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Content Marketing Really Can Drive Leads

keyboard content marketingIn a survey of U.S. marketing agencies conducted by RSW/US, content in various forms ranked as the most effective tactic to drive new leads. In fact, the ranking of marketing tactics based on their lead generation success among agencies is very different from how the list may have looked just five years ago.

The shift from traditional marketing tactics to new media marketing tactics such as social media and content marketing is significant even though many corporate executives continue to undervalue these newer, digital marketing opportunities. However, agencies not only understand the potential of new media marketing, but also, they understand that new media marketing can drive real leads. That’s a bridge most other corporate executives have yet to cross because tracking the return on investment of new media marketing tactics is still far from perfect.

With that said, take a look at the ranking of marketing tactics from agency respondents to the survey, which were published by eMarketer. Notice that the first six tactics on the list include some form of long-form or short-form content creation, publishing, and distribution:

  1. Client case studies = 62.6%
  2. Content marketing through agency website = 62.6%
  3. Agency blog = 58.2%
  4. Social media such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, etc. = 57.1%
  5. Press releases and publicity = 50.6%
  6. Targeted direct mail to qualified list = 41.8%
  7. Community and civic work = 33.0%
  8. Referrals program = 30.8%
  9. Email lead capture program = 29.7%
  10. Advertising = 19.8%

Marketing agencies are business-to-business organizations serving companies in every industry. Therefore, it stands to reason that the tactics ranked above can work equally well for other business-to-business companies.

It’s not surprising that agencies ranked LinkedIn (a social network for professionals) as the best social network for lead generation. However, an even more interesting finding in the study shows that more agencies believe that online video is the most effective marketing tactic for lead generation. Agencies ranked Vimeo (23%) and YouTube (20%) as the most effective sites for generating new business—above social media standards like LinkedIn (19%), Facebook (19%), Twitter (17%), and Google+ (19%). Clearly, online video represents a potential opportunity for agencies and business-to-business companies overall.

Furthermore, Google+ is underutilized by agencies with just 8% of agencies using it for lead generation, which is significantly fewer than the the number of agencies using LinkedIn (21%), Facebook (21%), and Twitter (20%). With its importance to search and its growing user audience, Google+ presents another big opportunity for agencies and business-to-business companies.

Image: Jeff Hire

Email Is the Most Effective Marketing Channel for Local Merchants

surf shopNearly three out of four (71%) local merchants believe that email marketing is the most effective marketing channel for their businesses. That number comes from the 2013 Online Marketing Trends Merchant Survey from Daily Deal Media, which surveyed nearly 14,000 U.S.-based merchants between July and September 2013.

Respondents to the 42 survey questions came from 10 different categories, with most in the e-commerce, retail shopping, and restaurants and bars categories. Overall, only 17% of respondents indicated that they are completely satisfied with their marketing efforts, and only 11% are satisfied with their websites.

Local merchants face multiple challenges in the online marketing space. For example, 67% of respondents don’t know how to measure the effectiveness of their online marketing campaigns, and 83% don’t know how to measure the impact of social media on their businesses.

Given the fact that 67% of respondents have annual marketing budgets of less than $5,000, it’s not surprising that they’re not getting the results they need from online marketing. 81% of respondents want simple, non-expensive marketing tools. However, online marketing needs to be prioritized, particularly since 19% of respondents reported that social media reviews are hurting their businesses.

These local merchants know they need help, but Daily Deal Media explains they’re, “overburdened with the latest online marketing tools, struggle to adapt to mobile, and are contacted on average over five times per week by companies pitching online marketing or social media products and services.” For 42% of respondents to this survey, vendor trust is a big issue for online marketing.

Local merchants need help, and savvy marketing agencies will find a way to provide them with the help they need at an affordable price. In the meantime, corporations with local franchises and brick-and-mortar storefronts need to be sensitive to the challenges local merchants face in online marketing. What works for corporate marketing isn’t going to work at the local level, and it’s easy to forget that local marketing, both online and offline, is more important than ever. Those bad reviews about local merchants reflect on the corporate brand, too.

