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25 Dear Friends: It’s time to bid au revoir to the 2016 as the bells and whistles, lights and decorations and the festive spirit encompasses one and all. What do we have to look ahead in 2017 as we look back at the year that was? What entrepreneurs can learn from Donald Trump on Strategic Branding is featured here. Is Big Data over hyped and offering Spray and Pray solutions? Read more of it in this issue. Brands true love with Instagram continues. Relish the feature we have carried. Brand Identity has a new avtaar- the living logo- take a look. We also bring to you a very interesting article on Advertising in a Post Truth World that will set some minds and hearts ticking and thinking. If you want to know more about The Most Loving, Engaging, Useful and Social brands, you have got it right here. Dig in. The data guys would love the feature on Marketing ROI and how to make the best of Google Analytics. Tons more that you will find highly useful. Enjoy and I will meet you in the next year in the hope and promise of being better! Best
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CONTENTS
Five Small Business Marketing and Retention Trends and ideas for 2017 How Trump Won Using Strategic Branding, and What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Him The Most Loved, Fun, Relevant, Engaging, Social, and Helpful Brands Bringing Adtech In-House: Success or Stress for Brand Marketers? Who’s lying now? Advertising in a post-truth world Why smart brands are embracing the ‘living logo’ ‘Enriching Benefits’: Why Consumers Love Brands That Make Them Feel Like Good People Marketing ROI: How to Get Actionable Insights From Google Analytics Twitter’s ongoing strategy? Video, video, video. 6 Content Marketing Principles You Shouldn’t Be Ignoring (but Probably Are) 25 Fantastic Examples of Brands Using Instagram Big Data is giving us too many ‘Spray and Pray’ solutions Your Customers’ Brains Are Hard-Wired to Decode These 10 Signals Brandspeak: What’s New In Marketing Technology? How Brand Marketers Measure Digital Video Advertising Book, Line & Sinker
By Jenny Beightol
Traffic, acquisition, and sales have always been critical priorities for marketers. Yet customer retention also plays a key role—but is too often neglected. Interestingly, only 49% of small business owners have a customer loyalty or other retention plan in place, according to a Belly survey related to current small business marketing and retention activities. The 429 businesses surveyed represent a range of industries, and they use various marketing tools and solutions. Here, I’m going to share five findings with the biggest impact for small businesses. I’ll also share relevant marketing
approaches to help you reach your growth and revenue goals.
1. 72% plan to allocate most of their marketing budget to customer acquisition This finding was surprising, considering it costs up to five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep one. Only 28% of merchants surveyed said they were putting most of their budget into customer retention. This is a huge miss according to brand influencer Tamara McCleary, who says
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existing customers are 50% more likely to try a new product or service from someone they’ve done business with in the past. So, how can marketers and business owners drive acquisition without sacrificing retention?
receive. There are 4 billion email accounts worldwide, 25% of which are business-specific, and the average open rate is 20% to 25%. How can you improve upon that metric?
Consider the processes and teams already within your organization. Optimize customer service and experience with upsells that improve the overall buying experience. Outstanding customer service requires daily interaction with your customers. Training your customer-facing teams with proactive soft-selling skills will help you to serve your customers with new products and services.
Despite conventional wisdom, a personalized approach doesn’t always work. Emails containing the recipient’s first name aren’t original; many have become immune to that trick. Think about it: Do you put the name of your friend in the subject line when emailing them? Test an anti-personalized approach by removing all instances of names and other fields. This disrupts the recipient’s kneejerk reaction against marketing. A reactive approach to social media is another method for boosting customer retention. Because not everyone will post directly to your social channels with how they feel about your business, you can use tools like Mention to monitor conversations folks are having about your business.
Marketers have found a new enemy in the form of the “promotions” tab in Gmail and other apps. To get around this hurdle, direct email subscribers to a Thank You page to remind them why they signed up and to keep an eye out for a confirmation email.
Pay attention to the channels where these conversations are happening. Contribute with guidance in the form of valuable content.
If you really want to ensure your subscribers can find your email, add an extra call to action on the Thank You page to send the user straight to that email.
2. Customer loyalty programs, email, and social are considered the most effective marketing channels
Ensure your emails are optimized for mobile. If you see high opens but a low click-through rate, this could be because your email isn’t appearing properly on mobile devices.
We asked 429 businesses where they planned to put their marketing dollars in 2016. These were the top three: 1. Social Media Advertising (63%) 2. Customer Loyalty Program (55%) 3. Email Marketing (50%) That came as no surprise, since those channels are easy to measure and have strong ROI. Traditional marketing methods are more difficult to measure and are being replaced by digital channels. What can you do to test these digital channels (or optimize them)? Email continues to prove its worth, but only when it’s done well. Consumers today are smart. They know all the tricks used in creating and scheduling mass emails and now prefer transparency and personalization in the messages they
Finally, consider social media advertising platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, as these are hyper-targeted and effective paid acquisition channels. You can target your audience to the exact age and location, as well as other demographic and psychographic information. Test on a small scale first by matching audience to the right message. Know who your personas are, and align your ad copy with their challenges and desires. Use a tool like Perfect Audience to scale this up once you’ve achieved a positive ROI.
3. 30% of SMBs don’t have budget to hire a full-time marketing position Many SMBs don’t prioritize marketing into their budgets because they think they need to hire someone to manage it full-time, which isn’t the case, of course. And even business
owners who do put budget into marketing activity believe it’s hard to measure results. Before hiring a full-time marketer, business owners should be marketing their business so it can grow. There are several ways to do so.
Loyalty programs give customers access to exclusive perks and bonuses. They also create a more convenient and personalized buying experience, increasing the likelihood of turning a one-time customer into a loyal advocate.
One option is to test channels in an automated manner. You and your employees can set up one or two approaches to see what works. Leave it running for a few weeks, track results, and iterate from there. If you’re unsure where to start, look to the top three channels outlined above. For example, you can spend a day or two writing email content to send to your customers over a onemonth period. Use MailChimp or a similar ESP to schedule these and track results. Perhaps your customers are on Facebook. Put some budget into testing Facebook ads. Create a campaign focused on the demographic of your best buyers and measure results on a weekly basis. Check out “The Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Advertising” by AdEspresso for a road map. If you can’t find time or internal resources, seek the advice of a consultant or agency. Find a local supplier who offers a free consultation. That conversation can help identify activities you should be investing in, and many suppliers provide very affordable payment options. There are also freelance websites, including UpWork and Freelancer. Put up a job description and invite freelancers to bid. This is an affordable approach that many business owners favor over hiring a full-time marketer.
4. Most small businesses planned to spend more on their marketing this year than last The other 70% of small business owners we talked to were planning on investing more budget in marketing this year. In fact, 42% of them estimate they’ll spend between $1,000 and $5,000 on marketing this year alone. This is good news both for small businesses and for the marketers who are selling software and services to them. If you’re selling to an SMB audience, increase your outreach. Be sure that your proposition is solving a specific challenge and aligns with customer needs.
Businesses that recognize the value of loyal customers are discarding their legacy “stamp-based” systems for digital, trackable solutions instead. Marketers and business owners can easily measure the retention rate of their customers. Visit history, purchasing patterns, and reward redemptions are now fully visible metrics. If you’re a brick-and-mortar business, you should consider adopting a digital system. When you have a loyalty program, competitors have a harder time taking away your customers; that’s because loyalty programs play on a behavior psychologists call “previous investment.” For digital businesses, ReferralCandy and Ambassador are retention tools that can be implemented quickly. They make customer loyalty through referrals simple for both you and your customers. MeUndies and Harrys use gamification elements in their loyalty and referral programs, which make customers feel invested in them and make them more likely to take action. Whatever approach you choose, focus on maximizing profitability; reward your most loyal customers, and start with rewards that cost little to nothing for you. ***
Social advertising, email, and customer loyalty are the favored tactics because they solve the biggest challenges SMB’s face: acquisition, retention, and sales. Your proposition should align with those challenges. Prove how you can solve these problems, and you can generate a positive ROI.
Those five marketing and retention trends and ideas were the most interesting findings in our survey. If you’re not executing the strategies and techniques covered in this article, it’s time to test them. Test small, with a low budget, and scale up once you’ve seen measurable ROI.
5. 30% of SMBs estimate that 71-90% of their customers have visited more than once
What does your retention strategy look like? Are you looking to implement more sophisticated marketing and loyalty schemes this year and beyond?
Although all eyes are on acquisition, retention is still key for many business owners. Accordingly, 61% of business owners agree that a loyalty program to retain customers is “very important,” whereas 30% agree it’s “important.”
Jenny Beightol is director of words and reputation at customer loyalty program Belly.
How Trump Won Using Strategic Branding, and What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Him SPECIALIZATION IS BETTER THAN GENERALIZATION, TRUMP TEACHES US. THAT’S WHY WHITE WORKINGCLASS MEN LOVED HIM. By Jayson DeMers
It doesn’t matter if you’re thrilled or outraged or something in between at seeing Donald Trump become our new presidentelect. Objectively, Trump ran an impressive and surprising political campaign, and it’s because of his penchant for personal branding and marketing that he won in such an astounding upset. If a man with no political experience can pave his way to the highest political office in the country with a handful of marketing strategies, what do you think your business could accomplish using similar tactics? I’m not saying you should start mimicking Donald Trump’s ideologies or his rhetoric, but there are some important lessons for entrepreneurs to learn in having witnessed this powerful success in personal branding.
