Is Your Direct Marketing Ready for Generation Z?

Generation Z is arriving in the marketplace. Gen Z includes young people born in the mid-1990s to early 2000s, who are now graduating and getting their first jobs. They not only make up 25.9% of the U.S. population but will account for 40% of all consumer markets in 2020, with annual purchasing power of $44 billion and growing. But wooing Gen Z will require marketers to amend their playbooks. Oberlo, an e-commerce agency, and IWCO Direct, a direct marketing agency, recently discussed Gen Z marketing challenges in blogs, with similar conclusions. First, Gen Z members have a short attention span; marketers have only about 8 seconds to capture their notice, which is even shorter than the 11 seconds required to grab the attention of the typical Millennial. This means content must be targeted, relevant, to the point and quick to engage. Second, Gen Zers have a higher number of technological devices and are constantly jumping from one device to another. While Millennials bounce between three screens at one time, Generation Z can use up to five screens at the same time. Multi-channel, multi-platform, mobile-optimized campaigns are required. Third, Gen Z young adults have strong opinions and, raised to expect personalization, demand customized experiences. They will be critical of advertising that fails to meet their standards for authenticity and meaningful interaction. For example, Gen Z members want to buy from companies that support their values; 55% of Gen Z chooses brands that are eco-friendly and socially responsible. Yet Gen Z has less brand loyalty than prior generations and is less motivated by traditional loyalty programs, although they can be wooed with interactivity, such as online games or events. And while Gen Zers are definitely social media fans, they use social platforms differently. A study by Response Media found that Gen Z favors Snapchat to showcase real-life moments, gets news from Twitter and gleans some information from Facebook, although they see Facebook as a platform for older people. Market Wired research shows that Instagram is their most popular app for brand discovery, with 45% using it to find new products. YouTube video is another way to reach Gen Z. However, direct mail marketers shouldn't assume only a digital strategy can work with Gen Z. As IWCO Direct points out, Gen Z actually finds print media more trustworthy. An MNI Targeted Media study found that 83% surveyed said they turn to printed newspapers for trusted news instead of the Internet. Gen Z does not trust information on the Internet unless it comes from a website ending in .org or .edu. In fact, since Gen Z is online so often and using multiple devices, the biggest challenge is making a lasting impression, which is where trusted print material, such as direct mail, which can be physically touched and revisited, offers an edge as part of an omnichannel campaign. For more insights, see https://www.acculist.com/is-your-direct-marketing-ready-for-gen-z/

How B2B Marketers Can Up Social-Media Lead Gen

Some business-to-business marketers shrug off social media as a consumer branding and sales channel, sticking to company page branding and PR announcements on social platforms. They are missing a lead source, argues Tessa Berg, vice president of B2B agency Tenlo, in a recent MarketingProfs post. In deciding investment in social outreach to snag leads, start by profiling your target customers and where they gather on social platforms. Here's a hint: 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn, compared with 13% from Twitter. That doesn't mean B2B marketers should exclusively use LinkedIn. For example, Twitter allows for more direct interaction with prospects. And with the proven effectiveness of video marketing, why not leverage platforms like YouTube and Instagram to stimulate interest via product or branding videos? Social platforms want to monetize their audiences so the reach of organic social activity has been increasingly subordinated to paid advertising. At the same time, many social platforms have improved targeting options for paid advertising. So it makes sense to pair organic actions with highly targeted paid social ads. Social tracking data will uncover important insights into which content and messaging on which social channels generate the best engagement and site traffic. Clear calls-to-action driving to owned content (website or landing page) will help capture leads better than a generic "Contact Us." Offers of engaging content, say a video on product installation or an infographic addressing a key issue such as sustainability, also help gather lead contact data, Berg adds. Don't get stuck in a rut with success, however; vary the types of ads and the content of ads deployed to avoid losing audience interest. One easy, effective way to create relationships with prospective customers is to address the questions they pose on relevant platforms such as LinkedIn, Quora, and Reddit, Berg notes. As a bonus, you will likely boost SEO and keyword rankings. Also, most B2B organizations already create presentations on industry trends, product updates, and case studies, and this content is prime for social sharing, especially on platforms such as LinkedIn SlideShare. For more, see our full website blog post at https://www.acculist.com/social-media-isnt-just-for-b2c-the-right-tactics-build-b2b-leads/

