20 essential KPIs you should be tracking to improve your marketing

Looking to learn about KPIs and how you can use them to improve your marketing? Then this article is for you!

What is a KPI in marketing?

KPI stands for key performance indicators.

A KPI in marketing is a measurable value tied to the specific objectives of a marketing campaign.

KPIs help measure marketing effectiveness at the end of a campaign.

KPIs vs marketing metrics

Isn’t KPI the same as marketing metrics?

No, it’s not and you must be able to know the difference between KPIs and marketing metrics.

Marketing metrics are measurable values that include everything from the number of followers of the brand’s page on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok to website traffic, email subscribers, MQL (marketing qualified leads) and the list can continue. It’s everything you can measure at any given time.

The KPI belongs to the marketing metrics category, it is indeed a marketing metric itself.

The difference is that the KPIs are tied to a specific goal of a specific marketing campaign whereas marketing metrics are not tied to a specific goal of a specific marketing campaign.

Every marketing campaign has one or several marketing goals. To measure how effective your campaign was to achieve your goals, select the appropriate KPIs.

How are KPIs used to measure performance in marketing?

Before we talk about how to use KPIs to measure and track performance in marketing campaigns, it’s essential to understand the brand’s business goals and objectives.

You cannot measure progress if you don’t know what progress looks like. Or what success means for your business.

So, if you are the leader of your team, share the brand’s business goals for 2021 with your colleagues.

They could focus on revenue (increase sales), suppliers (replace old suppliers with new, more performant ones), employees (reduce employee turnover), profit (increase profit margin) or market (increase market share).

Once everyone in your team is aware of the business goals they need to achieve, you can move on to the next step: establishing marketing goals.

Here are some of the common marketing goals:

Increase Brand Awareness
Lead generation
Promote new products/services
Target new customers
Increase website traffic
Grow your email list

If your business goal is to increase revenue, what marketing campaigns your team needs to create and run in order to achieve it?

You could consider implementing several marketing campaigns. For example, a marketing campaign targeted at new customers or a marketing campaign targeted at your current customers with the goal of upscaling. What would you like them to do: buy more in quantity or buy products that are more expensive?

The KPIs tied to this particular marketing campaign could be 20% new leads generated or 20% customer conversion rate.

Here are 20 essential KPIs that you should track to measure your marketing performance:

Email open rates
Email click-through rates
Email forward rates
Newsletter signup conversion rate
Social media engagement rate
Social media conversions
New leads generated
Cost per lead
Customer lifetime value
Returning website visitors
Goal completion rate
Marketing revenue attribution
Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
Landing page conversion rates
Traffic-to-lead ratio
Lead-to-customer ratio
Customer retention
Content downloads
Referral traffic
Net promoter score

1. Email open rates

You worked hard to gain new subscribers to the company’s newsletter, but all is in vain if your emails remain unopened.

Optimize your headlines. Are you sending too many emails per week? If you do, but your subscribers don’t click the unsubscribe button, then they wish to receive your emails but they are too often which leads to email fatigue.

2. Email click-through rates

Your subscribers are opening your emails – that’s great! One of your email campaign goals is to drive website traffic so the email clickthrough rate is an important KPI.

If you note this particular indicator is unsatisfactory (what value did you set for email clickthrough rates?) because the subscribers are not clicking on the links, you should consider the content and the copy. Is the linked content relevant to subscribers?

Re-write the copy: don’t use ‘learn more’ to persuade the subscriber to click the link. Get creative!

3. Email forward rates

The email forward rate is one of the most important KPIs if you are looking to grow a community for the brand.

Opening the email and clicking on the content links inside is one thing, but making your message so relevant to your subscribers that they forward it to someone else is a great achievement.

How many people did your email subscribing campaign convert?

This KPI shows how well you were able to find a match between the brand’s offering and their interests, to speak to their values and show them your solution to their pain points.

They say liking a post is the easiest engagement action that your followers can take whereas commenting is the hardest.

Having followers that take the time to express their opinion in a comment to your post is more valuable than receiving likes. It also tells the algorithm that this piece of content is sparking conversations which prompts it to show your post to more people.

After having said that, let’s also not forget that the algorithm shows your content to a small number of people. Some say it’s under 1%. So this vanity metric is a nice-to-have feature, but it is not essential.

What is instead relevant is how many conversions does your social content drive? How many clicks to the website? How many email subscribers? How many leads does it generate?

7. New leads generated

Generating new leads is paramount for every brand. You need to constantly show your products or services to new leads gently nudging them to the next step in your marketing and sales funnel.

Check this to get your creative juices flowing: 5 fast ways to generate leads on your website

8. Cost per lead

Lead generation is important, but if the cost of acquiring leads is high, you need to take a step back, analyze every stage of the process and see where you can improve it.

The Pirate Funnel may help you pinpoint where your business is losing customers.

9. Customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value is the total revenue you can expect from a customer during the period that they remain a customer. Or simply put: how much are they worth to your brand? For example, Amazon Prime members are worth twice as much as non-Prime shoppers. Prime shoppers spend $1,340 annually, more than twice as much as non-Prime shoppers, who spend $650 annually.

10. Returning website visitors

Having a good amount of website traffic is necessary if you want to run ads, show up in organic search results and gain email subscribers.

Your website is owned media, it’s where you control the content – your brand is not at the mercy of any social media algorithms. It’s important to measure the number of new visitors your website gets every month. But equally important is to track how many visitors return to your site.

Returning visitors tell you that your website is a relevant and valuable resource for them. It’s how your brand stays top of mind. It’s also easier to convert returning visitors to leads and then customers.

11. Goal completion rate

Marketers set a goal for every marketing campaign they run. The goal completion rate is a KPI that measures the number of people that complete a specific marketing goal.

How many people subscribed to the brand’s newsletter? How many people have signed up for your freemium offer? It is an important indicator of your brand’s ability to influence to get from the awareness stage to the consideration stage in your marketing funnel.

12. Marketing revenue attribution

Every marketer wants to know how much profit their campaigns have generated. The marketing revenue attribution KPI does exactly that: it tracks and credits the company’s marketing efforts with the generated revenue.

If you are running mobile campaigns, marketing revenue attribution can prove to be a challenge. There are platforms to help you out, it’s only a matter of finding the right one for you.

13. Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Do you know how much it costs your company to acquire a new customer?

As a business person and a leader, it’s one of the most important numbers you should be aware of. This KPI can be calculated by dividing all costs spent on acquiring new customers (advertising spend, the marketing and sales department salary costs) by the number of customers. Now that you know what your company’s CAC is, if it’s too high, you can start looking for ways to lower it.

14. Landing page conversion rates

Your team has designed a beautiful landing page for your company’s latest offering of products or services. And you are running a campaign to send leads to that landing page with the goal of converting them to customers. The landing page conversion rate KPI shows the performance of the landing page.

If the page has a poor conversion rate, analyze it to see if the graphics and the copy can be improved.

15. Traffic-to-lead ratio

This KPI tells you how many of your website visitors convert to leads. First, you need to establish what exactly means a lead for your brand.

What do you want your website visitor to do? Depending on what your company offers through its website, it could be anything from a newsletter subscribing, downloading a PDF paper, answering a survey or registering for a 7-day free product subscription.

If this ratio is unsatisfactory, one of the main questions you should ask yourself is ‘Are you attracting the right people to your website?’

16. Lead-to-customer ratio

Now that you have established the traffic-to-lead ratio, the next step is to establish the lead-to-customer ratio.

From the total number of leads, how many convert into paying customers? How many push the Buy button? What are you doing to convince them to become customers? Are your leads qualified? A qualified lead is someone who could become a potential customer to you, based on criteria and identifying information that they have freely provided.

17. Customer retention rate

The customer retention rate indicates the brand’s ability to serve and satisfy its customers so well over a given period of time that they have become loyal.

It’s every brand’s dream: customers that are happy to continue to do business. If this KPI is high, then you are doing something right. You may also consider designing a brand ambassador program as your next step. We all know that acquiring new customers is more expensive than retaining existing customers.

18. Content downloads rate

Downloadable content is usually hosted on a landing page as a lead magnet. It helps marketers establish if the content is relevant to the page visitors and if the copy is effective. The visitor who downloaded the content is now a lead and the brand can begin a conversation which could eventually result in a sale.

19. Referral traffic

Directing people to your website is hard work and it usually takes 6 to 12 months to see results for some companies or 3 months for other companies depending on the industry.

Referral traffic is one of those results and describes the people who come to your website from other sites, without searching for your brand on Google. It could be a link on your social media post, or in a blog published by one of your clients. If they are linking back to your website it means your content was helpful to them which in turn helps your brand increase awareness and domain authority.

20. Net promoter score

When we are satisfied with a product or service, we recommend it to our friends and family. It’s one of the most powerful ways a brand can attract customers – word-of-mouth marketing.

The Net Promoter Score assesses the customers’ overall satisfaction and calculates the likelihood of recommending a company or its products.

14 talks about top performance & business growth

Are you looking for insights on top performance & business growth?

Here are 14 talks featuring the BRAND MINDS 2023 speakers sharing their insights on habits, the new way of working, technology, marketing, sales, creativity and more.

