MARKETING

The Optimizely Podcast – episode 28: Mando Agency’s DXP journey

Published

1 year ago

March 8, 2023

The Optimizely Podcast - episode 28: Mando Agency’s DXP journey

Transcript:

Laura Dolan:

We have a full house here on the Optimizely Podcast today. We are joined by Mando Group Ltd., one of Optimizely’s solution partners. We have Ian Finch, CEO, Jon Seal, Strategy Director, and Andy Pimlett, Product Director for the company.

Welcome, everyone. How’s it going?

Ian Finch:

It’s great, thanks, Laura. It’s good to be here.

Andy Pimlett:

Yeah, we’re good.

Laura Dolan:

Thank you all so much for taking the time to join us today. Please start off by telling us about your history and relationship with Optimizely. What made you decided to partner with us?

Ian Finch:

So, this Ian, CEO speaking. We made a move to partnering with enterprise content management vendors and partners way back in 2008, and we first worked with Episerver, as it was known then, back in 2011 with a, a flagship, my website project we did for a company called TalkTalk Business here in the UK. And loved the product, early doors, I think the philosophy behind Episerver, and now Optimizely has always been great technology that’s easy to use, and that completely suits our value proposition and where we’re at in the market with customers as well. And to have journeyed with you over the last 11 years, off and on through some ups and downs, let’s be honest, as you guys-

Laura Dolan:

(laughs).

Ian Finch:

… have expanded, you know, and the products’ evolved too… But yeah, we love Optimizely, and we love the way everyone sings from the same hymn sheet, everyone’s aligned, whoever you work with at Optimizely, there’s this excitement about the future and you really listen to partners, and end customers too, and so it’s been, it’s been a great partnership as far as we’re concerned.

Laura Dolan:

That’s great I’m glad it’s been a positive experience. I know 11 years is a long time, and I’m sure you’ve seen many acquisitions along the way, so (laughs)-

Ian Finch:

Indeed (laughs).

Laura Dolan:

… appreciate your commitment to us. Can you go into more detail about your platform selection from a content management standpoint?

Ian Finch:

Yeah, so I, I think we’ll probably add to that each in a different way. From, from my perspective as CEO, yes, we want great technology, but we also want a great partner that’s easy to work with, that we can work for the customers’ success together with, that you can have an open and frank conversation and you can really work with someone that evolves, and, and listens to feedback, and which Optimizely do in spades. We also wanted a partner who have a very clear roadmap and it’s been quite a joy seeing Optimizely work its way up across, you know, whether it’s a Forrester or Gartner quadrants, and evolving.

And particularly when Optimizely first moved to the cloud and being a cloud first offering, certain, ways in which we interacted changed, and there was some turbulence during that time, but the feedback loop that Optimizely put in place for us as partners to advise, and help that transition was a cut above all the other vendors that we’d ended up working with, and so really cemented the relationship. And what’s been great is that the technology has remained fantastic throughout. But when we went through those acquisitions your emerging strategy to bring it into the platform and make it really clear to partners has, has been exemplary.

And so yeah, the partnership, the people, and the roadmap has been brilliant, and I hear from the studio, and I’m sure Andy might opt in at this point, from a product perspective, developers love it. And I gotta say, that Optimizely is the only platform we have ever worked with where our first project came in der budget, and ahead of time. That, that’s never happened when we’ve onboarded a platform for the first time, and I think that speaks volumes, and that was, you know, well over 10 years ago, and it’s only improved since.

Laura Dolan:

That’s impressive.

Andy Pimlett:

Yeah, I mean, I can, I’d certainly add to that from my perspective. I think for me, it’s a lot about confidence, and there’s a lot of moving parts in a platform selection, there’s a lot of stakeholders, a lot of practitioners involved, and they all wanna work well, they all wanna maximize and deliver value. And a lot of that comes from sense of confidence, and so, if you can demonstrate that confidence to clients, and they can realize it quickly and they can see the benefits, and that they can see the value, and then likewise your practitioners, and particularly your engineers, can, can leverage that value quickly and demonstrate those features quickly, and, and bring them into a product of really high quality quickly, then it just grows that confidence. And that’s one of the things that we’ve seen time and time again with, with our work with the platform is, as, as Ian says, developers warm to it very, very quickly, the onboarding is, is very swift, and the ability to deliver at scale with a real high, high degree of confidence and quality is ever present.

Jon Seal:

And just to jump in from the consulting side of things, which is where I tend to come into play, you’ll often get a situation here clients will, you know, arrive either with a massive wish list of what they want a digital experience platform to deliver for them, or they’ve, or they create one pretty quickly. And it’s often helpful to be able to rapidly assess that and map those to existing product features, rather than have to go through the process of trying to do a lot of work to say, you know, “How will custom development address that?” So, we’re always looking for that sort of course optimal point across, you know, what’s gonna create a total cost of ownership that’s really compelling between the capability of the platform, and the flexibility and scope for the future based on that platform, the vendor roadmap which Ian’s talked about, and that ability to support those customer developments and integrations that the customer is looking for. So that’s where we feel that, you know, a product like Optimizely can be a really strong player in that mix, because it, it tends to have a really good point when you look at that across the board and look at that broad view.

