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5 Brands See Big Value in Multi-Billion-Dollar Influencer Marketing Industry

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5 Brands See Big Value in Multi-Billion-Dollar Influencer Marketing Industry

Brands often use celebrities in their Super Bowl ads because they want to connect their products or services to the fans and followers of these high-profile people.

They’re willing to pay $6.5 million for 30 seconds for an ad to make that connection. Paid influencer marketing can do something similar for B2C and B2B brands that want to reach a big audience without spending millions.

#InfluencerMarketing can do what Super Bowl ads do for brands without the multi-million-dollar expense, says @shane_barker via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

I’ll discuss effective paid influencer marketing strategies, including leveraging influencers to connect with your target audience, generating more leads and sales, and capitalizing on the latest trends.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing involves a business working with someone (i.e., an influencer) who has an audience – usually on social media – the company wants to reach. In most cases, the influencer is compensated for posting on social media to help the company sell a product or represent its brand. Some prefer to partner with affiliate links, earning a commission on each sale. Other influencers will want a one-time fee or ongoing sponsorship fee. Some, often those with smaller followings, will accept free products or services as compensation.

This year, the influencer marketing global market is expected to be $16.4 billion. (In 2016, it was only $1.7 billion.)

1661258974 473 5 Brands See Big Value in Multi Billion Dollar Influencer Marketing Industry

It’s important to invest in influencer marketing for the long term. Having a roadmap of what you want to achieve with your influencer marketing strategy should put your brand on the right path.

Invest in #InfluencerMarketing for the long term. Develop a roadmap of what you want to achieve, says @shane_barker via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Brands want to work through influencers because followers are 92% more likely to trust what they say than they would a traditional advertisement or celebrity endorsement. That trust among the influencer, audience, and your brand can strengthen lead generation and conversion rates.

Data from @themusefind shows 92% say they’re more likely to trust an #influencer they follow more than a celebrity endorsement via @shane_barker @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Influencer marketing is even more important for B2B than B2C because 91% of B2B sales involve some word of mouth.

Now, let’s look at five examples of paid influencer marketing strategies.

1. Find influencers with audiences relevant to your brand

Social media is your first stop. Use applications like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.

IKEA uses influencers to infiltrate new markets quite effectively considering the company’s international growth. For example, they teamed up with Drew Scott who built the Lone Fox influencer brand, which started as a YouTube channel that now has over 1.5 million subscribers. Lone Fox specializes in home decor, specifically hand-made design elements.

In this video, Lone Fox uses IKEA furniture, as well as furniture sold by other brands, to create custom pieces.

TIP: Given his blend of furniture sources, it’s obvious IKEA gives its influencers the freedom to create without strict content control by the brand.

2. Focus on ongoing partnerships

Too often, companies treat an influencer partnership as a one-time deal. They launch a product or service and pay an influencer to review or post about the product once who never speaks about it again. It might result in a spike in sales for a few days, but views and conversions likely will drop quickly.

Online discounter Jomashop has a long-term influencer marketing strategy. It partners with influencers to sell its watches, sunglasses, perfumes, and other luxury brand products. In the last few years, they partnered up with Ashland Kirtland of Gents Scents, a macro influencer with over 280,000 followers on his YouTube channel. He starts some of his videos by offering a discount code for Jomashop. Ashland gets a percentage of sales using that code (i.e., affiliate marketing).

Jomashop also features a Gents Scents page on its site, as shown in this image featuring a billboard image connecting to the influencer – “Top Picks From Gents Scents as seen on YouTube” – followed by 21 fragrances available for purchase.

1661258974 532 5 Brands See Big Value in Multi Billion Dollar Influencer Marketing Industry

Image source

3. Think beyond social media

Bloggers are influencers, too. They can work especially well for B2B companies wanting to create online authority. Similar to influencers on social media, blogger influencers write about the partnered brand’s services or products. They may add them to listicles, reviews, and even daily blog articles.

Adam Enfroy draws an audience interested in his online marketing-focused content. Having him include your brand in his content could get your company good exposure. In this article, Adam details the best social media management tools in 2022, but it’s the disclosure lower on the page that indicates he’s a paid influencer. (All influencer relationships must be disclosed publicly in the content.)