14 talks about top performance & business growth

Building & changing habits with James Clear of “Atomic Habits”

YouTube Ads: Why is it not working and what to do with Neil Patel

New Ways of Working with Lynda Gratton

What’s Your Blue Ocean Strategy? Make Your Competition Irrelevant with Author Renée Mauborgne

3 reasons why your lookalike audience isn’t converting with Neil Patel

Creating new, empowering habits with James Clear

5 tips to think like a millionaire with Blair Singer

Keeping your PR creative, imaginative, curious and intuitive with Disney’s Duncan Wardle

Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Skin in the Game

Women in Engineering Day with Anne-Marie Imafidon

Move Beyond Competing with Renée Mauborgne

How to build awesome habits with James Clear

How to price correctly with Neil Patel

Why you should redesign your HR strategy with Lynda Gratton

Behind Apple’s product launch event: STORYTELLING STRATEGY

When you think of Apple as a brand – you think of INNOVATION, CREATIVITY and SOPHISTICATED DESIGN, shaped in the simplest way. When you think of iPhone, iMac or iPad, you think of a global brand. However, global brands are not created over night, but with consistency and a lot of strategic decisions that are taken with every single step.

In this particular case, Apple managed to:

Create products that most creators around the world want;
Design a lifestyle enhanced by the versatility of their gadgets;
Build a complex ecosystem that is completely interconnected.
And most importantly, they succeeded in creating an incredibly engaged brand culture.

Building a global brand takes years, organising an outstanding event requires knowledge that is applied wisely, through a few strategic decisions.

From this article you will learn more about what stands behind an outstanding launching strategy and what you should consider when creating your own. Enjoy!

APPLE INC. – EVENT LAUNCH STRATEGY DECONSTRUCT – Based on the online launch on April 20th, 2021.

ANGLES:

Pre-suasion and how Apple FRAMES the mood of the AUDIENCE in creating a certain positioning for their products;
How they enhance the BRAND CULTURE, build TRUST and create SYNERGY with their audience;
3. How Apple leverages the fundamentals of MEMORY PALACE technique through particular scenes.

1. Pre-suasion and how Apple FRAMES the mood of the AUDIENCE in creating a certain positioning for their products:

There’s a very popular concept in the art of persuation, that Robert Cialdini is talking in his books and it’s called pre-suasion.

Pre–suasion is the practice of getting people sympathetic to your message before they experience it. It’s about all the things that happens before you ask someone to say yes to your proposal.

Regarding this, below you’ll find the PRE-SUATION SCHEME in Apple’s April 20th event. Take a look at it because we’ll go through each point in particular, below:

WORDS & PHRASES:

You’ve probably heard before that the words we use can frame how we think and act. Well, if you think about it in strategy terms, just imagine that the phrases and the words that a brand uses can frame its audience perception and buying decisions.

Apple manages to leverage this insights in an outstanding way and to emphasise this, take a look about how many times they have used certain WORDS in a 1-HOUR event and what are the PHRASES they use in their event script:

1) MOST USED WORDS:

If you look at the words (grey circles) that are repeating in the event script and you count the number of times (green circles) each of them is used in a 1-hour timeline, you understand what are the main takeaways that people leave with, after watching it. And the most imortant role in the whole script stands right at the end, with a 238 mentions in just 1 hour. Take a look below.

The perception of Apple products after watching a launching event.

2) USED PHRASES:

In the same strategic way that they are using particular words to create perception, the BRAND’S PERSONALITY is enhanced once again through powerful phrases that do the same thing. You can find below a few of them extracted from the 1-hour script:

Apple Card Presentation:

Our customers are LOVING all the benefits of Apple Card and we believe it’s THE MOST SUCCESSFUL credit card launched EVER.
iPhone 12 is THE MOST POPULAR SMARTPHONE IN THE WORLD, and people LOVE its AMAZING features.
We’re so EXCITED to introduce a new, GORGEOUS purple. / It looks STUNNING. / It’s ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL.

Apple TV Presentation:

Apple TV 4K is now built with the A12 Bionic, bringing a new level of PERFORMANCE that will be a MASSIVE upgrade to your TV.
Apple TV 4K brings THE ABSOLUTE BEST entertainment experience to your home.
The results can be DRAMATIC, with more natural colors and improved contrast making your TV look better than EVER.

iMac Presentation:

There has never been a more EXCITING time for the Mac.
And our Mac business has never been STRONGER.
Our M1 products have continued to fuel the Mac’s INCREDIBLE growth.
M1 has been a GIGANTIC leap forward for the Mac.
It has redefined the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini, SHATTERING EXPECTATIONS of what each of them can do.
Users have been ABSOLUTELY blown away by their responsiveness and amazing battery life.
These Macs demonstrate how M1 can DRAMATICALLY move the Mac forward.
The all-new, completely redesigned iMac is MORE personal, MORE POWERFUL, and MORE CAPABLE than EVER.
And it’s INCREDIBLEfrom every angle.
iMac’s new form is STUNNING
So you can see your content in all its GLORIOUS detail.
Every image is BRILLIANT and vivid.
We’ve taken iMac’s camera, mics, and speakers to a whole NEW level.
This camera will make you look like a rock star. In fact, it’s THE BEST camera we’ve EVER put in a Mac.
Simply put, it’s THE BEST sound system ever in a Mac, and we can’t wait for you to hear it.
And in Apple Arcade, gaming on iMac is BETTER than EVER,with AWESOME and EXCLUSIVE games.
..export your favorite video projects in iMovie FASTER than EVER.
You’re going to LOVE the combination of M1 and macOS on the new iMac.
And Magic Trackpad, still by far the industry’s BEST, has a refined shape to match the new keyboard.
.. the new iMac can DO IT ALL..
That’s DEFINITELY magic.
With iMac, the possibilities are ENDLESS.
..iMac is THE MOSTpersonal, POWERFUL, CAPABLE, and simply THE MOST fun it’s EVER been.

iPad Presentation:

The M1 chip is not just in the Mac, it’s now in iPad Pro. And it’s gonna BLOW YOU AWAY.
A-series chips to deliver a POWERFUL and responsive experience that’s YEARS AHEAD of anything else.
..or Xbox game controllers, with haptics, makes playing games on iPad Pro INSANELY fun.
With this combination of CPU and graphics performance, the new iPad Pro is, yet again, THE FASTEST device of its kind.
..Signal Processor, and unified, high bandwidth memory architecture make iPad Pro more capable than EVER.
The new iPad Pro also allows users to access their content faster than EVER..
..the new iPad Pro is, yet again, the fastest device of its kind. It’s BUGGER than that..
And, for our MOST demanding users, a new 2TB configuration gives you ENORMOUS storage capacity,..
Making it the FASTEST, MOST VERSATILE port ever on an iPad, or any other device of its kind.
This is HUGE! Super fast 5G cellular connections lets users be creative and productive wherever they are.
That’s a MASSIVE increase over the 72 LEDs that were in the previous iPad Pro.
The result is an EXTREMELY high one million to one contrast ratio.
There’s NEVER BEEN a display that delivers this kind of visual experience on any other mobile device.
So users can now do things they could NEVER do BEFORE.
With this AMAZING set of features, it goes BEYOND any display in the world.
When I think of M1 on the iPad, there are truly NO LIMITS to what’s possible creatively. The POWER that’s there… It’s a MONSTER. We can do more. We can make BIGGER canvases and we can do way more with our brushes..
Processing power is INSANE.
We’re always AMAZED by the new capabilities our developers put in the hands of our users.
Of course, you can’t talk about iPad Pro and not talk about the PHENOMENAL accessories..
Apple Pencil transforms iPad Pro into an IMMERSIVE drawing canvas and the world’s BEST note taking device by far.
An INCREDIBLE value for such an INCREDIBLE device.
We’re so excited about the new iPad Pro.
This is the most OUTRAGEOUSLY capable and VERSATILE iPad Pro we’ve EVER made.
In every way, this is a GIANT leap forward for iPad.
We can’t wait to get these new products into your hands and see all of the AMAZING things you’ll do with them.

2) ENVIRONMENT FRAMING

Weather and light have a tremendous importance in setting a person’s mood and Apple marketers know that.

Choosing a sunny day, areas that are bright and warm is always a good technique to transfer a certain mood to your audience.

But it doesn’t stop there, if you pay attention to Apple’s setups, there’s more – especially when it comes to the presentations of their products. Having their products on the centre stage, in a setup that makes them bigger than their presenters highlights the idea of GRANDEUR once again. The message is simple:

They are BIG, they are BOLD, they are THE BEST and you have to have them.

3) VISUAL FRAMING

When it comes to visuals, what we are able to see in most of Apple’s launches (not just the one making this study case) is the VIBRANT COLOURS they use. Enhanced chromatic in visuals is translated as everything that has vibrant colours in our lives, weather is clothes, objects or fruits:

It means FRESH, it means NEW, it means VIVID.

Furthermore, COLOURS appears to be also the LEITMOTIF of the event and it’s translated through both graphics and sound.

The overall design elements and products:

4) SOUND & MUSIC

To understand how sound effects impact the launching event, you will have to literally watch and listen to it. The underline technique stands in amplifying the whole experience through framing what people hear and they are told. It’s a fundamental tactic used to mentally transport your audience closer to the state you want to create.

Besides the basic sound effects that enhance certain gestures and actions, Apple has also carefully picked the songs for the event and they are the ones mentioned above.

