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Archives for 2013

IR: Spreading the Message

Nestle IR commentariesNestle is now providing intermittent Investor Relations commentary video blogs to present information to their audience. These short videos add a spice of interest to information that might otherwise be dry or even boring if presented in text form.

This strategy also expands Nestle’s content distribution methods, adding yet another facet of presentation. The more instances in which content is presented in various ways, the more likely people are to connect with it.

Also, note the share and download links at the end of the video; these adds yet another entry port into the lucrative world of social media marketing and sharing.

These videos also provide opportunities for visitors who cannot attend roadshows or other events to see the Investor Relations team in action, thus increasing their ability to connect with the IR message.

As the Internet continues to develop, innovative website additions like this will become the norm as opposed to the exception. Thus it is wise for organizations to adopt creative ways to present content.

8 out of 10 Brands Will Increase Mobile Ad Spending in 2013

technoratimedia 2013 digital influence reportThe TechnoratiMedia 2013 Digital Influence Report has been released, and according to the results, brands have taken their digital messaging to the social web. However, there is a lot of room for improvement.

Nine out of 10 brands surveyed for the study indicated that they have a presence on Facebook, and nearly 7 out of 10 brands reported that they participate in online influencer marketing. Across the board, digital ad budgets are increasing with mobile being a key focus for brands in 2013.

Taking a closer look at the data from the study, you can see where brands are spending time on social messaging. The following data shows the percentage of brands with presences on some of the most popular social sites:

  • Facebook = 91% of brands
  • Twitter = 85% of brands
  • YouTube = 73% of brands
  • Pinterest = 41% of brands
  • LinkedIn = 33% of brands
  • Blogs = 32% of brands
  • Instagram = 29% of brands
  • Google+ = 26% of brands

The data gets more interesting when you look at where brands are spending digital budgets. Nearly 75% of brand digital budgets are being spent on display advertising, search, and producing video. Only 10% is spent on social, and that includes influencer outreach. Breaking the social spending down further, more than half goes to Facebook while YouTube and Twitter each get 13%. Only 6% is spent on influencer outreach, and just 5% is spent on blog advertising.

Considering that consumers surveyed in this study cited blogs as the third most likely online service to influence their purchase decisions (behind brand sites and retail sites but above Facebook, YouTube, and all other social sites), it’s evident that brands are missing a significant opportunity to connect with consumers when they’re making purchase decisions.

When asked where brands planned to increase spending in 2013, 59% plan to increase social advertising and video spending while fewer brands plan to increase search, display advertising, and programmatic buys (37%, 31%, and 21%, respectively). The big winner in terms of higher budget in 2013 will be mobile, which 79% of brands plan to increase.

However, there is more to the data than the percentage of brands that plan to increase budgets in specific channels and areas. While most brands plan to increase mobile ad spending, the actual dollar amount increase for mobile is expected to be just 37% versus 73% for display and 52% for search. Like mobile, social spending will also increase by just 37% when you look at actual dollars being spent. Video spending will increase by 30% and programmatic buys will increase by only 17%.

So while the world is becoming more and more mobile and people are spending more time on social sites and blogs than ever, traditional display advertising is still the primary focus for brand marketers. What do you think? Missed opportunities?

5 Ways to Turn Employees into Vocal Online Brand Advocates

employee-brand-advocatesA company’s employees are its most powerful brand advocates, but few companies know how to effectively empower their employees to advocate their brands. Learning how to do it should be a top priority for every company and brand, particularly for generating online brand advocacy where the reach and influence of your employees could be significant.

Of course, employees have to be happy and have to believe in the brand promise in order to want to advocate it to their own connections and online audiences. That’s where a company needs to start — with a focus on internal brand building.

Next, you need to give your employees the tools they need to advocate your brand in the ways you want them to. This is particularly important for workforces that are spread out in multiple locations. Using a tool like the employee advocacy software from Expion can help you manage the process, but you need to create your strategy and brand advocacy plan first.

You can’t expect your employees will know what to do. It’s up to you to guide them to advocate the brand properly. To help you get started, following are five ways you can turn your employees into vocal brand advocates online:

1. Give your employees the messages you want them to share.

What do you want your employees to say about your brand in their online conversations? What messages would make them proud to share information about their company and your brand? Can you give them messages that would be useful and meaningful to their friends, family, and online connections? Don’t assume they’ll relay every message you give them, and don’t give them sales-oriented messages. Very few employees will want to broadcast marketing and sales messages from their employer to their connections, but many will want to share useful information.

2. Give your employees the content you want them to talk about and share.

Beyond giving your employees messages, give them actual content to talk about and share online. This includes videos, infographics, images, slideshows, ebooks, and so on. This content should be meaningful, useful, or entertaining or none of your employees will share it. The goal for employee brand advocacy should be to build brand awareness across wider audiences that can lead to sales at a relatively low cost . With that in mind, keep self-promotion to a minimum. Focus on brand storytelling and tapping into emotions in your content, so people will want to share it.

3. Acknowledge your employees who actively advocate your brand online.

Don’t let your employees’ brand advocacy activities go unnoticed. Respond to them online. Acknowledge them offline as well. This acknowledgement should include company recognition and personal appreciation on a one-to-one basis. They’ll have more motivation to continue talking about your brand if they feel appreciated for their efforts.

4. Show your employees the results of their online brand advocacy efforts.

If your employees’ online brand advocacy efforts are showing measurable results, make sure they’re aware of the effects their activities are having on the brand and company. They’ll feel more motivated to keep up their efforts knowing that those efforts are actually having an impact.

