My Marketing Prediction for 2017

Marketers—including B2B ones—will turn to stunts to grab attention.

Childish Tchotchkes

Want to win over a jaded audience at your next trade show?

"Appeal to the inner child," says marketing consultant Jill Amerie.

Amerie recounts a midnight film screening at this year's SXSW.

A house full of film journalists sat waiting for Keanu, an action-comedy about a kitten, to finally begin. The mood was sullen and bitter.

"Then something interesting happened," Amerie says. 

"The comedic team of Key and Peele came on stage with a basket of toy kittens. They started throwing the stuffed animals into the audience, and suddenly, those tired, grouchy journalists were jumping to catch them like a bunch of bridesmaids going after the wedding bouquet. 

"A lot of those kittens will end up going to the children of those attendees, but it’s a safe bet that a significant number of them will end up in their offices, too."

5 Big Tips for Better Mobile Marketing

Sophorn Chhay contributed today's post. He is the inbound marketer at Trumpia, a mobile content delivery service that lets users customize their one-to-one marketing.

Sure, you might have a mobile marketing plan. But is it innovative?

In 2016, run-of-the-mill approaches won't take you very far; and, although most mobile marketers follow year-long plans, the fact is effective mobile marketing requires constant innovation.

If you want to stay ahead, check out the following tips, guaranteed to boost your results.

Tip One: Get Tight with Video Ads

Today, 80 percent of Internet users carry smartphones, and buyers are responding to video ads at alarming rates. You can benefit massively from video advertising.

Tip Two: Get Automated with SMS

Did you know you can automate your own SMS campaigns? Better yet, you can segment your audience and shoot out customized text messages. To get automated with SMS, contact a trustworthy provider. Textpedite, among others, streamlines the process.

Tip Three: Distribute an App

Americans currently spend more time using mobile apps than they do watching television. By incorporating an app into your plans, you'll give your brand greater meaning. Marketers are already reworking their entire strategies around apps (airlines, for example, are offering “nearby eatery” apps to frequent flyers). But make your app count, if you want to see it used.

Tip Four: Gain Data from SMS Surveys

Feedback means a lot to customers, and it's easy to conduct business when you know your customers' wants, needs and buying habits. SMS surveys procure a wealth of data and can garner otherwise unobtainable feedback.

Tip Five: Create a Social Campaign

In today’s mobile world, antisocial companies drop like flies, while companies like Starbucks win big. The brand’s “Race Together” and “Create Jobs for the USA” campaigns proved that promoting altruistic causes works. Sure, goodwill is a byproduct of powerful business practices; but it’s also a byproduct of social outreach.

Kathy, I'm Lost, I Said

Anheuser-Busch InBev has asked federal regulators for approval to replace the name "Budweiser" on cans and bottles this summer with the name "America," AdAge reports.

"You have this wave of patriotism that is going to go up and down throughout the summertime," Marketing VP Jorn Socquet said. "And we found with Budweiser such a beautiful angle to play on that sentiment."

If approved, the brand's labels would also include song lyrics like "from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters this land was made for you and me."

Plan 9

Attention ad planners: 9 seconds is the perfect period to expose a digital ad, according to a study by Sled.

The ad-platform provider found customers' brand awareness increased twice as much as it did when they viewed an ad for other lengths of time.

But that may be an eternity, in Earthlings' time.

According to Sled, customers viewed ads run recently by BioPharmX a mere 4.1 seconds, on average. 

And according to MediaPost, customers viewed recent ads from the San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau for only 4.8 seconds.

Back to the drawing board.

All We are Saying

In a full-page ad this week in the New York Times and Chicago Tribune, Burger King called for a one-day halt to the "burger wars" with its rival McDonald's.

The Whopper shop wants to "get the world talking" about the UN's annual International Day of Peace next month.

Wasting no time, McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook posted an 87-word "No thanks" on Facebook, spurring critics to call him a wet blanket.

