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BrandBuildingPro

  • Why You Should Consider Launching Your Product on Facebook Live (And How to Do It)

    Why You Should Consider Launching Your Product on Facebook Live (And How to Do It)

    People love to watch other people do stuff; it’s ingrained in our DNA. It’s why most of us enjoy people watching in the park or going to the latest blockbuster movie. Facebook and Instagram have taken advantage of this quirk in our genes with their live video streaming features.

    Brands who live stream appear more approachable and real. Unlike TV commercials, live stream feeds feel more authentic as it shows the human side of a company. It’s why more businesses are incorporating Facebook Live into their marketing strategies.

    Benefits of Live Streaming on Facebook

    • Boosts your audience numbers: An event streamed live on a platform like Facebook or Instagram is capable of reach millions of people worldwide. It also gives users a chance to participate in or attend an event they would otherwise have missed.
    • Cuts down on cost: You don’t need an expensive camera, a fancy set or a video editor when you go live on Facebook. And since you can host an event anywhere, even in a hallway, you can cut down on travel and rental expenses as well.
    • Real-time audience interaction: Consumers react more positively to “face to face” interactions. During a Live feed, the audience can send questions that the host can answer on the spot. Brands can also build trust with clients because of the transparency they show during these engagements.
    • Drum up excitement around product launches: Businesses can generate hype for a product launch on Facebook. These raw and real videos can harness the excitement you’d feel when opening a gift or seeing an event start.

    How to Launch Your Product on Facebook Live

    Give people an inside look.

    Everyone is curious about what happens behind-the-scenes. Pull back the curtains on your business and give viewers a chance to know the real people behind the brand. Give your audience a quick tour of your office or show the tools or equipment you use. Doing this will help viewers understand you better and it’s a great way of building trust.

    Starbucks used this strategy in its 2016 National Voter Registration Day. They broadcasted the event live as company representatives walked around the park. They also introduced and talked to people who volunteered in the event.

    Draw in viewers from other platforms.

    One of the best ways to launch a product or start a new channel is to through the “cheap seats” route. You start by going live on Facebook and encourage viewers watching on other platforms like YouTube, Instagram or Snapchat (considered the cheap seats) to move to your page in order to see the comments.

    To make things more exciting, you can also go live on the other platforms during a break from the mainstreaming feed and invite viewers to join you on Facebook.

    YouTube entrepreneur Chris Ducker used this tactic to promote his book launch party.

    Instagram Live stream Chris Ducker

    Provide a preview of your upcoming product.

    Giving your audience a sneak peek or a preview on what’s coming next will drum up excitement and make them feel special. Show a trailer for an upcoming webinar or go live and show your staff brainstorming about a new product.

    Tough Mudder is a great example of how to do it. The organizer streamed Coach T. Mud showing participants their training course. Seeing what they would be experiencing got more people interested in signing up.

    Use video bots for show notifications.

    Take advantage of Facebook’s live video bots and use them to interact and encourage your audience to subscribe to your show. You can do this by asking viewers attending your live feed to type a specific word in the comments if they want to receive notifications. You can also create a URL for your video bot and encourage your audience to click on the link to sign up for notifications. This strategy gives you control over who can see your posts since it’s your viewers themselves who told you they want to be notified about your show.

    Get live customer testimonials.

    Tap a loyal customer to talk about your product or company during a Facebook Live event. A lifestream approach to get engaging and natural flowing testimonials from customers are a very effective way of marketing your product. Meet up with a customer and hang out with them. The informal setting and relaxed mood can go a long way to getting your audience to warm up to your pitch or new product.

    Facebook Live is an excellent platform to launch a product or show your customers and prospective clients what your company is really about. Take advantage of the numerous strategies you can employ to get people interested in your launch. Live stream a launch party with a celebrity or conduct a real-time Ask Me Anything session. Seeing what’s happening as it happens can drum up interest and build customer trust.

  • The Nitty Gritty Tips On How To Get YouTube Views and Drive Business

    The Nitty Gritty Tips On How To Get YouTube Views and Drive Business

    Every business should be using YouTube to engage their potential customers and create a sense of authority for their business. The problem is that most people don’t know where to start and don’t know how the YourTube algorithm works, so they serious make mistakes.

    Internet marketing expert Neil Patel along with YouTube branding expert Adam LoDolce, founder of Viewership.com, recently provided the answers that every business needs to expertly use YouTube to communicate with their potential customers.

