Category: Blog
Your website is (still) the best place to talk product benefits
Ask customers where they want to learn about your product benefits, and the answer is probably your website.
We know because that’s what we see in our own work. And we know because this September, a study asked consumers just that: Where do you go to understand product benefits?
Which begs the question: How well is your website showcasing your product?
Here are some questions to help you assess:
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How quickly can someone find your product when they land on the site?
Are product pages buried deep in your navigation or are they front-and-center? Does your homepage point toward your most important product pages? Is there a clear call to action leading people deeper into the product content?
53% of mobile users will leave a site if it takes more than three seconds to load. And finding information is a similarly lightning-paced task. If they can’t find what they need, they’re going to peace on out.
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How conversational are your product pages?
One of our contractors used to be responsible for evaluating and making recommendations on tech products for a large corporation. Ask for her advice on product content, and she’ll tell you this:
After dozens of evaluations, the last thing she wanted to do was read yet another jargon-filled, self-praising piece of product content. The relief she felt when product pages were simple and jargon-free was immense. Seriously: hallelujah-your-product-just-moved-to-the-front-of-the-line immense.
She needed the information about what the product could do, whether it met company requirements, etc., but combing through lengthy documentation written by tech dudes made her want to scream into the Icelandic void.
And she’s not the only one. Studies show that people—including highly educated and tech-savvy people—respond better to simple language. So take a look at your product pages and one-sheets. How easy are they to understand? What grade level is the writing? Are you using jargon when you could use plain language?
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How clear are your next steps?
Once someone has read your product page, what should they do next? Set up a demo? Set up a call? Give you their phone number so a salesperson can follow up? Start a free trial? Buy now?
Too often, we see product pages that simply…end. No next steps. No link to follow. No free trial button. Nada.
And phew, if your product pages look like this, it’s one of the quickest, easiest, and most important things you can change. Move people along your funnel. Nudge them past those early research stages and into falling in love with how your product can solve their problems.
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Are you sharing the right visuals?
Do you have a visually pleasing dashboard in your product? Show it off! Have a process that your competitors do in five steps but your system does in one? Put it front and center!
Understand what problems your customers are trying to solve with your product and what visuals will help them understand instantly that your product solves them. Sometimes this means photos. Sometimes illustrations. Sometimes video. But it almost always includes some kind of visual.
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What kind of social proof can you offer?
Product decisions are often big commitments, especially in B2B. And when people are making a big decision, they want to hear how it’s worked out for others. So make sure your product pages showcase testimonials, link out to case studies, or otherwise loop in social proof that your product does what you claim and solves the problems plaguing your customers.
And, as always, if you need some help making sure your product pages are knocking your results out of the park—we’re here for it. Contact us anytime to talk strategy.
The skinny on neuromarketing
Here’s your headscratcher of a fact for the week: People don’t know what we want.
Just ask Coke. They put thousands of hours into sip tests, listened to feedback, and then—et voila!—unveiled New Coke! It was better than old Coke! It was better than Pepsi!
Because people don’t know what we want. Taste tests, customer surveys, round tables…they can only take us so far as marketers. Because the truth is that most decision-making comes from our guts, not our rationale.
This is where neuromarketing comes in…
What is it?
Neuromarketing is all about emotional resonance. It takes marketing data and neuroscience insights and mashes them together to help you understand the neurochemical and physiological reactions of your audience.
The idea here is a simple one: our traditional ways of measuring content success aren’t enough. Page views, bounce rates, new visitor counts, even round tables—these things don’t really tell us whether our target audiences care about what we’re doing. They don’t tell us if they’re going to buy. They can’t even tell us if the pageviews are coming from a real-life human or a bot.
If you want to go deeper with your audiences, you need to understand their reactions to your content.
When TV networks used neuromarketing to try and predict which shows would take off, the accuracy was a whopping 84%. Compare that to self-reports from the study’s participants (which only predicted 17% of the top-rated shows), and you can see why this new way of judging content resonance is raising our eyebrows.
How do they measure resonance, though?
Companies like Immersion Neuroscience are using smartwatches to measure oxytocin via the Vagus nerve. This means real-time data on how people’s bodies are reacting to your marketing.