The themed songs:

♪ “Every Color” by Foster The People ♪
♪ “Love Looks Better in color” by Lizzo ♪
♪ Let you heart See the colors ♪ – Chemical Brothers

Take a look of the lyrics below and think if they make the audience entering a certain mood:

THE EVENT BEGINS WITH:

♪ Let you heart See the colors ♪ – Chemical Brothers

♪ Let your heart ♪

♪ See the colors ♪

♪ All around you ♪

♪ I’ll be loving you, Yes, I will ♪

♪ I’ll be loving you ♪

♪ I’ll be loving you, Yes, I will ♪

♪ I’ll be loving you ♪

NEW PURPLE iPhone ANNOUNCEMENT

♪ “The Candy Man”” by Aubrey Woods ♪”

♪ Who can take a sunrise ♪

♪ Sprinkle it with dew ♪

♪ Cover it in chocolate And a miracle or two ♪

♪ The Candy Man ♪

♪ Because he mixes it With love ♪

♪ And makes the world Taste good ♪

“♪ ‘Cause the Candy Man thinks It should ♪ “

AIRTAG PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT

♪ “Every Color” by Foster The People ♪

♪ I can see ♪

♪ I’m caught up Drifting in your rainbow eyes ♪

♪ And I can see Every color in me ♪

♪ I can see every color in you ♪

iMac NEW DESIGN ANNOUNCEMENT

♪ “Love Looks Better” by Lizzo ♪

♪ Sick six piston ♪

(presenting the 6 NEW iMac models)

♪ Tiptoe kissin’ ♪

♪ Catcall kittens ♪

♪ Whole milk lickin’ ♪

♪ See my vision ♪

♪ Rainbow smitten ♪

♪ Nobody safe, nobody ♪

♪ You and you and you Can be my lover ♪

♪ ‘Cause love looks better In color ♪

♪ Color me, color me, Color me, color me ♪

♪ You can be my lover ♪

♪ ‘Cause love looks better In color ♪

THE EVENT ENDS WITH

♪ Let you heart See the colors ♪ – Chemical Brothers

5) ENERGY & MOOD TRANSFER FROM OTHER PEOPLE

Daniel Goleman, the world famous psyschologist, said in 2018 on BRAND MINDS stage that:

“The leader sets the emotional state for other people.”

…and the rule doesn’t not apply only in leadership, but in every relationship dynamic that occur between people. We partially mirror the state we see in the people that are surrounding us. Wether is high enthusiasm, focus, or positivity, when we relate with a particular mood, part of its energy it’s transfered to us.

In Apple’s videos you will always find positive moods that people wear – they are highlighting aspirational states that you want and would be able to reach by acquiring their products.

The message is:

“Life’s most important moments are better with Apple.”

2. How Apple enhances the BRAND CULTURE, build PRODUCT TRUST and create SYNERGY with their audience:

1) BRAND CULTURE: There’s no coincidence that all of the event presenters are wearing Apple watches. Brand ambassadors are basically extensions of the company they represent. Wearing or consuming the brand’s products is a core requirement that builds trust in the relationship with the audience, which is fundamental. How could you trust someone that’s recommending you a product if he or she is not using it themselves? – You probably experienced this through influencers’ campaigns.

No need to mention about the gender balance we see in the brand’s experts’ mix, which is a reinforcement of gender equality and racial diversity. These are beliefs that are deeply built into Apple’s foundation of values.

2) PRODUCT TRUST – is built through presenting the products – not using actors, but the experts that have created them. In marketing, this is a social proof tactic, called experts’ approval. Look for them on LinkedIn, you will find them all. The same approach is present – this time – through non-Apple employees in the Testimonials promo for iPad Pro, here.

3) AUDIENCE SYNERGY: The idea of Apple products being a part of one’s life is taken farther in their launching events through details most of us do not observe. However, this doesn’t mean, our subconscious minds doesn’t either. Take a look at the scenes below:

There is a whole chromatic setup built in a way that amplifies the idea that the iMac stands in the centre of one’s life;
The boldest colour in all scenarios is the Mac’s – everything else – details and accessories gravitate around it;
The characters’ clothes being in tone with their Mac suggests that the product itself is an extension of their personalities.

3. How Apple leverages the fundamentals of MEMORY PALACE technique through particular scenes:

The method of loci (loci being Latin for “places”) is a strategy used to recall information and enhance one’s memory through visualisations of familiar spaces. The method of loci is also known as the memory palace, or mind palace technique.

Now, what does this has to do with Apple’s script and storytelling? You might ask yourself how is it useful since the places they used in the video footage haven’t been visited by their audience? Well, there are certain fundamental parts of this particular technique that are used in their scenes.

But before we go through it, find below the key factors in building a memory palace to better understand the concept:

Let’s assume you choose to learn the KEY PILLARS of a MARKETING STRATEGY;

STEP 1: Choose a place that can be easily visualised as the blueprint for your palace. (Your HOME)
STEP 2: Walk through your palace to define a route. ( KITCHEN – LIVING ROOM- BATHROOM – DORMITORY)
STEP 3: Identify specific locations in the palace to store your information. (KITCHEN will be used for the digital campaigns information; The LIVING ROOM for social media and so on…)
STEP 4: Integrate the information you want to remember in a crazy story that takes place in the space you allocated to it. And remember: the more creative – the more probably your brain will remember it.

Apple is using the last 2 pillars in their strategy.

We could actually mention the first step as well – if we consider the fact that the PALACE is the Apple headquarters. There are a lot of iconic spaces they use in most of their events (2 of them below).

Getting back to their strategy, the technique is simple:

1. Each presenter covers one PARTICULAR FEATURE or PRODUCT;

2. Each time they switch the storytelling from a product/ feature to, the SCENE changes as well;

3. They enhance the memorisation of a particular product through CRAZY PROMO VIDEOS/STORIES:

⚫ See Air Tag’s story here: The challenge of finding one’s keys translated into an Indiana Jones type of quest;

⚫ M1 chip’s importance story here: A story about espionage and the risks one is willing to take for great technology;

⚫ The amplification of iMac’s place in the Apple food chain here: A metaphorical scene of a whale swimming along with the rest of the sea life;

⚫ iPad Pro’s story here: Translated through a video promo projecting its power similar with a rocket launch and a smooth landing on your office with the sound effect of a parachute. Absolutely gorgeous!

4. On top of all the mentioned above, each character that is part of the event’s promo videos is a projection of the audience that Apple is targeting: creative professionals and families. What’s very smart about their strategy is that they are not just recreating with precision their environments, but they are also highlighting with specificity particular apps they are using.

We are basically talking about TRIPLE RELATABILITY:

Targeting through LOOKS – the way the characters are dressed to enhance personality;
Targeting through SPACE – the places that are designed to reflect the target audience’s taste and interests;
Targeting through APPS – the creative processes the audience is involved with;

Take a look below to experience Apple’s MEMORY PALACE in a VISUAL WAY:

3 brands that prove authenticity in marketing is paramount

What is authenticity in marketing? Authenticity in marketing is brands creating marketing strategies that reflect their core values even if these strategies go against the norms or business standards.

Lingerie brand ThirdLove doesn’t feature slim supermodels to sell its bras, outdoor clothing company Patagonia asks its customers to buy less on Black Friday and ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s calls upon everyone to dismantle white supremacy which prompted thousands of people to accuse the company of being anti-law enforcement.

ThirdLove – To all women everywhere, we see you and we hear you

Founded in 2013, Third Love is producing and selling bras and underwear.

The company was the first bra and underwear brand to offer trademarked half-cup sizing and a mobile app allowing women to measure themselves at home.

It all began with co-founder Heidi Zak’s frustration with lousy bras and bad fits. That’s when she decided to build her own bra thus Third Love was born.

Third Love celebrates diversity; it’s one of the company’s main core values and it reflects in their marketing.

Just as the company designs their bras with real women’s measurements, their marketing campaigns and overall online presence feature women of all shapes and sizes.

Such a difference from Victoria’s Secret! The luxury lingerie brand was once the leader of the underwear industry. By 2018, due to a combination of dated business approach, oversexualized images and heavy competition, the brand’s market share had begun to shrink from 31% in 2013 to 24%.

Also in 2018, Third Love had a run-in with Victoria’s Secret over the interview that the brand’s CTO gave to Vogue Magazine.

In this interview, he basically said that Victoria’s Secret supports the woman as long as she portrays herself as the object of the heterosexual white male’s fantasies.

He also hinted toward Third Love by saying “We’re nobody’s ThirdLove, we’re their first love.” This prompted Heidi Zak’s reaction in the form of a full-page open letter published in the New York Times where she writes:

As you said Ed, “We’re nobody’s ThirdLove, we’re their first love.” We are flattered for the mention, but let me be clear: we may not have been a woman’s first love but we will be her last.
To all women everywhere, we see you, and we hear you. Your reality is enough. To each, her own.

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Patagonia – We’re in business to save our home planet

Patagonia is a clothing company that markets and sells outdoor clothing.

The company was founded by Yvon Chouinard in 1973 and considers itself an “activist company”. They’re in business to save our home planet and will use every resource at their disposal – their voice, business and community to solve the climate crisis.

The brand talks the talk and walks the walk. The company has a self-imposed Earth tax, 1% for the Planet, which it uses to provide support to environmental nonprofits working to defend air, land and water around the globe.

Since 1985, when Patagonia took this pledge, the company has donated over $89 million in cash. In 2019, it is estimated that the company had $800 million in revenues.

Patagonia is followed by almost 1,8 million people on Facebook and 4,6 million on Instagram. They are building a strong community online and offline.

The company’s marketing strategy is to support its activist-led campaigns (like the company’s anti-Black Friday ad Don’t buy this jacket). To achieve this goal, Patagonia uses storytelling to turn consumers into activists. Its online presence features only a few scattered sales posts.

Ben & Jerry’s – Democracy is in your hands

Ben & Jerry’s manufactures ice cream.

It was founded in 1978 by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, hence the company name.

The company’s mission is to create prosperity for everyone that’s connected to its business: suppliers, employees, farmers, franchisees, customers, and neighbours alike.

They care about a wide range of issues from racial justice to fairtrade, democracy to LGBT equality.

Why does an ice cream maker care about political and social issues?

In an HBR piece published earlier this year, Ben&Jerry’s CEO Matthew McCarthy answered this when asked about the company’s core commitment to speak out on issues they feel strongly about:

We do these things not to sell more ice cream but because we care about people and have values. All businesses are collections of people with values; it’s a force that’s always there. {…} I believe that increasingly, in a world of hyper-transparency, if you’re not making your values known publicly, you’re putting your business and brand at risk.