1661258974 791 5 Brands See Big Value in Multi Billion Dollar Influencer Marketing Industry

As Adam explains in the disclosure, he may earn a commission on products purchased through some of the links on the site. Affiliate marketing is a frequent form of compensation in paid influencer marketing.

1661258974 926 5 Brands See Big Value in Multi Billion Dollar Influencer Marketing Industry

Blogger influencer marketing tends to happen in one of two ways:

  • The brand approaches the blogger to offer a paid deal if it’s added to a listicle or review-type article.
  • The blogger writes the listicle or review and then approaches the mentioned companies to do a deal.

The blogger is compensated with a percentage of sales earned through the included link (affiliate marketing), a one-time payment, or a free product.

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4. Create an experience around your brand

An influencer flaunting your new service or product won’t be enough to differentiate your brand in social marketing’s sea of noise. Instead, team up with the influencer to use your product.

Sparkling water brand LaCroix partnered with Julie Ertz, who has almost 1M followers on Instagram, to show off her mixology skills using its product.

5.  Collaborate with influencers with small audiences

LaCroix hasn’t limited its influencer marketing to those with big audiences. It promotes micro-influencers — those with less than 1,000 followers – with a post-publishing compensation strategy. When micro-influencers tag them in their posts, LaCroix sends them vouchers for free products. That strategy can encourage the influencer to continue posting about LaCroix.

The company also uses the micro-influencers’ content in its social feeds. In this Instagram post, LaCroix Water shares an image from Cole Pomrenke, who is flying a plane while holding a can of LaCroix’s limoncello flavor.

Optimize your brand’s influencer marketing

With a paid influencer marketing strategy, return on investment becomes even more important to understand. To optimize ROI for your paid influencer marketing strategies, you should:

  • Set goals for your influencer marketing strategy.
  • Choose key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure those goals, such as revenue vs. conversions or page views vs. impressions.
  • Outline individual goals and detail success metrics in each paid influencer marketing agreement.
  • Evaluate your investment against the results individually and overall.

Paid influencer marketing can be an excellent component of your overall marketing strategy that can help your brand, whether B2B or B2C. It can be a great way to build trust among your clients and customers, as well as get the word out to people you might not reach otherwise.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute



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Comparing Credibility of Custom Chatbots & Live Chat

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Building Customer Trust: Comparing Credibility of Custom Chatbots & Live Chat

Addressing customer issues quickly is not merely a strategy to distinguish your brand; it’s an imperative for survival in today’s fiercely competitive marketplace.

Customer frustration can lead to customer churn. That’s precisely why organizations employ various support methods to ensure clients receive timely and adequate assistance whenever they require it.

Nevertheless, selecting the most suitable support channel isn’t always straightforward. Support teams often grapple with the choice between live chat and chatbots.

The automation landscape has transformed how businesses engage with customers, elevating chatbots as a widely embraced support solution. As more companies embrace technology to enhance their customer service, the debate over the credibility of chatbots versus live chat support has gained prominence.

However, customizable chatbot continue to offer a broader scope for personalization and creating their own chatbots.

In this article, we will delve into the world of customer support, exploring the advantages and disadvantages of both chatbots and live chat and how they can influence customer trust. By the end, you’ll have a comprehensive understanding of which option may be the best fit for your business.

The Rise of Chatbots

Chatbots have become increasingly prevalent in customer support due to their ability to provide instant responses and cost-effective solutions. These automated systems use artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to engage with customers in real-time, making them a valuable resource for businesses looking to streamline their customer service operations.

Advantages of Chatbots

24/7 Availability

One of the most significant advantages of custom chatbots is their round-the-clock availability. They can respond to customer inquiries at any time, ensuring that customers receive support even outside regular business hours.

Consistency

Custom Chatbots provide consistent responses to frequently asked questions, eliminating the risk of human error or inconsistency in service quality.

Cost-Efficiency

Implementing chatbots can reduce operational costs by automating routine inquiries and allowing human agents to focus on more complex issues.

Scalability

Chatbots can handle multiple customer interactions simultaneously, making them highly scalable as your business grows.

