This year alone, the U.S. is projected to absorb a shortfall of 190,000 data scientists — and that’s not even counting the 1.5 million more analysts and leaders needed to make use of the information big data supplies.
This is an especially terrifying prospect in the marketing world, where data science provides the signals that let marketers know their decisions have paid off. “In the end, the analytics won’t tell you the next big creative idea,” Elea Feit, assistant professor of marketing at Drexel University, says. “It will tell you when the next big creative idea is working.”
Data scientists can use data points and trends to help strategize content, tweak content to meet demand, and measure the outcomes of the actions taken by marketers. They combine the science of statistical models with the art of creative work to go past the “gut feelings” of the “Mad Men” era and into a space where marketers can not only see a payoff today, but also a payoff tomorrow.
What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
Having a wealth of knowledge is a huge advantage — until your knowledge surpasses others’ understanding. If people don’t know how to apply a significant piece of information, that data is useless.
This is why data science is so essential to the marketing equation. “ The most powerful data scientists are those who act as bridges between insights and people ,” says Kirill Eremenko, the founder and CEO of SuperDataScience, an online educational portal for data scientists and data science enthusiasts. “There’s a science behind analytics; however, communicating insights is an art.”
Straddling that line is important because data science insights are connected to marketing results. Marketing departments are expected to quantify their results as justification for keeping their budgets and strategies intact. Marketers handle digital information within their campaigns and collect it to improve their tactics, increasing the demand for data science.
Data science is responsible for mapping social networks and illustrating customer personas. It also identifies demographics and locations, in addition to tracking target audience responses and moods. Data science has enabled companies to customize their customer experiences. It also helps develop new approaches to long-held marketing challenges.
“Data is massively complex and comprehensive, which makes it difficult even for experts to understand,” says Eremenko. “Extracting insights is the first step, but the crucial follow-up is finding ways to communicate and contextualize those insights so they’re accessible to all.”
Application As Inspiration
If there’s a shortage of data scientists, what does this mean for marketers? Marketers have to learn how to use data science for their work on a global scale, and they need to position themselves for success, regardless of how accessible data scientists may be on any given day. 91% of senior marketers indicated that customer data was essential to making decisions. Here’s how marketing teams can take advantage of every piece of that data.
1. Break Down Departmental Silos
Data science can’t take into account data it doesn’t have. Department- or division-wide silos put up barriers where they shouldn’t exist, blocking one department from receiving data from another that could be valuable. How many times have you heard about content marketing teams having to start newsletter subscriber lists from scratch because the sales team wouldn’t share its email lists?
The same idea applies here. Find ways to allow your platforms to integrate and share data; at any rate, build systems to report data from one segment to another. Something seemingly small — such as your company Facebook page’s demographics — could influence not just your social media marketers, but also your SEO team, your affiliate marketers, even your R&D department.
2. Keep Your Streams of Data Current
Data has to be timely to be actionable — or, at the very least, it needs to include information from the past through the present to highlight patterns and trends. As big data analytics and visualization firm Zoomdata explains, real-time data analytics are the optimal option because they allow marketers to act on information as it’s happening. Streaming analytics, which occur nearly in real time, are a close second.
The focus is on fresh data so your decisions are made based on what’s best for your current market. But context is important, too. Creating entire trails or streams of data will allow your marketing team to see that a product that sold well last winter and dismally this winter may be influenced by bigger factors you’re also tracking, such as economic downturns or a declining audience segment.
3. Invest in Tools and Technologies, Particularly for Visualization
Data can only be gathered if you have the technology to do so. If you’ve been putting off investing in a data platform because you figure your team can do it manually, or you assume the information will sit in a database never to see the light, think again. Data not only showcases ROI, but it’s also ROI itself — you need numbers to justify numbers. Remember that you’re only as good as the information you have.
Visualization is an especially important tool to have in your data-gathering belt. Dynamic visualizations can simplify complex data and capture numbers in a graphic representation, which will speak more clearly to a wide swath of people. Most importantly, visualizations unlock collaborative opportunities for marketers and data scientists to discuss data together and interpret the data’s meaning for future campaigns and marketing efforts.
While we’re looking at a dearth of data scientists in the near future, that doesn’t diminish the importance of data science for marketing. If anything, it should compel marketers to set their systems up to benefit from data science and empower themselves by learning to broadly analyze data alongside data scientists. What you don’t know can hold you back — and what you do know can drive your company’s ROI.