The latest reports on consumer behaviour are highlighting that fact that most consumers (86%) want brands to take a stand on social issues and they would also purchase a product because a company advocated for an issue they cared about (87%).

What consumers are asking brands today is not what do you stand for but what do you stand up for?

Here is Matthew McCarthy’s recommendation for companies looking to make activism part of their core values:

If you don’t know what you want to do, talk to your staff, get people together, create the space for this discussion around values. You could decide that your thing will be The Humane Society. It could be packing lunches. It can be anything. What it can’t be is nothing.

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5 easy steps to set SMART goals in marketing

Looking to set achievable marketing goals? Be SMART and follow these 5 steps!

Your product solves your customer’s problem efficiently. It looks good, it is easy to use and offers more value for its price than other available products. But your prospects don’t know that. Yet.

Now that your product is finished and ready to delight your customers, you need to do some marketing. Why? Because as sales expert Grant Cardone puts it, Best product does not win the game; best KNOWN product wins the game. If you want to learn more business takeaways from Grant, watch this 2-minute video.

Are you ready to start your marketing journey?

Let’s go!

First of all, we need to talk about marketing goals. There are many marketing goals you can set for your company depending on the stage you’re in.

Companies today don’t usually wait for the product to be finished, they begin to market the product while still in early development. It’s a smart move. What they are doing is building a tribe for their product and raising awareness for the company. The members of the tribe will be the first people to buy the finished product. They are more likely to become ambassadors for the product and the company can attract new customers from word of mouth marketing.

Marketing goals for this stage could be building an emailing list of enthusiasts interested in your product. These individuals would be your product’s die-hard customers and it would also be smart to find ways to get to know them and engage with them. And even ask for their ideas on features that could improve your product.

Once the product is finished, the company already has its first customers, it doesn’t start marketing from zero which could be a competitive advantage.

But if you’re company doesn’t take this build-it-before-it’s-finished approach, don’t worry, there are many other marketing goals you can set for your company.

Here are 6 marketing goals that you should set in 2021 to support your company to achieve its business vision:

Increase brand awareness
Empower your email subscribers
Build brand ambassadors
Boost your sales through referral programs
Identify customer behaviour change
Increase website traffic with guest content

If you want to know more about these six marketing goals, read this article where I discuss each of them in-depth.

Now that we’ve touched on the subject of marketing goals, let’s see what SMART and setting SMART goals in marketing means.

S.M.A.R.T. is the acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound and refers to business objectives.

Consultant George T Doran is credited with writing down the S.M.A.R.T. acronym and laying out the main principles of SMART goals in his 1981 paper, “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives”.

Although the SMART concept was created to support good management, setting SMART goals goes beyond that and can be used as a rule of thumb for setting goals in every area, business or personal.

What does a SMART goal in marketing look like?

You first start with a SMART business goal.

Here’s an example. Let’s assume you have an online ladies’ shoe shop. You want to grow your business.

A SMART business objective should be defined like this:

Spring is around the corner. I want to sell 15% more ladies’ shoes for spring. To achieve this I will invest $1000 in Facebook ads targeted at young fashion-forward professional women for a period of 3 months.

Why is this business objective SMART?

Because it is specific and measurable.

There are many ways in which you can grow your business (partnerships, investments etc), but you have chosen to focus on sales. You also narrowed down the sales offer to shoes for the springtime, not office shoes or running shoes. The 15% increase in sales is measurable.

Let’s assume your sales have grown by 10% last year, therefore, a 15% increase is achievable whereas a 100% increase in sales would not be achievable.

You have also decided to invest $1000 in Facebook ads to target a specific customer base comprised of young fashion-forward professional women. Once again, specific and relevant to your business.

Your Facebook campaign will run for three months so the business objective is also time-bound.

Now that you know what a SMART goal in marketing should look like, I’ve put together a simple template with 5 easy steps that you can use to set SMART marketing goals for your company.

5 easy steps to set SMART marketing goals

1. Link the marketing goal to a business goal

As you saw in the example above, marketing goals must be relevant to the overall business goals.

So the first step is to set a marketing goal that relates to your business goal.

It could be a short-term goal like increasing sales of a specific product or it could be long-term business goals like increasing brand awareness or share of voice.

To increase sales you could set several marketing goals like increasing the number of qualified leads or increasing the number of email subscribers. To achieve long-term business goals like brand awareness you could increase the number of brand ambassadors or increase website traffic.

2. Establish the benchmark

Pulling numbers out of thin air is not going to help you achieve your goal.

Perform a marketing analysis before setting a new marketing goal. Run the numbers and come to a conclusion with regard to previous results.

How much does it cost to get a new customer or a new email subscriber?

What is the average cost per lead?

What is the current landing page conversion rate?

Learn how to calculate them and other key performance indicators in this two-part article.

Only after you know these numbers ie the benchmark, you can set achievable marketing goals.

3. Write the goal using the SMART framework

Follow the example above and make your marketing goal specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.

4. Design the strategic plan you will use to achieve the SMART marketing goal

The goal of a strategic plan is to provide you with a roadmap to achieve set marketing goals.

The plan outlines what (resources), how (specific tools, activities, platforms etc) and why (the reasons behind your choice of a specific resource or tool) the company will use to achieve this goal.

Referring back to the online ladies’ shoe shop and its goal to increase sales by 15% through Facebook ads, you need to establish who will design the creative concept of the Facebook campaign and who will write the copy.

What is the format of the campaign: video, image, link? Once the campaign is ready to be launched, establish who will set the campaign in your company’s Facebook Ad account and solve any problems that might arise.

Should the customers reacting to your campaign need the help of your customer support, how are they going to reach your company?

A successful campaign is an eco-system where every factor is aligned and working in perfect harmony.

5. Implement & optimize

Now that your campaign is ready to go and you have planned everything in detail, you can implement the campaign and optimize it if necessary.

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20 essential KPIs you should be tracking to improve your marketing (updated for 2021) Part 1

Looking to learn about KPIs and how you can use them to improve your marketing? Then this article is for you!

What is a KPI in marketing?
KPIs vs marketing metrics
How are KPIs used to measure performance in marketing?
20 examples of essential KPIs for marketing

What is a KPI in marketing?

KPI stands for key performance indicator.

A KPI in marketing is a measurable value tied to specific objectives of a marketing campaign.

KPIs help measure marketing effectiveness at the end of a campaign.

KPIs vs marketing metrics

Isn’t KPI the same as marketing metrics?

No, it’s not and you must be able to know the difference between KPIs and marketing metrics.

The KPI belongs to the marketing metrics category, it is indeed a marketing metric itself.

The difference is that the KPIs are tied to a specific goal of a specific marketing campaign whereas marketing metrics are not tied to a specific goal of a specific marketing campaign.

Every marketing campaign has one or several marketing goals. To measure how effective your campaign was to achieve your goals, select the appropriate KPIs.

How are KPIs used to measure performance in marketing?

Before we talk about how to use KPIs to measure and track performance in marketing campaigns, it’s essential to understand the brand’s business goals and objectives.

You cannot measure progress if you don’t know what progress looks like. Or what success means for your business.

So, if you are the leader of your team, share the brand’s business goals for 2021 with your colleagues.

Once everyone in your team is aware of the business goals they need to achieve, you can move on to the next step: establishing marketing goals.

Here are some of the common marketing goals:

Increase Brand Awareness
Lead generation
Promote new products/services
Target new customers
Increase website traffic
Grow your email list

If your business goal is to increase revenue, what marketing campaigns your team needs to create and run in order to achieve it?

The KPIs tied to this particular marketing campaign could be 20% new leads generated or 20% customer conversion rate.

20 examples of essential KPIs for marketing

Here are 20 essential KPIs that you should track to measure your marketing performance:

Email open rates
Email click-through rates
Email forward rates
Newsletter signup conversion rate
Social media engagement rate
Social media conversions
New leads generated
Cost per lead
Customer lifetime value
Returning website visitors
Goal completion rate
Marketing revenue attribution
Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
Landing page conversion rates
Traffic-to-lead ratio
Lead-to-customer ratio
Customer retention
Content downloads
Referral traffic
Net promoter score

1. Email open rates

You worked hard to gain new subscribers to the company’s newsletter, but all is in vain if your emails remain unopened. Optimize your headlines. Are you sending too many emails per week? If you do, but your subscribers don’t click the unsubscribe button then they wish to receive your emails but they are too often which leads to fatigue.

2. Email click-through rates

Your subscribers are opening your emails – that’s great! One of your email campaign goals is to drive website traffic so the email clickthrough rate is an important KPI. If you note this particular indicator is unsatisfactory (what value did you set for email clickthrough rates?) because the subscribers are not clicking on the links, you should consider the content and the copy. Is the linked content relevant to subscribers? Re-write the copy: don’t use learn more to persuade the subscriber to click the link. Get creative!

3. Email forward rates

The email forward rate is one of the most important KPIs if you are looking to grow a community for the brand. Opening the email and clicking on the content links inside is one thing, but making your message so relevant to your subscribers that they forward it to someone else is a great achievement.

4. Newsletter signup conversion rate

How many people did your email subscribing campaign convert? This KPI shows how well you were able to find a match between the brand’s offering and their interests, to speak to their values and show them your solution to their pain points.

5. Social media engagement rate

They say liking a post is the easiest engagement action that your followers can take whereas commenting is the hardest. Having followers that take the time to express their opinion in a comment to your post is more valuable than receiving likes. It also tells the algorithm that this piece of content is sparking conversations which prompts it to show your post to more people.