There are other ways neuromarketing is measured too, including fMRI, EEG, and facial coding. In every case, our bodies tell the story of what resonates with us.
Feels a little sci-fi in the best possible way.
Subtle things influence us all the time
In a study highlighted in Terry Wu’s TEDx talk, we learned that a wine store changed its music and tracked how that impacted wine sales.
Their findings? When they played German music, German wines sold 3x as much as French wines. When they played French music, the opposite was true. And (importantly) when they asked consumers if the music impacted their buying decisions, 90% said no.
The big takeaways here are pretty clear: small things influence our buying decisions, and we are not aware of them.
Which is why the new studies on neuromarketing are turning traditional thought on its head. Consumers aren’t great at predicting our behavior and where it comes from. But our bodies know what’s up. And when marketers have access to that data—where our eyes go, which parts of our brains light up, when our pulse races—we can start to parse out what people really react to in our content, on our shelves, and in the background music of our stores.
So, what should you do with this info?
Neuromarketing can help us tell better stories, understand what to cut from our ads, improve our events, and build better websites and ad campaigns. And, as we saw with the studies above, it also predicts engagement with much higher accuracy than customers themselves.
So, the bottom line is: if you aren’t already thinking about neuromarketing, it’s time. Time to explore options like Immersion Neuroscience. Time to lean in on eye-tracking studies. And time to bring in your friendly neighborhood agency to help.
We’d love to help you harness the power of predictive neuromarketing. Reach out anytime.
The Great Resignation is here.
The Great Resignation is here. What does that mean for your team?
This April, more than 4 million Americans quit their jobs.
That’s right: 4 million.
That’s also right: quit.
Not laid off. Not fired. Not “the industry collapsed, and now we’re all scrambling.”
Quit.
AdAge and many experts say the reasons behind this mass exodus are burnout and a workforce that has realized its own value. When companies pivoted during the pandemic to provide work-from-home options and flexible schedules…when parents realized they could do their own childcare and work…and when more and more people started realizing that life is short, and they don’t want to spend every minute working…a large-scale shift hit the American workforce like a tidal wave.
Now, talented people are looking for jobs or contracts that give them the lifestyle they want. And they are happy to take a hike from their current positions.
In fact, 40% of people who haven’t quit yet are seriously considering it, according to research by Microsoft.
In other words: If you aren’t already feeling this world of hurt, it’s probably coming for you soon.
So, what’s a CMO to do when the Great Resignation comes knocking? How do you keep your best talent and take advantage of a robust, new talent market just out of their former jobs (and with their robust, new demands)?
The first part of the answer is this: hire like an agency.
In our experience, agencies are all about the portfolio, while many companies (and the third-party recruitment services they hire) spend a lot more time on lists of job requirements. The latter is probably holding you back.
Agencies don’t care if a candidate took a gap year and their resume has a corresponding blank spot. We don’t care if their degree is in something other than design (as long as they are a kickass designer). And we’re certainly not scouring resumes for GPA. Because the truth is that those things don’t actually matter.
A resume gap might tell you someone is brave and adventurous (having traveled the world for a year!) or compassionate and thoughtful (having taken time off to care for a sick relative); it doesn’t make them lazy or out-of-touch. GPA is a full-on nothingburger of criteria (and some of the best programmers I’ve had the honor of meeting had no degree at all).
Hiring like an agency means ditching traditional thinking and hiring people because they have good ideas, the skills to get their job done, and the personality that fits your culture.
So, here’s another part of the answer: assume your talent is ready to quit.
Now, we don’t mean go around begging perfectly happy people to stay. But we do mean that if an employee who is doing a great job asks for something, do what you can to give it to them. Does your top marketing analyst want to work full-time remotely? Why not let them? Does your designer need more flexible hours? Why not give them to them?
Despite the research that tells us remote workers are more productive (47% more productive, according to this article), traditional organizations are still feeling the resistance. But with studies like that and a workforce ready to quit at the drop of a hat, you just don’t get to be picky about things like remote work, flex time, or four-day workweeks—unless you actually see a drop-off in productivity.
Or, rather, you do get to be as picky as you want. And you might lose your best people because of it.