We live in the age of instant gratification, personalization, and customization. All three of those things need to happen at the local level through targeted marketing efforts to truly build brand loyalty and advocacy.

You can follow the link above to purchase the complete study report.

Image: Jenny W.

What Do the Facebook Promotion Policy Updates Mean for Brands?

winLast week, Facebook updated its promotion policies for businesses, and every brand marketer should understand what the changes are and how those changes affect future Facebook marketing initiatives.

In a blog post, Facebook announced that promotions no longer have to be administered through apps. Instead, businesses can run contests and other promotions directly on their Facebook Pages. For example, a business could run a contest and people could enter by posting on the brand’s Facebook Page or commenting on or liking a post on the brand’s Facebook Page. They could also message the brand’s Page to enter the contest, and brands can use likes as a voting mechanism.

In addition to the removal of the requirement that brands had to use a promotions app, Facebook has also added a few restrictions to its promotions policy. Now, Pages cannot tag or ask people to tag themselves in posts, photos, or content they’re not actually in as part of a promotion.

Overall, the Facebook Promotion Policy updates open the doors for smaller brands with limited marketing budgets and resources to create contests and promotions on their Facebook Pages quickly, easily, and affordably. However, these types of promotions are a nice short-term addition to boost engagement for big brands but they’re not necessarily scalable. For example, a promotion launched through a post would drop down people’s timelines very quickly. Furthermore, if a large number of people responded, tracking entries and managing the promotion would become logistically challenging.

For big brands with large audiences, apps will remain the promotion tool of choice on Facebook. The ability to create custom promotions, collect entrant email addresses, monitor engagement, track performance, and extend the duration of the campaign beyond a single post make in-app promotions far more effective for brands that can afford them.

Bottom-line, the changes aren’t as impactful for big brands as they are for small business brands. The reason is simple, the new Facebook promotion policy updates won’t change the large-scale marketing efforts that big brands with deep pockets roll out on Facebook. However, the new Facebook promotion policy updates do offer another way for big and small brands to engage with consumers, and that is something no brand should ignore.

Image: Presentation Process via sxc

U.K. Consumers Choosing Social Media over Search Engines to Find Content

Nearly one in two U.K. internet users between the ages of 18 and 24 choose to use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to search for online content rather than search engines like Google. More than one out of three U.K. internet users between the ages of 35 and 44 choose social media over search engines, and nearly one in four between the ages of 35 and 44 choose social media over search engines to find online content.

Those are some extremely interesting statistics, and while younger U.K. internet users are more likely to choose social media sites to search for content rather than using a search engine, that doesn’t mean older U.K. internet users aren’t starting to make a similar shift. More than one in ten U.K. internet users between the ages of 55 and 64 choose social media over search engines when they need to find content.

This data comes from a May 2013 study by Blinkx, a video search technology company. Following are the specific results from the study that quantify just how big the shift away from search engines to social media sites for finding online content really is:

  • Age 18-24 = 43% choose social media over search engines to find online content
  • Age 25-34 = 34% choose social media over search engines
  • Age 35-44 = 23% choose social media over search engines
  • Age 45-54 = 13% choose social media over search engines
  • Age 65+ = 5% choose social media over search engines

The data is so compelling, that eMarketer predicts the share of digital ad spend that goes to search will start to decline in 2014 as a result of the user shift from search engines to social media. In 2013, 58.9% of U.K. digital ad spend went to search, but by 2017, eMarketer forecasts that the share of digital ad spend that goes to search will drop to 53.3%. Instead, those advertising investments will go to display, particularly video.

Of course, this prediction doesn’t mean that search advertising spending will plummet soon after 2017, but user behavior is changing. Brand advertisers are going where their customers spend time, and they’re spending more and more time on social media sites every day. It remains to be seen if performance will warrant shifting even more digital ad spending away from search or not.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts on the future of search advertising.