6. Social media conversions

It’s nice to have a big number of followers on social media accounts, preferably in the millions. It is an indicator that the brand is popular and a lot of people want to stay connected with the brand. After having said that, let’s also not forget that the algorithm shows your content to a small number of people. Some say it’s 1% or 2%. So this vanity metric is a nice-to-have feature, but it is not essential. What is instead relevant is how many conversions does your social content drive? How many clicks to website? How many email subscribers? How many leads does it generate?

7. New leads generated

Generating new leads is paramount for every brand. You need to constantly show your products or services to new leads gently nudging them to the next step in your marketing and sales funnel.

8. Cost per lead

Lead generation is important, but if the cost of acquiring leads is high, you need to take a step back, analyze every stage of the process and see where you can improve it. The Pirate Funnel may help you pinpoint where your business is losing customers. Check it out!

9. Customer lifetime value

10. Returning website visitors

Having a good amount of website traffic is necessary if you want to run ads, show up in organic search results and gain email subscribers. Your website is owned media, it’s where you control the content – your brand is not at the mercy of any social media algorithms. It’s important to measure the number of new visitors your website gets every month. But equally important is to track how many visitors return to your site. Returning visitors tell you that your website is a relevant and valuable resource for them. It’s how your brand stays top of mind. It’s also easier to convert returning visitors to leads and then customers.

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The crisis of Marketing in a crisis

With a fifteen-year experience in marketing, Raluca is the Marketing Strategist and Founder at Utopic Brain, a Marketing & Creative Boutique. She is also a published author and photographer.

When facing a shock, we usually freeze. Our minds, our souls and our reactions pause to reflect, to realign, to recover.

We take our time to accommodate what’s coming towards us in order to be able to access the parts of our habits that fit the challenge, when in fact … it could be the other way around.

But changing a habit is not as easy as it might seem. It’s only natural that crises shock us in a way that we either need to distance from the stimuli or madly and unconsciously confront it with our gut feeling and educated guess (a sister of the gut feeling).

Denial, anger, negotiation, depression, acceptance are statistically the five emotional steps that accompany us in the ladder climbing difficulties.

Concentric paths. When my circle got smaller, my vision got clearer. Photo by Raluca Mihaila.

Marketing is all about emotions

Marketing, besides an apparent emotionless process, is all about emotions. Although it is supposed to be a frame through which anyone can build, promote, sell and resell their products and services, it really comes down to people’s emotions, needs and desires, hence it can be considered the best and the most complex crutch you can lean on when you have no idea about what to do, where to go and why everything happens.

Unfortunately, many companies get stuck somewhere between the anger and negotiation and can’t go any further using Marketing tools as the beginning of a cure.

Why?

Because people freak out and what drives huge parts of company growth (a.k.a. marketing) is left behind operations, IT, production, legal aspects and generally speaking, cost-cutting. One of the most important tools a company has when in distress is considered useless.

Just like in real life. Whenever we face deaths, professional traps, shaming, depressive periods, breakups, bullying (all considered emotional shocks) we usually stop talking to other people and we start living in our own heads willing to reconnect with ourselves; when in fact, talking about it, being honest and opening up, understanding what went wrong, admitting our weaknesses or sufferings and trying to overcome them through conversation would be a way better medicine.

The reasons for this gap between what we should do and what we actually do lies right in the middle of reason and emotion.

[bctt tweet=”Marketing Strategist & Founder @Utopicbrain.ro Raluca Mihaila: Marketing has more to do with strategic thinking, emotional balance and putting yourself out there than it has with communication alone.” username=”brand_minds”]

How can Marketing help in a crisis

If you run a Marketing department during a crisis, the first ones you should think about are people.

And this, from a dual perspective: your own (from the organization/team) and outside of the organisation (your clients and your non-clients).

Regardless of the intensity, a crisis impacts everyone, therefore having the wisdom to zoom out the context and access your better judgement and be able to see beyond your own yard is golden.

People are the starting point of everything: innovation, production, workforce, systems, creativity, selling, buying.

People from within and outside of your organization might have been won over when everything was running smoothly, but they expect you to be there for them when things go wrong as well.

Marketing is an unwritten responsibility of any market player and has way more to do with strategic thinking, emotional balance and putting yourself out there than it has with communication alone.

The responsibility to create something of value, to have ethics, to make and keep promises, to be sustainable, to build communities and be there for them at all times, to be profitable, to be trustworthy and above all, communicate on all of them. When trusted, you catch attention.

Being there for your (non)clients & employees

Clients and employees gained prior to the crisis are there to stay … if you keep them. How?

Be honest, keep calm and makes simple plans. While remaining calm, communicate internally the current status, possible scenarios, true facts, clear information and actions that will take place in order to prevent chaos. Don’t be afraid to say unpleasant things, as long as you keep everybody as safe as possible. It’s the same with the clients.

Connect. Overcome your fears with lucidity and creativity and activate your brand community for solutions. Isolation is not a good option. Ask hard questions and be ready for the answers (what you can change, where you can contribute, how to be better).

Remind the ethics. Usually, during a crisis, the cost of living remains the same, if it doesn’t go up. Don’t give in to the temptation of opportunistic behaviour and increase prices, cut competition off or engage in immoral activities. It is a toxic approach killing your reputation and disengaging for your brand lovers.

Being there for the product

Open doors to the competition. Show, in all honesty, industry empathy and solidarity. Together will always be better than on your own. Try to openly identify what’s best for you-all and engage other players in joining you in the process of finding solutions.

Use the power of networking. Provided you were careful enough to make friends and connect with people over time, it’s now the moment to “collect” on your extended community. Your business is not an island, but a part of the whole, so asking people from various fields how they handle the situation, if you can be of help and how will raise awareness.

Stay close to the press. Keep the press informed of your decisions and prevent fake news arrival.

Keep the standards. Don’t allow anything less than what you offered before the crisis. No shock is big enough to motivate poor quality. If, though, you have to downgrade temporarily, try the creative (and honest) advertising approach. For example, a special line of “inferior” very good sneakers can be Austerity line: Cheap has never felt better while walking through the crisis. (limited stock, the crisis will not last forever).

Find the big idea. Every brand has a core element of specificity through which innovation occurs in a context of real, authentic, contextual milestone. If you keep yourselves in the legit area and don’t pretend to know what you don’t, people will listen to you, especially if you use the whole Marketing mix.

Being there for the profit

In order to keep making money, you have to survive first. Emotions connect people, but in the end, everybody wakes up and it’s lucidity that makes them stay.

Genuine CSR. Caring without showing off is the most honest way to help the community. Even not PR-ed, good news circulate and, in the end, humbleness melts the coldest hearts, so new clients will ultimately join you.

In power, still kind. If you’re still in a position of power and perhaps the crisis boosts your company’s growth, you can contract services from qualitative companies* struggling to survive. After the tough moment passes, they will remember you were there for them.

*It’s important whom you help during a hard moment. Crises are, beyond anything else, readjustment mechanisms of the free market, so it helps to distil the fraud from morality, the good product from a bad product. Make sure you offer a helping hand to someone who deserves to survive.

Take a step back. Scan the market. See what the others do. Many challenges are opportunities in disguise and a crisis is a good moment to realign products and services, to spot outdated products or unprofitable lines.

See experts, but think for yourself. They don’t know either what the future will bring, so don’t rely on their confirmation biases, but rather use theirs to escape your own.

Conclusion

Not being impulsive in moments of struggle is as important as listening to your better judgement when what the other people say don’t make sense.

It’s important to keep in mind to do good and talk about it, no matter the moment, no matter the struggle.

And one more thing: in this order.

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20+ Valuable Marketing Quotes and Insights From Experts (1 of 2)

Curious to learn what the latest valuable marketing quotes and insights are?

Marketing never stops spinning and marketers never stop learning. To help you update your knowledge and show you new directions, I put together a list of 20+ marketing quotes and insights from 20 marketing experts.

This article includes insights and quotes from Ann Handley, Jay Baer, Chris Brogan, Rand Fishkin, Tara Hunt, Seth Godin, Mark Schaefer, Martin Lindstrom, Mari Smith and Gary Vaynerchuk.

20+ Valuable Marketing Quotes and Insights From Experts

1. Ann Handley – Go Smaller & Slay the Ignosaurus

We’ve all heard of the Go big or go home saying. Writer, speaker and digital marketing pioneer Ann Handley makes a 180 turn and goes in the opposite direction. She invites marketers to thing bigger, but go smaller. Why?

Small stories are specific. Small stories are human-scale.

Ann Handley

Making the story smaller and more specific is the best way for products, services or B2B solutions to break through the noise of social media and get listened to by their customers.

Big and bold stories are often best told in small and specific ways. Find the specific details—and use them to engage the heart, not just appeal to the head.

Ann Handley

But in order to be able to tell these stories, we need to slay the Ignosaurus, the beast that we thought had disappeared together with the other dinosaurs.

Ignosaurus is lazy, bored, and goes through the motions with no engagement on the job.

Ann says a vast majority of marketers today are Ignosaurus in disguise.

annhandley.com

She wants marketers to slay the Ignosaurus within and start experimenting, making changes.

In order for the industry to evolve marketers need to be curious and stay alert.

Study after study has shown that Marketing has one of the most pronounced skills gap of any industry. Many of us feel that we don’t have the skills we need to produce our best work.

Ann Handley

Source

2. Jay Baer – Relevancy is a Value Exchange

Is your marketing failing?

Author, speaker and founder of Convince & Convert Consulting Jay Baer believes the reason your marketing is failing is the lack of relevancy.

Customers and prospects are trading their attention for your information. If they refuse to do so, it’s because your information does not matter to them enough sufficiently for them to trade attention for that information.

The key to being more relevant isn’t hard-it just takes time. The key to being more relevant is to understand your customers better.

