On Demand

Jordan starts his talk by telling the audience the story about a single entry on his blog became a hit of a life time that brought opportunities that they could have never imagined. That is example of how important “content” is in “content marketing”. He goes on the indicate that “content” can be blogs, videos, info graphics, etc. In short, it is about creating a story. Meanwhile, “content marketing” is a technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and acquire audience. Jordan insists that when it comes to “content marketing”, “build it and they will come” mentality is wrong. It is important to remember a few things.

1. You have to promote your story aggressively, using all available tools, such as social media schedule tools, on all available platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, etc., as long as they serve your content well. Publishing on LinkedIn, for example, is a venue that many have not utilized fully.

2. Disproportionate Result: That means as Jordan puts it “1 time the effort brings 1 time the impact, yet 2 times the effort can get as much as 10 times the impact”. Put in the extra effort because once the story is rolling, it can have huge momentum.

3. Make Content people want to Read. Jordan elaborates extensively on this point giving example such as a moving company not talking about moving relate topics, but talking about best cheap neighbourhoods to live in. Another example is a real agent’s personal website focusing on community building effort, instead of real estate centric. Such content draw in a larger audience as it provides extra value to them. The key is to write something you yourself would want to share.

4. Give before you get. It is to say you should always mention others first. For example, find business similar to yours, or peripheral products and services of your own products or services, and talk about them. You could increase your reach by simply inform these businesses that you have mentioned them without expecting any responses. In short, try to leverage other people’s existing fan base and capture their attention.

Jordan provides a number of suggestions in response to the audience’s questions:

• Research well to create great content
• Have a call for action in your content such as getting people to be on your email list, and try to find out how many People come back to your site
• Spend equal amount of time on the “marketing” of the ” content marketing”
• Headlines… and images are very important
• Organic reach sometimes is not enough, use whatever means available to you to promote your content
• Balance quality and quantity: if you happen to have really great content, do not hesitate to leverage it
• One of the tips to find out what content is relevant is to reverse engineer to find out what your potential

customers are interested in reading

Kim’s speech is a tactical approach to deliver a social media program. The only constant factor in social media is change. For example, Tweeter introduced a new algorithm in February 2016, which affected the way people and businesses function on this platform, if they want to achieve the same result. In fact, it appeared that more work is needed today to get the same result as compared to a few years before. Kim’s presentation focuses on 2 major areas: changes to social media and Tips

A. Changes to Social Media landscape we must navigate:

• Noise: tweeter is excellent examples, the sheer volume of tweets is overwhelming, and tweets may not reach the intended audience or have less impact
• New networks: new networks appear all the time and it is challenging to decide if it should be included in your social media program
• New technologies: different technologies may be needed to measure different metrics
• New rules
• On old networks: even established networks change rules often
• Content expectation: different networks may have different algorithms and expectation, so the exact content in exact format may not work across all social media platforms
• Algorithms

B. Seven Survival Tips

1. Know your strategy: This will allow you to streamline your efforts and budgets, and establish your milestones and measurements. Social media strategy should include organizational goals (e.g. conversions), target demographic (e.g. what they do and do not want, where do they live), key messages (the marketing department in big organizations is likely to have clear messages ready for use, but small companies or individuals may have to derive their own), choice of networks (the decision depends on what would appeal to your clients and that you can manage the social media program internally)

2. Choose new network wisely: the decision is based on your client demographic and where they can be found on social networks. This is where a clear strategy becomes very helpful. Most companies cannot afford to be on all networks effectively because that would require too much financial and human efforts. A few decision factors to keep in mind are:

• Noise: is there a place with our demographic and less noise?
• Internal Effort: do you have the resources to function effective on the platform? For example, if you want to be in Instagram, having access to good pictures is a must.
• Future Viability of the Network: don’t put too much effort on something that may not expand in the future. In fact, it may be wise to take a wait and see approach

3. Have a plan of attack: this is tactical in nature, including steps such as defining specific tasks and allocating exact amount of time for each task to be accomplished.

