Exit Lockdown. Enter Reality – What Comes Next?
10 weeks. 70 days. 1680 hours. Far too many Netflix binges to mention. Meaningless stats at any other time, but in the context of the coronavirus, it’s a stark reminder of our time in lockdown. It’s strange to think that we’ve spent over two months in self-isolation, practising social distancing and learning how to re-interact with everyone around us.
Businesses have moved online, companies have shifted their models, employees have become tech evangelists quicker than anyone would have anticipated. In essence, we’ve been living a do or die mentality during this pandemic, so now that economies around the globe are beginning to open up, what comes next?
I could put my Nostradamus hat on again and make a load of predictions, but really, what’s the point in that? No-one knows what lies ahead, the situation is changing too quickly, with multiple factors at play and an unpredictable virus that doesn’t want to play by society’s rules. The only thing we can be certain of right now is uncertainty, as annoying as that is to admit. We can’t control the environment in which we operate, but we can look at what’s happening to use as a barometer for the trends currently shaping our industry.
The Golden Ecommerce Opportunity
“While the world falls apart, the stock market – and especially Ad Tech – keeps on pumping”. Considering the ripple effect that has been felt throughout every sector, at first glance, this may seem like a stretch, however, the sentiment on Wall Street surrounding digital media, and by extension, Ad Tech is undeniably positive.
Facebook reported flat revenue year over year in April, not usually a cause for celebration, but amid nationwide lockdowns, investors are confident in the platform’s ability to rebound. Similarly, Google and Snapchat beat analysts’ expectations, however, a tougher Q2 is expected. It’s a realistic snapshot of the peaks and troughs that have become commonplace during the pandemic, and as consumer behavior patterns continue to change, the major walled gardens will find new and more innovative ways to gain market share.
You only need to look at how the duopoly has applied itself during the crisis. Gold stars all around. Announcements from Facebook have come thick and fast over the past few weeks, with everything from their Giphy acquisition to the launch of Messenger Rooms and its sister app, CatchUp for video calls, creating a buzz. And amid the fluff – their Bitmoji-inspired Avatar app is a prime example – came what we were all waiting for: a real and very viable move into online commerce.
Facebook ‘Shops’ will allow small businesses to build online stores on both Facebook and Instagram, and in the future, will extend this feature to its Instagram Direct, WhatsApp, and Messenger platforms. Products can also be tagged during live broadcasts, and if Zuckerberg’s estimations are accurate, with some 800 million people already engaging in live video sessions daily across Facebook and Instagram, the opportunity here is huge.
According to Deutsche Bank’s Lloyd Walmsley, Shops has the potential to drive as much as $30 billion in incremental revenue – the bulk coming through further advertising opportunities. This makes sense when you consider Facebook’s rationale in enabling eCommerce across all of its platforms in this way; the closer the consumers are to checkout, the more willing advertisers are to spend. That’s probably why Bezos is laughing all the way to the bank as Amazon’s ad business continues to skyrocket. Of course, Amazon isn’t immune to the fallout either. Investors were told in no uncertain terms to ‘take a seat’ during the Q1 earnings report, amid challenging trading conditions, a pullback from some advertisers, and pressure on price. Still, with a reported 44% growth in Q1 and continuing strong traffic to the site, Amazon will be a thorn in the duopoly’s side for a long time yet. Google, much like Facebook, is looking to guard against this Amazonian invasion. The platform recently added organic listings to its Shopping site, offering retailers exposure to millions of daily shopping searches, while users will have access to a wider range of purchase options. On the surface, it’s likely to gain Google’s market share and advertising dollars over time and has the added bonus of taking aim at Amazon’s convenience model by competing on variety.
Even ‘smaller’ companies are looking to get into the retail game. Criteo continued its move away from retargeting, launching a self-serve ad platform for its retail media network. It’s particularly shrewd given how valuable retail media is right now. As eCommerce continues to surge in lockdown, traditional media budgets are being funneled this way to capitalize on the opportunity in real-time. The ‘Always On’ Mentality at the outset of the coronavirus, programmatic was one of the first to be hit. Brands paused their online campaigns; the default ‘easy’ option, as opposed to reviewing their other marketing channels. However, programmatic has proved to be adaptable, resilient, and flexible in the wake of continued challenges and pressures. It is already rebounding, and I believe digital and eCommerce will take an even larger share of overall advertising in the long run.
