Email Marketing Trends

Email marketing is a cost-effective digital marketing tactic that has the potential to influence purchasing decisions for a large audience. Unfortunately for digital marketers, spam filters are reducing the proportion of marketing messages that actually end up reaching consumers (even when they opted in to receive the email!).  Latest data indicates that only 79% of marketing emails reached their intended consumer (down from 83% last year).

It's an interesting trend that could have long-term impact if it continues. As spam filter algorithms become increasingly sophisticated, marketers will need to fully understand these algorithms to ensure their message is received by the intended recipients. If this trend continues, perhaps there will be an increasing shift towards text-based marketing...maybe even using the free messaging software of WhatsApp, Groupme, etc.

Source Article: http://www.netimperative.com/2015/10/email-marketing-inbox-placement-drops-4/

Customer Decision Journey, Digitized

Digital technologies over the past decade has empowered the consumers  and in response the retailers have scrambled to develop big data and analytics capabilities in order to understand their customers better and gain back the control.  Leveraging the emerging technologies, processes and organizational structures, companies are restoring the balance of power and creating new value for brands and buyers alike. Rather than reacting to the journeys the customers themselves devise, companies are increasingly managing journeys as they would any product.

Thinking about the customer journey as a product is leading to a major shift in how product investments are determined, prioritized, funded and measured. Firms are focused on how an investment improves economics of delivery a products and journey to the customers and how powerfully it reinforces engagement rather than just how it drives sales and reduces cost. Today, winning brands owe their success not just to the quality and value of what they sell but to the superiority of the customer journey they create.

Customer decision journeys are broadly describes as how people move from initially considering a product or service to purchasing it and then bonding with it. Narrowly it can also be defined as the sequence of interactions consumers have before they achieve a certain aim.

A typical customer journey can be broken down into various steps a customer takes during the decision process. The customer starts with the ‘consider’ step, follows an extended ‘consideration’ phase and ‘buys’ the product before entering the loyalty loop. In the loyalty loop the customer ‘enjoys’, ‘advocates’ and ‘bonds’ with the product.

In the classic journey, customer engages in an extended consideration and evaluation phase before entering the loyalty loop or proceeding into a new round of consideration and evaluation that may lead to purchase of a different product. The new digitized journey compresses the consider step and shortens or entirely eliminates the evaluation step, bringing customers directly into the loyalty loop and locking them within.

Companies that are building the most effective journeys master the following four interconnected capabilities:

1. Automation: It involves the digitization and streamlining of the various steps in the journey that were previously manual. For example, before ATM made it possible to deposit checks directly through them or by taking pictures of the checks through cell phones, customers had to make trips to the bank. Superior automation, which is highly technical, is turning complex back-end operations into simple engaging, increasingly app based front-end experiences.
2. Proactive Personalization: Based on the automation capabilities, companies should take customer information to instantaneously customize the shopper’s experience. But remembering customer preferences is just the beginning. At the moment the customer engages the companies must analyze the customer’s behavior and tailor its next interaction accordingly. On the retailer Kenneth Cole’s website some people see more product reviews, while others see more images because the company’s algorithm learns which content works best for the customer over time and renders the site accordingly, in real time.
3. Contextual Interaction: This step involves using the knowledge about where a customer is in a journey physically (entering a hotel) or virtually (reading reviews) to draw him forward into the next interaction the company wants him to pursue. Starwood hotel is rolling out an app where the customer gets her room number upon physically entering the hotel, checks into her room with a thumb scan and then unlocks the room though the contact of the app with the room door. Once inside the room the app sends timely entertainment and dining recommendations.
4. Journey Innovation: Innovation occurs through ongoing experimentation and active analysis of customer’s needs, technologies and services in order to spot opportunities to extend the relationship with the customer. Delta Airline’s app, for example, has become a travel management tool from booking and boarding to reviewing in-flight entertainment to ordering an Uber car upon landing. Key to these expanded journeys is often their integration with other service providers. Carefully handing off the customers to another firm can enhance the journey’s stickiness.