Easterbrook might have replied with one word, "Nuts," like American General Anthony McAuliffe did at the Battle of the Bulge, and proved at least that his company values efficiency.

Branding gurus are unanimous about linking your brand with a cause: just do it. Want to shake down those activist do-gooder Millennials?  Wear "capitalism with a conscience" on your sleeve.

But Burger King's cheesy stunt, by sugarcoating a serious issue, shows why you should take gurus' advice with a grain of salt. 

Easterbrook's reaction, though sound, isn't savory, either.

The whole episode, in fact, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

All we are saying, is give peace a rest.

Embracing Swag

Mimicking their B2C cousins, savvy B2B marketers are plying swag to secure customers' loyalty, says a new white paper from Forrester Research.

B2B Loyalty, The B2C Way offers dozens of examples:

• On Super Bowl Sundays, a marketing automation provider—knowing its customers are at work—ships them "war room care packages."

• A B2B phone company sends customers a catalog of general merchandise they can buy for loyalty points.

• Another B2B phone company lets customers use their loyalty points to bid in an auction for tickets to sports events.

"Loyalty programs may be a B2C construct, but the concepts apply in B2B marketing," the white paper says. 

"As B2B marketers get serious about loyalty, they can jumpstart their efforts by embracing some B2C approaches. In some cases, it may be a matter of reframing, organizing, and scaling what’s already in place."

Clicks Don't Tell the Whole Story

Facebook's advertising director says digital ads can't be proven to drive sales, according to Business Insider.

Although counting digital ad "clicks" today remains most advertisers' yardstick, Facebook's Gokul Rajaram told an audience at TechCrunch Disrupt, "there's really no correlation between clicks and whether people actually convert."

Rajaram suggested that digital ads should not be judged by today's measurement model, but by how they build brand awareness slowly over time.

"We need to move towards a more sophisticated, multi-touch model and figure out how to accrue value at each touch point," he said.

Plus ça change.

B2B Marketers Spending More on Content

B2B marketers plan to spend a full third of their budgets on content marketing in 2013, according to research firm eMarketer.

The firm defines content marketing as attracting customers with “content that is not, at its core, promotional material, but which is interesting or valuable for its own sake” and that's “geared to help businesspeople do their jobs better.”

With the larger investment comes greater eagerness for “sticky” content, says eMarketer.

Personalization is a sure way to assure content is sticky. “The more personalized the content is, the more helpful and necessary the content—and therefore the brand—becomes to the customer,” eMarketer says.

Consistency is another. “Content marketers must also keep the content flowing,” the firm says. “A customer community is like a pump that one must prime.”

How to Toot Your Horn at a Tradeshow

You can trumpet your message at a tradeshow if you know what the audience seeks, says exhibit marketing expert Mim Goldberg in an interview with eConnections.

Effective graphics draws the audience into your booth and "creates memorability and validity to follow up after the event," Goldberg says.

But to be effective, booth graphics must be simple and focused on the audience's needs.

"Consequently, knowing and understanding your target audience is necessary," Goldberg says.

Pinpointing solutions is smart. Money-savings. Time-savings. Better productivity.

Illustrating big ideas is not. A booth that tries too hard to will be ignored or forgotten. "You can always tell if an [ad] agency has done the graphics for a show because they look like blown-up ads," Goldberg says.

But booth graphics alone aren't enough. "Verbal messaging and some form of interaction are necessary," Goldberg says.

"For example, if your company’s message is saving money, have graphics, discuss how your company can do this and, if possible, have a product that can demonstrate how this may occur."

Social Can't Sell

In The New York Times, tech journalist Stephen Baker recently asked, “Can Social Media Sell Soap?”

His short answer: nope.

Precision targeting, which generates ads "so timely and relevant that you welcome them," has "fueled a market frenzy around social networks," Baker writes.

But social networks are heading for a fall, because social can't sell.

