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Tech & Data Trends Spur 2019 Fundraising Opportunities

May 14, 2019/in AI, Data Analytics, Data Enhancement, Database Development, Digital Marketing, Direct Mail, Donor Lists, E-mail Marketing, Fundraising, Marketing Automation, Marketing Trend, Mobile Giving, Nonprofit Marketing, Online Giving, Segmentation, Social Media Marketing, Targeting /by David Kanter

Despite 2019’s many challenges for nonprofit marketers, including competing for attention with political fundraising noise, trends in data analytics and technology offer good news for AccuList’s fundraising clients.

Fundraising Can Leverage Digital Innovations

Consider trends highlighted in this spring’s Nonprofit Technology Conference in Oregon. For example, nonprofit tech pros reported success using Digital Wallets, such as Apple Pay, Paypal and Google Pay, to make donating easier for donors and to increase conversions. AI and chatbots are another boon cited by tech experts, not just because they free up staff from time-consuming interfaces but because they can be used to segment audiences and tailor communications to boost donor acquisition, value and retention. Meanwhile mobile text messaging and mobile giving not only continue to grow in use, but nonprofits are learning to leverage SMS to trigger response, scale donor relationships and engage and motivate communities more fully. Online giving continues its growth path, but there are now more online giving services and their offerings are expanding. For example, Give Lively has free online fundraising tools for text-to-give, peer-to-peer, events, and integration with social media platforms such as Facebook. Finally, virtual-assistant voice services have entered the fundraising arena; for example, Amazon’s Alexa now can help donors verbally contribute up to $10,000.

It All Comes Back to Targeted Data

But for tech innovations to be effective, quality data and data analytics are essential. For example, fundraising efforts can use data to identify and segment those groups of current or inactive donors more likely to increase their donation dollars or flag donors to tap as future legacy donors. And data analytics can combine with real-time marketing automation, triggered e-mail series and variable data printing of personalized direct mail for improved donor acquisition. While the task of data collection and analysis can seem overwhelming, nonprofits don’t need to vacuum up every bit of big data for better results. The key is to collect and track the information in the donor database, or to select the key response factors to target in prospect lists, which are most likely to lead to success. Beyond the basics of name, address/contact, gender, age and date and amount of last donation, data targeting can be enhanced with parameters indicating donor capacity (the ability to give) and donor affinity (the willingness to give). Indicators of donor capacity include personal income/wealth measures, real estate ownership, business title, stock ownership, etc., while donor affinity parameters include the RFM (recency, frequency, monetary) of the donor or prospect giving history, past relationship/interest in a specific cause or affiliated appeal, and political affiliation and giving. Check out this article on donor data from Candid’s Philantopic blog for data management tips.

Beware Assumptions About Donor Data

A good database policy also includes regular hygiene and updating as well as an ongoing check for knowledge/data gaps. Classy, the online fundraising software provider, suggests challenging assumptions of donor knowledge by making sure analytics can deliver on these questions:

When are donors most likely to donate?
What is the average donation amount?
What is the average donation amount?
Are there different types of donors?
What is the reason for donation?
How does the donor liked to be thanked?
What is the donor’s communication channel preference?
What value does the donor get from donating?

See the rest of Classy’s suggestions on using data for fundraising.

E-mail, Social Lead Nonprofit Event Marketing

April 15, 2019/in Audience Building, E-mail Marketing, Event Marketing, Fundraising, Marketing Research, Nonprofit Marketing, Referrals, Social Media Marketing, Uncategorized, Video Marketing /by David Kanter

AccuList’s direct marketing services support both event marketers and nonprofit marketers, and, of course, there’s an overlap since many nonprofits use events for fundraising. So we try to keep up with what works in not-for-profit show business, and a recent survey of 500 nonprofits by Eventbrite, a leading event management and ticketing services provider, offers some interesting benchmarks.

No One-Size-Fits-All for Nonprofit Events

The “2019 Eventbrite Pulse Report” found that since nonprofits have multiple purposes, they host multiple event formats besides those geared exclusively to fundraising; in fact, just 32% reported hosting galas and fundraisers aimed at tapping donors. Instead, events for cause, community and educational promotion were cited by 78%, networking events by 37%, training and workshops by 33%, food and drink events by 31%, and arts and entertainment events at the tail end with 22%. Of course, revenue production was still seen as a key to success regardless of event goal.

