Category: Marketing (Page 1 of 24)

2022 Marketing in Review – The world tried to be normal again

January 10, 2023 / Andy

Title: Burnout, Bots, and Brand Trust: The Year Marketing Tried to Be Human Again
Published: January 2023

In 2022, marketing stopped trying to win the internet and started trying to win people back.

After a two-year sprint through pandemic pivots, remote chaos, and digital everything, the mood shifted. Customers were burned out. Teams were burned out. And somewhere in the noise, a quiet message emerged:

“Don’t try to be everywhere. Try to be real.”

It was the year of rebuilding brand trust. Of cutting through automation sludge. Of rethinking the funnel. And for many of us—of remembering why we got into this work in the first place.

Here’s what actually happened.

Consumer Behavior Changed—And Got More Selective

78% of consumers unfollowed brands in 2022 due to “inauthentic” messaging
(Source: Stackla, “Bridging the Gap” Report)
Trust in social ads dropped for the third straight year—down to 43%, with Gen Z showing the sharpest decline
(Source: Edelman Trust Barometer)
Email open rates held steady at 21.5%, but click-throughs declined by 5%
People opened out of habit, not curiosity.
Reviews, UGC, and peer-led content outperformed branded ads in 73% of A/B tests
Trust shifted to real people, not stylized creatives.

We Over-Automated, Then Regretted It

Martech stack bloat peaked: the average mid-sized marketing team used 91 tools
(Source: ChiefMartec 2022)
Chatbots replaced contact forms on 62% of B2C websites—but customer satisfaction dropped by 11%
The human touch was missed more than expected.
AI-generated content became trendy—but conversion rates were 37% lower when used without human editing
You can’t automate authenticity.

What Did Work? Anything That Felt Human

Influencer marketing spend rose 42% year over year
Especially micro-creators (under 100K followers), who delivered better ROI and engagement.
SMS campaigns saw a 35% click-through rate—with 98% open rates
Text isn’t dead. It’s just underused.
Podcast ad revenue jumped to $2 billion, and listener trust remained higher than any digital format
People still like voices more than headlines.
Brands that publicly admitted mistakes saw an 8% brand trust lift
Honesty scaled.

So What Do We Do With This?

The lesson of 2022 wasn’t “be everywhere.” It was:

Be somewhere real. With something worth saying. To people who might actually care.

We learned (again) that automation should support communication—not replace it. That being human still scales when done right. That trust still matters more than targeting.

And that the brands who won last year weren’t louder. They were clearer.

Five Takeaways From 2022

For CMOs, marketing leads, and teams who want to make smarter moves in 2023:

Cut your stack. Most teams don’t need 90 tools.
Edit your AI. Machine content is only as good as the human who sharpens it.
Trust is the new KPI. If your customers don’t believe you, your reach is meaningless.
Get personal again. SMS, podcasts, micro-creators—small formats built real engagement.
Real is rare. That’s why it still works.

ChatGPT Is Not a Copywriter. It’s a Brutal First Draft Machine.

July 4, 2022 / Andy

Let’s get this out of the way: I like AI. I use it. I even talk to it more than some of my friends. But let’s not pretend it’s Don Draper.

What AI is great at? Vomiting out a rough idea so you can sharpen it. Rewriting headlines until one of them doesn’t suck. Spitting out 20 variations of something you weren’t even sure how to start.

But it doesn’t know timing. Or tone. Or how to write a line that makes you pause, not scroll.

A lot of brands are skipping the human part. They’re posting AI-generated sludge and calling it “content.” That’s not innovation. That’s

laziness dressed up in automation.

The good news? If you still have a voice, your own. You can make AI your assistant, not your replacement. But it starts with knowing who you are before you press “generate.”

An Olympic Sized Irony

July 11, 2021 / Andy

My deep thought of the day.

This is backwards-looking of course. But if the IOC powers-that-be had figured out last year how to test potential Olympic athletes for COVID-19, quarantine them when they got to Tokyo, and accept that they would have to ban all spectators, then a global population stuck at home would have made it the most-watched Olympics ever. Maybe by 25-40%. People would have been arguing on Twitter about archery and synchronized swimming.

