Using Lookalike Modeling to Attract New Customers
Use lookalike modeling to find new customers with similar traits to your current ones. Read on to explore how it can improve your marketing efforts. As a business owner, have you ever wished you could clone your best customers? Modern business tech has not advanced quite that far yet. You can’t exactly duplicate your existing base of customers; however, you can grow it. Understanding lookalike modeling With lookalike audience targeting, you can select specific traits of your current consumers or leads. Your original source could come from email lists, social marketing sites, tracking pixels of website visitors, or even third-party sources. Then you match the common traits from your source with consumers in a wider pool to generate a new audience. As a simple example, say American women between 28 and 42 tend to buy the most children’s shoes from your website. You could match those specific traits to target direct-to-consumer advertising. Since you’re matching traits, you have a better chance to display appropriate ads over just showing your advertising to everybody. That gives you a good chance to improve your ratio of ad clicks and conversions. Of course, the more information that you have about your existing and current audience, the better chance you have to benefit. For instance, it might help to know if these women are mothers, have a certain income level, and so on. Still, any amount of targeting to new people that you can base off of traits from current prospects or customers should yield better results than not targeting at all. Lookalike modeling tools Of course, you will need a way to automate the process of finding a new audience that matches one of your current ones. You can find plenty of alternatives to help you with this. Explore Facebook Lookalike Audiences and Adobe Audience Manager to understand how businesses use technology to create lookalike audiences. Facebook Lookalike Audiences If you’re looking for a simple introduction to a lookalike modeling, you should know that Facebook offers a feature they call Facebook Lookalike Audiences. This gives you a way to target new customers based upon certain qualities of an existing custom audience. Some sources for your custom audience could include your existing Facebook followers, customer records, pixel tracking, or an email list. When you create your custom audience, Facebook will do the work of finding common traits in order to create your new audience from their own vast base of users. Facebook’s tools look fairly simple to use, but you have to give up some control. You can set location and audience size. However, the system chooses and matches traits. According to Facebook, your two audiences will more closely match each other if you choose a smaller audience. In turn, it will start to diverge more if you pick a bigger one. Because of the way their algorithm works, they suggest an audience size of between 1,000 and 50,000 people. However, Facebook does allow you to create multiple lookalike audiences to use for ad targeting. Adobe Audience Manager If you work with a lookalike modeling agency, they may suggest a more sophisticated and flexible tool, like Adobe Audience Manager. With Audience Manager, you can trust the system to match traits or choose your own. You also have control over time intervals and data sources. Data sources could include either your own or third-party customer bases. This tool offers such sophisticated features as A/B testing, in-depth analytics, and built-in privacy controls. Most of all, you’re not locked into using Facebook advertising. While software like Adobe Audience may prove somewhat more complex to use than Facebook Lookalike Audiences, it’s more flexible. Making the most of lookalike audience targeting As a marketer, you’ve probably already heard about the benefits of creating buyer personas. When you take the time to get to know your current customers, you have a better chance to connect with other people who have similar motivations and habits. Lookalike targeting takes this one step further because you can use what you know in order to grow your audience and your customer base. Of course, you can use this kind of targeting on your database of warm leads in order to market things that similar customers have purchased. You might even apply it to your existing customer base for upsells. Lookalike modeling can really shine when you need to approach a cold audience that doesn’t already have a strong introduction to your business. Because you can use traits from existing customers or prospects, you should have better conversions than if you could not pull specific traits to base your targeting upon. Since you know you’re working with a cold audience, some marketers say they get the most value by crafting ads that build trust more than overt sales. You might run split tests with various ads to see how this works for your own services or products. For instance, you could try a split test with direct ads against more subtle informational content that leads to a subscription form. Either way, lookalike audience targeting gives you a good opportunity to warm up a cold audience and even to turn them into your customers.
