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Archives for 2013

Sponsored Content is Making a Comeback for Brands and Publishers

paid stampThere was a time in the not so distant past when publishers were afraid of sponsored content. Fears that publishing content which was paid for by an advertiser would negatively affect sites’ Google search rankings and traffic gave digital sponsored content a bad reputation. Add ethical concerns and legal issues (e.g., the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations states that sponsored content must be disclosed as such) to the mix, and sponsored content was dying a quick death.

However, it wasn’t time to shut the doors on sponsored content yet. Today, the more buzzworthy term for sponsored content is native advertising, and it’s bringing in big advertising revenues for online publishers. Brands get in front of targeted audiences with great content (hopefully), consumers find value in the content (hopefully), and the publisher makes money. It’s a win-win-win situation, and it’s not surprising that native advertising was up 40% in 2012 according to Pew Research.

Forbes Media CEO Mike Perlis released a memo this week that shows just how important native advertising has become for Forbes’ bottom-line. According to Emma Bazilian of AdWeek, Forbes experienced a 19% increase in digital ad revenue in 2012 and 10% of that revenue came from native advertising. By the end of 2013, native advertising is expected to grow to make up 35% of Forbes’ digital revenue.

From the advertiser’s perspective, native advertising is driving higher results. For example, a recent online video study by Nielsen and Sharethrough found that native advertising showed a higher lift over pre-roll ads across all campaigns in the study. Consumers preferred the less disruptive native advertising in all cases, which is consistent with the overall growing consumer preference for marketing and advertising that do not interrupt but rather enhance their experiences.

While the publishing industry continues to struggle as more consumers move away from print publications to digital news and information sources, publishers like Forbes must find ways to bring in lost advertising revenue. Native advertising is delivering, and so far, publishers (at least large publishers with well-known brand names) aren’t facing the wrath of Google search penalties from publishing sponsored content. In other words, native advertising might be here to stay this time.

Has your brand invested in native advertising yet? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Abhi Ryan

Testimonials: The Power Behind A Story

power-of-storyEver wonder if testimonials really work? Are they merely traditional components of a website, or is there really power behind their words? Research indicates that testimonials are indeed impressively effective, and that the timeless art of storytelling lies at the heart of their persuasive power.

Researchers Melanie Green and Timothy Brock from Ohio State University conducted a study to determine the effectiveness of narratives in persuasive advertising.

They asked participants to read several short stories, each of which implied different beliefs and opinions. After the participants finished reading, the researchers measured how much each participant agreed with the persuasive messages associated with each story.

The results indicated that certain participants reported stronger levels of agreement than other participants. It seemed that the more participants were emotionally connected to the characters and events of the story, the more likely they were to be persuaded by the message. Green and Brock attributed this difference to varying levels of the psychological principle of transportation.

Transportation, which can be described as ‘immersion into a story,’ is the level of a reader’s emotional response to the characters and events in a story. According to Green and Brock, the more readers become wrapped up in the characters and events of a story, the more likely they will be persuaded by the underlying message. This is due to the fact that their emotional immersion leads them to be less likely to develop counterarguments. Which, in turn, means they will be more likely to be persuaded by the message imbedded within the story.

Therefore, because testimonials are, in essence, a story of another’s experience with a product or service, the principle of transportation can explain their effectiveness. The more emotional response a testimonial can evoke in the reader, the more persuasive that testimonial will be.

This highlights the importance of including testimonials that speak to the emotions of the audience. They should address areas of doubt, and counter common consumer objections associated with the product. They should also evoke positive emotions from the readers. An exceptionally effective way to achieve this kind of connection is through the use of ‘before-and-after’ scenarios.

In sum, there is no need to enlist a celebrity to endorse a product or service. In fact, readers are more likely to form an emotional connection to real stories from ‘real’ people. Thus, generate as many testimonials as possible through the use of comment boxes and even forums. The more positive testimonials displayed on a website, the more emotionally connected the readers will become.

 

References

Green, MC & Brock, TC (2000) The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives

How Big Data Can Bridge the Gap Between Sales and Marketing

data sheetBig data is the big buzz of 2013, but few companies know how to harness a massive amount of data and effectively leverage it to boost sales and drive revenues. A study by Lattice Engines and CSO Insights reveals that in addition to increasing profits, big data can close the 70% lead generation gap between sales and marketing.