As proof, Baker cites a chilly sales statistic (courtesy of IBM) from last year's Christmas season. 

"On the pivotal opening day of the season, Black Friday, a scant 0.68 percent of online purchases came directly from Facebook," Baker writes. "The number from Twitter was undetectable. Could it be that folks aren’t in a buying mood when hanging out digitally with their friends?"

I think Baker is on to something.

Social can't sell.

That's why the oxymoron "social media marketing" would make George Carlin's list.

Social is unlike traditional media.

When you consume traditional media (newspapers, magazines, radio and TV), you willingly trade your attention for content. 

That means ads are—more or less—welcome.

But in social, ads aren't welcome. 

They're like a telemarketer's cold call in the middle of the family dinner.

5 Newsletter Must-Haves

Promoting an event?

Digital marketer Juli Cummins, writing for Innovation Insider, says these five features should be included in your next newsletter:

Videos. Videos are smart because they're easy to share and watch on mobile devices. Including one on how to use your Website can boost registrations.

QR codes. QR codes drive readers to videos, Websites, photos and other content you can't include in the newsletter.

Personalization. You can boost readership by segmenting your list. Segment attendees by category, interests or preferences and blast targeted newsletters.

Special deals. Reward readers with newsletter exclusives like gift cards and discounts.

Short cuts. Devote a chunk of your newsletter to Web links to useful info. Include a single sign-on link that lets readers register without entering a username and password.

B2B Marketers: Attract Big Dogs with Web Video

They gripe when employees do it.

But 73% of C-level executives watch Web videos during the workday, says MagnetVideo's David Rose.

That's big news for marketers.

Web videos work especially well when you want to draw the top dogs to your booth at a tradeshow, according to Rose.

One of his clients, QuantiSense, used a Web video to boost traffic at the National Retail Federation's Annual Expo.

Traffic increased 218%.

Before the show, QuantiSense shot a one-minute video and built a show-specific landing page to house it. The firm then blasted promotional emails to prospective attendees, and shared links to the landing page on social media outposts. The firm also posted the video on YouTube, grabbing organic Google search traffic by including the term "NRF 2012" in the video's title, description, tags and closed captioning.

During the show, the firm placed a 60-foot high banner outside the entrance to the exhibit hall. The banner featured a QR code that, when snapped, automatically launched the video. QuantiSense also played the video on large monitors inside its booth.

After the show, QuantiSense blasted followup emails to all visitors that included a link to the landing page. There was no escaping that video!

Starbucks' "Newsjacking" Attempt Falls Off the Cliff

Starbuck's attempt to "newsjack" deficit negotiations has fallen off its own cliff.

Last week, CEO Howard Shultz asked the employees at 125 Washington, DC-area stores to scribble the phrase "Come Together" on the paper cups they hand customers. 

But employees aren't cooperating.

I asked three of them why.

"We're too busy," one said.

"We can't remember to do it," said another.

"It's pretty stupid," said the third.

Lesson learned: There's many a slip between the cup and the lip. 

If you want to newsjack successfully, first get your employees on board.

Going Broke? Maybe Your Website's Broken.

Research firm Forrester asked 5,200 customers what they do when a Website fails them.

According to the study, Websites That Don’t Support Customers Waste Millions, they:

• Pick up the phone. 35% call when your Website lets them down.
• Take their business elsewhere. 17% move to a competitor. 
• Give up. 17% abandon their purchase.

Forrester also gauged the cost of broken Websites and concluded:

• Large e-retailers are losing $47 million in direct income every year.
• Large e-retailers are adding $47 million to their cost of sales every year.

For 14 years, Forrester has been evaluating B2C and B2B Websites. 

It estimates that only 3% aren't broken.

To learn if yours is broken, Forrester recommends you ask. "The only way to know whether a site visit was a success is to ask the customers," the report states. 

Ask visitors three simple questions:

• What did you come to the site to do today?
• Were you able to accomplish that goal?
• If not, why not?

