Category: CMOTrends

Articles for CMOs

3 Digital Marketing Methods Every Business Needs

As a business owner in the 21^st century, it’s important to take advantage of the tools and technology available when engaging with your customer base. Not only will this help you reach wider audiences and maximize your revenue, but it will also help you to stay competitive and current.

One of the great things about digital marketing is it can be done from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection and a laptop. Check out these options for travel laptops.

As marketing methods such as print advertising and direct mail have begun to be phased out and a greater number of people consume content online a traditional approach alone will no longer cut it. If you are reluctant to embrace the digital age, or don’t know where to begin, this article has outlined three digital marketing strategies to help you connect with your customers and capture the attention of new ones.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a type of marketing strategy that focuses on creating and sharing valuable, relevant and consistent material in order to stimulate interest and attract and retain customers. By distributing high-quality material such as blogs, emails, videos, podcasts, articles and eBooks, a business can engage with its customer base while indirectly generating interest for its brand.

Well-written content which is relevant and informative can reveal more to your customers about your business, its values and ethos as well as the products and services you offer. Content marketing can even help you present yourself as an authority in your field.

Coca-Cola’s ‘Share a Coke’ campaign is a good example of content marketing that used personalization to increase customer engagement. By establishing stronger relationships with your potential customer base you can also help build brand awareness and loyalty.

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process of improving your website to increase the quality and quantity of traffic to it. As a result, it will rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). As your business becomes more visible online, you will improve your chances of attracting more customers and increasing your revenue.

As well as more potential clicks to your webpage, SEO is also beneficial when it comes to establishing the credibility of your business, as sites that rank more highly on SERPs are considered to be of higher quality and seen as more trustworthy than those that rank lower. Strategies to boost SEO include keyword optimization, building backlinks and removal of zombie pages.

Email Marketing

By building a relationship with your email subscribers through relevant and personalized content, you have a low cost way to deliver targeted messages to an already engaged audience. This is also advantageous for gauging feedback on ways to improve your service, better meet customer needs and develop new products.

Email marketing can also help you to nurture leads by sending personalized messages in set intervals designed to convert readers into paying customers.

By implementing the digital marketing methods mentioned in this article you can help your business reach a wider audience while retaining and nurturing the valuable customer base you already have.

July 18, 2022
Oracle Turns to AI to Automate Digital Marketing With Fusion Marketing

In an industry first, Oracle is using artificial intelligence (AI) to help automate digital marketing.

AI is revolutionizing a wide range of industries, but Oracle is applying it to digital marketing campaigns, with its newly announced Fusion Marketing platform. Unlike many lead generation systems, that merely raise brand awareness, Fusion Marketing is specifically designed to generate leads.

Fusion Marketing uses artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically score leads at the account level, predict when consumers are ready to talk to a salesperson, and generate a qualified sales opportunity in any CRM system.

Oracle hopes Fusion Marketing will address the disconnect many salespeople feel when using a CRM system, where siloed data often works against making a sale. Oracle’s new system is designed to address that and accelerate marketing campaigns by automating the lead generation process from end-to-end.

“It is time for our industry to think differently about marketing and sales automation so that we can transform CRM into a system that actually works for both the marketer and the salesperson,” said Rob Tarkoff, executive vice president and general manager, Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience. “This is not about forecasts and rollups or a reporting tool to see how the sales force is performing, but instead about turning CRM into a system that helps sellers sell. A huge part of that change is bringing marketing and sales teams together and eliminating the low-value, time consuming tasks that distract from building customer relationships and closing deals. That’s why we have invested so much time engineering a system that will help marketers fully automate lead generation and qualification and get highly qualified leads to the sales team faster.”

Oracle’s Fusion Marketing is just the beginning, as experts say AI will continue to transform digital marketing.

“Machine learning algorithms are integral to digital marketing and that will only increase over time. The best digital marketers have embraced this fact, and have already shifted their focus towards more human-first activities. Machines are better at crunching numbers and making data-driven decisions. But they still need humans to decide what data to feed into those systems. This comes from understanding human behavior, a deep sense of empathy, and expert-level storytelling that are hard to replicate through AI.” – Dennis Consorte, Digital Marketing Expert and Expert at Digital.com, told WebProNews.

June 26, 2022
How HubSpot is Using Surround Sound Marketing Strategy to Drive Sales

“There is a very smart individual at HubSpot named Alex Birkett based out of Austin, Texas,” says Scott Tousley of HubSpot. “He is working on this concept that is really starting to take off called Surround Sound Strategy. Essentially what that means is that it runs with the notion that marketers are selfish. All we care about is how do we drive more traffic to our website.”

Scott Tousley, Senior Team Lead of User Acquisition for all products at HubSpot, was recently interviewed on the B2B Growth Podcast by David Kelly, General Manager at Sumo Dojo. Tousley discusses how HubSpot is using Surround Sound Marketing Strategy to drive leads and sales:

Surround Sound Marketing Strategy Starting to Take Off

There is a very smart individual at HubSpot named Alex Birkett based out of Austin, Texas. He is working on this concept that is really starting to take off called Surround Sound Strategy. Essentially what that means is that it runs with the notion that marketers are selfish. All we care about is how do we drive more traffic to our website. I don’t care where it comes from. Whether it comes from search or social or referral traffic or email, it doesn’t matter. You’re always looking at how do I get more traffic to my website? The reality is that when we are trying to buy something you don’t go to one website. You go to multiple different websites when you are trying to make a purchasing decision.

For example, I’m in South Lake Tahoe right now. One search I just did recently was “best bars in South Lake Tahoe.” I wanted to see a list and I wanted to see some reviews from a couple of different websites. I also like to surf, so let’s say I’m in the market for a new shortboard. So I search for “best shortboards 2019.” First, I’ll read a listicle, then I will go back to Google and I will click on the next list. Then I will go back again and click on the next list. Then I will start to narrow my decision based on seeing the same thing over and over. Once I narrow it down I will do a versus search such as “lost puddle jumper” vs. “channel islands average joe.” I’ve narrowed my decision at that point.

We Want To Be At All Stages of the Purchasing Decision

What we are trying to do at HubSpot right now is figure out how to be everywhere. We want to be at all stages of that purchasing decision when people are searching for “what is the best blank that exists today.” Well, there are a ton of lists that are out there and a ton of review sites and HubSpot’s B2B software (has to be there). There are a lot of review sites just dominating search engines right now like Capterra, G2 Crowd, and Software Advice. A lot of those are pay to play. You have got to pay to get listed on what appears when you land via search. Most of them are.