    Below are some highlights:

    You want to get more traffic from YouTube, there are a few things you need to do. One, check out vidIQ, it’s an amazing tool, it’ll help you out. However, YouTube marketing is not rocket science, similar to SEO. Yes, there are a lot of little components, but if you do them, you can do well.

    Include the Right Keywords

    The first one is, include the right keywords. Similar to how you do keyword research for SEO, you want to do keyword research for YouTube. Suggested apps are vidIQ, Adwords keyword planner tool and Ubersuggest which pulls from Adwords and Google Suggest and YouTube. If you just do that you will get more recommendations on keywords that will drive more traffic.

    Have a Very Appealing Title

    Another thing you want to do is have a really appealing title, one that evokes curiosity. Just having the keywords in there isn’t enough. If your title doesn’t evoke curiosity, people aren’t going to click through, play and then continue watching. That’s really the biggest difference between YouTube and Google Search. With Google Search, people are searching for it, whereas on YouTube, most traffic isn’t search traffic, it’s people who click on your videos from browse features and suggested videos.

    It has to be really good, I don’t want to say clickbait, but it has to be click-worthy for you to get a lot of traffic. When you watch a video on YouTube they’ll recommend other videos or autoplay other videos from other channels. If your video is really good and somebody is watching it, in the sidebar, somebody may see your video and click on it. But if your title is not appealing they’re not going to really click on it.

    You Have to Upload Transcriptions

    In addition to that, you have to upload transcriptions. We suggest Rev.com where you can pay a dollar per minute for a transcription. What that does is when you upload it to YouTube it’ll tell them what your content is about. Yes, YouTube can auto-transcribe your content, but it doesn’t hold the same weight versus if you uploaded an SRT file or a transcription, and that’s what Rev.com provides.

    Increase Engagement With Advertising

    If your a business and want to get your videos in front of a lot of people on YouTube, then you should use advertisement to push those videos in front of people who have liked or commented on previous videos. The reason why this is so effective is that it is going to get much more engagement on the new videos that you produce, and YouTube loves engagement.

    YouTube, like Google, is looking at the authority of your channel and engagement feeds this algorithm. If you have a lot of videos that are doing well it boosts the overall authority of your whole channel, and all of your videos will start doing better. The worst thing you can do is have all these videos out there with no likes, no comments, nothing going on.

    Key Tips for Producing a Video

    One of the biggest things Adam LoDolce taught me (noted Neil Patel) when I was learning about YouTube marketing, was all about how to produce the video. I’m not talking about the editing, I’m talking about your personality and how you create your own video.

    The biggest one is how you want your audience to feel. A lot of people think about keyword topics and that’s nice for your research, but ultimately, it’s about how do you want them to feel. Do you want them to be motivated, or do you want them to laugh?

    For your business channel, the worst thing you can do is to be very stiff, professional and to just give tactical advice. Loosen up a little bit, have a little fun, make a joke, that’s how you can get engagement with your videos. If you are not having fun recording, I bet you the person watching is not going to have fun.

    Your videos need to be a decent length. YouTube’s looking at how long are you keeping people on YouTube! The more you keep them on YouTube, instead of driving them back to your website, the better. Everyone likes putting those captions in videos, like click this link, head back over to my website. That will hurt your YouTube ratings versus just keeping people on YouTube.

    Think of it more as a branding channel, and when you are creating a video that doesn’t mean you need to create an hour video, but typically anything about 5 or 6 minutes is good. Any short videos of 2-3 minutes is just going to hurt you versus creating 5-10 minute videos.

    Video is the Future

    If you are a business and not doing any video, you are missing out. If you can start doing it and start getting more comfortable with it, push your comfort zone and get in front of the camera, you are going to have a competitive advantage out there.

  • 5 Reasons Your Business Needs CRM Right Now!

    5 Reasons Your Business Needs CRM Right Now!

    Customers are the lifeblood of any business, which is why companies should have clear strategies regarding their customer relationship management (CRM).

    One way to do this is by using CRM software. These programs gather all the data regarding your customers and prospective clients in one place. It can also assist you in going digital with your marketing plans and sales funnels, thereby saving your company some much-needed resources.

    CRM can also boost productivity and efficiency, encourage employee cooperation, and improve customer satisfaction. However, there’s so much more that a CRM can do for your business.

    5 Reasons Your Business Needs CRM

    1. Develop a Solid Contact Information Hub

    Tracking down information about a client or a prospect is challenging and time-confusing, especially if you have to look at multiple programs. Investing in a reliable CRM system will keep all the information you need in a centralized location.

