Getting Fuzzy - Where Marketing ROI Measurement Falls Short for Small Businesses

 During a recent consulting project for a small DTC shoe company, my team found ourselves hyper-focused on building out channels that deliver clear ROI, along with the tools to measure it. Think Google Ads, Facebook Messenger, email marketing. For a small company just getting started, it's easy to justify investment in opportunities that clearly drive sales and make the company money. 

But how should a start-up think about their brand and the marketing tasks that come with building it? What is the value of brand awareness, and how can you generate it? How do you measure it? Many digital strategies like influencer marketing and organic social are great at generating awareness and brand loyalty, but they come with a hefty investment of time or money, and their ultimate impact on the bottom line is often unclear.

"Should we focus on brand awareness?" is a great question, but it's so difficult to answer that many small businesses automatically choose to kick the can down the road. Is this the appropriate choice? 

One one hand, the case can be made that passing on brand awareness at the outset is the smart move. At a startup, cash is king, and a startup has limited resources to invest in advertising. Putting money where the clear immediate returns are is important. 

On the other hand, a business needs to think about the type of customers they are acquiring. There is a lot of "low-hanging fruit" available through targeted digital advertising methods, but are these potential customers the best long term customers? Will they believe your brand message and stick around to make purchase after purchase over time? The low hanging fruit may be more transactional, and drawing customers in through brand awareness and affinity could have better long term return on investment. 

Ultimately, it's up to each business owner to decide how awareness fits into their marketing roadmap and brand vision. In some ways, the choice is between near-term measurement and long-term sustainability. Considering the pros and cons of each side of this decision can help small business owners ensure they make an active choice on this issue that aligns with their business goals. 

New Instagram Layout Places Focus on Reels and Shopping

Source: https://www.insider.com/instagram-update-new-layout-hate-reels-shop-notifications-james-charles-2020-11

Instagram recently rolled out an update to their app layout, moving the Notifications and New Post tabs up to the header, and replacing them with Instagram Reels and Instagram Shopping tabs.  This shift signals a significant change to Instagram's strategy as it seeks to maintain its dominance in the social media space.  

"Reels" is a direct competitor with TikTok, which has built a community of users around a variety of short-form content.  However, Reels has generally been negatively received by Instagram users & influencers, who claim that the feature wasn't wanted and that placing it in premium screen real-estate was unnecessary.  Furthermore, much of the Reels content on Instagram are simply cross-posts from the TikTok platform, suggesting Instagram has yet to develop a community around the new feature.

The Shopping tab allows users to browse and purchase products in-platform, and provides a new channel for businesses to promote and sell products.  Again not a "core" function of the app, users are upset that it's been placed in such a front-and-center location.  We have yet to see whether the backlash will force Instagram to revisit their old layout, but for now it appears that the app is full-steam ahead on its new features.

Digital Assistants: The New Marketing Frontier

 As Digital Assistants continue to penetrate our everyday lives and change the way that both older and younger generations interact with technology- marketers will have to discover how to convey their unique brand traits through these platforms. Brands will have to increasingly rely on sonic branding.

Some brands have already built strong sonic branding (ie. Netflix, McDonald's) but in a world where people are ordering goods through their digital assistants, it will become even more important. When choosing a sonic sound It needs to be distinctive but also something that won't get annoying after repeated listening. Additionally, companies will need to consider the UX by determining where the sound will play within the customer journey. 

Coronavirus and the Beauty Subscription Industry

 

Birchbox was founded in 2010 by two Harvard Business School graduates, and was a pioneer in the subscription economy trend. For a decade, Birchbox has delivered sample beauty products for subscribers to try out on a monthly basis, with the option of purchasing the full-sized products on its website. The company was valued in $485M in 2014. However, it has struggled in the last few years with its business modes. While subscription economy is booming, Birchbox does not make the majority of its revenue from the subscription boxes – its revenue relies heavily on converting beauty box converter into shoppers on its website, and they have not been very successful in doing so. In Feb of 2020, right before the coronavirus pandemic hit US, it was forced to let go 25% of its global staff to cut cost.

However, this changed after the pandemic. Birchbox noticed that as people noticed they were not going to be able to go outside for a while, they became more interested in pampering themselves and shopping online – and Birchbox is right at the intersection of that. Instead of targeting the beauty products enthusiasts, Birchbox noticed a significant uprise in the number of casual beauty customers. These are customers who are not super invested in the beauty industry, but now want to have something to look forward to on a monthly basis. Birchbox reacted fast, and shifted their marketing strategy and content to target this new and rising customer segment, to much success. Going forward, Birchbox is also focusing on sustainable and “clean” beauty, which also appeals better to the casual beauty customers.