But instead, out of safety, the Olympics were postponed a year. And in the summer of 2021, when we can all go outside again and do other things with friends and family, who really wants to sit at home and watch the Olympics? Instead, this could be one of the lower-rated Olympics ever. Tough break for NBC.

Tips for New Zoomers

March 12, 2020 / Andy

Welcome to the “Work From Home” Lifestyle!

I know a lot of you prefer to have a 1/2 hour commute, walk in the rain from your car to your building, and then sit at your cube in a cavernous, fluorescent-lit room full of despair. But now you have to join us work-from-homers. And you’re going to be here a while, so you may as well get some best practices down now. Here are some basic things you need to know.

Always wear pants – Yes, the temptation is there. You want to sit in pajamas (or less) from the waist down. Resist the urge. Comfortable sweat pants are fine, just make sure that if your cat somehow readjusts your camera for you, you’re ok with what your co-workers are exposed to.
Figure out your two-monitor setup – For whatever reason, Microsoft, Apple, Zoom and all the monitor companies seem to have conspired to make sure that the default setting for your two-monitor set-up is to have the camera broadcast from whichever one you don’t want it to. This is fixable, just takes a little time. Do a practice run with friends and get it all situated.
Lighting is important – You know when you want to take a picture of yourself standing in front of an awesome sunset, and you get the sunset but you are just a shadowy blob in front of it? Same concept with Zoom. You can shoot with a window as your backdrop, just invest in a decent lamp that brightens your face.
Warn your roommates when you are on a call – Many people have a story similar to this one I heard recently. “I was on a Zoom call with my whole team. When suddenly, in the background of one of my team members, I see his wife walking around the kitchen buck naked. Not a stitch of clothing. Now, he had his headset on, and someone else was talking so she would have no way of hearing he was on a call. And I didn’t know what to do. Do I interrupt and tell my employee to turn around and tell his wife to get out of the frame, calling MORE attention to it? Do I just ignore it and hope no one sees it? Well before I could decide, the wife turned around and realized she was on live TV, screamed at the top of her lungs (alerting everyone who hadn’t noticed it yet), and ran out of the room. So we went on with the meeting from there.”
Backgrounds are cool, but... – If you are new to Zoom, the background features are pretty cool. “Look, I’m at a mountain or on a beach!” There are reasons and times to use these backgrounds. For example, if your spouse and kids are all working and learning from home at the same time and your only available spaces to broadcast from are the bathroom, car, or garage, use a background. Or, if you have a calm and professional customized background of an office environment, that is better than the view from your kitchen table. And if you have kids that like to run in the background of your Zoom calls, the background can mitigate that risk. Just keep in mind that the “floating head phenomenon” will probably happen at some point and it’s hard for people not to get distracted away from the brilliant point you were making.
In large meetings, default to “Mute On.” – I find it helpful to think about how much I expect to be talking in any given meeting, and if I’m not going to be the majority presenter, I go to “Mute On” right after salutations. There’s an added benefit to this, in that instead of just blurting your genius thought of the moment over someone already talking, you have to think, prepare yourself by taking off the mute, and wait for a proper place to jump in. And if you are at all like me, often you’ll realize that what you were about to say added little in the way of a contribution and was better left unsaid.
Not everything needs to be a Zoom call – Zoom is addictive. It’s the best way to replicate a face to face meeting. But remember, sometimes you don’t need face to face. Even if Zoom is an option, there’s nothing wrong with picking up the phone and calling someone for 5 minutes.

If you have your own Zoom tips, send them over,

Ask a Marketer: Video Marketing

March 6, 2018 / Andy

In the last two segments of the “Ask a Marketer” series we covered Paid Search and Email Marketing. This week’s topic is Video Marketing, and we talk to Derek Merdinyan of Video Igniter.

Q1: Give me the 3 second pitch – Why should I spend money to add video into my marketing mix?
Video enables you to package up and present your message in a way that is educational, entertaining, engaging and easily sharable.

Q2: What are some examples of things I can explain better using video than if I just tried to write it in a blog or white paper?
Software, technology, systems, stories, anything that is complex and better explained through analogy. In almost every case, it is possible to explain things better with animated video instead of ‘filmed’ video because animations can be used to focus on the specific visual details that make it easier to understand new material.