Why Marketing Intelligence is Essential For New Business
In order to succeed, you must understand that you don’t operate your company in a vacuum that only contains you and your customers. Competitive marketing intelligence refers to gathering data about business competitors and your overall market. Not only does this kind of information help you understand direct competitors, it also gives you insights about their customers, marketing tactics, suppliers, and partners. Find out how to collect competitive intelligence and why it’s particularly important for new businesses. Why new businesses need competitive marketing intelligence According to a 2020 survey from Crayon, a company that offers business intelligence solutions, 94 percent of all businesses invest in competitive intelligence. As important as large and established companies find this information, it’s even more vital to startups. After you’ve operated your business for some time, you’ll have more information about your own customers and other aspects of your market. When you’re just starting, you’ll lack the internal data and experience to guide decisions. For instance: After you’ve made a few hundred sales, you will start to understand the demographics and behavior of your typical consumers. You can use that intelligence to satisfy current customers better. You may also employ it to plan and target marketing campaigns to attract new customers, based upon the profiles of your current ones. You’ll have had a chance to investigate and test suppliers, distributors, and business processes. This information will help you work more efficiently. Without outside intelligence, you might need to suffer a long learning curve. All ages and sizes of businesses can benefit from competitive research; however, you can see that it’s particularly vital for new companies. Lucky for you, plenty of market intelligence companies offer accessible services to small businesses these days. Digital technology can provide a tiny startup with the same sorts of business intelligence solutions that large companies rely upon. Should your new business gather your own competitive market research? If you can’t possibly budget for an internal department to supply intelligence, you can find a market research company with affordable services that have been tailored for your business stage. Actually, employing a third-party marketing research agency can offer both new and established benefits some benefits: Different perspectives: All sorts of businesses can benefit from a second set of eyes. Focused business founders drive themselves so hard to spark their business that it’s hard to remain objective sometimes. Also, new businesses can particularly benefit from a marketing research company with experience helping similar small companies. Technology expertise: In this digital age, marketing intelligence researchers rely upon an array of sophisticated tools. These can range from advertising platforms to social media monitoring to tools that allow companies to spy on their competitor’s search marketing campaigns. Research consultants should already know how to maximize the potential of these tools to provide you with the insights that you need. Efficient use of time: Unless you’re starting a marketing intelligence agency, you will want to focus upon other primary business goals. While your researchers do their jobs, you can do yours. You’re bound to enjoy faster results by relying upon experienced marketers than if you tried to handle your main responsibilities and intelligence research. You should also understand that the nature of competitive intelligence may vary wildly for different kinds of companies. For instance an ecommerce site that sells common physical goods may most have an interest in a competitor’s marketing. However, a healthcare industry business may need to expand its intelligence to current regulations and political trends. Also, you might perform some kinds of competitive market research by using online tools. However, such accessible and low-hanging fruit might not provide you with enough information to truly understand your business climate or competitors. Just a small sample of other sources might include journals, newspapers, conferences, government publications, and business directories. You may not always need to spend a lot of money to benefit from these sources, but you will need to spend time and of course, know where to look. Kinds of competitive intelligence for new businesses Market researchers generally group competitive marketing intelligence into two basic types: Strategic marketing intelligence: Strategic intelligence seeks to learn about competitors and the broader business environment. It’s supported by a long-term plan that will help and sometimes even determine primary business goals. For example, Unilever did well by promoting many of its products as sustainable brand, and it is those brands that drive the most growth and sales for the parent company. They set this goal after gathering intelligence about the motivations of consumers for the types of soap and tea they market and the successful efforts of some competitors. Tactical marketing intelligence: Tactical marketing intelligence refers to the short-term actions that will support the business strategy and achieve goals. Let’s say your company also wanted to promote yourself as a sustainable company. This could be personally important to you and according to your intelligence, important to your target audience. When to gather competitive marketing intelligence? Ideally, you should begin gathering strategic research before you even solidify your business plan and goals. You may have a great business idea, but insights you gain from your intelligence will help you refine it. Once you’ve defined goals, you can begin to gain tactical intelligence in order to map out the best ways to achieve them.
Using Real-Time Marketing to Fill Your Apartment Complex
By adroitly executing a real-time marketing strategy, property managers can decrease vacancies without breaking the marketing budget. The velocity of online communication has never been more accelerated. Today’s hilarious memes or social trends typically curdle into irrelevance or irritation within a few days. Today’s breaking news comes faster than ever — and is forgotten about almost as quickly. This is a significant challenge for marketers, who must do their best to stay fresh, relevant and vital. Real time marketing helps solve this problem by using breaking news — and emerging online trends and conversations — as a springboard for targeted and timely marketing campaigns. Let’s take a closer look at how real-time marketing can be deployed in property management, and how marketing analytics can help determine the best way to implement such a strategy. Real time marketing and your apartment complex: a hypothetical case study Let’s assume you’re the manager of a 1,000 unit multi-family property. Your tenancy rate is hovering around 85% and has been bouncing between 80% and 90% for the last two years. You’re seeking a new way to push it closer to 100%, and you believe a change in marketing strategy is the best way to achieve this. Years ago, you considered incorporating real-time elements into your marketing strategy. Yet you decided against it, as the challenges seemed to outweigh the benefits. Tracking news developments and identifying the ones likeliest to resonate was a laborious job. The need to act quickly on breaking news created high levels of reputational risk, as brands raced to get marketing content out with limited context about the news they were leveraging. Additionally, you have limited tools for gauging the impact of your efforts. It seemed much simpler to pursue a conventional approach. Today, however, you discover that the real time marketing landscape has shifted considerably. Social media, social listening tools, real time analytics and the use of a digital marketing dashboard made the process of monitoring and measuring media and marketing campaigns vastly easier. New marketing tools made it simple to build data-informed buyer personas and to connect these profiles with targeted, real time messages. These tools also allow you to closely