The truth is that most modern marketers don’t actually interact with customers very much anymore, and that robs us of a really important success ingredient: insights.

Jay Baer

How do you get insights?

Not from reading spreadsheets or reports.

Jay says most marketers today have never seen their customers which is really sad.

How can you design marketing strategies and campaigns if you don’t know who are you talking to?

You need to change that today.

brand_minds_2020_marketing_quotes_insights-min

Leave the office and make contact. Spend time with your customer service and your sales team to learn what your customers’ problems are, what questions they ask, how they talk etc.

Almost no great marketing happens behind your desk. Great marketing occurs when you actually take the time to spend time with your customers and learn what they really need and what they’re really all about.

Jay Baer

Source

3. Chris Brogan – Invite People to Your Picnic

I think even the biggest companies have to get a bit more “picnic-sized” in their looking at outreach, attraction, sales, and conversion. If you speak to everyone, you’re heard by no one. Sure, make your big ads say whatever they’re saying, but use your other resources to reach and engage with specific groups at a time.

Chris Brogan

How can a company reach people and serve those who would benefit from their services and products?

Speaker, author and marketing expert Chris Brogan says marketers need to make their customers feel seen and understood. Only then will they be ready to buy.

How do you make your customers feel seen and understood?

brand_minds_2020_marketing_quotes_insights2-min

You need to split your customers into several communities of personas. Make groups for every community of people you think you can best serve. And then invite them to a picnic, online or offline and make them feel they belong. That’s how revenue is generated – by earning the attention and trust of all those people out there who feel invisible.

Source

4. Rand Fishkin – The True Marketing Trends for 2019

Former founder of Moz and current founder of SparkToro Rand Fishkin believes marketing trends like video content, turning to the human side of marketing and data-driven creativity are completely non-actionable and can hardly be called trends for 2019.

Instead, he made a list of the trends he believes will have an impact on marketing in 2019.

brand_minds_marketing_quotes_insights3-min

Here they are:

In the next few years, the US and other parts of the world will experience an economic recession which is already changing customers’ behaviour;
The undue influence of big businesses and monopolies which resulted in bad news for citizens: GDPR, the loss of Net Neutrality, Articles 11 and 13;
A recent analysis showed a dramatic slowdown in the global growth of internet access. To keep making the same revenue as in past years, most internet giants compete with publishers, limit organic reach, cannibalize clicks and make channels pay-to-play;
Voice Answers have the potential to disrupt any competitive opportunity to appear in results and earn traffic and value;
The emerging, broad societal belief that overuse of social networks and heavy web content consumption do more harm than good. Many people today are limiting their screen time and their children’s.

What steps is your company taking to adapt to the future?

Source

5. Mark Schaefer – The Belonging Crisis

Author, speaker and marketing expert Mark Schaefer says

Most of our marketing is occurring without us because today the customers are the marketing department. The new challenge for a company is to be invited to those organic conversations.

We live in an era when hyper-empowered consumers control the brand narrative.

In the past, a “brand” is what we told our consumers. Today, a brand is what our customers are telling each other.

Mark believes there is a belonging crisis today in the world.

brand_minds_2020_marketing_quotes_insights4-min

Here is what marketers should do to help companies overcome this trend according to Mark:

Align with the values of your young customers, empowering their voices, and creating deep emotional attachments with customers that result in loyalty;
Help your customers feel connected;
Provide personal attention to your customers. “It’s not “personalized” — it’s personal!”
Nurture like-minded customer “islands” on Facebook and other spaces;
Use true personal connections instead of automated messages and spammy responses;
Traditional ads that lead to “awareness, trial and loyalty” don’t work so well any more. Build a brand from a place of empathy and personal pain;
Assemble a tribe, united in their belief in how the product or service connects them to their individual lives and to their communities.

Source

6. Mari Smith – Use Stickers in your Facebook Video Ads

Often referred to as the Queen of Facebook, Mari Smith provides marketers with many valuable and useful insights on Facebook and Instagram marketing.

Stickers on videos can significantly improve the performance of your Facebook ads.

Mari Smith

Mari and her team performed a test to see how stickers influence the results of Facebook video ads.

Here’s what she found:

Cost per result for ads with stickers was almost 33% lower;
Both Conversion rate and CTR were higher;
Stickers don’t impact interest in the ad copy so much as generate interest in the advertised product;
If you are looking to use stickers in your Facebook video ads pay attention to the number of stickers you add, don’t overdo it!

brand_minds_2020_marketing_quotes_insights5-min

Source

7. Gary Vaynerchuk – The $1.80 Instagram Strategy

Gary Vaynerchuk spent the last 10 years of his career trying to understand user psychology and reverse engineer attention into an engaged community online.

The truth is, the way to win on social media is to actually be social. The number of Instagram followers you have means nothing if you can’t build a community of like-minded people who care and engage. The only real way to do this from scratch is to become part of the conversation.

Gary Vaynerchuk

That’s how he came up with the $1.80 Instagram strategy.

garyvaynerchuk.com

What is the $1.80 Instagram strategy?

It’s leaving your personal .02 cents on the top 9 trending Instagram posts for 10 different hashtags that are relevant to your brand or business every single day.

All you need to do is provide value where you can and it only takes 2 minutes a day. He says it’s exactly the strategy that always worked for him – becoming part of the community. The result is you will have meaningful connections, not bots. And this kind of connections is the most valuable.

Source

8. Tara Hunt – No, that’s not marketing

Executive-level digital marketing professional Tara Hunt makes it clear on what marketing is not.

Contrary to popular believe, advertising isn’t the same as marketing. PR is not the same as marketing. Communications isn’t the same as marketing and Branding isn’t the same as marketing either. Even Sales is often completely separate from marketing. Brand and advertising and PR and content and digital and consumer insights and pricing and social and events and product and positioning and communications and a whole bunch of other stuff are all part of the marketing toolkit, but they aren’t “marketing.”

Tara Hunt

Videos, podcasts and content, in general, are great tactics for the right audience but they’re not marketing. They won’t automatically open the floodgates of customers.

Here’s what marketers should do according to Tara:

Understand their market;
Understand if they have the right product for that market (if not, let their client know they are focusing on the wrong market or need to change the product);
Identify the right channels of distribution for both product and message;
Put it all together in a measurable plan.

Anything less is not marketing.

Source

9. Seth Godin – 10 words per page

Seth Godin is the only person to have been inducted in the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame and the Marketing Hall of Fame. His blog is one of the most successful blogs in the world with 7000 published articles and millions of readers.

We are also proud that Seth Godin was one of the keynote speakers at BRAND MINDS 2017.

Here are 4 insightful quotes:

Any metric you can buy your way out of is probably not a useful metric to measure yourself by.

Every interaction you have with a customer either strengthens your relationship (because it’s mutually beneficial) or weakens it. Weaken it enough time and you break it.

Ten words per page
That’s how many words get scanned the first time through. Perhaps five on a billboard.
Which means that your memo, your ad, your announcement, your post–you get ten words.
If you can begin with the ten words and write around them, you have the foundation for an effective message.

When in doubt, when your marketing isn’t working, the answer is easy: go one circle in.

seths.blog

Source

10. Martin Lindstrom – Build Anticipation

Neuromarketing and branding expert Martin Lindstrom draws attention to the concept of anticipation.

Anticipation is the feeling of excitement about something that is going to happen in the near future. It is a powerful feeling and it is directly linked to connectedness and engagement over a longer period of time.

brand_minds_2020_marketing_quotes_insights6-min

In our world of on-the-spot gratification, how are brands leveraging anticipation to keep their customers close and engaged? Technology has taken anticipation away.

From a rational point of view, anticipation is nothing more than an illusion, a myth, a chimaera; but from a subconscious, storytelling, and emotional point-of-view, anticipation makes all the difference. It is the bride’s months-long excitement as she chooses her gown, the anxious lead-up to graduation day, the indescribable feeling as the newborn baby finally arrives home and settles into its beautifully decorated bedroom.

Martin Lindstrom

If your brand offers experience, anticipation plays an important role in your customers’ perception of it. Anticipation has the power to make the wait much more rewarding and it makes all the difference. It sets your brand apart from your competitors and influences the bottom line.

Source

Stay tuned for part 2!

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How To Market To Women Customers – 4 Recommendations

As a marketer, your job is to find the best way to connect with your customers. Are you marketing to women customers? Then this article is for you.

Bridget Brennan is the CEO of Female Factor, a firm helping businesses develop marketing and sales strategies for women consumers. In her books, Why She Buys and Winning Her Business, she provides valuable insights into marketing and selling to women.

Before I go into Bridget’s insights and recommendations, I invite you to direct your attention to the following statistics on the purchasing power of women via girlpowermarketing.com:

Women control over $20 trillion in worldwide spending;
74.9% of women identified themselves as the primary shoppers for their households;
In 61% of all consumer electronics purchases, a woman either initiated the purchase or was involved in the purchase process.

girlpowermarketing.com

Here are two insights that every marketer should take into account when building marketing campaigns focused on women:

1. Women are “multiple markets in one”

What does that mean? To understand this, let’s think about Christmas time. Who buys the presents for everyone in the house and for the members of the extended family? The lady of the house. She buys presents for her children, her husband, his colleagues at the office, her elderly parents and in-laws, cousins and friends.

Of course, this situation is not limited to celebrations spending. Women buy on behalf of the people who live in their households on a regular basis.

Women influence various industries and marketers should take that into account.

2. Don’t rely on the name that’s on the credit card

Just because the name on the credit card which pays for purchases is a man’s name, refrain from jumping to the conclusion that he is making the buying decisions.

It’s still the woman who makes the buying decision.