Video Wins Key Place in 2018 Marketing Budgets

In supporting our digital marketing clients, AccuList USA has seen rapid growth in online video use, and a recent Forbes magazine article by John Hall, CEO of Influence & Co., cited video as one of six essential trends to include in 2018's digital marketing budget. Why? Researchers forecast that by 2020 online video will account for 80% of all consumer internet traffic. Already over 500 million people are watching video on Facebook every day. If you want a crack at that audience, you'll need to join the video world. That's especially important because video ads are not just good at promoting brand awareness and engagement; they deliver sales. Video creation service Animoto's most recent survey of 1,000 consumers and 500 marketers reinforces online video's clout: 64% of consumers say they purchase after watching branded social videos. No wonder more businesses are jumping on the video ad bandwagon and investing in paid/sponsored video as well as paying to "socialize" or promote videos. Helping the video boom is the relatively low production cost; in fact, 92% of marketers told Animoto they make videos with assets they already have. Meanwhile, a nationwide pricing survey of videographers and photographers found that the average small business marketing video cost less than $1,000 in 2015 and a medium-sized product demo video was around $2,000. Cost is not a barrier; coming up with engaging, targeted content is the challenge. So what platform will best deliver the target audience? Animoto's survey shows where consumers engage with branded videos daily: 49% on Facebook, 32% on YouTube, 24% on Instagram, 22% on Snapchat, and 22% on Twitter. Most brands hedge their bets by using multiple platforms, paying to capture eyes on YouTube and Facebook, for example. The more important goal, regardless of platform, is to optimize for mobile viewing since 84% of online video viewers watch on mobile devices--which is why 81% of marketers are optimizing their social videos for mobile viewership, per Animoto. Timing counts, too. Animoto's survey found 33% of video consumers watch during the lunch hour, 43% during the afternoon, 56% during the evening, 38% before bed, and 16% in the middle of the night. For more on online video trends, including tips on creative, see http://www.acculistusa.com/marketing-with-online-video-if-not-youre-behind-the-curve/

How to Harness Social Media for Nonprofit Success

At the upcoming Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) 2017 Conference, we expect to hear a lot about nonprofit social media strategy, so we wondered what social media trends are impacting fundraising this year. A 2017 Redstart Creative blog post identified several noteworthy trends. As in the rest of the digital universe, video is the new response-getting must; now nonprofits can use live video to boost reach and engagement via tools such as new Facebook features allowing live video to be pushed to followers in notifications or timelines. As social media algorithms reduce organic reach and ad competition intensifies, Redstart advises uncluttered "less is more," quality-over-quantity content that focuses on resonating with the target audience. "Reply and engage" should be a new mantra, too, especially since major platform Facebook began keeping score publicly on all brand pages last year by adding a notification that tells viewers how quickly the page replies to messages. Meanwhile, a NonProfitPRO post by Dale Nirvani Pfeifer, founder of Goodworld, cites three basic steps for donor engagement on social media. Step No. 1: Respond quickly. As Pfeifer notes, 83% of Twitter users and 71% of Facebook users expect a brand to respond to their posts within 24 hours, and more than half of Twitter users expect a brand to respond within 2 hours! Step No. 2: Get personal. Responses can include a personal touch, but less time-consuming tactics include tagging supporters in thanks, or a simple “like” or “share” of comments. Step 3: Honor your donors. Even without personalization, make donors feel special via “thank you” messages and the transparency/inclusion of postings of organization news and fundraising goals. Finally, a recent post on npENGAGE by Jeanette Russell, marketing director of the social engagement platform Attentive.ly, underscores the power of "influencer marketing." Attentive.ly evaluated 90 of its nonprofit customers and found that the top 5% of influencers on a nonprofit's e-mail list of 140,000 can reach an average of 34 million people, or 85% the total reach of e-mail and Twitter combined. To identify influencers, use a social scoring methodology based on measurable factors: reach/number of followers, engagement of followers, relevancy, post frequency, and relationship with the organization. Then segment the influencers and their messaging into three main categories, Russell advises: the few high-scoring VIPs; Media (Blogger) Influencers who can be recruited to post to followers; and Everyday Influencers, who may have lower scores but are already on nonprofit e-mail lists so they can be quickly mobilized. For more, see http://www.acculistusa.com/harnessing-social-media-to-drive-nonprofit-success/

