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Marketing in 2015: What’s Hot and What’s Not

digital marketingThe good news for marketing in 2015 is that 93% of enterprise marketing leaders for global brands plan to increase or maintain their marketing budgets in the next 12 months. The bad news is that some programs are falling way down on the priorities list in 2015.

Offline Marketing: Not Hot in 2015

According to research from StrongView, three marketing programs will see significantly decreased spending in the new year. In a survey of 400 marketing executives for global brands, 33% indicated their budgets for print advertising would drop in 2015. Direct mail will also decrease for 22% of respondents, and radio and television advertising spending will decrease for 18% of marketers.

Digital Marketing: Hot in 2015

On the other hand, digital marketing will thrive in 2015 with 61% of respondents indicating their email marketing budgets will go up in the new year. Social media will see a spending increase among 49% of respondents, and mobile marketing will increase for 40% of marketers who responded to the StrongView survey.

Inbound marketing and automation will be at the top of many marketers’ priority lists in 2015. In total, 42% of respondents indicated that triggered/transactional programs will see an increased investment in 2015, and 41% will increase investments in lifestyle programs. These lifecycle programs will focus on four key touchpoints:

  • Loyalty: 45%
  • Welcome: 36%
  • Winback/Re-engagement: 27%
  • Post-Purchase: 27%

2015 Marketing Concerns

Despite the planned increase in marketing budgets in 2015, marketers still have big concerns. The top three concerns among leading marketers for 2015 are related to data and integration:

  • Accessing and leveraging customer data from multiple channels and data sources: 30%
  • Coordination across marketing channels: 16%
  • Developing more relevant engagements: 13%

Data challenges for marketers are plentiful with the biggest problems among respondents to the StrongView survey identified as data cleanliness (14%), lack of budget (12%), and lack of resources (12%). With this in mind, it’s not surprising that only 51% of the survey respondents use the demographic data that they have access to in their marketing campaigns and only 48% use the purchase history data that they have access to.

The problem with data is harnessing it to improve ROI. Marketers indicated that the data they struggle the most to leverage are:

  • Web behavior: 31%
  • Sentiment: 20%
  • Life stage: 19%
  • Shopping/browsing behavior: 19%
  • External feeds: 14%

Based on this research, it is clear that digital marketing trumps offline marketing in terms of prioritization in 2015. Marketing budgets are shifting more and more towards digital and away from offline every year, but the same problems remain year after year: data and integration. Perhaps we’ll see some solutions to overcome those problems on a wide-scale debut in 2015. What do you think?

Image: Svilen Milev

12 Benefits of Video Interviewing

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Companies need to become ever more tech savvy when it comes to hiring the best talent.

The market offers plenty of software programs for candidate screening, video interviews and candidate’s skills assessment. I was surprised to find at least 70 companies who offer software programs for video interviewing.

All these technology supported tools will allow companies to hire better and faster, and finding the most suitable one for your own corporate needs would be a challenge in itself.

I would like to focus on the benefits that video interview software programs can offer. Bear in mind that there are different types of video interviews: one-way, two-way, live, and pre-recorded. The benefits may vary depending on the type of video interview you choose, and whether there is a chance to pre-record questions and answers or not.

  1. Better insights into a candidate’s personality

    A CV does not give you any hints regarding a candidate’s personality, way of communicating or presenting. A video can help you to take a quicker decision in finding out if the person might be a good fit or not.

  2. Cost cutting

    Your company can reduce travel costs: there is no need to reimburse travel expenses for candidates since the conversation is being held via screen.

  3. Time saving and therefore increased productivity

    Hiring managers can record their questions once and don’t need to repeat them for each candidate.

    Candidates don’t necessarily need to take time off from work to record and submit their answers. They can do it from the comfort of their home and therefore eliminate any travel time.

    This approach might also mean an increase in the speed of hiring.

  4. Re-evaluation is possible

    It gives a Hiring Manager the opportunity to listen to a candidate’s questions and answers over and over again. No detail can get lost. This facilitates panel feedback early in the hiring process, and means that discussions among HR professionals or clients are also possible.

  5. Candidate attraction and search

    Potentially, more candidates can be attracted, quicker, and on an international scale, not just locally.

  6. Live multimedia enriched interview experience

    Some programs allow you to review and discuss interviewees’ social media profile, online portfolio, live work samples, presentations on Slideshare alongside the interview discussion.

  7. Increased flexibility

    Having the opportunity to pre-record your interview questions and looking at the candidates’ answers at your own time gives you a certain level of flexibility.

  8. Better Employer Branding

    It would showcase your company as an enterprise which is forward-looking and tech savvy.

  9. Affordable

    You can invest in paid software solutions or give it a try with free alternatives, such as Skype or Google Hangouts (in which case the interview would have to take place in real time at a specific time).

  10. Convenient

    Interviewer and applicant don’t have to be in the same room.

  11. More passive candidates

    A company would also be able to attract a higher number of passive candidates due to the fact that they would not have to take time off from their work to get to the interview location. They would feel more encouraged to apply.