In the CSO Insights Sales Performance Optimization Study, 1,200 CEOs, CSOs, sales executives and sales managers across a variety of industries and company sizes provided their thoughts about how big data can help the sales effort. Study respondents claimed that marketing generates just 30% of leads, which means the sales team has to invest time into finding the other 70% of leads needed to make quotas set at the executive level. To make up that difference, sales representatives are launching their own marketing campaigns outside the marketing department. These efforts include email campaigns, micro-sites, leading webinars, and more.

The quantity of leads from the marketing department isn’t adequate according to the sales department. Furthermore, nearly half of respondents say that the leads from marketing are not just too few but they’re also low quality. 42% of sales representatives who responded to this survey stated that they don’t have the right information before they make a call to someone on the list of leads provided by the marketing department. 45% said they need help researching leads and prioritizing accounts, because they’re currently wasting 20% of their time on these activities rather than actually selling.

Revenue targets were up 16% in 2012 and with that increase in revenue comes an increase in sales quotas. Given the fact that fewer than two out of three sales representatives who responded to this survey met their 2012 quotas and fewer than 57% of companies made their revenue targets, it’s not surprising that 65% of respondents identified customer acquisition as their top priority in 2013. Coming in second place on the list of priorities was increasing sales effectiveness (52%), which was followed by increasing existing account penetration (36%).

The study authors explain that sales and marketing teams which are using big data combined with predictive analytics technology are able to analyze data from a wide variety of both internal and external sources. These sources, which include CRM, marketing automation, past purchase history, news alerts, government filings and more, enable sales and marketing teams to quickly predict which prospects (and customers) have the highest buying potential so the sales team can focus more efforts on those leads and accounts.

Image: Kerem Yucel

2 out of 10 Companies Integrate Traditional and Digital Marketing

Gartner Digital Marketing Study 2013While 28% of companies have reduced their traditional advertising budgets and reallocated that money to digital marketing efforts, 20% have chosen to integrate traditional and digital marketing budgets and activities instead. 41% of companies are reinvesting the money saved by shifting to less expensive digital marketing activities are reallocating savings back into additional digital marketing efforts.

Those statistics come from the 2013 Digital Marketing Spending Report from Gartner which is based on a survey of over 200 marketers in six industries from companies based in the United States with over $500 million in annual revenue.

In 2013, the Gartner report reveals that 10.4% of revenue is spent on marketing, and marketing budgets will grow by 6% in 2013. Currently, the top three keys to marketing success for 40% of survey respondents are a corporate website, social media marketing, and digital advertising. The full breakdown follows:

  • Design, development and maintenance of the corporate website = 45%
  • Marketing on social network like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter = 43%
  • Digital or online advertising = 43%
  • Content creation and management = 35%
  • Commerce experiences (marketing-led) = 27%
  • Search marketing (including paid search) = 26%
  • Email marketing = 24%
  • Mobile marketing = 24%
  • Analytics = 24%
  • Company blog = 6%

The top priority initiatives for survey respondents in 2013 are:

  • Commerce experiences
  • Social marketing
  • Content creation and management
  • Mobile marketing

Digital marketing has become so important that 70% of companies surveyed in the Gartner study revealed that they have a Chief Marketing Technologist on staff with 80% of them reporting to the marketing department rather than the IT department. This person’s role is critical in managing digital marketing initiatives with a focus on the technology that powers their success.

Despite the increased focus on digital marketing, 50% of companies that participated in the Gartner study outsource some or all of their digital marketing activities. The percentage of companies that outsource digital marketing activities is shown below, which you can use to compare to the list above that shows how important companies think each of these initiatives is to marketing success:

  • Search marketing (including paid search): 50%
  • Digital or online advertising = 46%
  • Mobile marketing = 45%
  • Email marketing = 37%
  • Content creation and management = 36%
  • Analytics = 36%
  • Design, development and maintenance of the corporate website = 35%
  • Marketing on social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. = 34%
  • Commerce experiences (marketing-led) = 34%
  • Company blog = 27%

I’m very surprised to see mobile marketing rank so low in the list of marketing success factors. I also think search marketing and the company blog should be higher priorities for companies. One thing that’s not surprising is the low ranking of analytics as a success factor. With 70% of respondents claiming to have a Chief Marketing Technologist on staff, this ranking should be much higher. The company that learns to truly leverage their data will have a significant advantage over competitors.