track conversations and engagement on social media, giving you unprecedented insight into how conversations ebb and flow in real time. Armed with these tools, you devise a real time strategy built around four elements: The initiating event. What development is the impetus for real time marketing? This could be breaking news, a popular meme or pre-planned triggers such as holidays. In the case of an apartment complex, you’re looking for any event that can be related in some way to property leasing. It might be a news story that talks about the rising cost of interest rates, or a lack of affordable housing in the area. The real time target. This helps you define who you’re trying to reach with this real time marketing message. Customers who fit certain demographics? Customers in specific locations? Customers with a search history that aligns with your property or the real time development you’re tracking? The plan of attack. How are you going to send your message in real time? Social media? Text? Email etc.? Objectives and measurements. What’s your ultimate goal? More sales? Higher brand awareness? In this case, you’re trying to increase tenancy rates. By defining objectives and tracking apartment marketing campaigns with real time analytics, you can determine how effective and engaging your messages are — a leading indicator for how much or little you’ll ultimately increase your tenancy rate. The end result? You run the campaign, supported by social marketing tools and analytics. By following the four point plan, you generate much greater traction among your targeted audience by serving them timely and relevant messages that benefit from increased visibility thanks to their real time hook. Within three months, the tenancy rate has broken through to 95%. Adding real time marketing to your property marketing mix Property rental is big business — generating roughly $4.5 trillion over the last decade. The business, however, is likely to grow more competitive. Tenancy rates have been propped up by a lack of new inventory coming online in recent years, as builders have not kept pace with population growth. That’s expected to change, however: The National Association of Home Builders projects multi-family construction growth to rise 4% in 2021, after a decade of remaining stuck at around 1%. Why? Because as more millennials and Gen Z renters and buyers enter the market, inventory will need to grow significantly. This means property managers will need tools such as real time marketing to keep tenancy rates at the desired level. Sometimes working with a third-party agency with expertise in real time marketing is the best way to approach this. Working with a real time marketing expert At Bigeye, we help property developers and manager create the kind of real time campaigns that engage audiences and fill buildings. If you need help crafting your next marketing campaign, don’t wait to contact us.
Using Video to Connect with Prospective Patients
Video is an incredibly powerful tool for healthcare marketers, if they know how to use it right. Here’s a quick guide to doing video marketing well. How effective is the use of video in marketing? Studies show that marketers who use video grow revenue nearly 50% faster than those who don’t. Consumers are watching billions of hours of video each year on social media platforms, with more content being uploaded every 30 days than all combined content created by TV networks in the last 30 years. For healthcare businesses, video can be the tool that helps drive more patient sign-ups while deepening engagement with current patients. Let’s take a look at a few methods for using video to connect with audiences, and how a third-party video production company that specializes in this approach can help you optimize your campaigns. Why video content is becoming ubiquitous Virtually every Internet user in the US watches video on their devices — and 54% of these users want to see more video content from the brands and businesses they patronize. Consumers report preferring video to other mediums because it aligns with their browsing preferences, providing fast access to rich multimedia content. In other words, watching a video is high impact, but low effort for audiences. That’s one reason why this approach has been so effective. Nearly 90% of video marketers report being satisfied with the ROI attached to their campaigns. Video marketers also receive 66% more qualified leads per year and a 54% bump in brand awareness. The average user spends 88% more time on websites with video, and consumers report being highly influenced in their personal buying decisions by the video content they’ve consumed. Add it up, and you’ve got a highly compelling case for incorporating more video into your marketing mix. The healthcare field, in particular, is especially ripe for a video-heavy approach — as many brands are currently proving. Learning from the best video campaigns in healthcare marketing One of the simplest ways to understand how video is used effectively within healthcare is to review campaigns that have been successful. Let’s take a look at a few of the best approaches: The fabled Mayo Clinic is one of the leading names in medicine. That institution’s “Mayo Clinic Minute” is a compendium of 60-second videos that give a bite-sized (but not shallow) dive into a health issue that has some resonance for everyday consumers. These videos give consumers exactly what the doctor ordered: Actionable information in a quick and accessible form. While video is a powerful, immersive video is even more potent. The Royal London Hospital and a tech firm called Medical Realities created this 360-degree, deeply immersive video that takes viewers on a close-up tour of an OR surgery. Audiences can scan around the room and view from the perspective of the surgeon or the patient, and move objects around in space by using AR/VR hardware. This kind of augmented reality simulation can create an exhilarating experience for viewers and spark interest in a way that more static marketing could never approach. Another essential element is effective video marketing is narrative. If you don’t craft a cohesive and compelling story that grips the audience, the inherent power of the video format can only take you so far. This video from Bupa, a dental firm, cleverly retells the story of the Tooth Fairy in a way that forms a nostalgic bond with the viewer and raises the video’s impact. Dr. Sandra Lee (also known as “Dr. Pimple Popper”) has nearly a billion combined video views, making her one of the most omnipresent social media stars in the healthcare field. Her YouTube channel is filled with her trademark videos, which revel in the “gross” side of dermatology. Her incredible success teaches a lesson: Healthcare videos don’t have to be staid or boring. You can push the envelope on content and reap the benefits. Do you know what else audiences gravitate toward in terms of video content? Ideas or lessons they can immediately apply in their own lives. St. Elizabeth’s Healthcare’s video marketing series provides audiences with short, well-produced videos that offer healthy eating recipes. Health and wellness content is always popular, and the prospect of learning a new healthy recipe in just 30 to 60 seconds is an enticing prospect for audiences. Following the “short and sweet” line of thinking, healthcare-related firms such as Walgreens have also extended the impact of their marketing by creating extremely short videos or animated GIFs for their social media accounts. These ultra-bite sized videos are a great way to extend the impact of a simple social media post. All of these ideas can help healthcare marketers gain the interest of new patients and deepen relationships with existing patients. To get the most from a campaign, however, sometimes it’s necessary to partner with a third-party marketing video production firm that specializes in this approach. Finding the right video marketing agency At Bigeye, we have deep expertise with video marketing services, making us one of the leading healthcare marketing agencies in the southeastern US. If your firm needs help creating video content that moves the needle, don’t wait to contact us today.
