!

Nobody likes generic marketing. If a prospect sees your marketing messages and doesn’t immediately think it’s intended for them, you have a problem. Get crystal clear on who your audience is, and then make a point to tailor every element of your marketing campaign to them.

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