Marketing | Thanksgiving 2018

5 Things Marketers Can Be Thankful for This Thanksgiving

Here are five things I think marketers can be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

1. We no longer need to send generic batch and blast emails

Ah, the batch and blast email. As a consumer, I’m definitely over them. The companies I regularly interact with should know me. They should be able to send me emails that make sense to me personally — not send me a new email every day with the hope that one will stand out to me.

Luckily, marketers don’t need to rely on this tactic anymore. They can personalize the content of their emails to each individual the moment the email is opened. They can send emails that are triggered based on certain criteria — which make the email much more relevant when it’s received. And they can send smarter bulk emails that determine the cadence of email sends based on how each person engages with that company’s emails.

With all of these capabilities at their fingertips, marketers can be thankful they aren’t forced to send generic emails any longer.

2. We can use machines to identify each person’s interests and preferences

Can you imagine if you had to personally sift through all the data you collect on each of your customers or shoppers to figure out what each person is interested in? It would be exhausting, not to mention impossible if you do business with more than just a few people.

Thankfully, machines can sort through all the data you have acquired on each person — from deep behavioral data you pick up from their interactions with you across channels, to attribute data you collect across systems in your company, to survey response data you have gathered in the past — to uncover each person’s interests, needs and preferences.

You don’t have to wait for each person to tell you that she prefers the color blue or is interested in solutions for small businesses. You can infer that information from everything you already know about her.

3. We don’t have to pick one single message to feature on our homepages

Deciding what message or promotion to feature on your homepage is a big task. You want to be as relevant as possible to anyone that might land on that page, but you don’t want to be so generic that you end up not saying anything substantive.

The good news is that we no longer need to pick one single message to display on the homepage, or any other key area of a website. You can personalize the content to each of your key audiences — or even to each individual — instead.

Do you want to show one message to enterprises and one to small businesses? One to first-time visitors and one to returning visitors? One to shoppers of one category and one to shoppers of another? That’s all possible.

It’s even possible for machines to pick the message or promotion that makes the most sense for each individual person.

With all of those capabilities at your fingertips, there’s no reason to waste such an important area of your site with irrelevant or completely generic content anymore.

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Social Media Video | Why Your Business Needs It

8 reasons to invest in social media video

By 2019, video will be the prime mover behind 80 percent of global internet traffic.

Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or Snapchat, video content is what your business needs to focus on moving forward. Social media video marketing is not only accessible, it’s affordable and one of the best ways to reach many people while increasing brand awareness.

Here are eight reasons why social media users respond so well to video:

1. Social media video dominates with 18- to 33-year-olds.

Millennials are spending less time in front of their TVs and more time on their mobile devices and laptops watching videos. As millennials grow into their consumer influence, you cannot overlook the fact that video will be an essential tool for this audience.

YouTube on mobile alone reaches more 18- to 34-year-olds than any US cable network.

2. Video is unmatched in the way it reaches viewers.

Modern people are just too busy to read long product descriptions or sift through website pages. Modern users want to see products in action.

Social Media channels like Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter all have their own video features. Live video is also growing rapidly in popularity. Not only is it economical in production and editing, it promotes authenticity and its time-sensitive element is attractive to an inquisitive audience.

3. Your competitors are already using social media video.

Did you know that in 2016 61 percent of businesses were already using video in their marketing campaigns? This statistic jumps out even more when compared to 2015, when 66 percent of the same businesses were not using video at all. Just imagine how many businesses will be using video in 2019.

4. Social media videos can deliver powerful ROI.

With 72 percent of businesses claiming video has increased their web conversion rates, it is no secret that video is a compelling marketing tool for converting consumers and boosting sales.

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Big Data | Content Marketing

How Big Data is Changing The Way Businesses Manage Content

According to IBM, humans create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day with 90% of the data in the world has been created in the last two years. Meanwhile, Forbes reported that nearly 53% of organizations are using big data analytics, up from 17% in 2015. Industries like Telecom and Financial Services are fueling the fastest adoption.

