The attention span of the average human decreases every year. In only thirteen years, we have gone from an attention span of 12 seconds to a mere 8 seconds. This is due to our fast paced lifestyle, the changing dynamics of technology and advertising clutter. Not only does this have direct consequences, but it is becoming a problem for both brands and marketers who want to grab consumers attention – and keep it! This poses a serious challenge for brands and marketers. However, there are solutions that can help you quickly grab anyone’s attention in just a few seconds.
- Let photos speak for you:
Whoever came up with the phrase “a picture is worth a million words” was spot on. Consumer interest and curiosity can be sparked in a matter of seconds with captivating photos. Brands have been moving towards image-centric marketing rather than traditional text-based ever since the rise in the use of social media marketing. This is rather smart due to the fact that between 65 and 85 percent of people describe themselves as visual learners. They digest information more easily by visual stimulation rather than traditional text based. Interesting images spark consumers’ interest just enough to make them want more. This is why many photo and video sharing sites and apps are becoming increasingly popular with consumers and brands. Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr are some of the most popular sites right now where consumers and brands are flocking to. These sites thrive on photo and video sharing, and have become successful due to their simple format, and engaging content that brands are uploading.
- Make it personal:
Consumers crave the feeling of brands speaking directly to them. Personalized promotional emails and personalized online advertising techniques are considered the top strategies for this and help encourage consumers to purchase and engage in repeat buying. When you have the tools and processes in place to track individual consumer data, it really goes a long way – minimizing your client acquisition cost!
Furthermore, many companies have embraced this personal tactic in their products and services and have been extremely successful. For example, Coca-Cola introduced their “Share a Coke” campaign last summer after years of falling sales. By simply adding popular names and labels to each bottle, Coca-Cola was able to personalize their product, which resulted in an increase of sales.
- Encourage Consumers to Participate on Social Media Channels:
Encouraging consumers to participate in social media campaigns can build personal relationships with your brand and keep you at the forefront of a consumer’s mind. For example, GoPro interacts with consumers on their social media pages, and excels with their engagement on Instagram. This is all due to the campaign “photo of the day” – which has been going on for a few years now – where GoPro features photos that their consumers have taken with their product. This campaign has been very successful for GoPro who has a combined following of over 22 million followers on all their social media channels. This has allowed GoPro to interact with consumers on a regular basis and optimize their brand presence. Encouraging consumers to participate on social media channels is an easy and simple way to draw attention from your consumer(s).
We may never be able to reverse the affects that technology, our lifestyles, and clutter marketing has had on our attention spans. But thankfully, there are still ways to navigate this obstacle when it comes to marketing and advertising!
Analytics and data are essential to running any business today and firms have established systems that track and monitor everything that we do. In order to have a more effective marketing strategy it is important to understand the different types of data and how to properly use them. The three basic types are descriptive, predictive and perceptive analytics. We discuss each in more detail below.
Descriptive Analytics
This type is raw data in summarized form. Examples include social engagement counts, sales numbers, customer statistics and other metrics that show you what’s going on in your business in an easy-to-understand way.
Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics forecast what will happen in the future. Examples include consumer trends, forecasting and opportunity analysis that will help determine the actions of a business.
Perceptive Analytics
This type of analytics builds on predictive analytics. It involves informing key decision makers about different decision choices with their anticipated impact on key performance indicators (KPIs). This type helps you develop specific recommendations. An example of this would be a GPS system which first predicts a route using a multitude of different inputs and “advises” a person to take the shortest route with a predicted ETA.
Using both Predictive and Perceptive Analytics
Both of these types of analytics must be used in order to maximize your company’s marketing efforts. One without the other does not bridge the gap between raw data collected and what actions your company will take. “Prescriptive analytics can help companies alter the future,” stated Immanuel Lee, Web analytics engineer at MetroStar Systems. “They’re both necessary to improve decision-making and business outcomes.”
Perceptive analytics ultimately clarifiy predictive data and can help a company improve their marketing strategy to increase sales. Simply knowing information about a consumer or industry offers some information to a company about the market in which it operates but this is the first step. The next step is to actually determine what this information means and the impact that it has on key areas of the business.
Tips for your Analytics Program
1) Start Small
When dealing with analytics there are many various types of data that get recorded. Therefore it is important to start small and work smart in order to gather the right types of data. Within your business there are many different activities that go on day-to-day and sometimes a more focused strategy is better.
2) Create Specified Data Sets
By separating data into specific groups, it is easier to use when needed within your marketing strategy. Data can be separated into segments like gender, income level and location. This in turn makes it easier to specifically predict and make recommendations through a perceptive program.