Laura Dolan:

Great, so why do you think it’s beneficial to make the switch, and move clients form one platform to another?

Jon Seal:

When you’ve got platform where you’ve had to do, you know, custom development integrations, you very rapidly get to that point of kind of diminishing returns where you’re, you’re building layer upon layer, upon layer, and you’re having this increased cost to support those bespoke features where… And especially where that’s coupled with a situation where the vendor, or the original product, isn’t really developing in terms of roadmap in alignment with where the business strategy of the client organization is going. That’s when it becomes that sort of you arrive at a tipping point at some point in the journey, where you start to think it’s, it’s just not fit for purpose of the future.

Ian Finch:

There’s a recent case study we, we’ve had where we, we won a new customer at the start of the year who were on another platform we operate, and, or and one of your peers, shall we call it, where it was just such a better fit with Optimizely. And, and a key, the key things we, we really looked at when we saw the brief where there was a real issue around infrastructure costs on top of application licenses, which Optimizely’s all in one, Azure based solution handled really well. There was not just an upgrade imminent for the other platform, but a very obvious upgrade within a year or two as well, so the client wasn’t gonna have to upgrade once, they were gonna have to upgrade twice. Whereas, Optimizely’s much better, more micro version continuously improving, continuously upgrading approach, was gonna make them far more successful and give them so much more momentum.

And then their particular use case for that customer, the features that were very much out of the box, and very core to Optimizely content cloud offer were, had been heavily bespoked and hacked and tried to make better on a part of the platform that had been otherwise overlooked from, from the other vendor, and needed a lot of extra work to make effective and efficient. And then the final piece was very much around the intelligent search and content recommendations. So, it was a real hand in glove, very, very kinda sweet spot fit for this particular customer commercially, and in terms of the feature set, and in terms of ease of use.

Andy Pimlett:

Yeah, and speed of delivery is a huge area for us. We, you know, it wasn’t so long ago that some of the areas which clients now talk about routinely, you know, things like personalization were, were considered, you know, innovative features, but not necessarily core to the requirements of a digital strategy, but that’s changed now.

Laura Dolan:

Mm-hmm.

Andy Pimlett:

And so, what used to be a kind of slow burn proof of concept, let’s see how it goes, type approach to development is now, we need these technologies standing up, we have them built into our digital strategy, they’re core to our business offering, things like marketing automation, AI powered content intelligence, that sort of thing. And so, you don’t have the luxury anymore of taking a slow approach, you have to stand these features up quickly. And with Optimizely, you have that potential to, you, you have an, an ambitious and aggressive roadmap of feature development, and those features are incredibly well documented, they’re in, incredibly easy to stand up, you know, out of the box, as Ian mentioned. And so, when you have clients who are demanding these, these sort of features you have to move quickly to deliver that value, and up, Optimizely is a platform where we can leverage that very, very quickly.

Laura Dolan:

And speaking of features, as far as content recommendations go on the content cloud, how are you encouraging those to self-serve digitally?

Ian Finch:

So, again on a key element of the case study we were mentioning is that not just, this information resource that we’re building for this particular customer, search and findability via navigation is incredibly important, but that nonlinear aspect of content recommendation, and cross pollination across the site was a real key part as well, so it allows us lots of different ways for users to navigate the site that suits them. And so that personalization, and that content recommendation element, where it’s learning that if people find this kinda content really useful and engage with it, then they might like this kind of content.

And that is starting now just to kind of self-learn, based on user behavior, adds a whole other content, a whole other level of experience and evolution of that offering for that particular customer. Very useful for that information cycle. Now looking at content recommendations across the rest of our Optimizely customers to see just, just how much extra we can deliver because something as powerful as that that comes largely through config, and out the box, rather than custom code is gonna be so powerful moving forward. I mean, it’s kind of still early days, right, but I think the, it’s gonna become a core part of our, our consultant offer and our approach to building out solutions moving forward.

Andy Pimlett:

Yeah, and one of the, one of the biggest drivers for us in terms of understanding where we can maximize value of feature delivery is in, is in gaining as much insight as we possibly can. The more insight we can gain, the more we can make informed decisions about what we need to do to drive up engagement, and improve performance against digital KPIs, one of the things obviously content recs does is, is it’s giving us further insight, it’s showing to us, in real time, which content is, is seeing the, the highest levels of engagement, and consequently not only does that give you the ability to double down on the, the richest content, it also allows you to take a step back and, and look at creating new journeys more specifically engineered around perhaps some of the areas that content might speak to, and consequently further drive up engagements. So, you, all the time you’re getting double benefits from features like that.