Written by: ,
March 8, 2018
10 Tools Every Marketer Should Know About
Steve Jobs once said: "Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have a faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them."
Not sure what tools Mr. Jobs had in mind but here's a list of tools that can help any marketer at any level do their jobs just that much easier and more efficiently.
1. Deluxe Logo Maker
Don’t underestimate the power of a good logo. Signs.com reports that about 94% of the world’s entire population recognizes the Coca Cola logo. You might be setting your sights a little lower than universal recognition, but a good logo is still essential for communicating your brand’s identity and values and helping it stand out from the crowd. Deluxe Logo provides multiple different price levels for custom-designed logos, ensuring you get the most out of this important branding tool.
2. Packlane
Shopify estimates that the e-commerce market will generate $4.5 trillion in annual global sales by 2021. That means a ton of companies need or are going to need packaging and shipping options for getting their product to customers. Packlane ensures that your customer’s “unboxing” experience is a pleasant and branded one. Companies can easily use Packlane’s user-friendly website to customize packaging style and size, create color schemes, and even upload original art.
3. Yotpo
Yotpo helps you leverage one of the most powerful branding tools you have: satisfied customers. ReachLocal reports that 90% of shoppers use online reviews to help them decide on a purchase, and 70% of consumers will leave a review if asked. Yotpo provides frictionless tools to help you solicit reviews from recent customers, as well as valuable information such as photos and Q&As. It automatically displays your best reviews on your website and across a wide variety of platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. Consumers trust each other far more than they trust marketers--Yotpo uses the most of that trust.
4. Traackr
Influencer marketing is essential for digital branding. According to Marketing Profs, companies see an average of $7.65 return on each dollar spent on influencers. Influencer marketing can be informal and difficult to track, but Traackr provides a platform for monitoring influencer efficacy, discovering new influencer trends related to your topic, and establish long term relationships.
5. ReBrandly
Your marketing strategy likely includes distributing a URL, perhaps just to your homepage, or perhaps to a specific discount offer or blog post. But URLs, and especially URLs for pages within larger websites such as Facebook posts, can be ugly and off-putting for customers. Many URL shortening services will destroy your domain identity in the process, creating ambiguous links that customers find untrustworthy. Rebrandlyoffers branded domain shorteners, which means you can very briefly share a link to content while preserving your brand identity in the URL. Social Media Examiner reports that branded domains can increase click-through rates on Twitter by up to 34%.
6. Unbounce
Landing pages are essential for branding because they’re often the first real encounter a websurfer has with your company’s digital presence. The Landing Page Course advises that a dedicated landing page is essential for starting any new marketing campaign. Unbounce allows you to create aesthetically pleasing, brand-consistent landing pages for new marketing campaigns--quickly, and without having to learn any code.
7. Frontify
Your careful branding efforts can be easily undone if your branding seems inconsistent--customers might think you’re unreliable, or even assume your one great brand is, in fact, two lightweight ones. Brand consistency covers everything from your tagline to your color scheme. Pixelnomics recently recreated several famous logos in “regular” fonts, and the contrast between these recreations and actual logos will drive home that even font choice matters. With Frontify, your brand can create cloud-based, sophisticated style guides, brand portals, media and pattern libraries, and shared collaboration spaces.
8. MailChimp
Email marketing is another essential component of any branding strategy. Wordstream reports that companies can get up to $44 in returns from just one dollar spent on email marketing. MailChimp is an email automation platform that can be connected to any ecommerce website, providing custom email content and newsletters to potential customers. MailChimp’s services involve abandoned cart email reminders, beautiful email templates, and Facebook ads management.
9. WiseStamp
A simple but effective tool, WiseStamp lets your company create individual branded email signatures for your employees. Centralized control allows you to implement changes across all signatures all at once, emails appear professional and polished, and consistent branding and contact information is maintained no matter who in your company is sending an email or when they last remembered to update their signature. Popular online tutoring provider, Grad Coach, recently implemented WiseStamp and saw a 21% increase in social media traffic from email signatures, according to the MD, Derek Jansen.
10. HootSuite
HootSuite is one of the world’s most popular social media marketing platforms. It allows you to compose and schedule posts to a wide variety of platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, all from one user dashboard. It can also allow your employees to coordinate social media marketing through task creation and assignment, and it creates analytic reports to help you figure out whether your social media plan is working.