Still, even prior to this, publishers were being cautious with their investments and not capitalizing on the programmatic opportunity quickly enough. Of course, change has now been forced at every level. Digitization is a requirement and businesses no longer have the luxury of waiting things out. The nature of operating in 2020 is that you have to be ‘always on’. Adapt. Review. Adapt. Review. There’s no room for complacency.
For my part, I’d say on balance, I’m a pretty optimistic person. Look for the opportunity, acknowledge the risk, but be ready to take action, and that hasn’t changed in the past three months. What we’ll all need to be careful of as things begin to move again is abandoning the ‘critical change’ mindset we have adopted as standard during the pandemic.
Jeff Bezos “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.”
It’s probably more morbid than I would have put it, but he has a point. No more stasis. Let’s make every day count.
Ayman Haider
CEO at MMP World Wide – Board Member at IAB MENA
Wassim Mneimneh is a CEO at MMP Worldwide and a board member at IAB MENA. A dedication of a lifetime to career in advertising with a passion for tech, and focus on driving the transformation, implementation, and conversation on the value of programmatic and its ability to rebuild trust and safety for the media industry.
How Email Marketing Will Help Your Business Grow in 2020
Does Email marketing still exist in times of social media, artificial intelligence, chatbots, videos? A thought to ponder.
If you feel email marketing has lost its charm, then you are far away from the truth.
The truth is, email marketing is growing and email campaigns are still the best strategy for brands and businesses.
Here it is, Why?
Image Credit: Oberlo
As per data by Statista(2020), In 2019, the email users were 3.9 billion users and are expected to grow to 4.3 billion users in 2023, which is half of the world’s population. This clearly shows email marketing is an opportunity that should not be missed.
The above infographic on Email Marketing Stats 2020 provides facts and figures about the email market which is still robust and one of the best marketing strategies.
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is more effective than SEO, affiliate marketing, or social media because it has a direct line with the audiences. It helps you connect with your leads, nurture them, and convert them into customers.
Image Credit: BackLinko
However, with the growing fervor of TikTok Facebook, Snapchat, will this old school tactic still work?
Emails have a better reach than social media and converting a prospect into a buyer. This shows email leading social media. Email is 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined. (McKinsey)
A third of customers who have subscribed to the retailer’s newspaper is a direct result of email marketing messages. (E-marketer)
These numbers are nice to know but you are still wondering, how are email marketing campaigns important in 2020?
Well, that’s what the next chapter is all about.
How Is Email Marketing Important In 2020?
With the booming popularity of social media and search, the importance of free emails in email marketing is higher than ever.
Let us comprehend the value of email marketing in 2020.
1. Everyone uses Emails:
Young people use email for several things – social media and personal expenses, mailing lists, and brand promotion or business. So, everyone has a valid email address.
2. Emails are easy to design and create:
An attractive and eye-catching email campaign for a small business budget with a reputed email marketing service provider can create wonders and similar to big brands.
After finishing designing the newsletter or free emails, businesses can quickly start to use email campaigns for promotion.
Image Credit: uCookies
3. Email marketing links all other channels
Email campaigns are a direct line of communication with the audience and a suitable way to promote marketing strategies.
Social Media
Most email service providers have footers with social media icons at the bottom that includes links to LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram. Subscribers can access those links and share the campaigns by clicking on it. Also, brands can share the reviews, posts on the social feed so subscribers can connect with the brands online.
For instance, the example of Urban Outfitters is a visually appealing email that highlights their most-liked Instagram posts. Also, note the share buttons at the bottom of the email.
Image Credit: Really Good Emails
Content Marketing
77% of people prefer to get permission-based promotional messages via email campaigns. To start with, first, a sizable email list is to be prepared. There are several ways to do this like giving something away for free or offering a newsletter update, videos, research report, infographic, or valuable content.
Make good use of content with interesting pictures and custom RSS feeds. For instance, the US outdoors always include interesting content in their email campaigns.
Image Credit: Emma
Webinars:
Brands can promote webinars on emails to their subscribers who are genuinely interested to hear and respond.