But listicles are free. Not only are they free to get added to, but they are free to create. That’s one of the biggest things we are working on right now. How do we change our mindset from being so obsessed at driving traffic to our website? How do we make sure that HubSpot’s brand is everywhere when you are doing your product research and you are on many different websites? We actually sometimes prefer that we drive traffic to multiple different websites where we are listed versus just to our own. It’s good for social grouping.

Listen to the full interview with HubSpot’s Scott Tousley.

June 25, 2022
How You Can Create An Effective Digital PR Plan

Once upon a time, it was enough to get any mention at all of your business in the media. With traditional PR, marketers were looking for mentions in relevant print publications, on television, radio, and anywhere else they could get coverage for their brand.

While that’s still true today, with the advent of the internet, marketers need to add digital PR to their marketing mix.

You need to know what’s being said about your brand online, but more than that, you need to be able to shape what’s said.

Before you can do that, however, you need to have a plan.

1) What are your objectives?

Before you start creating any content, you need to decide on your objectives. You can’t meet your goals unless you know what they are.

With digital PR, you might be aiming to build your brand recognition. You might want to build trust and be seen as an expert in your field. Or your ideal outcome might be lead generation.

Whatever your objectives are, write them down. This will help to keep your plan on track. Every aspect of your plan should be targeted at achieving your objectives. If it doesn’t, it shouldn’t be in there.

2) Know your audience

As well as creating buyer personas and doing customer research, you’ll also need to use social listening. You can use your google calendar or one of your other calendars to set up a schedule to read social posts from your target audience. This must be something that you make yourself do consistently so it’s important to schedule this time.

Dig deep into who your customers are, their demographics, what they want, and what their pain points are. Without clear buyer personas, it’s hard to create the right content that will create the impression you want. And it’s nigh on impossible to reach your objectives.

With social listening, you can not only see who your customers are, but you can listen, practically in real-time, to what they’re saying. You’ll find out about what they like and dislike about your brand, and what they think you should be doing. You’ll hear the negative with the positive, but it’s all good information.

3) Understand your target media

Just as you need to understand your audience, you need to understand where you’re posting content and what they want to see. You can’t ignore submission guidelines, the tone of the publication, and what sort of content they want.

Do a deep dive into every website, podcast, and publication you want to reach, before you approach them.

4) Create a plan for your PR

Take what you’ve learned above and set out a plan for your digital PR. Work out when you’re going to target particular publications, how you’re going to approach them, and what you’re going to say.

Create a content calendar for at least three months ahead so that you’re not starting every day wondering what you’re going to create.

5) Create great content

Go to town on your content and create value for the publications you’re targeting. Of course, it’s about you to an extent, but it’s also about what they want and what their audience wants. You can start a webinar series that is followed up with great blog content that journalists can source. This will increase your chances of getting PR pickup when you pitch writers.

The idea is to create a long-term relationship where you are known for providing expertise and value.

6) Measure your results

Keep returning to your objectives and set KPIs to ensure you’re doing what you set out to do. Don’t get off track and keep measuring and ensuring success.

Finally, keep building on your success. Digital PR isn’t a one-and-done effort. You’ll spend a lot of time building your reputation and your brand.

But all that effort will be worth it when your name’s in lights and your online reputation is rock solid.

June 20, 2022
Senators Introduce Bill to Break Up Google and Meta

A bipartisan group of senators is taking aim at Google and Meta, introducing a bill that would break up the companies’ ad businesses.

Google and Meta are the dominant advertising platforms online, and both have been accused of anti-competitive behavior. Such behavior has increasingly drawn the scrutiny of regulators on both sides of the Atlantic, with a bipartisan group of senators ready to take action.

The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act (CTDA) has been introduced by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), as well as Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). The bill would prohibit companies with more than $20 billion in digital ad transactions from owning more than one part of the ecosystem. This measure would address concerns aimed at Google, which is seen as controlling virtually all aspects of the online advertising industry.

Read more: There’s a Wiki to Remind You of All Big Tech’s Controversies

Similarly, smaller companies that process more than $5 billion in ad transactions would be required to meet certain criteria aimed at protecting both the competition and the consumer.

Senator Lee said, “Digital advertising is the lifeblood of the internet economy. It supports most of the free content and services Americans have come to rely upon, including essential local journalism, and it allows businesses of every size to reach their customers quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, online advertising is also suffering under the thumb of trillion-dollar tech companies.

“Companies like Google and Facebook have been able to exploit their unprecedented troves of detailed user data to obtain vice grip-like control over digital advertising, amassing power on every side of the market and using it to block competition and take advantage of their customers. The conflicts of interest are so glaring that one Google employee described Google’s ad business as being like ‘if Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE.’”

Needless to say, Google is calling foul on the new bill, telling The Verge that it is “the wrong bill, at the wrong time, aimed at the wrong target.” The company then went on to blame “low-quality data brokers” for the issues targeted by the bill.

It remains to be seen if the bill will pass, although its early bipartisan support is certainly something of an indicator. The bill is also the latest evidence of regulators’ growing impatience with Big Tech, and what they perceive as abuses of its power and influence.

May 19, 2022
Google Ads Error Impacting Video Pages in Google Ads Frontend

Google Ads is experiencing a major issue, one that is impacting access to Video pages in the Google Ads Frontend.

First spotted by Search Engine Land, the issue has been acknowledged by Google and is impacting “a majority of users.” The issue happens when users try to access the Video pages, leading to an error message and red banner. The company says there is no work around, although it is working on a fix.

We’re aware of a problem with Google Ads affecting a majority of users. We will provide an update by May 19, 2022, 6:00 PM UTC detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change. The affected users are able to access Google Ads, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behavior.

May 19, 2022
Privacy-Focused Tech Companies Call for Ban on ‘Surveillance-Based Advertising’

A group of tech companies with a history of protecting user privacy is calling for a ban on “surveillance-based advertising.”

Mojeek, along with DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, StartPage, Fastmail, Proton Technologies and others have written a letter calling on the US, UK, EU and Australia to take action against the dominant form of online advertising. Mojeek is a UK-based search engine that has not tracked users since its inception, and holds the distinction of being the first privacy-oriented search engine. Similarly, the other companies on the list have a long history of protecting user privacy.

The companies make the case in their open letter that surveillance advertising, commonly called “personalization,” is a threat to consumers, businesses and democracies. The companies also stand as examples that prove it’s possible to build a profitable business without exploiting consumers.

We are a group of businesses who write to you today to show our support to this initiative. We represent small, medium and large businesses who all believe -and demonstrate on a daily basis -that it is possible to run profitable companies without exploiting the privacy of individuals.