Source:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lelalondon/2020/09/02/has-coronavirus-saved-beauty-box-companies-birchbox/?sh=4c0e10b13848

How Does Tik Tok “For You Page” Work?

 How Does Tik Tok “For You Page” Work?

TikTok users in the US has soared to more than 91 million by June 2020. As an active user myself, I’ve been curious to learn how TikTok creates my “fyp” (for you page) that caters to everything I am interested, ranging from cooking to dating advice and even plant tips.

After digging the internet to find out how the fyp works, here are some ways the page is curated to meet every users’ interest and needs.

1. Interaction

Tiktok collects how people interact with videos, considering which videos they liked, commented, shared, or saved. This is similar to Instagram’s algorithm, leaning into providing more videos users interact more with. The biggest differentiator though is based on the video completion rate. A use who finishes the video will get more videos similar to the ones they watched in full, making it important to hold people’s attention to stay relevant on the fyp.

2. Hashtag Usage

The algorithm also reflects the hashtags that were searched by the user to bring up videos similar to what was searched. That’s why some videos will have hashtags that aren’t necessarily relevant to the video, in hopes of getting more views and exposure.

3. Video Push

If a video gets more engagement, then it receives more push to reach more people. In other words, this is how videos go viral as it feeds on the growing engagement and likes.

Now that I have an idea of how TikTok algorithm works, I will revisit this topic one day hopefully as an influencer at that point.

Thanksgiving Day Digital Marketing Tips for Entrepreneurs

Thanksgiving holiday means many marketing campaigns for entrepreneurs and business owners. Before we turn to the tactical tips, we should look at the origin of the Thanksgiving holiday and the meaning behind the holiday. 

Thanksgiving holiday is attributed to numerous different feasts celebrating things as diverse as thankfulness to God, ends of droughts, and military conquests. For business, the holiday is the time of year to be grateful for our fortune and thankful for our customers’ loyalty and patronage. 

 

1. Send a personalized “Thank you” e-mail to your fans - Thank the followers and fans for doing business with you and for their loyalty thought the year. 
2. Give out a free trial or an online store gift card - Businesses can offer up this gift depending on the marketing budget. It’s another tactic as a promo. 
3. Involve the audience in your online presence - Another kind of engagement is to use the UGC content. Have users send a snapshot of their family gathered around the table, decorate for the holiday, even share their favorite recipe. 
4. Thanksgiving free downloads, guides, resources - Have some freebie to share! Try to dedicate a landing page for a direct download. Things to put up can include an e-book, complimentary gift, etc.  
5. Be festive online with more quality visual content - Grow the email list by hosting photo sweepstakes like a Thanksgiving Photo Upload Giveaway. Each day of the week, share an image or a status update submitted by your followers on the social media pages.

Pandemic Shopping and What it Means for Retailers

I could count the number of times I went shopping in person since the beginning of the year. Our shopping habits have changed a lot since the pandemic. Covid has accelerated the digitalization of retailers and changed the shopping habits for many consumers. The retail industry needs to rethink and plans ahead for its digital future.

Early last month, two Macy’s stores were used mainly as fulfillment centers where employees processed online orders and returns rather than a place for customers to browse and shop. Amazon is also planning to purchase department stores in major cities for urban fulfillment centers to better meet faster shipping demands.

The digital shopping trend is hard to reverse. Once people are used to the convenience of browsing online and expecting delivery to homes, it is hard to attract consumers to shop in stores frequently. In addition, the change in shopping habits will stick. Walmart reported that e-commerce sales went up 79% in the third quarter, while Target said its e-commerce business was up 155%. 2020 will be an inflection point for retail. Online shopping is expected to continue to increase in the coming years. Retailers are pushed to be ready for the e-commerce competition.

 

 

References:  

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/23/technology/pandemic-shopping.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/23/business/retailers-ecommerce-black-friday.html

The increasing importance of Digital Marketing during the holidays

With the pandemic, many people have adopted new habits, being online shopping one of them. A few statistics are noteworthy of our attention.

- When it comes specifically to holiday shopping, 37% of shoppers plan to purchase more online this year than they did last year.