 

Link to the full article:

https://hbr.org/2015/11/competing-on-cusomter-journeys

 

Gamification for marketing

Think how involved we are when playing games. A lot of brands now are applying gamification in their marketing activities to boost customer engagement, which is showing great success. For example, Marks&Spencer, a major British multinational retailer, allows its loyal customers to exchange Sparks points for promotions or events. An Italian restaurant chain Pizzi launched an event on mobile where customers can play scratch card game inside the restaurants and getting prizes. 

The principle idea behind applying gaming to marketing is that it encourages users to progress with the event, boosting the level of engagement. When playing games like Candy Crush, to progress with the game, customers are very likely to do in-app purchase, watching an ads in exchange for an extra life or boost and competing with friends on Facebook. This high level engagement promote games revenue and also appearance on social media platforms. After all, marketers are trying to raise consumer engagement, especially now that ads blockers are becoming increasingly popular. Gamfication is a very good way to encourage consumers to take an active role in marketing activities. 

Reference: 

How brands are using gamification to boost engagement

http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/10/23/how-brands-are-using-gamification-to-boost-engagement/?cmpid=mwweekly_1699189&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=mw_weekly

Digital Marketing might soon become the only form of marketing

Snapchat and instagram are becoming exceeding popular channels for marketing. I was a skeptic of instagram marketing and I still feel like it is exploiting a channel that I thought was private and for sharing pictures but is increasing becoming monetized.

I have also always been amazed at the way presidential candidate or political figures around the world are marketed. I was the Indian Prime Minister try to reach the youth of the country through his use of social media and now it's interesting to watch the presidential candidates in the US presidential race do the same.


http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/here-are-9-eye-opening-digital-marketing-stats-past-week-167644

What are platforms doing with user’s data?

Recently, Facebook won dismissal of a $15 billion lawsuit accusing the company of secretly tracking the Internet activity of its users after they log off, because subscribers didn't specify how they were harmed.

However, should digital media platforms continue to use their subscribers’ information in an unwanted and unclear way, users may start to opt out or use technology that prevent these platforms to track them.

http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-wins-dismissal-15-billion-users-privacy-suit/301069/

A new way to sell Oreos

Mondelez International, owner of Oreos and several other food products, is over taking a huge shift in moving from traditional TV advertising to digital advertising. Over the past 5 years, their TV advertising spend is down 50% and expected to decrease further. Additionally, this is requiring training for executives and employees on digital media so that they understand the reasoning for the shift and can judge it's effectiveness appropriately.

This is something that I would expect any consumer product company to be focused on these days, and it seems that Mondelez is working all the digital angles -- Google, Facebook, Twitter -- to make it's strategy a success. One thing that does concern me for the future and is already starting to play out today, is that there are relatively few players in the digital marketing space who hold a huge percentage of the product. Between Facebook and Google controlling 80% of all digital advertising spend, does this create a monopoly and is it resulting in too much wealth and power being placed in too few company's' hands? I think so.

Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-way-to-sell-oreos-1445824919

Twitter Brand Hub

Twitter released something today called the “The Twitter Brand Hub” which helps advertisers and companies understand the "conversations" around their brands on the site. For example, as the article below explains, they can see data like who is discussing their brand (by location, gender, etc.) or how much their brand is being discussed relative to other similar brands. Ultimately, as the quote in the article suggests, Twitter sees this tool as a way for marketers to gain “valuable insights” into their brands.

I agree that this tool makes a lot of sense. As we have discussed in class, so much of marketing these days is on social media and word of mouth – how your brand is discussed on twitter is a huge factor for a company. The ability to have an abundance of data about those conversations seems very worthwhile.

What do you think of this new analytical capability?

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/twitter-unveils-tools-tracking-brand-conversations-167765

New Programmatic Exchange for TV Ads

Dish Network is hoping to woo digital marketers with a new programmatic marketplace for targeted TV advertising. Advertisers will be able to buy commercial time during live and DVR-playback TV on an impression-by-impression basis, targeted down to the household level and using real-time bidding. The hope is that by offering a programmatic marketplace like the ones used for digital media buying, now digital marketers will be enticed to purchase TV advertising because the exchange/purchase is in the format they are used to. Dish Network states that the goal is to promote efficiency and ease.