How to Create the Most Compelling Pet Product Videos
The pet industry has never been more competitive. Here’s what you need to know about making pet product videos that engage audiences. It’s hard to understate the affection people have for their pets. According to the American Pet Products Association, the pet industry now averages more than $99 billion annually in sales, and is one of the fastest-growing retail segments. The rate of pet ownership (or “pet parentage”) in the US also continues to climb, as millennials and members of Gen Z adopt or buy pets with greater frequency than older generations. Given these developments, it’s obvious that the pet industry is a massive and lucrative market. Yet it’s also extremely competitive. So how do pet product companies move to the front of the pack and establish a dominant competitive position? Clever use of video — and the help of a skilled third party video production company — can make all the difference. The trick to shooting great pet videos How important is video to a digital marketing strategy these days? Consider this: Mobile video consumption doubles every year, six in ten people prefer online videos to television and online videos will comprise 82% of all Internet traffic by 2022 — an increase of 1,500% since 2017. With numbers like these, you don’t have to be a marketing genius to understand how important video is, both now and in the future. You can’t just slap together any video and watch the conversions roll in, however. The brands that get the most bang for their marketing budgets are those who create the kind of video content that aligns with viewer desires and preferences. Sometimes that can be done internally, but other times it may require help from an agency specializing in pet video marketing services. With that in mind, let’s dive into some tips for making pet product videos that dazzle pet owners. 10 tips for better pet product videos When making a video, don’t forget to create an eye-catching thumbnail. Many readers will click away from an article if the first sentence doesn’t interest them. The thumbnail plays the same role here; if it doesn’t spark interest, the video may get ignored. The same principle applies to the first five seconds of your video, as many people simply lack the patience for a slow build. Many app users have their default setting for videos set to mute. Because of this, it’s essential to anticipate this by incorporating subtitles and visually engaging graphics. Tell a story, but take a fresh angle. Pet parents have in inexhaustible appetite for pet content, yet many of the topics have been well mined at this point. By approaching a familiar narrative at an off-kilter angle, you can spark greater interest. Make sure you create a steady, regular flow of video content. If you want to build an audience, you can’t publish pet videos in fits and starts. You need to be consistent in terms of your schedule. Tailor your videos to the channel or the platform. Instagram, for example, is extremely visual, so there’s less of a need to devote time to copy, and more of a need to consider visual elements. Snapchat, on the other hand, is a great place to release more irreverent or playful videos. On Twitter, it makes sense to integrate more videos into regular tweets. Tweets featuring video are 600% more likely to be re-tweeted than photo tweets. Create dedicated video playlists that group content together. This feature works best on Facebook and YouTube, and helps organize your content for easy accessibility. Tap into the enormous pool of pet bloggers and pet account operators. If you’ve spent any time on major social media platforms, you realize that pet content is everywhere. The pool of potential creators is limitless. By identifying some of the best amateur talent online, you can generate ideas and partner to create promotional content. Make a significant investment in TikTok promotion. This short-form video app continues to take over social media. One of its secret weapons? Funny pet videos. Ignore this platform at your own risk, because it has enormous cachet with younger pet parents and soon-to-be pet parents. Create videos that have an emotional appeal. This applies to almost every product category, but it is especially relevant for pet brands. Pet parents love their animals, while consumers merely like the products they own and (possibly) identify with the brand. Given this emotional investment, the right video can resonate deeply — this famous tear-jerking video is still a topic of cultural conversation 13 years after it was shot. Finally, come up with a great idea and keep it short and simple. That’s a prescription for a video that strikes a chord and is widely shared. Finding the right video marketing agency If you need help with pet marketing services, we encourage you to contact Bigeye. Our team of skilled creatives has the pet industry expertise and the technical skills to do what other video advertising companies can’t. Reach out today and let us help put together your next great pet products campaign.