Jon Seal:

Just to wrap up the consulting side of that, it’s a lot easier for us if we can go into a customer and be able to give them the confidence that that isn’t gonna require a huge amount of, you know, either training or upskilling of their team, because it’s largely something that, as was mentioned, is delivered in config, and therefore just propagates, and so they’re not having to an awful lot of work.

Laura Dolan:

So, what are the main benefits of choosing a DXP?

Jon Seal:

Well, typically when we’re talking about choosing a DXP, we’re doing it reference to choosing a DXP as opposed to choosing, typically, a CMS product. And so, I suppose, when we’re thinking about the benefits of a DXP generally, we’re talking about those enhancements over and above what a content management system would generally provide. So, broadly the big ticket items that we would be thinking about in that mix and when a DXP becomes really relevant is when you start to think about things like personalization when you start to think about, you know, how you can tailor an end result rather than just have, you know, content served up generically, when you start to think about some of the data that’s gathered by these DXP solutions, that give specific insights, and the ability to analyze it and slice and dice it in various ways to support that.

And then also some of that wider support that a DXP provides for things like the delivery and the maintenance and the evolution of those digital capabilities so things like AB testing or multivariate testing, where you can then start to think, “How can I both put variants out there, get data back on it, use that to optimize and get into a rolling program of iteration, and delivery?” So, from the consulting side of things where we’re starting to think about the difference between a CMS and a DXP, those are typically the areas that we tend to mainly focus on.

Ian Finch:

And from a, a roadmap perspective, the, it’s quite interesting, I think, moving forward for our, our own value proposition, our own offer that the acquisition of Welcome and that whole content marketing, digital asset management element, will, will really bolster the extra capability that we can provide our customers to have used a well-used phrase, you know, a one stop shop in terms of having to integrate multiple systems to be able to get timely content, accurate content marketing out. And the wider roadmap of having the commerce elements, and then obviously Optimizely’s core of experimentation and so on, I think as we’ve come across during the course of this, we come from that old Episerver content management space, and so that’s typically where our customers are still at. But the wider DXP that can grow and evolve with a customer as they increase in maturity, I think has a lot of value to our client base moving forward, because in the mid-market where we operate, there isn’t that hunger and desire to have multiple disparate systems. A DXP and a marketing DXP that has already done the heavy lifting and the thinking, that’ll suit our customer base very well indeed.

Laura Dolan:

Great. Andy, anything to add to that?

Andy Pimlett:

I think for me just with the, with the, with the product lens on it, very similar in the sense that, you know, when you think of a CMS, or a DXP, you want to be making technology choices which give you the broadest possible canvas going forward. So, in a world of projects where you might wish to stand up a content managed website, then you’d be forgiven for thinking that a content management platform would be the right technology choice. But we don’t really live in, in a world where that’s the case anymore. These products have got to stand the test of time, they have to evolve, and they increasingly have more ambitious objectives within their digital strategy.

And so to make sure you can reach a point where you can deliver on that digital strategy, you have to be in a position where you’ve made correct choices on what that canvas is. And that’s what DXP gives you, it gives you that ability to move forward and evolve features, and know that you have a strong, stable technology platform there that will stand the test of time in a way that the CMS platforms wouldn’t, or they would require significant bespoke engineering, or they would require significant additional third party integrations, and you’re always fighting against the, the need to innovate. And to be creative in anything, you want to remove as many barriers as possible. And that’s what DXP gives you, that’s what Optimizely gives you the ability to remove those creative barriers, and evolve quickly and with agility, and deliver the features that your clients want.

Laura Dolan:

Right. Giving that path of least resistance that’s very important. So how can a DXP develop your digital offering?

Ian Finch:

So, I think this is a really interesting point because you have the full spectrum of humanity in a client base, and so you have clients that are, have a very specific way of working and very much want the technology to fit their way of working, because there’s necessary rigidity perhaps in that. Conversely, you also have clients that are starting out, and are maybe perhaps at the beginning of their journey, and so, you know, we’ve aligned our maturity model along similar lines to, to Optimizely’s maturity model and we’re finding that’s so valuable because there’s a lot of overwhelm in the marketplace.

Laura Dolan:

Mm-hmm.

Ian Finch:

And so here we’ve got a very successful very large company have invested a lot of money, intellectual property, and acquisitions, and building out roadmaps, and so increasingly, I think as DXPs have matured, and particularly Optimizely’s matured, customers have got that increased trust to go, “Actually, we’ll change some of our operating model around to suit the DXP, because this roadmap makes sense. It ties against the maturity model, it’ll help me change and evolve, my department, my workflow, my organization and, and has a clear what’s next.”