    More importantly, a CRM solution will keep individual files of every customer, and these can be added to every time a staff interacts with them. Employees can add data regarding phone calls made to the customer, emails sent, contracts signed, etc. Every team member can have access to this data and be able to update it so everyone is on the same page.

    2. Ensures Reliable After Sales Support

    Brands know how important it is to keep their customers. However, ensuring they remain happy is a job that extends beyond closing a deal.

    Let’s say an irate customer made a complaint but your support team says the issue has been resolved. How will you know which side is right? This dilemma happens when there’s no clear documentation or steps on how to provide reliable after-sales support. You could lose customers and prospects because of this.

    CRM can prevent this from happening as it allows you to track the status of clients and add support tickets. If the support team fails to resolve a complaint or misses a deadline, the software will send notice to the relevant manager. Action can then be taken before the problem escalates. It also ensures that everyone on the team is held accountable and provides you with a way to track an employee’s effectiveness.

    3. Reduces Risks Created by Turnovers

    Employee turnovers are inevitable in every company. Unfortunately, these situations do create risks for a brand. Let’s say a new sales representative takes over; the sudden change could result in dropped deals, prospective and existing customers not being contacted, and missed sales targets.

    These risks can be reduced with CRM. In the event of a customer service or sales rep turnover, the system can shift accounts and leads to other sales personnel or support representatives in just minutes. The smooth transfer of responsibilities also means the odds of someone dropping the ball drastically goes down.

    4. Reduces Carbon Footprint

    The right CRM software will reduce your company’s carbon footprint since you’ll be doing away with paper. The software will assist you in managing your mail, projects, and other documents, and keep it on one platform that you can easily access. More importantly, all your company’s sensitive documents will be stored in the cloud or on a secure server. This ensures that crucial customer information won’t be lost, misplaced, or destroyed accidentally.

    5. Assists You in Planning Ahead

    Managers are only too aware of the hassle of a team member forgetting to follow-up a lead. This type of problem is resolved with a CRM tool. The software can help you plan any sales and marketing activities in advance or set-up tasks that you need to accomplish daily. The system will also remind you of pending tasks and the time frame for it.

    Never underestimate what CRM can do for your business. With it, you can turn your company into a more efficient and profitable venture. It will also give you an advantage over your competitors in today’s multi-channel business environment.

  • Experiential Advertising – Where Live Advertising is Exploding

    Experiential Advertising – Where Live Advertising is Exploding

    Experiential advertising is the talk of the advertising industry because it combines search, social, and digital with the human senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch in order to form marketing connections organically. It’s thought that these organic connections will create memorable and impactful experiences that will build true brand loyalty that won’t easily be forgotten.

    Recently, Layne Braunstein, founder of Fake Love, a New York Times owned advertising agency, gave a Tedx talk on experiential advertising.

    How does defining experiences relate to advertising?

    There’s a lot of talk all over advertising that advertising is dead as we know it. And that’s true, dead advertising is dead but live advertising is exploding, and it’s called experiential.

    With traditional advertising, what a brand is basically doing is telling you, I want you to feel a certain way and I want you to buy my product. That’s a very passive and forgettable experience when you consider that advertising has the ability to change the world forever. In today’s new world of advertising, brands want to be influenced by you, and that is a big deal and super important.

    How do we engage with the users and consumers of today?

    First of all, you can’t look at people as consumers or users, you have to look at them as humans. Experiential to me is environmental to human design. What that means is that you walk into a space, that space curates itself and is a beautiful back and forth between you and it.

    Experiential is not a medium but a belief. It’s a belief that when you walk into one of those experiences you will get emotionally connected to that experience and your life will be forever changed, and that’s a big deal. That is something that brands and advertisers have been trying to do for a really long time. That’s why experiential will be forever agile and I say this a lot, but it’s the last bastion of advertising.

    What Makes an awesome experiential campaign?

    1. Active, Not Passive Engagement – An example of this is going to an event and there’s a bar with some influencers there, some local fashion designers putting some stuff on the wall and there are some cool 80’s movies projected on the wall also. That’s a pretty cool event, but it’s just an event. But if you go to an event and there are some influencers at the bar and they want to play some cool video games with you to create some custom cocktails and then you walk up to some local fashion designers and they each give you a spray can and then you and the fashion designers spray paint all of the clothes and you get to take them home with you and then when you look at 80’s movies projected on the wall you see your face instantly in all of them, that’s experiential — and it’s super cool.
    2. It Has To Be Live – Simply put, if you go to a music concert it’s probably pretty fun but it’s just music. But if you go to a music concert and there’s haptics on the floor and there’s scent in the audience and there’s a generator of live visuals based on the music, that’s experiential.
    3. An Experience Has To Be Multi-Sensory – What that means is it hits all of your senses. It hits sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

    What Does This Look Like In Real Life?

