ContentManagementNews
For those who think the internet is an endless realm of unique information, Google’s latest report is a big disappointment.
According to Google Product Expert Kenichi Suzuki, Google has revealed that some 60% of the internet is duplicate content.
The revelation is sure to be unsettling to many web developers and content creators, although there were no additional details about the criteria Google uses to determine “duplicate” content.
The CEO of TrenDemon, Avishai Sharon, says that they created their cloud-based software solution in order to help companies prove that the marketing content they produced also achieved business goals and sales. In order to show this correlation, the TrenDemon software analyzes all of the different touchpoints the customer has had over his lifecycle and then reverse engineers those successful journeys in order to find out what content is working.
Avishai Sharon, Co-founder & CEO of TrenDemon, discussed their software on ILTV:
My personal background was heading a marketing agency for many years and one of my biggest struggles was how do I prove our value and our effort to our customers and how do you connect the impact of what we call content marketing to business goals and to sales? When we couldn’t find an easy way to show that correlation three and a half years ago we went ahead and founded TrenDemon to help companies do just that.
We connect their marketing efforts, which today rely mostly on content, you want your audience to consume valuable content, as opposed to just advertising. The big challenge is how do you attribute those efforts to sales? There’s actually a prior problem, how do you actually map the customer journey? How do you track those different touch points into one picture?
The first thing we do is look at all the different touchpoints that a customer has had over his lifecycle. We ask the question, not just where do they come from, but how deep was their engagement? Did they actually watch the video? Did they actually read the article? Then you can start reverse engineering those successful journeys and say what’s common about all of these successful journeys.
What we found, and this is the interesting thing, we’re working with over 90 companies today worldwide and the vast majority of content the companies produce, over 90 percent, is ineffective at driving business goals. As you guys know it’s very expensive to create quality content and it takes a lot of effort.
The second interesting thing is that if you do manage to find those 10 percent and you find a way to get it in front of the right people you’re actually able to improve dramatically your results. So there’s not just a correlation between what buyers did beforehand, there’s also a causation, a causal relationship, that if people read the right content at the right time they’re more likely to follow a path. We’re not probably as sophisticated as we believe that we are.
We’re a SaaS company, a cloud-based solution. We’re working a lot in the US and one of our biggest markets and growing markets is Japan. They’re investing a lot of content and a lot on technology. Essentially, because we look at the customer journey and not necessarily specific languages we can operate in any environment which allows us to grow pretty much anywhere. As long as they have content, which means that they’re producing something other than just advertising, they want people and audiences to actually engage with what they’re producing and they do have some business outcomes that they’re looking to measure.
Founded in 2013, TrenDemon is the world’s leading content marketing attribution and optimization solution, helping marketers prove and improve their content’s impact.
TrenDemon insights can help you uncover your content marketing ROI, impact on business goals, and engagement to help guide the content strategy. Our optimization units will help you increase conversions and shorten time to convert on your owned assets.
TrenDemon proudly serves a wide range of customers, from Fortune 500s and brands to SaaS, B2B, and financial companies and is backed by leading VCs.
“What the pandemic and the current health situation has done is that it has created yet another inflection point for everything being digital,” says Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. “The importance of digital in the marketplace is going to be sustainable for decades. You’re not going to put the genie back in the bottle as it relates to engaging digitally and creating content digitally.”
Shantanu Narayen, Chairman and CEO of Adobe, discusses how the pandemic has created another “inflection point” in the move toward digital transformation:
It was a good quarter all around. All of our businesses performed exceedingly well. On the Creative Cloud and the Document Cloud, not only did we have a great acquisition. in other words, new customers adopting the platform, but we really focused on engagement and demonstrating the value of our products to our customers. Even our retention levels came back to pre-COVID levels which we believe is a really good sign.
What’s happening in the world is the businesses that we’re in, namely creativity and enabling people to tell their story, what’s happening with documents and accelerating document productivity, and what’s happening associated with every single enterprise needing to engage with their customers digitally, when you add all of this up we think it’s over a $120 billion of an addressable market opportunity for Adobe.
What the pandemic and the current health situation has done is that it has created yet another inflection point for everything being digital. What we will have to continue to monitor is what happens in the spending environment. But as it relates to the overall need for the kinds of solutions that Adobe provides as well as the importance of digital in the marketplace I think that’s going to be sustainable for decades. You’re not going to put the genie back in the bottle as it relates to engaging digitally and creating content digitally.
We believe that we’re in this third phase of what is happening in the enterprise. Traditionally, businesses first focused on automating the back office, and then they focused on automating the front office for knowledge workers. It’s absolutely clear that the biggest imperative that exists in the enterprise today is how do you engage with customers? This is a category that we call Customer Experience Management.
If you’re an enterprise today and you’re thinking about digital transformation, what’s top of that stack in terms of where you have to invest is to make sure that you have insight into what your customers are doing. How are they engaging with you? What’s the profile? How do you deliver the personalized experience?
We really believe that what you’re seeing in the enterprise spend environment is that the companies that are focused on this next generation of delivering customer engagement, the customer experiences, and the insight associated with how to take the most advantage of that data, they’re going to be the secular winners moving forward.
“We have seen significant acceleration since the COVID-19 pandemic,” says DocuSign CEO Dan Springer. “A significant portion of that (increase) was due to increased use cases from customers driving that digital transformation faster with services like DocuSign. We don’t see customers going back. Once they’ve got the benefits from that efficiency in their business, the better customer experience, and the better employee experience, they’re going to stay in a digitally transformed world.”
Dan Springer, CEO of DocuSign, discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital transformation and he says that businesses are not going back to a manual world:
We’ve been really pleased with the growth we’ve had since going public a few years. We have also seen significant acceleration since the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s obviously a horrible pandemic and our number one priority has been the health and wellbeing of our employees so we can take good care of our customers. As you can see in our Q1 earnings we did see an acceleration of our bookings to 59 percent.
Traditionally, if you look at the billings-type metric they have been in the mid-30s’. A significant portion of that (increase) was due to increased use cases from customers driving that digital transformation faster with services like DocuSign.
One of the things we’ve seen with the pandemic impact is that it has really accelerated the path that companies were already on to drive that digital transformation. We don’t see companies after the pandemic settles down going back and saying they want more paper and more manual processes.
Once they’ve got the benefits from that efficiency in their business, the better customer experience, and the better employee experience, they’re going to stay in a digitally transformed world. They are going to use DocuSign and other fantastic services to do that.