Politics and branding First, it’s important to know that politicians essentially become brands -- personal brands -- when campaigns begin, and this isn’t a new concept. You can see the parallels between corporate brands and political candidates clearly: •
Logos. Hillary Clinton’s oft-praised logo is just the most recent example of candidates using imagery to build recognition and visibility. Barack Obama’s “O” logo has even been described as close to corporate in nature.
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Slogans. Slogans and taglines have been a part
of politics for generations, as evidenced by 1840’s “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” which was originally part of a full campaign song. •
Image, voice and reputation. Most importantly, candidates spend time perfecting their image, their voice and how they’re seen by the voting public. This was the most crucial area developed by Donald Trump.
So, how did Trump manage to create such a powerful brand from a cartoonish and politically inexperienced past personality?
The Trump brand The Trump “brand,” by which I mean his political personal brand -- not any of his corporate endeavors -- was built on a number of principles that made him appealing to the masses. •
Niche-focused. First and foremost, Trump wasn’t trying to win over “America.” He was sharply focused on working-class white males, which is a large, but specific demographic. His messaging became laser-focused and highly relevant to this audience, which led to greater brand evangelism and rapid expansion of his supporter base. His numbers across social media platforms, in comparison to Hillary Clinton’s, provide clear evidence of this. In marketing terms, he identified and understood his target market, then developed extremely effective messaging to this segment.
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•
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Extreme. In a similar vein, the Trump brand is extreme. As a person, he is brash, loudmouthed and unapologetic. His tweets almost always include exclamation marks, punctuating the emotion behind them. In policies, he is firm and divisive. To some people, he has become representative of hatred and fear, but to others, he has become a beacon of hope. Trump polarized his audience with emotionally-charged messaging, which, regardless of its truthfulness, led his supporters to become such extreme brand evangelists that they turned out to vote in numbers far higher than anyone -- or any polls -predicted. This strategy ultimately proved to be stronger than the strategy Hillary Clinton pursued, of trying to be at least moderately likable to everybody. Anti-establishment. Trump also played to the general dissatisfaction with both parties felt by the American public. Citizens of all political backgrounds have a distaste for the “establishment,” and Trump served as an almost entirely opposite alternative. This differentiated him from his competitors, and made him stand out to people who felt that they had been forgotten or ignored by the political establishment. Nostalgic. According to Stephen Greyser of Harvard Business School, “Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ was designed to make white working-class men remember when things were better for them or, at least, they thought they could remember.” Trump used this nostalgia to support his positions and tap into positive emotions in his supporters, further mobilizing them as evangelists. Popular TV comedy South Park playfully highlighted this fact by portraying the general public as being addicted, unknowingly, to “member berries” (a play on the word “remember”), causing them to feel nostalgic about happy times in their past, partially accounting for the gravitation of many to Trump’s “Make America Great Again!” campaign slogan. It’s worth noting that this slogan was actually first used in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign, further appealing to nostalgia for those old enough to remember.
•
Transparent. Despite his penchant for telling lies and half-truths, Trump’s controversial statements were wellreceived by his target audience because they perceive him as being transparent. For many people, a candidate who seems to “tell it like it is” by breaking political norms and conventions is automatically seen as sincerer and more trustworthy.
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Simple. Throughout the campaign, Donald Trump has been intentionally vague and concise, never getting into the details of what he’d actually do as president, but leaving behind simple ideas that are appealing and easy to repeat. “Make America Great Again!” is the ultimate example of this. Make America great again how, exactly? It doesn’t matter. It’s simple and easy to remember, and that’s why it spread.
Branding the competition Trump didn’t just brand himself, however. A major point of his campaign involved branding the competition so he could
illustrate his own brand as superior -- as a “winner.” Even in the primaries, Trump steamrolled over his opponents by casting them in specific negative lights. The name “Lyin’ Ted” caught on quickly, and certainly aided Trump’s victory over his more conventional candidate, Ted Cruz. And of course, “Crooked Hillary” was a standby in Trump’s speeches and overall campaign, as he worked to illustrate the Clinton brand as deceptive and criminal. Other nicknames he bestowed upon his foes, thereby branding them in the eyes of his supporters, included “Goofy Elizabeth Warren,” “Crazy Bernie,” “Little Marco” and “Low Energy Jeb.” This helped to further differentiate the Trump brand from the competition, and polarize voters further.
Key lessons So, what are the key lessons for entrepreneurs to learn from this? •
Identify and understand your target market. Don’t try to be everything to everybody. Instead, narrow your focus to one key demographic. It’s better to have your target market think you’re absolutely the best than have many groups of people think you’re just “okay.”
•
Specialization is better than generalization. For the same reason, it’s better to be a specialist than a generalist. Make your brand known for doing a few things very well rather than lots of things decently.
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Don’t overcomplicate things. The simpler your message is, the more memorable it will be. Remain clear, concise and as simple as possible.
•
Use emotions to mobilize your audience to become brand evangelists. Emotion creates action, so trigger emotion in your target audience. If your audience is afraid, or feels neglected or forgotten, use that to your advantage by speaking to their pain points, fears and needs. Mobilize your audience by appealing to emotion within your content strategy.
•
Differentiate your brand. Stand out from the competition by being different, and shape your brand to reinforce these key differences. Don’t be afraid to compare your brand to your competition’s, to point out how you differ.
This post is not meant to endorse Donald Trump or condone his policies. It’s simply meant as an illustration of the marketing tactics he used to secure victory in one of the strangest elections of our time. Use these marketing tactics to your advantage in business, and you’ll stand to become equally competitive in your own field. Jayson DeMers is founder and CEO of AudienceBloom, a Seattle-based SEO agency. He’s the author of the ebook, “The Definitive Guide to Marketing Your Business Online.”
The Most Loved, Fun, Relevant, Engaging, Social, and Helpful Brands By Ayaz Nanji
Apple, Microsoft, and Netflix are the most loved brands by consumers in the United States, according to recent research from Accenture Interactive and FJORD. The report was based on data from a survey of more than 26,000 people in the US, UK, and Brazil. Respondents were asked to name which brands they love the most, as well as to rank brands in specific verticals. Samsung ranks as the fourth most-loved brand by US consumers; Sony is fifth, followed by Google, Amazon, Fitbit, Facebook, and Wal-Mart.
Survey respondents were also asked to rate how much the brands they love are fun (holds my attention in an entertaining way), relevant (gives me clear and customized information I want, when I want it), engaging (identifies with my individual needs and wants), social (helps me connect with others), and helpful (is efficient, easy, and adapts over time). US consumers rank Netflix as the most fun brand, Fitbit as the most relevant brand, Apple as the most engaging brand, Facebook as the most social brand, and Amazon as the most helpful brand. About the research: The report was based on data from a survey of more than 26,000 consumers in the US, UK, and Brazil.
Ayaz Nanji is an independent digital strategist and the co-founder of Inbound ContentWorks, a marketing agency that specializes in content creatio. He is also a research writer for MarketingProfs. His past experience includes working for Google/YouTube, the Travel Channel, AOL, and the New York Times.
Bringing Adtech In-House: Success or Stress for Brand Marketers? By Merrily McGugan
Today’s marketers have been expert jugglers. In addition to managing issues of ad fraud, viewability, and global marketing strategy, it is now common practice for a marketing team to also manage ad campaigns across multiple platforms and devices. But with only 24 hours in a day and finite team resources available, it’s no wonder that some marketers have begun to outsource much of the marketing technology (martech) juggling. The move toward managed services is causing new pressures of its own. A quarter of senior marketers say they are stretched too thin because of having to manage multiple marketing tech vendors and platforms, according to “Modernizing the Mix: Transforming Marketing Through Technology and Analytics,” a May 2016 research report by my company, DataXu.
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Apparently, marketers have had to graduate from juggling to plate-spinning. A growing number of marketers believe that bringing advertising technology (adtech) and martech solutions inhouse is the way to improved cost-effectiveness, transparency, and access to data. Our report finds that 62% of US marketers expect to manage slightly more or significantly more martech in-house over the next year. And with many marketers happily managing at least a portion of marketing technologies in-house already, the next question is a straightforward one: Will adtech move in-house next?
The In-House Adtech Mindset Some 53% of US marketers say martech and adtech will converge completely within the next five years, according to our survey of 532 global marketers. The melding of the two under the overarching umbrella of “madtech” may thus lead to adtech’s being brought in-house as well. In fact, over half of global marketers we surveyed report that in-house teams are experimenting with managing adtech. However, like every large-scale organizational change, moving adtech in-house comes with pros and cons. There are three perceived advantages to moving adtech inhouse: 1. Cost efficiencies through disintermediation. Cutting out a managed services team or fees paid to an ad network can instinctively feel like a sensible step. 2. Increased transparency. Bringing adtech in-house ensures an agency or brand team has direct access to all platform information, from inventory data to customer segment data and targeting tactics. 3. Full control. In-house teams gain full control over all optimizations and become responsible for the performance of all advertising campaigns. However, marketers may face an uphill battle to successfully build in-house teams that are “adtech-ready.” Among the challenges associated with moving ad-tech in-house are these: •
•
Lack of advanced technical skills. Adtech and martech require different skills. The technical knowledge required to manage ad servers or run a trading platform is highly specialized. In our survey, many marketers expressed worry over being able to find qualified talent or to upskill themselves quickly enough to add value in technical areas when considering managing martech and adtech in-house. Major up-front investment. Although tech partner services come with a fee, the up-front costs of bringing adtech solutions in-house are extensive. Personnel, tech, and training—as well as media dollars—must all be worked into an in-house budget.