The companies emphasize they are not anti-advertising, they simply want the industry to use technologies and methods that don’t involve invading the privacy of users.

Although we recognize that advertising is an important source of revenue for content creators and publishers online, this does not justify the massive commercial surveillance systems set up in attempts to “show the right ad to the right people”.

Other forms of advertising technologies exist, which do not depend on spying on consumers, and alternative models can be implemented without significantly affecting revenue. On the contrary – and that we can attest to – businesses can thrive without privacy-invasive practices.

May 6, 2022
LG: We Know What Users Want — More Ads On Their TVs

In the latest example of unadulterated greed, LG is planning to serve its users even more ads on TVs they have spent hundred of dollars on.

As we have pointed out many times in the past, it’s one thing for companies like Google or Facebook to make money selling ads to people. They are, after all, providing their services free-of-charge. When a customer spends hundreds of dollars on a piece of hardware, however, there’s a certain expectation that they will get to enjoy that product ad-free.

Those days may be over, if LG Ad Solutions has anything to say about. Not content to charge a premium for its TVs, the company is evidently planning on bombarding its users with even more ads. Unlike traditional TV commercials, these ads are in LG’s smart TV interface, meaning there’s no way to easily avoid them when using the built-in features.

“We’re turning the tables for advertisers, making performance not just something brands aim for, but something that is actually guaranteed,” said chief executive officer Raghu Kodige. “Whether driving sales, conversions, or customer acquisition, advertisers struggle to quantify ROAS for TV spend. We created this extensive program as the starting point in a new paradigm for TV-driven outcomes in which marketers are assured every CTV ad dollar hits the bullseye.”

Worse yet, the company plans on greatly expanding the metrics it uses to track the effectiveness of ad campaigns.

The conversion metrics program will begin immediately with app installs and is available globally. More conversion metrics such as tune-in, web visits, physical location visits, and more, will be available in the coming months both in the U.S. and globally.

There’s just one thing LG seems to have forgotten: Advertisers aren’t the ones buying their TVs, meaning advertisers should not be the company’s prime concern — its customers should be.

Fortunately, users still have a way to opt out, albeit at an added expense. Users who don’t want to see LG’s ads should not give the TV internet access and use a third-party device, such as an Apple TV, instead.

February 3, 2022
’Sold by Amazon’ Shutting Down In Agreement With Washington AG

Amazon has agreed to shut down its “Sold by Amazon” program, and pay $2.25 million, in an agreement with the Washington Attorney General.

Washington AG Bob Ferguson launched an investigation into Amazon’s “Sold by Amazon” program. The program effectively amounted to price-fixing, as Amazon and third-party sellers agreed to a specific price, rather than compete with each other.

Amazon has agreed to shut the program down, and pay $2.25 million to the Attorney General’s office.

“Consumers lose when corporate giants like Amazon fix prices to increase their profits,” Ferguson said. “Today’s action promotes product innovation and consumer choice, and makes the market more competitive for sellers in Washington state and across the country.”

The investigation is not the only such legal challenge the company is facing. Washington DC AG Karl A. Racine filed a similar lawsuit against the company, accusing it of using its “most favored nation” (MFN) agreements to price-fix.

January 26, 2022
Google Search Console Now Has Page Experience For Desktop

Google has unveiled a dedicated ‘Desktop’ section in the Page Experience reports of its Search Console.

Google had already rolled Page Experience for mobile, but is now adding the feature for desktop, and will soon use it as part of its desktop ranking system.

We’ll begin using page experience as part of our desktop ranking systems beginning in February 2022. The rollout will be complete by the end of March 2022. This ranking launch will be based on the same page experience signals that we rolled out for mobile earlier this year. We are also planning to help site owners understand how their desktop pages are performing with regards to page experience using a Search Console report which will launch before desktop becomes a ranking signal.

To help companies prepare for the changes, the company has provided additional information to help them optimize their sites.

January 20, 2022
It’s “Game On” for Buffalo Wild Wings New Brand Architecture, Says CMO

“When I think of brand architecture it really gets to the essence of the brand,” says Buffalo Wild Wings CMO Seth Freeman. “The essence of the brand is around this idea of camaraderie and ritual and something that we like to call “game on.” It’s our ability to make sure that when folks come in to experience Buffalo Wild Wings that we have a game on mentality and that we bring them the very best of who we are.”

Seth Freeman, Chief Marketing Officer of Buffalo Wild Wings, was recently interviewed on Adweek’s CMO Moves podcast with Nadine Dietz. Freeman discussed their new “game on” brand architecture that defines not just their new marketing strategy but really the heart of the business. “The purpose ultimately is really about inspiring legendary experiences between friends,” noted Freeman:

Turning Good Times With Friends Into Great Times With Brothers

When I think of brand architecture it really gets to the essence of the brand. There are three components to it in the way we framed it up. They are the promise, the essence, and the purpose. We identified an insight out there that guys want to turn good times with friends into great times with brothers. More accurately, legendary experiences with brothers. That was the cultural insight that really framed our brand architecture.

When we think about our purpose we defined our promise as the great American sports bar that turned game time into stories worth telling. It wasn’t just about inviting folks to watch a game. It was about translating that into an experience worth telling. That’s what folks are really looking for. That’s the promise that we deliver on every single day. That’s why we get up. That’s why folks are going out there and doing the job that they do and delivering a great experience.

It’s “Game On” for Buffalo Wild Wings

Our purpose ultimately is really about inspiring legendary experiences between friends. The essence of the brand is around this idea of camaraderie and ritual and something that we like to call “game on.” It’s our ability to make sure that when folks come in to experience Buffalo Wild Wings that we have a game on mentality and that we bring them the very best of who we are. We have 80,000 folks out there working across Buffalo Wild Wings and they bring it every single day.

https://youtu.be/AkGZHYM-D90
It’s Game Time at Buffalo Wild Wings!

As we were talking to consumers, one of the things we learned was that some of the most impactful experiences that they talked about was with the bartenders and servers. They are influencing whether or not those folks come back. For instance, one of the most memorable experiences they talked about was the bartender remembering them when they came back.

That is our brand architecture, but it also lends itself to things we have done in rolling out this purpose to the broader community through our Brand Champ Initiative. That really is a cultural movement that we are employing across our franchises and corporate stores. We have over 1,200 locations where folks are trained to make sure that the brand architecture is translating to a way that is meaningful to the consumers and also meaningful to the folks that are on the front lines every single day.

