The Next Generation of Influencer Marketing

Author: Ellen Gomes

More and more marketers today are tapping into influencer marketing. Why? Because influencer marketing has the potential to act as a new, relationship-based channel to reach new audiences and build credibility with existing audiences.

From personal experience, influencer marketing can be a tough nut to crack. It’s easy to fall into the trap of doing random acts of influencer marketing and not truly building a relationship or offering a value exchange to the people you identify as influencers in your space.

As influencer marketing becomes more commonplace amongst marketers, its evolution is something that marketers looking to innovate must track, understand, and keep up with. The latest report, Influencer 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing, from TopRank Marketing, Traackr, and Altimeter Group reveals the ways that influencer marketing is evolving, possibly into a field called influencer relations.

Here are four top takeaways from Influencer 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing:

1. For the majority of marketers, influencer marketing is seen as strategic (almost 75%) but only 24% of marketers have an ‘always on’ program, and only 5% have integrated influencer marketing into all of their activities.

This is an indicator of early maturity in influencer marketing. Brands, organizations, and marketers understand the power of engaging influencers, but may lack the resources to make it part of their overarching strategy. Instead, they often work in either as a grassroots effort from one organization or an extension of existing PR efforts. While this is a good start, working at a tactical/individual campaign level like this can sometimes hinder the evolution of a sustainable influencer marketing program as it’s difficult to prove the overarching strategic impact.

2.  Influencer marketing does not sit in one function. In fact, more than two-thirds (80%) of survey respondents state that three or more departments engage with influencers now.

Influencers exist in different realms–leading brands, content and social media connoisseurs, analysts, and even customer advocates. As such, different departments work to strengthen influencer relationships within their space, so it’s important to have a holistic strategy as an organization. One way to stay aligned is to meet regularly to understand common goals and key responsibilities, perhaps in a committee with a stakeholder representing each department.

 

3.  Marketers want influencer marketing to help them engage across the business and the entire customer lifecycle. The top goals and the future of influencer marketing focus on advocacy (94%) and awareness (92%).

This stat exemplifies how marketers are evolving their thinking and strategies for influencer marketing. Rather than simply seeing influencer marketing as a tactic to promote specific messages, marketers are looking across the organization and customer lifecycle to leverage the whole swath of benefits that influencer marketing can offer.

4. CMOs (34%) are leading digital transformation inside organizations, and that starts and ends with delivering true engagement.

Like our CEO, Steve Lucas, recently mentioned in his blog, the Engagement Economy is here, and it demands true, authentic, engagement. Digital transformation is not about processes, technology, or even sales and marketing—it’s about transforming your organization at its core to create experiences that feel real and human and are founded on trust and care. This report illustrates how influencer marketing is a key component of that change by sharing that, “the more human marketing becomes, the more digital transformation can also become human…”

As influencer marketing evolves, it will become more relationship-based and act as a strategic pillar for the entire organization—from content to customer retention to employee advocacy. If you are looking for more data on how influencer marketing is being practiced in organizations today, and where it could be most impactful in the future, make sure to check out Influence 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing.

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The Next Generation of Influencer Marketing was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

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How to Dramatically Increase Views on Embedded Website Videos with One Simple Trick

Would you like your website visitors to watch more of your embedded videos? If so, this article will show you a powerful and simple trick to instantly increase watch time on embedded videos.

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Hubcast 126: Parent-Child, Push Notifications, and Teaching Video

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5 Ways to Find Marketing Inspiration in Your Daily Life

Author: Mike Madden

You’ve been putting it off for long enough. That email won’t right itself. Nor will that landing page or banner ad. But someone just brought leftover birthday cake into the kitchen! Gosh, that cake looks good. Chocolate is your favorite. Decisions, decisions…

We’ve all been there before. It’s easier to avoid creating new marketing messages than it is to avoid the cake (insert any other distraction you might commonly use). Some call it writer’s block, others might call it having an ‘off’ day. How can a marketer expect to be creative all the time? Athletes have bad days, so why can’t we? The truth is that we are inundated by thousands of marketing messages every single day and it’s up to us, the marketers, to draw inspiration from our peers.