•
One less plate does not always equal one less problem. Marketers seeking to spin one less plate by bringing adtech in-house may find themselves breaking that plate in frustration when they realize the level of difficulty and time required to produce optimal results when running these technologies themselves.
Understanding the ‘Tech’ in ‘Adtech’ As the K2/ANA 2016 transparency report revealed, many US marketers have traditionally left all tech platform decisions to their agencies. However, certain agencies may find themselves juggling competing client and holding company interests as a result of being the sole decision-maker for preferred technology solutions. Marketers therefore need to build up enough technical chops to assess tech platforms in partnership with their agency (or by themselves), make decisions based on objective test performance, and ultimately assign agency staff to run the chosen platform if they so desire. Modern marketers acknowledge that it’s time to move understanding martech and adtech to the very top of their priority list. Fully 78% of US marketers say understanding marketing technology is a critically important skill for successful senior marketers (even if adtech isn’t being brought in-house), per our survey results. Without at least some technical know-how behind platform decisions, marketers risk taking a shot in the dark by directing agency partners towars certain solutions. Technology partners as well as media agencies have starring roles to play within the adtech ecosystem of the future, no matter which direction the in-house wind blows. If there is an industrywide shift toward fully in-house adtech, technology partners’ and agencies’ roles will evolve from doers to facilitators. Tech vendors will repackage their software as white label offerings, rather than managed services, to save agencies the hassle and cost of trying to develop tech from scratch themselves. Ultimately, the move to bring adtech in-house can be viewed as a reaction to the high-pressure, high-stakes environment marketers now find themselves in. Bringing adtech in-house may be beneficial for certain organizations, but it will not be viable for all organizations. Marketers who possess a baseline of technical knowledge will be well-positioned to determine whether the shift to an in-house model is a move their company is ready to—and should—make.
Merrily McGugan is director of corporate marketing at DataXu, a programmatic marketing and analytics technology company.
Who’s lying now?
Advertising in a post-truth world By Paul Kitcatt
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OXFORD DICTIONARIES HAVE CHOSEN ‘POST-TRUTH’ AS THEIR WORD OF THE YEAR. APPARENTLY, USAGE OF THE TERM WAS 2,000% HIGHER IN 2016 THAN LAST YEAR. YOU MAY REMEMBER LAST YEAR’S CHOICE WAS AN EMOJI – A FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY. WHAT A LONG TIME AGO LAST YEAR SEEMS. The huge spike in usage of ‘post-truth’ needs no explanation, but just in case, Oxford says it’s ‘in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States’. In short, Brexit and Trump. The definition given of the term is, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. I love that great understatement – “less influential”. They do go on to analyse the shift in the meaning of the prefix “post” from simply “after” to “belonging to a time in which the specified concept has become unimportant or irrelevant”. In other words, it’s not a case of appealing to emotion by selective use of facts. It’s quite simply making things up, knowing they will have an emotional effect. Otherwise known as lying. One of the most repugnant moments of the referendum campaign came after the result was in, and a succession of Brexit campaigners denied having anything to do with the claimed £350m a week we ‘send to the EU’. ‘Nothing to do with me,’ they said, as if the figure had been painted on their bus in the night by some tearaway, and none of them had spotted it until it was too late. This was a figure repeatedly shown during the campaign to be wrong, but still it stayed on the bus. It vanished from the Leave website straight after the vote, and has now vanished from all discussions. There were many other ‘post-truth’ moments in the campaign, but of course, it’s all been put in the shade by Donald Trump. He is living proof that the idea of ‘digital natives’ versus ‘digital immigrants’ has nothing to do with age. At 70, he showed more proficiency in the manipulation of public sentiment through Twitter than anyone ever. It was a digital first, integrated campaign, with a minimal media spend. The New York Times and others spent a huge amount of time and effort listing all the ‘post-truth’ tweets from Trump, and pointing out their relationship with objective facts (very little, mostly). But to no avail. Once tweeted, often repeated, his claims gave him an impact his rival could never match. It’s so much less interesting and less powerful to be constantly pointing out your opponent’s ‘post-truth’ statements. You’re lost once you’re debating on his ground. And in any case, as one master of lying pointed out, if you’re going to lie, make it a big, colossal lie. “People would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”; and even if they had it proved to them, “the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all
expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.” So wrote Adolf Hitler, in Mein Kampf. Where does this leave advertising, in all its forms? A friend of mine, Chris Chalmers, a novelist and copywriter of repute, pointed out to me that we are bound by rules that seem not to apply to politicians any more. We are obliged to make sure our work is legal, decent, honest and truthful, and if we don’t, we get punished. Our work will be taken down, and we mustn’t repeat any false claims or whatever else was wrong in any future ads. Fines can be imposed. Most agencies and advertisers follow the rules. The advertising equivalent of one of Trump’s tweets would be something like ‘Buy this car and have more sex,’ or ‘Free money here now’. If you ran those ads, you’d have to be able to prove they were true. Maybe not any more. In the ‘post-truth’ era, are ad agencies going to just carry on being law-abiding citizens while the Trumps and Farages say what they please, and not only get away with it, but win? Or will we decide the truth’s for wimps, and a slap from the ASA is a fair price to pay for influencing more people than your competitors? Mark Zuckerberg may have unintentionally shown the way. He claimed the fake news stories on Facebook didn’t affect the election. Many pointed out he was trying to have it both ways, therefore, as he wants us to believe advertising on Facebook is effective. In fact, his statement unintentionally highlighted the truth: fake news and advertising are both effective, but fake news is far more effective than advertising, because it has no rules. It is the ‘grossly impudent lie’ that Hitler wrote about. This lesson won’t be lost on advertisers and agencies. We’re all competing for the same attention, and not just with other ads, but with everything else going on. In a flattened media landscape, where everyone can attempt to make themselves heard, Trump, Farage and the other purveyors of ‘post-truth’ and fake news have shown us how it’s done most effectively. Zuckerberg has now changed his tune, and acknowledged what has become obvious to us all: fake news and real news are indistinguishable in social media. As are truth and posttruth, or, as we used to call it, lying. Zuckerberg says he’s going to do something about it, too. Good luck with that.
Paul Kitcatt is a consultant chief creative officer and was co-founder of the agency Kitcatt Nohr, where he spent 14 years.
Why smart brands are embracing the ‘living logo’ By Ilyse Liffreing
IN A DIGITAL AGE, YOUR LOGO CAN BE AS DYNAMIC AND INTERACTIVE AS YOUR SOCIAL FEEDS. IF ONLY SOMEONE HAD TOLD METLIFE. It was only two weeks after MetLife unveiled its new logo—the centerpiece of its first global rebranding in three decades— that the company was forced to defend itself against accusations of theft. As it turns out, the insurance giant’s new logo is nearly identical to that of Diffen, a website that (appropriately enough) provides side-by-side comparisons of competing objects (Tylenol vs. Advil, mold vs. mildew, Clinton vs. Trump). Though MetLife swore the similarity was a coincidence, it couldn’t deny that Diffen had a point. The two logos are practically identical. And it’s hardly an unusual occurrence. Take, for example, the similar circular logos of Chanel and Gucci, or the winged symbols of Bentley and Mini, or even the stylized “Ms” in the Motorola and Marmot icons. It’s a scenario that designers and creative directors have long dreaded: working for months to produce a unique, brandspecific logo only to discover your creation is uncomfortably similar to an existing one, resulting in customer confusion, potential litigation and one royally pissed-off client. Such fears are just some reasons why brands are moving
beyond flat, motionless symbols for their corporate identities toward dynamic, ever-changing entities known as “living logos.” “The whole purpose for logos is to create a relatable mark so that people can look at it and know your company,” said Kyle Arango, creative director at digital agency Huge. But as consumer interaction with brands become increasingly digital, “you can build systems of identities where logos are always alive,” he said. “They’re still recognizable, but you will never get into those situations where things look alike because they” are always changing.” Last year, Goodby Silverstein & Partners built a new logo for data-storage company Seagate that, when looked at closely, displayed some of the data flowing through its system. The Whitney Museum in New York recently swapped its W logo for an ever-morphing series of lines that adjust to the size of one’s browser. Not only do such logos help brands avoid accidental trademark infringement, they turn a flat, lifeless symbol into
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another touch point for consumer engagement. “Living logos personalize—it’s the future,” said Rich Silverstein, co-founder of Omnicom’s GSP, which is based in San Francisco. “We don’t like anything static anymore.”
a digital world where people are always on their phones. “People are interacting with brands and are shaping them just as much as the companies are,” he said.