And so, I think it can work both ways. The DXP can, can meet existing needs, and you can match them, or it can influence the way in which you do your digital operating model, and, and recruit, hire, and go through transformation as an organization. I think there’s increasing value in that latter. I often make a point with our customers, and anyone willing to listen to course me actually, but this is the first time in human history where technology’s not the blocker, people are. And so, that’s been the case, after thousands of years, maybe for the last two to five at the most. And so, with technology not being the blocker, people, anything that can help you do organizational change, allow a more fluid easy adopted digital operating model to evolve, and provide you that roadmap I think is gonna be welcome for people that have got so much choice, so much overwhelm, are so busy and disparate working. And so I think it’s more than just a DXP, and that’s why I keep coming back to the roadmap and the strategy that sits behind the vendors that do the DXP, and one of the reasons we’re so excited to work with Optimizely.

Laura Dolan:

Great. Thank you, Ian. Is there anything else we didn’t cover that you’d like to mention before we wrap up?

Ian Finch:

Only that we’re very excited to be working with Optimizely. We’ve got a great moment in our relationship now, our customers are big fans of the platform, platform’s evolving all the time, and we’re very excited about the changes ahead within the roadmap. So yeah, as we build out our offering within that engineering change space, through our consultancy offer, product offer, again open call, if people would like to bounce ideas around with us or see what it is that we can do to offer our experience into what they’re choosing to do with Optimizely, then we’re all ears, and we’ll do anything we can to help.

Andy Pimlett:

I’d only add as well, what delights me about Optimizely, as a platform, as a technology choice, is something I haven’t readily seen in agency environments. You tend to find our engineers will have a buzz about a particular technology or a platform, and, and they will get, you know, they’ll drink the Kool-Aid, and they’ll get heavily invested. But what I really like at the moment with our relationship with Optimizely is right across the studio, all of our practitioners, they’re learning about features, they’re learning about the innovation and the platform, they are seeing clearly how they can work with our clients, and enable them, and offer solutions that leverage these features in a way that I’ve not really seen before, and I think that’s a huge positive when you can get that level of investment across practitioners, be it strategists, product owners, business analysts, designers, user experience consultants, when they all have an eye on the platform and the technologies that, that we’re partnering with, and they’re able to see where we could leverage those features to answer our client problems. I think that’s a fantastic thing that we’re seeing.

Laura Dolan:

Perfect. Jon, any last words?

Jon Seal:

I think it’s been covered. I mean, you know, as Andy said, the fact that the, as the roadmap of Optimizely kind of comes into play, we’re just seeing more opportunities where we can actually get stuck in and leverage those to bring new solutions and new value to our clients, which is obviously what it’s all about.

Laura Dolan:

Thank you all so much to the three of you for taking the time to come on today. This has been very insightful. Thank you all very much for your time and thank you all so much for ting into this episode of the Optimizely Podcast. I am Laura Dolan, and I will see you next time.

Laura Dolan:

Thank you for listening to this edition of the Optimizely Podcast. If you’d like to check out more episodes or learn more about how we can take your business to the next level by using our marketing, content, or experimentation tools, please visit our website at optimizely.com, or you can contact us directly using the link at the bottom of this podcast blog to hear more about how our products will help you unlock your digital potential.

Related Topics:Agencys DXP Episode Journey Mando Optimizely podcast seo

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How to Use AI For a More Effective Social Media Strategy, According to Ross Simmonds

Published

2 days ago

April 22, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

How to Use AI For a More Effective Social Media Strategy, According to Ross Simmonds

Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better.

It’s the age of AI, and our job as marketers is to keep up.

My team at Foundation Marketing recently conducted an AI Marketing study surveying hundreds of marketers, and more than 84% of all leaders, managers, SEO experts, and specialists confirmed that they used AI in the workplace.

If you can overlook the fear-inducing headlines, this technology is making social media marketers more efficient and effective than ever. Translation: AI is good news for social media marketers.

In fact, I predict that the marketers not using AI in their workplace will be using it before the end of this year, and that number will move closer and closer to 100%.

Social media and AI are two of the most revolutionizing technologies of the last few decades. Social media has changed the way we live, and AI is changing the way we work.

So, I’m going to condense and share the data, research, tools, and strategies that the Foundation Marketing Team and I have been working on over the last year to help you better wield the collective power of AI and social media.

Let’s jump into it.

What’s the role of AI in social marketing strategy?

In a recent episode of my podcast, Create Like The Greats, we dove into some fascinating findings about the impact of AI on marketers and social media professionals. Take a listen here:

Let’s dive a bit deeper into the benefits of this technology:

Benefits of AI in Social Media Strategy

AI is to social media what a conductor is to an orchestra — it brings everything together with precision and purpose. The applications of AI in a social media strategy are vast, but the virtuosos are few who can wield its potential to its fullest.

AI to Conduct Customer Research

Imagine you’re a modern-day Indiana Jones, not dodging boulders or battling snakes, but rather navigating the vast, wild terrain of consumer preferences, trends, and feedback.

This is where AI thrives.

Using social media data, from posts on X to comments and shares, AI can take this information and turn it into insights surrounding your business and industry. Let’s say for example you’re a business that has 2,000 customer reviews on Google, Yelp, or a software review site like Capterra.