Disadvantages of Chatbots

Limited Understanding

Chatbots may struggle to understand complex or nuanced inquiries, leading to frustration for customers seeking detailed information or support.

Lack of Empathy

Chatbots lack the emotional intelligence and empathy that human agents can provide, making them less suitable for handling sensitive or emotionally charged issues.

Initial Setup Costs

Developing and implementing chatbot technology can be costly, especially for small businesses.

The Role of Live Chat Support

Live chat support, on the other hand, involves real human agents who engage with customers in real-time through text-based conversations. While it may not offer the same level of automation as custom chatbots, live chat support excels in areas where human interaction and empathy are crucial.

Advantages of Live Chat

Human Touch

Live chat support provides a personal touch that chatbots cannot replicate. Human agents can empathize with customers, building a stronger emotional connection.

Complex Issues

For inquiries that require a nuanced understanding or involve complex problem-solving, human agents are better equipped to provide in-depth assistance.

Trust Building

Customers often trust human agents more readily, especially when dealing with sensitive matters or making important decisions.

Adaptability

Human agents can adapt to various customer personalities and communication styles, ensuring a positive experience for diverse customers.

Disadvantages of Live Chat

Limited Availability

Live chat support operates within specified business hours, which may not align with all customer needs, potentially leading to frustration.

Response Time

The speed of response in live chat support can vary depending on agent availability and workload, leading to potential delays in customer assistance.

Costly

Maintaining a live chat support team with trained agents can be expensive, especially for smaller businesses strategically.

Building Customer Trust: The Credibility Factor

When it comes to building customer trust, credibility is paramount. Customers want to feel that they are dealing with a reliable and knowledgeable source. Both customziable chatbots and live chat support can contribute to credibility, but their effectiveness varies in different contexts.

Building Trust with Chatbots

Chatbots can build trust in various ways:

Consistency

Chatbots provide consistent responses, ensuring that customers receive accurate information every time they interact with them.

Quick Responses

Chatbots offer instant responses, which can convey a sense of efficiency and attentiveness.

Data Security

Chatbots can assure customers of their data security through automated privacy policies and compliance statements.

However, custom chatbots may face credibility challenges when dealing with complex issues or highly emotional situations. In such cases, the lack of human empathy and understanding can hinder trust-building efforts.

Building Trust with Live Chat Support

Live chat support, with its human touch, excels at building trust in several ways:

Empathy

Human agents can show empathy by actively listening to customers’ concerns and providing emotional support.

Tailored Solutions

Live chat agents can tailor solutions to individual customer needs, demonstrating a commitment to solving their problems.

Flexibility

Human agents can adapt to changing customer requirements, ensuring a personalized and satisfying experience.

However, live chat support’s limitations, such as availability and potential response times, can sometimes hinder trust-building efforts, especially when customers require immediate assistance.

Finding the Right Balance

The choice between custom chatbots and live chat support is not always binary. Many businesses find success by integrating both options strategically:

Initial Interaction

Use chatbots for initial inquiries, providing quick responses, and gathering essential information. This frees up human agents to handle more complex cases.

Escalation to Live Chat

Implement a seamless escalation process from custom chatbots to live chat support when customer inquiries require a higher level of expertise or personal interaction.

Continuous Improvement

Regularly analyze customer interactions and feedback to refine your custom chatbot’s responses and improve the overall support experience.

Conclusion

In the quest to build customer trust, both chatbots and live chat support have their roles to play. Customizable Chatbots offer efficiency, consistency, and round-the-clock availability, while live chat support provides the human touch, empathy, and adaptability. The key is to strike the right balance, leveraging the strengths of each to create a credible and trustworthy customer support experience. By understanding the unique advantages and disadvantages of both options, businesses can make informed decisions to enhance customer trust and satisfaction in the digital era.

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The Rise in Retail Media Networks

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A shopping cart holding the Amazon logo to represent the rise in retail media network advertising.

As LL Cool J might say, “Don’t call it a comeback. It’s been here for years.”

Paid advertising is alive and growing faster in different forms than any other marketing method.

Magna, a media research firm, and GroupM, a media agency, wrapped the year with their ad industry predictions – expect big growth for digital advertising in 2024, especially with the pending US presidential political season.

But the bigger, more unexpected news comes from the rise in retail media networks – a relative newcomer in the industry.