Performance Analysis
Email service provides information on how to improve future email campaigns and learn about subscribers. However, this will be a paid service.
Analytics aids in keeping a track of active and engaged subscribers and identifying trends as well as new markets. This data can help in retargeting campaigns and use marketing resources in the right way.
Capitalizing On The Data Collection:
Email marketing is one of the most scrutinized marketing methods in the post GDPR world. 78% of people say they are likely to trust companies with their personal data if they use it to personalize their experience through different channels like emails.
Emails give access to understand subscribers’ behavior and learn about their habits and interests to create customized email campaigns. Personalized email campaigns can be created by conducting surveys to collect quality data from active subscribers.
4. Encourage more subscriber participation:
Marketers gain the trust of the subscribers when they encourage more participation from them and let them control their inbox. Put a preference center link at the bottom of the email campaigns and prompt new subscribers to fill it.
A preference center allows the subscribers to tell the brands on how often they want to be emailed and what type of content they prefer. Below is an example of a preference center by Brooks Running.
Image Credit: Emma
5. Stay updated with automation and technology
Email service providers always give access to the latest automated features to give an enriching experience to the audience in the following areas:
-Segmentation
-Post-sales communication
-Re-engagement
-A/B Testings
Best Email Marketing Campaigns
With in-depth details on the importance of Email marketing, in the next chapter, we will see the best email marketing campaign examples.
1. BuzzFeed
Email Marketing Campaign: “Buzzfeed Today” Newsletter
Newsletters are Buzzfeed’s top sources of traffic. Buzzfeed has amazing, punchy, and short subject lines. They have awesome preview text that compels the reader to open the email.
If their subject line is a command, the preview text is the logical elaboration of the subject line.
Image Credit: Mail Floss
Their newsletters are from politics and daily news to DIY and cooking. They cover different audiences as they know exactly what to recommend to whom because of their email segmentation.
2. Amarso
Email marketing- another way to approach the cart abandonment.
If your product is enticing then put it at the center of your email marketing campaign directed at the customers who shopped but didn’t purchase. In this two-step email marketing campaign, Amarso is doing the same thing.
The 1st image is sent to the shoppers after an hour of shopping for those products whereas the 2nd image is a reminder of Amarso’s amazing products seen a few days back.
Image Credit: MailFloss
3. Airbnb
Short, Crisp and Communicative Feedback Survey in their Email Campaign
Their email campaign is short, crisp, fresh, and minimalist with a clear objective. Their emails are straight to the point and with a clear CTA. The email campaign looks good and engaging. In every email, you will get guides to different cities.
Image Credit: Mail Bakery
Email Marketing Platforms or Email Service Providers (ESPs)
There are many email marketing platforms but obviously, there is no single ‘best email service provider’. The best option depends on the objectives, goals, features, and list size of the marketers.
In this chapter, I am reviewing five of the top Email Service Providers. The features, pricing, pros, and cons of each email marketing platform are highlighted to help the marketer choose the best option for you.
1. Mail Chimp
Image Credit: Formget
Features
-It is the most popular and leading email marketing platform.
-It has an excellent dashboard with prebuilt templates, reports, lists, and more.
-There is email automation, better integration, optimization, and analytics.
Pricing
-A forever free plan allows 12,000 mails every month to 2000 subscribers.
-There are 3 packages based on features and the number of subscribers.
-Essentials for $9.99, standard for%14.99, and Premium for $299 are email marketing plans.
Know more about pricing
Pros
-It is best for small and medium-sized businesses at an affordable cost.
– It can handle large volumes of emails.
-The messages can be sent to email clients as well as for promotion on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms.
-It has easy to use WYSIWYG editors and can access reports on the open rates clicks, spammed, unsubscription.
-It has friendly customer service and excellent email analytics.
-It helps you to customize the tools for your business with over 300 integrations.
Cons
-The regular updates and reconfiguration disrupt the entire working system as users have to understand and adapt to the new changes.
-Apart from the chat function, phone support is not provided.
-The individual addition of email contacts is cumbersome and has limited segmentation features.
-Emails sent via Mailchimp often goes to the promotion tab of Gmail or spam at times.
2. Mailjet
Image Credit: Formget
Features
-It has the best real-time dashboard and is preloaded with free responsive email templates and newsletters
-There are advanced reporting features like to track deliveries and know user actions.