4. Influence others: this is one of the ways to get more out of your social media program (higher ROI). In addition, network algorithms tend to be designed to pick up influential content generated through engagement with people. There are 3 things that influence people:

• Reciprocity: this implies to share others’ content generously. This can be tough for companies to support if managers do not understand the values of practices such as re-tweeting
• Likability: businesses should try to show how they are similar to their clients. For example, they can use the language that reflect their demographic, or use the same hashtag # as their targeted audience
• Authority: specific authority in your field. This generally means to be consistent, in terms of post frequency, in terms of content quality and in terms of value provided

5. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: companies should find out how to truly leverage each piece of content if they are to be on multiple networks, or it would get overwhelming very quickly. For example, the same content can be sliced, extracted from, reworded to turn into blogs, videos, tweets, pictures, etc. to be appropriate for different networks. Remember that different segments of your target demographics can be on different networks. It is advisable to have a database to keep track of content placement and frequency.

6. Don’t Spam: present and promote your content but make sure you are not spamming

7. Keep your Evergreens at home: keep your content evergreen (i.e. post frequently) and keep it at home (i.e. make sure you promote your content and keep the most exciting content in your own space)

Derek Lackey:

• Derek observes that the unsubscribing mechanism is one of the main concerns for the CRTC. Companies have to have a clear language that spells out how consumers can unsubscribe anytime. As we are coming up to the 3-year deadline to turn the existing mailing into the CASL compliant form, it is crucial for businesses to understand that they cannot assume consent. For example, if a consumer has an interaction with a business such as downloading their whitepaper, the business needs to know if this means implied consent or not and for how long. When in doubt, the best policy is to ask for expressed consent.
• Derek also notices that there have been big fines for companies that ignore the “Do not Call list”, though some companies actually take advantage of this available list of numbers to call. In addition, CRTC can audit companies of all sizes. One of the triggering factors is a large number of complaints within a very short amount of time. Companies do not need to have large mailing lists to be under the radar.

Kim Arsenault:

• Industry Canada has conducted a study and found that since CASL came into place, Canadians receive 25% emails less overall, and there is a 37% reduction in spam. It also observes that B2B selling does not appear to be affected by CASL. Overall, as an industry, “business is as usual” post CASL. Email marketing is still playing a big role.
• As the 2-year implied consent deadline is coming up (mid-May), businesses need expressed opt-in from their recipients. Kim suggests companies to have “Yes” / “No” buttons visible in their communications so the recipients can update their permissions easily. In addition, it has been generally accepted that a B2C or B2B transaction means implied consent, up to 2 years after that last business transaction.

Vance Lockton:

• A lot of organizations assume that if they do not use the emails they have, they do not have to worry about CASL, and that is not the case. CASL also deals with collecting new email addresses as well as how businesses treat those currently in their possession. It important to find out how addresses were collected in the first place. In addition, companies are held responsible for how email addresses are used on their behalf. Vance suggests that unsubscribing mechanism has to be clearly included in emails. Finally, high volume of emails sent is another factor that can trigger close scrutiny by the CRTC.

The panel also addresses a few concerns by the audience. First, CASL is not only applied to emails, but to all forms of electronic communications. In fact, Industry Canada does have the data on the percentage of complaints for each channel. Second, companies with any international elements should consider to be in compliance with where they are located as well as where their customers are located. In fact, there has been strong international cooperation on privacy issue, such as simultaneously shutting down server farms in various countries. Fortunately, CASL is considered very up-to-dated and thorough. Thus if businesses comply with CASL, chances are they are in compliance with many countries’ regulations.

Third, trade show situation is a little tricky as the exchanging of contact information may be understood as implied consent. However, it is better to actively ask for expressed consent from recipients. Finally, it is advisable to make a distinction between transactional information and commercial information communications. Customers may opt-out from marketing emailing, yet still want to receive product & service updated information. Thus the content sent has to be relevant to the recipients.

George Lawrence of MerchantWords delivers an informative, engaging and high energy presentation. His message is keywords matter in this digital age. Businesses can get the upper hand by employing strategic keywords to outsmart their competitors.