Logos have come a long way since the early 6th century BC, when humans used branding to distinguish cattle, trade goods, coins and coats of arms. It wasn’t until 1875, when the UK began accepting applications for trademarks, that logos and brands became inseparable, according to “A History of Graphic Design” by Philip Meggs. UK-based Bass Brewery, makers of Bass Ale, was the first brand to place its logo under copyright. In some ways, the concept of a living logo isn’t unique to the digital age. In the 1980s, televised MTV promos featured a logo in which the “M” was constantly chaning colors. According to Arango, this was the first time a logo went from being static to animated.
Dave Waite, brand strategist and creative director of Zookeeper, a digital creative studio in LA, the change is enabled by advancements in technology like updated browsers and the introduction of HTML5. “Back in the day, logos would appear on all your stationery and on your website and maybe magazine or print ad,” he said. “Today it’s changed dramatically. You can do anything you can absolutely imagine.” “There are ways now,” said Arango, “where algorithms can respond to how people are interacting with your logo, so that your logo could shape or morph, or your tagline could change, to what is really going on in users’ lives right now.”
Soon after, the dawn of the internet brought advertisers new options. Google was one of the first adopters of logo animation on the Web. The first Google Doodle to be animated was written in JavaScript in January 2010 to celebrate the 366th birthday of Isaac Newton. In it, a simple apple falls from the logo, recalling the famous anecdote of how Newton came up with his theory of gravity.
Perhaps the best example of this is Google’s recent visual rebranding. In 2015, Google created an animated logo with three parts—a logo, a set of dots and a monogram. The dots interact with the user on Google’s app, displaying six different animations depending on whether the browser is listening, thinking, replying, etc.
Because it’s more flexible, a living logo can more accurately capture the personality of a brand, said Arango. “It’s a tough thing to try to embody everything that a company is about in a low-graphic mark or three-word sentence.” In May of 2010, Google went further for Pac-Man’s 30th anniversary. It created an interactive logo where users could play a game of Pac-Man around the word “Google.” Now, said Arango, we are moving into a time where brands need to make their logos feel more like “two-way conversations.” He said static images aren’t tailored for
But static images and living logos aren’t mutually exclusive, said Brian Pennington, design lead at Indianapolis-based Studio Science. “The idea isn’t to replace static logos—it’s to make logos as communicative as possible,” he said. “A library of tens or hundreds of logo options might allow you to communicate something more than a single image.”
For instance, before the Whitney Museum opened its new building in New York in 2015, it partnered with design studio Experimental Jetset to develop a graphic, fluid approach to branding. What developed was a large static “W” that can bend and fit to wherever it is appearing. For example, users can visit whitney.org and resize their browsers to see how the “W” adapts. Such a dynamic symbol reflects the building’s architecture and dynamic perspectives of its visitors, said Pennington. “More than a logo, it’s a system designed to make the most of each piece.”
Although Arango wouldn’t reveal the clients, he said Huge is also working on living logos that will be unveiled early in 2017. “The stuff we are working on is building in algorithms and AI that allows us to sense current moods of the user or other inputs or world events, and bond that to the behavior of the logo to make it seem more relevant,” he said.
Silverstein had never heard of a living logo when he proposed one to Seagate, he said. But it seemed like the obvious solution for a data company looking to update a teal-green logo that was stuck in the 1980s. Silverstein said he immediately thought of an idea for a logo that would be almost alive, coining the phrase “living logo” within the agency. His idea was to have real-time data that the company stored flow constantly through the brand’s current “S” monogram. Headed by Silverstein, GSP took APIs from Amazon, Twitter and Getty and streamed whatever they wanted through the logo. Silverstein said it resembled “blood inside a body.” “When I say living,” said Silverstein, “it is literally showing you what books are being sold on Amazon at the moment. That’s what’s interesting ... not that it moves, but that it is connected directly to the data that Seagate stores.” (It even has the power to stream Hillary Clinton’s emails, joked Silverstein.) For the project, the agency started a beta group, created a prototype to pitch the client and worked with an outside coding company to produce the actual logo. “In the pitch,” said Silverstein, “the minute they saw it move, they were like, ‘We’ve got to do this.’” After they won the account, Silverstein filed a patent for the design, a first for him and the agency. GSP is continuing to work on living logos. Currently, the agency is working with an unnamed client to design one that deals with outer space.
How widely adopted such logos become remains to be seen. And as several designers pointed out, even brands with living logos still need flat, static ones, whether for print ads, business cards or letterhead. And the creative process for developing a living logo still requires the creation of an oldfashioned one. “You have to start with the two-dimensional to get to the threedimensional, and then the fourth-dimensional, whatever that would be,” said Silverstein. “Marks are still important. It’s just that there is more for a mark to do nowadays—it can play; it can come alive and go dormant again. It can talk, it can sing, it can change colors. My God—it’s alive!” But Arango said that in the next 20 years, there might not be a need for print designs at all, especially as more out-ofhome advertising transfers to digital and print continues to decline. “As we get better at being more relevant to the user,” he said, “the more living logos will come to life.” “Good or bad,” said Silverstein, “the world is constantly moving. We are on a carousel.”
‘Enriching Benefits’: Why Consumers Love Brands That Make Them Feel Like Good People By Debbie MacInnis, C.W. Park
Frye Company, the famous crafter of American-made artisan boots and leather goods, has developed a brilliant product that speaks volumes about its brand identity. With more and more Americans forgoing plastic and instead using canvas totes to transport food, clothes, yoga mats, and more, Frye is putting its own distinctive stamp on the trend with a leather tote. And not just any leather tote. The new product, called Harvest, is made from surplus leather, and only a limited number will be made; moreover, for every bag sold, the company will donate a portion of the sales to Feeding America, a charity fighting against hunger in America. The bag comes in multiple colors to match buyers’ wardrobes and lifestyles. We’ve long known Frye as a company that sells high-quality boots that offer strong utilitarian value. In our parlance, we would say the brand offers “strong enabling benefits” (more on that in a minute). And because the boots are often both comfortable and stylish gives them a strong experiential quality (what we call “enticing benefits”). So what makes this decision to make a tote so brilliant? Frye’s move highlights what many brands often lack: the ability to provide benefits that enrich and inspire customers. Our research finds that people become most strongly enamored with brands that offer three distinct advantages, what we call the 3 E’s: •
Enabling Benefits: They produce a great product that solves customers’ problems. Frye boots do just that: They can be just as easily worn in the woods as on 5th Avenue. Although they are not the cheapest boots on the market, they are known for their high-quality construction that makes them last a long time. Consumers trust a brand that solves their problems using what limited resources they have at their disposal (time, money, effort).
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Enticing Benefits: They create products that please consumers’ senses, thoughts, or emotions. Frye is a great example in this respect. Its products are soft to the touch and comfortable to wear. They come in rich colors, and their simple styling is aesthetically pleasing, allowing them to coordinate well with many outfits. Consumers love brands that provide those enticing benefits.
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•
Enriching Benefits: They make people feel good about themselves as people. Our research finds that what distinguishes good brands from great ones is the great brand’s ability to do just that: make people feel good about themselves. Those “enriching” benefits are less common in brands, and their presence can serve as a strong motivator of brand purchase. Brands with enriching benefits inspire their customers. Moreover, consumers respect brands that make them feel good about themselves as people.
It’s that last point that makes Frye’s marketing actions so smart, so let’s look at the results more closely: • First, by purchasing the brand, consumers can feel they are supporting companies that place a value on Earth’s scarce resources. Rather than being made from new leather, this product makes use of leftover leather. Buyers
can feel more virtuous in knowing that they are, in some small way, contributing to the resource preservation of our planet. • Second, by purchasing Harvest, consumers can feel good about themselves because they are making a positive contribution to a national social problem: hunger in America. By purchasing the tote bag, consumers can signal to themselves and others that they are caring and compassionate people who want to see the end of human suffering. • Third, because a limited number of bags will be made, consumers who buy the bag feel distinctive. They’re part of a special group that has managed to buy a valuable, yet scarce, good. Indeed, the fact that the product is in short supply makes owning one all the more valuable. The exclusivity of the bag makes the buyer one of a special class of people. • Fourth, using the bag can powerfully communicate to others who one is and what one values. By using a Frye Harvest tote, consumers communicate that they are a certain type of person who wants to contribute to the betterment of the world. What does this marketing approach do for the Frye brand? It expands the brand’s identity and relevance. Frye is not just a company that makes quality and goodlooking leather goods (enticing and enabling benefits); it’s a company that does good in the world and makes people feel good about themselves as people (enriching benefits) because it’s a company that cares as much about profits as about making the world a better place. Accordingly, consumers not only trust the brand and love it but also respect it for its consistency with consumers’ values, what it can do for them (earn status, provide distinctiveness), and how it can better society. We find that enriching benefits have a strong influence on how much consumers admire a brand. Such benefits are inspiring to consumers, moving them to action and engendering loyalty to the brand. *** Learn more about brand admiration, its drivers, and the considerable benefits that come to companies that focus on creating brand admiration in our latest book: Brand Admiration: Building a Business People Love. Debbie MacInnis is the Charles L. and Ramona I. Hilliard Professor of Business Administration and a professor of marketing at USC’s Marshall School of Business. She is co-author of a recent book on brand admiration, which blends years of best-practice thinking from academia with the real-world practice of marketing.