Finally, it’s also time to embrace agencies and freelancers.
Some of the quitting that’s hitting American companies so hard is simply inevitable. The pandemic taught a lot of people that they really want to take a chance on their own business or take a few months off to write a novel or find a part-time job instead of a full-time one.
Some of that talent isn’t coming back.
And that’s okay. Because there are other ways you can fill those gaps.
You can hire an agency to partner with you—and (bonus!) they often have a whole stable of talented freelancers they can bring in on a project-by-project basis to fill in niche skill gaps. They’re also often full of people who’ve worked in-house, agency side, and freelance—so you get a wide variety of perspectives, including people who understand your internal business models.
Not to mention that some of the talent that’s quitting is going to go it alone—and that doesn’t mean you’ve lost them. It means you now have the opportunity to work with them on a freelance basis. One of our own writers reports that when she quit an old job to go freelance, said job put her on retainer for the next several years. She got the freedom and the business growth opportunities she was after, and they still got the ideas and deliverables they needed from her. In the end, it was a win-win, even though at first, that employer panicked.
So, if you’re in the midst of a wave of notices (or thinking it might happen to you soon), let’s talk. We are happy to step in any time and fill the gaps that you need.
What’s the deal with voice search?
What’s your voice search strategy?
If your answer is a shrug or a grimace, time to add it to the list for your next strategic planning meeting. Because voice search is on the upswing—and fast. And marketers who aren’t paying attention are going to get left in the dust.
In fact, more than 27% of searches in the Google app are done by voice, and 41% of adults use voice search daily. By 2024, the smart speaker market is set to top $30 billion.
So, the question isn’t “should we think about voice search?” It’s “how can we best take advantage of this new medium?”
As usual, we think the answer starts with understanding how customers use this technology.
A study from Adobe tells us that the most common voice searches are for music and the weather forecast. But not far behind, we’ve got some searches that represent interesting marketing opportunities. 47% of people say they use voice to do online searches, 46% to check in on the news, and 35% for research.
What this data tells us is that the first step to taking advantage of voice search is this:
Making sure your content is optimized not only for text and image searches but also for voice.
The good news is that Google is getting ever smarter and building context into its search via AI. If someone says, “show me the menu,” Google uses location data to pin down where they are and show them the menu at the restaurant they’re sitting in. If they ask how far the Grand Hotel is from the restaurant, Google will assume they’re talking about the restaurant where they’re sitting.
Google’s also smart enough to know that a text search of “Austin weather” is the same as a voice search of “what’s the weather in Austin?”
So, is there anything we specifically need to do to optimize our pages? The answer is yes. Because the two types of searchers are typically looking for two types of information. And our content needs to take that into account.
A text searcher typing their search in on a computer or tablet may be looking for more in-depth info, complete with links and citations. A voice searcher is probably looking for the simplest, most boiled-down answer.
This means if you want your pages to appeal to both types of searchers, opening with a conversational headline and a brief answer/definition before diving into more in-depth info might be the way to bridge the gap.
And if you want to take voice search even farther than content optimization (and you know how we love pushing marketing boundaries), we suggest taking a note from companies like Patrón Tequila, Domino’s, and PayPal—who’ve asked themselves how this medium can increase engagement or simply make the lives of their users easier.
Patrón Tequila’s strategy is to offer personalized cocktail recipes via voice search—a perfect approach since most people whipping up cocktails in the evening don’t want to pause to type in a search.
Domino’s Pizza took another smart route, building a virtual ordering assistant that lets pizza-lovers order without typing a word. Now, voice ordering is more common, but Domino’s was one of the first to offer it to customers.
PayPal has gone similarly hands-free, letting users send money via Siri. Then there’s Nestlé and Campbell’s. In the same strategic mindset as Patrón, they’ll give you voice instructions as you cook (no washing your hands constantly to scroll down a recipe).
In every one of those cases, the brand asked itself what it could do with voice search to make customers’ lives easier and drive business goals. And the bottom line is that’s what we should all be doing.
So, here’s the question of the hour:
What can you do with voice search to improve things for your users and/or make it easier for them to do the things your business wants them to do (schedule a call, make a purchase, join a newsletter, etc.)?