  12. Easier to organise

    It would be considerably easier and quicker to organise video interviews than to invite many candidates for face to face interviews.

Technology has changed our life dramatically in the last years and life without it is almost unimaginable. However, as great as technology has proved to be, we cannot ignore the fact that potential drawbacks also need to be looked at particularly in terms of technical and security problems. However, I do strongly believe that “video interviewing” will become standard in the foreseeable future. Some companies have already embraced this strategy while for others it will still take some time to get familiar with it and adjust to the new digital challenge.

Top Marketing Priorities for 2015: Data and Integration

marketing priorityIf 2014 was the year of mobile marketing, 2015 will be the year of data and integrated marketing. At least those are the top priorities for marketers according to a new report from Marin Software based on a survey of 300 digital marketers in the United States and United Kingdom.

Of the top 10 priorities that marketers cited for 2015, seven are directly related to data and three are directly related to integration. Those three priorities that are directly related to integration are also indirectly related to data, so it’s safe to name data as the top 2015 marketing priority.

The results from the Marin Software survey ranked the top 10 priorities for 2015 as follows:

  1. (Data) Creating campaigns based on deeper understanding of audiences: 51%
  2. (Integration) Cross-channel digital marketing: 50%
  3. (Integration) Better integrating our online and offline marketing efforts: 46%
  4. (Integration) Better integrating our digital marketing disciplines: 44%
  5. (Data) Investing in more sophisticated technology to gain and act on insights about our customers: 33%
  6. (Data) Hiring more people with data analysis skills: 33%
  7. (Data) Working closely with our IT/tech team: 32%
  8. (Data) Programmatic buying of advertising: 23%
  9. (Data) Gaining better transparency into where our digital agencies invest our marketing spend and the results they deliver for us: 22%
  10. (Data) Better understanding how to market to customers in emerging markets: 17%

Despite the clear importance of marketing integration, only 24% of respondents to the survey stated that digital marketing in their organizations is totally integrated with all marketing areas, and only 27% indicated that their marketing disciplines are totally integrated. On the other end of the spectrum, 20% of respondents indicated that their digital marketing is not integrated with offline marketing at all, and 12% indicated that their marketing disciplines are not integrated. In other words, there is still so much work to be done to effectively integrate marketing initiatives and support.

2015 Marketing Challenges

With the growing need for marketing integration, much of which is dependent on access to data and transparent communications, it’s not surprising that the report found four key challenges marketers will face in 2015.

First, they’ll continue to struggle with identifying which ad channels and initiatives drive specific results, particularly as the buying process becomes more fragmented across multiple devices.

Second, marketers need to be mobile-friendly in all campaigns, but only 57% of marketers who responded to this study said that they optimize campaigns for mobile when they’re able to. However, mobile isn’t the main focus of those programs. More specifically, only 33% of marketers make mobile a priority in order to support context-specific and seamless experiences across devices. If this way of thinking continues, brands will be in trouble in 2015.

Third, silo marketing is not dead yet. In fact, this survey shows us that it’s alive and thriving. Companies need to break down the walls within marketing departments as well as within the organization as a whole to develop the most effective cross-channel marketing campaigns.

And fourth, marketers need transparent and actionable data, but they also need the skills to actually use that data. Having data and using it well are two very different things.

You can follow the link at the beginning of this article to access the full study.

How well is your organization integrating marketing and collecting and using data? What are your 2015 priorities? Are data and integration on the list? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Adam Ciesielski

Improving Email Marketing ROI in 2015 Depends on Data

email marketing roiWhen it comes time to increase your email marketing ROI in the coming year, it’s all about that data.

According to research from The Relevancy Group and Liveclicker, Exploring the Benefits of Real Time Email, the top priorities among mid-market and enterprise marketers for improving email marketing ROI in 2015 are all tied to data.

Here are the top five email marketing priorities for marketers in 2015:

1. Increased Use of Analytics

In order to optimize their brand communications, marketers’ top 2015 email marketing priority is increasing their use of analytics. Overall, 46% of enterprise and 39% of mid-market respondents to this survey ranked a greater use of analytics as most important in the coming year.

2. Improved Segmentation and Targeting

Enterprise marketers (40%) and mid-market marketers (36%) both rank improving segmentation and targeting as important making it the second highest priority for increasing email marketing ROI next year.

3. Centralized and More Actionable Customer Data

Organizing customer data so marketers can actually use it ranked as the third most important priority to increase email marketing ROI in 2015 (33% of enterprise marketers and 29% of mid-market marketers).

4. Increased and Better Use of Real-Time Data

Data will be important to marketers in 2015, but real-time data is even more important. Overall 32% of enterprise marketers and 27% of mid-market marketers ranked the utilization of real-time data as a top priority to increase marketing ROI in 2015.

5. Increased Relevancy of Direct Communications Through the Use of Dynamic Content

Dynamic content is the content in email messages (as well as on websites, landing pages, online forms, and so on) that changes based on the person viewing it so each person sees the most relevant content to him or her. In total, 31% of enterprise marketers and 29% of mid-market marketers ranked dynamic content as a top email marketing priority to increase ROI in the coming year.