We really think that the future is going to have eSignature at the center of what we call the overall Agreement Cloud. Companies want to be more agreeable. They want to be easier to do business with and be easier to do business for. They’re going to not just use DocuSign for signature but all of the other components of preparing agreements and managing those agreements digitally once they’ve been created. That’s why we’re excited about our very robust future.
We just past a billion dollars in revenue (for DocuSign eSignature). We are only four percent penetrated today and we’re six times larger than the next biggest player in the space. There’s not a lot of penetration yet in that core business. Notary is still predominantly done manually. We are making investments there. We believe we can bring the same ease of use that we brought to eSignature we can bring to notary.
Much bigger than that, even expanding upon the opportunity of eSignature is that broader Agreement Cloud opportunity. We think this is the next big cloud opportunity. You are going to see companies increasingly say I don’t just want to do the workflow and signature. I also want to drive the creations of those agreements. I want to think about artificial intelligence and search capability to manage my agreements. This would enable me to actually manage my business and make my company more agreeable.
Those are some of the investments we’re making. That’s why we just finished the acquisition of Seal Software last month so we can bring additional artificial intelligence and analytic capability to help people run their businesses better.
WordPress VIP (WPVIP), Automattic’s enterprise subsidiary, is buying Parse.ly to provide enterprise clients with content analytics.
WPVIP currently offers enterprise-grade WordPress services to some of the biggest names in tech. Much of those services revolve around providing consultation, products and services to help clients get the most from WordPress.
The acquisition of Parse.ly is a natural fit for WPVIP, adding powerful content analytics for the enterprise. WPVIP’s Nick Gernert highlighted some of the benefits:
Over the years, we’ve been fortunate to see firsthand the impact of Parse.ly’s content analytics platform. Parse.ly isn’t simply capturing traditional traffic analytics. Instead, the platform goes deeper—revealing exactly how individual content pieces are impacting traffic in real-time. The upshot for content marketers? Rich reporting with detailed insights into the business impact of their content.
With Parse.ly, the workflows that WPVIP customers use every day will surface insights that move beyond page views and visits. For example, commerce brands will understand which content converts visitors into buyers. They will also be able to deliver content recommendations for top-performing products.
According to Parse.ly’s co-founder Sachin Kamdar, all of the company’s employees will now join WPVIP. Meanwhile, all of Parse.ly’s customers will gain access to WPVIP.
Kamdar emphasized the further innovation that will result from WPVIP’s investment:
Parse.ly’s open source WordPress plugin is already the most popular way to deploy Parse.ly to websites. And we have lots of ideas for how Parse.ly’s dashboard and API can improve enterprise WordPress sites. But, that’s not the only (or even the primary) place we’ll be innovating in 2021 and beyond. Our desire was always to make Parse.ly the top content analytics system on the market, and solve key real-time and historical analytics needs for editors, journalists, corporate marketers, and content marketers alike.
With investment from the WPVIP team, and with wider product innovation support from the Automattic team, this dream will be a reality. You, our customers and prospective customers, will benefit directly from this investment.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Some of the most prominent internet companies have formed the Internet Works coalition to promote Section 230, a key internet law.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives companies immunity for content users upload or post on their sites. As a result, companies like Facebook, Twitter and others cannot be held legally liable for an offensive post, picture or the like.
In recent years Section 230 has come under fire, culminating in President Trump threatening to veto a defense spending bill unless Section 230 is revoked. While President-elect Biden has not weighed in on Section 230 directly, his former top tech advisor has said its time for changes to the law, throwing in question the law’s status even with a change of administration.
Internet Works, however, is working to help educate lawmakers about the role of the law. Automattic (maker of WordPress), Cloudflare, Dropbox, eBay, Etsy, Glassdoor, GoDaddy, Medium, Nextdoor, Patreon, Pinterest, Reddit, Snap Inc., Tripadvisor, Vimeo and the Wikimedia Foundation are all members of the coalition.
“These well-known internet companies and nonprofits launched Internet Works to elevate the voice of stakeholders across the digital economy and work with policymakers to preserve the benefits of Section 230, the foundational internet law that enables the United States to lead the world in innovation and robust job growth in the technology sector,” said Josh Ackil, Spokesperson for Internet Works. “Internet Works members rely on CDA 230 to make their platforms safe for users and support free expression. This coalition brings new voices and diverse perspectives to Washington’s current Section 230 debate, which too often focuses on the largest internet platforms.”
The wide range of companies making up the coalition illustrates the far-reaching impact of Section 230. While many think of social media platforms as the primary beneficiaries of the law, companies like Dropbox also benefit. As a cloud storage provider, should Dropbox be liable for whatever a customer chooses to use that storage for? If Dropbox should be liable, then what measures should they be expected to take to verify the content they host? What privacy protections will customers be able to expect, or not expect, as a result of those measures?
Whatever happens with Section 230, it’s clear there are significant challenges to addressing the problems of a modern internet.
It was a merger that started out nearly a year ago as a perfect idea and was even approved by the U.S. government. In the end, it turned into a perfect storm because of the ad industry upheaval caused by the coronavirus and subsequent business closures followed by massive unemployment and fewer clicks on ads. Ad prices then dropped dramatically which changed the value proposition for both Outbrain and Taboola.
The world’s two leading companies in the discovery & native advertising industry will remain fierce competitors in what still is a chaotic and unpredictable ad market.
“As part of the process we exchanged financial information with each other,” says Taboola Founder & CEO Adam Singolda in a blog post. “Based on the relative performance of the two companies, we decided the original deal does not make sense anymore. We could choose to pay the same price of 30% in equity + $250M, but our shareholders thought it’s too much for what we would get based on the relative contribution of the two companies. Nothing emotional, not about culture fit, just data.”
“Out of deep respect, we tried to do a deal that was equity only (but less equity), or equity and cash (but less cash) that matched Outbrain’s financial contribution to Taboola. We failed, and we called it off.”
Outbrain Co-Founder and CEO Yaron Galai expressed his own thoughts on the collapse of the merger:
“It is now public news that Outbrain’s planned merger with Taboola is heading to termination in the near future. This isn’t the outcome any of us anticipated for this process. We believed when entering this deal that there is great potential value to be had for our employees, our marketers and publisher partners, and our shareholders. However, this combination apparently was simply not meant to be. We worked hard to mix water and oil, but ultimately the companies proved to be too different to be mixed.”
“During a very stormy year for the Outbrain team, due to both the pandemic and the cloud of the merger, Outbrain’s character as the #1 most trusted partner for the world’s best publishers has shone through very brightly. We’re excited to continue innovating and building the best native advertising products for publishers and marketers as an independent company for many years to come.”