5. Reward your employees who actively advocate your brand online.

If you can tie brand advocacy efforts back to individual employees, then you should have a method in place to not just acknowledge those employees but also to reward employees who are extremely active or driving real results for the company through their efforts. This is essential if you can tie employee advocacy efforts directly to sales and revenues. Internal brand advocacy can help your company drive word-of-mouth marketing at a fraction of the cost other marketing initiatives would require, so make sure you reward your top employee influencers whose advocacy leads directly to sales.

Image: Svilen Milev

About: What Do You Do?

Roche, a renowned biotechnology company focused on Personalized Healthcare (PHC) research and development, implements a creative innovation that taps into the versatility of benefits that their website can bring to the corporation.

They recognize the fact that people are often confused by what large corporates actually do, particularly if they are in a technical area such as Roche. After all, who really understands biotechnology?

Roche sidesteps this communication barrier by offering a short quiz on their home page. The quiz is designed to explain exactly what their company does.

This web design maneuver brings interactivity to their website, thus engaging their audience. In addition, the quiz generates both appreciation and curiosity in the reader, encouraging them to dig deeper into the website.

Showrooming Grows and Brick-and-Mortar Retailers Cringe

best buy showroomingIn recent years, the term “showrooming” has taken on a negative meaning for brick-and-mortar retailers as more and more consumers visit physical stores to research products but then go online to purchase those products at a lower price.

Some consumers even visit a brick-and-mortar retailer with their mobile devices to price check products in the store and through online sellers. They can instantly purchase the item they want based on their showrooming research from the online seller with the best price before they even leave the store.

What’s a brick-and-mortar retailer to do?

According to research from Gartner and Placed (a mobile analytics company), showrooming is poised to become a much bigger problem, as you can see in the infographic published by AdWeek below. Here are a few highlights to get you thinking:

  • 60% of consumers deliberately visited a brick-and-mortar store to gather information on a product while knowing they planned to buy that product from another outlet.
  • 90% of consumers who showroomed a product at a brick-and-mortar retail location did not purchase the item from that retailer online.
  • The top five stores that consumers are likely to visit before going online to purchase the products they showroomed at a brick-and-mortar location are: Bed Bath & Beyond, PetSmart, Toys ‘R Us, Best Buy, and Sears.

The top reasons consumer cited for showrooming are:

  1. Better prices online
  2. The store was out of stock
  3. The store didn’t carry the product
  4. Online shopping is more convenient/free shipping

showrooming infographic

The challenge for retailers is finding a way to increase in-store sales. So far, retailers have fought back with price-matching, faster checkout, same day free shipping on orders placed from the brick-and-mortar store, and in-store wi-fi access that enables mobile scanning so consumers can instantly purchase popular items and have them shipped to their homes for free. Each of these tactics aims to help consumers get the lowest price and bypass the checkout line.

For brick-and-mortar retailers, it’s more important than ever to have the right products stocked at the right prices. Bargain hunting and comparison shopping is at consumers’ fingertips, so retailers need to make sure consumers can get what they want, when they want it. If brick-and-mortar retailers fail, those consumers will head directly to Amazon or another online retailer to make their purchases.

What do you think?

Image: Alton Jefferson II

LinkedIn Launches SlideShare Content Ads and Brands Take Notice

linkedinWhen LinkedIn bought SlideShare last year, the marketing world was ignited by the possibilities the most popular social networking site and the most popular professional presentation sharing site could do together.

Many people speculated about what the acquisition would bring to LinkedIn Members. Would LinkedIn Members be able to do more with their SlideShare presentations then simply including links to them from their LinkedIn Profiles (a feature that was possible using the SlideShare add-on within LinkedIn long before the 2012 acquisition)?

This week, brand marketers took notice again when LinkedIn launched SlideShare Content Ads — the perfect blend for business-to-business brands.

SlideShare Content Ads are a part of LinkedIn’s Content Ads program which already includes ways for companies to deliver “content-rich experiences” to LinkedIn members through videos, blog posts, company news, and updates. With the launch of SlideShare Content Ads, brands will be able to target LinkedIn members and display their SlideShare presentations to those members alongside of their regular activity streams.

With a single mouse click, a member can view the entire SlideShare presentation in a pop-up without having to leave LinkedIn. A link will be included in the presentation to visit the company’s website, or the member can simply close the presentation, which brings them back to the activity they were doing before they clicked on the SlideShare Content Ad.

B-to-B brands are likely to jump at the opportunity to test SlideShare Content Ads, particularly because LinkedIn offers excellent targeting capabilities based on members’ profiles. For example, AdWeek reports that advertisers can target people based on their job titles, companies they work for, seniority, company size, and more. Furthermore, performance metrics will include, “an aggregate of non-personally identifiable profile and demographic data of members who see a campaign, including things like job function, industry, and seniority of those that view and click.” Of course, advertisers will also receive traditional digital advertising metrics such as views, average time on presentations, average time spent per slide, and so on.

According to a LinkedIn blog post, the company, “is testing more features that give brands the ability to collect leads directly from SlideShare content, and extend their reach through social gestures including ‘Likes’ and ‘Shares.'” Additional capabilities like those will surely please brand marketers.

Overall, SlideShare Content Ads are a great fit for LinkedIn, LinkedIn members, and advertisers. Getting useful content from a reliable source in front of decision makers when they need it is critical for B-to-B marketers. SlideShare Content Ads on LinkedIn, give brands an excellent opportunity to do exactly that.

The trick will be testing SlideShare Content Ads to identify the types of presentations–from design to length, content, and everything in between–that drive the best results. In other words, many companies follow the strategy of publishing every presentation they have on SlideShare, but not every presentation will be effective as a SlideShare Content Ad. Success will require experimentation, close tracking, and a shift in content marketing and advertising strategy.

Image: Nan Palmero