Leveraging AI you can now have all 2,000 of these customer reviews analyzed and summarized into an insightful report in a matter of minutes. You simply need to download all of them into a doc and then upload them to your favorite Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) to get the insights and data you need.

But that’s not all.

You can become a Prompt Engineer and write ChatGPT asking it to help you better understand your audience. For example, if you’re trying to come up with a persona for people who enjoy marathons but also love kombucha you could write a prompt like this to ChatGPT:

The response that ChatGPT provided back is quite good:

Below this it went even deeper by including a lot of valuable customer research data:

Demographics
Psychographics
Consumer behaviors
Needs and preferences

And best of all…

It also included marketing recommendations.

The power of AI is unbelievable.

Social Media Content Using AI

AI’s helping hand can be unburdening for the creative spirit.

Instead of marketers having to come up with new copy every single month for posts, AI Social Caption generators are making it easier than ever to craft catchy status updates in the matter of seconds.

Tools like HubSpot make it as easy as clicking a button and telling the AI tool what you’re looking to create a post about:

The best part of these AI tools is that they’re not limited to one channel.

Your AI social media content assistant can help you with LinkedIn content, X content, Facebook content, and even the captions that support your post on Instagram.

It can also help you navigate hashtags:

With AI social media tools that generate content ideas or even write posts, it’s not about robots replacing humans. It’s about making sure that the human creators on your team are focused on what really matters — adding that irreplaceable human touch.

Enhanced Personalization

You know that feeling when a brand gets you, like, really gets you?

AI makes that possible through targeted content that’s tailored with a level of personalization you’d think was fortune-telling if the data didn’t paint a starker, more rational picture.

What do I mean?

Brands can engage more quickly with AI than ever before. In the early 2000s, a lot of brands spent millions of dollars to create social media listening rooms where they would hire social media managers to find and engage with any conversation happening online.

Thanks to AI, brands now have the ability to do this at scale with much fewer people all while still delivering quality engagement with the recipient.

Analytics and Insights

Tapping into AI to dissect the data gives you a CSI-like precision to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and what makes your audience tick. It’s the difference between guessing and knowing.

The best part about AI is that it can give you almost any expert at your fingertips.

If you run a report surrounding the results of your social media content strategy directly from a site like LinkedIn, AI can review the top posts you’ve shared and give you clear feedback on what type of content is performing, why you should create more of it, and what days of the week your content is performing best.

This type of insight that would typically take hours to understand.

Now …

Thanks to the power of AI you can upload a spreadsheet filled with rows and columns of data just to be met with a handful of valuable insights a few minutes later.

Improved Customer Service

Want 24/7 support for your customers?

It’s now possible without human touch.

Chatbots powered by AI are taking the lead on direct messaging experiences for brands on Facebook and other Meta properties to offer round-the-clock assistance.

The fact that AI can be trained on past customer queries and data to inform future queries and problems is a powerful development for social media managers.

Advertising on Social Media with AI

The majority of ad networks have used some variation of AI to manage their bidding system for years. Now, thanks to AI and its ability to be incorporated in more tools, brands are now able to use AI to create better and more interesting ad campaigns than ever before.

Brands can use AI to create images using tools like Midjourney and DALL-E in seconds.

Brands can use AI to create better copy for their social media ads.

Brands can use AI tools to support their bidding strategies.

The power of AI and social media is continuing to evolve daily and it’s not exclusively found in the organic side of the coin. Paid media on social media is being shaken up due to AI just the same.

How to Implement AI into Your Social Media Strategy

Ready to hit “Go” on your AI-powered social media revolution?

Don’t just start the engine and hope for the best. Remember the importance of building a strategy first. In this video, you can learn some of the most important factors ranging from (but not limited to) SMART goals and leveraging influencers in your day-to-day work:

The following seven steps are crucial to building a social media strategy:

Identify Your AI and Social Media Goals
Validate Your AI-Related Assumptions
Conduct Persona and Audience Research
Select the Right Social Channels
Identify Key Metrics and KPIs
Choose the Right AI Tools
Evaluate and Refine Your Social Media and AI Strategy

Keep reading, roll up your sleeves, and follow this roadmap:

1. Identify Your AI and Social Media Goals

If you’re just dipping your toes into the AI sea, start by defining clear objectives.

Is it to boost engagement? Streamline your content creation? Or simply understand your audience better? It’s important that you spend time understanding what you want to achieve.

For example, say you’re a content marketing agency like Foundation and you’re trying to increase your presence on LinkedIn. The specificity of this goal will help you understand the initiatives you want to achieve and determine which AI tools could help you make that happen.

Are there AI tools that will help you create content more efficiently? Are there AI tools that will help you optimize LinkedIn Ads? Are there AI tools that can help with content repurposing? All of these things are possible and having a goal clearly identified will help maximize the impact. Learn more in this Foundation Marketing piece on incorporating AI into your content workflow.

Once you have identified your goals, it’s time to get your team on board and assess what tools are available in the market.