Now, pretend it’s five years earlier. What do you think the top email marketing priorities were for marketers in 2005? Improved segmentation and targeting, better use of analytics, and centralizing customer data and making it more actionable were almost certainly on everyone’s priority lists back then.

It’s interesting to see how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Yes, marketing priorities evolve as new tactics to collect and use data debut, but the marketing fundamentals stay fairly consistent, don’t they?

Image: Svilen Milev

Google Reveals 4 Factors Affecting Online Ad Viewability

magnifying glass viewabilityOnline advertising is a key component of most brand marketing plans, but how many of the ads that are paid for by brands are actually viewed by consumers?

Based on the industry standard identified by the Media Rating Council, an online ad is considered viewable when at least 50% of the ad’s pixels are actually in view on the screen for a minimum of one second. Using that standard, Google reviewed its entire display ad platform to determine what factors affect ad viewability, which ads are performing better in terms of viewability, and which ads are performing worse.

Google measured performance using a viewability rate, which was calculated as the percentage of ads that were viewable out of the total number of ads that were measured. The results of the research are enlightening with four key factors rising to the top as having significant effects on display ad viewability.

1. Publishers

A total of 56.1% of display ads served by all publishers were non-viewable, but those ads were served by a small number of publishers. Overall, the average publisher non-viewability is 48.8%.

2. Position

You might think that ads at the top of a web page are the most viewable, but that’s not true based on Google’s findings. The most viewable online ad position in this study was immediately above the fold, not at the top of the page. In fact, this position was most viewable for 300 x 250, 728 x 90, and 320 x 50 ad sizes. Overall, viewability rates were higher in this study for ads positioned above the fold (68%) than below the fold (40%).

3. Size

The most viewable ad size is 120 x 240 (55.6% viewability rate). The least viewable online ad size is 300 x 250 (41.0% viewability rate). It’s important to note that vertical ad units, which stay on the user’s screen longer as they scroll down the page, are the most viewable ad size overall. The complete breakdown of viewability by ad size is as follows:

  • 120 x 240 = 55.6%
  • 240 x 400 = 54.9%
  • 160 x 600 = 53.7%
  • 120 x 600 = 52.5%
  • 468 x 60 = 48.2%
  • 300 x 600 = 46.3%
  • 970 x 90 = 45.2%
  • 728 x 90 = 45.0%
  • 300 x 250 = 41.0%

4. Industry

Google reports, “Content that holds a user’s attention has the highest viewability,” as you’d expect. Viewability rates were highest for the reference (51.9%), online communities (48.9%), games (48.4%), arts and entertainment (48.0%), and jobs and education (47.8%) industries. Viewability rates were lowest for the business and industrial (47.2%), computers and electronics (47.1%), science (46.6%), internet and telecommunications (46.4%), and hobbies and leisure (44.8%) industries.

As you develop your display advertising plans for 2015, be sure to consider these research findings. They are very likely to affect your ROI!

Image: Paul Barker

5 Key Elements of a Great Brand Story

keyboard brand storyBrand storytelling is a hot topic these days but most marketers don’t know how to craft a compelling brand story. Unless you’re one of the marketers who actually took a creative writing class in college and you still have your copy of William Zinsser’s On Writing Well (yes, I still have mine), storytelling can be challenging.

To help you get started in developing stories for your own brands, here are the five key elements that every great brand story needs to have. Without this elements, it will be very difficult for audiences to connect with your story or your brand, and that means lower results and lower profits.

1. Identifiable Character

All great stories have a primary character who the audience can relate to and identify with. The audience roots for him or her as the story progresses. For a brand story, your primary character could be a customer, but make sure the customer is one that your target audience will actually want to succeed in overcoming the story’s conflict (see #2 Problem / Conflict).

2. Problem / Conflict

A great story has a core conflict that the main character must face and overcome. For a brand story, the core conflict can be a problem that your product or service can solve for consumers.

3. Beginning

The beginning of a great story offers the information that the audience needs to identify with the primary character, visualize his or her surroundings (i.e., the story’s setting), and understand why the core conflict matters to him or her (and to the audience). For a brand story, use the beginning as an opportunity to set up the story. However, don’t fall into the trap of getting too detailed in the beginning and slowing the pacing down so much that the audience gets bored and stops reading (or listening or watching) before the story really gets going. Be compelling from the start.

4. Middle

The middle of the story is where you can get more detailed. Since you’re writing a brand story, this is where you need to look for opportunities to create situations, settings, and secondary characters that lead your primary character through to the climax followed by the resolution of his or her core conflict (see #5 End).

5. End

The end of your story should provide resolution to the primary character’s core conflict, which should mirror or seamlessly translate to a solution to the audience’s problem that your brand, product, or service provides. You can mention your brand, products, or services directly or indirectly at the end of your brand story. Just be careful not to turn your interesting brand story into a self-promotional piece. If the brand story you create is compelling enough, sales will increase organically without any heavy-handed sales language.

Do you write brand stories? What do you think are the key elements of a great brand story? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Image: Aman Anderson