While I don't have experience purchasing TV advertising, I assume from an in-house marketers' perspective, life won't change much as we will still be purchasing via media buying agencies. For agencies, I imagine this type of marketplace would actually be desirable as it seems it is a more efficient and easy way to buy, especially for broad audiences which is usually the case for TV. Outstanding questions are how far in advance you could purchase, how Nielsen data/ratings effect purchase prices, how narrow you can target, and if other networks will join. The Dish Network marketplace platform is currently in testing and will be launched after successful testing is complete so specific timing is still TBD.

http://adage.com/article/media/dish-network-woo-digital-advertisers-programmatic-tv-exchange/301037/

Ad blocking: a perspective from Ad Blockers, Publishers and Agencies

While ad blocking has been around for years, it is now top of mind for marketers and publishers as ad blockers experience massive growth. The percentage of those using ad blockers in the U.S. reached 48 percent in the last year, and is estimated that ad blockers will cost publishers $22 billion this year.

To get a closer look and a better understanding of the topic consuming the business of digital marketing, Adweek last week gathered a half-dozen representatives of publishers, agencies and makers of ad blockers to talk through the key issues.

Read the interview here:

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/heres-what-happens-when-ad-blockers-publishers-and-agencies-get-together-talk-about-you-know-what-1677

Facebook implements new ad formats to support brands' marketing initiatives and to boost conversions.

 Facebook has implemented several new products to help brands increase their advertising performances.

The first product—Carousel Advertisements, allow brands to show multiple images and ultimately a link to some actions. The Carousel Ads are 10 times better at getting people to click through compared to the static sponsored posts.  Even the best of mobile banner ads garners only half of Click-Through Rate than that of a typical Carousel Ad.

The Carousel Ads also make users more likely to recall brands’ advertising campaigns. Compared with a 14-point lift from single-image ads, Carousel campaigns led to a 20-point boost in ad recall, as they allow for more of a conversation than a quick flyby.

In addition, Facebook announced earlier this week that it would feature on its mobile app a new video section, which would be populated with content that has been liked and saved by users, recommended by their friends, and posted by pages they follow. This approach would depart from Facebook’s current strategy of permeating users’ news feeds with non-targeted run-of-network videos.  Facebook also plans to improve its “Suggested Videos” tab to offer videos according to users’ profile and past viewing preference.

This could allow brands to provide differentiated viewing experience on YouTube and Facebook. Brands could post popular contents on Facebook such as media credits and recent campaigns, while utilizing YouTube to feature videos about product details and tutorials to cater to brand enthusiasts.

Moreover, Facebook rolls out a test of a Shopping feed that aggregates posts and photos about products on sale from brands chosen by users. There will also be a “Search” bar and a “Suggestion” tab, which includes brands that are recommended based on friends’ preferences. In addition, the Shopping feed includes a Canvas function, which subsequently takes users to a full-screen experience within Facebook, allowing them to browse merchandises and peruse product information. The platform will eventually enable e-commerce, from which Facebook decides not to take a percentage of sales.

Besides Facebook, other social media companies have also undertaken initiatives to facilitate interactions between brands and followers. WeChat, the Chinese all-encompassing app, has developed its own commercial “Shop” feature, allowing verified brand accounts to converse with clients to provide customer services, and to display and sell merchandises on the transaction platform developed in collaboration with Alipay. Pinterest will also soon team up with brands to allow people to plaster their immediate to long-term shopping plans on Pinterest boards, based upon which brands could fire different kinds of creative pins to encourage actions. Pinterest is also expanding tech partnerships and developing functionality offered through the ad software program to improve its metrics measurement and to optimize its behavioral targeting.

Links:

• http://digiday.com/platforms/facebooks-carousel-ads-10-times-better-regular-ads/
• https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/clicks-to-website/carousel/
• http://digiday.com/publishers/linkedin-uses-events-sell-ads/
• http://www.wired.com/2015/10/facebook-testing-shopping-section-app/

Are more publishers becoming skeptical of ad tech?

