MARKETING
Authenticity vs AI: How to Stand Out from the Noise!
![Authenticity vs AI: How to Stand Out from the Noise! Authenticity vs AI: How to Stand Out from the Noise!](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1680773012_Authenticity-vs-AI-How-to-Stand-Out-from-the-Noise.jpg)
How to build a content campaign that drives sales quarter after quarter.
We all know the importance of creating content– but creating content for the sake of it doesn’t often result in increased sales. Content campaigns are a great way to engage your audience, build brand awareness, and drive sales quarter after quarter.
In this article, you’ll learn how to create a 90-day content campaign that will deliver lasting value to your business, move prospects through the customer journey more efficiently and effectively, and drive sales! Let’s get started!
6 Levels of Customer Awareness
As your prospects move through the customer journey, their awareness of your brand and offer increases.
In 1966 Breakthrough Advertising, marketer and author Eugene Schwartz identified five stages of customer awareness. Since then, digital marketing has evolved significantly, creating the need for a sixth level of customer awareness that DigitalMarketer introduced.
First, we’ll walk through each level of customer awareness and then create a content campaign that moves prospects through these levels to increase the speed and efficiency of your customer journey.
1. Unaware Stage
Customers in the unaware stage have no knowledge of the problem or perceived need for a solution. To catch a prospect’s attention and keep it, we need to stop the scroll. The best way to do that is with entertainment!
Types of entertaining content for the unaware stage:
- Shock and Awe
- Amazing Demos
- Data/Research
Examples:
Tip: As you scroll social media and the internet, think about the advertisements and content that catch your attention.
![Authenticity vs AI: How to Stand Out from the Noise! 1680773010 860 Authenticity vs AI How to Stand Out from the Noise](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1680773010_860_Authenticity-vs-AI-How-to-Stand-Out-from-the-Noise.jpg)
2. Problem-Aware Stage
Customers in the Problem-Aware Stage know they have a problem but don’t know if a solution exists. They are in need of hope as they search to discover if a solution is available.
Types of hopeful content for the problem-aware stage:
- Question & Answer (Q&A)
- How-Tos
- Brand Case Study
- Success Stories
Examples:
Tip: Leverage tools like AI to help identify what questions customers may have in your industry or niche.
3. Solution-Aware Stage
Customers in the Solution-Aware Stage are researching and comparing their options. They need clarity so they can efficiently and effectively choose the best option for them.
Types of clarifying content for the solution-aware stage:
- Demos
- Tricks & Hacks
- Comparisons
Examples:
Tip: Spend some time researching your competition to understand exactly what your customer is comparing you to so you can address their concerns.
4. Offer Aware Stage
Customers in the Offer Aware Stage are getting ready to make their decision but want to confirm that their choice is going to deliver the outcome they want. They need assurance that you are the right choice
![Authenticity vs AI: How to Stand Out from the Noise! 1680773010 177 Authenticity vs AI How to Stand Out from the Noise](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1680773010_177_Authenticity-vs-AI-How-to-Stand-Out-from-the-Noise.jpg)
Types of assuring content for the offer aware stage:
- Testimonials
- Social Proof
- Behind-The-Scenes
Examples:
Tip: Ask existing customers about the main objections they had before buying and create content that overcomes those objections.
5. The Most Aware Stage
Customers in the Most Aware Stage know you are the best solution for them, but they need a reason to buy now instead of waiting for a better time. The best way to motivate action is with novelty.
Types of novel content for the most aware stage:
- Scarcity & Urgency
- Feature Release
- Product Launch
- Promotion, Sale, Bonus
Examples:
Tip: There are many ways to create a sense of urgency, scarcity or loss aversion in your customers without sales, including bonus stacking and limited-time offers.
6. Disengaged Stage
Customers in the Disengaged Stage need to be reminded of their connection to your brand and why you are an important part of their life. They need to be romanced so they can feel the ‘warm and fuzzies’ beyond what you are selling.
Types of romance content for the disengaged stage:
- Origin Stories
- Behind-The-Scenes
- Bloopers
- Mission Statements
Examples:
![Authenticity vs AI: How to Stand Out from the Noise! 1680773010 574 Authenticity vs AI How to Stand Out from the Noise](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1680773010_574_Authenticity-vs-AI-How-to-Stand-Out-from-the-Noise.jpg)
Tip: Think about your experience as a consumer and reflect on times when you became disengaged with a brand. What caught your attention and brought you back?
