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Customer Experience & Digital Experience

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Customer Experience & Digital Experience

Marketers will be engaging with more customers in three-dimensional virtual spaces next year. As the virtual ecosystem evolves, it won’t be limited to a single technology or walled garden. The rush to produce 3D experiences for consumers is already underway and set to mature in the coming year.

Shubham A. Mishra, CEO and Co-Founder of codeless AI infrastructure tech company Pyxis One, calls out VR and AR as the “next big things.”

“We are witnessing an increased pace of acquisitions of VR and AR startups, so it’s going to be interesting to see if, and how, brands incorporate AR into their marketing strategy,” Mishra said.

In 2021, the parent company formerly known as Facebook put all its weight behind a virtual reality experience for relationship building and customer engagement. It also rebranded its consumer Oculus VR headsets as Meta Quest

All the while, marketers who were well aware of the skyrocketing advertising rates on Facebook (Meta’s flagship social network) could see history repeating itself, as bricks were being laid for another walled garden, a virtual one which, instead of “metaverse,” could be more accurately described as a “Zuckerverse” after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

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But, what if the Facebook people don’t get to monopolize the VR ecosystem? What if, instead of one metaverse, there are many connected metaverses? This is how Tony Zhao, Co-Founder and CEO of video developer platform Agora, sees the virtual-scape shaping up next year.

“The way current metaverses are set up isolates each on their own digital island,” said Zhao. “But next year, real-time engagement technology will enable connectivity between metaverses and create a more connected and engaging experience for users. It will also reduce the barrier to entry by simplifying access to the metaverse to something as ubiquitous as a web browser.”

Real-time engagement

Virtual and hybrid conferences are here to stay. What will keep virtual attendees connected in both virtual and real-world environments is real-time engagement (RTE).

Zhao sees RTE applying to a growing number of metaverses, gaming experiences and data transmissions.

“These industries will embrace RTE and extend its capabilities well into the future,” he said, adding that “early adopters of live and interactive video and audio are app developers and digital-first companies.”

As we saw in other areas of marketing technology in the last year, RTE is likely to get a boost from the low-code and no-code movement.

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“In 2022, we will see more and more traditional enterprises adopting real-time engagement technology, thanks to the rise of no-code and low-code tooling,” said Zhao. “No-code and low-code tooling will empower enterprise agility, quicker development turnaround times, and accelerate business outcomes.”

Virtual and in-person conference experiences

The Omicron variant that emerged at the end of 2021 indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to be a concern for in-person events, calling on digital solutions to keep customers engaged.

“As the pandemic continues, we will transform how events are consumed both in-person and virtually,” said Zhao.

He added, “More and more robots will traverse the conference floors providing ‘on-the-ground’ information and visuals to viewers around the world. Drones will stream information from above audiences, offering even greater real-time experiences, sending streams from above and on the floor to people all over the world who will participate with greater human-to-human connections than we’ve ever seen.”

Micro-communities

Human-to-human connections also proliferate in digital communities, and this has been the case since the earliest days of the web. Brands are discovering that smaller groups can make a bigger impact on individual consumers and build stronger engagements among micro-communities. This community building at the micro-level will grow stronger next year.

“Expect to see more brands build micro-communities around their products to offer consumers genuine and meaningful experiences in the virtual and real world,” said Philip Smolin, Chief Platform Officer for 100.co, a new AI-powered marketing platform focused on CPG brands. “This will foster a collaborative relationship between brands and customers. So, instead of spying on consumers through cookies, brands can simply ask consumers for feedback and offer them recommendations based on their likes and dislikes.”

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According to Smolin, brands use digital engagement not just to provide easier discovery and buying options since they’re not just selling a product. “They’re successfully building a community of like-minded consumers…[and] this can even segue into the real world, where post-Covid consumers will crave more experiential events at stores and malls,” he explained.

A key feature of the new year’s customer engagement is that it won’t matter whether it’s online or out in the real world. The successful customer journey will always be underpinned by some kind of digital architecture.

Hard turn to mobile and text

For retail brands, digital technology increasingly will be used to unlock value from a brand’s physical store footprint.

“Don’t give up on brick-and-mortar just yet,” said Michael Osborne, President of messaging and notification engine Wunderkind. “Physical locations support online shopping habits by giving consumers the chance to touch products in real life. This can drive overall sales, even if stores themselves are not producing revenue.”

When shoppers are in-store, they still have their phones on them, and that’s where the mobile strategy becomes even more relevant to the customer experience.

“A mobile strategy has been proven to be more popular with consumers, to give immediate opportunity to pursue action (e.g., sending a product link via text),” Osborne said. “The accessibility to consumers while they are on-the-go is key to being able to market amidst active and busy consumer behaviors.”

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He calls personalized texts and emails, which can be accessed by a shopper in-store or at-home, “the difference between a modern vs. a traditional marketing approach.”

Relevant messaging that uses the first-party data customers are sharing with a brand through purchases and other channels can boost ROI when they get a truly useful and personalized texts. These mobile and SMS communications will only increase next year.

“Data based on consumer shopping habits and patterns help create tailored messaging for meaningful consumer-retailer engagement,” Osborne explained. “The need and use of tangible marketing metrics and measurable ROI to boost revenue pinpoint the categories consumers are more fond of, for individualized messaging.”

Changing of the guard

Marketers were working long hours last year in an effort to boost their SMS strategies. This sets the stage for a takeover in 2022, as digital non-native consumers have transformed their habits to digital and mobile-first.

“There is no doubt the pandemic accelerated digital adoption,” said Chris Bauserman, Vice President of Marketing for cloud-based experience platform NICE CXone. “In almost two years, non-digital natives have become more digitally fluent. And as such, demand for more digital customer service touchpoints that help these consumers and their specific needs has increased.”

Bauserman contends that in 2022, digital transformation will become generation-less.

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“With more digital savvy consumers within all generational groupings, brands will be able to usher in a much larger digital component with both mobile and self-service finally able to take precedence,” Bauserman said.

Read next: 2022 Predictions: E-commerce everywhere

About The Author

2022 Predictions Data strategy and privacy
Chris Wood draws on over 15 years of reporting experience as a B2B editor and journalist. At DMN, he served as associate editor, offering original analysis on the evolving marketing tech landscape. He has interviewed leaders in tech and policy, from Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, to former Cisco CEO John Chambers, and Vivek Kundra, appointed by Barack Obama as the country’s first federal CIO. He is especially interested in how new technologies, including voice and blockchain, are disrupting the marketing world as we know it. In 2019, he moderated a panel on “innovation theater” at Fintech Inn, in Vilnius. In addition to his marketing-focused reporting in industry trades like Robotics Trends, Modern Brewery Age and AdNation News, Wood has also written for KIRKUS, and contributes fiction, criticism and poetry to several leading book blogs. He studied English at Fairfield University, and was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He lives in New York.


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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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