If you need help figuring it out? We’d love to help you strategize (and execute on your strategy). Reach out anytime.
The robots are here, and they’re taking user experience to the next level
If you know us, you know we love the cutting edge. Weird, new marketing ideas. Unexpected user-experience fixes. Brand partnerships that nobody saw coming.
So, when we heard that driverless cars were on the radar for Domino’s Pizza, we sat up and paid some attention. Because, let’s be honest, we’ve been waiting for the world of The Jetsons since the ‘80s. (First step: pizza delivery by robot. Second step: flying cars.)
Now, Nuro—our new driverless robot car overlords—have been testing out their driver-free tech in Houston since 2019. You can already get groceries and pharmacy orders via robot. Even cooler, they’ve been used during the pandemic to transport medical supplies around two California stadiums.
Their next frontier is, apparently, pizza. And the idea behind this test run is to gather data about how people interact with the robots, how it changes customer experience, and how they can make said experience even better over time.
For marketers, who’ve become more and more responsible for overall user experiences in recent years, we think the message is this:
Marketing isn’t just marketing anymore.
It’s a discipline that requires us to think about the whole user experience—from website to email marketing campaign to…robot delivery car. The more we can think about the whole user experience, the better our retention, upsell, cross-sell, and customer engagement are going to be.
We think those opportunities, which stretch the edges of marketing, are pretty damn cool.
And if you want to talk more about where we think tech, user experience, and marketing intersect? We’d love to hear from you.
What Google’s June algorithm changes mean for marketers
If you’re keeping your finger on the pulse of search engine optimization (SEO), you may have already heard that Google’s going to be rolling out algorithm changes this June.
Now, is that really news? You might be asking because Google tweaks its algorithm all the time.
But in this case, they’ve given us marketers a head’s up about the upcoming changes and what they mean for our websites.
So, what exactly do they mean? What should you be doing (if anything) about June’s update?
The answers boil down to making sure your website is fast and user-friendly.
There are three particular metrics Google says they’re focusing on: LCP, FID, and CLS. Here’s what that means:
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
If you ignore the techy acronym, the point here is page load time. Google says the first load (where you can see the site, if not every single video or image) should happen within 2.5 seconds. And if you think about your own browsing habits, that probably makes sense. We expect to see something starting to load very quickly when we get to a site. Even if it’s just the logo or background, we look for an indicator that we’ve come to the right place and everything is loading.
With the Google update, the faster your LCP, the higher you’ll likely rank.
FID (First Input Delay)
This is about how fast your website reacts when a user does something like click a link or a button. The site should be reacting, according to Google, in 100 milliseconds or less.
Yet again, this makes sense. We all expect that when we click to go deeper into a site, the site reacts to our request post haste.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)
Finally, there’s CLS. This is about the visual stability of your page, which is just a fancy way of saying that when someone clicks, your page shouldn’t move around.
What do I mean? Well, when I go to my library’s website, for example, the page loads pretty fast. I start to click on the link that takes me to my account at the top of the screen, but as soon as I move my mouse up to click, a banner at the top of the page suddenly loads and I end up clicking on the banner instead of the link because the link (and everything else) has now shifted downward on the page because of the banner loading.
This often happens with sites with ads or lots of graphics. They load last and end up moving other elements down on the page. If you are faster than the load time, you can end up clicking into some weird, unwanted stuff.
Google’s asking us to do less of this (and, library, I, for one, approve).
Is your website fast enough?
So, how do you know if your website is meeting these new standards? You can check it with Google’s PageSpeed Insights. In addition to telling you if you pass or fail, they’ll also point you toward why.
And if their explanations about fixing server times and converting to JPEG files make your head spin, don’t worry, that’s where a tech-savvy marketing partner comes in.
If you need some help implementing these algorithm changes, reach out anytime.
More privacy changes are on their way
In 2016, the EU adopted the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), and in 2018, they started enforcing it.
You probably remember the hubbub across marketing teams. What will this mean for our targeted marketing? How do we comply and still keep a close connection with customers? Which of our vendors are compliant?
Companies scrambled for answers, updated their sites, added language to their privacy policies, and sent a parade of irritating emails about how privacy was changing. (Do you remember those overflowing inboxes?)