George starts his presentation by giving an example of shopping at two stores. Imagine we are walking around a traditional store, where we see thousands of products on display and must make decisions on which products/brands to buy.

Now imagine we are also in a physical store, shelves are fully stocked. But this time nothing is visible. All we have to do is to state what we want (key words) and the products will show up.

A much simple process – we get in, put in key words, get products, get out. It is the way the world is going. Keywords matter and content behind keywords matter.

It is imperative businesses must connect with their customers by ensuring customer words = their words.

How do we discover customer words? George suggests two ways:
1/ Traditional way: Hang out in the stores where our products are displayed. Ask customers directly, listen to their feedback, eavesdrop, etc…
2/ Digital age: Read all reviews, comments about products on websites, forums, etc…
What do we do with their words and reviews are more important.
George goes on and shares some success stories about companies that use killer keywords to really connect with the right customers and increase sales.

For example: Bling jewelry.com proves that your description of the products should match what customers are looking for. When they introduce hot wife anklet, swinger anklet, they immediately hit the right note and are able to tap into a large unknown customer base. From not being able to sell a single anklet, now the company can’t keep them in stock long enough.
For a travel website, a simple change from “vacation” to “holiday” can help increase traffic significantly.

George encourages businesses to always find ways to unleash the full potential of strategic keywords to stay ahead of the competition.

In this presentation, Ray shares how companies are using a range of strategies and tactics to effectively acquire, analyze and engage app users.

Mobile app launch has increased significantly globally in 2015 vs. 2014 mainly because consumers prefer it over web app as it is fast and convenient. Mobile apps are being used mostly in industries that have high frequency of interaction such as airline and hotel.

The mobile app experience lifecycle:
1/Acquire: track media campaign to optimise acquisition cost
2/Analyse: analyze app users based on location proximity to discover new behaviors
3/ Engage: use in-app message to improve conversion and engage user participation. Engaging proves to be the most challenging as app usage erodes over time, how to make it relevant so people will use it often is the question.
App marketing is a big money maker. The more users use your app, the more ad money you get.

Two success stories are discussed: MLB.com and Walgreens
1/ Major League Baseball introduces many apps to enhance user experiences – Ballpark app as an in-stadium app that helps user check in, manage tickets and food purchase, while AtBat app provides live streaming of the games. MLB is able to collect more data from user and at the same time make it more enjoyable.
2/ Walgreens app offers users a convenient way to refill prescription, print photos, and clip coupons.
Advantages of in-app messaging: it is easier to encourage users to update when newer version is available. Users will enjoy a better experience while Walgreens can use push notifications to offer a timely, in context feedback experience, to highlight new features such as special deals or extended holiday hours.

Traditionally, survey request at the bottom of receipts garner very low response. Mobile app actionable notifications can elevate user experience to the next level. For example, users can click on a happy or sad face and provide feedback quickly.
Mobile app doing right will improve user acquisition, app store ratings and in-app conversions. It helps businesses to provide better services, better experiences to users and increase how customers perceive the brand.

Trevor starts his presentation by sharing the story of his early days in a water sport partnership. It is true that challenge is an integral part of running any business. It is how you deal with that challenge, how you react with what is in front of you that will define your success. It is important to understand that setbacks are actually your set up for future success. Don’t get caught in the moment, embrace and find a way to get through.

Trevor then shares the story of Rachel Maser of Clean Food Crush, a mother of four who provides easy, fun and clean recipes online. She writes book and uses it to promote her business. Once her book gets attention, she is perceived as an authority on the subject matter. The book is served as a lead magnet; what she sells is at the back end.

Having a trial and true system is the most important thing: Attention, attraction, action.

Lessons learned: recognise mistakes, observe what works, document them, and share them.

Trevor’s top three social marketing secrets:
1/ Reverse mullet – party in the front, business at the back. Make it fun.
2/ Reverse engineering for the online sale process
Always begin with the end in mind; if your goal is to have long term customers, then decide what you can do now to capture leads from the potential customers who are viewing/downloading your free materials from social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram and how to convert them to first time customers, multiple time customers.
3/ A simple 3-step plan to get more customers: first create great contents (in this case, Trevor suggests to write a book), second promote contents aggressively to create traffic and capture leads, then convert leads to customers.