New Honda Tagline Focuses on Relationship Branding

honda civicHonda is rolling out a new tagline in the United States that urges consumers to “Start something special.” Mark Rechtin of Automotive News reports that the new tagline is intended to build deeper relationships between consumers and the Honda brand, and it will be used across all advertising beginning in the fall.

Ads rolling out later this year will focus on the reasons why owning a Honda is “special” with a reliance on audience psychographic data rather than solely on demographic data.

The slogan seems appropriate for the Honda brand, which is known for its reliability and trustworthiness. Many people who purchase Honda vehicles in the United States keep them for a very long time, and when they do decide to replace their cars, they choose a Honda again. This loyalty is very valuable for the Honda brand, and the “start something special,” tagline is a logical extension of the brand promise — a special driving experience that continually grows through a consumer’s long relationship with the brand.

The obvious question is whether or not this slogan does enough to position the Honda brand against one of its top competitors in the United States—Toyota. Both brands are positioned as the reliable and trustworthy brands, but there is little differentiation between them. If Toyota owns “reliable” then what word does Honda own? You could swap the two brand names in that question and it would still make complete sense.

Similarly, you could apply the “Start something special” tagline to a number of automotive brands (as well as brands in completely different industries) and it would still work. It’s not the worst tagline, but it seems a bit watered down (i.e., a victim of decision-by-committee disease).

Of course, battling over market share between Honda and Toyota would likely require a bigger marketing investment than it would to try and steal market share from competitors that occupy distinctly different positions in consumers’ minds. Shifting consumers from the “less reliable” brand with the less-than-special-relationship to Honda is likely a better investment.

It’s important to note that Honda isn’t replacing its global tagline with this new tagline. Furthermore, Honda isn’t placing any long term dependence on this new tagline. According to Rechtin’s report, if the slogan doesn’t catch on following the fall advertising push, it will be replaced. Only time and consumer reactions will tell whether or not this new Honda slogan is truly the start of something special.

What do you think?

Image: Simon Cataudo

Facebook Ad Performance Up in 2Q 2013

mouse click facebook ad conversionsThe second quarter of 2013 was a good one for Facebook advertisers. That’s according to data from Kenshoo Social which compares Facebook advertising performance trends between the first and second quarters of this year based on a global analysis of a representative sample of 75 billion Facebook ads. The analysis showed an improvement in every key metric tracked in the study.

The analysis by the Kenshoo Social team identified the following performance improvements in Facebook advertising:

  • Click Through Rate (CTR):  Up 18.5%
  • Cost Per Click (CPC):  Down 15.9%
  • Click Volume:  Up 16.4%
  • Conversions:  Up 56.9%
  • Advertiser Revenue:  Up 28.3%

Todd Herrold of Kenshoo Social explains the two factors that were found to be driving the improvement in Facebook ad performance as follows:

  1. Better ad targeting products from Facebook designed specifically to increase conversions such as Partner Categories, Custom and Lookalike Audiences, and Facebook Exchange (FBX)
  2. Better use of tools by advertisers to target their ads and manage their advertising programs

For Facebook, this report is extremely important. In fact, any report that shows Facebook advertising can drive tangible results through conversions is an important one for Facebook, which must prove the worth of its ad platform to advertisers. The Kenshoo Social report defined conversions as offsite sales, likes, shares, comments, app installs, game plays, and other Facebook actions. Based on the findings in this report, these types of conversions were up nearly 60% during the second quarter of 2013 (over first quarter 2013 conversion rates).

If this growth is sustainable, Facebook might have a really good chance to prove that Facebook advertising is a viable direct response marketing investment rather than just a brand awareness investment. For brand marketers, this performance improvement for Facebook ad conversion rates provides another way to justify budget dollars for Facebook advertising. Of course, creating the right campaigns and effectively targeting them are critical to leveraging Facebook advertising for direct response marketing. With that said, the opportunities certainly appear to be growing.

Are you testing Facebook advertising as a direct response marketing tool for your brand yet? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Ariel da Silva Parreira