Ticket Sales Swing Between Big and Bust

And when it comes to event revenue, ticket sales, sponsorships and grants/donations were the top sources reported. However, while ticket sales were seen as a key revenue driver by most (75%), the portion of revenue delivered by ticketing varied widely—from 80%-100% of event revenue for just 15% to less than 20% of revenue for a larger quarter of those surveyed. This underscores the need for both diverse revenue sources and more effective marketing to deliver attendance.

E-mail and Social Media Lead Marketing Efforts

Nonprofit event organizers told Eventbrite that their most effective marketing tactics were e-mail (34%); word-of-mouth and referrals (24%); and social media marketing (22%). In the social media arena, nonprofits relied most on organic posts (23%), paid Facebook ads, and video (9%). Among the tactics deemed less effective in the survey were third-party listings, search engine optimization (SEO), and display ads.

Audience Building Is a Top 2019 Challenge

The perennial “insufficient budget” was seen as a 2019 issue by 45% of nonprofit event planners and securing sponsorships as a problem by 46%, but the top 2019 challenge, cited by 73%, was reaching new attendees. And that is the kind of targeted marketing issue that AccuList can help address! For more benchmark data, see the post on the Eventbrite report.

New Survey: Online Marketing Pumps Offline B2B Sales

April 10, 2019/in Acquisition, B2B Marketing, Brand Marketing, Buying Cycle, Catalog Marketing, Digital Marketing, Digital2Direct, E-mail Marketing, Industrial and Tech Products, Market Vertical, Marketing Plan, Marketing Research, Omnichannel, Online Advertising, Publication Marketing, Recognition and Incentive Marketing, ROI, Sales Funnel, Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Trade Show Marketing, Warehouse and Back Office Products, Website /by David Kanter

AccuList’s many business-to-business marketers—including business/industrial supply catalogs, business periodicals, trade shows, and recognition/incentive products—should be investing in a 2019 omnichannel marketing plan to maximize the online impact on offline buying, at least according to the latest research from Boston Consulting Group and Google. An optimal, best-practices mix of digital engagement channels—such as search, display, video, social media, e-mail and websites—with traditional print catalogs/mail, sales calls and brick-and-mortar stores can increase the marketing contribution to sales by 3% to 8%, BCG has found.

Decision-Making Starts Online, Even for Offline Buys

On average, two-thirds of B2B buyers of industrial machinery, industrial supplies, and packing and shipping products and services indicated in a new BCG survey that their purchase decisions had been significantly influenced by digital, even though the majority of buying journeys end with an offline purchase. The survey revealed that some 58% of industrial-machinery purchases were significantly influenced by online activity, even though 100% of the purchases were made offline. For industrial supplies, 88% of buyers performed some form of online research prior to purchase, while 69% then purchased online and 31% purchased offline. Packing and shipping buyers were more evenly divided in online-offline buying preferences, with 54% digitally influenced, 42% purchasing online and 58% buying offline. But it is the differences underneath the online influence data that reveal the opportunities for boosting sales. For example, spending to boost online branding ads/engagement can pay off when 75% of online industrial machinery researchers said that they consider two or more brands at the start of their buying journeys, compared with 55% of those who engage in offline research only. At the same time, 58% of industrial-machinery buyers said that they begin their online search with a product, rather than a brand, in mind. For these researchers, the manufacturers’ websites become primary points of influence.

Nurtured Online Researchers Make More Follow-up Purchases

One of the more encouraging findings in the BCG study was that online business researchers make more follow-up purchases, especially if there is engagement post-sale. When manufacturers of industrial machinery engage their customers digitally after an initial sale, those customers are three times as likely to research supplementary products, twice as likely to purchase them, and three times as likely to repurchase the product. Buyers of industrial supplies engaged digitally post-sale are eight times as likely to purchase a supplementary product of the same brand and twice as likely to repurchase the same product. Effective after-sales digital marketing activities include promoting online account sign-ups, encouraging app downloads, maintaining regular contact through e-mail or “nurture” communications, and ensuring a positive overall customer experience with the product or service.

