5 Surefire Ways to Make Your Next Digital Marketing and Advertising Effort Shine

March 19, 2024April 19, 2024 / marissapick / Leave a comment

We’re already three months into 2024 and the marketing landscape is constantly evolving. With countless brands vying for consumer attention and engagement, marketing leaders must stay on top of shifting trends to differentiate against the competition and leave a lasting positive impression. Right now, virtual events and AI-powered personalization are stealing the spotlight, while sustainability and interactive content are becoming increasingly important. Tomorrow, it could be something altogether different!

To help ensure your brand stays relevant and memorable, consider embracing these five trends:

1. Omnichannel advertising: Omnichannel advertising helps ensure a seamless and consistent brand experience across multiple channels and touchpoints. This can translate into tangible benefits, including increasing online presence, driving traffic, and boosting leads. By leveraging multiple platforms— from social media to email to mobile— businesses can engage with a wider audience and target customers they might have missed on a single platform. In fact, studies show that omnichannel marketing can lead to a staggering 250% higher engagement rate than single-channel marketing. That kind of engagement is hard to resist!

2. Earned media: Earned media is a powerful tool that can help you showcase your brand in a natural and organic way. Unlike paid media, earned media comes from third-party sources, making it more authentic and trustworthy. One of the most significant benefits of earned media is its cost-effectiveness— it doesn’t require any investment, making the ROI higher than other media.

TikTok is an excellent platform for leveraging earned media, as it allows content to reach a specific demographic of individuals with similar interests. By using hashtags and following ongoing trends, you can easily circulate your content around your target audience. If you’re looking for a cost-effective way to promote your brand, earned media is the way to go. Don’t miss out on this strategy that’s already taken off this year!

3. Short-form video content: Video-based content is predicted to be one of the most effective ways to drive engagement leads and content in 2024. Whether it’s TikTok, Instagram Reels, Livestreams, or Facebook videos, short-form, bite-sized content captures users’ attention for a longer amount of time. Brands can get their message across quickly and efficiently, while also gaining UGC and increased engagement from consumers. Just remember that when it comes to this form of advertising, less is more.

The beauty of short-form video as a content format is that it can be easily created and posted on your iPhone or mobile device. The recommended timing is somewhere between 30-60 seconds, which isn’t a lot of time. But when it’s done effectively and it’s of high quality, short-form videos are a great way to engage with your audience. Consider these best practices:

👉 Get to the point quickly

👉 Add subtitles to increase accessibility and SEO

👉 Use quick cuts to keep your videos engaging

👉 Include a call to action (CTA)

Remember, you won’t be perfect initially, but improvement is a key part of any creative process. So, keep practicing and watch your short-form videos improve over time!

4. Include Brand Values and Mission Within Ads: More and more, consumers are prioritizing the social responsibility of brands and actively seeking out mission-driven brands. In fact, more than half of consumers say they are more likely to buy from certain brands over others if they stand for something bigger than just products and services. There are many ways businesses can practice corporate social responsibility, including reducing carbon footprints, participating in fair trade, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, engaging in charitable giving, and volunteering in local communities. Companies can also create policies that benefit the environment and invest in socially and environmentally conscious initiatives.

However, this information isn’t always readily available. That’s why it’s important to incorporate social responsibility into your advertising strategy. Doing so not only entices consumers to buy your product, but also to become loyal, supportive customers for the long haul. You can also consider emphasizing recyclable packaging, donations from purchases, and relevant social movements in your messaging.

5. Personalized Marketing: As artificial intelligence has become ubiquitous and the use of big data skyrockets, it has become easier for marketers to lean into personalization. Personalization is no longer just knowing a customer’s name; it’s about tailoring your marketing messages and content to the specific needs and preferences of individual consumers. This demonstrates that you understand your customers’ unique needs, fostering stronger connections across the entire customer journey, building engagement, conversion and loyalty.

As the world of digital marketing and advertising continues to change, let’s work together to navigate current and future trends. When we do this, we can adapt, innovate, and thrive to help make our campaigns the best they can possibly be.

What trends are you adopting for a successful 2024? Please take a moment and share your thoughts in the comments below.

Four Trends Marketers Shouldn’t Ignore

February 12, 2016February 12, 2016 / marissapick / 1 Comment

Are you wondering what you should be keeping an eye out in 2016? Look no further, within this post I share key findings from recently published reports from PulsePoint and PageFair and Adobe highlighting key trends and stats marketers can’t afford to ignore.

