11 Simple Secrets to Digital Marketing Success by AdStation

11 Simple Secrets to Digital Marketing Success Optimize your digital strategy with tips other marketers donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want you to know.

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Other digital marketers have been hiding these from you.

Success in digital marketing comes in many forms — click-through rates, “likes,” list size, conversion. How you get to that success can come in an equally wide variety with some strategies performing better than others. Our 11 Simple Secrets to Digital Marketing Success will guide you through thoughtful strategies for making the most of your digital marketing efforts.

Start with the end in mind............................ 2 Get tested......................................................... 3 Headlines will make or break you............... 4 Fear of missing out......................................... 5 Time is of the essence................................... 6 Playing smart................................................... 7 Now, it’s personal............................................ 8 I’m engaged...................................................... 9 The analytics advantage.............................. 10 The only constant is change...................... 11 Trust me, I’m a professional....................... 12

ONE

Start with the end in mind You must know what you want from your marketing before you start pushing pixels. What is the business reason behind this idea? Customer loyalty? Sales growth? Increase brand awareness? Once you know the answer to the business reason, you can look objectively at the marketing goal. Will growth in the mailing list help achieve this business goal? What if you tried to deepen engagement with your existing customers? Incentivize a purchase? Achieve loyalty? Is a 5% increase in Twitter followers acceptable? Or does your boss expect a 30% revenue up-tick? What works for email will be very different from a Facebook campaign or from an e-commerce initiative, so knowing the “why” and expected results before anything is executed will help set Setting goals is the you up for success and first step in turning pinpoint any potential the invisible into issues before they arise.

the visible.

Especially if the goal can’t be measured in dollars and Tony Robbins cents, make sure everyone knows this up-front so there is no shock at the end of a campaign. Be realistic, set expectations for everyone on the team and look at each step to ensure it’s leading you to where the business needs to be. 2

TWO

Get tested Digital is scary to some because it’s extremely easy to tell what works and what doesn’t. It sounds counterintuitive, but this is intimidating because it means you will come face to face with failure. Knowing what to do with that failure is what will make you successful – if you see something that’s not working – stop doing that.

I know half of my advertising doesn’t work, I just don’t know which half. John Wanamaker

Nowhere else does the axiom “I know half my advertising doesn’t work, I just don’t know which half” have more impact than in digital marketing, where every click, movement, action and activity can be measured, reviewed and analyzed. But more often than not, this volume of data being thrust at you can lead to paralysis. It’s called “Big Data” for a reason; there is almost a limitless supply of data you can collect and an equally near-limitless way you can sort it, view it and present it. How do you start making sense of all this? Testing. Test one headline against another for best open rates. Test your Facebook ads for best cost-per-like. Conduct an A/B test on your landing pages for the better conversion rate. Test two different videos for completion rates. Start small – not every test has to be earth shattering – it just has to be different. Then put it to work! If you wonder if the email with the “Get it before its gone!” headline will have a higher open rate than the “Last chance to get yours!” – test it. Then you can proceed with confidence. 3

THREE

Headlines will make or break you Email open rates hover at about 27% for the entire medium. Yours could be more or less, but one surefire way to increase them is with a great headline, or subject line. We’ve all gotten emails that were DOA (Deleted On Arrival) because the subject line was confusing, irrelevant or meaningless. A strong, compelling headline can be your only chance to get someone to open an email, take an action and have a huge impact on your business. Be clear on what’s inside: “A 20% off coupon just for you!” Tell them what the benefit is for them: “Buy today and get free shipping” Tell them what you need them to do: “Confirm your subscription and start learning today!” Personalize where you can: “Oliver’s birthday treat is here!” You might have heard the phrase “click bait” to describe attention-getting headlines for videos and other types of content – because they work.

Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning. William Arthur Ward

“See how this dad reinvented the diaper bag!” will certainly tempt you to click, just as it would a lot of people. “Watch as this baseball team proves they are true superstars!” makes you feel compelled to see what is going to happen. All these types of headlines work, but remember to be honest: tell your viewers what they are in for and the compelling headline can be the difference between a view and a skip. Similarly, don’t tease a 20-second silly dog video and show a twominute long video on how to safely clip your dog’s nails at home. You may get that click, but probably not again. 4

FOUR

Fear of missing out Fear of missiong out, or FOMO, is a key driver of participation and engagement in digital life. Fear of missing the hilarious viral video that is going around, fear of missing out on an exciting post on Facebook and fear of missing out on a great deal. Similarly, “loss aversion” is an economic theory that suggests people prefer to avoid loss to achieving gains, even if the outcome is the same. Creative copy, specifically in the subject line, is a primary component of loss aversion. So is creating a sense of urgency. For example, tweak “Save 20% Now!” to “Don’t Miss Out! Last Chance to Save 20% Before the Sale Ends at Midnight!” — suggesting that supply is limited is another way to encourage customers to open your e-mail.