Measurement Is Key for an Optimal Online-Offline Mix

For the best marketing return on investment, B2B marketers need to measure impacts and influences across the entire buying journey to connect digital marketing expenditures and tactics to offline sales. BCG found that measurement innovators use a variety of techniques—such as customer research, marketing-mix modeling, multi-touch attribution modeling, matched-market testing, and direct match-back approaches. For example, multi-touch attribution (MTA) is a modeling approach that attributes sales to the marketing activities that contributed most directly to revenues, using predictive models and artificial intelligence to derive statistics-driven attribution weights. Direct match-back uses unique identifiers to tie a sale directly to the marketing activities that generated it at the individual or transaction level. Unique identifiers include credit card information, mobile tracking, in-store beacons, cookies, e-mail addresses or phone numbers.

Read more of the BCG study for survey details and success examples. And ask the AccuList team how we can help via our range of digital marketing services and Digital2Direct program, which combines targeted direct mail with social media ads or e-mail.

For 2019 Edge, Event Pros Shouldn’t Overlook Direct Mail, SEO, Experiential Marketing

February 15, 2019/in Audience Development, B2B Marketing, Brand Marketing, Direct Mail, Direct Mail Lists, E-mail Marketing, Event Marketing, Event Planning, Experiential Marketing, Market Research, Marketing Research, Search Marketing, Segmentation, Social Media Marketing, Trade Show Marketing, Uncategorized /by David Kanter

Per the latest industry surveys, AccuList USA’s trade show and conference marketing clients can look forward to solid event industry growth in 2019–along with potential marketing strategy shifts in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Businesses Are Bullish on Event Marketing

Event software firm Bizzabo’s survey of over 1,000 mid- to senior-level marketers at major companies in 2018 found good news for the event industry: Most respondents (41%) consider live events to be the most critical marketing channel in achieving business outcomes (out of 9 possible channels), a 32% increase from 2017. Business execs are also doubling down on live events. Between 2017 to 2018, the number of companies organizing 20 or more events per year increased by 17%. Additionally, the vast majority of respondents (95%) believe in-person events provide attendees with a valuable opportunity to form connections in an increasingly digital world. This reflects a 12% increase compared to 2017.

E-mail & Social Media Remain Favored Promotion Channels

Meanwhile, Eventbrite, an online event management and ticketing firm, surveyed 1,200 event professionals last year to see how marketers are likely to spend in 2019. Word of mouth, an effective tactic for 63% of event marketers, is bolstered by investments in social media marketing, which 49% of event creators placed among the top three most effective drivers of ticket sales. They cited Facebook and Instagram as the top social platforms for reaching event-goers. E-mail rounded out the top marketing channels per those surveyed, with 38% of event professionals relying on it.

Trends Encourage Growth of SEO & Direct Mail Use

However, with 89% of attendees using search for purchase decisions, Eventbrite foresees a necessary expansion of SEO efforts. There’s definitely room for growth, with almost half (46%) of event professionals saying they aren’t using SEO. And, while e-mail is cited among the favored marketing channels, direct mail continues to turn in higher response for the 41% of event pros who use it. Eventbrite thinks the 50% who cite competition as their biggest challenge will want to reconsider the edge offered by adding mail to their arsenal, urging the hesitant to take a trial run by segmenting mailing lists and sending flyers or save-the-date cards to a test portion.

Experiential Marketing Is 2019’s Hot Buzzword

Experiential marketing is a hot new trend for trade show exhibit providers, brand marketers and event planners. It is a strategy that engages attendees by using branded experiences at an event, as part of an event, or in a pop-up activation not tied to any event. It’s all about immersing people in memorable live experiences to create more lasting and positive brand impressions. Yet Eventbrite found that close to 60% of event creators are not using experiential marketing. Acknowledging an intimidation factor, Eventbrite urges starting small, for example by promoting a pop-up shop (temporary retail space) grand opening at an event, by offering a smaller experiential activation like an on-site art installation, or by using a partner on-site sponsorship to enhance the event experience.

Download the Bizzabo report “2019 Event Marketing Benchmarks and Trends” for more details on event industry trends.

Digital Options Lead 2019 Insurance Marketing Trends

February 15, 2019/in Agency, B2B Marketing, B2C Marketing, Content Marketing, Creative, Customer Service, Digital Marketing, E-mail Marketing, Insurance Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Trend, Mobile Optimization, personalization, Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Targeting, Uncategorized, Video Marketing, Website /by David Kanter

Digital marketing trends dominate professional advice for AccuList USA’s insurance marketing clients this year, from e-mail to social media to online search.

