What are the top challenges of digital marketing transformation?

Retailers and brands have been talking about digital transformation for some time as they look to build their businesses as digital-first entities in order to deliver for the new customer demand.

As the world shifted online during the pandemic, those that weren’t already digitally-enabled had to quickly transform themselves to be so. But for some that meant hurried, sticking plasters. It wasn’t transformation – it was a quick, easy fix. And so for those, the true investment in the right systems, people and tools to enable digital transformation may only just be beginning.

Digital transformation is a huge challenge for brands and retailers since it involves change in so many elements of their operations and complete shifts in thinking. It requires the investment of both time and money – as well as getting staff engaged in the transformation too. If they are resistant – such as store staff not promoting online ordering instore – it simply won’t work.

Digital transformation requires technology change, which can be scary – especially for retailers still struggling with legacy systems that aren’t as streamlined.

Why are brands struggling with digital marketing transformation?

Getting the digital marketing transformation right can be one of the biggest challenges since brands and retailers are also at the mercy of the mindset of their consumers.

The struggle is real. Customers are busier than ever, bombarded by marketing messages and growing weary of them. Many are similar. Some are useful, others not.

The sheer scale of the challenge is illustrated by the fact that, led by the expansion in digital advertising, traditional, digital ad and total ad spending have all posted their highest rates of spending ever.

Coupled with the changes of the last two years, marketers also need to factor in changes in expectations when it comes to customer experience. Consumers are used to the quick ‘get’ of apps. According to a recent Accenture podcast, ‘Evolving the Customer Experience,’ Generation Z isn’t accustomed to waiting; in fact, they won’t even wait on hold for two minutes when calling into a call center.

Brands, meanwhile, are often stuck in a hamster wheel of content – they spam because high reach and high penetration is what they need to do to overcome the challenges of lower loyalty levels. But it often only turns off consumers more.

Consumers are investing less time in engaging with brands, but they are also investing less quality time. Attention spans are waning, leaving brands with the challenge of how to ensure they grab customer attention, deliver standout experiences and leave the shopper with an interaction worth remembering.

And yet against all this backdrop digital sales are growing and so digital marketing becomes the tool necessary to increase those sales further and continue building successful customer relationships. Brands need to stand out.

The bedrock of customer data

But delivering a great customer experience also relies on knowing what the customer wants, which in turn relies on customer data. Brands and retailers need to increase the scale and accuracy of their customer data.

A platform designed to allow suppliers and agencies to better understand changing consumer needs and serve those needs.

So we have retail having to continue their digital marketing transformation by delivering something new, yet also needing to get closer to their customers than ever, to understand exactly what they want, yet a marketing-weary customer who craves experience not spam.

Marketing ramification can help on both these points. As an experience for the customer it delivers surprise, intrigue, pleasure and stands out from other marketing methods. It can amuse, inform or simply entertain. And it rewards customers for the engagement they invest as a result.

The power of knowledge for brands

But it’s the data that it can be used to collate that is the most powerful tool for digital marketing transformation. It can increase marketing permissions by incentivising sign-ups with game rewards – such as discounts or prizes.

But it can delve much deeper too, surveying customers about their likes and dislikes, or views on products in a way that makes it exciting for the customer and useful for the brand or retailer.

In a time of fragmentation across media touch points marketing ramification brings the experience together again. It allows brands and retailers to stand out. And in the world of transformation standing out is what matters most.

While digital marketing transformation is an ongoing process for many brands and retailers, it should be always be a high priority. By adopting a digital-first strategy that is flexible and reactive to audience needs, brands and retailers can meet their audience when and where they want to be met. Let’s strive to offer experiences at just the right moment, which will lead to being memorable, meaningful, and importantly, good for business

Content marketing: What are the top misconceptions?

So, content marketing, huh? Despite this, a large number of brands are still working under some common misconceptions about this incredibly effective form of marketing, largely due to the assumption that content marketing is ‘easy’ and can be done without the help of a professional content marketing agency.

In this article, I’ll walk you through just some of these content catastrophes and how to fix them.

Selective gearing

There are those who believe that content marketing is only useful for the so-called ‘creative’ industries, and that it has no place in more formal sectors. This couldn’t be further from the truth, as content marketing is, essentially, about the sharing of information and the solving of problems.

This means that every industry and sector can – and should – be tapping into content marketing as a way of reaching and engaging with their target audiences and setting themselves up as a thought leader within that industry.

For example, marketers within the finance sector can use a content marketing strategy to advise and inform their audience of the benefits of certain kinds of savings and investments.