The process:

• I have a best seller book and you can download your FREE copy if you give me your emails.
• Create a sense of urgency, the time to act is NOW (Limited time offer, special discount ends soon)
• Make it irresistible: Give bonuses give guarantees (Never give discounts)
• Limited stock. Only two remaining.

What is Trevor’s biggest secret: Don’t waste time, money and energy. Ask for help from the right people who already tried and got great results. Exactly how we can convert leads to money is not discussed.

Panel discusses the role of digital marketing in today’s market, what new technology that business uses, what decision process involved and how to get true results.

Mark Vecchiarelli

• What is the trend in digital marketing? New technologies cost money, businesses may fear to try out because of the cost, past experiences with technologies, etc…
• Business shall have a road map moving forward.
• Asks panellist to share what they learn from clients, how do they begin, how much change should they embrace?

Matt Di Paola

• Before looking into what to use and how much to spend, try to understand what drives human behaviour? What technology will fit? How can I use it to meet the needs of my clients? How I can keep it relevant in the next few years?
• Learn from the past, use all data available to identify opportunities.
• Have clear objective and some source of framework, you may want to only use 70% of your marketing budget. Then take 10% and try some very specific new things where you can control the risks. Find out what works within that 10%, use the remaining 20% to expand on that.
• More business start looking at Virtual Reality as an escape
• To boomers, Xers, millennials, they expect to have to see everything now. Business must be able to engage with them the way they want to.

Kevin Keanne

• Ask yourself what value would the new technology offer, would it solve any problems?
• Kevin agrees with Matt that we should learn more about customer behavior? Why they do what they do?
• Why we care about wearable technology such as Fitbit? They shed lights to our emotions, why some people feel frustrated or delight when they connect with something?
• It is important to perceive failures as learning experiences and focus on creating a culture of learning in your organization.

Zahar Rajani

• Business realizes they need to apply Emerging tech to elevate or rejuvenate the brands. The reality is it is overwhelming to the average business owners. They have difficulty understanding the relevance of that technology to their business? They should have a tech roadmap moving forward, get to the heart of the why.
• Business must decide the reason for tech existence, create relevancy around them, the number of tech you can use, apply technology at scale. It is better to do trial and error before committing to bigger technology
• CONTENT will determine the technology you should use. CONTEXT: how to best deliver it, by mobile app or web app or both
• What is the interaction technology providing? How customers buy online, how they buy in store. What could be improved? That could have a huge impact on the direction your company is going.
• Pick a path, stay with it. That is how you succeed. It is not about big or small. It is about speed.
• How are you different from others? What do you have? What do you need? How your chosen initiatives effect other channels: digital, physical store?

Staying ahead is what separates good marketers from great marketers. The ability to adapt, take risk in a technologically driven world that generates creativity and the ability to shift paradigms. Therefore, it is important to understand what your customers want, have a road map, and keep moving forward.

Online reviews mean a great deal to businesses, as they are considered what customers experience and how they feel during and after the transaction. 92% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase. We have evolved to trust strangers’ reviews on the Internet. 87 % of customers will not consider businesses with low ratings. Reviewing has become a phenomenon in all types of businesses, B2C and B2B, from tourism industry to health care industry. Public opinions, which are very visible, can make businesses feel overwhelmed or even helpless as they feel they have no control over such important matter. However, consider the following facts: 82% of consumers read 2 to 10 reviews, not just 1 single bad review; 69% of consumers believe reviews older than 3 months do not matter; and Google algorithms tend to pick up fresh content (75% of Yelp’s site traffic comes from Google), businesses have an opportunity to turn online reviews to their advantages.