2017 Event Marketing: Social, Visual, Data-Focused

Event professionals can look forward to some exciting new marketing trends in 2017--especially in the social, digital and data arenas--as recently highlighted in both an EventManagerBlog survey and a post by MarketingTango, the marketing blog for brands like PIP and Sir Speedy. Data, with a social twist, remains key, with many event professionals reporting to EventMB that they saw an increase in the amount and quality of data available through social media in 2016--data that can be used to improve retargeting and create better multi-channel campaigns in 2017. MarketingTango points out that tighter targeting of the right VIPs and digital influencers will allow marketers to ride their social media coattails to higher Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram traffic and maximize social data ROI. Underlying social media's growth as an event tool is its ability to boost engagement and professional connectivity. Certainly, per EventMB's survey, using contests and giveaways for posting or tagging in social media is a big trend with exhibitors, who not only reap booth traffic but free marketing buzz as people tag and share. MarketingTango likewise notes the growing use of a "digital social wall" to engage attendees in real-time and harness the power of hashtags to own conversations. Social media also offers more ways to connect, and EventMB's surveyed event pros reported increased use of Snapchat and Snapchat geolocation filters to meet and connect as well as use of guest-generated pop-up events such as Twitter meetups. Event marketers further stressed that today's attendees want websites and landing pages that are easy-to-use, faster and more concise, preferring bullets and visuals over wordy pages. Image-based platforms are winning more followers, and many event pros forecast growing popularity for video in event invitations and advertisements, virtual reality experiences to sell venues, etc. For more, go to http://www.acculistusa.com/2017-event-marketing-social-visual-data-focused/

PetSmart's 'Dog Day' Leverages Social Marketing

PetSmart took National Dog Day, not one of the nation's most well-known occasions, and made it the center of an imaginative social media marketing plan catering to dog lovers' passion for their pets, reported a recent Direct Marketing News magazine article. PetSmart engaged in social media conversations (more than 780,000 tweets) on the fun Aug. 28 dog recognition day and rewarded user-generated content, such as personal pet photos, with fun giveaways when users tagged @PetSmart with #NationalDogDay. As a result, PetSmart earned a whopping 56% of the #nationaldogday conversation in the Twitter pet space and positioned itself as a trusted partner of pet lovers. It's not the first time PetSmart has used a quirky national day to generate social media buzz; another effort included a dog-oriented promotion for National Lazy Day during the "dog days" of summer. As the DM News article points out, other industries can emulate the PetSmart social media tactics--and have--with promotions centering on National Underwear Day or National Doughnut Day, for example. For the full article, read http://www.dmnews.com/social-media/petsmart-barks-up-the-right-marketing-tree/article/437885/

2015 Retail Marketers Boost Social Media Use

Social media advertising, especially on Facebook, has moved up significantly as a favored acquisition tool of retailers, according to the recent State of Retailing Online 2015 survey conducted by Shop.org, Forrester Research Inc. and Bizrate Insights. Per a recent story by Multichannel Merchant, the survey found that 25% of retailers now cite Facebook as a top acquisition platform, although paid search and e-mail marketing still top their list of most effective channels. Among the paid social media tools, 50% of retailers said they are spending more this year than last year on paid Facebook options such as promoted posts and paid ads. YouTube came in second place among paid social choices, with 29% of retailers saying they will spend more on paid YouTube promotion, followed by Pinterest with 27% planning an increase, Twitter 22%, Instagram 20% and Snapchat 6%. For more from the survey, including trends in online marketplaces, search engine marketing and online site merchandising, see http://multichannelmerchant.com/marketing/facebook-is-the-top-acquisition-platform-for-retailers-22072015/

How B2B Marketers Can Leverage Facebook,Twitter

Business-to-business marketers remain leery of advertising on consumer-oriented social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, assuming their value is limited to targeting small businesses and sole proprietors. So our thanks to a recent Forbes.com post by Mike Templeman, who offers tips on how to turn Facebook and Twitter into more effective B2B lead generation tools. First, he advises, optimize your Twitter and Facebook business pages with branding, messaging and organic posts in an active posting schedule. Next set up remarketing tags on your website using Facebook and Twitter ad platform tools, which will allow your social ads to appear in a website visitor's Facebook newsfeed and Twitter stream. Then create social media ad campaigns that engage and entice traffic to your website--via promotion of interesting content such as blog posts, downloadable white papers and guides, or a webinar. You can extend the reach of these ads by uploading your own customer and prospect e-mail lists into the social media platforms, which will automatically match against existing members. Templeman advises that you can expect a 30% to 60% match rate for business e-mail addresses on Facebook and Twitter. Plus, your custom audience will now be able to view social ads on mobile devices, where 80% of social users view content. You can also use digital tools to build personas of best customers to better target your ad campaigns. But remember, the key to social marketing success, B2B or B2C, remains targeted, quality content. For more, read  http://www.forbes.com/sites/miketempleman/2015/07/23/how-facebook-and-twitter-fit-into-b2b-marketing/

