Category Archives: digital media

March 23, 2016 · 11:13 am

A Thought About Budgeting

Where are you in your annual planning cycle?  The end of March always seemed to be a time when I would have to begin looking at marketing budgets for the upcoming fiscal, so I had a thought you might want to keep in the back of your mind if you’re entering the process now.  It will be worth thinking about if you plan later on as well.

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Many of us spend a lot of time looking at the plethora of marketing channels available to us.  Mass media such as TV, more personalized media such as social, and very specific, time-based media such as search tend to dominate our thinking.  That’s the pattern I see with many of my clients at least, and it might be where you are as well.  It’s probably misguided thinking, however.  The reality is that how our customers want us to communicate with them is via email:

MarketingSherpa commissioned an online survey that was fielded August 20-24, 2015 with a nationally representative sample of U.S. consumers. We asked consumers, “In which of the following ways, if any, would you prefer to receive regular updates and promotions from companies that you are interested in doing business with? Please select all that apply.”

After summing up the numbers of consumers who prefer email at a frequency chosen by themselves and email at a frequency set by brand, email emerges as the most preferred way to receive updates and promotions (60%). Notably, subscribing to receive emails at a frequency consumers choose is twice as popular (49%) as subscribing to receive email at a company’s pre-determined frequency (24%).  Email is perhaps unexpectedly followed by snail mail (49%), leaving visiting the company’s website in third place (38%).

In other words, we need to stop thinking in terms of what’s new or what’s sexy and focus on our customers’ wishes.  While you’re spending your time trying to get them to follow you on social media (where the algorithms of the services will probably hide your message anyway), your customers are reading something meaningful.  You should be spending your time – and resources – on re-engaging your email database, building up open and response rates, not blasting out messages that fall on deaf ears.

Something to think about?

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March 21, 2016 · 11:46 am

Call First

Do your friends just show up at your house around supper time?  Do any of them knock on your door unannounced as the game is starting so they can watch on your big screen TV and drink your beer?  I suspect most of them don’t.  It’s common courtesy to call first, isn’t it?  Even those folks who might have a standing invitation of sorts will generally do so, if for no other reason than to see if you’re home. 

I find it interesting, therefore, that many marketers don’t think about the same common courtesy.  That thought came to mind as I read the latest State Of Content report from the Adobe folks.  You can read the whole thing here (pdf), and there is a lot to digest.

Consumers understand the benefit of content recommendations, as long as those recommendations respect privacy. In the US, 73% believe they are meant to enhance the viewing experience. At the same time, 62% believe they don’t respect privacy.  In other words, sure, you’re a friend but you’re also showing up without calling.  Most Americans who use digital media (82%) are comfortable with sharing at least one piece of information about themselves in order to improve the recommendations they see. In other words, CONSUMERS ARE WILLING TO SHARE INFORMATION, BUT EXPECT RETURN ON VALUE.

Calling first means making the consumer comfortable about data collection. Those who are uncomfortable with predictive recommendations believe companies can do something about it, and the biggest thing companies could do is to ask permission to collect their data.  That’s why 63% trust content from a friend or family member and only 23% feel the same about content from a company whose products they don’t buy.

So how about it?  Are you calling first, or are you just showing up?

 

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March 16, 2016 · 12:05 pm

How’s That Going?

Sometimes when I meet people and they describe their work lives to me, I’ll listen as they tell me what they’re doing and then follow up with a simple question: “how’s that going for you?” You’ve probably done something similar, and I bet that you rarely get “I don’t know” for an answer. I certainly don’t, and it concerns me when I do since how can you not have some feeling about so important a topic that occupies much of your waking day? 

What made me think of that was a report put out by the folks at Rundown. It took a look at how companies feel about their content creation process and the subsequent content marketing. It’s instructive to any business regardless if you’re doing content marketing or not. You can look at a summary of the report here.

Almost 80% of the surveyed content marketers agree or strongly agree that their team “makes awesome content that our audience loves.” That’s great, except for that pesky follow-up question – “how is it going?” You see, 52% of these same people disagreed that ” My team has a clear understanding of what works and why.” 55% disagreed that they knew how much each type of content costs to produce, and an astonishing 82% disagreed that they have a good understanding of the ROI on the content creation and marketing investment.

I’m not going to pontificate about in which activities a business should or should not engage.  I will say, however, that no matter which ones they are, it’s imperative that there is a handle on costs as well as some measure of ROI.  I am cringing as I think about answering any of the people for whom I worked with “I don’t know” when asked about what something cost or how it was impacting our goals (revenue, engagement, whatever).  Resources are precious.  So are measurable, actionable data about the results of activities we undertake using those resources.  Saying you make “awesome content” (or anything else) doesn’t resonate with me unless part of “awesome” is moving the business forward.  You?

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