    As a whole, an active live multi-sensory engagement creates the most honest and memorable experience of them all. Here are some experiential advertising projects that we (Fake Love) did:

    Google and Coke:

    This is a project we did for Google and Coke where basically you can send a free coke and a video message to a stranger anywhere in the world.

    Lexus:

    Through a secret Facebook contest, you got sent through a secret hangar in Italy where you got to play a real-life video game with an F1 race car driver in real time.

    Levi’s:

    You got to collaborate in real-time with musicians and artists using hacked instruments and tools on a train traveling across the country.

    7UP:

    We created a multi-sensory concert for deaf kids. When they showed up they were super surprised. We had the top DJ in the world Martin Garrix playing, and I remember one of them saying that this is changing my life forever.

    New York Times, 20th Century Fox and IBM:

    We created an augmented reality experience where we took NASA scientists that were overlooked by history and we placed them in your phone, and you could place them in augmented life anywhere in the world. This is a really powerful experience that we did last year, and it works.

     

    True Brand Love

    What you are seeing below are real-life social posts from the experiences above as well as other experiences that I’ve worked on over the years. This is true brand love, and that’s something that brands and advertisers have been striving to attain for decades.

    We are in an age of experience here and it’s here to stay. Brands want you to help build world’s and they want you to help build it.

    Tedx Talk Video

  • Here’s What You Need to Understand About Gen-Z’ers Before You Try to Sell Them Something

    Here’s What You Need to Understand About Gen-Z’ers Before You Try to Sell Them Something

    Every generation is grouped according to the time its members were born, but for years now, there’s been an ongoing debate about the specific cutoff point between Millennials and Generation Z. The United Nations data marks the years 2000/2001 as the intergenerational split, while other researchers define it earlier, around 1995 to 1997.

    Gen Z, also called iGeneration and Post-Millennials, is the demographic cohort following the Millennials and is set to overtake them in terms of headcount by next year. According to the Bloomberg analysis, Gen Z will account for nearly a third of the 2019 global population at 2.47 billion, surpassing the estimated 2.43 billion millennials in the world.

    Because of the vague delineation between the two generations, marketers often make the mistake of using similar strategies in selling to each of these groups. They forget that Gen Z’ers are vastly different from millennials in terms of formative experiences, including world events, economic changes, social shifts, and primarily, technological advancements.

    One thing that separates Gen Z’ers from their predecessors is their exposure to digital technology in their early years. Thanks to mobile devices and fast Internet services, many Gen Z’ers grew up with apps, social media, and constant online presence. Sometimes referred to as the post-digital generation, they have an intuitive relationship with technology.

    Surprising Statistics About Gen Z

    Gen Z’ers have a complicated relationship with digital technology, despite growing up with its ubiquity. Based on an UNiDAYS and Ad Age Studio 30 study of 22,700 college students, 98 percent have smartphones. Of these, only 22 percent have used their devices for purchasing online, unlike millennials who rely on the ease and convenience of mobile shopping.

    The digitally savvy generation has, in fact, a few, quirky analog habits. This includes their preference for personal interactions with brands, as Gen Z’ers are 23 percent more likely to visit malls and physical stores compared to older generations. This unexpected trend from the recent Foursquare and Carat study has prompted retailers to integrate the brick-and-mortar experience with tech features like augmented reality and self-service.

    Technology adoption comes easy to Gen Z’ers, so it’s not surprising to know that many of them have social media accounts. But what is surprising is the fact that the majority, or 59 percent of those surveyed, are distrustful of Facebook with their personal data, perhaps in light of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

    The post-digital generation is also not as preoccupied with social media as they’re depicted to be. Gen Z’ers are more likely to be anxious or depressed over these platforms, which can cause them to consider taking a break from social media or quitting altogether. They have become increasingly selective and wary of oversharing on social networks but still believe in its role in establishing connections and developing relationships.

    How to Actually Market to Gen Z

    When it comes to marketing strategies, what works for a particular generation might not fly with younger or older cohorts. Compared to the Baby Boomers and the lure of mass marketing during their time, the tech-savvy Gen Z has probably seen the old tricks and usual come-ons of brands when it comes to selling. One way to entice these true digital natives is through effective communication online.