3) Understand Why Data is Collected
Predictive and perceptive analytics ultimately depend on humans that design systems and collect data. It is important to understand why certain types of data are being collected and what the purpose of this information is. Understanding why this information is collected and what its use will be will help when trying to determine the best marketing strategy for a company.
4) Keep Your Systems up to Date
As your business grows and advances, it is critical to develop and keep your systems up to date. Technology makes it easier and more efficient to gather information about customers within your market. When your analytical systems are up to date, your company will be more adaptive at responding to current trends or consumer wants.
At Mirza International, we have the know-how when it comes to analytical marketing, which will save you both time and money. We can offer you marketing services that drive success and help convert data into a focused marketing strategy. The benefits for you? Less wasted effort and a greater return – which will help your business grow and keep you happy!
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Leadership qualities are very important to achieving success in the business world today. Thought Leadership is a style of leadership where a firm or individual is recognized as the foremost authority in a select area within their industry. This results in the individual or firm becoming the go-to for expertise in that specialized area. Developing this style of leadership can be a huge advantage to a firm. Being recognized as a thought leader will ultimately establish you as a credible expert within the industry – which will of course lead to greater profits! Digital marketing and content creation play a huge role in thought leadership today – and yet, it’s sometimes overlooked by major individuals and firms.
Thought Leadership is One of the Best Leadership Qualities
Steve Jobs and Apple are great examples of thought leadership. This example of thought leadership proves that a company or an individual can hugely profit by being one of the first places a consumer will turn to for products or services. Apple is a leading company when it comes to innovation and expertise, and has managed to differentiate itself from its competitors. There are 5 strategies to follow in order to develop yourself or your firm as thought leaders so that you can profit significantly from the market. These 5 essential strategies are outlined below:
1) Confidence is Key
There are traditional ways of forming credibility among your audience like publishing content or conducting an interview through credible sources. However, acting confidently will automatically increase your credibility among your audience, this according to a study conducted by the American Psychological Association. Simply believing that you are the foremost authority and expert within your field and then conveying this confidence to others will increase your credibility. There is a famous saying that goes “confidence is key.” This outlines the fact that confidence will help strengthen relationships, communicate a message and gain credibility with your target audience. Confidence is something that we see among top performers with great leadership qualities.
2) Involve Your Audience
Why not involve your audience? Ask them questions or give them the chance to ask you questions. This will engage their curiosity. Author Adam Bryant interviewed 700 CEOs and asked, “What qualities do you see most often in those who succeed?” The answer was curiosity. It’s no surprise that Apple is one of the greatest companies at listening and engaging their audiences. They are always trying to figure out what their customers want – simply by asking them.
3) Reciprocity and Word of Mouth
When a company or individual can win the hearts and trust of the people, the masses will follow. In fact, 88% of consumers trusted online reviews as much as personal recommendations in 2014. This means that a company relies on the people’s belief to drive sales and increase its revenue. This is a key to developing a thought leadership strategy in your firm. It will distinguish you as the right choice to buy from. People’s opinions and beliefs often rub off on the people in society that are around them. Hence, a company’s reciprocity and Word of Mouth must be strengthened in order to increase credibility.
4) Honesty and Integrity
A company must always be honest and more importantly, it must be perceived to be honest in its actions. Through quality content creation you can prove that you are credible by actually offering the customer some value exchange. This valuable content will drive customer sales to your firm because they will see you as the experts who have already given them something. This again elaborates on the concept of reciprocity and when a customer feels valued, she will turn to your company over your competitors.
5) Controversy and Change are good
When you challenge the norm and conventional ways of thinking, it will encourage an alternative point of view for your target market. If this point of view and ideas are credible then you will start a movement of consumers towards your product. As mentioned above, Apple had done a fantastic job of this when they took a huge share of the cell phone market. When the iPhone took control over Blackberry, the social focus shifted away from Blackberry’s guarantee of privacy, towards the iPhone’s innovation and advanced features.
Thought leadership through digital marketing and content creation is the key to driving sales today. Many leadership qualities are outlined above and contribute to the effectiveness of your campaigns. We have the know-how when it comes to credible content creation and digital marketing which can save you both time and money. At Mirza Intl, we offer marketing services that drive success and thought leadership within your firm. Your marketing will be done faster, with less wasted effort and a greater return – which will help your business grow and keep you happy! Click here to book a consultation with us today.