Q3: What are some ways I can take the money I spend on video, and use it in other areas?
If you are speaking about animation specifically, be sure to ask your animator for a full project archive – odds are you can repurpose the visual images they created (i.e. characters, icons, charts, etc) and turn those images into image posts for social media.

Q4: How much should I expect to pay for a video? What’s the range and what determines that range?
If you go to a freelancer marketplace website, you can expect to pay $300 – $5,000 – the range varies by a few factors, notably the production quality, the number of revisions you can request, and the overall responsiveness, creativity and professionalism of the person you are working with. Hiring a full on animation studio can run you $5,000 – $50,000 or more. 2D projects tend to cost between $3,000 – $15,000/minute for visual quality you will be proud of. Quality 3D animations are easily going to be north of $15,000/minute.

Q5: A standard line is that on a project, there’s Cheap, Fast and Good, and you can only have 2 of the 3. Is that true for video as well?
100%.

Q6: Anything else we need to know about Video Marketing?
Most people think you just make a video, put it online, and promote it. Few people analyze and optimize their video – which for many companies is their largest marketing asset. When you first put your video online, you should host it with a service that provides you analytics to see what % of people click the thumbnail to play the video & how long people watch the video before they stop. Are only 10% of your landing page visitors clicking the play button? Maybe you need a better thumbnail for the video. Do most people watch the whole video or are a large number of people dropping off around 14 seconds? If your video is animated, it’s much easier to revise and recreate part of your video to make it flow better for viewers; live action videos are harder and more expensive to optimize because it means bringing back the same film crew, actors and booking a location just to re-shoot an alternate segment. It would be wise, for both live action and animated marketing videos to create multiple alternate endings for your video to see which variation leads to more conversions (i.e. sign up here, call this #, download the app, join our newsletter, etc).

Ask a Marketer: Email Marketing

February 8, 2018 / Andy

Doing what I do, I have the privilege to engage with a number of marketing professionals who are among the best of the bunch. Upon reflection, I realized that some of the things we talk about may also be of interest to people who stumble upon this blog. Thus, I am starting a new series called, “What Marketers Need to Know.” And yes, I know we need a catchier title.

Each article in this series will feature a semi-deep dive into a topic area marketers need to understand. The answers will come from an industry expert who speaks from real-world client experience. To start the series off, I asked my friend Elizabeth Case of Yellow Dog Consulting to give us some real-time thoughts on Email Marketing.

Topic 1: Email Marketing – Elizabeth Case, Yellow Dog Consulting

Q1) As you look back at 2017, with what kind of strategies or tactics did your clients find the most success?

Elizabeth: Simple word – Newsletter.

I will forever be a broken record on this and I am OK with it! Consistency is key in email marketing. If I only ever hear from you when you have a product or workshop to sell me, that’s not going to work. I had one client who at the end of 3 months wanted to wrap up because they weren’t getting registrations for their workshop. I wasn’t aware that was the goal of their newsletter and if you read the newsletter, you wouldn’t have either! I’m not saying don’t offer a product or service, you can do that on occasion, but you must earn the right to be heard first.

Also, make sure you have good systems in place. One successful client includes a simple “sign up for a free 30 minute consult” link in the end of her monthly newsletter. It goes to a page to schedule on their calendar. Not 15 steps back and forth for a prospective client – one click, two clicks, boom – new lead ready to talk to them. Every month they get a new (or returning) client from their newsletter.

Another good system is automation…“Click here to download…” and then have that system automated. Don’t worry about it. I have 3 offers in the footer of my newsletter (yeah that may be too many, I’ll work on it) and they are automated so I don’t have to worry about it.

Q2) Now as you look ahead to 2018, what strategies and tactics will you change? What will you do more or less of?

Elizabeth: So far in 2018 I’m seeing a lot of folks automate their processes which is GREAT! You created an awesome program or free download on your website – let’s get that system working for YOU. Nurture and educate these leads so you can keep doing what you love each day.

One conversation I often have with clients is about frequency. Do I really need to hear from you once a week? I don’t have time for that. And I certainly don’t have time for it at 10 AM on a Tuesday when I’m in the middle of my work day. Depending on what you do, I may have time for it in the evening or weekends or over my lunch break. But if you’re sending me something daily or weekly it better be damn good or I will find that unsubscribe button really fast…

There are newsletters that I look forward to receiving each month and ones that I delete each week because it’s too frequent. You know your audience and if the open rates are there then fantastic, but if you’re hovering under 20% it’s time to reconsider if your schedule and frequency are really working for you.