Just twenty short months after SAP announced their intention of acquiring Qualtrics for $8 billion just prior to their IPO SAP is taking Qualtrics public.
“The Qualtrics IPO is actually a win-win situation for both SAP and Qualtrics,” says SAP CEO Christian Klein. “When we are talking about Qualtrics let me first outline that Qualtrics was for sure one of the best acquisitions SAP ever did. They performed in the last 9 months above and beyond all the expectations we have set at the point of the acquisition. Now, three months back when I became the sole CEO of SAP Ryan Smith and I discussed a few options about how to move Qualtrics to the next level.”
“SAP’s acquisition of Qualtrics has been a great success and has outperformed our expectations with 2019 cloud growth in excess of 40 percent, demonstrating very strong performance in the current setup,” Klein stated. “As Ryan Smith, Zig Serafin, and I worked together, we decided that an IPO would provide the greatest opportunity for Qualtrics to grow the Experience Management category, serve its customers, explore its own acquisition strategy and continue building the best talent. SAP will remain Qualtrics’ largest and most important go-to-market and research and development (R&D) partner while giving Qualtrics greater independence to broaden its base by partnering and building out the entire experience management ecosystem.”
“When we launched the Experience Management category, our goal was always to help as many organizations as possible leverage the XM Platform as a system of action,” Qualtrics Founder Ryan Smith said. “SAP is an incredible partner with unprecedented global reach, and we couldn’t be more excited about continuing the partnership. This will allow us to continue building out the XM ecosystem across a broad array of partners.”
SAP agreed to acquire Qualtrics just four days before Qualtrics was to go public in 2018, recognizing the potential of bringing together experience and operational data (X+O) to help organizations take action. SAP currently owns 100 percent of Qualtrics shares. SAP will retain majority ownership of Qualtrics and has no intention of spinning off or otherwise divesting its majority ownership interest. Ryan Smith intends to be Qualtrics’ largest individual shareholder.
Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, discusses the reasons for their IPO and says that Qualtrics has been the best acquisition that SAP ever did:
When we are talking about Qualtrics let me first outline that Qualtrics was for sure one of the best acquisitions SAP ever did. They performed in the last 9 months above and beyond all the expectations we have set at the point of the acquisition. Now, three months back when I became the sole CEO of SAP Ryan Smith and I discussed a few options about how to move Qualtrics to the next level. The partial IPO, we are both fully convinced, is actually a win-win situation for both SAP and Qualtrics.
First, it will allow Qualtrics to focus on the non-SAP customer base in a high closed market. Second, despite the IPO, of course, SAP will remain fully committed to Experience Management (XM) and we will develop further use cases for our customers. We will also continue with the joint go-to-market. SAP is fully committed and will be in the long run highly committed to to Qualtrics and also will remain a majority shareholder of Qualtrics going forward.
We kicked off already in the last 19 months, great use cases for our customers. We launched Human Experience Management (HXM) which helped both to accelerate the sales of Qualtrics but also our core application success factors. We did the same for commerce. In our product strategy, it actually plans to really expand experience management across our solution portfolio.
Our employees are very excited about that because they see the benefits for our customers and this is something that won’t change with the IPO. This will allow Qualtrics more autonomy to also go after the market with non-SAP customers as this is a high quote segment.
“We’re making email marketing even smarter with a set of new AI capabilities getting released into Salesforce Marketing Cloud,” says Salesforce VP Armita Peymandoust. “One of them is Einstein Engagement Frequency. The other one is Einstein Send Time Optimization. We also have Einstein Content Tagging out and available today to our customers. Email is definitely not dead. Even the Millennials say that.”
Armita Peymandoust, VP Product Management, Analytics, and Einstein at Salesforce, discusses new AI-powered email features for Marketing Cloud announced by Salesforce at Connections 19:
As we know email is still a really important channel. Over 64 percent of customers are still saying that they prefer email channels to all the others. What we’re doing is we’re making email marketing even smarter with a set of new AI capabilities getting released into Salesforce Marketing Cloud. One of them is Einstein Engagement Frequency. The other one is Einstein Send Time Optimization. We also have Einstein Content Tagging out and available today to our customers. Email is definitely not dead. Even the Millennials say that.
Einstein Engagement Frequency
With Einstein Engagement Frequency we’re trying to tell the marketer what’s the sweet range that they should keep on engaging with their customers. As marketers, we want to keep on engaging with our customers but we just don’t want to get to a point that we’re potentially annoying them. So we are telling them that this is the range that you should stay in.
Einstein Send Time Optimization
Now that the marketer knows what the frequency of engagement should be, with Einstein Send Time Optimization we’re also telling them what is the right time to send those messages. It’s really easy with a drag and drop of an activity into Journey Builder we make every message go out at the right time for the customers.
Einstein Content Tagging
Then with Einstein Content Tagging, we’re basically bringing image recognition the same set of AI capabilities that you’re familiar with for your customer based or consumer based products. This is where you upload photos and then they automatically get tagged. We are bringing that same technology to the hand of the marketer. Every image that’s getting uploaded into Content Builder gets automatically tagged so they can find it later and use it when they’re building their messages.
Transactional Messaging
We’re also releasing Transactional API’s for Emails and SMS. There are different types of emails out there. There’s the commercial one and there’s the transactional one. It allows the marketer to bring both of those two in an inter-marketing cloud and take advantage of Marketing Cloud to send those emails to have the same voice, the same brand voice, and also be able to see how those are performing all in one place.
These features are all relatively new. So we have pilot customers that have been taking advantage of them. We have one retailer that talked about Einstein Engagement Frequency. They had a hunch that they were over messaging customers but they couldn’t really put their finger on it. With Einstein Engagement Frequency we could show them visually exactly where they’re over engaging with their customers and let them take action on it. The platform automatically created lists so that they would not send messages to the ones that are getting too many email messages.
We’ve had a set of AI features in Marketing Cloud, specifically Einstein Engagement Scores, was one that the NBA’s Indiana Pacers is taking advantage of, to increase the engagement rate that they’re having with their fans. They got a 20 percent increase in engagements with their fans using that.
We have a jam-packed roadmap for the next of the rest of the year as well. One of the things that I’m really excited about is Content Selection that’s coming out. Content Selection lets each of those messages that we’re creating be dynamically optimized for every customer that’s receiving them. Think of your email as a template that has different aspects or different selections in it that gets automatically replaced with what your customer cares about most and also what they have engaged with most and historically. It’s very engaging for every one of your customers.
The other one that I’m interested in (that is coming later) is bringing natural language processing to understanding your subject lines. What types of subject lines are resonating? Why is it that they’re resonating with your customers? It will give you an insight on them first and then also give you recommendations on how to improve your subject lines.