Marketing AFTER the Coronavirus
As the coronavirus continues to grip the world, companies must act now to ensure marketing campaigns are able to weather the crisis. The effects of COVID-19 on business and business marketing From the plummeting Dow Jones averages that are rocking Wall Street to the forced closures and loss of consumer activity that are devastating Main Street, businesses of all sizes are on shaky ground during the ongoing coronavirus crisis. As social distancing continues to force events to cancel and bring face-to-face interaction to a grinding halt, certain industries have already suffered catastrophic damage. And other industries are bound to follow as factories shut down and companies fall into dormancy. As they lose customers to the terrible but temporary chaos of COVID-19, business must take care to ensure that these customers ultimately return to them when the crisis is over. This typically means significantly altering, if not entirely redesigning, their marketing efforts with a dual focus on immediate risk management and long-term goals. Wise companies are already getting ahead of this issue by taking immediate and comprehensive action. Take, for example, the recently launched ad campaign of the fast food giant Chipotle. Like other major restaurant chains, it has rapidly created, produced, and distributed, television and digital video commercials that stress the safety and reliability of take-out and home food delivery. As you formulate and execute your response to the coronavirus crisis, make sure that you are retooling your marketing campaign to meet the demands of the present and look forward to the opportunities of the future. Here are just a few tips and guidelines to help you bring your business through these uncertain and difficult times. Managing your marketing efforts to survive the coronavirus 1. Put Safety First Few industries have faced as much immediate damage from the COVID-19 outbreak as the global tourism industry. This makes the words of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) all the more urgent as its stresses putting safety first. By stressing customer safety, the HSMAI strives to protect overall company reputation as well as individual guest health. Businesses that do so earn “trust, respect, and loyalty.” A big part of putting safety first is keeping customers well-informed of relevant coronavirus facts and response protocols, particularly those that may affect your company’s operational processes and/or the goods/services that you offer. When providing this information, it is important to refer to and cite respected authorities such as the Center for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, and the various local public health agencies at work in your area. Think carefully about the ways in which COVID-19 is likely to impact your specific industry specifically as well as the greater community at large. What value you can provide as an organization to help keep people safe? As you contemplate this question, remember that this crisis is evolving rapidly and will probably continue to do so for the foreseeable future. This means that your commitment to safety will require flexible planning and your marketing plan must adapt to the moment as conditions continue to fluctuate. 2. Assemble Your Crisis Management Team If your company is exceptionally large or specialized to deal with a specific type of risk, you may already have a dedicated crisis response team in place. Most companies, however, fail to prioritize crisis management and have never even considered developing a valid crisis plan. Well, now is certainly the time to do so. Gather functional leaders from across your organization under the leadership of its top communications executive or chief executive officer. Other crisis team members to consider for inclusion might be legal counsel, human resources professionals, operations/facility managers, sales/customer service directors, and any leaders in the fields of public relations marketing, and communications. All team member should clearly understand their specific responsibilities and areas of concern. For smaller companies without a dedicated PR or marketing team, MarTech Advisor contributor Indrajeet Deshpande recommends contracting with a qualified outside agency. In any case, your business should have in-house spokespersons at the ready in case you are approached by any independent media outlet or news publication. These spokespersons must be property trained to faithfully and effectively answer any question that they are asked. 3. Choose the Proper Media Mix As part of your crisis response and overall marketing plan, you must remember the famous words of Marshall McLuhan: “the medium is the message.” In the wake of the coronavirus crisis, choosing the right media channel for your public outreach is more important than ever. In other words, if you fail to choose the right forms of communication to deliver it, your marketing message will likely fall on deaf ears. In his March 20 article “Why Companies Turn To Digital Marketing To Survive COVID-19,” Forbes writer Bernard Marr points out that businesses will have to become more and more reliant on digital media channels. “Without wanting to sound too alarmist, he states, “in many cases it will be the deciding factor in whether they make it through the tough times ahead.” As people continue to practice social distancing, they will connect more than ever via the Internet. This makes leveraging your online marketing capabilities absolutely essential over the comping months. Ensure that your company website and social media pages contain helpful information and present a positive brand image at all times. While emphasizing digital marketing channels that range from banner ads to email newsletters, remember to keep an appropriate amount of traditional media outlets in your media mix. 4. Practice Careful Media Buying As part of your media mix planning, don’t fail to consider the supreme importance of cost. If it is to survive the COVID-19 crisis, your business will likely need to implement some fairly austere budgetary restrictions in the short term. Simply put, you will have to use every one of your marketing dollars wisely and make it count. The Wall Street Journal reports that companies looking to mitigate immediate risk often cut advertising spending first and foremost. “With the coming U.S. presidential
Don’t Ignore Influencer Marketing for Your Pet Products