Q3) How important is a lead nurturing campaign? At what point do you move your clients from a standard newsletter to a customized drip campaign?

Elizabeth: Lead nurturing campaigns are awesome depending on the size of your company. It may not make sense for a solo-prenuer or a small business with just a couple sales folks to have a big drip campaign setup. But if you have systems in place, as you grow you can start to automate that nurturing.

You have to use your campaign software, it will tell you when to start dripping. If you aren’t reading reports after each campaign is sent, you’re missing out on the MOST valuable information about your content. What links do they continue to click? How many of the last 10 campaigns have they opened? What are their demographics? If someone is constantly opening and engaging with your content, it’s time to start nurturing that contact. You don’t want to leave low hanging fruit out their to dwindle away and hire the competition. Start to pay attention to frequency and build a plan around it.

And when that nurture is done – make sure they continue to hear from you on a regular basis so you stay top of mind for them to either hire you again or refer you to a colleague.

Q4) If a company is just getting an email marketing program off the ground, what tools or technologies would you suggest they invest in?

Elizabeth: I’m always a big fan of MailChimp, especially when you’re just starting out. They offer free automation and are perfect for a small and growing company (and your contact lists). If you’re a larger company you can’t go wrong with HubSpot. It will help you integrate and automate so your teams aren’t stepping on each others toes which is always a safe move!

Email marketing continues to be one of the best and most intimate communications you can have with a potential client. If you aren’t taking advantage of all those contacts in your CRM you’re missing out on a LOT of fantastic and low hanging fruit just waiting to be reminded, or introduced, to how awesome you are.

===================

If you’re struggling with your email marketing, you should chat with Elizabeth. And if you have some topics you’d like to see next, let me know. I’ll be asking my marketing friends to share their insights.

5 Simple Copywriting Rules for Non-Writers

September 21, 2017 / Andy

In my career, I’ve learned there are two types of people in the business world – those who hate writing, and crazy people. Since I spend a significant amount of time writing for companies, I guess I fall in the latter category.

I love to analyze the differing styles of writers, and the ways they work with their words in order to make a good story great. It’s essentially my version of competitive research. I especially enjoy reading articles from writers who can engage readers without clickbait headlines such as, “5 Simple Copywriting Rules for Non-Writers.”

So this seems like a good time to share a few tips aimed at those of you who hate writing, but can’t escape doing it.

You have three seconds to earn a reader’s attention so they’ll read for 30 more: If you have never had to write a sentence for a living, you probably didn’t even bother to click on the title of this article in your feed. That’s fine. You’re not my audience. But if you clicked on this link, I had about 30 seconds in the first three paragraphs to hook you into the meat of the story. If you’ve gotten down here to the bullets, I estimate I now have earned about three more minutes of your time. I’ll try to make it worth it.
Never use an Exclamation Point: Exclamation Points are the lazy writer’s way to show importance about something. If you can’t make a sentence interesting enough to stand on its own, rewrite the sentence. When you are talking to someone in a meeting, do you suddenly shout at them? Of course not. No exclamation points. Ever. Got it? If you have to change the way you type to make sure “Shift-1” is harder to reach, you should do so.
There is no such thing as, “very unique”: “Unique” is defined as, “Being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.” When something is “one of a kind,” it can’t be “very one of a kind.” Don’t exaggerate for exaggeration’s sake.
There’s a difference between who and that: There are many times when a person who ((not that)) has a lot of subject matter expertise, can present information on a blog that ((not who)) has readers who ((not that)) will benefit from it. Understand that “who” is for people and “that” is for things.
Never use the same word twice in a sentence: This is a tough one for many companies, especially those that have precious few adjectives to describe their product’s features and benefits. Just be conscious that when you are producing content for your web properties, you should be able to write the content in a way that the content doesn’t require the same word multiple times. See, that sentence just sounded silly.

Writing can be a difficult game, but you should never fear it. A bad writer with great ideas is still more interesting to read than someone who is grammatically correct in their description of paint drying.