- Moreover, 31% of shoppers said they would use social media and 25% said personalized campaigns could trigger a holiday purchase.

- Although 44% reported a significant reduction in income, 82% affirmed they would spend the same or more as last year on big holiday deal events.

This is a great opportunity for brand and marketing leaders to connect with a large number of consumers who adopted new habits. Digital marketing will play an even greater role on holiday sales this year.

Source: https://marketingtechnews.net/news/2020/nov/24/understanding-changing-consumer-behaviours-this-holiday-season-and-how-marketers-can-gain-confidence-into-2021/

Post pandemic advertising trends

    Millions of people in the world are suffering with the ongoing pandemic and billions were impacted having to change the way they live their lives. Those fortunate enough were able to set up a home office and keep their jobs, while others just tried to avoid going to other places rather than work or groceries markets. Companies had to adapt to the new reality and most of them had to come up with cost cutting plans that often involved the marketing budget. But now, after realizing that the pandemic won't disappear so soon, companies are investing again in ads and they need to pay attention on what has changed since the beginning of the year. 

A few of these new trends are listed below:

1) Data driven consumer behavior: now more than ever marketers need to be aware of customer preferences and use data analytics to narrow down their targets and reduce advertising spending

2) Localized digital marketing strategies: given all the different restrictions that the pandemic imposed, marketing team need to find ways to connect with local customers and make sure that information, such as working hours or temporarily closed, gets to them.   

3) Creating a healthy space for customers: companies need to be conscious that most customers are afraid to leave their homes due to the threat of the virus, so showing that companies do care about sanitization helps customers take the courage to enter their places.     

4) Communicating brand purpose: events and discussions such as the black lives matter or even the pandemic itself suggest that companies that have a clear purpose and stand for it might have more loyal brand advocates in the future.   

Although this list is far to be exhaustive the topics above are quite relevant to think about before advertising and one thing is certain: the post pandemic marketing will have several elements that will be different from the pre pandemic one.    

Sources: https://www.agencyreporter.com/emerging-trends-that-are-set-to-reinvent-the-marketing-landscape-post-pandemic/,     

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in a Covid World

For as long as I can remember (and for 93 years), the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has been part of my Thanksgiving experience. But this year, it will be different. The parade is fully virtual, for television audiences only, with a mix of live and pre-taped performances. A lot will remain the same – musical and dance performances, mega balloons, and floats. But this year, tractors will operate the balloons, instead of hundreds of handlers. This year’s Parade will feature performances from other major NYC parades that were canceled earlier this year due to Covid, including the Puerto Rican Day and St. Patrick’s Day Parades.

The Parade will air on NBC, who has also partnered with Verizon to livestream the event on YouTube and on Twitter. Verizon will offer 360 degree views from the flagship Macy’s store, where the Parade is taking place. This will allow viewers to feel in control since they can't be there in person to experience the scale of the balloons firsthand. 

It’ll be interesting to see how this virtual parade impacts Macy’s brand and profitability compared to prior years.

 The Digital Marketing mistakes of "Emily in Paris"

"Emily in Paris" is the new netflix sensation. A series which follows Emily, the protagonist, as she moves from NYC to Paris to provide "the american point of view" to a marketing firm.

The show focuses a lot on digital marketing and social media, mainly Emily's social media pages. However, it makes three key mistakes when a dressing this topic.

1. Misguided use of hashtags.
The argument that Emily's posts are fairly inconsistent, seems to point that she would not be able to have grown her followers based my the magnitude she did.

2. Followers growth
Emily was able to jump from roughly 50 followers to over 10k in less than 6 months.
This escalation seems to be fairly impossible given that there was no specific event(s) that could fuel such growth

3. Emily's social media content
Most of Emily's content would rank fairly low on relevance on social media. An example would for example be a selfie eating a croissant. Particularly when there isn't even a mention of the place or a suggestion.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/358972

Miguel Fernandes

Leveraging Hyperlocal

Because of the pandemic, the distance at which we venture outside of our own neighborhoods has naturally drastically decreased.  Not only for visiting friends and family and commuting or traveling for work, but for our purchasing habits as well.  Of course, there has been a dramatic shift to e-commerce, and businesses all over the world are adapting to that shift, but there are plenty of businesses that cannot shift to e-commerce.  A local coffeeshop, for example, depends on in-person sales and many businesses like it are sustained through touchpoint with their community.  In a situation where businesses not only depend on the strength of community word-of-mouth but need to stay afloat during the pandemic at a time when tourism is down and the word-of-mouth will not reach as many people, a hyperlocal marketing strategy can be very useful.  

