As marketers, we face the challenging reality that consumers have more control now than they’ve ever had before. Consumer feedback by way of ratings is drastically shifting how we satisfy our basic human needs. Yelp! influences where we eat. Uber, how we move. Rotten Tomatoes, how we’re entertained. Travelocity, where we vacation. Rate My Professor. how we learn. And perhaps most importantly, Amazon influences what we consume. The consumer’s search for transparency has collided with humanity’s advances in technology. Digital tools of due diligence, like Amazon reviews, have drastically narrowed the gap between consumer needs and the right product or service.

Advanced Customer Experience

Customer experience is the new competitive advantage. According to a 2017 Gartner Customer Experience in Marketing Survey, in two years’ time, 81% of marketers expect to be competing mostly or completely on the basis of CX. On paper, this stat can seem ridiculous. But in practice, it couldn’t be more intuitive.

In the era of plentiful data, how does the Creative Professional — who relies on her taste, skill and instinct to make things that other people will consume — navigate a world in which insightful data is every bit as important as her intuition?

It used to be the case that, as a creative professional, her goal was to create something that was both beautiful and effective. Is it good? Does is work? If she could answer “yes” to both of those questions, she’d done her job.

A study done by the Pew Research Center in 2010 asked four different generations what made them unique. The answers varied by generation, except for one thing — each generation said they were “smarter.”This was the first thing I found when researching various generations, and it was both a funny and interesting place to start.

No where else have consumers become more accustomed to a customized experience than in healthcare. Each of us carries a unique medical history and physical makeup, so we don’t expect a one-size-fits-all approach.

The modern marketer believes that marketing is so much more difficult today than ever before. There’s no captive audience watching one of four networks during primetime. There’s no printed circular that bumps your sales each Wednesday. No radio remote- broadcast from your store where people flock to meet the deejay and maybe get a free t-shirt. No e-mail blast that overloads your website. Man, it’s hard… until you start listening to your prospect.

A/B testing has been around for years. If you haven’t started implementing A/B testing, today is a great time to start. Most email marketing platforms now offer some sort of A/B testing as part of their service. You can A/B test almost anything on emails and websites, but some of the most popular elements to test are: subject lines, headlines, CTA buttons and imagery. For the purpose of this article, we are going to focus on testing email subject lines to increase open rates.

How do you compete in an oversaturated social ad space? In the era of binge-watching and short attentions spans, marketers are challenged with creating content that is to-the-point, adaptive to the platform and personalized. We need to reach audiences with familiar content, reliable content and consumable content.

I wrote my last blog about snackable videos, so I’ll be sticking with the food theme as I take a minute to dive further into consumable content. To make content consumable, we can’t simply dump content on a user and expect the results to be long-lasting. We need to do more than just engage. We need to maintain engagement. So we must create supportive content that is easily accessible and encourages continued relationships. Enter the age-old solution of storytelling.

There are many different tactics one can use for a digital campaign. My personal favorite? Video, of course! Should it be decided that video is going to be utilized for a campaign, then great! I’m a big fan of that decision. 

But before we jump in head first, it’s important for us to understand the objectives of the campaign. We can put our heads together and create the most amazing piece of video the world has ever seen, but if it doesn’t align with our overall strategy, then it doesn’t do us any good. It is our responsibility as creatives to convey the appropriate messaging to the appropriate audiences via the appropriate channels. So the first thing we’ll do is familiarize ourselves with the task at hand and answer a few key questions:

• What are the goals of the campaign?
• Who is our audience?
• What platform or platforms are used to reach that audience?

Over the past few months, company’s and advertiser’s ability to manage and protect user data has taken center stage. Thanks to the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal and the impending General Data Projection Regulation (GDPR), user data and how companies acquire and utilize this information is a topic that isn’t going away. No matter your marketing strategy, it is important to be aware of the possible impact and changes data regulation can have on your business. Join us on a quick rundown on the changes and what you need to consider in a post Cambridge Analytica & GPDR world.

Video is one of the most engaging and effective ways to educate your target audience. Let’s face it, video can be used to support almost any objective. While it is usually designed to achieve upper-funnel objectives, it can be used to achieve lower parts of the funnel too. These are a few ways to ensure video is used as effectively as possible at every consumer touchpoint.

Never go to the grocery market hungry. If you do, you'll come home with much more than you went for, and with some items that you would never buy. That’s because when you’re hungry, everything sounds good, right? And you’re not finished shopping until you’ve grabbed a few of the impulse items at the checkout stand. It’s too easy to grab the Kit Kat and throw it in your cart.

Social media platforms may seem similar in many ways, but they don't provide the same value for every consumer or brand.

Before initiating a social media campaign, a brand should understand their voice and what position they hold in the market place and consumer's mind. On average, your audience will see 10,000 brand messages every day. Brands should understand at each one of these intersections they are reinforcing their brand promise, no matter the platform. Consider the following when determining where to have a social presence.