Recommended Resources:

2. Validate Your AI-Related Assumptions

Assumptions are dangerous — especially when it comes to implementing new tech.

Don’t assume AI is going to fix all your problems.

Instead, start with small experiments and track their progress carefully.

3. Conduct Persona and Audience Research

Social media isn’t something that you can just jump into.

You need to understand your audience and ideal customers. AI can help with this, but you’ll need to be familiar with best practices. If you need a primer, this will help:

Once you understand the basics, consider ways in which AI can augment your approach.

4. Select the Right Social Channels

Not every social media channel is the same.

It’s important that you understand what channel is right for you and embrace it.

The way you use AI for X is going to be different from the way you use AI for LinkedIn. On X, you might use AI to help you develop a long-form thread that is filled with facts and figures. On LinkedIn however, you might use AI to repurpose a blog post and turn it into a carousel PDF. The content that works on X and that AI can facilitate creating is different from the content that you can create and use on LinkedIn.

The audiences are different.

The content formats are different.

So operate and create a plan accordingly.

Recommended Tools and Resources:

5. Identify Key Metrics and KPIs

What metrics are you trying to influence the most?

Spend time understanding the social media metrics that matter to your business and make sure that they’re prioritized as you think about the ways in which you use AI.

These are a few that matter most:

Reach: Post reach signifies the count of unique users who viewed your post. How much of your content truly makes its way to users’ feeds?
Clicks: This refers to the number of clicks on your content or account. Monitoring clicks per campaign is crucial for grasping what sparks curiosity or motivates people to make a purchase.
Engagement: The total social interactions divided by the number of impressions. This metric reveals how effectively your audience perceives you and their readiness to engage.

Of course, it’s going to depend greatly on your business.

But with this information, you can ensure that your AI social media strategy is rooted in goals.

6. Choose the Right AI Tools

The AI landscape is filled with trash and treasure.

Pick AI tools that are most likely to align with your needs and your level of tech-savviness.

For example, if you’re a blogger creating content about pizza recipes, you can use HubSpot’s AI social caption generator to write the message on your behalf:

The benefit of an AI tool like HubSpot and the caption generator is that what at one point took 30-40 minutes to come up with — you can now have it at your fingertips in seconds. The HubSpot AI caption generator is trained on tons of data around social media content and makes it easy for you to get inspiration or final drafts on what can be used to create great content.

Consider your budget, the learning curve, and what kind of support the tool offers.

7. Evaluate and Refine Your Social Media and AI Strategy

AI isn’t a magic wand; it’s a set of complex tools and technology.

You need to be willing to pivot as things come to fruition.

If you notice that a certain activity is falling flat, consider how AI can support that process.

Did you notice that your engagement isn’t where you want it to be? Consider using an AI tool to assist with crafting more engaging social media posts.

Make AI Work for You — Now and in the Future

AI has the power to revolutionize your social media strategy in ways you may have never thought possible. With its ability to conduct customer research, create personalized content, and so much more, thinking about the future of social media is fascinating.

We’re going through one of the most interesting times in history.

Stay equipped to ride the way of AI and ensure that you’re embracing the best practices outlined in this piece to get the most out of the technology.

MARKETING

Advertising in local markets: A playbook for success

Published

3 days ago

April 21, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Advertising in local markets: A playbook for success

Many brands, such as those in the home services industry or a local grocery chain, market to specific locations, cities or regions. There are also national brands that want to expand in specific local markets.

Regardless of the company or purpose, advertising on a local scale has different tactics than on a national scale. Brands need to connect their messaging directly with the specific communities they serve and media to their target demo. Here’s a playbook to help your company succeed when marketing on a local scale.

1. Understand local vs. national campaigns

Local advertising differs from national campaigns in several ways:

Audience specificity: By zooming in on precise geographic areas, brands can tailor messaging to align with local communities’ customs, preferences and nuances. This precision targeting ensures that your message resonates with the right target audience.
Budget friendliness: Local advertising is often more accessible for small businesses. Local campaign costs are lower, enabling brands to invest strategically within targeted locales. This budget-friendly nature does not diminish the need for strategic planning; instead, it emphasizes allocating resources wisely to maximize returns. As a result, testing budgets can be allocated across multiple markets to maximize learnings for further market expansion.
Channel selection: Selecting the correct channels is vital for effective local advertising. Local newspapers, radio stations, digital platforms and community events each offer advantages. The key lies in understanding where your target audience spends time and focusing efforts to ensure optimal engagement.
Flexibility and agility: Local campaigns can be adjusted more swiftly in response to market feedback or changes, allowing brands to stay relevant and responsive.

Maintaining brand consistency across local touchpoints reinforces brand identity and builds a strong, recognizable brand across markets.

2. Leverage customized audience segmentation

Customized audience segmentation is the process of dividing a market into distinct groups based on specific demographic criteria. This marketing segmentation supports the development of targeted messaging and media plans for local markets.