Watch CMI’s chief strategy advisor Robert Rose explain how these trends could affect marketers or keep reading for his thoughts:

GroupM expects digital advertising revenue in 2023 to conclude with a 5.8% or $889 billion increase – excluding political advertising. Magna believes ad revenue will tick up 5.5% this year and jump 7.2% in 2024. GroupM and Zenith say 2024 will see a more modest 4.8% growth.

Robert says that the feeling of an ad slump and other predictions of advertising’s demise in the modern economy don’t seem to be coming to pass, as paid advertising not only survived 2023 but will thrive in 2024.

What’s a retail media network?

On to the bigger news – the rise of retail media networks. Retail media networks, the smallest segment in these agencies’ and research firms’ evaluation, will be one of the fastest-growing and truly important digital advertising formats in 2024.

GroupM suggests the $119 billion expected to be spent in the networks this year and should grow by a whopping 8.3% in the coming year.  Magna estimates $124 billion in ad revenue from retail media networks this year.

“Think about this for a moment. Retail media is now almost a quarter of the total spent on search advertising outside of China,” Robert points out.

You’re not alone if you aren’t familiar with retail media networks. A familiar vernacular in the B2C world, especially the consumer-packaged goods industry, retail media networks are an advertising segment you should now pay attention to.

Retail media networks are advertising platforms within the retailer’s network. It’s search advertising on retailers’ online stores. So, for example, if you spend money to advertise against product keywords on Amazon, Walmart, or Instacart, you use a retail media network.

But these ad-buying networks also exist on other digital media properties, from mini-sites to videos to content marketing hubs. They also exist on location through interactive kiosks and in-store screens. New formats are rising every day.

Retail media networks make sense. Retailers take advantage of their knowledge of customers, where and why they shop, and present offers and content relevant to their interests. The retailer uses their content as a media company would, knowing their customers trust them to provide valuable information.

Think about these 2 things in 2024

That brings Robert to two things he wants you to consider for 2024 and beyond. The first is a question: Why should you consider retail media networks for your products or services?   

Advertising works because it connects to the idea of a brand. Retail media networks work deep into the buyer’s journey. They use the consumer’s presence in a store (online or brick-and-mortar) to cross-sell merchandise or become the chosen provider.

For example, Robert might advertise his Content Marketing Strategy book on Amazon’s retail network because he knows his customers seek business books. When they search for “content marketing,” his book would appear first.

However, retail media networks also work well because they create a brand halo effect. Robert might buy an ad for his book in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal because he knows their readers view those media outlets as reputable sources of information. He gains some trust by connecting his book to their media properties.

Smart marketing teams will recognize the power of the halo effect and create brand-level experiences on retail media networks. They will do so not because they seek an immediate customer but because they can connect their brand content experience to a trusted media network like Amazon, Nordstrom, eBay, etc.

The second thing Robert wants you to think about relates to the B2B opportunity. More retail media network opportunities for B2B brands are coming.

You can already buy into content syndication networks such as Netline, Business2Community, and others. But given the astronomical growth, for example, of Amazon’s B2B marketplace ($35 billion in 2023), Robert expects a similar trend of retail media networks to emerge on these types of platforms.   

“If I were Adobe, Microsoft, Salesforce, HubSpot, or any brand with big content platforms, I’d look to monetize them by selling paid sponsorship of content (as advertising or sponsored content) on them,” Robert says.

As you think about creative ways to use your paid advertising spend, consider the retail media networks in 2024.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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AI driving an exponential increase in marketing technology solutions

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AI driving an exponential increase in marketing technology solutions

The martech landscape is expanding and AI is the prime driving force. That’s the topline news from the “Martech 2024” report released today. And, while that will get the headline, the report contains much more.

Since the release of the most recent Martech Landscape in May 2023, 2,042 new marketing technology tools have surfaced, bringing the total to 13,080 — an 18.5% increase. Of those, 1,498 (73%) were AI-based. 

Screenshot 2023 12 05 110428 800x553

“But where did it land?” said Frans Riemersma of Martech Tribe during a joint video conference call with Scott Brinker of ChiefMartec and HubSpot. “And the usual suspect, of course, is content. But the truth is you can build an empire with all the genAI that has been surfacing — and by an empire, I mean, of course, a business.”