Trends Favor Personalized, Client-Focused Campaigns

Whether insurance marketing via digital or traditional channels such as direct mail, there are some general trends affecting success in 2019, per the American Agents Alliance. First comes the continued value of cultivating brand advocates with testimonials, referrals and word of mouth. Quoting Forbes magazine, “the top four most-trusted sources of advertising are people you know, branded sites, editorial sites, and reviews.” A myopic focus on impersonal advertising will miss these important lead drivers. The personal touch needs to extend into offering targeted, personalized digital and print content that is useful and engaging, as well as client interaction that is real and humanized, not generic and automated. Plus, marketers should take a longer view of prospecting and retention by continuing conversations via remarketing, the AAA advises. And finally, insurance marketers need to really listen during conversations with clients and prospects to understand pain points and how people shop online with search and voice queries in order to develop effective creative content and include key phrases for paid and organic search.

Tweak E-mail & Search to Retain Their Digital Clout

Insurance agency/broker marketing agencies like EaseCentral and OutboundEngine offer some advice on where to focus digital marketing energies more specifically in 2019. Start by revisiting e-mail strategy. With an average $32 return per $1 spent in 2018, e-mail remains an attractive direct marketing option not only because it is inexpensive, highly targeted, and an ROI leader, but because it also offers opportunities for the forwarding, social sharing, and referral business in line with the general trends noted above. However, be sure to check e-mail creative to make sure it is personalized and shares valued content, focusing less on promotion and more on audience needs. Another tried-and-true digital driver, paid and organic search engine ranking, still matters, but search strategy needs an important tweak this year to cater to the growth of voice searches. EaseCentral points out that ComScore forecasts close to 50% of all searches will be made through voice search by 2020. Plus, due to the increasing use of voice search, Google and other search engines are beginning to factor it into their algorithms. Mobile optimization will play a big role in effective leveraging of voice search since these searches occur mainly on mobile devices.

Leverage the Power of Social Media Marketing

Making the most of social media will be a challenge in 2019 as organic reach shrinks and promotional pricing rises, but social platforms offer some unique advantages for insurance marketers looking for a way to humanize and personalize services. For example, EaseCentral suggests using social media to implement a more personalized customer service, with client accessibility on Facebook and LinkedIn. OutboundEngine meanwhile urges more direct marketing via promoted posts and social ads, taking advantage of social media platforms’ increasing ability to target zip codes, professions and other demographics to hone response. In the social media sphere, blogs are the king of content creation, reminds EaseCentral, allowing an insurance marketer to prove expertise and build trust. But remember that a blog’s content-marketing success will require avoiding sales pitches in favor of engaging information of value to the audience.

Embrace Video As the New Must-Have Tool

Video is now a proven response driver in digital marketing for almost all industries, and with online video projected to account for 80% of all web traffic in 2019 per Cisco research, it is a must-have tool in insurance, too. It works for consumer and business prospecting; OutboundEngine cites a recent Forbes finding that an average of 40% of decision-makers call a vendor after watching a video. How to capitalize on the video wave? OutboundEngine suggests the following ideas for website and social media insurance-branding videos: Live stream (with permission) part of an event or fundraiser attended; record a 30-second clip once a week answering a frequently asked question; or post an Instagram story about volunteering in your local community.

2019 Marketing Creative: Simple, Bold, Interactive Design

January 23, 2019/in B2B Marketing, B2C Marketing, Brand Marketing, Creative, Digital Marketing, direct mail creative, E-mail Marketing, Interactivity, Marketing Trend, Mobile Optimization, Print Advertising, Print Technology, Social Media Marketing, Uncategorized, Video Marketing, Website /by David Kanter

A new year brings new marketing creative inspirations for AccuList USA’s direct marketing clients, for both digital and printed promotions. Some interesting trends are shaping up, per graphics and ad agency experts.

