How to engage your audience with a customer-focused relationship

It seems to be a trend in the world of digital marketing: Brands are leaning heavily on their product instead of their customers. Coca-Cola recently rebranded its Coke Zero product to Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, abandoning advertisements about the experiences of people drinking its beverages in favor of a product-oriented focus on ingredients and taste. Coca-Cola believes this product-centered approach will drive sales and create a loyal culture of followers, but this mindset runs counter to human behavior. An overemphasis on the bells and whistles of a product might work in some industries, but people are far more likely — to the tune of a jaw-dropping 269 percent, according to one study — to do business with companies that take their needs into account. Think about the last time you tried to buy a car.…

A study from market research company Forrester found that more marketers are focusing on performance-based marketing. Performance marketing is “the new normal,” according to Forrester. Performance advertising is a competitive differentiator today; it will be table stakes tomorrow. What is performance marketing? Performance marketing uses clearly defined and measurable business objectives as the basis of payment or optimization. This includes cost-per-action (CPA) models, such as affiliate marketing, and programmatic ads that optimize based on real-time performance metrics.

How Performance Marketing Works

The Basics

The CPA model of payment is critical to understanding how performance marketing works. Advertisers and marketing companies are paid only when a specific action, such as a sale, lead or click, is completed. This model is what separates performance marketing from other forms of advertising. In traditional advertising, fees are paid up front and do not depend on the success of the ads. Advertisers in performance marketing only pay for successful…

Over 50% of consumers frequently factor in online reviews before buying a product

It’s no secret that online shopping is continuing to evolve with the habits of consumers. And in the social media era, consumers have louder and stronger voices than ever before. Why? Online reviews have revolutionized the online shopping marketplace and overall experience —they’re the new frontier in word-of-mouth marketing as well as a powerful sales tool.

Seller Beware: Reviews Are Not Optional

In the past, sketchy marketing tactics could boost sales for even the lowest quality products and services. There was no viable public outlet for consumers to voice their opinions on the products and services they were buying — dissatisfied customers’ voices couldn’t reach beyond family and friends. Now, with the click of the mouse or tap of a smartphone, consumers can broadcast their opinions far and wide. And every consumer can use customer reviews to make buying decisions. According to…

Chart of the Day: B2B consumers value a much more personal service than B2C consumers

Across the web, you will find hundreds of thousands of articles describing the difference between B2B and B2C marketing and the differing needs of their respective customers. But it can be hard to know which set of data and recommendations to act upon. This is where a report produced by Marketo, the marketing automation company, comes in useful. They surveyed 2000 consumers globally and found that B2B consumers value brands or vendors that have a deep understanding of their needs, actually care and offer a personalized service much more than B2C consumers. This makes sense when you consider that B2C consumers have become used to and prefer purchasing via ecommerce stores, which don't deliver a personal 1-to-1 service. Where as B2B sales are all about the relationship between the vendor's sales reps and the client. …

6 top tips for creating a strategic social video on a budget

It only takes one train journey or a merry stroll through our towns to notice people of all demographics are glued to their phones. Much of the content they’re consuming is video and not just any video but mobile first video on social channels. In the marketing world, whenever video is mentioned there is a misconception that it’s budget breaking and therefore it’s overlooked in favour of less engaging formats. However, there are a number of cost saving hacks, which can be applied at different stages of the marketing funnel. These range from the use of phone footage and user generated content (UGC) through to ad spend and obtaining efficiencies through effective targeting. With that in mind, let’s explore how to incorporate video into your social strategies, even on a small budget in order to meet your objectives. [si_guide_block id="53829" title="Download our…

How can you improve your account based marketing efforts? Good data.

By now, anyone in business knows that data matters just as much as the technology that uses it. In fact, you could argue that — much like the fuel that runs an engine — the two are completely dependent upon each other. You can create the most efficient engine on the planet, but it’ll be worthless until you fill it with the right fuel to get those pistons moving. That’s the relationship between data and account-based marketing: Data informs and fuels whatever direction an ABM initiative takes. Still, most companies attempt to understand the technology instead of the data. Those that are fluent in both can better equip themselves to thrive and reap a competitive advantage. Gaining that edge won’t be easy. In fact, Experian’s 2017 Global Data Management Benchmark Report states that poor data quality plagues 94 percent of U.S.…

The biggest social media platform changes this week, including important algorithm updates affecting non-mobile optimized websites.

Last week, we reported that Facebook is introducing Watch, a new video platform where they intend to start creating original content - with advertising opportunities before and during shows. This week we have seen some important changes to Facebook's newsfeed algorithm and other big changes to social platforms, including LinkedIn video.

Spotlight Story: Facebook newsfeed will penalize non-mobile optimized sites.

This algorithm update will reduce the reach of websites that are not mobile-friendly and have longer loading times (much like Google algos have in organic search since April 2016). Considering, Facebook showed in their 2017 Q1 earnings that mobile ad revenue was $6.7 billion, up 58% year-over-year and was approximately 85% of total ad revenue, it is no surprise that they are favouring mobile-friendly sites. They announced that they would like to help businesses leverage the power of marketing…

Chart of the Day: 21% of respondents characterize Sales and marketings relationship as either misaligned or 'don't know' - part 5 of 10.

For a working, thriving business you need a working and thriving team. If your teams aren't happy and working together, it's going to lead to a very disjointed business. Both teams need to work in sync to run smoothly and reach business goals.

How would you characterize your company's Sales and Marketing relationship?

Only 22% of respondents believe their company's Sales and Marketing relationship is 'tightly aligned' and have a service level agreement (SLA) in place, whilst almost half (44%) say they are generally aligned.

How would you characterize your company's Sales and Marketing relationship? (by seniority)

It is interesting to note that when this question is dived…

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter content strategy

Just like snowflakes, no two social media platforms are alike. Yet marketers often take the one-size-fits-all approach to social media advertising, applying the same methodology to all clients and campaigns regardless of objectives and using the same creative across all marketing channels. While this approach is undoubtedly easier, it doesn’t take into account that each social media platform has different types of users at different parts of the purchasing funnel. You could be inadvertently sending conversion-focused messaging to someone who’s still in the brand awareness stage, which is risky because 41 percent of social media users say they won’t hesitate to unfollow a brand that shares irrelevant information.

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How can machine learning enhance your digital marketing strategy?

The launch of Google’s new machine learning tool, RankBrain which contributes to search engine results, left many people wondering what impact machine learning would have in the realm of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). With the tech industry going crazy for all things Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP), machine learning, and chatbots, it’s important to know what the technology is, where it’s going, and what impact it will have on digital marketing as a whole. This article will explain these concepts as well as share some tips on how to adapt to machine learning. [si_guide_block id="87369" title="Download Business Member resource – Machine Learning Briefing" description="Explains how businesses can harness AI with a focus on marketing automation and email marketing."/]

The Growth and Popularity of Machine Learning and AI

Machine learning is, in fact, not new to the tech world. It first appeared as a concept back…