After a short summer break, we are back with the latest from the world of digital marketing. You can catch up on the last roundup, where we covered Facebook’s new augmented reality ads, how WeChat is the new super-app and how online marketing is going international…
Back to this week, where we cover the following:
Mobiles have become an integral part of the workplace, with employees performing a large variety of tasks on the devices. Many Scandinavian companies have a ‘mobile-first’ model that has been very successful, and so European countries are looking to utilise Unified Communications (UC) solutions in order to offer benefits to the customer, such as single number reach.
Over-the-top (OTT) communications – including services such as WhatsApp and Skype – are used by the vast majority of mobile phone users, however thanks to the lack of control they are generally discouraged as part of the mobile workplace.
When introducing a mobile-first model into the workplace, it is vital to ensure that it provides great user experience, security and availability.
Efficient use of mobile will mean that workers will be able to perform efficiently at any time and from any location. Many businesses are using tools such as RingCentral, which gives employees the collaboration and communication solution they need whilst providing a consistent experience over each of the channels.
RingCentral, for example, uses the highest quality enterprise-grade security. The service gives administrators robust app control, which is particularly useful seeing as mobile devices can easily be lost or stolen. And administrators can revoke a user’s access to the cloud network in an instant, meaning that the information stored in the network is highly secured.
The video platform VidMob surveyed 1000 Gen Z-ers (aged 16-24) and 1000 millennials (25-34 years old), and found that the traditional ways of personalising ads to these groups may no longer work.
The groups were asked about their online behaviour in general, as well as their actions on social media and their thoughts on video advertising. Both groups of young adults noted that they were more likely to interact with an ad that reflected their taste or style (55%) rather than ads that feature a celebrity (45%) or people in their age range (29%).
These statistics show an opposition to the norms of personalisation, which is based around matching ads with users of the same gender, age or ethnicity.
The groups diverge on some elements of online advertising, for example:
VidMob’s Chief Marketing Officer, Stephanie Bohn, notes that,
“This report has implications for marketers looking to connect with younger audiences. Demographics and the celebrity factor also influence likability, but sense of style is the leading factor.”
How-to videos get the most attention of any category on YouTube, which may be thanks to the format’s ability to directly answer the user’s query or need.
Teaching a user something that they are keen to understand is effective and direct, however the format is not always easy to make a success of – particularly for brands.
We take a look at three strategies for creating a great how-to video…
In the same way that you market your products based on their unique selling points, it is important to work out why and how your how-to videos are different too.
There is a huge amount of how-to videos for almost every area, topic and subject imaginable, so it can be a good strategy to focus on just one thing and to make really great videos about that thing.
Ask yourself why people turn to your brand, and the answer to that question should guide your how-to videos.
Once you have decided on your one topic or subject, it is important to publish how-to content on a regular schedule. Publishing regularly and at a fast pace does mean that sometimes you have to compromise, and that not every video will be completely perfect.
These imperfections can help you to learn what works and what doesn’t about your videos, and they can build better rapport as your content may seem more authentic.
Engagement is often more important than subscribers, particularly in the long-term. Getting viewers involved in your how-to videos is a great way to actively engage them, so consider doing regular YouTube Live events so that they can ask questions in real-time.
Live videos often create far more engagement and comments than any other type, and this interaction often leads to a greater understanding of what your audience wants from your video content.
READ MORE: How to make how-to videos
Customer experience (CX) has become the most important element for any online business – with customers being happy to pay more for a better online experience.
Many are looking to artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the battle to constantly improve their CX, so we take a look at four ways that this is possible:
AI is very good at helping businesses to use their data in order to better understand their audience. AI gathers high-quality datasets, creating user-friendly reports with actionable strategies, as well as making it clear who the target audience is, and what they want.
31% of marketers believe that the most useful benefit of using AI is the ability to gain a better understanding of their customer.
AI can assist with a personalisation strategy for a business website; data has shown that personalised information and customised perks influence 91% of customers to make a purchase.
There is a good selection of eCommerce apps and widgets that can be added to any website; Monetate runs A/B tests that can be used for personalisation and OptinMonster automatically changes the marketing messages, pop-ups, suggestions and onsite retargeting.
Customers now expect super fast customer service, and prefer to communicate through online help or self-service options rather than speaking directly to a representative. AI-assisted chatbots are both quick and online, and there are many examples of them being able to increase revenue through cross-selling and up-selling.
Tools such as Morph.ai can help make the process of building a chatbot easier, and customers seem to appreciate their presence on a site.
Conversion rates are at around 2% for most eCommerce sites, and so some companies are using AI to assist with re-targeting. Using programmatic algorithms, AI can find the most-likely strategy to make a conversion – which is something that Amazon uses in its re-targeting.
Magnetic is an AI tool that uses machine learning to watch your customers behaviour and actions, and then re-targets them with a highly relevant ad – which has been found to increase the likelihood of a conversion by up to 70%.
Email is an incredibly important tool for the marketer, however, transactional email (password resets, shipping confirmations, etc.) often go ignored, even though these emails have an open rate that is eight times higher than non-transactional marketing messages.
We take a closer look at how to make the most of transactional email:
Send transactional emails from a different IP address than the marketing emails, as both consumers and the law react very differently to the two types of mail.
Transactional emails are not subject to the same requirements as commercial mail. For example, they are not required to have an unsubscribe link so long as the are sent in response to an action that was initiated by the recipient, and the sender is also not required to have a physical mailing address in the body of the message (as set out in CAN-SPAM).
Transactional emails are very valuable to customers, and so separating them by a different IP address means that these emails can continue to be useful and valued by the customer rather than being degraded by other types of email.
Email recipients block marketing messages for all sorts of reasons, but you don’t want all of your transactional mail to end up in the spam folder if it can be avoided (plus by separating the email streams it becomes possible to have better data on your email strategy).
Transactional means transactional
The Federal Trade Commission has created rules around the combining of commercial copy into a transactional email, which states that the,
“primary purpose of the message is the deciding factor.”
As this is rather ambiguous, the rule of thumb has become an 80-20 or 70-30 split between transactional and commercial content.
Ensure that the transactional content remains front-and-centre, otherwise the message could be deemed to be commercial, and as such, different rules will apply.
Transactional messages that share many of the same links and sites as your commercial messages may get marked as spam, so make sure to be cautious when combining marketing or commercial messages with your transactional mail.
Transactional mail has high open rates, and so it is important that these messages are on-brand and that they look and feel the same as your other messages and channels.
If your marketing messages are sent in HTML and are colourful and well-designed, then do the same for your transactional messages – as even the most humble of transactional emails is a chance to reconnect with a customer.
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