Article by: ,
February 15, 2018
5 Incredibly Effective Digital Marketing Strategies That Most Marketers Are Too Afraid To Try
What are you doing to embrace and tackle marketing industry changes? Are you afraid to try new things? Or are you fearless?
One of the reasons I am so passionate about the marketing industry is the anticipation of changes, and ability to experiment with new marketing tactics and efforts.
Taking chances is often what separates top marketing professionals from novices. But how can you separate fads from educated risks? Take a look at the top strategies I’ve identified that most marketers might deem risky, may not be aware of, or not fully understand.
These are risks, yes, but they are risks that are worth taking.
1. Switch from outbound to content marketing
In the past, it was enough to highlight your product or service and the hundreds of fantastic features and capabilities. These days, you have to add value to your brand and product/service with content that teaches and establishes you as a thought leader and an expert. Why should your customers believe in what you’re selling?
It might scare you to switch to an inbound format that teaches and nurtures your prospects. How will they know what you offer, you ask? How will we sell and generate leads without pushing our product? Content marketing can be scary to adopt because it relies on your expertise and puts the ball in your prospects court.
In contrast, content marketing is shown to drive more traffic and leads than outbound marketing. According to Demandmetric content marketing generates as many as three times more leads than outbound marketing.
2. Interactive content
As content marketing rises in popularity, pushing through the clutter is becoming more and more difficult for all of us. But even though we know we must differentiate ourselves from the pack, we can be hesitant to make our basic content more interactive and exciting.
Interactive content can draw more attention to your messaging while increasing your engagement on powerful social media sites. Quizzes, ROI calculators and interactive infographics can help you convey your brand’s story in a more dynamic fashion.
As a bonus, eye-catching, interactive, fun content can draw the attention or industry publications in addition to attracting prospects. As a result, you can extend your reach and continue driving traffic and high quality links to your site and blog.
3. Embrace up-and-coming social media channels
While there remains a place for LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, new social media channels will allow you to reach consumers in new and exciting ways. Additionally, new channels allow you to explore more creative methods of telling your stories and conveying who you are.
Snapchat, Instant Articles on Facebook, and Instagram Stories provide companies and even professionals a channel to experiment and target specific groups and audiences. As a bonus, new and exciting social media channels are often a great place to promote the interactive contentdiscussed above.
4. Developing content for real people, not algorithms
As a marketer, you may have gotten in the habit of developing and creating content that will highlight your company, blog, business or ideas at the top of the search engines.
These days you’ve got to step out of your box and think about your content in the context of your reader’s desires, fears, worries and needs.
Creating content that is displayed in front of thousands of sets of eyes is no longer enough to set you apart. Instead, readers expect real ideas that are well written and display complex and interesting ideas and thoughts.
While SEO is still very important, don’t be afraid to put your audience and their needs and wants first and consider your page rank secondarily.
Instead of using keywords to draw more traffic from search engines and their algorithms, use keywords to highlight your points and draw readers in by providing information that is valuable to your audience.
5. Reuse and repurpose your top content
Even your loyal readers may not see your content initially. It could take several touches and multiple channels to get through to them. Try reposting your top blog posts with refreshed titles or new visuals.
Utilize that content in a digest newsletter format to drive traffic to content that your audience’s peers have enjoyed (it can be tough to resist content that we know our peers and colleagues have enjoyed).
Want more traffic? Automate that refreshed and repurposed content for periods when it’s relevant or for different days or times to attract new readers who may not have engaged the first time around.
According to Curata, only 29% of marketers are reusing/repurposing content, which means many marketers are only putting their messaging in front of their audiences one time: they’re missing out on valuable clicks, impressions and engagement.
Conclusion
We’re often afraid of the uncertain. We get stuck doing the same marketing activities over and over again in an effort to remain comfortable. We know our metrics for what we’ve been doing. We have goals for those efforts. We know what to expect.
Getting over our fears is as simple as widening our expectations and being ok with not knowing exactly what to expect from our marketing efforts. Try something new. By taking small steps and measuring your efforts very closely, you might find that your strategies are not enough.
You might try something that doesn’t work or isn’t right for your audience. But more importantly, you might find something that is a clear win and helps you change the course of your marketing efforts, your business and messaging.
