Do You Have a 2017 Cross-Device Strategy?

With mobile now a key platform for digital display ad, social media and e-mail viewing, and even print integrating with mobile and online, marketers clearly need a 2017 cross-device strategy. As a 2016 Econsultancy survey noted, only 14% of marketers said their company was able to handle the customer matching across multiple devices, even though almost three-fourths of respondents felt cross-device customer tracking was a strategic priority. A recent Direct Marketing News article by Pierre DeBois offers some good tips for initiating a cross-device strategy. Start with analytics platform reporting now that Google Analytics, Piwik and Adobe Analytics all offer a user ID feature, a modification to the analytics tag, to allow cross-device visits to be an identifiable segment in the analytics reports. DeBois also suggests setting up report filters for digital traffic to take advantage of what is already known about the digital points at which customers engage, such identifying web traffic by the IP address of a store site to track customers who shop the site while in-store. A mobile site that makes it easy for customers to act immediately—whether they want to order, call or download—is a must. With strong mobile traffic, a marketer can even develop enough audience to support an app launch. Since accessing social media is a key activity for mobile users, and video viewing continues to soar, marketers will want to leverage social traffic stats and demographic parameters to tailor content to social media platforms, with an eye to mobile and visual/video impact. DeBois cites the Google Customer Journey tool as one way for marketers to adjust when media content should be deployed. Then design ads for cross-device viewing and response and take advantage of the paid search platforms' expanded mobile and IoT (Internet of Things) offerings, with device selection for re-marketing and paid search ads, call extensions and cross-device reporting. For the full post, go to http://www.acculistusa.com/do-you-have-a-2017-strategy-for-cross-device-marketing/

Don't Let Basic Flaws Doom Content Marketing

Content marketing may top 2016 agendas, but, as Ernan Roman, president of ERDM, points out in an insightful post for Forbes magazine's CMO Network, too many content strategies are headed for failure. Roman notes that although 81% of marketers are involved in content marketing, only 28% of organizations say they are effective, and he can cite five sources of that ineffectiveness. He starts with a basic failure to craft content based on customer research rather than general assumptions. Second, even if marketers know what engaging content looks like, too many don't know what an effective content strategy looks like; research shows only 32% of companies actually have a documented content marketing strategy, he points out. Third, part of the strategic vacuum is lack of content marketing success metrics. Such metrics could include increased lead quality/sales, increased web traffic, brand awareness lift, increased SEO ranking and increased renewal rates/subscriber rates, Roman suggests. Fourth, companies may not fully commit to content marketing because they don't realize its impact on brand perception; Roman points skeptics to research showing 60% of consumers seek out a product after reading content about it, and 82% feel more positive about a company after reading custom content.  Finally, with inbound marketing delivering 54% more leads than traditional outbound marketing, marketers miss ROI if they fail to use content to drive inbound web traffic. For the full post: http://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2016/03/07/five-ways-cmos-are-failing-at-content/#6a926bc8420a

Predict Your Marketing Plan Fate (Sans Crystal Ball)

It's that scary time of year when many marketers finalize plans for 2015 success, and Halloween celebrates a very different kid of future insight via black magic, spirit guides, tarot cards and the like. Now Marketo brings together those two disparate seasonal themes with "What's in the Cards," an infographic of the three factors most predictive of a marketing plan's fate, based on interviews with 400 marketers. Planning Secret No. 1: "Write Your Marketing Destiny," meaning generate a documented plan of action, clearly stating strategy and tactics, with stakeholder buy-in and individual accountability. You'll be joining 66% of marketers interviewed, who use a shared planning document to dodge the most deadly marketing failures, including constantly changing directions and priorities, lack of coordination within the marketing team, and lack of coordination between marketing and other teams. No. 2: "Add a Mix of Techniques and Channels," ranging from e-mail, social and pay-per-click to offline events. Get the right mix by analyzing audience preferences and behavior and then, of course, testing and measuring. No. 3: "The Right Calendar Makes You a Mind-Reader." Two-thirds of marketers interviewed stressed the importance of a marketing calendar, ranging from high-tech online tracking to simple whiteboard. Top calendar requirements cited were easy movement of activities, tracking of tentative vs. confirmed activities, filtering by attributes (channel, product, audience, segment) and a view of the metrics per program. Share Marketo's infographic Halloween treat with marketing team members by going to http://blog.marketo.com/2014/10/infographic-whats-in-the-cards-decide-your-marketings-fate.html

Time to Create a Video Marketing Strategy?