Content tools accounted for 34% of all the new AI tools, far ahead of video, the second-place category, which had only 4.85%. U.S. companies were responsible for 61% of these tools — not surprising given that most of the generative AI dynamos, like OpenAI, are based here. Next up was the U.K. at 5.7%, but third place was a big surprise: Iceland — with a population of 373,000 — launched 4.6% of all AI martech tools. That’s significantly ahead of fourth place India (3.5%), whose population is 1.4 billion and which has a significant tech industry. 

Dig deeper: 3 ways email marketers should actually use AI

The global development of these tools shows the desire for solutions that natively understand the place they are being used. 

“These regional products in their particular country…they’re fantastic,” said Brinker. “They’re loved, and part of it is because they understand the culture, they’ve got the right thing in the language, the support is in that language.”

Now that we’ve looked at the headline stuff, let’s take a deep dive into the fascinating body of the report.

The report: A deeper dive

Marketing technology “is a study in contradictions,” according to Brinker and Riemersma. 

In the new report they embrace these contradictions, telling readers that, while they support “discipline and fiscal responsibility” in martech management, failure to innovate might mean “missing out on opportunities for competitive advantage.” By all means, edit your stack meticulously to ensure it meets business value use cases — but sure, spend 5-10% of your time playing with “cool” new tools that don’t yet have a use case. That seems like a lot of time.

Similarly, while you mustn’t be “carried away” by new technology hype cycles, you mustn’t ignore them either. You need to make “deliberate choices” in the realm of technological change, but be agile about implementing them. Be excited by martech innovation, in other words, but be sensible about it.

The growing landscape

Consolidation for the martech space is not in sight, Brinker and Riemersma say. Despite many mergers and acquisitions, and a steadily increasing number of bankruptcies and dissolutions, the exponentially increasing launch of new start-ups powers continuing growth.

It should be observed, of course, that this is almost entirely a cloud-based, subscription-based commercial space. To launch a martech start-up doesn’t require manufacturing, storage and distribution capabilities, or necessarily a workforce; it just requires uploading an app to the cloud. That is surely one reason new start-ups appear at such a startling rate. 

Dig deeper: AI ad spending has skyrocketed this year

As the authors admit, “(i)f we measure by revenue and/or install base, the graph of all martech companies is a ‘long tail’ distribution.” What’s more, focus on the 200 or so leading companies in the space and consolidation can certainly be seen.

Long-tail tools are certainly not under-utilized, however. Based on a survey of over 1,000 real-world stacks, the report finds long-tail tools constitute about half of the solutions portfolios — a proportion that has remained fairly consistent since 2017. The authors see long-tail adoption where users perceive feature gaps — or subpar feature performance — in their core solutions.

Composability and aggregation

The other two trends covered in detail in the report are composability and aggregation. In brief, a composable view of a martech stack means seeing it as a collection of features and functions rather than a collection of software products. A composable “architecture” is one where apps, workflows, customer experiences, etc., are developed using features of multiple products to serve a specific use case.

Indeed, some martech vendors are now describing their own offerings as composable, meaning that their proprietary features are designed to be used in tandem with third-party solutions that integrate with them. This is an evolution of the core-suite-plus-app-marketplace framework.

That framework is what Brinker and Riemersma refer to as “vertical aggregation.” “Horizontal aggregation,” they write, is “a newer model” where aggregation of software is seen not around certain business functions (marketing, sales, etc.) but around a layer of the tech stack. An obvious example is the data layer, fed from numerous sources and consumed by a range of applications. They correctly observe that this has been an important trend over the past year.

Build it yourself

Finally, and consistent with Brinker’s long-time advocacy for the citizen developer, the report detects a nascent trend towards teams creating their own software — a trend that will doubtless be accelerated by support from AI.

So far, the apps that are being created internally may be no more than “simple workflows and automations.” But come the day that app development is so democratized that it will be available to a wide range of users, the software will be a “reflection of the way they want their company to operate and the experiences they want to deliver to customers. This will be a powerful dimension for competitive advantage.”

Constantine von Hoffman contributed to this report.

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