It’s “Game On” for Buffalo Wild Wings New Brand Architecture

January 18, 2022
How Do You Measure the Success of a Content-Driven Marketing Strategy?

Content marketing is reshaping ecommerce for companies large and small. That’s because marketing is about trust first and foremost and marketers are realizing that quality content builds trust quicker than traditional advertising. Tim Turner Forman of a new startup called The Tot and Matt Osias of Hawke Media recently discussed how to start a content-driven marketing strategy.

Why is it important to resist the urge to have your content do the selling?

Tim: What we do at The Tot is provide trust and advice and mindfully curated products. For it to be considered trusted advice it needs to come from a credible real place. It needs to be authentic and it needs to come from experts, people who know what they are talking about. At The Tot we work with a network of experts around the globe to create parenting content. What first-time parents are looking for most is information and they are just as likely to turn to a website as they are to go to a doctor and they are even more likely to go to a website than to ask their own Mother. If we are able to develop and curate content of moms sharing to other moms, that develops a relationship and provides values for them.

How do you measure the success and performance of a content-driven marketing strategy?

Matt: When you consider measuring in general, there are so many different formats that are out there that people can leverage. Oftentimes, people are saying… well I want articles for my blog. What type of article are you looking for? What is the goal of that piece of content? Are you trying to drive organic search and bring in new audiences so they can learn who you are or are you trying to engage them a bit more with videos and infographics? Every single format has a very specific measurement.

Beyond that, your measurements are somewhat different than your basic media buying for example, where you spend a dollar and hope to make back three, or some version of that. When we are looking at content marketing, especially when it is brand agnostic, the real important ideal there is to think about how can I actually give something to my audience that resonates with them, teaches them and solves a problem. Then ultimately, your brand is there waiting for them.

Awareness, Engagement, Advocacy

The three things that I look at are awareness, engagement, and advocacy. The first thing you would want to do in building a content marketing strategy is to consider the idea of awareness, giving awareness to the people you are working with. Then having intent-driven content. People are asking questions in Google all the time and they are getting answers. If your site has the answers in its content, especially if it’s early stages, then that’s going to do something that most (ecommerce) sites aren’t doing, which is to put eyes onto your site, without the brand and product coming into play at first.

With this brand agnostic content, the bulk of your content is primarily text-based content. With measurement I look at eyes on site and what they are doing when they get there. Are they jumping around to different pages or are they bouncing right away? When you bring in somebody to your site where it is solving something you have to have something that is engaging to keep them there and keep them coming back.

Tim: We definitely watch inside of Google Analytics to be able to see the pageviews, what people are doing, and how they move from the editorial side of the site to the product side of the site. We also use content as part of our marketing program. It’s definitely an upper funnel prospecting piece.

Quality Content is Just as Important as Ad Spend

Tim: As somebody who came from an ad agency working with clients who had large ad spends and then coming to a start-up to help them grow and find customers, we didn’t have a large ad budget. What we did have though is this wonderful bank of content. This quality content has become just as important as the ad spend. Every month we put together a new prospecting campaign with a variety of articles and then we keep some evergreen pieces of what performed and that gives us a really good indicator of the type of people we are able to draw and attract to the site. It’s very contextually targeted so somebody that is clicking and looking at an article titled, “9 Ways to Prepare for a New Baby,” is probably going to be our customer.

January 11, 2022
Stop Making These 7 Online Marketing Mistakes and You Will Crush It, Says Neil Patel

If you avoid these seven online marketing mistakes and you follow these tips you’re going to generate more sales, says popular digital marketing expert Neil Patel. A common theme of Neil’s tips is creating a brand. “Google doesn’t want to rank sites that aren’t brands,” he says. “There’s an issue out there called fake news and that’s why they’re pushing brands over anything else.” Patel says that if you follow these tips you’re going to crush it!”

Neil Patel, digital marketing expert and founder of Neil Patel Digital, discusses the seven online marketing mistakes in his latest video release:

Stop Making These 7 Online Marketing Mistakes

I’m going to break down seven online marketing mistakes that you need to stop. You’re probably wondering you’re doing all these things but why aren’t you seeing results? Even if you’re doing the right things, if you’re also doing the wrong things at the same time it’s going to hurt you and it’s going avoid you from getting the results that you deserve.

Mistake 1: Not Collecting Emails

The first mistake you are making is not collecting emails. It doesn’t matter how good you are with SEO or marketing only a very small percentage of your visitors are ever going to convert into customers. By collecting emails not only can you get people to come back to your site but you can convince them to convert over emails.

The moment someone gives you their email address think of that as a micro-commitment. They’re much more likely to convert into a customer because they committed, they already gave you something. That’s why you want to collect emails. You can do this through sliders or exit pop-ups. You can do this for free using tools like Hello Bar.

Mistake 2: Not Collecting Subscribers Through Push Notifications

The second mistake you’re making is you’re not collecting subscribers through push notifications. There are free tools like Subscribers.com that’ll make it easy. Just add in a JavaScript or a WordPress plug-in and then when people come to your website they will automatically subscribe through the browser. Then anytime you have new content or products or services that you want to sell then you can notify them through Subscribers.

Mistake 3: Not Building a Brand

The reason tip number one on collecting emails and tip number two on getting more push notifications subscribers are really important is because you need to build a brand. This gets you into the third mistake. Google doesn’t want to rank sites that aren’t brands. Why is this? There’s an issue out there called fake news and that’s why they’re pushing brands over anything else. It’s not just going to be Facebook and in Google. Eventually, it’s going to be Twitter and LinkedIn and all the sites out there.

When you get people back to your site seven times you’re much more likely to build a brand. It’s called the Rule of Seven in marketing. So with your site, you want to provide an amazing user experience. When you provide an amazing user experience, create a great product, create a great service, it’ll help you build a great brand over time.

Mistake 4: Not Interlinking

The fourth mistake you’re making is not interlinking. You may notice on Google I’m ranking for terms like online marketing on page one. You’re probably wondering how do I do this? A lot of it comes out to interlinking. In my sidebar, I link to my most popular pages of content. When I write blog posts related to online marketing I link back to the online marketing guide that talks about what online marketing is. By having all these links it helps me rank higher.

Mistake 5: Just Focusing On Text-Based Content

The fifth mistake I have for you is just focusing on text-based content. The future of digital marketing is moving to video. It doesn’t mean you should stop doing text but it means you should also be doing video. When you do video you’re going to get more traffic because everyone’s lacking it. LinkedIn wants it right now. YouTube wants more of it. Facebook wants it. Instagram even wants it.