Hyperlocal marketing targets potential consumers in geographically restricted areas and messaging is very specific to that small area.  A great example is the “near me” search on Google, which is probably the most accessible and commonly used form of leveraging the hyperlocal strategy.  According to a Wordstream blog posted this summer on the subject, near-me searches have been increasing at a rapid YOY pace since 2014.  But how else can businesses take advantage of hyperlocal?  Another key element to successful hyperlocal marketing are strengthening online product reviews and making them readily accessible to local markets of consumers with the intention of inspiring in-store purchases.  Another effective strategy is advertising on podcasts or publications that are particularly popular within a small geographic location.  New York City is ripe for hyperlocal marketing because not only is there a strong city-wide culture, but many subcultures specific to smaller boroughs, neighborhoods, and even zip codes within neighborhoods.  Businesses can leverage channels beloved and/or widely utilized by their particular community to get the word out and encourage in-person patronage from their prospective customers.  

source:

https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2018/01/25/hyperlocal-marketing

Snap: Comeback or Copy Cat

In an effort to compete with TikTok, Snapchat launched a view video feature called Spotlight to spur viral video creation. Contrary to Snap’s bread and butter of short-lived video between friends, the new Snap Spotlight feature will focus on paying professional content creators to create viral videos shared widely. Snap says it has approximately $1M a day to go toward the efforts to incentivize content creators whose content goes viral. As an avid TikTok user, I'm very curious to see how this plays out, because a lot of what goes viral is oftentimes unintentional and difficult to replicate. The best viral videos are the ones that are organic.

I'd love to know what you think! Will Snap's new monetary incentive be effective? Will they be able to change the video format they've become so well known for? Will they be able to attract audiences from other leading social media platforms? Should Snap remain focused on its original offering?

Sources: 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/snap-counters-tiktok-with-spotlight-video-sharing-feature-11606140000?st=d1cycwcf195y7hu&reflink=article_copyURL_share

Evolution of Black Friday

Black Friday is almost upon us. But how has it evolved? Originated in the 50's in Philadeplphia, the term Black Friday was only first used in print in the late 60's and it took around 20 more years, until the 80's, for retailers to actually start harnessing its power. At this point, the name was used as a reference to "being in the black", which actually meant to be in the red due to low profits during the year. Many years have passsed and, today, Black Friday has evolved from a day to a full long weekend with Saturday being called Small Business Saturday, (Sunday remains a rest day), Monday being renamed Cyber Monday and the newest trend on Tuesday now called Giving Tuesday. Where is it going? It is only a matter of time until Black Friday moves from a day to a full week.

McDonald's new loyalty program will optimize digital, drive-thru opportunity

 The food giant is expecting to surpass $10 Billion in digital sales this year, a lot thanks to their commitment to invest in technology as drive-through voice technology, mobile contactless ordering which enabled McDonalds to decrease service times by 30 seconds in one year. 

The new McDonalds loyalty program coming in 2021 is targeting customers to tailor their offerings to them. By understanding costumers consumptions patterns there will be an immense opportunity for the chain to leverage their database and improve their digital marketing efforts. 

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/MyMcDonalds-loyalty-program-digital-drive-thru/588750/

IP Address Targeting vs. Cookie Targeting

The core advantage of digital marketing over more traditional OOH or print-based marketing efforts is based in its ability to accurately identify audiences with higher likelihood to be interested in, and ultimately buy, the product.  There are many options for firms to explore as they start targeting potential customers, but here I'll discuss the value of cookies vs. IP address targeting.  

Cookies, in internet-speak, are a way for websites to track your session on their site.  By accepting cookies, the user consents to share their activity (what they clicked on), sometimes their account information and preferences. In return, the user can expect to experience a more streamlined website - their preferences can be saved, their process through a check-out can be replicated when they come back, and websites can effectively highlight certain products or services based on the cookie's data on preferences.