The 90-Day Campaign Framework
The purpose of the 90-day campaign is to leverage your organic content to move prospects through the levels of customer awareness and lead them to a promotional period.
This ensures that more prospects are offer informed and ready to buy while giving your content an overall strategy and consistency across platforms. Most businesses have a significant promotional period, sale, launch or event each quarter, making this an ideal timeline.
Evergreen Content
One of the biggest benefits of this framework is that your content is evergreen, meaning it will continue to drive traffic and conversions long after it’s published. You can easily drive ads to your pillar content, leverage remarketing ads to those who visit your pillar content, repurpose content for future campaigns, and make simple updates to keep the content relevant.
Campaign Offer & Theme
The 90-day campaign is used to promote one offer, and each piece of content created should be directly tied to the offer and the ideal customer. Choosing a unifying theme beyond just your offer can help tie all content throughout the campaign together and increase its effectiveness.
Effective themes are taken directly from your customer avatar and can be a) a problem that your offer solves, b) a fear that your offer overcomes or c) a perspective shift that your ideal client needs to successfully achieve their desired outcome.
Campaign Timeline
The 90-day campaign timeline starts with 8 weeks of pre-promotion, followed by a 2-week promotional period and finishes 2 weeks of post-promotion nurturing.
![Authenticity vs AI: How to Stand Out from the Noise! Authenticity vs AI How to Stand Out from the Noise](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Authenticity-vs-AI-How-to-Stand-Out-from-the-Noise.png)
Content Distribution
There are three primary distribution channels used in this content campaign. However, additional channels may be added.
- Website (Blog)
The first channel is your website, where you will post pillar content pieces in the form of articles, videos or podcasts. These pillar pieces should include advertisements for your lead magnet to increase email subscribers, along with advertisements for the chosen offer you are promoting throughout the campaign.
You will be splintering and distributing the pillar content to your email list to drive traffic to your website and increase engagement. During the promotional phase of this campaign, you’ll send a promotional email sequence to drive sales.
- Social Media
You will also be splintering and distributing pillar content to social media channels with the goal of driving traffic to your website and delivering value to your audience in advance of the sale.
Creating & Splintering Content
Each piece of pillar content is splintered to create nurturing emails and social media content. This reduces the overall workload of the campaign because you are only creating the pillar pieces from scratch, and all other content is simply splintered from the existing content. This also allows you to move prospects on your social media channels and email list through the levels of customer awareness, increase email subscribers and drive traffic to your website.
![Authenticity vs AI: How to Stand Out from the Noise! 1680773011 306 Authenticity vs AI How to Stand Out from the Noise](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1680773011_306_Authenticity-vs-AI-How-to-Stand-Out-from-the-Noise.png)
![Authenticity vs AI: How to Stand Out from the Noise! 1680773011 172 Authenticity vs AI How to Stand Out from the Noise](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1680773011_172_Authenticity-vs-AI-How-to-Stand-Out-from-the-Noise.png)
Sequence Matters
As Ryan Deiss says, “sequence matters!” You don’t want to ‘propose on the first date,’ which is why this framework is so effective in nurturing relationships, warming up leads, and increasing conversions. It’s important not to alter the sequence of this framework; however, you can increase the amount of content used in a campaign.
The Promotional Email Sequence
Each piece of pillar content should promote your lead magnet, and you should also promote your lead magnet on your marketing channels throughout the pre-promotion period.
Each week of the campaign, you send out nurturing emails to your list, and although some leads will join your list later in the campaign, you can leverage email analytics to identify the warmest leads on your list by their open rates and click-through rates.
The email promotional campaign is designed to continue moving prospects through the levels of awareness while driving sales or conversions.
On all emails except the first and last email of the sequence, I recommend providing a “soft opt-out” option for subscribers to unsubscribe from the promotional email sequence without being removed from your list. This tactic decreases unsubscribes while allowing you to better segment your list for future campaigns.
Romance After The Campaign
Prospects often need additional nurturing post-promotion, especially if they didn’t feel ready to buy. The post-promotion period is used to reconnect with your audience and nurture them with value before beginning another campaign. This can be a buffer period to strategize and plan your next campaign.
Campaign Best Practices
Here are a few best practices to help you make the most of this 90-day campaign framework.
Campaign #3
This campaign framework is incredibly powerful, but like most marketing campaigns, consistency is critical. Often the first few campaigns will involve a lot of testing and learning and may not deliver instant results.