Was this useful? Kind of useful? Useless? I’d love to hear your own writing tips and tricks, as well as any grammar and punctuation rules that I’ve violated in this article.

More Money for Marketing – Budgets to Increase Again

March 12, 2017 / Andy

Good news for companies with products that target Marketing groups. There should be more money to go around this year. According to a Gartner report published in October of 2016, the average Marketing budget is now up to 12% of company revenue.

The numbers don’t vary too greatly between B2B and B2C companies, with B2B companies receiving 12.3% of the company’s revenue vs 11.6% for B2C brands. Unsurprisingly, high tech companies devote the largest percent of revenue to marketing, at 13.3%

The key in the budget escalation is that large enterprises have accepted the new world of marketing. For many years, social media was a place where the smart and hungry start-ups could out-maneuver their established competitors for a fraction of the cost of a traditional marketing budget. But according to Gartner, enterprises have adapted. “Large established brands must out-market startups. As scrappy disrupters threaten the hard-earned franchises, these more established companies are forced to compete defensively, which may necessitate higher investments in everything from customer insight to innovation to advertising.”

One traditional marketing tactic appears to continue its importance. 65% of marketing leaders surveyed said they plan to increase spending on digital advertising, with 23% expecting a significant increase. This is being led by the increased importance of video, which is more expensive than other digital techniques for both media and production.

But many people ask, “With all the marketing automation tools and programmatic advertising designed to decrease marketing costs, why do budgets need to increase?”

“The problem with marketing automation tools is that everyone has access to them,” says Marketing Consultant Elizabeth Case. “So instead of competing for a customer’s eyeballs in a landscape of 100 touchpoints, we’re all competing to attract that same eyeball in 100,000 touchpoints. Thus, while they may get more for their money, they still need to spend more money to find the eyeballs.”

However, the news is not all good across the board. While the average marketing exec expects a bigger checkbook, a higher percentage than ever before (14%) expect to see a cut back. So why the contrarian approach from this group? Ironically, it’s the media companies that are cutting back their marketing spend. The industry that is most reliant on advertising to survive, is being forced to slash their own marketing budgets.

Also, marketers at smaller companies are being asked to do more with less. “CEO’s of small to mid-sized businesses read the articles and believe the promise that whatever technology they invest in can save them 10-50%,” says Derek Merdinyan, CEO of video production company Video Igniter. “So the marketing folks at SMB’s are being asked to run premium campaigns on a shoestring budget. Meanwhile, the enterprises are now spending more so they can catch up to the ways they’ve been traditionally outmaneuvered by start-ups.”

So what kind of technology companies benefit from this shifting landscape?

First, Gartner sees a tighter integration between sales and marketing teams. Marketing programs that easily integrate with CRM’s are likely to be adopted.
Next, the CMO is gaining responsibility. According to Gartner, in more than 30% of organizations, at least some aspects of sales, IT and customer experience report into the CMO.
Finally, Gartner states that Marketing leaders will set aside 10% of the marketing budget for innovation. Customer experience and digital commerce are the top two areas of innovation projects marketing leaders say they’re currently pursuing — 53% for customer experience and 51% for digital commerce.

So in the end, there’s more money to be had from Marketing departments. But it’s not a simple gold rush. Companies must be wise in what they offer and who they target. If they have the right use case for the right audience, they should be able to grow their own revenues.

Top B2B Marketing Whitepapers and Reports

February 26, 2017 / Andy

If you’re like me, your Facebook and LinkedIn feeds are inundated with articles, whitepapers, and industry reports. Now most of you probably skip them, but I find these much more enlightening than the latest political argument my friends and colleagues are engaged in. So to make life easier on all of you, I’ve listed a few of the reports I think are worth a read.

(Note: Most of these will require you to provide an email address to the company that wrote it. Be a good marketing person and reward the content team for their hard work.)