C. Whan Park is the Robert E. Brooker Professor of Marketing at USC’s Marshall School of Business. He is co-author of a recent book on brand admiration, which blends years of best-practice thinking from academia with the real-world practice of marketing.
Marketing ROI: How to Get Actionable Insights From Google Analytics By Jennifer Blackburn
Faster than marketing teams can keep up, today’s marketing content is often shared across social channels, in email campaigns, and on third-party sites. It’s a good problem to have… Why? Because with the abundance of the resulting digital insights available, modern marketers have become better equipped at proving campaign ROI to their bosses, clients, and stakeholders. The data from Google Analytics alone, such as clicks and conversions, is enough metrics to fill an Olympic-sized pool—and they’re easy to snag and display in a pretty graph. The increase in information, however, has resulted in those same bosses, clients, and stakeholders asking more and more questions. In fact, 85% of marketers say they feel more pressure to show their ROI to the C-suite, even though it’s technically easier for them to do, according to a study by The Information Technology Services Marketing Association and VisionEdge Marketing. Yet, of the 40% of marketers who could show that
their efforts made a difference, none could report on the direct impact their contributions made to business goals. So, what data should marketers really home in on to help executives understand the impact of how such greater reach is delivering value through the sales funnel? When it’s time to compile those marketing reports, Google Analytics is a highly accurate and helpful tool to illustrate both quality of leads and areas for improvement. Think of it as a giant swimming pool of valuable information that you must tread through for interpretation. In this article, I’ve included my own tricks and insights to help any marketer identify and show real ROI.
Venturing Out of the Shallow End If you’ve ever used Google Analytics, then you’re likely familiar with the basic metrics, such as sessions and bounce rates. However, it’s easy to misinterpret some of that information, especially when you look only at overall site performance. You may have increased your website sessions, which could
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be great! But did those visitors take a desired action? And did your blog, social media posts, or online ads contribute to the increase?
If you haven’t ventured past the “Audience” tab in Google Analytics, it’s time you take off that life vest and start swimming…
The answers lie in deeper analysis. It’s important to think about what these metrics are in fact telling you so that you can accurately break down the performance for each tactic in your marketing campaign.
Let’s say your website has an overall average bounce rate of 30%. When you look at the metrics for individual pages and referral sources, you find that your blog posts are in the 0-5% bounce rate range, but your social ad traffic has a bounce rate of about 90%. What do you do? In that scenario, your blog posts are clearly appealing, but your ads may not be reaching the right audiences.
Here are some key behavior metrics in Google Analytics: Pages per session This metric tells you whether your content has piqued users’ interest into learning more about your product, service, company, or brand, in general. If users continue to other pages or, better yet, make a purchase after your tweet or marketing email drove them to your site, then congratulations, you just earned a customer. Bounce rate Quite possibly the most important website metric outside of a sales conversion is the rate at which users are exiting your site. If this number is too high, that’s a red flag that both content and targeting strategies need to be revisited. Sometimes, other factors negatively affect a bounce rate, and you may not even be aware of them; poor navigation and lack of internal links, for example, could be culprits. If you find that certain traffic sources or specific landing pages on your site have a high bounce rate, then it’s worth a deep dive into possible causes.
Without taking the time to look at each individual source separately, you might have missed the opportunity to improve ads and report on your killer blog performance. As you can see, Google Analytics has a lot of actionable insights to share. Here are the additional tabs you should reference often to track performance and measure impact: •
1. [Behavior > Site Content > All Pages] 2. [Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages] •
Is traffic coming to your site from LinkedIn ads? That published article you secured last month? Has organic Google traffic increased since you added more blog posts to your site? The source that drove a user to your website is the best piece of evidence for showcasing—to your boss, board, or other stakeholders—ROI for integrated communications and marketing. Often, marketers forget to think of their own efforts that contributed to organic search traffic improvements, such as newly posted blogs, website copy changes, even social media posts! With this valuable nugget of information, you find out which sources for your content are most effective in driving site traffic and whether the time or cost investment was worth it.
Diving Deeper Into Your Efforts The story doesn’t end with those three metrics. Since the overall website metrics are an average, it is important to know how blog page traffic, social media referrals, PPC ads, and so on contribute to these numbers—even if the basic metrics are in the ideal range.
Social Media & Social Ad Traffic: Are you reaching the right kind of users? 1. [Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium] 2. [Acquisition > All Traffic > Referrals]
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A simple fix like adding an easy link back to your homepage or a few visuals to coincide with your content could be just the trick to retain users. Referrals
Blog and landing pages: Is your content appealing?
PPC Traffic: Are your campaigns driving high-quality Web traffic? 1. [Acquisition > AdWords > Campaigns] 2. [Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium]
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Organic Search Traffic: Are your SEO efforts driving more (and more qualified) users to your website? 1. [Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium] 2. Note: by comparing Google organic traffic before and after your campaigns, you’ll be able to identify any significant changes that affected you SEO efforts.
*** Whether you’re a part of a nimble small business team or a larger enterprise organization with sophisticated tools, these analytics deliver valuable insights into online marketing efforts across the board. As Google consistently rolls out new and updated Analytics models and offerings, a basic understanding of what to look for—and knowing where to look—will help turn any strategic marketing creative into a metrics maven.
Jennifer Blackburn is a senior account manager at AR|PR, one of the nation’s fastest-growing technology PR firms and a PR News 2016 TOP Place to Work.
Twitter’s ongoing strategy? Video, video, video. By Ariel Bogle
Is there such a thing as too much video? Let’s hope not, for the sake of pretty much every news media and social media outlet going. Twitter, for one, is on board. In an interview with Fairfax Media, Twitter’s new Australian managing director Suzy Nicoletti said she believed live video would be key to turning the tide on the platform’s stuttering growth. Nicoletti took on the role only recently, replacing former MD Karen Stocks, who left the company in October as part of an exodus that included Twitter’s India head Rishi Jaitly. Twitter’s chief operating officer Adam Bain also left in early November. The former head of online sales at Twitter Australia, Nicoletti told the publication live streaming video would be an audience and revenue focus for the company. Twitter aims to reach profitability in 2017, recently announcing its intention to lay off about 350 employees as part of cost cutting measures. Twitter already has streaming deals in place with professional sports leagues such as the NFL, and most recently, it streamed the Melbourne Cup horse race in Australia as part of its first live stream partnership outside the U.S. “At this point we’re in a lot of discussions with different vendors across sport, media, news and entertainment,” Nicoletti said. “From an advertising perspective, we’re hoping to monetise those deals and we’re also looking to work with our global partners to help monetise some of the global live streams that will be available in the Australian market.” So far, so good. But as Facebook has proven, the metrics of measuring online video audience can be contentious, and
advertisers will want to know what they’re paying for. Twitter’s NFL livestreams were mostly well received. In September, NBC reported the average audience on Twitter for the Texans-Patriots game was 327,000. The company has been approached for its Melbourne Cup viewership numbers. Nicoletti’s live video focus squares with the apparent view of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who has called the service “the people’s news network.” It’s not all sport, however. Twitter livestreamed a presidential debate with Bloomberg Media in September. Twitter Australia has even dabbled in food video content, although it’s unclear whether this is an ongoing strategy. It will have plenty of rivals looking to monetise and win audiences for live video. There’s YouTube and Facebook Live to name just two, the latter of which nabbed the crown for hosting the first online leadership debate in Australia between Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and opposition leader Bill Shorten in June. And while Twitter may be all video now, not all video is created equal. In late October, the company announced it would be shutting down its six-second video platform Vine, which had been largely abandoned by both Twitter and its users. Ariel Bogle is an associate editor with Mashable in Australia covering technology. Previously, Ariel was associate editor at Future Tense in Washington DC, an editorial initiative between Slate and New America.
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Content Marketing Principles You Shouldn’t Be Ignoring (but Probably Are) By Timothy Carter
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Content marketing can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be. You may base your strategy on the basic idea of producing valuable material for your users, or dig deep into data that dictates a complex process of creating content for the entirety of the customer journey.
pushing it out on your social media platforms, asking some of your closest followers to share it, or even pursuing paid advertising for an extra boost.
Either way, some fundamental content marketing principles should be guiding how you create and distribute your content.
This is a simple (and hopefully obvious) concept that many modern marketers still aren’t getting. Some people write for search engines; they produce articles for the sole purpose of optimizing for certain keywords or building backlinks. Some people write for themselves; they have these great ideas and want to get them published as a digital means of hearing themselves think.
The trouble is, many marketers don’t follow those fundamental principles, usually out of ignorance or apathy. Neglecting them, however, can put a serious damper on your potential growth. So, when planning your content marketing efforts, keep the following six principles in mind.
1. Provide quality over quantity There’s simply too much content out there for any kind of quantity-based strategy to work. The truth is, if you want any hope of attracting meaningful attention with your content, you have to be a part of the minority offering the “best of the best” content. If that means producing only one standout piece rather than five lukewarm pieces, so be it. Most marketers end up ignoring this principle in part because our brains are wired to see values in terms of quantities: Two articles, on the surface, seem better than one, providing twice the benefits. But if neither of those articles is good enough to attract attention, you might as well have zero articles.