Many companies are working to build authentic and trusted brands with consumers. This is especially true with pharmaceuticals, biotech, and med-tech companies. The CEO of Sparrho, Dr. Vivian Chan, says that their approach combines artificial intelligence and 400,000 Ph.D.’s to deliver scientific data to companies. This data helps companies back up their marketing messages which enables them to more effectively build that vital trust with their customers.
Dr. Vivian Chan, Sparrho CEO, recently discussed on CNBC their unique hybrid AI approach to helping companies use science and information to back up their brands messaging:
Artificial intelligence is really about algorithms and how we can use data that we collect to enable humans to make better-informed decisions. I not at all about having computers make decisions on behalf of humans. In a way, I think it’s machines that will be helping evolve the tasks and not actually replacing the human roles. Human roles themselves will be evolving also as the technology improves. This allows humans to have more headspace to be thinking about things that machines can’t do right now.
Machines can’t necessarily summarize a lot of pieces of contextual analysis very well yet to a 100 percent accuracy and humans are still better at making nonlinear connection points. For example, being able to say that this mathematical equation is super relevant to an agricultural problem. If we don’t have the tagging and reference and citations humans are still better at making those nonlinear new connection points than machines.
Humans are still good at coming up with the questions. If you actually pose the right question and you train the data and the algorithms you might actually get the right answer. However, you still need to have the humans to be thinking about what the questions are in order to ultimately get the answers.
I think the angle is really thinking about using AI as a means to an end and not just the end. Ultimately, this is a hybrid approach and various different people are calling it differently. Even MIT professors are calling it a hybrid approach. We’re calling it augmented intelligence. We need to come up with a good relationship between humans and machines. Marketing is about building relationships. It’s about building relationships between brands and consumers and now how do we build that relationship digitally?
In this digital age, consumers are a lot more tech savvy but are also information savvy. They want to know what the is science behind certain things. Even if you’re talking about CPG, consumer packaged goods, what is the science behind a shampoo product right now when it claims 98 percent prevention of hair loss? What is the real science behind that and how do we actually bring that simplified science-oriented message to the consumer? How can consumers educate themselves and make informed decisions based on the products and thereby build a stronger brand relationship?
Ultimately what we’re trying to do at Sparrow is simplify science to build trust in brands. Especially for marketing departments and brands, it’s really allowing them to have the evidence-based science and the facts because building a very authenticated brand is what is meaningful to consumers. Research says that about 71 percent of consumers immediately reject content that looks like a sales pitch. Building a relationship and having an authenticated brand and content is super important in building that relationship between brand and consumers.
We’re going even wider with that by providing what we call content as a service or relevant content on demand. We then integrate that into the digital platforms or the brands. We have what we call augmented intelligence with over 16 million pieces of content that is augmented by a network of more than 400,000 monthly active PhDs in a150 countries. They curate and summarize what’s actually happening in the latest of science.
We know that in about 60 percent of pharmaceuticals, biotech, and even med-tech companies, are spending more than $50 million per year just in content. Content has been the major driver for a lot of their marketing. In pharmaceuticals, they’re trying to really bring that relationship that they have offline to online. It’s at the heart of this digital transformation age that we are going through. This is really helping bring that relationship online by using the right engaging content. Our goal with Sparrow is to drive more engagement and ultimately more sales.
“When people look at what’s happening with Amazon trying to get into their businesses, the need to transform is also front and center for every c-level executive,” says Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. “Given that Adobe’s been through our own transformation and has software they want to hear from us and they want to experience that same benefit that we have been able to see.”
Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, discusses how Adobe is helping companies large and small through their digital transformation in an interview on CNBC:
When we talk about helping businesses transform we do every aspect of it. We help them create that experience and help them understand how to attract customers. That last mile of transacting with customers is so critical. Adobe was a company that actually innovated tremendously but we had a two-tier distribution channel. We have two businesses. We have the creative business and we have the enterprise business. If you look at what we’ve been able to accomplish in the long run and the two tailwinds that we have, we continue to be really optimistic about Adobe’s prospects.
When we completely moved to the cloud we recognized that every other company would go through what we did. Namely, how do you engage with your customers digitally? Do you understand how to acquire them and how do they use your software? I think sharing our learnings with other people gives us incredible credibility in the enterprise and we learn from these customers.
In enterprise software, this third generation, which is all about customer experience management, I think it’s the companies who recognize that you have to partner with an entire ecosystem to create this real-time customer profile that’s absolutely so critical. That’s why our partnerships, whether they be with ServiceNow or Microsoft or the other cloud kings is so critical in enabling our customers to completely transform themselves.
What we have been able to do is create this real-time customer profile. People are really within an enterprise saying how do I create native applications? ServiceNow is clearly the leader in IT Service Management. What John (Donahoe) has done is truly special. I think partnering with them to enable IT professionals within an enterprise to use Adobe’s Customer Experience Management with ServiceNow’s IT Service Management, that was a natural.
Design and creativity have never been more important. Everything has a screen. So people are creating content, whether that’s a car, whether that’s a retail experience, whether it’s a basketball stadium. Adobe is the content provider that enables all of these screens to be delivered with incredible content. Given design is more important and given mobile devices are in every single place, that’s a tremendous tailwind.
Secondly, when people look at what’s happening with Amazon trying to get into their businesses, the need to transform is also front and center for every c-level executive. Given that Adobe’s been through our own transformation and has software they want to hear from us and they want to experience that same benefit that we have been able to see.
I’ve talked about how video is explosive. II think what Disney is doing both with their own service as well as with more control of Hulu is really saying people are consuming more and more content digitally. So providing the analytics for that, providing the digital rights management for that, the right ability to audience segment in terms of who you are attracting, a lot of that is what Adobe powers. This is not just for Disney but for frankly all the major media companies in the world.
The big CPG companies are going through the following question. They have sometimes hundreds of millions or billions of people using their products and they just don’t necessarily know who they are. Giving them that insight into how they create this incredible customer database, how they understand usage patterns, and how they understand what these people want. If we can provide that insight to companies then all the CPG companies can recognize that this direct relationship will enable them to innovate at a faster pace.
For example, what Unilever is trying to do is really say we have this tremendous distribution network but what they’ve tried to do even with Dollar Shave Club is really say, “How do we create an incredible customer database?” But the same thing is happening across Colgate or Procter & Gamble. We are partnering very heavily with Unilever as they embark on this digital transformation and understanding customer patterns and customer sentiments across the world.