Here are Bridget’s recommendations on how to market to women:

1. Study women as you would a foreign market

Women think differently and they experience life in a different way than men.

Discover their desires and goals, their fears and behaviours.

What are they fighting for and what are they fighting with. Put yourself in their shoes.

Learn more: 3 Brands In Crisis in 2018: KFC, Nike, Victoria’s Secret

Victoria’s Secret is a brand which hasn’t put itself in women’s shoes (or lingerie) in a very long time. It might never have done that this in the first place.

The glamorous women’s lingerie brand was founded in 1977 and it is still marketing like it’s 1977. Retail analyst Paul Lejuez says women don’t want to be viewed as stereotypical sexy supermodels buying lingerie just to impress men.

That’s why Victoria’s Secret has seen fierce competition in recent years from brands such as ThirdLove, Aerie and Savage x Feinty by Rihanna which design their products to meet women’s needs of comfort, beauty and sexiness.

2. Track demographics changes across generations

Life has changed a lot for women. There are many differences between Baby Boomers women, Gen Z women and Millennial women. They have different aspirations for their personal and professional lives. They have different outlooks on motherhood, beauty, marriage and relationships.

There is a female culture and it should be studied by marketers with the same focus that studying a foreign market requires. Cultural differences dictate language, behaviours and perceptions.

Bridget Brennan

Here are 4 interesting insights focused on women according to reports conducted by PwC:

Women have fewer children;
Women have children later in life;
Women are the main caretakers and breadwinners in many households;
Women are a growing purchasing power: 70% of household budgets in the G7 are controlled by women, globally 85% of consumer purchases are made by women which is equivalent to a worldwide spend of $20 trillion.

Read more about the latest demographic and social changes: PwC: 5 MegaTrends Affecting Your Business in 2019

3. Stay clear of pink unless you are raising money for the breast cancer cause

The colour pink has been synonymous with female nature for a very long time because manufacturers and designers didn’t know any better.

To illustrate an entire gender with just one colour is simply not good enough and frankly offensive. Women struggle with life’s hardships just like men. Unlike men, women juggle with many roles on a daily basis and manage to come out on top.

Women are not delicate princesses dressed in pink gowns and they certainly don’t see themselves as that. They are not powerless and don’t wait for men to come and rescue them.

4. Hire women

Research reports show organisations with women in management are more innovative as the share of female managers increases above 20%.

Reports conducted by The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology show that teams which included at least one woman had a collectively higher IQ than teams that had just men.

If your company is looking to market to women, hire women in your product design and development team to represent your customers.

Learn how to attract and retain female talent in the workplace: LinkedIn Report: 4 Trends Transforming The Workplace in 2019

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10 Marketing Blogs Every Successful Marketer Should Follow (2 of 2)

Apart from books, marketing blogs are the next best thing for every successful marketer eager to learn: marketing experts and trendsetters write down their ideas and insights in easy to read articles.

Read recommendations 1 through 5 in the first part of this article: 10 Marketing Experts Every Successful Marketer Should Follow (1 of 2).

Let’s continue with our blogs recommendations 6 through 10!

6. Mari Smith – Mari’s Blog

Mari Smith / linkedin.com

Mari Smith has been working in internet marketing since 1999. She is one of the world’s leading social media thought leaders, often referred to as the Queen of Facebook for her Facebook marketing expertise.

She ranked at #4 in Forbes “Top Social Media Power Influencer” and was designated by Facebook Small Business and Facebook Marketing Expert. She is a founding contributor to Social Media Examiner, one of the world’s largest business blogs.

She is a keynote speaker and the author of The New Relationship Marketing and coauthor of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day. The book outlines a step-by-step plan for building a sizable, loyal network comprised of quality relationships that garner leads, publicity, sales, and more.

Mari’s blog is called ….Mari’s Blog (easy to remember :)).

On her blog, Mari writes about everything social: how to optimize your social media conversion strategy, Facebook video marketing, why newsletters are the future of online media, how to write Instagram posts to boost your business etc.

Service is the new social. Exemplary customer service will never go out of style.

Mari Smith

7. Mark Schaefer – {Grow}

Mark Schaefer / linkedin.com

Mark Schaefer is a speaker, consultant, educator and marketer with extensive experience. He is also an inspired writer on topics related to marketing. His latest book Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins has just been published earlier this year (learn more about Mark and his book).

Mark’s blog is called {Grow} and, as the name has it, it features articles on marketing, technology and humanity to help businesses grow. On his blog, Mark writes about marketing strategy, influence marketing, big data and analytics, branding, corporate communications etc.

The most important characteristic of content marketing today is not quality or quantity. It’s insight. And that is the differentiator lacking almost everywhere.

Mark Schaefer

8. Tara Hunt – Truly Inc

Tara Hunt / linkedin.com

Tara Hunt is an executive-level digital marketing professional with over 20 years of progressive experience. She specializes in relationship and inbound marketing with a passion for data-driven strategy.

Tara and her team are on a mission to change the relationship between brands and their customers. They believe there is a better way to market your brand than through yelling and hand-waving.

Before Truly Inc, there was (and still is) Truly Social, Tara’s YouTube channel where she delivers insightful (and fun to watch) videos on everything marketing.

On her company’s blog, Tara writes articles on hot topics like influencers, engagement, content etc. What makes her articles stand out from the rest of the content available on the world wide web is her ability to provide a unique and insightful perspective. Here are a few titles: Content is worthless, Why branded content doesn’t work, Buying Facebook Ads is not a strategy etc.

Content, engagement and influencers are worthless but only when they are seen as promotional tools used to fast-track results.

Tara Hunt

9. Jon Loomer – jonloomer.com

Jon Loomer / linkedin.com

Jon Loomer is widely known for his Facebook advertising expertise. He is a Facebook Marketing Strategist and Metrics Master.

Social Media Examiner recognized his website, jonloomer.com as one of Top 10 Social Media Blogs of 2013, 2014 and 2015. His website is the most complete online resource of advanced Facebook marketing tips and tutorials, updated on nearly a daily basis.

Although he sees himself as an “accidental marketer”, there are no accidents when it comes to his career in Facebook marketing and advertising. His strength lies in his love of numbers, statistics and strategy which are all required traits for a marketer looking to manage successful Facebook advertising campaigns.

Jon started his website in 2011 and the number of articles he has written insofar will soon reach 1000 by the end of March 2019. That’s a lot of knowledge!

If you are looking for valuable insights and expert tutorials on Facebook advertising, Jon Loomer is the best marketer to turn to.

10. Aaron Orendorff – iConiContent

Aaron Orendorff / linkedin.com

As a marketer, you need to be able to write content, ideally – great content. Fortunately, writing effective and results-focused content is a skill you can learn.

Aaron Orendorff is a copywriter, Editor in Chief of Shopify Plus, one of the fastest growing e-commerce companies in the world and founder of iConiContent.

His mission is to save the world from bad content. Aaron’s articles on iConiContent are packed full of recommendations, insights and examples on how to write great content which adds value to your customers’ lives.

Here are a few examples: Failed Copywriting Pitch – 5 Lessons, 3 Audience-Enticing Headline Hacks: Power, Novelty & Pull, How to engage and captivate your audience…when they don’t want to listen.

Every piece of content you create has to do two things: (1) rescue its audience from their own personal hell and (2) deliver them unto their own personal heaven. Great copywriting is about salvation … not sales. If you’re not in the business of actually helping people, stop here.

Aaron Orendorff

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Internet of Things and Marketing – 5 Predictions

Smart products use the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. It is changing the world.

But what does that translate to in the marketing world?

What can be expected in the years to come?

How will branding and marketing strategies have to change to capture this new emerging market?

Keep reading to discover 5 predictions regarding the way the Internet of Things (IoT) will change and improve marketing.

What is a smart product?

Smart devices have the ability to connect to the internet. This also enables a smart product to connect to another device. It makes use of IoT technology to establish connections to the internet and other products.

Smart products help to create new ways of automation. You can track, monitor, and control a smart product with another smart device.

What is IoT?

The Internet of Things is the giant network on which smart devices share information.

IoT data is stored in cloud technology and guarded by companies like manufacturers, marketers and other online service providers.

5 Predictions for IoT and Marketing

IoT technology is shaking things up. It’s changing the very face of many industries.

From manufacturing to healthcare, new depths of information are available. It is disrupting business as usual.

1. New Digital Devices Will Be Created

A need has caused the birth of many an invention. Smart devices have many more applications available. But, these devices will cause new needs to arise. Look at the rate at which portable and rechargeable power banks have spread across the world. People want on-demand recharging for their devices. The need for electricity in remote places has birthed an invention. Just so will IoT and its needs birth new inventions.

2. IoT Data Will Change Contextual Marketing

Millions of smart devices are already in operation all over the world. Big data is an understatement when it comes to harnessing worldwide IoT data. Users and customers will be tracked over the various products they own and use.

Marketers are able to pinpoint certain behaviours and preferences of customers. Marketing campaigns will be much more focused to try and increase their turnover rate. It may very well increase customer engagement due to new access to information previously unavailable.

3. IoT Data Will Be the Modern Day Gold Rush

IoT data and its uses will enjoy very high demand. And a higher demand always drives a higher price. IoT data will be expensive.

Companies from every imaginable industry will look for more comprehensive information. Information regarding their productivity, customers’ needs, industry trends, and other forecasting and budgeting related information. IoT data will supply the answers that will help companies to enhance productivity, sharpen execution, and retain customers.

4. Marketing Agency Roles Will Evolve

Advertising agencies have some of the smartest and sharpest brains around. People who can somehow connect the dots in seeming madness. The creativity of these agencies has captured the imaginations of the public through carefully crafted campaigns for its customers. They create and keep a following that leads to higher sales and revenues.