Simplified Design, Bold Colors & Retro Vibes Win in 2019

The Ballantine and Brand Shouter agencies and the Digital Agency Network suggest some key digital creative trends to embrace this year, many of which can also be applied to direct mail and print advertising. This year, expect more clean, minimalist designs and less use of borders, bars and boxes to separate elements, all say. At the same time, minimalist doesn’t mean drab; more designers are forecast to embrace bright colors and bold color transitions and gradients with black or white text. And speaking of type, Brand Shouter foresees more beautiful, complimentary, brand-consistent typography as well, especially since marketers are shifting toward more text-only designs, while DAN forecasts more use of multicolored vector fonts. Plus, thanks to print technology advances, metallics will rise in popularity to pop in simplified designs, per DAN. Meanwhile, the minimalist flat look, which works well in mobile presentations, also can be livened with the inclusion of 3D elements, as Apple is doing, notes Brand Shouter. And since everything old is new again at some point, several retro trends are forecast. DAN sees use of the bold duotone graphics of the 1970s as well as vintage fonts and motifs, while Ballantine thinks the bright colors and funky designs of the 1990s and early 2000s, which remind many of today’s designers and target buyers of childhood, will reappear to leverage nostalgia. Finally, hand-drawn illustrations will be used to create that feeling of originality and authenticity, predicts DAN.

Story-telling, Video and Mobile Will Be Ubiquitous

Ballantine underscores three ubiquitous trends for creative this year. Video will only continue its impact in marketing, especially in social media, now that 54% of Internet users watch social media videos at least monthly and 65% of ad impressions on Instagram come from video ads, making video a necessary part of most creative budgets. Story-telling over selling is another general trend, especially in social media advertising, where story ads are designed to reflect a platform’s personal user experience rather than slick promotion, mimicking a post from a friend. Finally, marketing design must cater to mobile users now that 57% of online searches originate on mobile devices, almost 50% of web page views worldwide occur on mobile devices, and 95% of Americans own a cellphone and 57% own a smartphone. Any creative that is not mobile-optimized is sacrificing a huge market.

Watch for Interactivity and Diversity to Break New Ground

A Marketing Week article goes beyond colors, fonts and platforms to highlight other underlying trends likely to impact 2019 creative. For example, the rise of voice-enabled technology creates a push for sonic branding to complement visual creative across platforms, channels and media. Look for brands to begin to weave sound into interactive video, chatbots and voice recognition software. Visa, for example, spent a year working on a signature “chime,” heard whenever customers pay through their phones, to evoke a sense of security and efficiency. Meanwhile, the growing demand for diversity within organizations and their outreach to customers will push marketing creative beyond stock photos of diverse employees or graphics of multicolored hands, suggests Marketing Week. In fact, businesses can use creative development as a non-confrontational, thought-provoking, story-led effort to honestly address concerns. For example, multinational food services and facilities management firm Sodexo launched a campaign supporting its disability inclusion commitment with new creative that presented people as tennis coaches, parents and musicians, rather than focusing on their disabilities.

Check out this useful infographic that includes many of these marketing design predictions at https://venngage.com/blog/graphic-design-trends/

Is Your Fundraising Plan Ready for 2019 Challenges?

January 9, 2019/in B2C Marketing, Creative, Data Management, Data Privacy, Digital Marketing, Direct Mail, E-mail Marketing, Fundraising, Marketing Forecast, Marketing Technology, Nonprofit Marketing, Online Giving, personalization, Segmentation, Social Media Marketing, Social Sharing, Targeting, Uncategorized, Video Marketing /by David Kanter

As nonprofit marketers make final tweaks to fundraising plans for 2019, AccuList USA can support its nonprofit clients with a brief survey of some of this year’s top trends as identified by fundraising pros.

Story-telling, Personalization, Video

NonProfit PRO magazine cites three general 2019 trends that will affect both traditional direct mail and digital fundraising via e-mail, mobile, social media and website. Nonprofits should include a commitment to story-telling in this year’s fundraising communications, the magazine urges. Stories create an emotional connection to the mission and are remembered better than facts, studies show. However, gathering the best stories relies on more than marketers; it requires a story-telling culture that pulls from across the organization, NonProfit PRO stresses. That culture requires leadership buy-in; a mechanism to regularly encourage and gather stories; a story-banking method, from database to manilla folder; and a way to regularly and consistently communicate stories via newsletter, website, social media page, etc. “Personalization” is another marketing mantra for 2019, with success requiring clean up-to-date data and list segmentation to craft targeted messages for direct mail and e-mail. Anyone doubting that response is significantly improved by personalization, even in the crowded digital space, should consider this Hubspot finding: 39% of marketers who segment e-mail lists have a higher open rate, and 28% experience lower unsubscribe rates. Finally, put that targeted story-telling into a video format to maximize results. In 2019, video is projected to represent 80% of Internet traffic. Nonprofits that embrace video will be able to take advantage of the proven facts that people remember videos better than written content and share them more often for viral reach. Luckily, the cost of video production is going down and online tools are readily available, the magazine assures.