Pricing
It has a free email marketing trial for 30 days for 6000 emails a month and 200 emails a day. There are 3 Packages like Basic, Premium, and Enterprise plans for each month.
Free email marketing trial for 30 days for 6000 emails a month and 200 emails a day.
Know more about pricing here!
Pros
– The dashboard is incredibly innate and the drag and drop editor option allows users to create different email templates.
– It provides a report that shows usual data including bounces, clicks, and so on.
-It is Reasonable and economical pricing compared to the competitors.
-It’s an all in one platform to send, track, and deliver marketing and transactional emails without any additional cost.
Cons:
-There are limited designs for email templates and cannot store images.
-Unsubscribing inactive users from the list is tiresome using Mailjet’s removal interface.
-The segmentation options are limited. Eg. One can run a campaign but cannot set conditions like whether a recipient has/unopened/bought the product.
3. Active Campaign
Features
– It has an intuitive email template builder and advanced marketing automation
-It has features like segmentation, machine learning, CRM and sales
-It has the best campaign tracking, free image hosting, email funnels, and autoresponders.
Pricing:
There are no free plans available but an email marketing test run can be done for 14 days. Active’s pricing packages are affected by two factors: contacts and features. It has 4 packages available – Lite for $9, Plus for $49, Professional for $129, and Enterprise for $229.
Know more about pricing
Pros:
-The dashboard shows the full history of your contacts and gives access to real-time reports that features display tracking of essentials like geolocation, clicks, opened rates, unsubscription details.
-It has great integrations with other tools like Facebook Ads, Gmail suite, websites, and more.
-The Lead scoring helps to prioritize accounts for the sales team and has dynamic content.
-It offers a free migration service. Unlike other tools, Active Campaign doesn’t charge you to move data from one email marketing tool to another.
Cons:
– The pricing isn’t the lowest but it is worth the value.
– The layout is not user friendly and many good features cannot be accessed seamlessly by the users.
– It becomes difficult to handle large volumes of emails.
4. Klaviyo
Features
–It helps e-commerce marketers to build, measure, and optimize email campaigns.
-It has a hassle-free dashboard that showcases all the recent campaigns based on revenue, days, and more.
-The segmentation of the platform is excellent based on the behavior and transactional data.
-Start your campaigns with pre-built email templates that can be customized.
– Use an autoresponder to send automatic emails to the audience.
Pricing
It offers a free trial of up to 250 contacts and can send 500 emails. The plans are devised based on the number of contacts. Pricing increases with the number of contacts- the maximum pricing option is up to $1700 per month for up to 146,00 contacts and a minimum of $25 for 500 contacts.
Know more about pricing
Pros
-It is easy to set up and user friendly.
-Enhance the eCommerce business on integration with Shopify.
-Create Personalized product recommendations for post-sale engagement.
-Visually transform email workflows and sign up forms to collect leads.
-Access to marketing automation to follow up with customers after they abandon a purchase.
-Integrate with the Facebook custom audience and create a comprehensive marketing campaign.
Cons
– The pricing is aggressive and high for smaller businesses.
– For beginners, the interface can be challenging initially.
– Limited customer chat support and no phone support.
-It can be difficult to use while integrating with Magneto and checking analytical information.
5. Gmail
Features:
-Everyone’s favorite Email marketing tool.
-A free, advertising-supported email service offered by Google.
-It’s a part of Google G Suite with 15 GB storage, color-coded inbox, and filters.
-Appropriate for all types of businesses.
-GMass extension can be used to send personalized and mass emails to every email address in the Gmail account.
Pricing:
It is a free service.
Pros:
-It is free, stable and fast
-It provides 99.9% spam and virus protection.
-It has Integration with the whole Google suite.
-Secured web platform and can be customized to an extent keeping it clean and simple.
-Integrated with Hangout that helps to directly reach the customers via call or chat.
-Excellent handling of large attachments and volumes of emails.
-A business email address can be used by logging into a Gmail account.
Cons:
-It might not work easily with a few desktop software or enterprise applications.
– There is no backup of emails in the inbox.
-It is connected to Google Drive storage, therefore, if it is full then it creates problems in receiving emails.