However, it must be acknowledged that “Manipurated” can be harmful. “Manipurated” can present itself in:
 Fake review: as much as 25% of reviews submitted to Yelp are fake, and even with Yelp’s screening, there is no guarantee that they are authentic. Companies/individuals who are in the business of providing fake reviews, may go through extreme measurements to create complete fake personas if needed. However, fake reviews are a zero sum game. They do not help the sellers, the buyers nor the review platform as they distort the implied trust in the online reviewing process.
 Profiteering: Sales Industry calls this practice “Fear-based selling” where companies are forced to pay to even have their voices heard. This creates conflict of interest and results in some real anger against review-and/or-rating companies.
 Reputation Management: Many operate this service almost in a form of blackmailing. The scheme involves several phases: initial contact, offering, and menace. Businesses are pressured into overpaying for opaque offering and receiving bad advices

Five steps to fight back and win in the online reviewing battle:
1. Know where to see and be seen: be aware of online review platform for your businesses and if you are being reviewed
2. Make every review count: treat each review as an marketing opportunity, and it can show potential consumers that you are paying attention
3. Keep it fresh: do not hesitate to actively ask your customers / clients for reviews
4. Show off reviews: mention this to current and potential customers / clients
5. Know when, why and how to seek help: Sometimes, your internal efforts may not be enough to solve problems. Thus, it is alright to seek help from a reputation management company or lawyer.

In short, make it a habit to manage your online reviews. Daniel suggests that the code of conduct should include:
 practice good review hygiene every single day
 take the commitment seriously
 avoid taking review personally
 follow the steps and don’t cut corners

More specifically, Daniel suggests to spend roughly 20 minutes daily to perform the following tasks
 New review: quickly scan for new reviews
 Draft your answers: keep it concise, stop, drop and roll
 Cross-promote your good reviews: promote it now if you find something good
 Review the reviews: to determine what people say and what you should do next.

● When figuring out your time as a marketer, ask yourself what is the most important – paid social or SEM? Figure out your KPIs ASAP.
● SEM platforms:
○ AdWords – ad extensions – can help your campaigns perform better
○ Bing adCenter
○ Yahoo Gemini
● Wall Street has reported that keywords and clicks have gotten more expensive over the last 2 years
● Media auctions can be painful – the winner’s curse: there are only 2 kinds of marketers at the top of the PPC search results:
○ Brilliant marketers
○ lucky/irrational idiots
● There are lots of layers in the paid search process
○ Quality score = Google gives to each ad and keyword combo in its system at a specific time and geo (pre-click leverage)
○ Your score compares you against your peers
○ When you have a higher quality score, you have more leverage
○ Every improvement you make (e.g. average order size, shopping cart size, conversion rate, CTR), the max bid increases — think of it as compound impact
● Bid Management: top 10% of keywords spend 80% of your budget (based on 25 client analysis)
○ Long-tail: so skinny and long that it’s almost not worth it to go after
○ You should spend all of your time trying to optimize around your top 10%
● Your top 10% of spending keywords
○ Optimal geography – a person’s geography tells you about your consumers
○ Keyword tells you about intent
● PLA = product listing ads (product SKU, description)
● Long tail = wrong tail: going long won’t work because someone w/ broader match type will likely prevail
● Segmentation = your best tool
○ Do an analysis of day parting based on conversion rate and incremental page views
○ A bid management platform will notice if something breaks
● Attribution modeling = You need to figure out all the other steps the consumer took to click on your ad (e.g. a display ad delivered 20% of impact that led to click and conversion on search ad)
○ Marginal elasticity: does purchase behavior changed based on price? Example: cigarettes and gas are not elastic.
○ What keywords are more or less elastic? You need to look at keyword elasticity to determine bid.
○ A common question is should we bid on our brand keyword (e.g. Foot Locker)? The smart marketers have a different CTA for a paid search vs. an organic search.
○ You should also take into account Microconversions (newsletter registrations, visits to Contact Us page, Facebook likes)
● Geo-targeting analysis: look at conversion rate by geo
● Question: how do you supervise an agency and audit to know they’re doing SEM correctly (e.g. do you look at bounce rate metrics)?
○ Answer: opportunity costs are difficult to measure. You can hire another agency to audit the original agency’s campaigns. Look at quality score in relation to account structure.
● SEO — you need the right site strategy: you need to understand the rapidly changing world of algorithms that dramatically change rankings.
○ Google has made more changes in the last 3 years than in the previous 10 years because SEO’ers are getting more savvy.
○ SEO is a meritocracy – find the SEO “white space”
○ Search engine land: periodic SEO chart http://searchengineland.com/seotable
○ Google has changed its search algorithm in the last 3 years to steer away from keywords to intent
○ Google has gone beyond universal search (images, site, etc…) – they look beyond content now; they are trying to guess what your customers want
■ Google imputes Likely Intent = you need to think about what Google thinks is likely
○ No human will know why something ranks (years ago, humans did determine the ranking), now metrics drive the algorithm
■ Relative CTR vs. other results
■ Long to short click ratio
■ Metrics of user engagement on the page
○ Still, you need old ranking inputs (and then layer in new algorithmic factors)
■ Layer in searcher behavior outputs: visits (search, direct, other), time on site, bounce rate, pageviews per session, sharing via Gmail, repeat visits
○ Does improving CTR improve your position? Not necessarily. Take bounce rate into account as well.
○ Every element counts (Moz): did you get organic sitelinks? Is there a brand dropdown? Is the title compelling?
○ Does social activity predict SEO success? Google will look at dwell time, bounce rate, email data, Google G+ engagement. Think beyond clicks and focus on your social presence.
● SEO isn’t purely a marketing function; other groups in your company should be thinking about the company’s search results.
○ HR should think about LinkedIn results showing up in a search.
○ Investor Relations should be interested in showing in relevant search results when people search for stock prices