When I’m having a ‘stuff my face with cake instead of write marketing emails’ kind of day, here are my usual sources of marketing inspiration:

1. Subscribe to More Emails

I know what you’re thinking, “This Mike guy is nuts!!!” Who in their right mind would subscribe to MORE emails? Whether you like it or not, every email you receive might have a catchy sentence, an eye-catching creative, or the world’s most hilarious call-to-action. Stop looking at those emails as a nuisance and begin to see them as a source of inspiration.

See what fellow marketers are doing to get you to open and click. Scrutinize their subject line or use a variation in your own marketing campaigns. Feel like you’ve just seen the most beautiful email layout in all the land? Try to create something similar. Love how the color scheme or imagery makes you feel? Test it out in your own campaigns! The point is that millions of emails are sent every day and your next source of marketing inspiration could be hitting your inbox at any moment. Be careful not to get addicted to checking your personal email…you may even want to create a separate folder for it.

2. Look at Billboards

When traffic stinks and the radio keeps playing that same annoying pop song, look to billboards for marketing inspiration. A billboard is like a marketing elevator pitch. Over the course of what might be three seconds, the marketer who wrote that billboard needs to make you feel something profound, memorable, and actionable without stirring so much emotion that you flip your car. If you only had three seconds (or less) to make an impact on a potential customer, what would you do? I’d probably panic. But billboard marketers are uncommonly skilled at writing 1,000 words in a couple sentences or less, similar to an email subject line.

Here’s an example from Prudential:

“The first person to live to 150 is alive today. Let’s get ready for a longer retirement.”

And just like that, a 26-year-old marketer in Silicon Valley is thinking, “Whoa, am I financially prepared for that? What can I do now to set myself up for a successful retirement in the future?” Retirement is a complex milestone that many young adults neglect, and yet, Prudential made it top-of-mind in two sentences.

3. Stop Muting Those Pesky Commercials

Like billboards, commercials have a limited amount of time to win over your attention. Since you usually watch commercials on your couch at home (hopefully with chocolate chip cookies in hand), the music, lighting, actors, script, and product need to accomplish one main objective: be memorable. Otherwise, you’d completely forget to buy whatever it is they’re selling!

Next time you see a good commercial, pay close attention to what exactly made it memorable for you. Was it funny? Did it have a catchy jingle like State Farm commercials? Did it have heart? Do you feel like you trust that brand more? Now, take those feelings, write down what you think cause them, and see what lessons can be applied to your very own marketing efforts.

4. Listen to Music

Most of you probably do this anyway, but it’s how you approach it that’s important. Music breaks down complex human emotions and translates them into catchy, often simple lyrics, which is extremely similar to what we do as marketers. Listen to the lyrics and try to understand the feelings behind them and how they came to be written. Sometimes, trying to understand someone else’s creative process can help trigger creativity in yourself. Plus, it helps you step out of your project, which might help the inspiration come to you more naturally.

Outside of listening to the lyrics for marketing hints, it’s also important to choose the right music for your mood. Have you ever spent an obscene amount of time finding just the right song for a moment? Just like an Olympic sprinter wouldn’t listen to slow classical music during training, you may not want to listen to death metal while writing a heartfelt thank you email to your subscribers. Or, maybe that’s your thing! The point is that music helps us dial up our mood and change our perception, helping create optimal writing conditions. Start building out different playlists and use it to your advantage!

5. Step Away from Your Work

The most important source of marketing inspiration is staring at you in the mirror. Unfortunately, our days are cluttered with various distractions. We check our emails first thing in the morning. We check Facebook every five seconds. Instagram every three seconds. We can’t even go to the bathroom without checking our phones (gross, right?)! And all the while, there’s a brilliant, talented marketer hidden away in your brain just waiting to come out with outstanding ideas. Take a moment to turn off all your distractions and let your mind wander. Think about anything you want. And every so often, a fabulous original idea will come to you from out of nowhere!