Quantity over quality

Too many marketers firmly believe that the key to a successful content marketing strategy is to pump out as much content as possible, as often as possible. I get the thinking behind this, as the assumption is that the more content you put out there, the more people you are likely to reach.

However, let me stop you there.

First of all, this kind of strategy will almost certainly compromise the quality of the content – which will impact the interest and trust received from your readers and followers.

Secondly, never ever forget that the gods of Google are watching. Google uses a method known as E.A.T to measure each piece of content that you publish online. This stands for:

Expertise: The work demonstrates expertise on the subject, backed up by proper facts and figures.

Authoritativeness: The work is supported by accreditations of authority such as customer reviews, backlinks, awards and affiliations.

Trustworthiness: The work is supported by positive reviews, good website security and other factors which engender trust.

This means that, if you’re just churning out content without quality control, this will actually cause your brand harm both in terms of customer trust and Google ranking. When producing content, quality will always trump quantity.

Keeping them posted

Here’s one that you may already be guilty of. You’ve written some cracking content and you’ve published it – then you assume it’s ‘job done’. Any reputable content marketing agency will tell you that this is, quite literally, only half the job done.

Assuming that people are just going to find, read and react to your content is one of the biggest cardinal sins of content marketing in 2021. The key here is that it’s ‘content marketing’, not just ‘content’.

This means that, if you want your content to be successful, you need to follow up with proper engagement with your followers on social media and other platforms.

You also need to be consistently checking your analytics and performing A/B testing to see what works and what doesn’t in terms of your published content, as well as gathering feedback from your readers and followers.

This allows you to make amendments and updates to your work and to produce follow-on pieces for your winning articles.

Keeping it reel

This one is a particular bugbear for me – marketers who insist that video content doesn’t really offer any value to a brand. I’ll let you into a secret: it absolutely does.

In 2021, a huge number of social media and internet users are consuming content while commuting, sitting in a waiting room, and even when queuing for coffee. For this reason, bite-sized content is still incredibly valuable, and video lends itself perfectly to this.

Video allows you to get your message across in a way that is fast, visually engaging and human-centric. Your audience can snap up this kind of content quickly and easily, and figures show that around 55% of internet users access and watch a video every day.

Topping up the bottom line

Yep, we’ve all heard this one – content marketing doesn’t have any impact on revenue or the bottom line.

The truth here is that all of your marketing efforts come together to impact your revenue and, while you may not be able to attribute an actual cash value to each piece of your content, the impact is there.

When you release great value content, the knock-on effect is that it drives people to your website as well as inspires them to share the content with others. As a result, increased website traffic leads to increased sales which leads to increased revenue.

Game but no game plan

There are plenty of marketers out there who tick all the right boxes but still fail for one reason: – they don’t put together a proper content strategy. It’s not enough to just put out great content; you need to plan ahead as well as react to current events.

A good content marketing agency will create a schedule for your content that is designed to keep your readers engaged every step of the way through high value, thought leadership, topical content.

Conclusion

Content marketing should be thought of as a long term strategy, rather than something which is used to gain results fast.

In reality, most brands simply don’t have the time or expertise to really make this work for them, in which case, the hiring of a great content marketing agency is probably one of the most important investments that they can make as we approach the finishing line of 2021 and power into 2022.

How to ensure your influencer marketing campaign goes to plan

When done correctly, influencer marketing is an amazing tool that can help you to maximise your digital marketing spend, raise brand awareness, and increase your sales. However, when campaigns are set up incorrectly or are missing the fundamentals, they don’t always go to plan.

Ensuring that your influencer marketing campaign works for your brand requires groundwork and planning. Here, we’ve put together a number of steps to ensure that you succeed.

Why Do Influencer Marketing Campaigns Fail?

There are a few reasons that influencer marketing campaigns can fail. These include:

Working with the wrong creators

When choosing which content creators to include in their influencer marketing campaigns, brands can sometimes be distracted by vanity metrics such as follower count or the number of likes a creator receives. In reality, what is really important are the deep engagement metrics, such as shares and saves, and the target audience. If you work with creators whose audience doesn’t reflect your target audience, or an audience that you’re at least interested in exploring, then your hard work will be wasted. Finding the right creators for your influencer marketing campaign is essential.

Lack of authentic content

When brands work with creators, sometimes it can be easy to forget that authenticity is still one of the most important aspects of content creation. No matter how much you want to push a product or promote your CTA, you have to ensure that the creator genuinely believes in what they’re saying. Influencer marketing campaigns can fail if the content or messaging seems inauthentic or forced, so making sure your content is authentic is key.

