Content is considered to be a silver bullet. Every brand is becoming a publisher based on the assumption that content, as much as product or price, is the ultimate consumer aphrodisiac. According to Rebecca Lieb of Altimeter, “Content is the atomic particle of all marketing – paid, owned and earned. Content must be executed correctly for it to be effective across the marketing ecosystem as well as across the broad enterprise.” Yet in an environment boasting millions of tips, tricks and hacks, billions of reviews, how-tos and infographics, trillions of recipes, diets or exercise routines and zillions of videos on every conceivable topic, savvy marketers want to know what content is the strongest lure, how much content is enough, which combination of content is the most potent and which kind of content converts users into buyers fastest. PR guys believe, as a matter of orthodoxy, that 3rd party endorsements and opinions are the best. The appearance of neutral expert insight or opinion trumps the credibility of branded information or user generated content. New survey data from Nielsen, commissioned by inPowered found that 85 percent of consumers seek out expert opinion, 69 percent liked to read expert reviews and 67 percent Read more…
Retargeting is emerging as a killer app for lead generation and e-commerce. The products that mysteriously follow people around the web no longer freak out consumers. And marketers are reveling in the better than average response and conversion rates. A new six-month study of 215 retargeting campaigns that generated 800 million impressions, produced by AdRoll, not only documents this phenomenon but indicates that Facebook is becoming a dominant and effective retargeting platform. Their evolving direct response ad units and mobile placements are fertile ground for even greater results. And since mobile ad units are new and underutilized the CPM costs are 57 percent lower than retargeting in the NewsFeed. Marketers are experimenting with several different units in different combinations. The News Feed ads (FBX) on desktops combine a large visual with sufficient space or both sell copy and social elements like comments and sharing. The right hand column is smaller and feels like its designed for high frequency. And now Facebook will match brand website visitors with Facebook users and serve ads exclusively on the basis of the match. This Website Custom Audience (WCA) play adds incremental targeting and gives marketers more options. Combining Facebook units with standard web retargeting Read more…
Customer loyalty, like love, can be fickle and fleeting. Every brand craves it. But few really achieve it. It’s time to rethink the ways brands woo their best customers. Building and sustaining loyalty is part stimulus-and-response, part value exchange and part emotional experience. The quality of the relationship rather than the number of transactions is the barometer for loyalty. The dynamic mix of rational and irrational elements must be considered in the context of macro factors, like a recession, or micro factors, like an awful in-store experience. Even though the average household belongs to eighteen programs and actively participates in seven of them, consumers are ambivalent about loyalty programs. They like what they like on their own terms. Enthusiasms wax and wane. They want to hear from brands – but not that often. They are governed by a WiiFM (what’s in it for me) mentality, even for brands that are near and dear to their hearts. And even long-standing loyalty can be derailed by aggressive price offers. Digital, social and mobile channels creates new and creative opportunities for brands to communicate and interact with loyal and potentially loyal consumers. This, in turn, empowers fans to interact, respond and share. Everyone Read more…