Have you ever scrolled through your Instagram feed, and were surprised to see an advertisement from your favourite brand? Have you ever wondered how these advertisements matched your interest or hobbies so well? Well in 2014, Instagram introduced the advertisement feature that allows brands to sponsor ads to their target consumer(s). These ads pop up on the targeted users feed, regardless of if the user is following the brand or not. Brands can pick from three ad formats – photo, video, and carousel ads.
Instagram uses Facebook’s demographic data to present the correct ads to the appropriate demographic. For an example, you would never want a 40 year old male who is interested in sports seeing an ad for beauty products targeted at teens. This is important to ensure that relevant content is being shared with the right audience.
Instagram first tested the advertising feature by selecting specific brands – Taco Bell, Mercedes-Benz, and Chobani were some of the earliest adopters! After a successful run over the course of a few months, the ad feature is now available to businesses big or small! Though the advertising feature appeared to be working successfully, Instagram did fine that they needed to give users the opportunity to mute these sponsored ads. Advertisements are always labeled as sponsored and users have the ability to hide ads if they are not pleased with the disruption on their feed – giving the user control over what they see. Instagram has found this to be successful, and consumers are responding well to this control.
Many brands who have used the advertising feature on Instagram have been more than pleased with the return they have gotten on these ads. Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream ad campaign reached an estimated 9.8 million people just in the United States in only eight days – impressive! Mercedes-Benz used Instagram to launch its compact SUV called the “GLA” in collaboration with Facebook last fall and saw an increase of 580 percent to their site! Happn has been using the advertising feature for a month now, and has reached an estimated 3 million users in London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Paulo. The app has seen a conversion rate of 84 percent in terms of app downloads as well as registered users – incredible!
There are over 400 million Instagram users worldwide, and over 70 million photos and videos uploaded everyday – making Instagram the perfect untapped app for advertising and branding! If executed properly, Instagram advertisements can open up a new market and even a new target consumer to businesses!
In the past people always relied on news broadcasters, radio stations and the newspaper to stay informed about current events. Today, there are approximately 1.23 BILLION users on Facebook! So while people are browsing, they are tuning into news updates almost instantly as they happen. Facebook has features like Top Trending news – hence, it’s no surprise that companies like CNN and BBC are recognizing the massive benefits of using this platform. In the past people searched for news and tuned into their favourite newscaster or broadcaster. Now the tables have turned. People want the news to come to them.
Facebook constantly looks for new ways to engage its users and increase the frequency and duration of time people spend on the platform. To do this they have created instant news articles with credible high quality content to engage people as they are browsing the site. Over the past couple of years this feature has been introduced and statistics show that the average person would rather turn to social media for the latest news rather than watching it on TV or reading the paper.
In fact 63% of Americans reported getting news on Facebook and Twitter in 2015 versus approximately 50% in 2013. Some statistics show that people spend an average of at least 20 minutes on social media whereas other stats show that people spend at least an hour or more. Regardless of which of these are true, this is a huge percentage of the population using social media daily and specifically for news purposes outlining the drastic shift in the public’s habits.
The Threat to Publishers and News Stations
With this shift in the public’s perception of the News they receive, publishers and news stations must realign their business strategies to adapt to the people’s habits. Therefore companies like CNN and BBC have used avenues online to target their viewers. However they can also fall into a trap of relying too heavily on one media source because they will give up control of their audience to that source. On social media there are many different News companies that broadcast their content in one location. If a company relies too heavily on social media for its viewers than it risks losing them to other features or even competitors content that is published.
Facebook Surpasses Google
According to Parse.ly’s first-party data across 400 publisher sites, Facebook took over Google as the number one source of traffic to publisher sites in July 2015. The company is trying to dominate the share of the market when it comes to publishing and posting news content as a traffic source. This would lead to a reliance on social media to get their News content to their targeted audiences. While publishers and news companies used to rely on their viewers’ loyalty. Now they must depend on social media to get their content out.
Publishers and News Agencies Pay Big Bucks
It is possible to post free content on Facebook but if a company wants to drive significant amount of traffic towards its own content, than you must pay Facebook for these referrals. This is good for Facebook but this payment also creates a reliance on Facebook for traffic. As mentioned, Facebook is trying to trap these publishers and agencies into their site so that they can offer quality content to their users while making these companies reliant on their referrals.
In conclusion we can see a dramatic shift in the way people gain access to news content online. From 2013 to 2015 there has been a 13% increase in the amount of people who use Facebook and Twitter for news. This shift should be taken very seriously by publishers and news companies who intend to keep and gain audiences in the future.