As we've learned in class, companies who advertise using real-time bidding ad tech platforms have concerns about whether the dollars being spent on digital advertising are worthwhile and being seen by the right audiences.  There seems to be growing skepticism regarding ad tech from the other side as well.  Refinery29, Facebook, Vice Media and Buzzfeed are among a growing set of publishers who have their own concerns when it comes to ad tech.  Chief among their worries is that annoying and disruptive ads served by ad tech platforms are leaving a bad taste, or worse, turning consumers away from publishers' websites.  Thus, these publishers are opting to take back control by building their own ad tech platforms or cutting out middlemen and selling ads directly.  If this trend continues to grow, ad tech firms will be forced to address publishers' concerns by ensuring that only quality ads will be shown on publishers' sites.  Over time, this should force companies to create better ads that will actually get shown to consumers.  Better ads will ultimately be better for all parties involved - consumers and publishers will be happier, and advertisers will become more effective in their marketing efforts.

Source:  http://www.wsj.com/articles/publishers-that-say-no-to-automated-ad-sales-1443650792

Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing

Creating or distributing content with influencers starts a conversation with a built-in audience. “Five to 10 percent of social media users are responsible for 60 to 80 percent of influence”. Source: NinjaMetrics. It is a strategy that is increasing over the years; in 2015:

• “84 percent of marketers planned to include it in their strategy.
• 47 percent considering the strategy “very effective,” and 34 considering it “somewhat effective.”
• 22 percent said it's their top customer acquisition tool.”

 If you want to reach your target you have to:

• Ask yourself: who does your target listen to?
• Do research identify influencers
• Secure their partnership
• Develop campaigns through their platform to their audience

But, you have to be careful. Influencers care about their brand and their fans. So, you want to reach fans that are potentially interested in your product. Moreover, you have to find influencers whose personal brand and fan interests match your company’s.

In conclusion, some recommendations to find the right influencer are:

1. Focus on engagement rather than the number of followers. Also, the platform the influencer uses is key for your customers’ engagement. If your consumers are more into Instagram, find an influencer at this platform.
2. The influencer has to be fan of the brand. It is important to have brand believers influencers, because their fans will know when they are being used as a marketing strategy.
3. Be creative and try to meet halfway. Goals are different between influencers and brands.
4. No one-night stands. It is important to build relationships with influencers, both the brand and the influencer would feel better working together and the audience will be more engaged.

Sources: General Assembly, NinjaMetrics, AdWeek.

Yahoo and Google sign new search deal

A few days ago, Yahoo and Google signed a new deal valid until the end of 2018, by which Google "will provide web search results, search ads and image search services" for Yahoo user queries.

While the deal is not exclusive - Yahoo will still be able to work with Microsoft's Bing - it is possibly facilitated by the fact that current CEO Marissa Mayer used to work for Google.

This could help Yahoo make some more out of its search engine, by using Google's technology as a prop.

More at:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/20/9577519/yahoo-google-search-deal

Youtube Red - Impact on video advertising

Google has recently made an announcement that it is launching a new subscription service 'Youtube RED' for users who want ad-free content on Youtube. Google obviously believes that there is a growing market for suscription users who dont want to be disturbed by ads. In this post, I would like to analyze the impact of this service on future of advertising.

 - Traditionally Youtube has been a cash cow for Google, generating around 9.5 billion USD in ad revenues each year (estimate). Average American are spending 1 hour 30 minutes each day watching videos on digital screens compared to a 4 hour watching time for traditional television. That is only expected to grow with the advent of high speed internet and big screen mobile phones.

 - Top Adveritisers have increased ad-spend on Youtube by a whopping 40% on a YoY basis. This clearly shows that youtube is a popular destination for advertisers to generate attention.

The important question to my mind is - how many people would want to pay 10$ a month just to ensure that they are not disturbed by ads. Mind you, majority of ads on Youtube can be skipped by users after 5 seconds and it is estimated that 80-85% of skippable ads are indeed skipped and only 15% of ads are watched for full 30 seconds. If this is indeed the case, would a customer pay 10$ a month just to say a few 5 second intervals on videos. If a person earns a wage of 50$ per hour, to spend 10$ per month, she has to save atleast 12 minutes each month. Assuming you usually encounter 5 seconds skippable ads, that would mean a total of 144 videos a month (~ 5 videos a day)

To my mind, there would not be a huge market for 'Youtube red' UNLESS they have separate content for normal Youtube users and paid users. If there is exclusive content for paid users, then we have a totally different discussion. And that is what Youtube plans to add in a couple of years - source exclusive content for Youtube RED.