We fear the things we want the most. Robert Anthony

Your approach should be professional and respectful, not threatening. Subject lines that read, “You’re A Loser If...” probably won’t earn you any conversions, but very well might earn you a complaint.

FIVE

Time is of the essence The phrase timing is everything has multiple meanings in the digital space. Change is always afoot, so timing can be crucial when it comes to technology adoption. Timing also means right time/ right place. If you are having a special on breakfast tacos, sending a tweet at 2:30 in the afternoon to tell people about it is not going to work. An email sent a day too late for a coupon will do more harm than just causing your customers to miss an event; it sends the message that your company may not be reliable or trustworthy.

Lost time is never found again. Benjamin Franklin

Much like a poorly timed email, too many emails is the number one reason people unsubscribe, and now you’ve lost this key Being aware of your purchase cycle timing communication channel. is also critical to delivering your message Combining the right platform with the with relevancy. Someone selling coffee right timing and execution can be an easy has a legitimate reason to test and see win, as long as you understand the pros if a daily email or social post is effective and cons of the platform and why it works because it’s likely a daily purchase—or for the customer. For example, video could be made a daily purchase with can be used across the entire customer the right marketing. Someone who is lifecycle – leading the way with discovery looking to buy a car is likely not doing so all the way through to post-purchase on a daily basis, so keeping top-of-mind loyalty by delivering the right information daily is not as critical and needs to be at the right time in a meaningful medium. considered.

SIX

Playing smart Proper segmentation is at the forefront of engagement – you can’t engage someone with

feature innovative technology that allows advertisers to target new consumers with unparalleled granular accuracy.

the wrong message or content. According to a recent Razorfish

You have to be smart.

study, only 13% of digital

The easy days are over.

marketing executives are delivering segmented experiences. Keep in mind, segmentation is not the same as targeting. Targeting, like all other aspects of online advertising, is something that everyone claims to be doing—but in reality—very few actually are. In the age of response-based data and staggeringly accurate targeting algorithms, advertisers should expect nothing less than pinpoint accuracy from their marketing efforts. For example, email custom audience products enable advertisers to ask for their advertisements to only be shown to users with a very specific set of demographic data. Gender, geographical location, spending habits, home ownership, income level, marital status as well as other key attributes, help advertisers create “look-a-like audiences” that match they very best existing customers. These emerging products

Robert Kiyosaki

Email marketers for example, can now look at an advertiser’s existing customer base and provide very accurate demographic details about those individuals, and can subsequently provide access to millions of other consumers that match those exact characteristics. Utilizing highly sophisticated responsebased targeting algorithms that are enhanced by demographic and behavioral data of millions of consumers, sophisticated email marketers can then identify new customers for advertisers based on their existing customer’s attributes. The analysis is done so the advertiser’s customer CRM data remains both anonymous and secure, while the deployment allows for comprehensive control and brand-safe distribution. 7

SEVEN

Now, it’s personal “Hello, [friend]! Thanks for stopping by [store name] [today] and purchasing [item name]!” Ugh. The above “reimagining” of a thank-you email is cringe-worthy. Here is company that had the tools to use personalization and didn’t – and surely did not succeed in making the recipient feel valued as a customer. Personalization of messages delivers results. Emails with personalization - think “Hello, Danny! Welcome to the Puppet of the Week Newsletter!” versus “Dear Customer”. Personalization isn’t just a name – it can be drawn from prior activities, past online behaviors or profile information from a social site. Retargeting ads are a popular form of highly successful personalization – those three pairs of shoes you put in your abandoned shopping cart are now appearing in an ad next to the article you are reading – with a coupon!

A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all. Michael LeBoeuf

A multiplatform approach to personalization will give you the most impact – a video can be personalized with an overlay of content from a site visit, tweets can (and should) call out individual users when it’s meaningful. All of these can be confusing and overwhelming, and when used without expertise can scare off a user, so sometimes it pays to find an experienced partner.