● Youtility: Be a farmer, not a hunter
○ Example: Hilton taught concierges how to search for questions on social sites and respond to users
○ Example: Disney Magic Timer app w/ Oral-B
● 3 types of Youtility:
○ Self-serve information: SEO 101, consumer has intent to make a purchase
■ Intercept example: UK app that gives you an eye test and then recommends a nearby optician
■ If you teach better, you sell better
○ Radical Transparency: build trust with your consumers via your content
■ GoodRX site which shows how different pharmacies price medications
○ Real-Time Relevancy
■ Vanderbilt University created an app for coaches to track heat index, weather in the summer
■ New-York Presbyterian Hospital created a public safety commercial on how to do CPR, then created a playlist on Spotify with songs that had the same beat as Stayin’ Alive (you should push on the chest to the same beat as Stayin’ Alive – 100 beats/minute)
● 10 mistakes to avoid in content marketing
1. Not knowing your audience
2. No “About” page – e.g. no information about an e-book
3. Not promoting your content on social (content is fire, social media is gasoline; use social to promote Youtility first, company second
4. Not sharing personal stories
5. Poor editing & typos; Video content should be less than 2 minutes; ideal blog post for B2B side ~ 750-1500 words
6. No editorial mission or voice
7. Content that is not visual enough: people only read 20% of the text on a page. When an image is paired w/ the text, ppl retain 65% of the content 3 days later.
8. Not analyzing data: review your analytics to learn about what people like and don’t like (Google Analytics, email surveys, content shares on social media, hashtag analysis)
9. Not creating relevant headlines
i. 6-8 words are the ideal number of words in a headline
ii. The Ultimate Headline formula: number + adjective + keyword + rationale + promise = ultimate formula
10. Ignoring comments: even negative comments should help your content strategy
● Content Operations
○ The See-Think-Do Model: the master funnel for any content strategy
■ See: Awareness
■ Think: Consideration, Research
■ Do: Conversion, Action
■ Share: sharing activity, public reviews, UGC
○ Follow the 1:8 Rule – for every 1 piece of content, you should be able to produce 8 different pieces of follow-up content (e.g. video based on original blog post)
○ Amplify through Brand Ambassadors: consider paid promotion and content, SocialToaster is a good tool
○ Align with Fan Usage: be where the fans are (e.g. on Facebook – users are on between 7 AM – 8 PM MST). B2B: Sunday nights are peak usage times for your B2B clients for a blog post.
○ Align with Personas: create personas of your customers and align your content to market to them
■ Example: Flowcrete (flooring & cleaning solution) created personas for an (e.g.) janitor and then created specific marketing content to each persona