Some companies threw up their hands and just blocked European users from their sites altogether.
That tactic didn’t last long. Because, soon thereafter, the US joined in with privacy laws of its own, and the importance of privacy has only kept trending upward across the world.
Since then, not only have governments passed regulation, but big tech companies are making changes of their own. Browsers decided to wave farewell to cookies. And now, Apple is limiting data collection via their devices.
In practical terms, this change from Apple means that apps on their phones and tablets will ask users if they want to share their data—and users can opt in or opt out.
On the user side of things, this means more control. Apple lets you opt out sharing a bunch of personal data or location tracking on big apps like Amazon, Google, and Facebook. This is good news for privacy-concerned users, though it may mean getting less relevant ads on their apps.
And while companies like Facebook are pouting about it, we think it’s actually good news for marketers too.
First, there’s this: people who want to hear from you are more likely to buy from you. If you opt into daily book deal emails, you’re probably interested in buying books. If you didn’t opt in, the company spending time and money getting your email and sending you unsolicited messages is just shooting in the dark. Which means that time and money is less likely to get them results.
Not to mention that some people (me, it’s me) carry grudges. You opted me into your email list five years ago without my consent? I remember you and will not be buying from you again. I smash the spam button anytime I see something from you come across my inbox and I might even tell friends and family not to buy from you. (Honda dealership from hell, I’m looking at you.)
I’m the extreme example, but no doubt you’re irritating more than just me with unsolicited emails and ads that stalk us around the internet. Not to mention impossible opt-out procedures that require things like phone calls to support or three different sign-in processes.
All that to say: marketing is more successful when you’re reaching people who want to be reached. And bothering people who don’t want your messages isn’t a neutral act—it can harm your relationship with them long-term.
The second thing to keep in mind is that you haven’t lost access to all data—just third-party data, which has been shown to be less valuable (and less accurate). First-party data (and the personalization you build around it) is what you actually want—and you still have access to it.
In fact, 92% of top performing marketers believe first-party data is critical to growth. And the changes to browsers and Apple don’t impact your ability to get first-party data directly from your customers
As a quick reminder: first-party data is data that you collect directly from your users/customers with their consent. People are more likely to opt in to direct data collection from brands as long as you aren’t selling it to third parties, and they appreciate the personalized recommendations that come from opting in and the comfort level of knowing they can opt out.
Finally, it’s worth noting that third-party data isn’t totally gone. It’ll just include less people because some will opt out. But those who opt in? They actually want to hear from advertisers and see relevant ads. Which tells us that they’re more open to our messaging anyway.
Time will tell the real effects of privacy changes, but for now, we’re optimistic. Treating people with empathy, letting them opt in and out of our marketing campaigns, has always mattered. Now, it’ll just be harder for companies to behave like users don’t matter.
And that’s a marketing world we’d like to live in.
Still feeling uncertain about what privacy changes mean for you? Reach out anytime. We’d love to help you navigate the new marketing challenges it poses.
A dash of inspiration from some badass working moms
Happy Mother’s Day! As a women-run business, you can bet that Catalyst is all about celebrating women—including the women who raised us and the women around us raising the next generation, be they bio moms, aunties, or bonus-moms. You are heroes. Full stop.
Today, we wanted to bring the moms of Catalyst together to share their insights on working and parenting. We hope they inspire you as much as they inspire us.
Mariah Kamei
“Being a mom is the ultimate master class in patience and empathy. I think understanding that all humans, from the tiniest ones to the most jaded ones, need grace and understanding has made me a better manager and leader.
My advice to new working moms? You aren’t going to be able to do it all and have it all. That’s B.S. Sometimes you’re going to feel like a bad mom. Sometimes you’re going to feel like you dropped a ball at work. So, please be kind to yourself. Trust me, you are enough just as you are.”
Gem Swartz
“Being a mom has helped me prioritize, asking: What’s really worth my time, and where can I make the biggest impact?
My advice for new working moms is to carve out quality time with your kiddos and be proud of the contribution you’re making at the office. Your kids will be proud of you too, even if they don’t say it at the time. It’ll shape how they work and contribute to their workplaces when it is their turn.”