Written by: ,
Marius Masalar - Unsplash
After reading "Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster and Starman Leave Earth Forever in This Final Photo" article by Space.com (View Article Here), I wanted to share this other article I came across about previous marketing moves Elon Musk has made in the past that are also brilliant.
I should also add I'm sort of obsessed with Elon Musk.
Some of the most successful marketing tactics that Tesla used to build its following seemed completely insane at first. Here's how to apply them to your own brand.
Not many brands are as fascinating as Tesla.
When Elon Musk built his brand, it wasn't the first automotive manufacturer. It wasn't even the first to bring an electric vehicle to market. So how did he grab our attention?
The fact is, Tesla is a fascinating concept to begin with. But on top of building personal vehicles that drove like race cars, Musk used some marketing tactics that may have seemed counterintuitive.
Rather than focusing on what to TELL his customers and prospects, he focused on how the world saw his brand for what he DID. And the world was fascinated by the Tesla brand.
Any company, in any industry, can fascinate by applying these innovative marketing tactics.
1. Cult-like charging stations
Imagine driving up to a charging station. Every other car there is a Tesla. And every other driver is a Tesla owner. No Mercedes, no Lexus, no Porsche. Now that's an exclusive form of service.
It's almost like a fan base club house. Tesla owners talk to other Tesla owners. It's a love fest.
When people feel that they're part of the select few, they're more committed. And they make people on the outside want to get inside to see what all the fuss is about, building a sort of exclusivity.
Are there exclusive offers that you can extend to your own customer base? Think about hosting a luxurious customer event so that you can organically build a network of raving fans.
2. Encouraging consumers to "hold the puppy"
If you have kids, you might be familiar with this phrase: "I don't want to buy the puppy. I just want to hold the puppy." Of course, once you've held the puppy, you've already bonded with it.
Musk built a sales process all around holding the puppy (or in this case, the car).
Tesla car brand showrooms are "galleries" where consumers are allowed to look, but not buy. All orders are taken online. This might seem like a pain (and it kind of is) but here's the genius: It means that the salesperson drives the car to your home.
Once you've seen that car parked in your own driveway, it's really easy to project a future that includes your driveway and that car. And just like that, you've held the puppy.
Are there products that you can deliver in person to your customers' homes? Can you offer a service on a trial basis to ensure that your customers experience complete satisfaction?
3. The required NDA
Tesla retains ultra-confidentiality by requiring all visitors to sign a contractual NDA. All visitors. Even if they are just visiting the company's corporate offices, and not its research and design facilities.
The chosen few who do get through that confidentiality gauntlet feel like celebrities. They got access to something so rare and insider that few ever will. It says "There's something incredibly rare happening here, and we think you're one of the few who deserve to see it."
What if you made every client sign an NDA before receiving your product or services?
I tried this once, in a little experiment. Before prospects could see the plan for my new entrepreneurial course, they had to sign an NDA that they would not disclose any information about the course material. As a result, people perceived the course as proprietary, scarce, and intensely valuable. That grew sales more than I could have imagined.
4. Under-the-radar PR
Most CEOs seek high-profile forms of media to build awareness of their brand, endlessly grinding in the message with TV budgets. Musk, on the other hand, reinvents his PR in the same way that he reinvented the electric car. To share some of his most PR-worthy messages, he choses an unassuming platform: via a single tweet on Twitter.
In October, following the devastation of hurricanes Irma and Maria, Musk tweeted that he could rebuild Puerto Rico's devastated electrical grid by applying Tesla's existing solar energy or battery storage technology. Puerto Rico's governor Rick Rossello responded without missing a beat.
In March, in response to Australia's energy crisis, Musk pledged that he could solve the problem by building the world's largest battery farm... in 100 days... or else it will be free. (Yeah, you read that right. It's freakin' free.)
With your own business, find an opportunity to do a significant charitable deed or give away an awesome gift. The public's response may be all the PR you need. Suddenly, your brand is newsworthy.
5. Unexpected way to brand the car
Elon Musk says that Tesla is a battery company first, and a automobile manufacturer second. In so doing, not only has he opened up the scope of his brand for other markets, but he has identified the element that is often viewed as the weakest link in other electric vehicles. By placing his focus on his competitors point of weakness, he creates the illusion of superior quality.
Are there components of your business that will allow you to expand in unexpected ways?