    Much like their need to be constantly connected to others, Gen Z’ers appreciate brands that reach out to their clients and engage with them. An online presence, be it on social media or through email, is necessary when businesses choose to cater to the post-digital generation. According to the UNiDAYS study, 40 percent of surveyed Gen Zers prefer to communicate with brands via email.  

    However, this doesn’t mean that brands should stick to email correspondence, as it often lacks interaction and feels impersonal. Gen Z’ers are searching for relevant exchange and emotional approach in marketing through social media—given that it’s on the right platform. If businesses can evoke a sense of purpose behind their brand or an experience with a product, then it’s the first step in making themselves noticed by the younger, more discriminating generation.

    There’s no one single marketing solution applicable to every generation. Marketers should realize that for them to touch base with Gen Z, they must maintain a human, two-way interaction, even if it’s online. While Gen Z’ers exhibit ambivalent behavior towards social media, marketers and brands alike should learn how to get their message across effectively. Understanding the younger audience is going beyond selling the product; it also means discovering how they feel about your brand and earning their loyalty in the process.

  • How Mattel Optimizes Marketing on Walmart.com

    How Mattel Optimizes Marketing on Walmart.com

    Mattel is one of the largest distributors and brands sold on Walmart.com. Meredith Wollman manages the customer experience and all of the digital marketing for Mattel products that are sold through the Walmart.com channel. Wollman was interviewed at the eTail Conference by Tammy Everts, Senior Director of Research at SOASTA, now part of Akamai.

    How do you deliver the high conversion rates that Walmart and Mattel expect?

    If you don’t have the fundamentals down no campaign is going to be successful. Before we consider an ad campaign we go back to the cradle and look at setting up the items. We make sure that each item has the correct title, correct brand attribution, the right content in terms of A+ asset, beautiful imagery,  lifestyle imagery, package, out of package, the right videos, whether we have short TV commercials, and any user-generated content.

    Whatever the case may be, making sure that those items are set up and that they are optimized properly is very important to do before we even look at a campaign. No campaign will be successful if the item isn’t set up properly and they aren’t engaging for the consumers and there aren’t reviews already on the product.

    How do you plan a campaign for Mattel on Walmart.com?

    We are looking at what are our big bets? Where do we have the biggest investment in terms of the products that we want to put in front of the consumer? Every campaign looks at our on-hand inventory and where we are hoping on having the consumer lean in big. What we do is set up the campaign around that. We determine that if we can only have 5 or 6 hero images, what are those going to be? What are the products that we are going to use as the enticement for the consumer to come in and look at more?

    Then, which brands are we going to focus on? We also look at all of the analytics in terms of geo-targeting. In this particular zip code, are consumers leaning in towards our latin Barbie? Are they leaning in towards our African American Barbie? We want to really personalize what shows up on the screen for the consumers so they are seeing what they want to see and what they didn’t even know that they wanted to see.

    It’s Definitely a Data-Driven Process…

    I think the days of gut testing everything have gone the way of the Dodo Bird. Everything has to be data-driven now. That doesn’t mean that you can’t test something new, we do that all of the time. We really look at the data first to determine which products, where, who, when and how. All of those key factors are looked at when determining what we are going to put forward. It has to be data-driven.

    Most Mattel Shoppers Start on Mobile in the Store

    About 75 percent of our consumers start their journey on mobile. They are either in the store looking at a product and then they go on their phone and look for reviews or they are in the store and looking at products to see how quickly it could be shipped. A lot of people start their journey online which is why it’s so important to be mobile optimized.

    They don’t all necessarily buy online but that’s where they start their journey. Some will buy online but then go pick up in the store, which is actually considered a store purchase.

    How are conversions for Mattel on Walmart.com?

    They are slightly higher than the norm of 4-6 percent. If you are hitting the consumer when they want to see the product and with the product, they want to see you will, of course, have a greater conversion rate. It comes down to being scientific and artful at the same time about not necessarily telling the consumer what we want them to know, but giving the consumer the information that they want.

    Those two don’t always mesh as easily as we’d like because we have things we want to share at certain times, but that’s not always what works best for the consumer. The better we understand the consumer and what they want and when they want it the more successful the campaign. It’s always the case when we are communicating something that we want them to know in the time frame that we want them to know that it’s not nearly as successful.

    Akamai Study Shows Load Time Impacts Revenue Significantly

    A study by Akamai shows that every 1 second of load time improvement on Walmart.com equaled a 2% conversion rate increase.


    Also, for every 100ms of improvement, incremental revenue grew by 1%. All ecommerce sites can benefit from increasing both the speed and efficiency of the consumer experience.