Ariel Lawrence
“Getting ready to bring my first child into the world has given me so much more compassion and respect for working moms around me, as well as my single-parent mother who truly did it all. And to you—my fellow soon-to-be moms who are working while pregnant, who have to excuse themselves during a meeting to quickly throw up due to morning sickness—so much respect.
The hardest part so far is balance. There is still a lot to do to get ready (birthing plans, registries, maternity leave schedules, etc.). Getting everything ready and still kicking ass at work means taking it day by day.”
Brooke Kirk
“Something important to me is having my kids feel they are part of my work. My daughter, at the age of four, was playing around in photoshop making ‘kid art.’ All three of my kids would take knowledge of my work into their school assignments. And ‘bring your child to work day’ was so much fun, with activities and marketing exercises that made them feel a sense of accomplishment. They looked forward to it every year.
My advice is to make it clear that your kids are more important than anything. Engage them with your work at times, whether teaching or letting them come in on camera and say hi or give you a hug during a Zoom meeting.”
Robin Emiliani
“Come hell or high water, I will not only meet the client deadline, but I will also make it to the baseball game on time. My time management skills: killer. Thanks to my babies for teaching me how to get shit done. I also don’t sweat the small stuff anymore. Shit happens. It’s going to keep happening, so learn from it and move on quickly.
My advice for new working moms? If you’re sitting at a baseball game and someone criticizes you for not being present and giving it your full attention, tell them to fuck right on off. Tell them your son is happy you’re there and he’s appreciative that you’re working hard so that he can play on the team.”
The point? Moms are powerful, and moms are human. We’re all figuring out how to balance our lives. On the days when you feel alone and overwhelmed and you just cannot do it all, remember this: you are enough. Extend yourself some grace. And know that we are with you. You aren’t as alone as you think.
7 marketing mistakes you should kick to the curb
I don’t know about you, but lately my email inbox has been a minefield of bad marketing.
Companies write personalized messages as if I’ve been following them for years, except that I’ve never heard of them and didn’t opt-in to their email list.
Other companies send me messages with no call to action.
And don’t even get me started on this new trend of making it impossible for me to unsubscribe from mailing lists (and you better believe I am hitting that spam button with relish).
With my inbox like a bad marketing war zone, marketing mistakes have been on my mind.
And while I certainly reserve some grace for mistakes (after all, we all make them), I also think we should be thinking about and looking out for common pitfalls.
So, what pitfalls should we all be watching out for? Here’s a place to start…
Don’t skip strategy
You can have the coolest creative, the biggest budget, the fanciest ad agency partner, but if you skip strategy, failure is on the horizon, my friend.
In fact, 60% of top-performing content marketers have a documented strategy (compared to 22% of laggards). And stats for other types of strategy tend to look similar.
In other words: the more you plan for your success, the more success you’ll have.
So, if you dove into marketing without a strategy, now’s a good time to take a step back and prioritize identifying business goals and customer needs and tying your marketing closely to them.
Do tie your tactics to revenue and goals
Speaking of strategy, another faux pas that’ll leave you dead in the marketing water is this: decoupling your high-level goals from your day-to-day tactics.
It’s not enough just to think through your strategy. You also have to make sure day-to-day tasks are aligned with it.
If you’re committed to customer retention, your tactics shouldn’t be focused on lead generation. If your primary goal is to increase user satisfaction with your existing software features, your day-to-day to-do list can’t keep prioritizing shiny, new features.
It’s all pretty basic sounding, but you might be surprised how often goals and tactics get out of alignment. It takes a concentrated effort (and regular check-ins) to make sure strategy and tactics are on the same page.
Don’t use content once and forget about it
Content is important, time-consuming, and sometimes expensive. And yet, a lot of companies create something, toss it out into the universe, and wish it well. Bye, bye, baby bird, hope you were ready to fly!
We suggest doing the opposite: create your content with intention and re-use, re-use, re-use. Can you repurpose that blog post into a video? How about a podcast episode? What about a PDF takeaway for your virtual event? Or a series of social media posts?