If the product is successful, it would be a huge loss to advertisers as my instinct tells me that the subscribers for this service would be the exact segment that most advertisers would be interested in. Not having access to such people is going to be a huge discincentive for advertisers. Whether this sevice will cannibalize on revenues on regular Youtube is something to be seen in future.

City AM Becomes First UK Newspaper to Ban Ad Blocker Users

City AM is a widely referenced financial newspaper in the UK. It decided to run a trial to attempt to combat the recent rise in ad blocking technology. When you go to their site on Firefox web browsers, the site detects if you are using an ad blocker and then blurs out its content until you turn the ad blocker off. In our class, we have spoken a lot about the effects of ad blockers on the industry and whether we believe that consumers will pay for content in order not to have advertisements. I think City AM is betting that consumers will be more willing to deal with advertisements than pay for content. I think the way they are approaching this--by quietly rolling the concept out to only certain mediums and then checking the results before rolling it out more broadly--is a smart tactic. This move could very well annoy many people who go to the newspaper and drive them to a competitors site who is willing to let the consumers use ad blockers. I will be interested to see how this trial run goes for them and what the reaction is by consumers. If this trial ends up working out for City AM, I expected that we could see this sort of messaging rolled out by many online publications to combat the growing popularity of ad blockers.

Link: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/20/city-am-ban-ad-blocker-users

Uber is outpaced by 'the Google of Russia'

Russian search engine company Yandex, as we know, is one of the very few examples of success against Google domination across the world. What most of us probably don’t know is, Yandex is also pushing in other frontiers to put pressure on other global tech companies as well. Yandex has not only beaten Google in Russia, but has now entered the $1billion Russian taxi market to outpace and dominate Uber. According to an August article, Yandex taxi fleet is now more than 15,000 vehicles in Moscow, more than the combined fleet size of Uber and Gett. By the end of this year, Yandex plans to expand its coverage to 25 cities across Russia, while Uber is still conservative in the market, available only in 3 cities. Taxi market seems to have become a core element of Yandex strategy now, as the company also invested in another taxi software BiTaksi in Turkey, where Yandex search engine has also reached a considerable market share.

Yandex value proposition is quite obvious for Russian customers, as the typical wait time for taxis is 30 minutes in Moscow. Yandex has developed a software to integrate various taxi fleets in the city to reduce the wait times to 5-7 minutes. While Uber and Gett is mostly present around the city center, Yandex’s coverage is much wider, making it the top choice for many Russians. Yandex also uses an interesting marketing strategy to acquire customers in Russia, where Uber offers free ice-cream and movie tickets to its customers. Yandex, on the other hand, added two Tesla cars, which happen to be the only Tesla cars in Russia, to its fleet. Random rides with Tesla cars seem to have amused Russians, not to mention the hype they create as Yandex Tesla cabs drive around the city.

Yandex, just like Google, is trying to diversify from search engine revenues, which still accounts for more than 90% of their portfolio. It will be interesting to see how Yandex, and other search engine companies, will continue to diversify through expanding into and disrupting other businesses.

Click to see the Bloomberg article on the subject

If No One Clicks, Was Your Blog Post A Waste of Time?

In today’s world of instant shares and clicks and analytics, it’s easy to get discouraged when the words you poured your heart and time into sit unshared. However, your most “popular” posts in terms of clicks and shares may not necessarily be your most important

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/blogging/if-no-one-clicks-was-your-blog-post-a-waste-of-time-01351542#bDwf1UjQt2LqAPaH.99

CNN Unveils Millennial-Targeted Video Site Great Big Story

Based partly on the success and interest that advertisers have shown in "sexy" sites such as Vice and BuzzFeed, CNN is launching a new site GBS (great big story) to appeal to millennial intelligent consumers.GBS will release three to five non-fiction videos per day of untold stories about new frontiers, the human condition, planet earth and tastes and flavors. 