For example, a coffee chain might cater to two distinct segments: young professionals and retirees. After identifying these segments, the chain can craft messages, offers and media strategies relating to each group’s preferences and lifestyle.

To reach young professionals in downtown areas, the chain might focus on convenience, quality coffee and a vibrant atmosphere that is conducive to work and socializing. Targeted advertising on Facebook, Instagram or Connected TV, along with digital signage near office complexes, could capture the attention of this demographic, emphasizing quick service and premium blends.

Conversely, for retirees in residential areas, the chain could highlight a cozy ambiance, friendly service and promotions such as senior discounts. Advertisements in local print publications, community newsletters, radio stations and events like senior coffee mornings would foster a sense of community and belonging.

Dig deeper: Niche advertising: 7 actionable tactics for targeted marketing

3. Adapt to local market dynamics

Various factors influence local market dynamics. Brands that navigate changes effectively maintain a strong audience connection and stay ahead in the market. Here’s how consumer sentiment and behavior may evolve within a local market and the corresponding adjustments brands can make.

Cultural shifts, such as changes in demographics or societal norms, can alter consumer preferences within a local community. For example, a neighborhood experiencing gentrification may see demand rise for specific products or services.
- Respond by updating your messaging to reflect the evolving cultural landscape, ensuring it resonates with the new demographic profile.
Economic conditions are crucial. For example, during downturns, consumers often prioritize value and practicality.
- Highlight affordable options or emphasize the practical benefits of your offerings to ensure messaging aligns with consumers’ financial priorities. The impact is unique to each market and the marketing message must also be dynamic.
Seasonal trends impact consumer behavior.
- Align your promotions and creative content with changing seasons or local events to make your offerings timely and relevant.
New competitors. The competitive landscape demands vigilance because new entrants or innovative competitor campaigns can shift consumer preferences.
- Differentiate by focusing on your unique selling propositions, such as quality, customer service or community involvement, to retain consumer interest and loyalty.

4. Apply data and predictive analytics

Data and predictive analytics are indispensable tools for successfully reaching local target markets. These technologies provide consumer behavior insights, enabling you to anticipate market trends and adjust strategies proactively.

Price optimization: By analyzing consumer demand, competitor pricing and market conditions, data analytics enables you to set prices that attract customers while ensuring profitability.
Competitor analysis: Through analysis, brands can understand their positioning within the local market landscape and identify opportunities and threats. Predictive analytics offer foresight into competitors’ potential moves, allowing you to strategize effectively to maintain a competitive edge.
Consumer behavior: Forecasting consumer behavior allows your brand to tailor offerings and marketing messages to meet evolving consumer needs and enhance engagement.
Marketing effectiveness: Analytics track the success of advertising campaigns, providing insights into which strategies drive conversions and sales. This feedback loop enables continuous optimization of marketing efforts for maximum impact.
Inventory management: In supply chain management, data analytics predict demand fluctuations, ensuring inventory levels align with market needs. This efficiency prevents stockouts or excess inventory, optimizing operational costs and meeting consumer expectations.

Dig deeper: Why you should add predictive modeling to your marketing mix

5. Counter external market influences

Consider a clothing retailer preparing for a spring collection launch. By analyzing historical weather data and using predictive analytics, the brand forecasts an unseasonably cool start to spring. Anticipating this, the retailer adjusts its campaign to highlight transitional pieces suitable for cooler weather, ensuring relevance despite an unexpected chill.

Simultaneously, predictive models signal an upcoming spike in local media advertising rates due to increased market demand. Retailers respond by reallocating a portion of advertising budgets to digital channels, which offer more flexibility and lower costs than traditional media. This shift enables brands to maintain visibility and engagement without exceeding budget, mitigating the impact of external forces on advertising.

6. Build consumer confidence with messaging

Localized messaging and tailored customer service enhance consumer confidence by demonstrating your brand’s understanding of the community. For instance, a grocery store that curates cooking classes featuring local cuisine or sponsors community events shows commitment to local culture and consumer interests.

Similarly, a bookstore highlighting local authors or topics relevant to the community resonates with local customers. Additionally, providing service that addresses local needs — such as bilingual service and local event support — reinforces the brand’s values and response to the community.

Through these localized approaches, brands can build trust and loyalty, bridging the gap between corporate presence and local relevance.

7. Dominate with local advertising

To dominate local markets, brands must:

Harness hyper-targeted segmentation and geo-targeted advertising to reach and engage precise audiences.
Create localized content that reflects community values, engage in community events, optimize campaigns for mobile and track results.
Fine-tune strategies, outperform competitors and foster lasting relationships with customers.

These strategies will enable your message to resonate with local consumers, differentiate you in competitive markets and ensure you become a major player in your specific area.

Dig deeper: The 5 critical elements for local marketing success

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.

MARKETING

Battling for Attention in the 2024 Election Year Media Frenzy

Published

3 days ago

April 20, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Battling for Attention in the 2024 Election Year Media Frenzy

As we march closer to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, CMOs and marketing leaders need to prepare for a significant shift in the digital advertising landscape. Election years have always posed unique challenges for advertisers, but the growing dominance of digital media has made the impact more profound than ever before.