Don’t knock influencer marketing when building your strategy for pet products. This type of marketing amplifies word-of-mouth marketing through social media. Do you trust a random TV actor pitching a product? What about a celebrity pitch person — someone you’re familiar with? Would you trust this person more? How about a close personal friend whose opinions you respect? Does their product recommendation carry even greater weight? In most cases, the answer to these questions are all in the affirmative. There is a definite spectrum in terms of whom we trust — that’s one reason why word-of-mouth marketing has historically been so effective. People trust friends, family members and people they respect more than faceless corporations. Influencer content marketing offers many of the same benefits associated with word-of-mouth marketing, and amplifies those benefits by including the reach of social media. Let’s take a closer look at the current state of influencer marketing, how it can specifically be used to sell pet products more effectively, and the benefits of working with an influencer marketing agency. Influencer marketing: a maturing market The growth of influencer marketing has been nothing short of astonishing over the last few years. Just consider these statistics from Influencer Marketing Hub’s “The State of Influencer Marketing in 2020” report: The industry is worth nearly $10 billion, growing from $1.6 billion in 2016. Average earned media value per $1 spent has jumped to more than $5. The number of micro-influencers used by large companies has tripled in three years. 80% of respondents plan to have a dedicated influencer marketing budget in 2020. 91% of respondents believe influencer marketing is an effective tactic for growing a customer base. 2020 Influencer Trends As those statistics show, it’s on a rapid growth trajectory. Yet to get the most out of your influencer marketing campaigns, it’s essential to have your finger on the pulse of evolving trends. eMarketer’s recently published “2018 Influencer Marketing Report” cites the following trends for 2020: 48% of businesses plan on using celebrity (or “macro”) influencers, while 45% will use micro influencers. Instagram is the preferred platform for influencer marketing, with 100% of report respondents using it. 85% use Facebook, 67% reported using YouTube, Snapchat 44% and Twitter 33%. TikTok, which is seeing some of the fastest growth among social platforms, is expected to be a major player in influencer campaigns in 2020. Influencers will continue to cross-over from having niche social media followings to being full-fledged celebrities. While this will give the most prominent macro influencers more leverage with businesses seeking to work with them, it also greatly expands their potential orbit of influence. How can this be applied to pet products? The pet industry is a natural home for influencers. People are devoted to their animals and love to consume and share pet-related content over social media. It’s estimated that one-quarter of all social content is pet-related and that one-fifth of pet owners have created a social media account specifically for their animal. The #dogsofinstagram hashtag alone is closing in on 200 million posts. Social media influencer marketing agencies that are solely dedicated to working with famous animal accounts have sprung up in the last couple of years, attesting to the power of this phenomenon. Companies seeking to sell pet products, therefore, have a powerful advantage relative to businesses in other industries: An army of potential influencers waiting to be leveraged. Pet bloggers and owners of pet social media accounts number in the millions, which means that the pool of available influencer talent is vast. Given that the ability to source influencers is perennially ranked as one of the most difficult challenges for firms engaged in influencer marketing, this is a considerable advantage. There is an obvious parallel to be drawn here: Mommy bloggers. Brands, over the last ten years, profited enormously from their partnership with high-profile mommy bloggers, who were able to build vast and deeply engaged audiences across various social platforms and websites. Parent-focused social media marketing become a core strategy for countless brands, and helped generate billions in new revenue. Pet industry brands have a similar opportunity to leverage pet bloggers in the same way, given their sizable numbers and considerable reach. Pairing this approach with some of the trends we’ve cited above is a winning strategy for 2020 (we especially encourage brands to focus on integrating TikTok into their influencer marketing strategy, as that platform is poised to become perhaps only second to Instagram in terms of cultural cachet and reach). Finding the right influencer marketing agency At Bigeye, we are experts at crafting compelling influencer marketing campaigns rooted in a deep understanding of the latest trends and technologies. If your pet product campaign needs a boost, we encourage you to reach out to us today — and learn what the right influencer marketing campaign can do for your brand.
Better Content Marketing for the Financial Services Industry
Banks and other financial services need an edge to stay competitive. Here’s why content marketing can help them better connect with prospective customers. Banks and credit unions are hardly celebrated for their innovation or mastery of digital tools. There’s a reason for this: The industry is by nature conservative, and it is also constrained by regulations. This is why the banking sector has been relatively behind on the digitalization curve. Yet this also provides an opening for financial services enterprises — as long as they are willing to adopt new approaches that are aligned with changing consumer preferences. One recent example is the Capital One Cafe, a coffeehouse/bank location hybrid that allows customers to enjoy meet-ups and drink coffee while conducting basic banking services. This “bank barista” concept was designed to target the millennial market and make banking an enjoyable experience, rather than routine drudgery. With banking services increasingly migrating online, however, banks and credit unions also need to harness the full potential of digital tools. Content marketing, specifically, is one of the most impactful things a bank can do to modernize its digital strategy and generate new business. Let’s take a closer look at why this approach pays dividends, and how partnering with the right content marketing agency will help deliver results. Developing a content marketing strategy that works Financial marketers understand the value of strong content marketing. A recent Brandpoint survey showed that financial marketers view content marketing as an essential tactic for generating brand awareness and engaging with customers. That same survey, however, showed that half of financial marketers struggle with content creation and staying current with the latest techniques. Other common problems include: Insufficient resources to create top content Inability to determine ROI or effectiveness of the content Poorly defined strategy Difficulty managing a multi-channel approach with consistency Lack of budget Lack of content marketing expertise Leadership not buying in That financial services firms struggle with content marketing is not surprising. If you asked most people about memorable marketing, banks would certainly not top the list. Some financial services firms, however, know how to do content marketing correctly. Here are two examples: Citibank is highly-regarded for its brand awareness initiatives — and for good reason. The company’s sponsorship with New York’s popular Citibike program means that 10 million-plus New Yorkers can’t rent a bike without thinking about a bank. Citibank also uses content marketing and sponsorships with major artists as part of its Citi Entertainment program for customers. In both cases, Citibank attaches its name to something that consumers love (bike riding, concerts) — a significant boost, considering most bank brands have little inherent cachet. It’s an example of savvy bank marketing. Deloitte is best known for being a global consultancy and financial advisory operation. Not exactly the type of enterprise to give retail consumers warm and fuzzy feelings. Yet every year Deloitte issues a “Back to School” survey that uses clever, data-rich visuals to help consumer optimize their purchasing habits. It’s not related to Deloitte’s core business, but it is a smart piece of content marketing that improves brand awareness and builds brand trust. Parents engaged with this campaign identify Deloitte as a company that helps them solve a perennial problem. So now that we’ve discussed some challenges and seen some strong examples, let’s talk about what financial services firms can do to jumpstart their content marketing efforts and start building brand awareness and loyalty. Actionable advice for your financial content marketing strategy Companies that generate exceptional ROI from their content marketing efforts tend to have some commonalities. A recent Content Marketing Institute research survey investigated the factors shared by firms that are especially successful in this regard. According to this research, the four elements that separate winners from losers are: Having a documented content marketing strategy. 