2. Focus on the long term In the early stages of your campaign, it’s easy to get bogged down with trying to get fast results, or to focus on individual content pieces that could be a boon to your brand. However, you also have to remember that content marketing is a longterm strategy; and, unless you treat it like one, you’ll have a hard time reaping long-term benefits. For example, in the short-term it may be a better use of your effort to publish an article on a low-authority source you know you can obtain. But, in the long-term, it’s better to shop that piece around to higher-authority sources, even if you face rejection. You have to constantly look forward, building your strategy iteratively, rather than focusing on immediate gratification.
3. Good content can’t succeed by itself Let’s say you’ve written a great piece: You’ve done original research; you have a practical, compelling topic; you’ve tailored it to your target audience; and you’ve written a piece that’s both eloquent and entertaining. Unfortunately, there’s a misconception that, at this point, the content will do the rest of the work for you—that all you have to do is publish this piece, and it will naturally attract the readers, shares, and links it needs to support you. Wrong. If you want your content to earn you the greatest possible value, you have to give it an initial push; usually that means
4. Write for your readers
But noneof those methods can make you successful in the long term; instead, if you want your content to thrive, you need to write for your readers, specifically. Provide valuable information; tell them what they need to hear, not what you want to say, and not what you think search engines want to hear.
5. Interact and engage Content marketing is a two-way street, and many marketers forget that. They see content marketing as a kind of megaphone, or a channel for distribution to the masses. Accordingly, they forget that their users have voices, too, and that those voices need to be heard and engaged with. After publishing your articles, you need to follow up with commenters, sharers, and discussers to make them feel appreciated, and work on building a community rather than preaching at an audience. Without that level of engagement, your readership will be fleeting, and you’ll rob yourself of potential loyalty.
6. Adapt and reinvent Things can change quickly for a content strategy. There might be a new technology that allows you to better communicate with your audience, or a new trend among your key demographics, or a competitor that finds a new angle that’s more popular than yours. If you want to survive in what is an ever-changing content world, you need to continually adapt and reinvent your strategy. Find new mediums, explore new topics, and generally work to improve your approach. If you remain stagnant for too long, your readers will grow bored and you’ll be left with stagnating—and eventually declining— results. *** These principles aren’t really up for debate. Though they vary in power and may apply differently to different businesses and different industries, they serve as functional “golden rules” of content strategy. Remember these fundamentals, and don’t cut corners. Timothy Carter is the director of business development for Seattle-based content marketing and social media agency AudienceBloom. When he isn’t telling the world about the great work his company does, he’s planning his next trip to Hawaii while drinking some Kona coffee.
25 Fantastic Examples of Brands Using Instagram By Sujan Patel
With more than 400 million active monthly users, Instagram has grown into a social network that businesses need to pay attention to. It’s more than just a photo-sharing site -- it’s a way to engage fans and show off the best side of your business. Just look at this list of 25 companies that have mastered their brand focus on Instagram.
1. Lowes
4. Sephora Sephora is a cosmetics and beauty supply store with locations throughout the country. Its Instagram features a clever use of white space to really emphasize color so the eyes of its followers are drawn to the products.
5. Intel
Lowes does a smart job of promoting its products on Instagram: The company connects with users by showing people real-world applications for the products it sells.
Intel has built essential technology for decades, and its Instagram is peppered with images and videos that show the people behind the scenes of this tech giant giving followers and customers an inside look at the brand.
2. Starbucks
6. Taco Bell
To promote its brand and connect with customers on Instagram, Starbucks regularly brings in images of followers and makes them part of its brand story. In this way, Starbucks follows the advice of Ann Handley:
The fast food chain has no hesitation in using Instagram to promote new products. It mixes color, fun and style to make its posts look more like a magazine shoot than a generic product promotion.
“Good content isn’t about good storytelling. It’s about telling a true story well.” -- Ann Handley, MarketingProfs
7. American Express
3. Ben & Jerry’s Ben & Jerry’s has some serious personality when it comes to flavors and brand positioning, and the company lets that personality shine in its Instagram posts.
The American Express Instagram is loaded with tourism images featuring its cards being held aloft, a creative way to engage followers by triggering wanderlust.
8. Warby Parker Warby Parker sells prescription eyewear via the web. Rather
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than hire models, the company regularly features passionate and loyal employees in its Instagram.
9. Ikea Ikea is a global store featuring home goods and furniture. It replicates the in-store experience by showing off how followers might use its furnishings in their own homes.
10. Sharpie Sharpie manufactures markers and writing instruments used around the world. The company’s Instagram creatively ties pop culture in with the use of its products to connect to younger generations and new followers.
11. The Honest Company Honest Company sells safe, eco-friendly baby products. Not only does the company work to educate through its Instagram feed, but it also lets humor shine through, with clever and creative caption memes that parents relate to. “Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” – Andrew Davis, author of Brandscaping
12. Mission Bicycle Mission Bicycle is a custom bicycle shop in sunny San Francisco that regularly features photos that provide a behind-thescenes look to show the quality and care that goes into the manufacture of its bikes.
13. Sneaker News Sneaker News shares great pictures of shoes, and it uses a clever Q&A format on posts that beg for engagement; followers can’t resist the urge to jump in and comment on the photos.
14. Audi The car manufacturer’s Instagram uses so many pics and videos of people interacting with its cars that followers can practically see themselves driving them.
15. Converse Converse excels at using Instagram to leverage usergenerated content. Its feed is loaded with fans doing things they love in the shoes they love.
16. NFL There’s no shortage of places to follow football for game day highlights and scores. Knowing this, NFL uses its Instagram to convey the human side of the sport by showing more lighthearted moments between the players and fans, improving the connection followers have with their favorite teams.
GoPro’s products.
18. Red Bull The action shots you see on Red Bull’s Instagram have little to do with the product, but everything to do with its target audience. Know your audience in order to feed them what they’re looking for. Red Bull knows the importance of content marketing. “Content is fire. Social Media is gasoline.” -- Jay Baer, Convince and Convert
19. Topshop Topshop provides its followers a fashion fix, and on top of generating sales uses the platform as a direct point of engagement. Followers have the opportunity to answer questions and be a part of the forward direction in Topshop’s growth.
20. Oreo The popular cookie brand uses its Instagram to share creative images -- particularly around holidays -- including crafts that fans can make with the product, thus improving social shares and engagement.
21. Pabst Blue Ribbon PBR is one of America’s original beers, and the company aims to provide more value through its Instagram than just product placement. Recipes that incorporate PBR are one popular feature.
22. General Electric How do you promote a massive brand spread across B2B and B2C? You mix your in products with science, facts, and tidbits that your Instagram followers love to digest and share.
23. Vans Vans, the shoe company, uses its Instagram to cleverly juxtapose its products with lifestyle placement alongside music, art, and culture, while also pushing user-generated content that does the same.
24. Ocean Spray Ocean Spray knows how to leverage the rich red colors of its products alongside inside peeks into its manufacturing process. Followers eat it up.
25. Maersk Line Maersk is a shipping container company. The company makes the list because it “gets it.” Its goal is use Instagram to get closer to customers and communicate -- not to sell or market. Its goal is about engagement, not pushing.
17. GoPro GoPro, the manufacturer of cameras built tough for action shots, has always leveraged user-generated content to market its product. GoPro’s Instagram features some of the most dramatic shots captured, illustrating the versatility of
In his 13-plus years as a marketer and entrepreneur, Sujan Patel has helped hundreds of companies boost online traffic and sales and strengthen their online brand reputation. Patel is co-founder of ContentMarketer.io & Narrow.io.