That’s all I have for you! What do you use for marketing inspiration? Have you found the key to defeating writer’s block? Share in the comments below.

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5 Ways to Find Marketing Inspiration in Your Daily Life was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

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Facebook Adds Community Help to Safety Check

Facebook announced today a new feature for it's Safety Check called Community Help, which makes it easier for people to find and offer help to others needing food, housing or transportation during or after a regional crisis such as an earthquake, flood or other disaster.

"Our belief is that the community can teach us new ways to use the platform," noted Naomi Gleit, VP Social Good for Facebook. "We saw people using Facebook to tell friends and family they were OK after crises, so in 2014 we launched Safety Check to make that behavior even easier. Since then, Safety Check has been activated hundreds of times, but we know we can do more to empower the community to help one another."

Facebook Safety Checks are an alert allowing people to mark themselves as safe during times of a regional emergency. When Facebook's algorithm notices a surge in posts about a crisis near you a safety check is triggered which then prompts all Facebook users within the crisis area with a notification and link to mark yourself as safe.

Gleit says that Community Help will initially be available for natural and accidental incidents, such as an earthquake or building fire, with plans to add additional types of disasters later upon evaluation of how the new feature is used. The feature is launching in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and Saudi Arabia.

Here's how Facebook describes the new feature:

For the community to use Community Help after an incident, Safety Check must first be activated. For Safety Check to activate, two things need to happen:

• First, global crisis reporting agencies NC4 and iJET International alert Facebook that an incident has occurred and give it a title, and we begin monitoring for posts about the incident in the area.
• Second, if a lot of people are talking about the incident, they may be prompted to mark themselves safe, and invite others to do the same.
• And starting today, if an incident is a natural or accidental disaster, people will see Community Help. They can find or give help, and message others directly to connect from within Safety Check.

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Virtual Reality Is Now a Marketing Reality [Gifographic]

Author: Elaine Ip

Virtual reality (VR) is literally a reality now.

Once an out-of-reach technology, VR is now an out-of-the-box technology—accessible by consumers and brands alike. From Oculus Rift to smartphone-powered headsets, anyone can immerse themselves and others into a virtual world.

Marketers, who are responsible for driving the customer experience, stand to make huge gains with VR campaigns. In fact, 30% of Forbes Global 2000 consumer-facing companies will experiment with augmented and virtual reality this year. But if you’re a B2B organization, don’t write yourself off just yet. All brands can partake.

Virtual Reality Extends to Different Industries

If you’re a tech geek, it’s likely that you’ve already toyed around with virtual reality. Uses for it are everywhere—video games, home improvement, and shopping. Even the beloved Golden State Warriors looked to VR when they were pursuing Kevin Durant. They created a custom experience to show Durant what it was like to be on the Warriors team—from being in the locker room, to practicing, to walking out to a game in the tunnel. While Kevin was ultimately more interested in hearing from his potential teammates, the fact that the Warriors could offer him this experience is incredible. And it only reiterates the importance of continuing to engage with your prospects and customers from one touchpoint to the next—leading up to, during, and after a VR experience.

Of course, creating custom virtual reality experiences like this isn’t feasible for every brand. That doesn’t mean you should overlook the potential of VR, even if you’re marketing to other businesses. Driving registrations for an upcoming event? Give people a sneak peek and allow them to walk through the event halls, taking in all the people, sounds, and fun activities. Launching a new product? Show your prospects how much faster their peers are completing their day-to-day responsibilities, whizzing through their workload at record speed. If you can conceptualize an experience, you can create it with virtual reality. In other words, if you can dream it, you can create it (and let your audience interact with it) with virtual reality.