-Many client emails get sent to spams.
-It collects mail from the hosting server and will not collect email quickly.
Why do many use Gmail for email marketing?
- It has spam filters that reduce the risk of domain spoofing, phishing, and other malevolent practices.
- It has great features and saves time in searching for mails and referencing old mails.
- Gmail users are highly engaged which is the key point in email marketing.
How to use Gmail to send a newsletter?
GMass turns your regular Gmail account into a powerful email marketing platform. Without GMass, Google’s platform allows you to send email marketing campaigns to limited people in your G-suite.
Using GMass helps you send emails through the world’s highest delivering servers and gives the highest open rates. It also includes features like
GMass provides access to following email marketing features to your Google or Gmail account:
-Open tracking,
-Click tracking,
-Mail merge
-Message Personalization,
– Mass emails or bulk email service
-Scheduling.
-Create a mailing list
Best Practices To Follow For Email Marketing
Wrapping Up
The importance of email marketing has grown over the years. With all the insights provided in the article, here are a few takeaway points:
-Email is easy to integrate digital marketing campaigns.
-Email marketing gives a scope to build personal relationships with users.
-Email marketing is constantly evolving implies that email marketing strategies should also change with time.
-Technological innovation continues to improve email marketing and the way subscribers are engaging with emails is also changing,
-This proves that email marketing is here to stay and email marketing automation is the new trend that is catching up. Time to up the game and think about the new techniques and strategies for your next campaign.
Learn more: Facebook Is All Set To Launch Its Toolkit For “Email Marketing”.
Digital Marketing Strategies Fail Due To Fake Bots And Manipulated Data.
Digitalization in Marketing strategies has increased the demand for high inputs and better results from Digital Marketing Strategies. The game has changed and it’s no more about the number of likes and views, it’s about the engagement of the right audience with the content. A tremendous increase in marketing platforms has increased the demand for a target-oriented, and result-driven marketing.
As Peter Parker principle states: “With great powers comes great responsibilities!” the increase in marketing platforms, has increased the challenges to get the ideal data. Intensifying the challenges, Bots are manipulating customers’ data which the companies are extracting from various sources. These include data generated by the landing pages.
Marketing firms are struggling to distinguish between the data filled by humans and advanced bots. This leads to a rise in demand for developing technologies that can help marketing firms to resolve this issue.
Data manipulation isn’t the only thing that bothers! Countless people are investing their crucial money daily on digital marketing tools. They do this to gain marketing benefits. Each interaction with the customer costs them. Every interaction counts! Even if it’s with a bot.
A person running global campaigns, by utilizing Digital Marketing Strategies like landing pages analyzed the conversion rate. He observed that the traffic he’s attracting on his page is great! Yet, the conversion is grieving. The extensive analysis helped him to discover that around 37% of his page data is Bot-driven and fake. Meaning that a 37% share of his spendings went to total waste and became irrelevant. Don’t you consider this an unfair or fraud practice with those who are investing their money in digital marketing?
This doesn’t end here! The marketing team chases fake data received from the internet, resulting in loss of productivity and wastage of crucial time. The time and wasted efforts of teams are equivalent to companies’ money and resources. Companies can utilize these resources to provide better services to their customers.
How to avoid this crisis and find a resolution to this mounting problem?
Most importantly, instead of curing ie. differentiating data based on its authenticity, we should apply a preventative approach. Therefore, In other words, we should stop the bot from entering the marketing domains. Marketing teams likely don’t have the luxury of time which they can spend on examining data.
For instance, marketers should be equipped to examine the behavior and authenticity of a user session. This will very likely help them to monitor the behavioral dissimilarities between a well-bred bot and a genuine human. Firstly, these tactics can be applied to different campaigns, and the collection of fake data from the internet can be prevented. Secondly, with special techniques, methods, and similar additive challenges Bot should be stopped from filling web forms. In conclusion, this will not only help in maintaining the authenticity of data but similarly, it will also help in saving the money of the customers.
The results of digital marketing campaigns are effective only if humans are at the receiving end. Therefore, the development of industries and the evolution of new markets demand techniques that most importantly help in delivering the message to the right audience further, eliminating bots interference. By doing this they can obtain better results by keeping marketing humane not only today but even in the future.