Lack of data

Combing data and human creativity is key to building the best influencer marketing campaign possible, and without the data to back up the strategy, campaigns can fail. Data provides crucial insights into audience behaviour, the effectiveness of certain content, and how a creator performs historically to give you a good idea of how the campaign will perform.

Lack of long term strategy

While one-off partnerships between brands and creators can sometimes work, most successful influencer marketing campaigns include long-term partnerships between brands and creators, run over a longer period of time. Long-term partnerships build campaign authenticity and trust between brands and the creator’s audience.

They have no defined objectives

Defining the objectives of a campaign is very important in the planning stages. Without a clear direction, creators and brands alike can end up creating content that doesn’t have a goal. Having clear objectives and a CTA in mind can help to create content that really converts, and also helps with measuring the campaign’s success further down the line.

Creators are too controlled

The final (and perhaps saddest!) reason why influencer marketing campaigns fail is that brands try to control the creator too much, to the point where the content that is produced doesn’t speak to the creator’s audience, the brand’s target audience. Ultimately, the creator knows their audience the best. Brands should write a clear brief, outlining their aims for the campaign and work in collaboration with the creator to guarantee a killer influencer campaign.

How Can You Ensure Your Influencer Marketing Campaign Doesn’t Fail?

The best way to ensure that your influencer marketing campaign doesn’t fail is by creating a genuine relationship with the creators you work with and using data to generate a strategic campaign with authentic content.

Measuring the impact of your influencer marketing is also essential as you navigate through the campaign, and having the technology on hand to do that can be essential. If something doesn’t look right, or one creator doesn’t seem to be resonating with your audience, you should remain agile and be open to changing your approach

Affiliate marketing: What is it and what are the benefits?

Affiliate marketing is a low-risk form of advertisement that companies and businesses use to promote their products or services. It is a completely performance-based process that all comes down to the affiliate’s promotion efforts.

Affiliate product or service promotions may include mentions on social media, reviews, blogs, vlogs, and podcasts, but the affiliate only makes a commission when a purchase is made through their personal link or recommendation.

With such a drastic increase in just one year, it’s no surprise that more companies are taking an interest in affiliate marketing and its benefits. To see how affiliate marketing could benefit your business, read on.

High ROI

When running a campaign, selecting the right target audience is vital. This is because there are so many things that your business needs to consider about the person who will be interested in your products or services. Do you know the average age of your audience? Do you know their interests and income?

One of the main reasons affiliate marketing is so simple is because the affiliate you’re likely to choose already has the most perfectly tailored audience, ready to influence. By funneling your marketing through an affiliate who has direct connections with your ideal audience, you’re able to reach a highly cultivated group of people who are likely to provide conversions.

Flexible strategy

You can give affiliate marketing a go even if you don’t want to splash the cash. You can start with very little and scale your budget as the strategy proves its worth.

Affiliate marketing offers great flexibility in terms of price and affiliate selection. There are countless affiliates in all industry sectors which means that you won’t be disappointed. Plus, depending on your affiliation, creativity has no bounds, especially if you find someone with a passion and a great following for what you do.

Start up costs are low

With affiliate programs, you don’t have to have an advertising team or need to buy ad space. That’s because your professional affiliates will generate the marketing ideas, build content and do the advertising for you.

The only initial effort will be choosing the affiliates you want your brand to collaborate with. Once you have decided upon the right person or persons, your affiliates will deal with the ad visuals and decide on the most effective ways of getting your products or services under the nose of the business’ target audience.

Low-risk form of marketing

As affiliate marketing is a low-cost advertising method, it means it really is a low-risk way to promote your brand. Due to the way affiliate marketing works, it’s perfect for low or tight business budgets because the only payment that will be made is when your affiliate generates a conversion.

The average commission for an affiliate is between 5-30%. The amount of commission you’re happy to part with will be a deciding factor of the affiliate you choose at the selecting stage.

Gets your brand in front of your target audience

To ensure your affiliate is perfect for your business, do your research if you want it to be a success. Hand-selecting affiliates means you can use your best judgement on who has the most targeted audience that’s most likely to resonate with your brand.

By choosing the right affiliate, their promotions of your products and services will feel less like a hard-sell to their audience, which means they’re more likely to show interest.

Contact MediaCoup

At MediaCoup, we’re just as committed to reaching your company goals as you are. Every campaign we develop together is focused on transformational growth, and we’re continuously searching for innovative ways to out-perform your current campaigns. Want to get started? Contact our expert team today!