Why you’re so lucky, Tips, Mini-Case Study and News
Friends and colleagues,
You are among the luckiest people I know. You are marketers. You are artists, statisticians, technologists, anthropologists, therapists (if you work with “creative” people…) and more. But you may also feel like hunted prey. The advent of “native” ads, programmatic ad buying, real-time KPIs and pernicious procurement professionals (yes, I just wrote that) has even the most confident among us a little twitchy, right? The truth is, our world, our community, is in transition. What we do and how we are perceived is changing. And wildly fast. This is more than a Gladwellian tipping point. This is a full-on inflection point, a point of departure. My point: I need a huge beer. My second point: With rapid change comes opportunity and lots of it. Be not afraid, be aggressive, test the new stuff, lean in, learn, rinse, repeat. Be the renaissance marketers you were and still are.
Ok, that was kinda heavy. Had to get that off my chest. Now on to the meat of this sandwich.
Tips
- I like big buttons and I can not lie. The keys to successful mobile marketing campaigns: relevance, brevity, offers and big buttons. Make sure it matters to the user, keep heads shorter and simpler than you would in email; or on a site use large, high contrast images; give them a coupon or some editorial premium and make sure CTAs (calls to action) are over-sized, fat-fingered, electric-colored buttons, not just text links or clever icons you can’t put your finger on (literally).
- Go mobile, but don’t go crazy. We’re being asked to design new sites for big companies with the following primary objective: Optimize for mobile. That’s good and smart, but remember that a large percentage of users still use desktop computers at work and home. So that site that’s designed exclusively for a handheld’s aspect ratio just doesn’t make much sense on a 15-17” monitor. Our reco: Keep design responsive and adaptive for all user experiences, not just mobile folk. The desktop is dying, but it ain’t dead yet.
- Hey, you! Part 2. You’re walking down a crowded street and someone yells your name from behind. What do you do? Turn around and look, right? Well, the same thing works with marketing communications. Personalization – which is now much easier to deploy – improves response and conversion as much as 25-50%.
- Let’s talk about me. Just like at parties, no one wants to talk to someone who only talks about themselves. So why do it in your mar.com? Tell your product’s or solution’s story in the context of your user’s experience. Bower, that’s frighteningly obvious, you say. But bet you a smoothie that more than 50% of your branding and communications is inside-out.
- Video is still killing the radio star. And now you can insert links into a product or solution video so that viewers can be instantly directed to pages on your site or landing page experiences that expand on the interest they’ve just expressed by clicking through. It’s kind of like pop-up video on an approved steroid. And it’s one of a range of technologies we’re deploying to respond to the many ways digital technologies are enabling consumer experiences. Note: I’ve just had one of my folks hit my knuckles with a ruler for typing that last sentence. Apologies for all the self-serving jargon!
- Use Facebook’s conversion measurement. Our friends in the Bay area have long offered the ability to show how a displayed ad results in a sale – on a range of devices. So if you saw an ad on your phone or on Facebook and then went home and made a purchase using your tablet, they can credit the original ad. This cross-device conversion metric has demonstrated that conversion rates can be 30% and higher for ads clicked within the last 30 days. You don’t need to be Nate Silver to think that’s not only cool, but really useful for planning campaigns.
Mini Case Study
Client: Clean Harbors
Challenge: Increase cross-sales of entire company “eco-system.” The company works with 95% of Fortune 50 for the targeted vertical market, but wanted to expand their footprint within these firms.
Solution: Based on survey research, transaction analyses and sales feedback, we developed an omni-channel thought leadership campaign which provides value-added case studies, “brown-bag webinars,” checklists and other value-adding communications addressing the evolving needs and pain points of their Clean Harbors customers while demonstrating the depth and breadth of their service offering.
Results: Within the first year and a half of the effort cross-selling revenue increased by almost $28 million.
News
- We’re expanding in Europe and Asia. Our clients have asked us to and we’ve been lucky enough to develop some relationships over yonder that will make it easier and more efficient for you to do business overseas. More details soon.
- We’ve added a new content marketing group (click here to learn more).
- We’re adding a range of mar.tec (marketing technology) solutions and analytics partnerships to enhance our ability to respond to the changing landscape I referred to hyperbolically in the beginning of this note. Details will be posted on our site.
- There’s more but per tip #4 above, I will shut up and ask you to tell me what’s new and exciting with you. Please, I’d like to hear and learn from you.
Best,
Jay
P.S.: If, for whatever reason, you’d rather not receive these occasional notes, please let me know.
P.S.#2: Want to know why I don’t mass customize these notes through an email service provider like Constant Contact, MailChimp or Responsys? Ask me.