Marketing Lessons from the Three Stooges

For pure marketing genius, contemporary giants like Jeff Bezos, Howard Schultz and Tony Hsieh shrink in comparison to the three ur-marketers.

I'm talking about Moe, Larry and Curly.

Sure, attend all the marketing conferences you want. Follow all the blogs. Study all the books. Consume all the CDs.

You won't learn a tenth of what you'll learn by watching any one of The Stooges' shorts.

To save you time, I've boiled their innumerable brand-building insights down to three key lessons:

Make great products. The boys always innovated and never imitated! Want to make a great cupcake? Add pillow feathers. A great microbrew? Add a whole box of alum. A great soup? Add a live oyster.

Keep a laser-focus on your goals. The boys understood the paramount importance of attention to detail and keeping "on task." Which of their competitors would have spent as much time fixing a leaking pipe? Pitching a tent? Eating an artichoke?

Utilize short, snappy content. As content marketers, The Stooges were ahead of their time. They drew millions of fans by keeping their messages brief and on point. And they built a loyal following by perfecting a consistently edgy—and authentic—tone. While you don't want merely to copy the boys, it will help if you break rocks over your head, mistake a skunk for your hat, and rip out clumps of your own hair.

5 Steps to Mobile-friendly Emails

Customers are most likely to read your emails on smartphones and tablets, according to research by Return Path.

Follow these five steps to make your emails mobile-friendly:

1. Use a one-column layout. Vertical scrolling is more natural to mobile users.

2. Use larger fonts, bigger buttons and high-contrast colors. Make it easy for readers to differentiate your email's elements.

3. Include a link in the pre-header. The link should take readers to a text-only or—better—mobile-optimized version of your email (essential if you want to influence Blackberry users).

4. Keep emails short. Edit ruthlessley and use attention-grabbing calls to action. Your emails will be read during brief intervals of downtime.

5. Link readers only to mobile-friendly Web pages. It's futile to send readers to a Web page that can only be read on a desktop.

Three Secrets to More Sales

Responsible for B2B sales? Here are three secrets to better results: 
   
1. Do your prospecting with email. Emails get far better attention than cold telephone calls and are a lot less resented. They're easier to scan and digest. But don't send blasts to big lists. Handpick the people you send emails to and personalize them.

2. Keep your pitch short and relevant. Give every prospect an urgent reason to reach out to you. Use an event in the prospect's life (an internal reorganization, a merger, a downsizing, a change in the law, etc.) to trigger that response. Refer to the event in your subject line.

3. Don't give up 'til you've touched the prospect seven times. Most emails will not get a response. Don't let that deter you. Keep sending at two-week intervals. And be prepared for the phone call from your prospect (that's how more than 90 percent of prospects will reach out to you, if they do). Make that first person-to-person experience irreproachable.

The Skipping Point

Malcolm Gladwell made intelligible the "social epidemic" in his best-seller The Tipping Point.

He explained why word-of-mouth advertising could elevate a product like Hush Puppies to international stardom overnight.

A lot of marketers, hoping for a Tipping Point, rely instead on a Skipping Point.

No one's talking about their products. But they believe they can convince you otherwise by using hackneyed attributes such as "industry leading" and "best of breed."

No matter how hard you try, you can't skip to the head of the class.

How to Make a Bundle

New research from Harvard Business School and Carnegie Mellon University shows that bundling products can increase purchases significantly if customers have the option to buy the products separately.

Studying sales of video consoles and games, the authors of The Dynamic Effects of Bundling as a Product Strategy found that bundling in fact increases product purchases.

However, if customers cannot compare the prices of the products when sold individually to the prices of the same products when bundled, many will undervalue the bundled products and postpone their purchases. 

That's because they assume the products must drop in price eventually, so savings will be theirs by waiting.

So if you want to drive sales of bundled products, be sure to also price and offer the products individually.