65% of firms who report being successful in content marketing have such as a strategy, while only 14% of unsuccessful firms have one. Measuring the ROI of content marketing initiatives. 72% of successful firms do this, while only 22% of unsuccessful firms measure ROI. Proficiency with the latest content marketing technology. 67% of successful firms report proficiency, while only 7% of unsuccessful firms do. Using personas for content marketing campaigns. 77% of successful firms use personas, while only 36% of unsuccessful firms use them. By implementing or improving these four elements, you can lay the groundwork for a high-performing content marketing strategy. Not every financial institution or marketer has the experience of savvy to get the most out of this approach, however. In these cases, it makes sense to partner with a leading content creation agency. Finding the right inbound marketing agency If you’re in need of SEO marketing, content marketing or any other digital marketing service, we encourage you to contact Bigeye. We have the technical skill and domain expertise to help financial institutions gain immediate traction with high-performing digital marketing campaigns.
Get to Know Your Customers with Consumer Insights Marketing
Consumer insights marketing can help you understand your audience’s motivation, perspective, and behavior so you can discover more opportunities. As a business owner, you probably think you know your customers pretty well. You might be right, but these days, you need to go beyond some general demographics in order to obtain true consumer insights. Beyond the likely age, gender, or even actions of current or future customers, you will benefit by digging deeper into the motivation, perspective, and information that drives their behavior. Find out how consumer insight marketing can yield surprising information and even better, great results. Why focus upon consumer insights marketing? In an era when a consumer’s experience with a company outweighs the products they offer, attention to consumer insight marketing will help you connect with customers. For example, you may have some idea that your customers mostly base their purchase decisions upon such objective and obvious measures as product quality and price. Deloitte, a prominent consumer insights company, ran a large survey in the US, UK, Brazil, and China for 2020. According to their consumer behavior analysis, a sizable percentage of respondents said they considered these measures when deciding which business to buy from: How businesses treat employees: 28 percent How businesses treat the environment: 22 percent How businesses treat their communities: 19 percent For your own business, your customer base may vary somewhat. On the other hand, knowing that about 20 percent of your customers want to patronize companies that care about their employees, the environment, and their community could certainly inform your marketing. For example, you might focus upon social posts and ads that introduce enthusiastic employees or highlight your contribution to worthy causes. In fact, consumer insights marketing may have even more importance than it did only a year ago. Deloitte noted that they ran a similar survey in 2019. At that point, their consumer insights found that most customers still cared about price and quality the most. This year’s survey found that 55 percent of consumers think businesses have a responsibility to support issues that relate to their purpose. Deloitte concluded that companies that fail to demonstrate they align with consumer motivations risk getting displaced by businesses that do a better job. On the other hand, understanding and aligning with their customer’s point of view gives businesses an advantage of competition. How consumer insights marketing will help your business compete As a real-world example, Unilever has 28 brands they market as good choices for people interested in sustainable living. These include such well-known names as Lipton, Dove, and Vaseline. Considered sustainable-living products, they deliver the bulk of Unilever’s revenue and also have enjoyed more rapid growth than the company’s other brands. Such items as tea, soap, and petroleum jelly appear pretty interchangeable, but Unilever did a good job of differentiating them as sustainable in order to grow its market share. Certainly, consumers still care about price and quality; however, in a crowded market, knowing what extra factors will prompt customers to favor one company over another can make all the difference. How to gather consumer insights By now, you might wonder how you can possibly start to understand your customer’s motivations and perceptions. If you lack the time or training, you can find market research services that offer affordable packages for all sizes and kinds of businesses. The smaller and newer your company, the more valuable you may find this sort of help. On the other hand, you can begin by studying general consumer behavior analysis, such as that provided by the Deloitte survey mentioned above. Even better, you should start to monitor your own customers on social media or offer surveys. If you’re starting a new business, you may not have many customers yet. At the same time, you can try to peek at your potential competitors’ customers to understand why they buy from other businesses. You might also try setting up a booth at a trade show or local event. Not only will this give you a chance to introduce more people to your brand, you will also have the opportunity to meet the kinds of people who have an interest in the products or services that you offer. Start conversations with people, so that you can learn what motivated them to make similar purchases in the past and could prompt them to buy from you in the future. Why start investing in consumer insights today? In any case, you should know that consumer insights marketing has become more than just the latest marketing term. No matter what you sell, you can’t assume that price and quality completely drive customer behavior. In fact, the more you know about your customer’s motivations to prefer one company over another, the less you may need to compete on price. In fact, getting customers to identify with your company in positive ways is a type of marketing that money almost can’t buy. On the other hand, you can achieve that beneficial status if you invest in consumer behavior analysis and work to always view your business through your customers’ eyes. In any case, if you thought that all of your customers were simply getting online compare prices, you should be pleasantly surprised to learn that you can find other ways to earn their business. You just need to figure out how to do it, and that’s exactly why you need consumer insights.