Digital Technology Supports Strategy Changes

Meanwhile, the Nonprofit Tech for Good blog identifies some key digital trends to include in 2019 fundraising plans: 1) increased use of marketing automation software to create personalized appeals and individualized pathways and engagement with the general mission and specific programs; 2) more focus on a recurring-gift donor base and commitment to engagement strategies and technologies that nurture donors; 3) more relevant, personalized, contextual messaging based on data technologies; and 4) more disruption by commercial social media players like Facebook via removal of fundraising fees, matching funds and direct access to donor data and AI.

Opportunities & Risks, From Instagram to Data Privacy

The TrueSense Marketing blog came up with a whopping “21 Fundraising Trends and Best Practices You Need to Know in 2019″ from a survey of fundraising pros. We’ll only cite a few here, starting with a prediction that the visually oriented Instagram, which hit 1 billion monthly active users in 2018, including the 50-64 and 65+ age cohorts, will become a more popular platform for nonprofits in 2019. Another prediction is that, with data breaches continuing to grab headlines and a patchwork of data privacy regulations at the state level (such as California Consumer Privacy Act passed last summer), nonprofits will face added costs and changes in data collection and storage policies this year. Finally, one 2019 response to the demand for contextual communications cited above is more experimentation with native social media advertising, meaning ads in a post format in the social feed of followers. Native social media ads are more engaging than traditional advertising, cost less and can produce better results, per fundraising users. For more, see https://www.truesense.com/blog/fundraising-trends-best-practices-2019

Harness These 2019 Trends to Boost Social Media ROI

January 2, 2019/in AI, Apps, Brand Marketing, Content Marketing, CPM, Data Privacy, Influencer Marketing, Interactivity, Lead Generation, Marketing Technology, personalization, Real-time Marketing, ROI, Social Media Marketing, Social Sharing, Uncategorized, Video Marketing /by David Kanter

As social media marketing competition rises, organic reach dwindles and social ROI gets tougher, AccuList USA clients will need to hone their social media marketing data, targeting and creative strategies. Here are just a few big social media trends to include in planning for next year, based on analysis by Hootsuite and Social Media Today.

A Need to Re-build Trust and Transparency

Trust in social networks has declined. Edelman’s “2018 Trust Barometer” found that 60% of respondents no longer trust social media companies, and Facebook is among the hardest-hit, thanks to headlines about its role in 2016 presidential election interference, ongoing “fake news” abuses, and security breaches compromising user data, reports Hootsuite. Twitter has its own trust problems because of the use of bots and fake accounts. As a result, Hootsuite sees brands focusing less on maximizing reach and more on “transparent, quality engagement.” Instead of posting the same content across multiple platforms, marketers are more likely to favor context-specific and audience-specific messaging that reaches smaller but more valuable groups in 2019. The need to balance privacy demands with personalized treatment is also leading marketers to be more open about when and why data is collected and then to use only willingly shared information to create personalized one-to-one experiences and unique value offers. Yet personalization still drives success despite privacy issues. Social Media Today (SMT) reports that up to 96% of marketers surveyed believe personalization advances customer relationships.

Micro-Influencers Replace Celebrity Influencers

As the number of social media influencers has grown over time, prices for their services have climbed, and, at the same time, trust in celebrity influencers has declined, both Hootsuite and SMT report. One solution is to increase use of experts and employee advocates over celebrity influencers, notes Hootsuite. Meanwhile, SMT suggests more micro-influencer marketing. As opposed to major influencers, micro-influencers exist in every marketing niche. While they have followings of fewer than 10,000 people, most of the micro-influencers’ followers are genuinely interested in what they have to say. Since micro-influencers are not massively targeted by advertisers, they also are seen as trustworthy and down-to-earth, notes SMT.

Stories Format Challenges New Feed Use

Hootsuite predicts that “the news feed may be slowly becoming a thing of the past,” as social media users increasingly prefer content in a stories format. Certainly, the stories format has exploded on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp–and is even being tested by LinkedIn. In fact, Hootsuite cites a recent finding by consulting firm Block Party that sharing via that method is growing 15 times faster than feed-based sharing. One way marketers can ride the trend is to push intimate, less polished content in a stories format, suggests Hootsuite, although the company acknowledges that the stories format’s intimacy and spontaneity do not fit with all brands.