Since these industries are fastly adopting big data to harness the data and use it to identify new opportunities. There is no denying that, in turn, this leads to smarter business moves, more efficient operations, higher profits, and happier customers. This made me curious to find out and write on “How big data make a business sense and where content comes in”.

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Video Marketing | Growing Your Business

Here’s Why You Should Invest in Video Marketing to Grow Your Business

As digital marketing increasingly becomes an integral part of your business, employing strategies to keep you ahead of the competition will need to be a top priority. Interestingly, using video in your content proves to be one of the most powerful ways to achieve this.

Although video marketing might seem overwhelming at first, it has become an essential tool for many businesses. In fact, Wyzowls’ Video Marketing Statistics 2017 reveals that 63% of businesses are using video as a marketing tool. Out of those, 82% feel that video is a crucial part of their marketing strategy.

4 Reasons Why Video Marketing Works

1) Builds Consumers Trust Easily

Video production takes time, effort and money. And not everyone has enough resources to do it. But is it worth investing in video marketing? Definitely. Studies show that videos generate more trust in consumers than written content.

As statistics reveal, 79% of consumers would rather watch a video to learn about a product than read text on a page and 84% are likely to make a purchase after watching a brand’s video. Consider how this can make a difference in your conversion rate and you will start to understand why video is becoming an indispensable tool in your marketing arsenal.

Videos also draw more customer attention than any other medium. Given that we are in the midst of information overload, your brand will not succeed if you cannot stand out from the crowd with a unique story. Fortunately, video marketing has the ability to make a compelling pitch more quickly than reading would. It can easily get your message across, and when done effectively, it can grab your customer’s attention without much difficulty.

2) Connects on a Personal Level

When consumers see someone on the screen, they build a sense of relationship toward the brand. Rather than them just reading blocks of text that could have been created by anyone, they see a face. They learn who the person is. They see and hear the person’s emotions through his/her tone of voice and non-verbal gestures.

And even if there is no conversation going on, the visual information they see is enough for them to understand what is happening. A sense of personal connection develops almost instantly as a result.

In addition, when people encounter the real faces and personalities behind your business in a video, you foster a strong and meaningful relationship. They get the idea of how passionate you and your people are in giving them the solutions they need. By becoming visible through video, you evoke emotions that traditional content may not be able to do. When you leverage this powerful aspect of video, not only do you instill trust, you also drive viewers toward a desired action.

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Marketing and Machine Learning

Marketing In The Age Of Machine Learning

There is no longer a delineation between digital and traditional customers. Anyone with a smartphone traverses between online and offline activities without a second thought. As they do, they gain a penchant for modern conveniences, such as speed, utility and real-time assistance. Along the way, they also become more and more impatient and demanding. To engage today’s customer takes a modern approach to marketing where advanced technologies and customer optimization set the stage for what I call “adviser brands.” And, they’re changing the game for everyone.

Adviser brands represent a shift away from a traditional focus on top-of-the-funnel campaigns and marketing-centric metrics. Now, leading marketing are using the likes of machine learning and other emerging technologies to deliver assistive experiences that converts intent and expectations to value-added engagement at every step of their purchase journey. Doing so drives more than marketing performance. Adviser brands are also contributing to business growth.

5 Rules for Winning with Automated Marketing

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to interview CMOs and CDOs of leading brands who shared their work of what it takes to be relevant today. One of the common threads was that machine learning was the cornerstone to a new marketing construct. It helps marketers convert everyday digital signals to understand customer intent and preferences to automate the delivery of personalized, useful and productive experiences at the right time, in the right place and on the right device...at scale.

Google recently published a list of “5 rules for winning with automated marketing,” in which the authors, Nicolas Darveau-Garneau, chief search evangelist at Google and Adam Deif, head of industry, also discuss the advantages of machine learning. In their article, they share the five best practices among top performing brands using machine learning. The following is inspired by their list.

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