The most dramatic results come with consistency, and usually, the third campaign is when you’ll start noticing dramatic sales increases. Give yourself time and recognize that there are no silver bullets to success, but following this framework consistently will be about as close as possible.
![Authenticity vs AI: How to Stand Out from the Noise! Content Marketing Certification](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/1673792858_737_AI-and-the-Future-of-Design-Is-There-Still-a.png)
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Video Marketing
There’s no denying the power of video marketing, and showing up consistently on video is like adding a turbo boost to your relationship-building abilities. Whenever possible, leverage video marketing throughout the campaign.
Overcome Objections & Answer Questions
If you know the common objections and questions your ideal customers will ask, address them in your content. Use FAQ sections in your pillar content to tackle those common objections and questions, and distribute the information to your email and social channels.
AI & Execution
You can leverage the power of AI throughout the campaign, from planning to execution. AI can be used for topic ideation and building your pillar content. You can also summarize and splinter your pillar content into emails and social media posts.
Optimizing the AI output is the key to successfully using AI in this process. You will not see success using this framework if you simply let AI do the work for you. You must add your brand voice and optimize the content to meet your ideal customers’ needs and wants.
Conclusion
With this 90-day content campaign framework, you can create content that moves prospects through the customer journey more efficiently and effectively while driving sales. The process is simple to understand and execute, helps you develop valuable evergreen content, works for any industry, and can be replicated time and time again.
MARKETING
YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]
![YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update] YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/YouTube-Ad-Specs-Sizes-and-Examples.jpg)
Introduction
With billions of users each month, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and top website for video content. This makes it a great place for advertising. To succeed, advertisers need to follow the correct YouTube ad specifications. These rules help your ad reach more viewers, increasing the chance of gaining new customers and boosting brand awareness.
Types of YouTube Ads
Video Ads
- Description: These play before, during, or after a YouTube video on computers or mobile devices.
- Types:
- In-stream ads: Can be skippable or non-skippable.
- Bumper ads: Non-skippable, short ads that play before, during, or after a video.
Display Ads
- Description: These appear in different spots on YouTube and usually use text or static images.
- Note: YouTube does not support display image ads directly on its app, but these can be targeted to YouTube.com through Google Display Network (GDN).
Companion Banners
- Description: Appears to the right of the YouTube player on desktop.
- Requirement: Must be purchased alongside In-stream ads, Bumper ads, or In-feed ads.
In-feed Ads
- Description: Resemble videos with images, headlines, and text. They link to a public or unlisted YouTube video.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that play outside of YouTube, on websites and apps within the Google video partner network.
Masthead Ads
- Description: Premium, high-visibility banner ads displayed at the top of the YouTube homepage for both desktop and mobile users.
YouTube Ad Specs by Type
Skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Placement: Before, during, or after a YouTube video.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Action: 15-20 seconds
Non-skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Description: Must be watched completely before the main video.
- Length: 15 seconds (or 20 seconds in certain markets).
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
Bumper Ads
- Length: Maximum 6 seconds.
- File Format: MP4, Quicktime, AVI, ASF, Windows Media, or MPEG.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 640 x 360px
- Vertical: 480 x 360px
In-feed Ads
- Description: Show alongside YouTube content, like search results or the Home feed.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Headline/Description:
- Headline: Up to 2 lines, 40 characters per line
- Description: Up to 2 lines, 35 characters per line
Display Ads
- Description: Static images or animated media that appear on YouTube next to video suggestions, in search results, or on the homepage.
- Image Size: 300×60 pixels.
- File Type: GIF, JPG, PNG.
- File Size: Max 150KB.
- Max Animation Length: 30 seconds.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that appear on websites and apps within the Google video partner network, not on YouTube itself.
- Logo Specs:
- Square: 1:1 (200 x 200px).
- File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG.
- Max Size: 200KB.
Masthead Ads
- Description: High-visibility ads at the top of the YouTube homepage.
- Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher.
- File Type: JPG or PNG (without transparency).
Conclusion
YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to reach audiences effectively in 2024. Whether you want to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or target specific demographics, YouTube provides a dynamic platform for your advertising needs. Always follow Google’s advertising policies and the technical ad specs to ensure your ads perform their best. Ready to start using YouTube ads? Contact us today to get started!
MARKETING
Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists
![Why We Are Always 'Clicking to Buy', According to Psychologists Why We Are Always 'Clicking to Buy', According to Psychologists](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Why-We-Are-Always-Clicking-to-Buy-According-to-Psychologists.pngkeepProtocol.png)
Amazon pillows.