ROI Gets Tougher, But Shopping Gets Easier

Social marketers who rely mainly on organic reach are behind the curve. The pay-to-play era is here and driving larger social ad budgets, Hootsuite notes, with “The CMO Survey” reporting a 32% increase in social budgets in 2018 alone. As the price tag for social ads rises, along with competition for audience, ROI is getting tougher. Hootsuite can cite the most recent “Internet Trends Report” from Mary Meeker, which found that while click-through rates on Facebook are up 61%, CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) have soared 112%. But good ROI is still attainable, especially as the gaps between social media and commerce narrow. For example, Meeker’s 2018 report also showed that 55% of survey respondents have purchased products online after social media discovery. Shopping is being made easier by technologies such as in-stream payment tools and video plugins along with social media special features such as shoppable posts, Instagram’s Explore shopping tab, Facebook Marketplace and Pinterest’s Buyable Pins. Video is especially effective in social ads, with a study by video marketing company BrightCove showing that 74% of respondents cited a connection between watching a social video and making a purchase.

Growing Real-Time Messaging and Listening

Messaging applications are becoming integral to social media business relationships. Hootsuite cites a survey from Twilio, which found that nine out of 10 respondents would like to use messaging apps to communicate with businesses. Plus a study by Facebook IQ finds that 61% of U.S. respondents used a messaging app to contact a business in the prior three months. The audience reach of messaging is undeniable. According to Meeker’s report, the top five messaging applications—WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Instagram and Twitter—total some 5 billion monthly users. However, there are challenges, warns Hootsuite, such as messaging scale and using artificial intelligence in a way that avoids privacy infringement and unsolicited communication. The next step, predicts SMT, is use of social listening (monitoring) to actively generate leads and facilitate social selling. Social listening is the act of crawling the web and social media platforms to find all mentions of a brand (or keywords) on social media platforms, blogs, forums and news sites. Monitoring tools such as Awario, Brand24, Mention, Brandwatch, and Hootsuite now are used mainly for customer service and reputation management, but a few brands are already monitoring to find leads, and some monitoring tools are introducing features for lead generation!

Today’s Zoo Marketing Embraces Conservation, Digital

October 30, 2018/in Analytics, B2C Marketing, Content Marketing, Creative, Digital Marketing, Digital2Direct, Engagement, Fundraising, KPI, Marketing Trend, Museum & Zoo Marketing, Nonprofit Marketing, Online Advertising, Profiling, Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Targeting, Uncategorized, Video Marketing, Website /by Katherine Sharma

AccuList USA helps a number of museums and zoos with marketing to members, donors and visitors. A 2017 report on the U.S. market for museums, historical sites, zoos and parks, worth $14.5 billion annually, noted that some of the most significant changes are occurring in the zoo market. Consumers’ rising concerns about conservation and ethical treatment of animals have been a driving force. As the public loses its appetite for viewing animals in cages, zoos are initiating a new stress on realistic exhibits and conservation–and their marketing is reflecting that shift.

Zoo Marketing Wins by Stressing Conservation and Natural Habitats

A recent Platform Magazine article on the new wave in zoo marketing, noted to its PR-pro readers that the winning zoo marketing strategy seems to lie in finding the middle ground between promoting conservation and creating entertainment. Many zoos do this by creating exhibits that mimic animals’ natural habitats. For example, the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington, promotes exhibits for jaguars, penguins and grizzly bears, which have won exhibit design awards. Meanwhile, the Houston Zoo not only advertises the fact that it shares part of the money from each ticket with conservation programs but plans to build a new exhibit to showcase the Texas Wetlands, which have a large variety of animal and plant life. The Platform article also cites Zoo Atlanta’s strategy for merging consumer experiences and conservation by promoting its contributions to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan (SSP) with new animals’ births that help “maintain healthy, genetically diverse and self-sustaining animal populations within North American zoos.”