We’re Wired to Respond

The power of virtual reality isn’t just in the technology. Our brains are wired to be influenced by VR experiences, which appeal to the three parts of the brain that are responsible for our perceptions and reaction: neocortex (higher-level thinking), limbic system (emotion, behavior, motivation), and reptilian brain (primitive instincts). While content is high and mighty when it comes to engagement, you can’t always appeal to all three of these categories at the same time. But by giving your audience a virtual experience, you can leverage these core functions to nudge them to take the next desired action. Instead of just hearing things, your prospects and customers things can see and feel them.

To drive the power of virtual reality home, we’ve created this gifographic Virtual Reality: A Fresh Perspective for Marketers to show you the difference a more immersive experience can make.

Looking for other ways to employ forward-thinking tactics and technologies? Check out our 2017 Marketing Predictions SlidesShare

View the gifographic in a new window here.

Please use the HTML code below to embed this graphic

<a href="http://blog.marketo.com/2017/02/virtual-reality-is-now-a-marketing-reality-gifographic"><img alt="Virtual Reality Is Now a Marketing Reality [Gifographic]" src="http://blog.marketo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Virtual-Reality-A-Fresh-Perspective-for-Marketers-Marketo.gif" width="100%" /></a><br><p><small>Brought to you by <a href="https://www.marketo.com/software/platform/">Engagement Platform by Marketo</a></small>

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Virtual Reality Is Now a Marketing Reality [Gifographic] was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

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How Marketing Automation Can Save You From the Email Marketing Doldrums

Author: Dayna Rothman

What is the difference between email marketing and marketing automation? And when do you know when your company is ready to make the switch? These are questions we get asked all of time by both small and large businesses. We all know how powerful and important email marketing is to your marketing toolbox, but implementing marketing automation can dramatically increase the effectiveness of the email marketing strategy you already have in place. Let’s take a look at some of the advantages of marketing automation and see if you company is ready to make the leap.

The Advantages of Marketing Automation:

Saves you time:

Marketing departments need to produce high quality leads in the least amount of time. Through marketing automation, you can start to take the manual work out of crafting individual emails. Instead, you can focus on creating multi-stage, automated campaigns that nurture your leads while you get other work done.

Saves sales time:

For a sales rep, there is no bigger waste of time than chasing down a lead that isn’t ready to purchase or who isn’t qualified. With marketing automation, you can make sure that sales are only following up with leads who are ready to buy. Additionally marketing automation platforms can score your leads based on how they engage with campaigns or content. You can also score based on demographic or lead characteristics.

Enables you to produce more sales-ready leads:

Typically when a prospect engages with you, they are often not ready to buy yet. If you are only using an Email Service Provider all you can really do is send out individual email blasts, which is time consuming and not very effective. With marketing automation, you can nurture your leads until they are ready to purchase. You can set up lead nurturing  campaigns and triggers that will move your prospects through the funnel.

Generate more revenue:

You only get very basic metrics from an ESP and typically these stats can’t show you whether or not your marketing campaigns are creating sales. Marketing automation has much more sophisticated metrics, so you will be able to show your executives exactly how much impact each campaign had on the bottom line. Then you can iterate and improve!

Is Marketing Automation Right for your Organization?

If you are still unsure whether it is time to graduate from your Email Service Provider you should take a look at your organization and marketing practices. You should consider marketing automation if:

• Your customer buying process lasts longer than a week
• Sending emails alone does not seem to drive sales
• Your marketing team needs an easier way to create and send targeted, multi-touch email campaigns
• Your marketing department does not have enough time to do everything they need to do with their current resources
• You sell different products or services to different demographics
• You want to send different messages to different titles and industries
• Your salespeople are complaining about the quality of leads your marketing team is delivering
• You want to know which of your marketing campaigns are the most effective
• You can’t tell if you should be spending more or less money on marketing

Still not sure? Check out our new whitepaper Graduating from Email Marketing to Marketing Automation for more insight.

Image via Bark & Clark

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How Marketing Automation Can Save You From the Email Marketing Doldrums was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

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