Tips for Integrating Social Media and E-mail

In today's multi-channel environment, integrating social media and e-mail is key to enhancing the digital marketing power of both for business and nonprofit organizations. A recent Entrepreneur magazine article cited six creative ways to get social and e-mail working in tandem, and provided step-by-step instructions to boot! The six tactics include: 1) uploading e-mail subscriber lists to social networks (Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook); 2) retargeting e-mail subscribers/responders with social ads on Facebook and Twitter; 3) letting social networks send e-mails for you via notifications from social communities you join, such as LinkedIn groups; 4) automating e-mail to seek social shares by adding a CTA-share to an e-newsletter or leveraging personal e-mail sharing with tools such as SendBloom to get the ball rolling; 5) collecting e-mail addresses on Twitter and Facebook; and 6) creating an exclusive social group for e-mail subscribers. For the full article, go to http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244903

Are Facebook, Twitter Brand Marketing Wastes?

Facebook and Twitter are wastes of time and money for brand relationship marketing, concludes a report by Forrester Research. As a story in Fast Company magazine highlights, a recent Forrester study found that posts from top brands on Twitter and Facebook reach just 2% of their followers. Engagement was even worse; only 0.07% of followers actually interacted with posts. Fast Company cites this conclusion by Nate Elliott, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester: "It’s clear that Facebook and Twitter don’t offer the relationships that marketing leaders crave. Yet most brands still use these sites as the centerpiece of their social efforts—thereby wasting significant financial, technological, and human resources on social networks that don’t deliver value." So what's a better digital bet for relationship marketers? Try e-mail, which gets delivered more than 90% of the time compared with the 2% delivery of Facebook posts, Elliott advises. "If you have to choose between adding a subscriber to your e-mail list or gaining a new Facebook fan, go for e-mail every time," he writes. For the article, see http://www.fastcompany.com/3038801/brands-are-wasting-time-and-money-on-facebook-and-twitter-report-says

Personalization Key to E-mail's B2B Success

E-mail continues to be a medium of choice for business-to-business (B2B) digital marketing because of its effectiveness, says Patrick Kehoe, worldwide director of product marketing at HP Exstream, in a recent interview with eMarketer’s Rimma Kats. But Kehoe added an important caveat: "E-mail can be an effective delivery device, but it isn’t always an effective delivery device. You have to make sure that you’ve got the right messaging and the right personalization in it. If someone perceives that the content is not relevant to them, then they’re likely to ignore that message. We all get bombarded with hundreds of e-mails a day, and marketers’ focus needs to be to make sure that you’ve got the right subject lines, the right messages and the right content. Making it personalized helps reach specific individuals." Personalization is what sets B2B e-mail apart from many other digital options, including emerging channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter, Kehoe notes. "You can make e-mail so that it reaches out directly to an individual, and you can tailor the messaging and content for that person. That’s really tough to do when you’re using Twitter," he tells Kats. See the whole interview at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/B2B-Perspective-EmailStill-Medium-of-Choice/1010972

Social Media Still Lacks E-Commerce Sales Power

Social media, including Facebook and Twitter, face a long uphill battle in the e-commerce space when up against proven solutions such as e-mail and search, concludes a recent Ad Age article by Tim Dunn of the digital agency Isobar. One piece of evidence is global management consultant McKinsey & Company's 2013 survey finding that e-mail is 40 times more effective at acquiring consumers than Facebook and Twitter combined. McKinsey results also showed that the average order value prompted by e-mail is 17% higher than those prompted by social media. Consumers just don't head to social media to buy things; shopping and browsing products didn't even register as reasons for using Facebook in a recent survey by Pew Research. Dunn hastens to add that social interaction still has a place in the sales cycle, especially as consumers break down the distinction between content and commerce, and that the drive to interact can be harnessed by brands. He notes that fashion brand Free People's user-generated fashion showcase (called FPMe) not only drove passion for brand loyalists but also delivered a 42% increase in same-session sales conversion. However, Dunn advises marketers to exercise skepticism about using social to prompt immediate purchase and urges refocus on e-commerce basics, including touchpoint tracking, site experience and e-mail targeting. See the complete online post at http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/twitter-s-buy-button-a-gravy-train-brands/294031/

Twitter Helps B2B With E-mail-Based Ad Targeting

Twitter has expanded its appeal for b-to-b marketers with the announcement that it will allow advertisers to target Twitter users based on e-mail addresses, reported Ad Age. The new functionality opens an avenue for b-to-b lead generation, but the Ad Age article warns marketers that succeeding with Twitter requires an understanding of the special ways prospects behave on the site. Luckily, the article also provides several tips for success in e-mail gathering and targeting. Advice includes offering something of value in exchange for e-mail info; keeping conversion streamlined and cutting steps with the Twitter lead gen card (a landing page within a tweet); avoiding the hard sell in favor of the personal touch; using event hashtags to network, boost show traffic and gain followers; using promoted accounts and in-stream promoted tweets to build followers; and ways to test and measure results, including tracking conversions from promoted tweets, to optimize spending. For the full article, see http://adage.com/article/btob/ways-b-b-marketers-generate-leads-twitter/291109/

Social Video Marketing Options: Instagram or Vine?

