Digital Lead Gen Forecast to Dominate Sales Funnel

Marketers consistently say quality lead generation is their top challenge, but the path to success can get lost in today's complex multichannel environment. A 2016 marketing forecast by Salesforce Principal of Marketing Insights, Matthew Sweezy, opines that marketers should recognize a fundamental sales funnel shift: 60% at the middle of the sales funnel must now be devoted to digital rapport-building and lead generation, leaving 20% of the funnel for traditional marketing at the top and 20% for sales acquisition at the bottom. The new sales funnel reflects today's overconnected, multichannel marketing challenge. By 2020, there will be seven connected devices for every person on earth (Gartner Research) and the average person already sees 5,000 ads a day from all channels, not counting social (Yankelovich). Bombarded by digital marketing messages, 18% of the U.S. audience already uses digital ad blockers, per PageFair and Adobe, undermining paid ad strategies. Consumers are also disturbed by big-data privacy concerns, with a third of customers abandoning a brand after a data breach, per The Economist research, so reluctance to provide personal information threatens data-gathering and targeting. The key, says Sweezy, is to give digital customers what they want, which is useful information and trust-building self-discovery (it's made Google is No, 1 in search), noting that 73% of consumers say that getting useful information is the most important factor in selecting a brand. Personalized targeting with behavioral, psychographic and internal data is key, and automation is a useful engagement system, but marketers must work smart. Retargeting ads for a product after purchase of the product just makes customers four times less likely to purchase again. And engagement must be swift, with the average consumer taking only 0.05 seconds to determine content value and 70% switching sites/apps if they are judged too slow. To capture the new digital middle of the funnel, companies need to improve the customer digital experience and close gaps by making frequent, small and socially interactive gestures that keep the brand in front of potential buyers and build trust and engagement, concludes Sweezy. For the whole presentation, go to Salesforce's Pardot blog: http://www.pardot.com/blog/future-marketing-2016-slideshare/

Celebrity Endorsements Don't Win Fans for Brands

Think a famous name touting your product or service will impress customers? Think again. Brand endorsements by celebrities and athletes are trusted less than all other methods of brand promotion, including digital ads, traditional ads and company-sponsored social media, according to a new global study by The Boston Consulting Group. Consumers put the most store in what family and friends say offline about a brand, followed by product reviews, expert opinions, and information from Google and other search engines. One reason trust matters: Brands that show their customers that they can be trusted are able to gather at least five to 10 times more information about customers to fill the Big Data marketing mill. Still, marketers must tread carefully because consumers are choosy about what info they entrust to companies, and financial and health data definitely rank higher on the privacy scale than brand preferences, age and gender. Millennials, despite a social sharing addiction, are about as concerned with data privacy as their elders. As a result, the data practices of financial institutions, social media, search-engine companies, and government arms garner more than twice the consumer concern than do branded manufacturers, airlines, hotels, cable providers or retailers offering loyalty cards. For more, see MediaPost's Marketing Daily story at http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/212917/endorsements-dont-earn-trust-for-marketers.html

DMA Lobbies to Deflect Attacks on Data Marketing

Legislative and regulatory champions of privacy are redefining "data broker" to include any firm that collects, uses, analyzes, aggregates, shares, or compiles data for third parties -- literally all direct marketers -- warns the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). "The threats to what we do are looming large, both in Washington, across the ocean and in state legislatures," declared Linda Woolley, president and CEO of the DMA, in a recent "AdWeek" report. DMA lobbyists hurried to Washington, D.C., in March to warn House and Senate commerce and judiciary committees about the potential adverse impact on the whole economy of restrictions on marketing data. Rachel Thomas, DMA vice president of government affairs, is quoted as stressing that direct marketers "are responsible for 8.7% of the GDP, $168 billion in spending, $2.05 trillion in sales, 9.2 million jobs." What alternative approach does the DMA offer for guarding consumer privacy? It's talking up the Digital Advertising Alliance's self-regulation program giving consumers the ability to opt-out of online behavioral tracking, along with initiatives to craft mobile guidelines. Meanwhile, it's using its Data Driven Marketing Institute, formed last year, in a campaign to educate and advocate on the benefits of data-driven marketing. It remains to be seen whether self-regulation and education are enough to calm politicians' fears about the new era of Big Data. For the complete story, see http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/direct-marketers-crank-lobbying-campaign-147872