41% of B2B buyers view at least three pieces of content before ever talking to your sales team. And the mere-exposure effect tells us that people prefer the familiar, which means the more you can repurpose content, getting the same messages and products in front of people, the more likely they are to have positive feelings about that message, and the more likely they are to buy.
Do buy tech and use it
As much as 38% of business software licenses in the US and UK go to waste every year. That’s a whopping $34 billion in company spending that’s not giving those companies any return. And marketing is a key offender.
The solution? Be strategic about your tech purchases, test them out before you buy, and commit to making the most of that technology. This often means planning for ongoing training, reaching out to your vendors with questions on a regular basis, and—importantly—scheduling regular reviews to make sure you’re still using all your licenses and any upgrades, extra features, or special support you’re paying for.
Don’t put off account-based marketing (ABM)
We get it. ABM sounds a little daunting when you first start thinking about. Juggling sixteen decision-makers? Personalizing by account instead of individual? It takes a mindset shift, often requires learning new technology, and may bump up your costs in the short-term.
But it also comes with big wins…and companies that ignore it do so at their peril.
In fact, 80% of marketers say ABM improves customer lifetime value. And 86% say it increases win rates.
Do invest in digital advertising
Digital advertising is a long game and one that requires ongoing budget. But, as the mere-exposure effect tells us, getting your brand in front of people over and over again matters in the long term. It makes people more likely to trust you, more likely to buy.
Some marketing tactics are quick wins. Some set you up for long-term success. This is one of the latter and going into it with that mindset is what’ll set you up for big wins later.
Don’t give up too quickly
Speaking of long-term success, it’s a hard thing to wait for sometimes.
Not to mention that a lot of the marketing tactics that tend to snowball over time can feel a little worrying at first. Digital advertising. Search engine optimization. User experience investments on your website or in your tools. These are all things that takes some time to pay off, but when they do start to pay off, the benefits tend to build on themselves.
So, make sure you have a good mix of quick wins and long-term planning and that you don’t give up on the latter too quickly for them to start paying off.
And if you need help identifying the marketing pitfalls and faux pas standing in your path? We’re always excited about a new strategic challenge. Reach out anytime.
Food brands + non-food merch: a match made in…wait, what?
If I told you the world is crazy right now, you’d probably roll your eyes at me. Because: duh. What’s new?
Last year gave us zombie minks and a Floridian controversy about whether or not people should eat pythons. And if I listed the conspiracy theories and weird news of the first couple months of 2021, we’d be here all day.
With all that in mind, you won’t be shocked to hear that marketing has also gotten a little weird in the last 14 months.
(And, as you’ll recall, we’re fans of weird.)
The weird we wanted to talk about today is the little avalanche of food brands embracing non-food merch.
Yep, you heard us right.
Stouffer’s is coming in strong with bright orange macaroni-and-cheese hoodies and sweatpants, lasagna onesies for grown-ups, and yellow-orange noodle socks. Nissin Foods is in the game with Hello Kitty Cup-o-Noodle sweatshirts. And Doritos, Cheetos, and Tostitos ugly sweaters are bringing their own cozy creativity to the table.
I mean, you are what you eat, am I right? Food brands just decided to take us literally.
All jokes aside, this is an interesting strategy.
Firstly, because with 50% of America working at home, a lot of us have embraced sweatpants and cozy sweaters and, yes, even onesies on a day-to-day basis. Cozy is king and queen and the whole court when many of us are in productivity mode and don’t have a video call coming up.
(If you’re one of the few still in office attire and aren’t sure you believe me that everyone else is reading this in their Bugs Bunny onesies, consider that sweatpants sales jumped by 80% last April.)
Then there’s the fact that we desperately want some whimsy and lightness. People are adopting puppies at record rates (and pet supplies are flying off the proverbial shelves). Romance novels saw a 17% sales jump. And the most watched Netflix series of 2020 was the weird-as-they-come Tiger King.
Whimsy is never a bad strategy, and right now it’s particularly timely one.
So, we kind of love that food brands took a weird little leap in the last year. And we love that we’re seeing more and more brands get creative like that—from creating dating ads from hell to forging unlikely partnerships.
Thinking of doing something weird with your own marketing? We’d love to help you brainstorm, strategize, and create campaigns full of whimsy. Reach out anytime.