Why is this? They want to crush the television networks. You look at things like the Oscars or traditional movie theaters and they’re not doing as well. You look at traditional TV and they’re going to get crushed. Why? It’s because of Facebook. It’s because of Google. It’s because of Netflix. If you’re there creating that video content you can be part of it and you’re going to get extra traffic. They want as much help as possible to crush these big old-school companies.

Mistake 6: Sticking To Just a Few Marketing Channels

The sixth mistake that you’re making is you’re really sticking to just a few marketing channels. Marketing is competitive. People raise venture capital hundreds of millions of dollars just so they can compete in marketing and sales. You need to do more than one or two or three marketing channels. The more you do the better off you’re going to be.

Mistake 7: Not Asking For the Sale

The seventh mistake I have for you is not asking for the sale. Whether it’s a lead or whether it’s getting people to buy your product, there’s nothing wrong with asking people to buy from you. If you don’t you’re not going to generate any sales. Everyone’s like I get all this traffic through my online marketing but no one’s converting. Why? Because you’re not asking for a sale.

Stop Making These 7 Online Marketing Mistakes and You Will Crush It, Says Neil Patel

January 5, 2022
How To Leverage AI To Optimize Your Email Marketing Strategy

Email has taken communication to newer heights as it is one of the most widely used methods for digital communication. It is estimated that there will be more than 4.3 billion email users worldwide by 2023.

Hence, the significance of email marketing is no surprise for your business to influence your target audience. Moreover, utilizing the power of artificial intelligence to optimize your email marketing strategy further enhances the impact on your target audience.

Businesses that use AI to drive email marketing are likely to grow by US $1.2 trillion annually.

In fact, 49% of marketers are already implementing automation in their email marketing strategy.

Artificial intelligence can be used for smart segmentation, optimization of email subject lines, and email automation workflow, which can help you to increase click-through rates and open rates.

Let’s deep dive into how you can leverage AI to optimize your email marketing strategy.

1- Write Appealing Subject Lines

With the help of AI, you can optimize your subject, body copy, and CTA.

The subject of the email is one of the most crucial parts of the email content. More than 35% of email recipients open an email based on the subject line alone.

By integrating artificial intelligence, you can analyze the performance of past emails and determine which subject lines have performed the best in the past. It also assists you by recommending a subject line that can be engaging and interactive. You can also find spam words that can be avoided while writing subject lines.

2- Optimize Your Body Copy and CTA

Similarly, the main content of the email can be tailored based on the past behavior of users. AI evaluates the content explored by users on your website and changes the e-newsletter from week to week when the user begins to explore a new category of content.

Moreover, provide a unified company-wide email signature to brand every message that you send to your subscriber. Focus on Office 365 email signature management to centrally manage and sync your company email signatures.

For optimizing CTA, utilizing AI helps you to find the change in user behavior and interest and present the next CTA accordingly.

For example, a user was not checking the technical document on your website. But gradually started showing interest and became engaged in your technical content. Taking it as a signal, AI prompts to offer a technical whitepaper in the next email CTA.

3- Create a Segmented Email List

You can win customers through data segmentation as it enables you to send targeted emails to the audience. However, manually segmenting your data requires a lot of time and effort.

Therefore, by AI it is more stress-free and an easy task. Using AI, you can easily segment users based on:

● Demographics, such as age, location, or gender.

● Past purchase behavior of the users.

● Email behavior, such as open or click activities in their mailboxes.

After evaluation, AI-powered apps come up with a segmented list, allowing you to boost email marketing efforts to the fullest. It also enables you to create real-time and accurate marketing segments based on customer insights drawn from cross-channel activities.

Moreover, it helps you to segment your subscriber based on their position in the sales funnel. Thus, AI-powered techniques allow you to target users individually for hyper-relevant marketing.

4- Personalize Your Emails

Integrating AI in your marketing strategy enables marketers to study the behavior of users and predict the perfect time to send them an email.

It also helps you to reduce the spillage and reach a definite audience based on their locations, interest, likes, preferences, and search patterns. Using this data, marketers can predict the type of content that their users would like to see. Thus, making it possible to personalize your email.

In addition, you can use professional and personalized templates that will increase the chances that your subscribers will open and read your mail.

Utilize AI-powered email marketing tools, such as ConvertKit, Sendinblue, or Moosend, that help you create more personalized emails.

5- Automate the Workflow

AI-based data insights enable marketers and strategists to schedule the mail at regular intervals. If you have a wide range of users from multiple time zones, then it is better to set and optimize delivery times as per their time zone.

AI helps you to figure out the time when your users are actively looking at their emails based on their past behavior.

Therefore, with the help of AI, you can optimize the send time and send sales or limited time offers when your subscribers are active and more likely to click on it.

6- Better Reporting and Actionable Analytics

Traditional methods of reporting included capturing statistics, such as opens and clicks. However, it can be improved with the help of AI. It enables you to generate data that can be utilized to get better insights and achieve the intended goal.

Some of the improved techniques that you can use to get detailed insights into user behavior and create better emails are funnels, cohorts, and churn analysis.

● Funnel analysis: It analyzes the actions taken by the users before reaching the desired goal. Funnel analysis helps marketers to determine where they are losing the most users and where they are converting them. With the help of this information, you can implement necessary steps to drive traffic, encourage subscribers to take action or entice them.

● Cohort analysis: It helps you to find out a group of subscribers that share the same characteristics. For example, some users signed up for emails in February and opened their emails in the following months of March, April, and May. Using this data, you can understand what products, promotions and marketing initiatives attract your subscribers.

● Churn analysis and prediction: It helps you to identify signals that a subscriber is about to unsubscribe you. An example of such a single is subscribers that stopped interacting with your emails. Thus, it enables you to take action in advance to retain your subscribers.

Final Thoughts

Your emails must be distinctive, specific, and target-oriented to stand out of the clutter in the mailbox of your target audience. It is because a common emailer with a repetitive message will not fetch you the desired click-through rate. You can easily achieve that by integrating AI with your email marketing strategy.

It helps you to provide more customized, targeted, and personalized emails to the subscribers. It is one of the effective strategies to deliver quality and insightful campaigns. It uses a combination of automation and advanced tools to synchronize and create appealing email campaigns. Thus, it is advantageous to incorporate AI technology to witness exceptional growth.

January 4, 2022
SEO 2018 is All About Branded Search Queries

SEO pioneer and Moz co-founder Rand Fishkin was recently asked about the future of SEO and how SEO agencies and marketers should adjust to these changes. Rands says that SEO has changed to the point that the traditional SEO focus on generic related keywords for your products and services is becoming obsolete because of how Google now displays search results.