Big Data is giving us too many ‘Spray and Pray’ solutions Brands too often try to speak to everyone, creating 500 versions of creative and letting consumers choose the best, writes isobar’s engagement director. By Elizabeth Alcott
For several years now, we’ve been hearing about “Big Data” and “Personalization,” but lately there has been a subtle shift in the conversation. Clients and agencies alike are focused on the realization that the industry is in a state of transformation. Studies show that 35% of B2C marketers in the US find that building a comprehensive view of a customer across all platforms is an “extreme challenge.” Instead of providing clarity, access to mountains of data has created a fragmented marketplace. Unfortunately, too many brands have tried going the route of speaking to everyone, creating 500 versions of creative and letting consumers choose what they like best. Depending on my browsing history—or that of my kids—on any given day I can get multiple versions of the same ad, none of which compels me to buy. This has effectively become the new version of “Spray and Pray” that was used before we had data to work with. It’s not only ineffective; we’ve reached a point where the granularity of available audience data far outstrips the ability of most creative agencies to develop assets to support them. This is evident in the masses of retargeted ads we see containing nothing but a plain white background with a single product image. This type of experience is far from personalized, and translating it to social or CRM channels feels even more generic. At the same time, it’s becoming clear that the brand experience needs to go beyond the ad that people see. According to a RightNow Customer Impact Report, 86% of consumers say they will pay up to 25% more for a better customer experience. Undoubtedly, audience-based marketing is an opportunity for brands, but it creates a challenge we have never encountered before. Instead of speaking at masses of people we don’t know, we now have the responsibility to create holistic brand experiences for people that we do know. Smart marketers know that they need to transform their approach and create a more effective brand experience at every touch point. Some are doing this well, such as hotel and cruise lines that use their data for a targeted consumer interaction, from click to conversion to onsite recommendations. Forward-thinking retailers are beginning to provide a seamless experience from online research to instore purchase, while loyalty programs allow them to provide a personalized experience in future interactions. But despite some inroads, most brands are simply not using their data effectively. Sometimes, just thinking about the mounds of available metrics can actually hold marketers back. We need a better way to listen, to understand consumer desires, and answer them with a message that’s rooted in a brand truth—not just test and learn metrics from 30 days ago. The fact is it’s difficult to glean value from short-term results based on a single metric. Brands need a strategy to identify and connect
with the slice of consumers who not only provide growth and value, but who will connect with our brands for the long haul. So how does a modern marketer approach this issue? How does one masterfully overlay different data points to give the best returns, connect with consumers, build a brand, and simplify data management? The hard truth is, there is no easy way into this new world. Changing the way we look at consumers means a complete change in the way brands and agencies think about the hard work of marketing. Long-term success will require a complete rewiring of company processes and mindsets, but there are interim steps that brands can start to take now. First, stop trying to talk to everyone all at once about everything. Seriously. Just stop. The abundance of data and the ability to talk to more people than ever doesn’t give us a free pass to get away from the basic art of marketing. There is value in using data to discover customer stories, but data is not the story. Strong creative work is required to bring the story to life. Second, stop listening to your data as individual voices. Instead, take the opportunity to listen to what consumers really want. By grouping actions and opinions with shared elements, a new picture of who your consumer is will start to emerge. It may be one you recognize, or you may find new segments that are ready for exploration. It’s possible that these segments may not even know what they want. But by listening to the signal over the data we can create stories, connections and in some cases new products to address those needs. By favoring denser communities over individual voices, we can get back to the art of storytelling that motivates consumers in compelling ways. Third, remember that technology is not a replacement for good strategy. Don’t grasp at shiny objects in the hopes of being “innovative” without understanding how your target(s) will respond. Use your data to take informed risks on your content, but use trusted media and tactics to spread that message at scale. It’s time to stop talking about all the possibilities of what we can do with data, and start using it to get back to what we do best. Brands and agencies may feel as though they have lost control of the audience, but the answer is well within our grasp. Great creative rooted in strong data will do more than create ad campaigns; it will transform companies. Elizabeth Alcott has over 17 years of experience bringing strategic digital solutions to some of the biggest brands in the world. Currently an Account Director at Isobar, she works with clients and media partners to drive unique brand solutions.
Your Customers’ Brains Are Hard-Wired to Decode These 10 Signals RHYMING SCHEMES AND FUNNY MEMES WORK BECAUSE HUMANS RESPOND TO RECOGNIZABLE PATTERNS. HELP THEM EMBRACE YOUR BRAND MESSAGE BY TELLING STORIES THAT FEEL FAMILIAR. By Eric Siu
Why do some websites seem to magically make us want to click “add to cart” and others leave us cold? The answer lies in psychology. Whether you frame it as an art to perfect or the science of what makes people tick, psychology can motivate people to take action. In fact, persuasive writers have used techniques based in psychology to influence people since at least 1895. These 10 copywriting techniques can help you harness the power of the unconscious to drive the results you want.
1. Repetition. Repetition also is called “illusory truth.” It’s the notion that something repeated frequently feels more truthful and accurate to us -- and it’s backed by study findings from the Association for Consumer Research.
To apply this idea to your copywriting, create several benefit or fact statements about a product, service or company. Then, consistently weave them throughout the copy you create. This involves repetition both within a single piece and across the entire spectrum of works to reiterate the same points.
2. Rhymes. Rhymes piggyback on repetition by using sounds that repeat in patterns. Our minds remember patterns more easily than other information, which is probably why you forget a dentist appointment but can recall every lyric from your favorite band’s songs. Rhyming schemes are a memorization tactic, too. Planted subtly within copy, such a rhyme can create the seed of an idea. This is precisely why so many television and radio
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commercials feature jingles. The best ones have you singing along, even if you don’t need the product or service. You can experiment by adding rhyming patterns into advertising copy or inserting short, rhyming phrases in headlines.
3. Action verbs. Action verbs imply urgency, motion and positivity. Passive voice slows down the copy and kills any energy within the words. Choose rich, imaginative active verbs whenever possible. A laundry detergent doesn’t simply clean clothes, it freshens and brightens them. A consulting firm doesn’t just offer business advice to help you make money, it develops action plans so you can vault over your competition.
sparingly and choose them wisely to get the fullest effect.
7. Visual numbers. If your copy is heavy with numbers, percentages or other quantitative data, give your readers a break. Use word pictures, descriptions and metaphors to engage their imaginations and illustrate the meaning behind the numbers. State the numbers first and then add the picture: “One out of every five children will go to bed hungry tonight. Imagine a typical classroom. See that boy in the blue sweater, seated at the last desk in the front row? His mother lost her job last week and can’t afford groceries.”
Evocative action verbs form the basis of all good copy and are a writer’s best friends. If you struggle to find such words when you’re in the middle of a project, make lists of possible words and jot down verbs that strike your fancy as you surf the web or read journals. Soon, you’ll have your own personal lexicon of energy-packed super verbs.
8. Freedom to choose.
4. Justification.
Test the phrase in your copy, and you’re likely to see it outperform the control. Variations on this theme include “It’s your call,” ‘You can decide” and “It’s your choice.” The exact wording matters less than acknowledging that the consumer is exercising his or her will by taking action.
Justification offers a plausible reason behind your call to action. In copywriting, it taps into unconscious mental scripts and shorthands that enable you to rationalize your own actions. If someone cuts in line in front of you at the ATM and murmurs, “Excuse me, may I go first? My grandmother is waiting at the pharmacy counter and I need to get some cash quick to pay for her medicine,” you probably won’t put up much of a fuss. This particular justification taps into your cultural programming to show empathy toward the elderly and the sick. It’s a little trickier to code this psychological technique into your copy, but writers will find great success when they do it well. L’Oreal Paris cosmetics used this technique in its “Because I’m worth it” campaign. The commercials and print ads played on women’s feelings of self worth and celebrated the brand’s products as a way to act on that justified belief.
5. Offbeat word pairs. Offbeat pairs make your headlines memorable. The technique jars your mental radar out of its complacent preset, making your mind sit up and take notice. “Poor rich” is one example of a bizarre pairing. Others are more subtle. Headlines can use this tactic, too: “Run Your Company Like a Lemonade Stand “ or “The Car That Flies” both defy expectations.
6. Textured Adjectives. Like strong action verbs, textured adjectives add layered meaning and create a mental image. “Hot” is a concrete term, but “blistering” is much stronger because takes the meaning to a higher degree. The mind attaches emotion to words that carry texture and feeling. Use your adjectives
It sounds counterintuitive, but emphasizing your customer’s freedom to choose can be a powerful inducement to select your product of service. A study conducted in 2000 showed how adding the phrase “but you are free” to a direct request for money drastically increased the odds of securing a gift.
9. Indirect claims. Indirect claims are tied to the brain’s quest for context. They force the reader or listener to form the meaning behind the claim, whereas direct claims can indicate no meaning other than what’s explicitly stated. “The sweetness of a ripe peach” is a better claim for a natural-based candy than simply saying, “It’s very sweet.” The comparison puts the reader’s imagination to work, thinking on the juiciest fruit he or she ever ate. An article featured in the March 2013 Journal of Advertising explored the psychology behind this tactic. Self-generated inferences -- formed from indirect claims -- proved much more effective than direct claims.
10. Second-person perspective. Writing in the first person centers on “I,” while the third person deals in “she” and “he.” But the second person is even more immediate because it in hinges on “you.” One study found “you” statements outperformed neutral statements in terms of making people believe the copy is relevant to them. “You” encourages your readers to consider their own needs and feelings first. It directs the statement to the audience so they can absorb and internalize its meaning. Eric Siu is the CEO of digital marketing agency Single Grain, which has helped venture-backed startups and Fortune 500 companies grow their revenues. He’s also the founder of the marketing podcast, Growth Everywhere. Image credit: Matt Dutile | Getty Images
Brandspeak
What’s New In Marketing Technology? By Greg Silverman
Usually when one travels to London, you can expect gray, cold weather, marginal food, reserved people and things that work quietly. At the MarTech Europe 2016 conference in London, we had the opposite experience: bright sunny days, very good food, upbeat people and a presentation clicker that did not work. What was the attraction? Catching up on the trends in marketing technology. In case you don’t have time to review the presentations, here is a summary of the major themes.
Marketing technology is not the problem. Marketing used to be about messages and media. Now it’s an exponential combination of marketing, media and mechanisms. This complexity has created the need to adapt; the tools are not creating the complexity. Check out Shawn Kanungo’s presentation, “Beyond Creative Destruction.”
Marketing technology is not the solution. In historical surveys, the top issues for years were better integration and better analytics. In a recent Walker Sands survey, the top issue for 2017 is making better strategy. Now that the tools and systems are improving, it is clear that agile, adaptable and quick-learning strategies are top of mind. Ulrike Eder, chief commercial officer of drie Secure Systems, did a great job presenting this topic.