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management: The market for CRM lead management applications continues to grow, evolve and mature. This Magic Quadrant evaluates 17 providers to help IT leaders find the right choice for their company, in collaboration with marketing, sales and digital commerce leaders.
2016 State of Marketing, from Salesforce: Trends and insights from nearly 4,000 marketing leaders worldwide.
The State of Inbound 2016, from Hubspot: HubSpot’s 8th Annual Report, Tracking the Future of Inbound Marketing and Sales
The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics for 2016, from Freely: 347 marketing statistics for 2016 that you can use in your own content.
Inbound Marketing Examples, from Hubspot: Hubspot Academy-approved examples of what others have built with the platform.
Digital Marketing Resources, from Salesforce: A library of Salesforce’s most popular pieces on topics like list growth, Facebook marketing, mobile marketing strategy, customer lifecycle marketing
Mobile Messaging Report 2016, by Mobile Ecosystem Forum and mblox: The MEF indexes the messaging habits of nearly 6000 respondents across nine countries worldwide.
The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to B2B Marketing, from LinkedIn: Learn how to leverage LinkedIn’s marketing solutions, including content marketing campaigns, native advertising, sales lead generation, and brand awareness.
The State of Facebook Advertising, by Marin Software: Year-over-year trend charts detailing spend, clicks, and CTR, the growth outlook for Facebook on mobile devices, and why Facebook is paying so much attention to its video ad formats
2016 Mobile App Retrospective, by App Annie: App Annie details the markets that saw the most growth in 2016 for downloads and usage, the growing monetization opportunity for publishers across categories, the top industries that are being transformed by mobile apps, and the trends publishers must stay on top of.
Top 10 Big Data Trends for 2017, by Tableau Software: Tableau highlights the top big data trends for 2017.
Mobile Messaging Report 2016, by Mobile Ecosystem Forum and mblox: The MEF indexes the messaging habits of nearly 6000 respondents across nine countries worldwide.
How to Nail a Mobile Campaign Using SMS and Mobile Apps, by mobileStorm: Mobile apps now give your brand limitless choices on how to communicate, but this whitepaper details how to incorporate them into a larger mix that includes SMS.
Mobile First Brand Loyalty Strategy Guide, by Punchkick Interactive: Learn how your brand can use mobile to build a more effective customer loyalty or rewards program.
Top App Marketing Agencies List 2016, by mobyaffiliates: Need a Mobile Agency? Use this as a handy starting guide.
B2B Marketing Strategies by 2020, by Sundog Interactive: Predictions for the future from an interactive agency.

Stories You Missed – January 2017

February 2, 2017 / Andy

We all can’t read everything, and our Facebook feeds are now overrun with political arguing. So to make things easy for you, I’ve assembled some of the stories from last month about tech, marketing, sports and Seattle that you may find interesting.

Three Sounders FC Departments Honored with 2016 MLS Club and Executive Awards: Congrats to the team members who don’t wear jerseys. Sounders FC tied for the lead among all clubs with its three awards: Corporate Partnerships Team of the Year, Marketing Team of the Year and Public Relations Team of the Year. I don’t know how these awards are judged, but if you enjoy your time at Sounders games, these groups probably play a big role.
After Buyouts, Layoffs, 23 Staffers Exit ‘Seattle Times’: Well if you think that the national newscasts are a series of partisan wonks arguing talking points back and forth, then you won’t like this article. The newspapers still can’t figure out a business model, which means more cuts to local journalists. If you have an idea for how to save local news, you’re running out of time to share it.
Dramatic video footage shows drone circling and then crashing into Seattle’s Space Needle: Well I guess this is why we can’t let everyone just fly their drones around all the time…
The latest Amazon-occupied building sale shows how far Seattle real estate has come in last decade: If you think your house or apartment is expensive, imagine trying to buy an office building in Seattle these days. One of Amazon’s 290,000 square foot office buildings just sold for $269 million – or about $925 a square foot. That compares to $1.85 Million for your 2000 square foot house.
Venture Investment in Seattle Area Companies Falls 27 Percent in 2016: It was a mixed bag of news about how much money investors poured into Seattle companies in 2016. On the downside, for the full year, investors poured just over $1.5 billion into 282 local deals, down 27 percent and 23 percent, respectively, from 2015. But on the upside, the fourth quarter of 2016 saw 77 local deals completed, totaling $561.3 million, compared to 81 deals totaling $190.6 million in the same period of 2015, and the final six months of 2016 saw a combined 157 deals, up 26 percent from the first half of the year, and $919.7 million invested, up 58 percent.

Oh and the Seahawks lost. But we don’t need to rehash that.

Have a good story to share? Email me and let me know.