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Adobe has been moving its software to the cloud for years, but the company announced it is finally brining one of its last holdouts to the cloud: Adobe Experience Manager.
Adobe Experience Manager is a content management system that helps companies design, build and manage websites. Unlike much of Adobe’s software, however, Experience Manager was still based on legacy software that required large monolithic updates and slow patch times, rather than the benefits of cloud-based software and its continuous delivery approach.
“Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service supercharges organizations’ abilities to create, manage and deliver more campaigns, digital assets and experiences faster than ever before,” said Loni Stark, senior director of strategy and product marketing. “It creates a compelling offer for mid-size companies and enterprises that are increasingly transforming to adopt advanced digital tools but need more simplicity and flexibility to support their changing business models.”
The move to the cloud is already paying off for Adobe’s early adopters.
“Early results from mid-market to large enterprise companies using the application show a 50% faster ingestion time, a 40% increase in administrative efficiency, zero downtime resulting from regularly scheduled updates and an over 20% surge in author productivity.”
“The new cloud opportunity that we see is in the Agreement Cloud,” says DocuSign CEO Dan Springer. “It is going to be the next big cloud because we think this is about bringing multiple clouds together. We work strongly with ERP and strongly with CRM. We’re actually finding opportunities increasingly every day to make the other cloud investments that people are making have more value before them by bringing them together. What connects them is the agreements those companies do.”
Dan Springer, CEO of DocuSign, discusses their launch of the Agreement Cloud and how it will transform companies to more easily work together and “be more agreeable.” Springer was interviewed on CNBC:
We’re super excited about the DocuSign Agreement Cloud. We realize that our customers have said e-signature is a fantastic foundation for their business. But they have a broader set of needs around the way they not only sign agreements but the way they prepare them and the way they manage them after they’ve been signed. So we’ve built out a broader suite of products and that’s what we’re bringing to market today.
I think it’s key, the connectedness that Slack is seeing and pushing for is very similar to what we see as well. Companies want to be, in our terminology, more agreeable. Those are the communications they want to have within their companies or their back-office functions that they’ve tried to digitally transform, but also for the front office. They really want to have a customer experience that is what the customers expect so they will be easy to do business with. We see that the Slack moves are very similar to what we’re seeing in the Agreement Cloud.
We’re super excited about the core e-signature business. While we talk about the Agreement Cloud, we think that’s the broader opportunity to really make this one of the most significant cloud opportunities. We don’t in any way want to move away from the excitement we have over the course e-signature business. It’s sort of what brought us to the dance. If you think about the roughly billion dollars of revenue that we will deliver this year the bulk of it will still come from e-signature. The growth opportunities are very broad.
We like to talk about the fact that DocuSign is unusual. We serve from the smallest business to the largest enterprise and across all verticals. We are excited to talk about federal. We had our first million-dollar ACVD deal that we just announced in the quarter. So it’s not just that segment, it really is very broad. We think financial services will continue to be a driver for us and as I mentioned federal will be exciting. You’re going to see us continue to expand internationally and domestically. It really is a broad-based opportunity.
If you think about the overall TAM, e-signature is a $25 billion dollar market. With the broader Agreement Cloud that gets into a magnitude of many billions more, maybe doubling the overall opportunity. When you think about the competitive set it’s so early. We’re only about four or five percent penetrated in the core signature business and less on the broader ones. When we actually talk about competition, we talk about paper and manual processes. This business is so early days. We’re in the early innings. We believe that our biggest competition really is paper and manual processes. We like to say it’s a great competitive set to have because they don’t fight back very hard. It’s just a matter of time before we really are going to be able to replace and modernize those systems.
When you think about the infrastructure side, it’s a huge part of where the cloud is going. We’ve been much more focused on the application and thinking about that end-user value. But on the infrastructure side, I think it’s a hugely competitive space. It used to be looking like a two-horse race with Microsoft and Amazon. Now looking at some of the other players, such as what Google’s doing, I think you’re going to see more and more competition in that space. I don’t think it’s going to be necessarily bad for those players because it’s a really large expanding market.
On the application side, the new cloud opportunity that we see is in the Agreement Cloud. It is going to be the next big cloud because we think this is about bringing multiple clouds together. We work strongly with ERP and strongly with CRM. We’re actually finding opportunities increasingly every day to make the other cloud investments that people are making have more value before them by bringing them together. What connects them is the agreements those companies do.
In recent years, content marketing has become one of the most powerful techniques for growing your business. Because of its effectiveness, businesses are now allotting as much as 40 percent of their advertising budget on content marketing. The investment makes sense because well-executed content marketing can bring more traffic to a website, raise brand awareness among consumers, position your business as an expert, raise customer loyalty, and greatly improve sales.
However, in order to get the most of your content marketing efforts, you’ll need to have a clear and defined strategy. And, you’ll need to stick to it! This will not only make it easier to create more content but also help you analyze, set goals, and measure your ROI.
The first step to developing a content marketing strategy is to determine your company’s objective. In other words, you’ll need to have an end goal. Are you trying to create more awareness about your brand? Or, are you trying to gain more subscriptions to a service you provide? Decide on one or two core goals that will affect your bottom line and two or three supporting objectives you want to meet.
You want to market to the right customer using the right content at the right time. To do so, you would need to define your target market. You can do this by creating buyer personas and using them as a model for your content marketing plan. Conduct qualitative research to build these personas. Make use of surveys, customer feedback, focus groups, social media activity, and customer interviews. Even user profiles and transaction histories will help you in understanding who your real customers are.
Make use of social media, search browsers, surveys, customer conversations and insight from your sales and customer service personnel to understand what your customers need. You can then use the collected data to segment your customers and send them content that is specific to their needs.
Once you have determined your end goal and identified your buyers, you can start focusing on content. There are a lot of content types to choose from—blogs, ebooks, infographics, games, courses, mobile apps, webinars, podcasts, and newsletters to name a few. Choose two or three types that are most suited or relevant to your audience to ensure you can always provide high-quality content. Once you have decided on the content channels you want, you can start creating a content schedule.
According to a 2018 B2C survey by Conductor, businesses use blogs and videos 3 times more than any other type of content marketing.
Utilize your buyer personas and customer information to design a plan for executing your content. Start brainstorming for ideas, like what keywords to use or topics for your blog. Think about how and where your audience will receive their information. Consider that customers require different kinds of content per funnel stage.
Your objectives will help define your metrics. Develop a measurement framework to help you keep track of how your strategy is helping with your goals. There are different categories of content marketing metrics that you can find online.