Zoos Use Digital Marketing to Stretch Budgets

However, one marketing challenge for nonprofit zoos like Zoo Atlanta is stretching “our limited advertising budget,” Vice President of Marketing and Membership Tracy Lott acknowledges. And digital media investments are one way her zoo stretches those marketing resources. For zoos following Zoo Atlanta’s lead by starting or expanding a digital marketing strategy, Search Influence, a digital marketing agency, suggests five key steps to success. Efforts need to begin with planning, with an emphasis on defining member/donor/visitor profiles for targeting. Then local prospects, loyal members and tourists can be sent the different messaging that will resonate and drive response. Next comes a polished website to showcase attention-getting content and provide a platform for sales and donations, supported by a traffic-building investment in search optimization and paid search. Third, zoos need a curated content-marketing strategy for website, social media and paid digital advertising to promote unique draws, from exhibits and events to conservation and education. Leveraging that great content then requires a targeted digital advertising strategy. Since 90% of time online is spent outside of search, mainly on Facebook, Instagram and other social platforms, one focus should be social media ads with enticing video, graphics and messaging. These ads can be targeted by interests, location, family status, buying behavior and more to boost response. These also can be tied into a multi-channel strategy that includes direct mail; for example, our Digital2Direct program serves Facebook ads to selected “matched” postal records. Finally, to maximize ROI, marketers need analytics with defined KPIs per platform, including use of Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to track multiple e-commerce platforms and websites.

Industrial Marketers Bet More on 2018 Direct & Digital

October 25, 2018/in Acquisition, B2B Marketing, Business Catalog, Buyer Profile, Catalog Marketing, Data Analytics, Data Quality, Digital Marketing, Direct Mail, Direct Mail Lists, E-commerce, E-mail Lists, E-mail Marketing, Industrial and Tech Products, List Research, Market Vertical, Marketing Research, Multi-Channel Marketing, Predictive Analytics, Profiling, Prospecting, Real-time Marketing, Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Targeting, Uncategorized, Warehouse and Back Office Products /by Katherine Sharma

AccuList USA has a long track record of helping warehouse, industrial and back-office product marketers via data brokerage, predictive analytics and multi-channel direct marketing, and we’ve learned some important lessons along the way.

Industrial & Tech Marketing Budgets Expand in 2018

The good news is that many industrial marketers were inspired to expand investment in 2018. According to the “2018 Budget Trends in Industrial & Technology Marketing” report published by engineering.com, industrial marketing budgets in 2018 are expected to hit “the highest levels of growth (45%) and the lowest reported levels of shrinking budgets (4%), of any of the last five years.” More than half (54%) of manufacturing marketers expect their budget to be larger in 2018.

Quality, Targeted Data Is Key to B2B Direct Marketing

But expanded multi-channel spending still needs to be smart spending. As data brokers, we can’t overemphasize that successful B2B direct marketing–including direct mail, print catalogs and e-mail campaigns–starts with quality, targeted data. Marketers can boost response by using predictive analytics and buyer profiles to target–and then opt for the rental lists of active product inquirers/buyers that our proprietary list research finds to be top performers in each vertical. Targeting the right message to decision-makers in the buying process is also key; with product and industry factors affecting whether to select a chief engineer, purchasing manager, warehouse manager, human resources chief, or C-suite executive in mailing lists.

A Digital Strategy Is Now Essential for Leads and Sales

While direct mail continues its response leadership, there’s no denying that most B2B buyers are digital shoppers today. Research by Acquity Group finds 94% of B2B buyers say they conduct some form of online research before purchasing a business product, for example. Forrester Research has found that 59% of B2B buyers prefer not to interact with a sales rep, and 74% find buying from a website more convenient. That makes digital catalog sites into essential sales tools, giving customers the option to browse product, pricing, and inventory information in real-time and then self-serve. Of course, online traffic-building requires a good search engine optimization (SEO) strategy given that 73% of global traffic to B2B companies comes from search engine results. But most successful B2B marketers also invest in paid digital efforts. In fact, a 2015 study by Content Marketing Institute, MarketingProfs, and Fathom found that manufacturers ranked search engine marketing highest among paid marketing options in terms of efficacy (52%) and promoted social media posts came in second (39%). For social media ads, B2B marketers see video as a top response tactic, which is why manufacturers in the study ranked YouTube as the most effective social media site, followed by LinkedIn ads, which AccuList USA supports. Take a deeper dive into the core elements of digital industrial marketing with this post by gorilla76, a B2B consulting firm.

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