I chose to share this article because I believe the advertising approach that GBS plans to take may be a big part of the online advertising industry of the future. Rather than having any sort of display advertising, the website plans to build a loyal following first, and then create opportunities for advertisers to incorporate branded content to the site. For example, one of the content-pieces will be about how the Kool-Aid man came to be featuring the individual behind the character's voice. While Kraft (who owns Kool Aid), will not be sponsoring this particular video, it gives us a sense of the kind of opportunities that will be available to brands that choose to partner with GBS in the future.

Kind Snacks and Hewlett Packard have already signed on as sponsors:

Link to full article: 

http://adage.com/article/media/cnn-unveils-millennial-targeted-video-site/300975/

Here's Where Amazon and Google Could Make Their Next $100B

Forrester predictions establish that "public cloud services" is the key to future revenue making opportunity, which would establish Amazon and Google as even bigger players than they are today. Microsoft is also set to win but not to the same extent, as enterprise adoption of cloud services ramps up at an increasing rate meaning that the key to growth will be in "public cloud" rather than "private". What Amazon and Google do and can continue to do is set cloud services that are not only available to them, but also to other consumers, allowing businesses to "set their own software without having to build hardware to support it". It is likely that Amazon will leverage its platform and customer base to expand in the space and establish itself as one of its leading players.

Original article: http://www.wired.com/2015/10/amazon-google-make-next-100-billion/

CMOs Are Missing Trends In Digital Marketing Micro-Moment By Micro-Moment

CMO is the abbreviation of Chief Marketing Officer, who is responsible for the for overseeing marketing initiatives within an organization. Works to develop areas such as sales management, product development, and distribution channel management, marketing communications, including advertising and promotions, pricing, market research, and customer service. Yet, CMOs should have a new definition of Chief Moment Officers because they need to focus more on the interaction with the customers and what is called the “micro-moment”.

Micro-moments are intent-rich, reflexive moments when people reach for the nearest device-often their smartphones. Nevertheless, when it comes to digital marketing, too many CMOs push off mobile and put less weight on the usage of apps and other functions of the smartphones. Mobile’s role in the digital marketing ecosystem is often regarded as a potable version of the desktop web, it is reasonably believed that using mobile phones to spread ads and publish brand names is one of the most, even the most, efficient way of increasing traffic and brand awareness. Yet, mobile ads spend still lags behind with total Internet spend of approximately $50 billion of which mobile only represents $13 billion.  The problem is that mobile apps are designed to reshape how consumers search and make decisions about brands when purchasing or following what they are interested in. By micro-moments, I mean the clicks consumers make when browsing the apps, and reflexive moments when people reach for the nearest device-often their smartphones. Those moments of “I-want-to-do” and “I-want-to-buy” are the simple terms that Google used to describe micro-moments.

It has been proved, according to the article, that almost half of the customers expect a page to load in under 2 seconds; 29% of smartphone users will immediately switch to another site or app. Of those who switch, 67% switch if a mobile site or app takes too many steps to purchase or get desired information and 77% switch if a mobile site or app does not make it easy to find what they’re looking for. Therefore, CMOs must fully understand what their customers want and not to expect them as smart as themselves are by simply make the app easy to use and precisely satisfy their needs. A great example is Pinterest, which is an app that I recently started to follow and found really attractive after finding out how it knows my mind and help me categorize my interests. By simply entering what I’m looking for (e.g. baked potatoes), then all the recipes and restaurants that serve the best rated baked potatoes are presented with mouth-watering pictures and detailed yet simple recipes. An app is successful when you keep using it without the conscious of time lapse.

Therefore, for CMOs to win in these moments, simply start by understanding what these micro-moments look like for your business and the demands of the customers; once the answers are found, then anticipate future potential needs and design for them, eliminate and optimize app steps, reward customer engagement in every moment, bring together a cross-functional group of strategies to collaborate and align, and finally make the right investments in talent and technology. The key is learning to efficiently use resources and mobilizing them to earn attention in every micro-moment when it comes to advertisements and brand promotion.

Sources: http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolis/2015/10/15/cmos-are-missing-trends-in-digital-marketing-micro-moment-by-micro-moment/