Video and social media are hot content marketing tools, so which social video platform -- Facebook's new video capability for its Instagram photo-sharing app, or Twitter's Vine looping-video app -- give the most bang for your marketing buck? A recent MarketingProfs article by Russ Somers, vice president of marketing for Invodo, provides an interesting head-to-head comparison. When it comes to how well Vine and Instagram connect brands with viewers, he deems the winner to be Instagram since Vine's six-second video limit may be too short to tell a story, while Instagram offers fifteen seconds, basic editing capabilities, and the important ability to upload video from an iPhone. (Android phones, however, do not currently have this functionality.) How about reach? Vine lags with 40 million users compared to Instagram's 150 million, although Somers cautions that 100 million of the Instagram users are not necessarily all video fans since they joined before Instagram added video. Aggregated user-generated video content is a selling point for both platforms; it offers marketers a two-way channel of communication. If the goal is strictly to aggregate UGC, Instagram wins, even though brands aren't yet leveraging the video aspect of Instagram effectively, Somers rules. However, some of the best UGC campaigns, engaging fans on both digital and physical levels, are appearing on Vine, like Nissan's #VersaVid Vine campaign in which users printed out a paper Versa from a special site, folded it into shape, and created Vines featuring their paper car. The ease with which users find video content is another key marketing factor. Though both platforms allow the use of hashtags, they differ in other ways: Vine features categories and trending topics on their Explore screen, while Instagram encourages serendipity (merchandising of featured content). Those differences probably matter less than social media integration -- with Twitter (Vine) and Facebook (Instagram) -- which accounts for the majority of content discovery and works equally well for both apps. Somers concludes: If marketers have to choose only one, Instagram's bigger potential audience and story-telling advantage give it the edge. For the article, go to
http://www.marketingprofs.com/opinions/2013/24073/instagram-video-vs-vine-which-is-the-video-marketing-champ

How Marketers Can Spur Social Content Sharing

Social sharing of your digital content not only boosts marketing ego, it boosts Google search ranking and expands brand audience, according to studies. So how do you spur more sharing? A recent article by Tom Mangan of Reputation Capital Media Services, an agency offering content marketing support, helpfully summarizes the simple advice of multiple experts. Tip No. 1: Make it easy to share by adding social sharing buttons to your blog, website, e-mail, etc. No. 2: Make it exciting to share by adding an image. Web experts agree that any image, but especially an interesting and original graphic, increases sharing. No. 3 is a standard for marketing: Write an attention-grabbing headline. For a basic rule of thumb, keep it short and include a motivator for response or sharing, such as fear, exclusivity, greed or peer approval. No. 4 is more technically challenging: Use content meta data tailored to sharing on the social platforms targeted, which should be the platforms most used by your target audience. Examples are OpenGraph tags for Facebook and LinkedIn, and Twitter Card tags for tweets. And No. 5: Time your posts to maximize sharing. To hone in on the right day and time, you can start by learning directly from your own audience through your online traffic analytics. To read Mangan's article with helpful links, go to http://repcapitalmedia.com/how-to-get-people-to-share-your-content/

Pinterest Pins Outlive Twitter, Facebook Posts

A pin on Pinterest has a useful marketing life that’s thousands of times longer than that of a tweet or Facebook post, according to a new study by Piqora. The marketing response tail of a pin can last beyond 30 days, while Facebook posts can become obsolete in hours and the value of a Twitter tweet may expire in minutes. That's good news for a brand like Sephora, which says its Pinterest followers spend 15 times more than its Facebook fans. More marketers are figuring out how to put Pinterest to work for them as well. Piqora also found that Pinterest virality, the rate of "repinning," increased 42% from the fourth quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of 2013, which Piquora sees as an indicator that marketers are getting smarter in their pin usage. See the article at http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/17/why-the-half-life-of-a-pinterest-pin-is-thousands-of-times-longer-than-a-tweet-or-facebook-post/