Marketing technology does not devalue people. Although technology has moved to the forefront, most marketers do not have great technology training. We are taught the Four Ps, not artificial intelligence. To make any program work stills requires people to monitor and manage these new systems. If you really make an investment as a marketer, people will learn—making your investments all the more impactful. Give a close read to “People: The Important
Piece of Martech Integration” by Brian Harte from Tourism Ireland and Sophie Wooler from iProspect.
Marketing technology was not over-hyped. The addendum to this clause should read: “for the first time at a conference.” After years of the promise of a “golden era” fueled by technology, people are aware now that it’s not enough to buy stuff. You have to be prepared to change structure, process, and culture. Don’t miss “10 Myths Martech Vendors Perpetuate” by Theresa Regli from Real Story Group.
Marketing technology takes a multidimensional commitment. Not only does management need to be prepared for a multi-year transformation, it needs to be prepared for other changes as well. Cross-functional teams will need to work together. Agencies and consultants will be de-emphasized. Decision-making processed will need re-engineering. Organizational change will be comprehensive. “Industry Perspectives from Marketing Tech Disruptors” is an excellent discussion. It features David Hurley from Mautic, Patrick Tripp from Redpoint Global and Will Senior with Google. There was a call from keynote speaker and conference chair Scott Brinker for a single application to bring all these pieces together for strategic support. In his review of the industry that includes about 4,000 companies, he identified the need for a company that uses complexity science and other advanced methodologies to predict emergent outcomes that influence strategy. Greg Silverman is CEO and Co-Founder of Concentric, a software company based in Cambridge, Mass., that measures and predicts the return on investment of business and marketing initiatives.
How Brand Marketers Measure Digital Video Advertising MORE RESPONDENTS WANT TO BE ABLE TO ASSESS HOW IT’S DOING VIA ROI AND COST PER ACQUISITION By eMarketer
US brand marketers gauge how well, or otherwise, their digital video ads perform in a variety of different ways. Today, most measure digital video ad performance by looking at site traffic, June 2016 research indicates, but in the next year or two, more respondents want to be able to measure via cost per acquisition. Brand and media consultancy Sequent Partners and Eyeview, a video marketing technology company, surveyed 202 US brand marketers who worked in the automotive, CPG, retail and travel industries. Respondents all worked for companies that currently buy digital video ads and are involved in their company’s media budget setting and allocation process. Nearly three-quarters (71%) of brand marketers said they currently determine their digital video ad performance by watching site traffic. And more than half of respondents said they look at their return on investment (ROI). Brand metrics, as well as store traffic, are other ways they currently measure digital video advertising.
When asked how would they want to measure it in the next year or two, site traffic was still the top measurement mentioned. Indeed, 73% of respondents said they would want to measure it that way. Meanwhile, 38% of brand marketers said they would want to measure digital video ad performance by looking at the return on ad sales (ROAS). To compare, just 29% of respondents said they measure it that way today. And one of the biggest differences was that nearly two-thirds of brand marketers said they would want to measure digital video ad performance by the cost per acquisition, order or sale. Only 40% of respondents said they do just that today. Measuring effectiveness across devices and content platforms is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. June 2016 research from ad tech firm FreeWheel of ads on its network found that completion rates were better with larger screens and longer content. In Q1 2016, completion rates for US digital video ads on over-the-top (OTT) devices such as connected TVs were 93%, compared with 78% for smartphones and rates in between for tablets and desktops.
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Digital Influencer: A Guide to Achieving Influencer Status Online Kindle Edition By John Lincoln
Sinker Make a Killing With Content: Turn content into profits with a strategy for blogging and content marketing. Kindle Edition
Featured on Forbes as one of the best marketing books to read this year! This book offers exact, step-by-step strategies to reaching influence status and dominating your industry. It has received raving 5 star reviews across the web. Get it now!
By Lacy Boggs
The Power of Broke: How Empty Pockets, a Tight Budget, and a Hunger for Success Can Become Your Greatest Competitive Advantage Kindle Edition
Brand Identity Breakthrough: How to Craft Your Company’s Unique Story to Make Your Products Irresistible Kindle Edition
By Daymond John, Daniel Paisner
Amazon #1 Bestseller in Public Relations and Sales & Selling for Small Business Does your business have a story to tell? It should! From the moment you first opened your doors, you began crafting it. With every new product you release, you carve out an even more unique niche in your industry. This all builds up to one thing— brand identity.
The FUBU founder and star of ABC’s Shark Tank shows that, far from being a liability, broke can actually be your greatest competitive advantage as an entrepreneur. Why? Because starting a business from broke forces you to think more creatively...
The goal of this book is to give readers the confidence to put together their own content marketing strategy for their business that starts with a blog and ends with a sale. It’s something any business owner can do provided she has the right knowledge and framework to put together a plan and then execute it!
By Gregory Diehl, Alex Miranda
Content That Converts: How to Build a Profitable and Predictable B2B Content Marketing Strategy Kindle Edition
The Conversion Code: Capture Internet Leads, Create Quality Appointments, Close More Sales Kindle Edition
By Laura Hanly
By Chris Smith
This book is for entrepreneurs and the leaders of B2B businesses who want to use content marketing to bring a predictable stream of qualified leads into their sales cycles, and need a replicable system to make it happen. It provides that system, a step-by-step process that can be executed in any business to generate qualified leads and more conversions with content marketing.
Archetypes in Branding: A Toolkit for Creatives and Strategists By Margaret Hartwell, Joshua C. Chen Archetypes in Branding: A Toolkit for Creatives and Strategists offers a highly participatory approach to brand development. Combined with a companion deck of sixty original archetype cards, this kit will give you a practical tool to: Reveal your brand’s motivations, how it moves in the world, what its trigger points are and why it attracts certain customers. Forge relationships with the myriad stakeholders that affect your business...
The Conversion Code provides a step-by-step blueprint for increasing sales in the modern, Internet-driven era. Today’s consumers are savvy, and they have more options than ever before. Capturing their attention and turning it into revenue requires a whole new approach to marketing and sales...
The Brand Flip: Why customers now run companies and how to profit from it (Voices That Matter) By Marty Neumeier Best-selling brand expert Marty Neumeier shows you how to make the leap from a company-driven past to the consumer-driven future. You’ll learn how to flip your brand from offering products to offering meaning, from value protection to value creation, from cost-based pricing to relationship pricing, from market segments to brand tribes, and from customer satisfaction to customer empowerment.
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Aaker on Branding: 20 Principles That Drive Success
Advertising & the Business of Brands
By David Aaker
By Bruce Bendinger
“Aaker on Branding” presents in a compact form the twenty essential principles of branding that will lead to the creation of strong brands. Culled from the six David Aaker brand books and related publications, these principles provide the broad understanding of brands, brand strategy, brand portfolios, and brand building that all business, marketing, and brand strategists should know.
Twelve of the top professors in ad education team up to create an up-to-date introduction to the fastchanging worlds of advertising and marketing. If you want to learn how the ad business really works and where you can get started, this book is worth reading. From the Introduction all the way through “You and Your Career.” Want to know more? Visit the Study Hall at adbuzz.com and try the Practice Tests.
60-Minute Brand Strategist: The Essential Brand Book for Marketing Professionals
Star Brands: A Brand Manager’s Guide to Build, Manage & Market Brands
By Idris Mootee
By Carolina Rogoll, Debbie Millman
60-Minute Brand Strategist offers a fast-paced, field-tested view of how branding decisions happen in the context of business strategy, not just in marketing communications. With a combination of perspectives from business strategy, customer experience, and even anthropology, this new and updated edition outlines the challenges traditional branding faces in a hyper-connected world.
For anyone who wants to learn the fundamentals of branding in an approachable way without poring over dense text or hiring an expensive consultant, Star Brands presents a unique model that offers structured guidance and professional tips for building, managing, and marketing any brand. Created by savvy brand manager Carolina Rogoll, the star brand model is a perfect intersection of solid marketing...
Building Better Brands: A Comprehensive Guide to Brand Strategy and Identity Development
SEO 2017: Learn search engine optimization with smart internet marketing strategies Kindle Edition
By Scott Lerman
By Adam Clarke
This book is the essential guide to creating and evolving brands. Leveraging three decades of brand consulting for legendary companies like Caterpillar, Harley-Davidson, 3M, Owens-Illinois, National Australia Bank, and American Express, as well as middle-market and new-media startups, Scott Lerman shares the processes and frameworks needed to build great brands.
No matter your background, SEO 2017 will walk you through search engine optimization techniques used to grow countless companies online, exact steps to rank high in Google, and how get a ton of customers. First, let me tell you a little secret about SEO marketing...
The Advertising Solution: Influence Prospects, Multiply Sales, and Promote Your Brand Kindle Edition
Idea to Execution: How to Optimize, Automate, and Outsource Everything in Your Business Kindle Edition
By Craig Simpson, Brian Kurtz
By Ari Meisel, Nick Sonnenberg
Distilling the wisdom of the world’s greatest advertisers, direct marketing expert Craig Simpson delivers an education on direct marketing and advertising copy that creates brand awareness, sells products, and keeps customers engaged. Walks readers through time-tested methods of creating effective ad copy that increases profits.
When Ari Meisel and Nick Sonnenberg launched their high-end virtual assistant (VA) company, Less Doing™, they changed the culture of startups forever, effectively debunking the gospel that every new venture requires months of preplanning and a hefty investment of capital.