Marketing statistics are showing the potential power of online video in terms of audience, engagement and response, but successful video marketing requires a careful strategy. A recent MarketingProfs article by Michael Litt, CEO of video marketing platform Vidyard, comes to the aid of video neophytes, suggesting five basic steps for achieving video marketing goals. Step No. 1 is to decide what your video content seeks to accomplish for the brand, including defining the audience, its needs and desired added value at the outset. Step No. 2 moves on to selecting video story topics (questions from the target audience are one starting point) and then the type of video (webinar, how-to, leader interview, product demo, customer testimonials, case studies, etc.) that fits with the story-telling. Step. No. 3 is to assess resources and budget and clearly assign responsibility for video creative and content. Whether the video is put together by an in-house team or outsourced to an agency, don't neglect key stakeholder feedback during the process. Next, decide where the video will reside on your website and direct customers and prospects there. Note that YouTube is a great distribution channel but it serves competitors and distractions, too, so make sure you have links to your site within SEO-optimized YouTube descriptions and a destination on your site where prospects can learn more. Finally, measure results by setting up metrics-gathering from video platform and distribution, including attention span and drop-off rates, click-through rates and video consumption patterns. For more detail, go to http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2014/26187/five-steps-to-creating-a-video-marketing-strategy

Firms Alter Social Tactics Due to Low Buying Impact

Marketers are refining social media strategies as research shows social media's minimal direct effect on purchasing, reports the Wall Street Journal. Companies are taking note of information like the recent Gallup poll finding that 62% of the more than 18,000 U.S. consumers questioned said social media had no influence on their buying decisions. Gallup concludes that "consumers are highly adept at tuning out brand-related Facebook and Twitter content." At the same time, brand advertisers must deal with Facebook's changed management of users' news feeds, going from a largely chronological stream to featuring items Facebook thinks users will want. As a result, brands reached just 6.5% of their fans with Facebook posts in March, down from 16% in February 2012, according to EdgeRank Checker, a social-media analytics firm. So U.S. companies, which spent $5.1 billion on social-media advertising in 2013, are beginning to shift gears. Per the WSJ story, many are no longer seeking to maximize the quantity of Facebook fans or Twitter followers as much as the quality of interactions, by tracking brand mentions for example. However, this adjusting of social marketing strategies hasn't hurt Facebook so far, according to WSJ. Facebook first quarter net income nearly tripled on a 72% increase in revenue. For more of the article, read http://online.wsj.com/articles/companies-alter-social-media-strategies-1403499658

Online Review Turns Customers Into Advertisers

With customers the most influential source of brand advertising today, marketers need to embrace online review to feed the customer relationships and loyalty that create brand advocates, urges Trustpilot CMO Jan Vels Jensen in a recent imediaconnection blog post. A Nielsen survey finding that 84% of respondents said word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family were more trustworthy than brand advertising should be a wake-up call to marketers about the value of customer voices. Creating an online review community shows consumers the human side of the brand before they make a purchase and allows companies to build trust and social proof, says Jensen. Brands can generate 40% additional revenue each year and lift sales by 18% by highlighting customer voices and incorporating online reviews into their advertising strategies, according to his data. Online reviews have also been shown to increase conversion rates, prevent basket abandonment and encourage repeat purchases and brand advocacy, he adds. And when customers are alerted to online reviews, it affects click-through rates on paid and organic search. Read the complete post at
http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2014/07/14/how-to-give-the-loudest-voice-to-your-best-advertisers-your-customers/

Forrester Urges Refocus on Customer Needs

It's time to make some New Year's marketing resolutions. A recent Forrester Research report prompts one good goal for 2014: Put customer needs ahead of the latest "shiny object" technology or channel. Complexity, technology faddism, and a disconnected entrepreneurial culture are slowing marketers down, yielding bad data, duplicating integration costs, and ultimately creating a poor-quality experience for customers, researchers warn. Forrester urges marketers to adopt a clear strategy focused on customers’ needs, and suggests these steps to success: Select a target customer and focus on a customer life cycle stage; identify the fundamental customer need(s) to fulfill and what benefit(s) customers want next; explore how to deliver these benefits in a technology-agnostic manner; then select the desired delivery method to develop, commission, or license; and make sure to set key performance indicators (KPIs). Pretty basic, right? But some marketers, overwhelmed by emerging technologies and channels, and fearful of being trumped by competitors, are forgetting basics in the rush to embrace hot new marketing tactics. By failing to aim at the only target that counts--the customer--they risk costly marketing misses. See the MediaPost article on how to refocus on customers in the year ahead: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/211410/forrester-offers-seven-steps-to-better-marketing.html