A kitchen appliance manufacturer, for instance, can comment on the latest trends in kitchen design. A realtor can hold seminars on neighborhood safety or outdoor fitness. A financial planner can give clear direction and organize panel discussions on compliance with new tax laws.
Take a cue from Elon Musk, and the success of your brand will accelerate.
Article by: Sally Hogshead, Founder and CEO, How to Fascinate
February 5, 2018
Will Google's New Page Speed Criteria Affect Your Site?
If you visit your website on a mobile device right now, how long does it take to load? If you don’t know the answer, you might want to take the time to run an analysis. Desktop-based Google search has always considered page speed as a ranking factor, but only recently has Google announced that page speed would be a factor on mobile devices.
So what are the ramifications of this announcement? How will the new ranking criteria affect your site?
The Change in a Nutshell
Google formally announced the coming change on January 17, on the Webmaster Central Blog. Calling it the “Speed Update,” the plan is to slowly roll out the new ranking factor starting in July 2018—which gives you plenty of time to make changes as you see fit.
According to Google, the update is only going to affect the slowest sites on the web, and is only going to come into play for a small percentage of queries. In other words, the new criteria is only designed to weed out slow sites, rather than rewarding fast sites.
There’s no way to tell exactly what criteria Google is using here; for example, it’s not like all pages that take more than three seconds to load are going to be affected. In fact, on the Webmaster Central Blog, Google encourages webmasters to “think broadly about how performance affects a user’s experience of their page and to consider a variety of user experience metrics,” rather than spending too much time thinking about speed alone.
Will You Be Affected?
According to research from 2017, about 70 percent of sites take roughly 7 seconds to load on mobile devices. As a mobile device user, you likely know, intuitively, that 7 seconds is a long time. You reasonably expect your content to load within 2 or 3 seconds, and anything longer than that is frustrating.
While we don’t have an exact metric to work with, we do know that Google is insisting that only a handful of sites and queries will be affected. In fact, because relevance is still so important, a highly relevant piece of content can still achieve top rankings—even if it loads slower than average.
So will your site be affected? The simplest answer is “probably not,” since only the worst-offending sites are going to see the negative ranking factor.
If you’re concerned about your site’s performance, you can use Google’s own PageSpeed Insights tool to check the load times and speed of your individual web pages. While you’re at it, you can use the Chrome User Experience Report to look up other user engagement metrics for your site.
Why Page Speed Is Still Important
Even though your site probably won’t be affected by the new update, this is a good time to analyze—and improve—your site speed. Even if your efforts don’t result in a higher search ranking, there are many benefits to having a faster site, including:
- Visitor retention. Today’s users are demanding. They generally expect a site to load within 2 seconds, and may abandon your site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Cutting your load time by even a fraction of a second increases the likelihood that a user will stay on your site after clicking a link.
- Actions and subsequent page visits. A quick-loading site is an inviting site. When users discover that your pages load quickly, with little delay, they’ll be more inclined to visit other pages on your site, and more likely to purchase with you.
- Brand reputation. If a user decides to stick around, despite an unsatisfactory loading time, they may think less of your brand when engaging with your site. This may negatively affect your consumer relationships.
Improving Your Speed
Let’s say you want to improve your site’s loading time—what can you do?
- Make sure you’re optimized for mobile. First and foremost, make sure your site is optimized for mobile. Use a responsive design, and ensure that all your content loads quickly and efficiently on mobile devices.
- Streamline on-page components. For every component of your site, including images, stylesheets, and scripts, there will be an HTTP request. The more requests there are, the longer it will take for your site to load. Try to streamline these components as much as possible to reduce the number of necessary requests.
- Get a good caching plugin. Get a caching plugin, and don’t play around with the settings unless you know what you’re doing. This will make the site load faster on subsequent visits.
- Minimize your image and video sizes. Images and video are the heaviest file types you’ll have on your site, so try to minimize them as much as you can without sacrificing quality.
- Cut unnecessary files. If there are files on your site (like images), or on the backend (like old blog drafts) that aren’t necessary, eliminate them. The smaller and more efficient your website is, the faster it will load.
Google’s Speed Update isn’t going to spark an SEO revolution—especially considering that page speed has been a desktop ranking factor for many years, and that the update is only going to affect the bottom tier of webpages.
Still, this is a good opportunity to review your site’s loading speed on mobile devices, analyze your key user experience metrics, and make tweaks to improve your site’s mobile performance.
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Photo by: Thought Catalog- Unsplash
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