MARKETING
A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots
![A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/A-deeper-dive-into-data-personalization-and-Copilots.jpg)
Salesforce launched a collection of new, generative AI-related products at Connections in Chicago this week. They included new Einstein Copilots for marketers and merchants and Einstein Personalization.
To better understand, not only the potential impact of the new products, but the evolving Salesforce architecture, we sat down with Bobby Jania, CMO, Marketing Cloud.
Dig deeper: Salesforce piles on the Einstein Copilots
Salesforce’s evolving architecture
It’s hard to deny that Salesforce likes coming up with new names for platforms and products (what happened to Customer 360?) and this can sometimes make the observer wonder if something is brand new, or old but with a brand new name. In particular, what exactly is Einstein 1 and how is it related to Salesforce Data Cloud?
“Data Cloud is built on the Einstein 1 platform,” Jania explained. “The Einstein 1 platform is our entire Salesforce platform and that includes products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud — that it includes the original idea of Salesforce not just being in the cloud, but being multi-tenancy.”
Data Cloud — not an acquisition, of course — was built natively on that platform. It was the first product built on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s new cloud infrastructure architecture. “Since Data Cloud was on what we now call the Einstein 1 platform from Day One, it has always natively connected to, and been able to read anything in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud [and so on]. On top of that, we can now bring in, not only structured but unstructured data.”
That’s a significant progression from the position, several years ago, when Salesforce had stitched together a platform around various acquisitions (ExactTarget, for example) that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.
“At times, what we would do is have a kind of behind-the-scenes flow where data from one product could be moved into another product,” said Jania, “but in many of those cases the data would then be in both, whereas now the data is in Data Cloud. Tableau will run natively off Data Cloud; Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud — they’re all going to the same operational customer profile.” They’re not copying the data from Data Cloud, Jania confirmed.
Another thing to know is tit’s possible for Salesforce customers to import their own datasets into Data Cloud. “We wanted to create a federated data model,” said Jania. “If you’re using Snowflake, for example, we more or less virtually sit on your data lake. The value we add is that we will look at all your data and help you form these operational customer profiles.”
Let’s learn more about Einstein Copilot
“Copilot means that I have an assistant with me in the tool where I need to be working that contextually knows what I am trying to do and helps me at every step of the process,” Jania said.
For marketers, this might begin with a campaign brief developed with Copilot’s assistance, the identification of an audience based on the brief, and then the development of email or other content. “What’s really cool is the idea of Einstein Studio where our customers will create actions [for Copilot] that we hadn’t even thought about.”
Here’s a key insight (back to nomenclature). We reported on Copilot for markets, Copilot for merchants, Copilot for shoppers. It turns out, however, that there is just one Copilot, Einstein Copilot, and these are use cases. “There’s just one Copilot, we just add these for a little clarity; we’re going to talk about marketing use cases, about shoppers’ use cases. These are actions for the marketing use cases we built out of the box; you can build your own.”
It’s surely going to take a little time for marketers to learn to work easily with Copilot. “There’s always time for adoption,” Jania agreed. “What is directly connected with this is, this is my ninth Connections and this one has the most hands-on training that I’ve seen since 2014 — and a lot of that is getting people using Data Cloud, using these tools rather than just being given a demo.”
What’s new about Einstein Personalization
Salesforce Einstein has been around since 2016 and many of the use cases seem to have involved personalization in various forms. What’s new?
“Einstein Personalization is a real-time decision engine and it’s going to choose next-best-action, next-best-offer. What is new is that it’s a service now that runs natively on top of Data Cloud.” A lot of real-time decision engines need their own set of data that might actually be a subset of data. “Einstein Personalization is going to look holistically at a customer and recommend a next-best-action that could be natively surfaced in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud.”
Finally, trust
One feature of the presentations at Connections was the reassurance that, although public LLMs like ChatGPT could be selected for application to customer data, none of that data would be retained by the LLMs. Is this just a matter of written agreements? No, not just that, said Jania.
“In the Einstein Trust Layer, all of the data, when it connects to an LLM, runs through our gateway. If there was a prompt that had personally identifiable information — a credit card number, an email address — at a mimum, all that is stripped out. The LLMs do not store the output; we store the output for auditing back in Salesforce. Any output that comes back through our gateway is logged in our system; it runs through a toxicity model; and only at the end do we put PII data back into the answer. There are real pieces beyond a handshake that this data is safe.”
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