See below for highlights from Rand’s thoughts on the changing SEO landscape:

There is definitely this problem in the SEO space where the amount of opportunity in SEO (is lessened), because of Google entering all these business sectors and taking away of a lot of the clicks and trying to solve the searchers’ query before they ever click.

This means that you just don’t have as much opportunity to earn search clicks from this search engine anymore.

Branded Search Queries

How can we overcome that? I think the answer in SEO is pretty clear, which is the one thing that Google is not taking away from us, branded search queries. If somebody searches for StatBid or they search for Moz or they search for the North Face, that is a searcher telling Google to take me to this companies website. That’s a very very powerful undeniable signal that they want to reach your site. You’re getting 90% plus click-through rates on those.

If you can increase the number of people searching for your brand instead of drawing a smaller and smaller percentage of the people who search for outdoor jackets, because Google’s placing all these ads above the fold and trying to say these are the best outdoor jackets and having an instant answer and a featured snippet and all this type of stuff, yeah that’s that’s a big win.

Combining Classic SEO with New Stuff

I think for CMO’s and for marketing departments it’s going to be a combination of classic skill sets in SEO. First, how do we rank? How do we make sure that our site is technically optimized? How do we make sure that we’re doing good keyword research and keyword targeting? How do we create good content around all these things and solve searchers problems?

Then I think it’s also going to be some new forms of marketing that SEO’s are not generally familiar with, at least not historically. Those are things like creative that draws attention and eyeballs and interest. I think it’s a lot of storytelling. Great brands are built on the back of great storytelling and that is traditionally a big weak spot for SEO.

SEO Teams Need to Get Retooled

So yeah, I think there’s going to be a combination of new and old. That could mean that some (SEO & marketing) teams need to get retooled or new people need to be added. It could mean that agencies will have to upgrade those practices and I’ve already seen some agencies in the SEO world start to do that. I think serving existing demand is going to long-term not be as exciting as creating more demand.

November 30, 2021
How Digital Marketing is Changing

It’s no secret that marketing has changed considerably in recent years.

All types of businesses — from brick-and-mortar stores to large tech companies — have begun using digital marketing to promote their products and services, get their ads seen, and make sure their website lands higher on search engine results pages.

In the relatively brief amount of time since digital marketing became the norm, things have changed at a dizzying pace. Recent developments have demonstrated that digital marketing numbers are not what companies once thought they were. Nowadays, it’s clear that digital marketers need to go further than cultivating a large number of clicks, many of which may or not be from real people.

Listed below are the top marketing trends your business needs to consider.

Ad Clicks, Marketing Fraud, and the Bottom Line

In the past few years, there have been some high-profile lawsuits related to marketing fraud. For example, Uber won a case against Austin-based marketers Phunware for fraudulent advertisements.

As it turns out, even some of the largest and most respected marketing companies have been pointing to clicks as “proof” of business growth and revenue. And yet, companies such as Airbnb have discovered that they don’t lose all that much when they stop paying marketers for advertisements. Business owners everywhere are realizing that they need to pay closer attention to whether paid ads are actually making any difference to the bottom line.

Choosing SEO-Friendly Content Instead of Paid Ads

Digital marketing services should go far beyond placing online ads. Producing relevant content that is optimized for search engines will help your business website land on Google or other search engine results pages.

Website copy optimized for SEO makes a huge difference to a company’s level of exposure. Working with competent SEO professionals should lead to more people visiting your site. People rarely click ads, but they do tend to click through on Google searches. If you incorporate the right keywords and frequently post blogs and web pages that are properly optimized, SEO content could do a lot more for your business than paid advertisements.

Finding the Right Demographic

Just because your marketing company offers your business an expanded reach doesn’t mean that the right people are seeing your advertisements. Companies are starting to realize that their digital marketing needs to reach the right people.

Marketing expenses need to be quantifiable. Large numbers of engagements, as it turns out, don’t mean much. It simply isn’t enough to switch over from traditional marketing to digital marketing. Today, it’s imperative you make sure that your advertisements, website copy, and other methods of marketing are actually making a difference to your revenue.

An Increasing Trend Away From Outsourcing

In the recent past, marketing has traditionally been outsourced to agencies that provide the service for you. Nowadays, however, a lot of businesses are choosing to retain a greater degree of control and reduce expenses by keeping their marketing and advertising in-house.

New professional-level digital tools are being released every day. There are fewer and fewer reasons to pay someone else to do your marketing. This is especially true for a large tech business with plenty of data at its disposal. If your company is doing well, you might want to think about starting an in-house marketing division. Putting more resources into marketing your own business will actually save you some money in the long run.

An Ever-Increasing Emphasis on Social Media

Marketing must include social media, now more than ever. While few companies are seeing significant returns on their social media efforts, there is so much potential in utilizing social channels. You can use a variety of methods to improve your social media presence. Share posts, reply to comments, and make use of the analytics available on each social media site.

Track the number of shares and reposts from leads and influencers. Track the number of engagements. With social media, you can even do research into your target demographics. You can easily find out where they are and how you can best sell your product or service to them. Since a lot of this can be done on-site, be careful to avoid paying someone else too much to do what you could do yourself.

Greater Access = Greater Opportunity

Marketing has changed immensely in the age of the internet and it continues to evolve. No longer is it sufficient for your company to make a transition to digital marketing. The numbers provided by many of these companies don’t represent growth for your business.

The number of clicks per ad, as well as engagements with ads, social media posts, and website pages need to be quantified and turned into real revenue, not merely collected and treasured as theoretical vanity numbers. Pay attention to sales conversions. Do your best to cut down on the costs of marketing while doing your best to market your business in the best way possible. These efforts in tandem will lead to the growth of your company.

November 6, 2021
5-Step Guide to Successfully Reviewing Your Marketing Plans

A marketing review is a crucial step to take when having a business in order to ensure that your marketing strategy, like the five C’s of marketing, aligns with business goals.

You have to find out whether all marketing activities are aligned with the company’s strategic plan, as well as examining marketing effectiveness and efficiency.

This article will explore five steps that you should take when performing a review of your marketing plan.

Why Review Your Plan?

A marketing plan is only useful when it’s up to date. It will be easy for you to review your marketing plan if it has been updated within the last six months or so since you know what goals have already been met and which are left.

You can revise your marketing regularly with a review tool like the SWOT-Analysis.