Amplify Your Content It’s not enough to just develop content. Even an in-depth blog post or expertly edited video will fall on deaf ears unless you amplify its reach. Consider that there are at least 4 million blog posts published every day, how will you get your post to rise above the noise? You can get the word out through social media channels or explore other avenues, like using influencers or creating events.
Once you have established your content marketing strategy, you’ll have to stick to it to reap the benefits. Unfortunately, this is where a lot of companies falter. Here are three tips to help you stay on your path:
Every departments’ goals should align with each other. For instance, the goals of the marketing and sales department should be in tune with each other and should fall in line with that of the upper management. Every member should also know the metrics that will be used.
Check which previous marketing strategies gave you the best results and build from there. After all, why fix something that isn’t broken? For instance, if one PPC campaign resulted in a good ROI, update it by either boosting the ad spending or launching a similar campaign using a different product.
Good marketers know they should play to their strengths and delegate or outsource the rest. For instance, if you have good graphic design skills, make your own business logo or visual banners. If you are terrible at getting your ideas across in words, hire a writer. There’s no reason to do it all yourself when you can tap the services of others who can do a better job.
A solid content marketing strategy is essential to a successful business. Brainstorm for ideas and do not be afraid to experiment with different approaches or try a variety of tools. Keep track of customer engagement to ensure that you will stick to the strategy you devised. These will help in the continued improvement of your content marketing strategy and the success of your business.
“If it’s a streaming war we’d like to be an arms dealer,” says IAC CEO Joey Levin. “We want to send the product and services to people who are making video. Video is relevant not just to people building streaming services, which there are now endless amounts of that and endless amounts of capital, but also every small business and every event. Everywhere people interact they’re expecting video now. It used to be text, then it was images, and now it’s video.”
Joey Levin, CEO of IAC, discusses their position as the “arms dealer” in the streaming wars in an interview on CNBC at The Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference:
If it’s a streaming war we’d like to be an arms dealer. We want to send the product and services to people who are making video. Video is relevant not just to people building streaming services, which there are now endless amounts of that and endless amounts of capital, but also every small business and every event. Everywhere people interact they’re expecting video now. It used to be text, then it was images, and now it’s video. People need the tools to make that and our goal is to provide them.
I’m thrilled (we pivoted away from being a platform for streaming) now that everyone’s jumping into that space. I think between the time we announced that we were going to get into the streaming wars and the time we backed out there was another several billion dollars within a few months that entered the category. We were not competing with weapons that size and thought we’d be better off being a service provider.
I don’t know what the right answer is (regarding breaking up big tech companies such as Google and Facebook) but I do know that we need an answer. Regulations are very hard to get right. I think frequently regulations in areas like that end up helping the incumbents. Those companies have already built huge data stores and they know what to do with those. It’ll just make it harder for the next people that come in to gather the data they need to compete. I don’t know how the regulations would work. I’d love to see that happen. I’d love to see regulations allow for more competition and protect competition, but it’s hard to see how that’s going to work. I don’t think GDPR did that really and I don’t know what would. They may need other solutions.
I think it’s possible (to compete with Google) but they have to play fairly. They have a significant position in search and they have a significant position in other areas too and that’s where a lot of people start their behavior. If Google starts favoring its own products or continues favoring its own products that is not going to leave room for others. I think that’s not necessarily great for the country.
We don’t think a lot about a particular market state when we’re taking a company publicly. We think about what’s right for the company at the time. Does the company need access to capital? Does the company need a currency? Could a company benefit in some way by being public and having a public currency? It’s kind of independent of what market we’re in at that moment (when we decide it’s the right) time to take a company public. Just because the market might be hot or valuations might be high doesn’t mean we need to hit that window because we take a much longer-term perspective.
The (recent IPOs) are all different and they all have their own story. There are fantastic companies going public. I think it’ll be good for investors and they have opportunities to invest in them. It’s better that their public in a lot of cases than being private where a limited number of people can invest in them.
I think there are different answers for different businesses (regarding potential regulations that could shut down the gig economy). We have businesses that have gig economy workers, 1099 workers, and we have businesses that are very big on W2 workers. The question is are the employees or the people doing the work getting the benefits that they want and getting the benefits that they need? Many of them prefer to be independent contractors and many of them prefer some of the benefits of independent contractors. Others like BlueCrew, which is all W2 workers, want benefits and need the things that come with being a W2 worker. Each business has its own needs on that.
One of the other things that we’re doing at IAC right now that’s really important for our 8,000 employees is we just announced a big change to our 401k plan to address the income inequality gap, to get more people investing in the market, to get more people participating in the economy and in capitalism. We are now matching a hundred percent of people’s 401k contributions up to 10% of their salary which is I think relatively unheard of among our competitors and other companies. I’m hoping other people follow that.
There’s no doubt about it, video is the most powerful medium for marketing today. Research has shown that 75 million people in the US watch videos on the internet every day. Moreover, about 50 percent those videos are viewed through a mobile device. Experts predict that by 2019, traffic from internet videos will account for 80 percent of all online consumer traffic.
Video marketing isn’t just an option anymore. It’s now an essential marketing tool.
However, consumers today are viewing their videos in a different manner than in previous years. Horizontal videos don’t have the hold they used to have while vertical videos are becoming more prevalent. This means that advertisers not only have to make video a priority, but they also need to rethink how they create and format their video content.
Not, that long ago, vertical videos were frowned upon by advertisers. Since their reduced size was incompatible to the then wider screens of desktop computers, they tended to look like they were shot by amateurs. But times have changed and vertical videos are now preferred over horizontal ones.
Here’s why marketers should utilize vertical videos:
The popularity of mobile devices has also led to the universal acceptance of vertical videos. Smartphones are designed primarily for accepting and making calls, thus their aspect ratio will be vertical. This has also influenced people’s online experience. About 94 percent of consumers hold their phone vertically, and most won’t bother to turn it on its side just to watch a video horizontally.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter are all optimized for mobile devices. And most of these platforms are quick to follow trends, which is why most have already removed the black bars on vertical videos to give consumers a better viewing experience.
Advertisers have discovered that using vertical videos to promote their products have better results in terms of engagement and views. Due to its orientation, vertical videos fill the whole screen and lets people focus solely on what they’re looking at it. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of distraction when watching a horizontal video on an upright screen. MediaBrix data also showed that less than 30 percent of people are willing to turn their devices sideways. It’s likely that they will also skip horizontal video ads.
Social media platforms optimize their videos differently, and this could impact the viewer experience. Take into consideration the type of users each platform has and design your video accordingly. Longer videos are better suited on Facebook, as the average user experience is usually three minutes per session. Meanwhile, Instagram users favor shorter videos that are under two minutes.