What do you think about these survey results? Any surprises for you? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Gartner

Pepsi Chases Coke Again with New Bottle Design

Coke has its iconic contour bottle design, and now, Pepsi has released its own unique bottle design. It can be assumed that the company hopes to achieve similar iconic status with its new bottle.

The new Pepsi bottle design features a swirl shape at the base and a smaller label. You can see the new bottle in the image to the left. This is the first bottle redesign for Pepsi since 1997.

Pepsi is a brand that isn’t afraid to change its logo and taglines frequently, so a bottle redesign isn’t surprising. In fact, it’s surprising that the company hasn’t redesigned the bottle in over 15 years. The question is whether redesigning the bottle now will drive the attention and sales that the Pepsi company wants.

According to Ad Age, the new bottles will be in stores across the United States by the end of the year, but it’s unlikely that they’ll boost soda consumption in the United States where soda consumption is down to the lowest levels since 1996 and Pepsi ranks third in sales behind Coke and Diet Coke

The new Pepsi bottle design looks cool. However, it represents yet another change in the Pepsi brand elements and marks another step in brand inconsistency that it’s top competitor, Coke, never seems to have. The Coca-Cola brand is all about consistency. What is the Pepsi brand all about? It changes too frequently to know for certain.

According to Nina Mandell of Fast Company, the redesign is part of Pepsi’s Live for Now campaign that launched nearly a year ago. The marketing team looked to its archives of bottles and cans for inspiration in designing the new Pepsi bottle. A Pepsi spokesperson said the new bottle design is “the best visual expression of Live For Now” because it’s the “most visible and tangible connection” the brand has with consumers.

The question is whether consumers will feel motivated to buy more Pepsi with the addition of the new bottle design to the Live for Now campaign. Or is this just one more chapter in the ever-evolving Pepsi brand story that will be replaced in a few years?

What do you think?

Brands Reach Influencers with Klout for Business

klout 100Klout is known as a tool to quantify a person’s influence online. Whether you like the way Klout measures online influence or not, the tool is useful for brands that want to connect their messages with people who have the eyes and ears of the brand’s target audience.

Until recently, brands could offer influencers products and experiences by awarding them Klout Perks. Now, companies can access analytics about how influencers are engaging with their brands on Facebook and Twitter with the launch of Klout for Business.

According to the official Klout for Business launch announcement, businesses can learn which topics their audiences are influencing others about, so they can deliver more focused content that drives word-of-mouth marketing. The Klout for Business dashboard will identify the influencers among the brand’s Twitter and Facebook followers along with key demographic data such as age, gender, and location.

These are just the first steps to growing Klout for Business. Tim Peterson of Adweek reports that the future of Klout for Business could include targeted advertising integrated with Facebook and Twitter and external data integration where businesses could upload their own customer data to Klout for even better targeting.

Mobile VIP Perks are already being tested where Klout users with the Klout mobile app installed on their mobile devices can be identified by the business when the enter that business’ store or physical location giving the business the opportunity to personally greet that customer or extend a special offer. Tim explains,

“Klout has tested the [Mobile VIP Perks] product with some small restaurants in San Francisco and concuted a bigger test during SXSW with Cirque du Soleil where influencers got upgraded seats for a performance. ‘It’s a really exciting feature that is getting a lot of interest from businesses. We’ll be rolling out to big partners with it soon,” [said Klout CEO Joe Fernandez].”

Klout reports that content produced by Klout influencers drives four times as many retweets on average as content posted by non-influencer social media users, and people who see content from Klout influencers are more than twice as likely to click through to an advertiser page. Furthermore, Klout claims that people who visit product pages recommended by Klout influencers spend more than twice as long on that site.

Undoubtedly, brands will be very interested in Klout for Business, and Klout is heading in the right direction by working towards offering a complete enterprise marketing platform based on its algorithmic models that analyze billions of data points to create influence scores. Once brands can integrate their own customer data with Klout data, Klout for Business should really gain traction.

What do you think of Klout? Klout for Business? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on measuring influence and marketing to that influence.