Mirza International is up to date with the best Facebook advertising and referral practices. To book a marketing consultation click here.
Market research and intelligence is something that has changed and affected advertising world wide. In the past, research was conducted through interviews, trade journals and a lot of difficult work. Research departments were reliant on their own personal networks and the ability to do physical research.
However, today we have access to any information we want at our fingertips through the Internet. I think we can all agree that the internet has revolutionized the business world. In terms of market research, the amount and ease of access to information makes today’s research an area a company can gain a competitive advantage in. In the following article we will look at first, how the advertising industry has changed and second, how a company can use market research to gain a competitive advantage.
Advertising and Market Research Today
First, let’s discuss how marketing research and intelligence has changed. Then we can go over how a company can gain an advantage over its competition using technology today. In the past, organizations relied on well-staffed research departments. These advertising departments consisted of trained staff that would do research the old fashioned way – through endless readings. They would be reliant on their networks of information, industry statistics, journals, and their ability to acquire information about the industry themselves. Now, with a click of a button and a few keywords, we have access to tons of credible work from around the globe.
Today, the effectiveness of market research is dependent on the researcher’s ability to use technology to their advantage. There are thousands of management systems in place that track consumer behaviour and compile databases of the buying habits of millions of people. With technology we can track these behaviours through sales and point of purchase monitoring. Researchers also have access to millions of customer reviews and all their competitor information which they can search on the Internet. This allows them to measure their success against competitors easily by simply reading reviews online. Demographics are also heavily monitored and recorded through automatic computer systems, whereas in the past, researchers would have to rely on the census for this information.
How to Gain a Competitive Advantage
Now let’s take a look at how a company can gain a competitive advantage over their competitors by using market research and intelligence. Competitive advantage is defined as something that you or your organization does better than competitors. Since there is so much available to us now compared to the past, a company can really capitalize on its market research.
By keeping up with current technologies and customer tracking systems, companies can now know what their consumers want before they even want it. Predicting customer needs is a great way to gain the edge over your competitors.
A company can also target customers with specific content and promotions related to their interests.
In addition, an organization can focus on the customers that make them the most profits or who use their product or service the most. The easiest way to gain a competitive advantage through market research and intelligence is to target the right customers with the right content. This will build a relationship with your target customers and make them feel as the company is tailoring its products or services directly to them. Apple is a great example of how a company can use market research to build relationships with its customers. Apple is constantly researching and looking at databases to figure out what Apple users want next and because of this they have high customer loyalty.
Other Advantages Today
It is also a lot easier to conduct market research now as opposed to the past, where an entire department was needed to conduct the research. By properly staffing and optimizing a firm’s research systems with a few indispensable human resources and the proper technology, an organization does not need a research department. This cuts costs and can also be seen as an advantage over a competitor who has to operate and pay employees of a huge research department.
We can see that market research plays a huge role in the effectiveness of a firm’s marketing strategy. It is important for a company to stay up-to-date with the most current customer relationship management systems so that they can stay ahead of their competitors in the industry. Mirza international is up-to-date with the best practices on tracking customer activity online and creating content to target your most profitable segment. To book a conference call to see how we can help you, visit: http://mirzaintl.com/
Social media is an amazing new marketing outlet that allows consumers to keep connected and engaged with their favourite brands. Social media not only allows brands to specifically advertise to their demographics, but it is also allows consumers to advertise and promote their favourite brands products and services as well.
GoPro has been doing a success job of empowering their users, while using their content to promote their brand. GoPro allows everyday people the ability to shoot HD footage and capture out of this world photographs on their miniature cameras – no matter what their past experience consists of. Not only are their products successful, but their presence on Instagram is as well. GoPro currently has 7 million followers, and averages about 300,000 “likes” per post. Their following is continuously growing, and so is their social media campaign. The company came up with the campaign “Photo of the Day”, where users upload their HD photographs to their own Instagram accounts, tagging GoPro in these photos. Everyday, GoPro picks a photo to be featured on their own Instagram account and tags the user in the re-uploaded photo. GoPro is not just stopping at photos, they are also promoting users to create extreme videos that they repost on their Youtube page.
This campaign has been extremely successful, and has been going on for years now. This allows GoPro to empower their users and promote their work, while at the same time be able to share these photos and use them as advertising tools. Creating a sort of win-win for both the user and the brand. This is just one of the many brands who are embracing social media, and really allowing consumers to take the reigns on advertising through these platforms.
As more and more brands move towards social media marketing, this tactic will become increasingly popular. Consumers love it and so do brands!