In order for your business to succeed it is imperative to see what goals you’ve accomplished and what you have missed and find out why. Maybe you had unrealistic goals or some problems along the way. Take time and effort to figure out where your company is heading and how you can improve your marketing plan based on the following guidelines:

Analyze Your Customers AND Competitors

The main goal is to get more (and happy) customers. So you need to find out who they are, where do you get them from and most importantly take a look at where people are not becoming customers to determine where you may improve.

You may discover that you’re so focused on recruiting new clients that you’re neglecting your current customer base. If that’s the case, make sure your strategy plan includes some classic customer service and methods for reconnecting with past clients.

Moreover, conduct research into current competitors and their marketing strategy. You can learn a lot from other companies. Don’t copy of course but see what niche you might fit in.

Check Your Social Media Performance

Facebook, Instagram and Co are the key to today’s marketing. You need to see how your marketing department is performing, and if you can exploit potentials. Marketing is all about getting your name out there and social media allows you to do that more than ever before.

Are you active on all the platforms? Is your company interacting with the clients? Can you still handle it the way you do it or do you need to hire a media expert?

Review marketing campaigns and brand awareness among customers by seeing the numbers of likes, comments, and engagement on posts. Doing this will help improve your future marketing plans because it’s backed by data!

Identify Trends

When do you get the most customers? Is there a peak time for sales and engagement? Try to find trends and exploit them further.

The sales trend analysis is an essential component of your strategic review since it aids you in determining when and how to promote. Will you launch a marketing campaign if business slows down in April? Are there certain products that often get bought together? This might be an opportunity for a marketing strategy focusing on a product or time period.

Redefine Your Business Objectives and Goals

The marketing review is the perfect time to reevaluate your business plan, marketing strategy and its goals. You can easily make changes or update some parts if needed after having analyzed your progress, failure and success.

You can even do it with the help of an outside perspective. Someone who does not work for you can be very helpful in seeing what is missing or where there are some blind spots. The marketing elements are not always clear cut in your business, so you can benefit from an outside perspective by asking for advice or mentoring when performing this marketing plan review.

Always be prepared to change your plan, it might be that one of the strengths has turned into a weakness during certain circumstances. You might find out that there is a marketing element you wanted to implement but now it does not make sense because the business environment has changed and this marketing activity will do more harm than good.

Don’t be afraid to communicate these changes with your team or stakeholders, they can help in various ways if given the chance.

Implement Based on an Action Plan

Determine what resources are needed in order to execute your redefined plan and implement what has been learned from the review. Communicate with your team and make sure there is a clear goal with specific, measurable outcomes so that it’s easy to see if you’ve achieved them or not.

Have a strategy for implementing and a clear schedule. Understand the business strategy behind the marketing activities. Ask why you are doing it? What is the goal? How does this align with other marketing efforts currently being implemented or planned for in the future?

If you review your marketing plan every six months or at least once a year you will determine problems and find easier solutions and in the end have a more successful business!

October 11, 2021
Ecommerce Nearing $1 Trillion

“We’re forecasting that ecommerce spending this year will be somewhere between $850 billion and $930 billion,” says John Copeland, Vice President of Marketing Science and Customer Insights at Adobe. This would be a 14 percent increase over last year. That would be more typical of what we see year over year in the ecommerce channel.”

John Copeland of Adobe, predicts that ecommerce spending could be $930 billion, or just under $1 trillion, in 2021:

COVID was a catalyst to the ecommerce channel last year. What we saw when you look at the full calendar year of 2020 was $813 billion dollars in ecommerce spending, 42 percent growth over 2019. That’s like combining two years’ worth of growth into a single year. Consumers have really embraced the online channel to meet their needs during these challenging times.

We’re all kind of wondering what (the vaccine rollout) is going to do in terms of ecommerce. We’re forecasting this year somewhere between $850 billion, only a 5 percent over last year, and up to $930 billion, which would be a 14 percent increase over last year. The 5 percent increase would be if everybody gets vaccinated and rushes out and we see kind of a slowdown. The $930 billion, 14 percent increase, would be more typical of what we see year over year in the ecommerce channel.

Buy Now Pay Later Up 215 Percent Over Last Year

Buy Now Pay Later is very much good for retailers. In fact, what we’ve seen in February this year relative to February 2020, which is kind of on the cusp of the pandemic, is a 215 percent increase year over year in buy now pay later orders. In terms of retailers, it comes along with larger average order values. What we’re seeing is 18 percent larger orders when customers are using that service. Unlike layaway, with buy now pay later you actually get the goods upfront, you don’t have to wait until the payment’s done.

Another trend is Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store, also known as BOPUS. In February of this year, we’re already seeing it growing 67 percent year on year. It’s always been huge and growing during the holiday season but now people are clearly working it in as part of their fulfillment options. Picking up in the store gives consumers the ability to schedule it according to their availability and knowing that stock will be there for them when they want to pick it up.

Ecommerce Nearing $1 Trillion, Says John Copeland of Adobe

September 30, 2021
Panera CEO: Ecommerce Pivot Sparks Dramatic Growth

“Close to 60 percent of our sales are coming from e-commerce,” says Panera CEO Niren Chaudhary. “By focusing on servicing customers through our off-premise channels, leveraging e-commerce, and then rapidly innovating we’ve seen a very smart recovery on our brand and also a stronger business model emerging from the pandemic. What’s clearly playing out is the off-premise channel is seeing dramatic growth.”

Niren Chaudhary, CEO of Panera, discusses how the company has focused on ecommerce and the “off-premise channel” to drive dramatic growth:

Panera’s Ecommerce Pivot Sparks Dramatic Growth

Panera is actually emerging quite strongly through the pandemic because we’ve been completely focused on what we have control over. By focusing on servicing customers through our off-premise channels, leveraging e-commerce, and then rapidly innovating we’ve seen a very smart recovery on our brand and also a stronger business model emerging from the pandemic. What’s clearly playing out is the off-premise channel is seeing dramatic growth.

To give you a sense, our delivery is growing by over 100 percent, drive-throughs are growing by over 60-70 percent, and rapid pickup is seeing strong growth. The off-premise channels are growing very strongly and in some ways compensating for the decline in business on-premise. Pre-pandemic we were probably about 60-40 in terms of off-premise versus on-premise. Now it is predominantly off-premise convenience for our customers as we’re moving in that direction.

Close to 60 percent of our sales are coming from e-commerce. Brands that are able to leverage their e-commerce strength and pivot very sharply on providing convenience and off-premise are beginning to see a smart recovery.