EIGHT

I’m engaged The whole point of social media is continuity and continual engagement. Clara Shih

This word is thrown around a lot: engagement. What does it mean? And more important, what does it mean for your business? If you have “engagement” as a goal central to success, make sure you can define it with certainty and within specific parameters. Engagement on social media may mean re-tweeting a post, or pinning a picture. It may mean entering a contest, or opening that email and clicking through to an article. It might be page views, or time spent on your website. It may not mean any one of these things as well – if page views don’t equal engagement in your measurements, then make sure you don’t include them in your results. Once you can define engagement as it applies to your marketing, now you can work towards the best approach. Facebook, for example, considers reading of posts, sharing of content and participation on the page as engagement, so know that in order to see increases in these activities, your headlines, content and page substance need to be inviting, interesting, relevant and useful. Remember, you are a customer out there in the real world, too – your experiences matter and can translate to successes in your professional world. What engages you? Why? What doesn’t? Chances are, those same approaches can be modified to work for your business.

NINE

The analytics advantage How will you know what’s working and what isn’t? Analytics. Depending on your campaign, platform and goals, a daily, weekly or even hourly analytics review will be important. Much like the approach to testing, knowing your goals is key, but here you need to focus on metrics that track progress versus business goals. Performance metrics, such as completion rates, page views, open rates, etc., should all be considered in analytics. But dig deeper - focus on metrics that deliver insight actions. For example, if 80% of viewers stop watching your video in the first quartile, perhaps moving the call-to-action to the first ten seconds will increase conversions. Regardless, a quarterly analytics review is crucial – looking back will set you up for the future by telling you if the direction you thought you were headed is indeed the right direction. Waiting too long to find out your orientation on your executions will be costly – time, money and potential are all lost when you are lost.

It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics. George Bernard Shaw

Remember that analytics without an insightful and actionable next step is just a meaningless number on a page. If you were told that that you got 2,200 views on your online video this month, well, that’s just a fact. Analytics should tell you where those views came from, how many people watched the whole video, what action they took next, and most important, what you can do next time to improve those numbers. 10

TEN

The only constant is change Digital is a fickle medium. Technology changes rapidly, apps that are hot one day are deleted the next. But fear not, marketer! Recognizing that change is on the horizon is half the game; being prepared for it makes you the winner.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. Winston Churchill

Be prepared. This means staying abreast of what’s coming and going, so read, read, read! Subscribe not only to blogs and magazines (yes, printed magazines are still a worthy investment – or get the iPad version) that are relevant to your industry, but technology as well –Wired, Fast Company, Inc. Connect with companies on Facebook and Twitter (and Instagram and Vine) that cover these topics – like Mashable, TechCrunch and Business Insider. As exciting as change is in the digital world, that doesn’t mean it’s all going to work for you. Should you be on Pinterest? Maybe. Will Vine be beneficial to your marketing goals? Possibly. Look before you leap and don’t be afraid to test.

ELEVEN

Trust me, I’m a professional Trust is something that takes a lifetime to build and a second to destroy. The phrase “connection economy” speaks volumes about this adage – consumers want to

I believe fundamental honesty is the keystone of business. Harvey S. Firestone

feel connected to the companies they do business with, and trust is what cements that foundation. So when you send an email, post a status or preview a video, ask yourself if it helps your customer connect with you. Is it helpful? Relevant? Timely? Useful? How does it benefit them, not you? The more you can be of value to your customer, the more they will want to do business with you. Be open, upfront and transparent; when you’re not, people

will find out and their reactions will be negative and swift. Made a mistake? Own it. Something’s broken? Tell them before they tell you. Suffered a data breach? You break the news. All of the tips above can improve your marketing and your business, but it will be all for naught if you cannot sustain it. Even the best marketing in the universe can’t make up for poor customer service or a shoddy product. Under-promise and over-deliver. Be better than expected.

Sources (1) eMarkter – eMarkter “Advertisers to Spend $5.60 Billion on YouTube in 2013 Worldwide”| December 2013 (2), (3) Forrester, “The State of Online Video Advertising in North America, 2013” |James McDavid, December 2013 (4), (5) Source: North American Technographics Online Benchmark Survey (Part 2), 2013 12

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