1. Content Marketing is King!

If you’re vaguely familiar with Content Marketing you’ve heard heard the term “Content Is King.” A report published by PulsePoint found that by 2017 content marketing budgets are projected to double, and 83% of marketers believe content marketing will go “programatic” by 2017. (Click to Tweet)

When most of us think about real-time content marketing, we think of examples like Oreo’s tweet during the 2013 Super Bowl blackout, when they advised customers that they “can still dunk in the dark.” That tweet was a great response to an unexpected occasion and the birth of the awareness of real time content marketing.

Keep in mind that real-time content does not always have to be spontaneous. The majority of real-time content advertising and marketing can be prepared to some level by maintaining a close eye on preparing and trending topics material that replies to a broad range of scenarios. Brand who are setup with strong content marketing strategies will rapidly set themselves apart and cut through the noise and “win” within this arena.

2. Content marketing and native growth will outpace display and search

Brands, agencies and publishers reported that content marketing and native are both important to their organizations and strategies. But are the ad dollars and digital inventory available to back them? The answer is yes as both supply and demand are expected to grow over the next two years.

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While display and search still command most of the ad dollars, 37% of respondents to PulsePoint’s study named content marketing as one of the largest spending buckets. That gap is only set to narrow, as content marketing and native ads both are both projected to see increased budgets over the next two years. The other format tracking slightly behind is digital video since the formal draws a higher audience engagement which is pivotal for brands with upper funnel campaign objectives.

3. Ad Blocking Is Rapidly Expanding, and Costing Publishers Billions of Dollars.

The number of consumers using ad blocking software worldwide has increased 41% year-on-year to 198 million monthly active users according to a report by PageFair and Adobe. (Click to Tweet)

Ad blocking is increasingly a challenge to marketers and it’s estimated that the click-through rate across all ad formats and placements is only 0.06 per cent. Now users are able to be more discretionary than ever about which content they want and what they don’t.

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Currently ad blocking almost always happens via desktop computers, however ad blocking on mobile could soon become a mainstream phenomenon.

The rate of ad blocking varies country by country. The US has an estimated 45 million monthly active ad block users, up 48% year-on-year which across Europe, 35% of the internet population (77 million users) used an ad blocker at least once a month. The report also found that ad block users are usually young and technically savvy and predominantly male.

4. Mobile Emailing Marketing Remains in The Mix

Email is a channel which can’t be ignored however with the rise of wearable technology and mobile marketers must work towards firming up their email marketing strategy.

A study from Moveable Ink found that in the first quarter of 2015, 67% of all U.S. email opens occurred on a mobile device and 75% of those were smartphones. (Click to Tweet)

The growth in mobile is staggering and the shift is undeniable as tablets and wearables are now being dubbed the “new inbox.” Marketers must ensure their messaging is “mobile friendly,” personalized, and optimized for success.

What trends do you think Marketers should watch into 2016, leave a comment below or send me a tweet.

My guest appearance on FIR #B2B Show #6 with @pgillin & @allanschoenberg

April 6, 2014April 6, 2014 / marissapick / Leave a comment

This week I had the honor of joining Paul Gillin and Allan Schoenberg for their FIR B2B Show #6 titled Marketers Struggle With Reinvention.

Paul and Allan discussed the latest in B2B and Social Media News covering:

1) Recent research from Demand Metric reinforcing the importance of lead generation as just 9% of B2B marketers say they are highly effective at generating leads..

2) A study from IBM which discusses that although CMOs believe that advanced analytics play a significant role in helping them reach their goals, most feel their organizations are not in a position to leverage data to its full extent to gain a deeper understanding of the customer.

3) A new research study of 350 business buyers by the CMO Council and Netline finds that third-party sources heavily influence B2B buying decisions. That’s not surprising, but what’s depressing is that only 9% said vendors are trusted sources of content. “Marketing executives unanimously agreed that a solid content strategy is imperative for building awareness it requires them to position themselves as trusted experts in their field,” the report concludes.

During this podcast we discussed the numerous channels we use at my company Euromoney Institutional Investor to leverage social media across our publishing and events businesses, as well as the power we’ve found through paid advertising on Facebook, and the importance of word of mouth marketing. Click the link below to listen to FIR B2B Show #6 “Marketers Struggle With Reinvention.”

Leave me a comment below or tweet me @MarissaPick to share your feedback with this FIR Podcast.