Follow Your Customer Experience Journey to Improve Your ROI
Mapping the customer experience journey will let you visualize and gain insights about the steps customers take when they interact with your business. As an online business marketer, you can think of a customer experience journey as a description of each person’s behavior as they interact with your website. As a typical map helps you visualize a journey, consumer journey mapping will let you visualize and gain insights about the steps customers take when they interact with your business. In turn, you uncover consumer motivations and those aspects of their experience that you could improve upon in order to increase customer satisfaction and of course, revenues and profits. What is a user journey map? Harvard Business Review defined a user journey map as a diagram used to illustrate the steps your customers take to interact with your company. More complex maps may attempt to describe every step in the customer’s journey but some may just focus on a specific path for some product or site feature. For example, you might include initial brand awareness, from ads or social media. You can even extend the map to contain possible offline interactions with your business. Harvard Business Review mentioned that including more touchpoints could make the document more complex but in some cases, more useful. If you’re mostly focused on just your website, you might only include online actions. In any case, you create a timeline of a customer journey. You might draw points on the timeline that begin with customer awareness and research and end with a purchase and the after-purchase experience. For each stage, you can use this framework: Action: This refers to the actions the consumer took at the time to move along to the next step. In the awareness phase, the customer might have viewed one of your social or YouTube videos or found your site via search. Motivations: What motivated the consumer to take the next step in their journey. Perhaps your social video suggested a solution to some problem the consumer had or offered a cheaper alternative. Questions: Which uncertainties might prevent the customer from advancing along your funnel to the next stage? Perhaps the potential customer needs more information to understand why your brand offers the best choice in a complex or crowded market. Barriers: Besides a lack of information, are there any other obstacles that work against the consumer’s motivations? Some examples could include the cost or the buying process. Gathering information to map the customer decision journey To begin mapping out an online consumer decision journey, you should gather two kinds of information: Website analytics: You should have a fairly easy time figuring out how you customers used your website. For instance, the website analytics will tell you were visitors came from, which features they used, and how long they stayed. If you have trouble sorting out all the information you can gather from your analytics, a customer journey agency may prove a helpful resource. Consumer research: While it’s fairly easy to learn what your website visitors do, it’s a little tougher to understand why they behave the way they do. For instance, a high percentage of visitors might abandon shopping carts before they buy. Maybe they think you charge too much for shipping or don’t offer the right payment options, but sometimes, you can’t know for sure. To make the most of your consumer journey mapping, you might monitor social media or gather surveys or other kinds of feedback. Again, almost every marketer has a much easier time observing the decisions consumers make than knowing exactly why they make them. That’s another reason why creating your customer experience journey map will give you a fantastic chance to understand customers better. For example, let’s say many customers do abandon shopping carts, and you’re not certain if they’re turned off by shipping charges, payment options, or something else. Certainly, you can check social media, surveys, and other feedback to see if you can find any helpful trends. Even better, you might use split tests to let changes in behavior suggest motives. If adding free shipping with a minimum order or reducing all shipping helps improve sales, you will know that shipping charges matter to your market. As with deciphering complex analytics, a customer journey agency may help you find the best ways to sort out complex behaviors. Buyer personas The Shopify Blog suggests using buyer personas as another tool that can help you develop better maps and gain more understanding of your customers. For instance: In the best case, you could encourage recent customers to answer survey questions that can tell you exactly what they did and did not like about the process of interacting with your business. You can ask them why they researched products, what motivated them to choose your business, and of course, if they have any suggestions for improvement. Since understanding motivations can provide you with such valuable insights in order to attract new customers and retain old ones, you might encourage people to complete your surveys with a discount code, extra points in your loyalty club, a free shipping offer. The importance of consumer journey mapping These days, businesses live and die by the experience that they offer customers. Brian Solis, the author of “X: The Experience When Business Meets Design,” says that customer experience now exceeds product in importance. Consumers do search for facts when they research brands, products, and marketplaces. But mostly, they remember how you make them feel. Consumer journey mapping will help you understand the customer’s experience from their own point-of-view, and that’s how you can create a successful, customer-focused company.