Short and sweet is the formula for content success. Even though long-form videos are good on platforms like Facebook, not every user can engage with extended content. It’s better to keep content to 10 seconds or less since it’s easier to digest. Increase the odds of engagement by releasing several short clips. It’s more valuable and encourages repeat views. What’s more, multiple videos will have your audiences staying with your content longer.
Use your video like an extra set of eyes and take your audience with you. Vertical videos are great for showcasing day-in-the-life clips or behind the scenes shots. It lets your audience feel like they’re the ones behind the camera, providing them with an authentic customer experience.
Vertical video provides marketers with a ton of new opportunities to push their brand. By making vertical video content, you can tap into more mobile device users who will spend more time on your content. this results in more shares, greater exposure for your brand and more sales.
AWS CEO Andy Jassy announced Amazon Textract at the AWS re:Invent 2018 conference. Textract allows AWS customers to automatically extract formatted data from documents without losing the structure of the data. Best of all, there are no machine learning skills required to use Textract. It’s something that many data-intensive enterprises have been requesting for many years.
Our customers are frustrated that they can’t get more of all those text and data that are in documents into the cloud, so they can actually do machine learning on top of it. So we worked with our customers, we thought about what might solve these problems and I’m excited to announce the launch of Amazon Textract. This is an OCR plus plus service to easily extract text and data from virtually any document and there is no machine learning experience required.
This is important, you don’t need to have any machine learning experience to be able to use Textract. Here’s how it generally works. Below is a pretty typical document, it’s got a couple of columns and it’s got a table in the middle of the left column.
When you use OCR it just basically captures all that information in a row and so what you end up with is the gobbledygook you see in the box below which is completely useless. That’s typically what happens.
Let’s go through what Textract does. Textract is intelligent. Textract is able to tell that there are two columns here so actually when you get the data and the language it reads like it’s supposed to be read. Textract is able to identify that there’s a table there and is able to lay out for you what that table should look like so you can actually read and use that data in whatever you’re trying to do on the analytics and machine learning side. That’s a very different equation.
Textract Works Great with Forms What happens with most of these forms is that the OCR can’t really read the forms or actually make them coherent at all. Sometimes these templates will kind of effectively memorize in this box is this piece of data. Textract is going to work across legal forms and financial forms and tax forms and healthcare forms, and we will keep adding more and more of these.
But also these forms will change every few years and when they do something that you thought was a Social Security number in this box turns out now not to be a date of birth. What we have built Textract to do is to recognize what certain data items or objects are so it’s able to tell this set of characters is a Social Security number, this set of characters is a date of birth, this set of characters is an address.
Not only can we apply it to many more forms but also if those forms change Textract doesn’t miss a beat. That is a pretty significant change in your capability in being able to extract and digitally use data that are in documents.
These days, shoppers are less impressed with celebrities and gurus telling them what to buy and prefer content that’s generated by their fellow consumers. A Nielsen report showed that 92 percent of consumers trust recommendations made by people they know while 70 percent believe the opinions consumers post online.
Some brands have been savvy enough to take advantage of this changing mindset and have successfully leveraged user-generated content (UGC) into their marketing campaigns.
User-generated content is essentially content that comes from customers. When customers have a positive experience with your brand, they are more inclined to tell others about it.
A ringing endorsement from a happy client is one of the fastest and cheapest ways to boost your customer base. And since the content comes from real people who have actually used the company’s products or services, consumers know that the information provided is authentic and reliable, thus improving a brand’s credibility.
There are several ways that smart brands can utilize UGC. Here’s a list of five companies highly-successful campaigns that show how to effectively leverage user-generated content in your marketing efforts.
Starbucks hit a home run back in 2014 with its White Cup competition. The coffee giant asked their customers to doodle designs on their paper cups, take pictures, and post them on social media using the hashtag #WhiteCupContest. The best design would become the template for their limited-edition coffee cups. The contest generated around 4,000 entries in three weeks and created a lot of buzz even after it ended. When Starbucks finally unveiled the limited-edition cups, millions of customers took photos of the items and posting them on their social media accounts.
Takeaway: A contest with an interesting gift or a freebie is an effective way to interact with your target market. You can also generate revenue by turning the UGC into something you can repurpose or sell.
User-generated content can solidify and expand a loyal fan base effortlessly. When Apple released the iPhone 8 and X, the company decided to take advantage of the fact that people were already using their product to take great pictures. The company’s #ShotOniPhone campaign saw Apple fans sharing the photos they took on their iPhones. Apple then showcased their favorite photos on its official Instagram account. While the campaign placed the focus on the photographers and their skill, it also emphasized their product’s features and capabilities.
Takeaway: Celebrate your loyal customers by showcasing their work in your website and social media accounts. The UGC will also drive more visitors to spend more time on your site.
Marc Jacobs reminded people why he’s such a trailblazer with the Cast Me Marc campaign. In 2014, the designer decided to cast models in a distinct way – by using Instagram and Twitter. People who were interested in modeling for the brand were asked to submit their photos with the #CastMeMarc hashtag. The company received 15,000 submissions within a day and 70,000 photos by the time the contest ended. The brand was also credited for starting a new movement as other fashion brands followed in its footsteps.
Takeaway: Pay attention to current trends. At the time, selfies were rapidly growing in popularity and Jacobs tapped into that phenomenon. You also shouldn’t be afraid to add your own twist to a new trend.
The make-up brand placed their storyline in the hands of their loyal clients with its #DermaBlendPro campaign. L’Oreal encouraged users to share photos or videos of their makeup transformations. The company received thousands of submissions which were used in their brand story.
Takeaway: Trust your customers and include them in your campaigns. Happy customers make the best brand ambassadors.
UGC a good way to showcase products in real-world scenarios. Pura Vida’s colorful and unique bracelets already stand out on Facebook’s newsfeed, but when the company added photos of their customers wearing their products on their carousel ad, it provided better insight into the brand and led to a surge in conversions. It also helped that customers were taking photos of their bracelets while on the beach or traveling around the world, thereby encouraging everyone’s dream of a carefree lifestyle. The company was also started working with more artisans and small businesses around the world.
Takeaway: When your content is relatable, more shoppers will identify with your brand and hold it valuable. Transparency also attracts consumers who want to know where and how the product is made.
UGC is undoubtedly one of the best ways to show a brand’s authenticity and secure customer loyalty. So put the spotlight on your customer, and reward them to increase engagement. Shoppers are always happy to come back and talk about a brand when they feel like they’re part of the brand’s community. They’re also more willing to contribute to it and refer it to other people.