It’s All About Convenience, Ecommerce, and Innovation

There are three levers that we’re working on to get our business back on track: convenience, e-commerce, and then meaningful innovation. Included in that are cool foods, a coffee subscription program, and most recently the flatbread pizza launch. We’re very excited about this because it’s the launch of a new food category at Panera, one that we haven’t had before. It’s a bullseye innovation in terms of what the customer is looking for at this time. Customers are looking for a warm shareable at-home meal solution for their families. The flatbread pizza fits perfectly for that.

We’re doing it in a uniquely Panera way as you would expect. We’re leveraging the credibility of our breads. We have unique ingredients that are all clean, they’re fresh, we have double blend cheese, bold flavors of our sauces, and it’s stone-baked. Think of this as a pizza that customers love but done in a very unique Panera way. That’s why we’re so excited.

Panera CEO Niren Chaudhary: Ecommerce Pivot Sparks Dramatic Growth

August 8, 2021
Target CEO Says Digital Performance Up 50%

“Our digital performance was up 50 percent,” says Target CEO Brian Cornell. “As we gain greater clarity around the consumer, the economy, the state of the vaccine, we feel that the consumer continues to respond to our in-store experience and the ease and convenience of shopping with some of our same-day services like pickup, drive-up, and ship. Same-day fulfillment services now represent over half of our digital channel.”

Brian Cornell, CEO of Target, discusses their massive Q1 results in an interview on CNBC:

Digital Performance Up 50 Percent

We’ve had a string of really solid results going back to 2017 but this quarter may be one of the highlights. Our team executed throughout the quarter. We had a great performance from our store teams with a store comp of 18%. Our digital performance was up 50%. It was really a team effort. We had great supply chain support with our merchants and marketers all coming together to support the results which speak for themselves.

We are benefitting from investments we’ve been making for years now. Our investment in our store experience, our curated Home Brand and national brand mix, and then the fulfillment services that we offer. That combined with the investment in our team, I think we are seeing continued strength. We feel really good sitting here right now about our outlook, not just for the second quarter but for the full year.

We’ve Connected With The Consumer

As we gain greater clarity around the consumer, the economy, the state of the vaccine, we feel that the consumer continues to respond to our in-store experience and the ease and convenience of shopping with some of our same-day services like pickup, drive-up, and ship. They really connect with our curation of Great Home Brand, national brands, and the service our team provides each and every day.

We are feeling very confident about our position today. I look at the proof point from Q1, we picked up another billion dollars in market share on top of the $9 billion of share last year. That’s just a sign that we’ve connected with the consumer, we’re building relevance, and we’re providing what they need and what they want throughout the year.

Newness Is A Huge Trend In Our Business

When you see the combination of stores comping up at 18%, which to me is just a highlight number, and categories like apparel growing again by over 60%, that combination of store traffic and category mix really benefited us throughout the quarter. We are seeing a resilient consumer. They’re clearly shopping our stores and when they’re there they are attracted to anything that’s new.

Newness has certainly been a trend throughout our business in the first quarter and I think that’s going to continue. That great combination of store traffic and store comps and the continued movement of same-day fulfillment services which now represent over half of our digital channel. We really like that transaction. It looks and feels more like a store transaction which from a profitability standpoint certainly is beneficial for us.

Target CEO Brian Cornell Says Digital Performance Up 50%

May 21, 2021
Disney Accelerating Pivot To DTC-First Business Model

During yesterday’s earnings call Disney CEO Bob Chapek said it has accelerated the company’s pivot towards a DTC-first business model. “Our recent strategic reorganization has enabled us to accelerate the company’s pivot, towards a DTC-first business model and further grow our streaming services,” says Chapek. “Disney+ has exceeded even our highest expectations, in just over a year since its launch with 94.9 million subscribers. ESPN+ and Hulu have also performed well, with 12.1 million and 39.4 million subscriptions, respectively.”

Chapek attributes the company’s massive streaming growth to its huge collection of brands. “The wealth of IP from our unrivaled collection of brands and franchises provides us with an incredible breadth and depth of storylines and characters to mine for Disney+ and our other streaming services,” says Chapek. “We have the ability to interconnect these storylines and characters in unprecedented ways as we saw with The Mandalorian and WandaVision tying into the broader Star Wars and Marvel franchises. We’re excited to continue exploring the endless possibilities that this unique ecosystem provides.”

DTC Results Improved By $650 Million

“We believe that we’ve got a great price-value relationship,” says Chapek. “I think the best insulation we’ve got (to lower churn) is to keep the price-value relationship very high and there’s no better way to do it than powerhouse franchises cranking out regular new releases on a monthly basis.”

Disney’s direct-to-consumer results have improved by nearly $650 million versus the prior year. “Last quarter, we guided to direct-to-consumer operating income declining by $100 million versus the prior year under our former segment structure,” says Disney CFO Christine McCarthy. “Our reported results are $750 million higher than that guidance.”

Lower Disney Losses Attributed To Disney+

Disney attributes their lower losses to the growth of the Disney+ streaming service. “A lower loss in the first quarter compared to the prior year was driven by subscriber growth partially offset by higher costs due to the launch and expansion of Disney+. With 94.9 million paid subscribers at the end of Q1, Disney+’s global net additions were 21.2 million versus Q4.”

“Disney+ Hotstar subscriber additions continued their strong growth trend with Disney+ Hotstar subscribers making up approximately 30% of our global subscriber base,” said McCarthy. “We also saw strong additions to our subscriber base from our November launch in Latin America.”

Disney Happy With Level Of Churn

Disney is also very happy with its level of churn especially as it relates to subscribers who came into the Disney+ service via their Verizon partnership which helped power its launch last year. “We are very pleased with what we’ve seen so far on the level of churn,” said McCarthy. “And as our product offering matures and we put more content into the service and our subscriber base becomes more tenured, we expect to see our churn rates continue to decline.

So in regard to the specific churn related to the anniversary of the Verizon launch promotion from last November 2020, we’re really happy with the conversion numbers that we have seen there going from the promotion to become paid subscribers.”

100 New Titles a Year

“With Disney+ originals along with the theatrical releases and the library titles, we’ll be adding something new to the service every week,” noted McCarthy. “We are very pleased with the engagement overall. We believe we’re going to reach that cadence of getting content on the service every week within the next few years. We’ve also set that target for 100-plus new titles per year. And that’s across Disney Animation, Disney Live Action, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Nat Geo. And of course, we’ll continue to add more to our library as we go through time as well.”

“Given the value of growing our sub base, we are continuing to invest in high-quality content,” says McCarthy. “We believe that content is the single biggest driver to not only acquiring subs, but retaining them.”

April 3, 2021