IP addresses, on the other hand, share much less information - it's mainly just the identifier of which local server the user's computer is accessing when they visit websites.  However, though it includes less rich information than cookies (specifically on click history on individual web-pages), it does provide an important value-add over cookies: it's directly tying the individual to the behavior on your website.  Cookies can be susceptible to bots, crawlers, and others acting on a central machine, and they are easily cleaned out whenever a user clears their browser history.  IP targeting also offers an important degree of confidence when thinking of local marketing.  Since there is such high confidence in the location of the user, IP targeting is exceptionally useful for driving local traffic, or selling products that have a specific geographic limit (like banking products, or local government races).

L'Oreal's digital response to the pandemic

 https://www.wsj.com/articles/loreal-applies-digital-makeover-to-sales-efforts-11605046234

The article above highlights several digital innovations that L'Oreal has rolled out in response to the pandemic. I thought two things here were particularly interesting:

First, the brand has leveraged a lot of gamification into their new platform. The mobile app, which allows beauty consultants to virtually apply makeup to prospective customers, also lets customers choose new hairstyles and accessories and employ them in gaming formats. This is a relatively new/nascent part of digital marketing, but interestingly applied in this case.

Second, L'Oreal has created a platform that is primed for network effects. In particular, they have empowered influencers and bloggers to use the product, through their live streaming platform and support of beauty-based master classes.

As other brands, particularly those in retail and beauty, contemplate their pandemic response, they should look to L'Oreal as a benchmark for how to adopt a fresh, digital experience.

How Pharma Companies Can Better Leverage Influencers

 A recent survey about influencers in the pharma space has found that people are much more likely to trust patient influencers who have experience with a particular condition/in a certain disease community versus lifestyle influencers when it comes to branded pharma products. It should be noted that the survey was conducted by WeGo Health (a company that connects healthcare companies, agencies, and consulting firms to “Patient Leaders”, or patient influencers), so perhaps the survey is not an 100% independent unbiased source. That said, the findings are not surprising: patients trust authenticity and want to hear from individuals who seem relatable and knowledgeable when making these important (and often life-changing) decisions about their or a loved one’s health.

WeGo found that when it comes to promoting pharmaceutical products, the “micro- and nano-influencers”, which have fewer followers than other influencers, are actually the best ones to partner with since they have such strong engagement and trust within their small circles. In fact, WeGo explains that for the best (i.e., most quality) reach, pharma companies should target these micro-influencers and create similar look-alike audiences based on these highly engaged and trustworthy patients. This is contrary to the approach behind most influencer marketing (for CPG products, clothing, etc.), where it makes sense to partner with a few influencers with huge audiences; it reflects a more targeted approach centered on authenticity, reliability, and relevance.

Source: https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/pharma-brands-and-social-influencers-forget-lifestyle-gurus-and-stick-to-trusted-patient

Facebook Provides New Ad Copy Tips to Help Maximize Performance

 Since we are discussing about social and content marketing strategy and we are also doing group projects for our client, I found it would be very helpful to share the latest 5 tips provided by Facebook to maximize Ad performance.

1. Give your brand a voice
2. Position your products
3. Say it with words
4. Create branded packaging
5. Spend strategically

"Advertise to people who have visited your website, app, store or Facebook Page, or who have already purchased your products or services. Retargeting people who are already familiar your brand gives them another opportunity to consider your products."

Indeed, retargeting can be highly effective - some research has shown that customers are up to 70% more likely to convert when retargeted with display ads.

Source:https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebook-provides-new-ad-copy-tips-to-help-maximize-performance/588585/

Streaming TV Targeted Advertising

New regulations have restricted how companies such as Facebook and Google store data on their users to protect consumer privacy. This has reduced the amount of data available to marketers in these media channels. 

The article I linked today discusses how advertisers on streaming tv platforms are wary of falling to the same fate. Smart TV's track user viewing habits and can use this information to target specific ads to viewers. Similar to Facebook, these viewing habits could offer a lot of insight into demographics and interests, helping maximize the value of marketing dollars.

Vizio TV owners are allowed to opt out, but over 90% of users choose to opt in. The article suggests that users that understand how their data is used are more willing to share it. In fact, sharing data can actually improve the viewer experience through relevant ads and automatically updated picture settings depending on the type of programming. However, consumers should be allowed to toggle and choose what information they share to their benefit and what information doesn't create benefit them to share.

While online channels such as Google and Facebook have closed off a lot of information to marketers, these marketers hope that streaming TV's will be more open and offer more detail on consumers. This open approach could help draw more advertisers in and overall ad dollars.

Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/streaming-tv-advertisers-want-better-targetingminus-the-privacy-backlash-11604574000