In this article, we’ll explore the key factors that will shape the advertising environment in the coming months and provide actionable insights to help you navigate these turbulent waters.

The Digital Battleground

The rise of cord-cutting and the shift towards digital media consumption have fundamentally altered the advertising landscape in recent years. As traditional TV viewership declines, political campaigns have had to adapt their strategies to reach voters where they are spending their time: on digital platforms.

1713626763 903 Battling for Attention in the 2024 Election Year Media Frenzy

According to a recent report by eMarketer, the number of cord-cutters in the U.S. is expected to reach 65.1 million by the end of 2023, representing a 6.9% increase from 2022. This trend is projected to continue, with the number of cord-cutters reaching 72.2 million by 2025.

Moreover, a survey conducted by Pew Research Center in 2023 found that 62% of U.S. adults do not have a cable or satellite TV subscription, up from 61% in 2022 and 50% in 2019. This data further underscores the accelerating shift away from traditional TV and towards streaming and digital media platforms.

As these trends continue, political advertisers will have no choice but to follow their audiences to digital channels. In the 2022 midterm elections, digital ad spending by political campaigns reached $1.2 billion, a 50% increase from the 2018 midterms. With the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, this figure is expected to grow exponentially, as campaigns compete for the attention of an increasingly digital-first electorate.

For brands and advertisers, this means that the competition for digital ad space will be fiercer than ever before. As political ad spending continues to migrate to platforms like Meta, YouTube, and connected TV, the cost of advertising will likely surge, making it more challenging for non-political advertisers to reach their target audiences.

To navigate this complex and constantly evolving landscape, CMOs and their teams will need to be proactive, data-driven, and willing to experiment with new strategies and channels. By staying ahead of the curve and adapting to the changing media consumption habits of their audiences, brands can position themselves for success in the face of the electoral advertising onslaught.

Rising Costs and Limited Inventory

As political advertisers flood the digital market, the cost of advertising is expected to skyrocket. CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) will likely experience a steady climb throughout the year, with significant spikes anticipated in May, as college students come home from school and become more engaged in political conversations, and around major campaign events like presidential debates.

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For media buyers and their teams, this means that the tried-and-true strategies of years past may no longer be sufficient. Brands will need to be nimble, adaptable, and willing to explore new tactics to stay ahead of the game.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday: A Perfect Storm

The challenges of election year advertising will be particularly acute during the critical holiday shopping season. Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which have historically been goldmines for advertisers, will be more expensive and competitive than ever in 2024, as they coincide with the final weeks of the presidential campaign.

To avoid being drowned out by the political noise, brands will need to start planning their holiday campaigns earlier than usual. Building up audiences and crafting compelling creative assets well in advance will be essential to success, as will a willingness to explore alternative channels and tactics. Relying on cold audiences come Q4 will lead to exceptionally high costs that may be detrimental to many businesses.

Navigating the Chaos

While the challenges of election year advertising can seem daunting, there are steps that media buyers and their teams can take to mitigate the impact and even thrive in this environment. Here are a few key strategies to keep in mind:

Start early and plan for contingencies: Begin planning your Q3 and Q4 campaigns as early as possible, with a focus on building up your target audiences and developing a robust library of creative assets.

Be sure to build in contingency budgets to account for potential cost increases, and be prepared to pivot your strategy as the landscape evolves.

1713626764 197 Battling for Attention in the 2024 Election Year Media Frenzy

Embrace alternative channels: Consider diversifying your media mix to include channels that may be less impacted by political ad spending, such as influencer marketing, podcast advertising, or sponsored content. Investing in owned media channels, like email marketing and mobile apps, can also provide a direct line to your customers without the need to compete for ad space.

Owned channels will be more important than ever. Use cheaper months leading up to the election to build your email lists and existing customer base so that your BF/CM can leverage your owned channels and warm audiences.

Craft compelling, shareable content: In a crowded and noisy advertising environment, creating content that resonates with your target audience will be more important than ever. Focus on developing authentic, engaging content that aligns with your brand values and speaks directly to your customers’ needs and desires.

By tapping into the power of emotional triggers and social proof, you can create content that not only cuts through the clutter but also inspires organic sharing and amplification.

Reflections

The 2024 election year will undoubtedly bring new challenges and complexities to the world of digital advertising. But by staying informed, adaptable, and strategic in your approach, you can navigate this landscape successfully and even find new opportunities for growth and engagement.

As a media buyer or agnecy, your role in steering your brand through these uncharted waters will be critical. By starting your planning early, embracing alternative channels and tactics, and focusing on creating authentic, resonant content, you can not only survive but thrive in the face of election year disruptions.

So while the road ahead may be uncertain, one thing is clear: the brands that approach this challenge with creativity, agility, and a steadfast commitment to their customers will be the ones that emerge stronger on the other side.