But, IoT data brings a new role into play. Agencies will also have to look into the data analytics and presentation of IoT data. IoT information about customers and their behaviours will change the marketing game. Agencies need to know how to gain the right information and also how to apply it. This type of information will lead to better results for its customers.

5. More Timely and Better Personalized Marketing

Online marketing can become overbearing and irritating to internet users. Much worse, it could be irrelevant. Irrelevant marketing is about as effective as a vacuum cleaner in a desert. It does its job but to no real effect.

IoT data will help marketers to create personalized and tailor-made campaigns for individual customers. It can even track specific actions and behaviours of customers to enhance customer engagement and turnover. That’s because data-driven relationships happen in the following order.

Data-Driven Relationships Process:

More connected devices;
Leads to more information;
Leads to smarter data;
Leads to relevant campaigns;
Leads to increased customer engagement.

Marketers will be able to recognize where customers are in their lifecycle stage. The marketer will be able to guide customers to specific solutions that are relevant.

5 Ways Marketers Will Use IoT

So how will marketers then use this new type of information?

Here are a few ways that will change the marketing game.

1. Analyse Customer Buying Habits Across Platforms

Marketers will for instance track and monitor the devices that are used by a customer. They will notice certain habits on different devices. They will apply the relevant campaigns to the specific devices owned by a user.

2. Harness Information Previously Unavailable

Every smart device that connects to the internet will supply information. Users’ habits can be tracked in every room of their homes. Smart refrigerators will even track customer behaviour.

3. More Precise Information About Customer Lifecycle Stages

The customer’s lifecycle can be pinpointed with greater success. Marketers will understand the customers’ needs better. This will help to guide customers towards a sale much faster.

4. Enhance Customer Relations and Resolve Issues

Smart technology has narrowed the gap between the customer and the product or service provider. Customer grievances will be resolved much faster. It will even help facilitate something as tedious as product recalls with a customer specific approach. The marketing expenses will be kept low by only contacting customers with affected products.

5. Better and More Specific Marketing

The team from SafeAtLast says that IoT is changing the marketing game. Use it to your advantage and gain the success that comes with it.

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How to Increase Conversions with Video Marketing

Video marketing is the latest tactic used by marketers to increase conversions.

This article will show you 3 examples of how to use video to increase your conversions.

In the past decade, social media has risen to unexpected heights and the business world could not ignore it any longer. Smartphones were the tools that enabled social media’s rapid growth. Mobile phone companies fitted their smartphones with highly performing cameras in terms of photo and video features. Statistics show that prospects and customers love to watch videos and businesses should take advantage of this.

[bctt tweet=”Discover 3 ways you can use video to increase your conversions.” username=”brand_minds”]

2018 statistics found that video drives consumer decisions:

64% of consumers say that watching a marketing video on Facebook has influenced a purchasing decision (source: animoto.com);
Having product how-to videos available on YouTube are 9x more important to shoppers than celebrity endorsements;
The most popular video content: How-to videos (52%), Product reviews (26%), Unboxing videos (25%);
59% of executives say they would rather watch a video than read text (source: wordstream.com);
60% of marketers used videos in their social media marketing in 2016 (source: socialmediaexaminer.com);
Companies that use videos in their marketing have 27% higher clickthrough rate and 34% higher conversion rates than those that don’t (source: buffer.com).

Conversions are the mileposts of the buyer’s journey. They signal when a prospect has reached a particular moment that shows he is becoming interested in your company’s products or services.

3 examples of video marketing to increase conversions

1. Attending webinars/workshops/training sessions

Let’s assume your company sells social media marketing services to medium size firms.

One of your business strategies to attract new customers is to provide free workshops of personal branding to top level managers.

How do you influence your prospects to attend your workshops using video marketing?

You can show them a video of previous attendees talking about how these workshops helped them increase their personal brand. Video testimonials are effective marketing tools because they feature real persons. Also the viewer can see them express positive emotions when talking about their experience with your company, which is more impactful than a written testimonial could ever be.

Key takeaway: Include a powerful call to action and a sign-in form to measure your conversions!

2. Drive traffic to your website

Your company sells kitchen cabinets and you need to increase traffic to its website.

How can you increase the traffic to your company’s website with video marketing?

You can let your prospects know that if they wish to update their kitchen style and are confused about choosing a design, you have prepared a video for them. Your video can feature one of your employees presenting the latest fashion in kitchen cabinets. Prospects are looking for branded content that can deliver valuable information. High quality, informative and helpful videos are effective because they help your company build trust and positive connection to its customers.

Key takeaway: Invest in high-quality video and be true to your brand.

3. Influence your prospects to buy your product

Your company sells coffee machines.

How can you influence your prospects into buying your coffee machines using video marketing?

By making product review videos. Show your customers how they can prepare their favorite coffee, outline your coffee machine’s features and show them their benefits if they buy your product. Be engaging and entertaining!

Product review videos can influence your ranking in Google results for mobile.

Key takeaway: Don’t tell them, show them!

Expert’s statement

We asked Calin Biris, online marketing expert what are the top 3 reasons that deter marketers from producing video content.

Here is what he had to say:

One day a man comes to you and says that he has a powerful tool that can clean your house in just one hour if you use it properly. He shows you statistics about it and testimonials. He also tells you that this tool costs twice as much as any other appliance you have, but it could save you four times that amount if you use it regularly. Then he invites you to buy it. What would be your first reaction?

Likewise marketers and business owners are sceptical and unprepared for using video content mainly because they don’t know how to use it and produce it (before investing in it), and are afraid to spend more than they are already paying on other traditional content.

When marketers have a clear content strategy, a content plan, a budget and objectives, it is easier to decide what type of content to invest in, based on the projected results they expect. Because consumers engage more with video content and Social Media platforms are pushing this type of content to their users, the results of using video can be more efficient than in the case of using any other type of content, even if the production costs are higher.

Getting back to the story, the right decision would be to buy the powerful tool that cleans your house faster, only if you are planning to keep your home neat and learn how to use that tool properly. You don’t want to waste time, money and energy using an expensive appliance in a wrong way.

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20 essential KPIs you should be tracking to improve your marketing

Table of Contents

What is a KPI in marketing?

KPIs vs marketing metrics

How are KPIs used to measure performance in marketing?

Here are 20 essential KPIs that you should track to measure your marketing performance:

1. Email open rates

2. Email click-through rates

3. Email forward rates

4. Newsletter signup conversion rate

5. Social media engagement rate

6. Social media conversions

7. New leads generated

8. Cost per lead

9. Customer lifetime value

10. Returning website visitors

11. Goal completion rate

12. Marketing revenue attribution

13. Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

14. Landing page conversion rates

15. Traffic-to-lead ratio

16. Lead-to-customer ratio

17. Customer retention rate

18. Content downloads rate

19. Referral traffic

20. Net promoter score

14 talks about top performance & business growth

Are you looking for insights on top performance & business growth?

Here are 14 talks featuring the BRAND MINDS 2023 speakers sharing their insights on habits, the new way of working, technology, marketing, sales, creativity and more.

14 talks about top performance & business growth

Building & changing habits with James Clear of “Atomic Habits”

YouTube Ads: Why is it not working and what to do with Neil Patel

New Ways of Working with Lynda Gratton

What’s Your Blue Ocean Strategy? Make Your Competition Irrelevant with Author Renée Mauborgne

3 reasons why your lookalike audience isn’t converting with Neil Patel

Creating new, empowering habits with James Clear

5 tips to think like a millionaire with Blair Singer

Keeping your PR creative, imaginative, curious and intuitive with Disney’s Duncan Wardle

Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Skin in the Game

Women in Engineering Day with Anne-Marie Imafidon

Move Beyond Competing with Renée Mauborgne

How to build awesome habits with James Clear

How to price correctly with Neil Patel

Why you should redesign your HR strategy with Lynda Gratton

Behind Apple’s product launch event: STORYTELLING STRATEGY

APPLE INC. – EVENT LAUNCH STRATEGY DECONSTRUCT – Based on the online launch on April 20th, 2021.

ANGLES:

Pre-suasion and how Apple FRAMES the mood of the AUDIENCE in creating a certain positioning for their products;

How they enhance the BRAND CULTURE, build TRUST and create SYNERGY with their audience;

3. How Apple leverages the fundamentals of MEMORY PALACE technique through particular scenes.

1. Pre-suasion and how Apple FRAMES the mood of the AUDIENCE in creating a certain positioning for their products:

2. How Apple enhances the BRAND CULTURE, build PRODUCT TRUST and create SYNERGY with their audience:

3. How Apple leverages the fundamentals of MEMORY PALACE technique through particular scenes:

3 brands that prove authenticity in marketing is paramount

ThirdLove – To all women everywhere, we see you and we hear you

Patagonia – We’re in business to save our home planet

Ben & Jerry’s – Democracy is in your hands

5 easy steps to set SMART goals in marketing

Here are 6 marketing goals that you should set in 2021 to support your company to achieve its business vision:

5 easy steps to set SMART marketing goals

1. Link the marketing goal to a business goal

2. Establish the benchmark

3. Write the goal using the SMART framework

4. Design the strategic plan you will use to achieve the SMART marketing goal

5. Implement & optimize

20 essential KPIs you should be tracking to improve your marketing (updated for 2021) Part 1

Looking to learn about KPIs and how you can use them to improve your marketing? Then this article is for you!

What is a KPI in marketing?

KPIs vs marketing metrics

How are KPIs used to measure performance in marketing?

20 examples of essential KPIs for marketing

1. Email open rates

2. Email click-through rates

3. Email forward rates

4. Newsletter signup conversion rate

5. Social media engagement rate

6. Social media conversions

7. New leads generated

8. Cost per lead

9. Customer lifetime value