[Featured image via Pexels.com]
If you aren’t familiar with Reddit, your first visit to the website may feel a bit intimidating. Not only does it have the appearance of an old-school forum dating back from the early 2000s, but it also has a reputation for having users who don’t take kindly to blatant self-promoters. But dismissing Reddit as a vialble traffic source would be a mistake. For one, the site is not as intimidating as it looks, and it also boasts a massive online community with more than 330 million monthly active users. And according to Alexa.com, Reddit ranks as the #20 most-visited website in 2018. That’s a lot of eyeballs and potential traffic for your site.
The site also has countless subcategories called “subreddits.” Whatever your business niche is, chances are it’s on Reddit. As such, Reddit can be a powerful source for driving traffic to your website once you understand how the site works and how to use it without provoking the ire of staunch Redditors.
What is Reddit?Reddit is a social news website and discussion forum wherein content is curated and promoted by the site members themselves. It’s a place to explore, share, and discuss literally anything and everything. There are forums for eCommerce, marketing, small business, and even more mundane topics like trout fishing and board games.
The site is comprised of millions of communities called “subreddits.” Each subreddit starts with /r/. For example, /r/boardgames is a community of people who love and discuss board games.
The front page or homepage shows the different trending posts taken from the subreddits. A button on the upper left sorts the posts by category, whether they’re hot, controversial, or new. There’s also a search bar at the top where you can find the subreddits and posts for a specific topic.
Anyone with a Reddit profile can create a subreddit as long as it follows the site’s ground rules. Every post has up and down arrows, and users click on them to upvote or downvote. The number of votes determines the post’s visibility.
The site is ruled by administrators and managed by moderators. Both have the power to edit subreddits, monitor and remove posts, or ban users.
The important thing to remember about Reddit is that it’s a community, and its members hate blatant attempts at advertising. But there are ways to access this huge community to generate more traffic and boost your sales.
One of the main reasons people go to Reddit is to ask questions and get information. Companies can use Redditors’ need for answers by asking questions that will help you understand your target demographic. If you run a startup or small business, you could ask Redditors their opinion on how to further market your product. The answers you receive could give you vital information regarding prospective customers and also gave you new marketing ideas. Meanwhile, Reddit users will become more aware of your product.
Interaction is important on Reddit. It’s considered bad form if you just post a question or comment and then ignore the ensuing comments. A better strategy would be to stick around, thank members for their answers and engage in a conversation. This give and take will generate a lot of attention for your account.
Another reason people go to Reddit is to be entertained. Posting an amusing or entertaining ad or comment can build brand awareness, improve your image, and build customer loyalty. IKEA made history with its ad for a free crib for babies born nine months from Valentine’s Day. The company technically wasn’t selling any product but the post received two million views and had more than a thousand comments.
Reddit’s marketing potential is unmatched, as long as you know how to tap this market. Subtlety is the keyword when dealing with this site. Companies should avoid blatantly advertising their product and instead use Redditors’ desire for information and entertainment to their advantage.
Email is still a very powerful marketing tool. Contrary to proclamations that it’s a dying or dead channel, email is still more relevant and effective than Twitter or Facebook. Most of the bad propaganda about email is due to how marketers misuse it. These days, eblasts sent out simultaneously to hundreds or thousands of random people doesn’t convert very well and might even be viewed as spam. To get the most out of your email marketing campaign, you have to learn segmentation.
Image source: LyfeMarketing
Email segmentation is an organizing system wherein email subscribers are placed in different categories and messages customized to speak to each group directly.
The main purpose of email segmentation is personalization. You divide your email list into groups based on the available customer data, like their professional backgrounds, purchase preferences, buying habits, and their familiarity with your brand. These groups can be as large or as small as you want, depending on the category you chose.
Segmentation can be the tipping point that determines the success or failure of a company’s email marketing strategy. Here’s a list of reasons why your business needs to divide its email list:
The odds are high that you’ll have numerous shopper personas on your email list, as well as buyers who are at different stages of the sales cycle. Delivering the same message to everyone on your list just won’t cut it. A survey by Hubspot shows that consumers simply won’t respond to messages that aren’t relevant to them.
Your brand’s reputation will also receive a boost if you utilize email segmentation. Marketers who segment their subscribers received fewer complaints and have lower unsubscribe rates. And since segmentation means that people on your list receive messages right for them, they will trust your brand more.
Your email might be full of important information but it will remain useless unless the recipients open their emails. With segmentation, you can tailor the subject lines to resonate with the specific group you’re targeting, thus enticing them to open your email.
Email segmentation can boost the odds that the right content is sent to the right customer at the right time. One company who nailed this was Isotoner. The company saw their email marketing profits rise by as much as 7,000% when they segmented their emails based on the products their customers checked during their visit.
People unsubscribe for two main reasons – there’s a deluge of emails or the messages they’re receiving aren’t relevant to them. You’re dealt a blow everytime a prospective client unsubscribes. Not only are you blocked from having a direct in to their inbox, they’re also leaving a key marketing channel. Email segmentation will ensure that you won’t be guilty of these practices since your messages are customized.
Image source: Business2Community
Placing your subscribers in the right segment can give your email marketing campaign several advantages, like ensuring that each group receives the message most relevant to them and enabling you to respond to subscriber behaviors appropriately.
There are several ways you can group people:
Image source: Email Monday
There are so many email marketing providers right now, and most of them offer tools and services that can make email segmentation a walk in the park. For instance, companies like Aweber, iContact, and MailChimp have integrated tools that can assist you in growing your email list and communicating with prospective clients and loyal consumers easily.
Some providers also offer software that help determine your demographic and test and measure your email marketing campaign’s effectivity. They can also provide you with the critical data needed to assess your progress. However, you have to understand clearly how they manage email segmentation as well as their regulations. These will help you adjust your strategies and settings so it complies with their rules and ensures your marketing campaign goes smoothly.
Email segmentation is a key component to improving customer experience. Personalizing a user’s experience entails tailoring your marketing strategy based on the wants and requirements of various segments.
The idea here is to supply visitors with the right content that will capture their attention and entice them to take action. For instance, emails to new customers could include a banner offering them a 10 percent discount on their first purchase. Meanwhile, you offer loyal customers a discount based on their purchases reaching a specific amount.
Most businesses that switch to segmenting their email campaigns will see a significant jump in their conversions. Chances are, if you sell a wide variety of products and you have a relatively large subscriber list, you’ll need to segment. Take a close look at your current list of subscribers and use the information above to help determine what groups of customers are most important to your business and segment them accordingly.
[Featured image via Pixabay]