Years ago, businesses thought ahead to organize their brand around the customer. But what does that look like? If you can’t measure it, it’s hard to justify it – or do it. Today, the reality is that most businesses have the customer at the center of everything they do. But measuring it can still be tricky. These questions can put you on the path to better measurement:

1. How much of your marketing spend goes to employees or existing high-spend customers?
2. Do you base your marketing budget on measurement, and is it integrated with finance?
3. Does measurement drive your media allocation across all channels?

A great real-world example of this is Nordstrom. Back in 2016, they began to re-evaluate their measurements for success, with the goal of driving stronger outcomes for the company. Their data showed that the marketing expense was outpacing sales, and at the same time, their rate of customer acquisition was declining – which were negative outcomes for their business. To combat that, they first looked internally and focused their decision-making around the customer.

When marketing is siloed by channel (search, email, social, etc.) or by brand portfolios (ex. Nordstrom vs. Nordstrom Rack), it can make it difficult to get a holistic view of the customer journey. Nordstrom restructured their internal teams, so they were organized around customer portfolios instead – a customer acquisition team and a customer retention team – instead of individual channel teams. Acquisition is about profitably investing for the future. Retention is all about growing the lifetime value of current customers.

The example we used, Nordstrom, now has a curated point of view on what’s next and how they can reach a new generation of consumers. Since they made this change, expenses are in line with sales, efficiency has improved, and their rate of acquisition has increased.

With a growing audience of current and potential customers, it’s important to know what really drives customer lifetime value. Maybe it’s introducing the customer to a new product or category that you offer or enrolling in your loyalty club. Being able to assess the value of each of these potential actions will help drive your campaigns to meet your goals. Marketing today is too complex to rely on one single solution. The path to a better strategy involves multiple solutions and customer signals, giving you a comprehensive view of the customer. We can help put together a plan to fit your goals – contact us today!

There’s a lot of focus on both the older audience – Baby Boomers – and the younger audience – Millennials and Gen Z. But what about those in the middle? Generation X (Gen X) is the group born between 1965-1980 (between Boomers and Millennials). It’s easy to reach them, but they can be picky about where and how they want to interact with ads.

An estimated 88.5% of the Xer population use a smartphone, and 62.7% use tablets at least once a month. Xers look to their phones for convenience and ease of use and are particularly attuned to ads on those devices while multitasking or on the go. A 2018 survey showed that users 39-53 are most receptive to smartphone ads either in bed before sleeping or while watching TV (as is true of all other age groups). However, Xers specifically are receptive of ads while shopping in-store, exercising, or running errands.

Gen Xers also still watch a good amount of TV (nondigital) at an average of 3 hours, 28 minutes per day. The usage volume means they’re available to see your advertising, but they can be particular about their ad experiences. They feel like there are too many ads, and they don’t like ad repetition. This has driven an increase in streaming subscriptions – a February 2019 survey by Deloitte showed 77% of Xers subscribe to video-on-demand services (up from 64% in 2017). Generation Xers are open to interacting with media in new ways, so it’s crucial to meet this generation where they are (smartphones, streaming, etc.), and to come equipped with appropriate and timely messaging that mirrors their unique stage in life.

EMarketer.com

Facebook offers substantial reach, defined targeting, and engagement opportunities. That combination makes it a powerful tool to reach your audience. However, as with other mediums, there may be changes to how consumers feel about Facebook, so it’s important to keep an eye on what may or may not change in the future.

The fact is, there’s still a lot to like about Facebook. Ad revenue growth on the platform is ahead of even digital advertising as a whole for 2019, with an expected 19.1% increase in digital and a 20.6% increase on Facebook over the previous year. The scale and targeting abilities are the two primary benefits, and their algorithms to optimize for conversions put them ahead. Small, medium and large businesses all rely on Facebook’s ad targeting and buying options.

In 2020, it’s projected that Facebook users in the U.S. will increase by 1.4%. Middle-age and older people remain a stronghold, with 53% of the population 55+ using Facebook this year (an increase over the previous few years). The percentage of people aged 35-54 using Facebook decreased a bit from 2017 to 2018 but remained even from 2018 to 2019. It’s also interesting to note that mothers in the U.S. have remained strong in their support of Facebook, with 81% using the platform in 2019 (an increase of 2% over 2018).

Looking ahead to the coming years, consumer concerns and increasingly attuned advertisers make it clear that Facebook advertising will change. Here is how we expect various areas of Facebook ads to change over the next two years: Yes, there may be changes to ad targeting. Facebook has already removed third-party data after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and reduced targeting options for housing, employment and credit advertisers, and we’ll be keeping an eye on any additional changes.

We also expect Facebook to find new ad opportunities for video in all forms and develop better ways to measure user’s attention to those ads. Stories ads (in Facebook and Instagram) are rising in popularity, but their percentage of spend is still quite low. If Facebook continues promoting them, and the tools to create & distribute the ads improve, this is an area that could see grow over the next few years.

While there has been some speculation that Facebook will become a one-stop shop for messaging, socializing and commerce (like WeChat in China), we don’t see the momentum for that in the U.S. (at least not by 2021). However, we do see potential for commerce ads to become more significant, brining shopping posts and content to new audiences that aren’t following an account.

In short, companies are remaining committed to advertising on Facebook, but are aware there may be changes to the targeting capabilities or audience. We’re here to keep tabs on Facebook’s ad performance and changes and can help develop a strategy to reach your goals.

EMarketer.com

Social media ads aren’t going anywhere; it’s a scalable way to reach a targeted audience, and users are spending more and more time on social apps.

When it comes to Facebook ads, determining your objectives up front can help make your campaign a success. There are objectives for virtually any goal, and Facebook breaks those into three categories – Awareness, Consideration and Conversion – with sub-categories under each.

Awareness objectives are good for generating interest in what products or services you provide. Consideration objectives are ideal to reach those who may be interested in what you offer, and likely want to engage or learn more information. Conversion objectives are used when you want people to register, opt-in, download, purchase, etc.

The amount of engagement you see can depend on what type of ad you’re running. When an ad is optimized for engagement (reactions, comments, etc), it targets users who have a history of engaging in posts, while other tactics tend to target a more general audience. For example, when running ads optimized for site traffic, the goal is to get the user off Facebook and onto your site to learn more, so they may be less inclined to ‘react’ or comment on an ad and just click on it instead.

Oftentimes, business may feel as though their ads and posts need to have reactions, likes, and comments in order to succeed. However, this is not the case. Facebook will track impressions and reach of content as well, and these two metrics have nothing to do with the number of times people comment on your post. Reach is the number of people who see your content.

Impressions, on the other hand, are the number of times your ad or post is displayed, no matter if it was clicked or not. So, a viewer does not have to engage with your ad or post for it to count as an impression. In addition, one person can have multiple impressions for a single piece of content. For example, you could see a post appear in your Facebook feed from the original page and see it again if a friend shares that post. If you see the post twice, it counts as two impressions.

For example, a local real estate campaign had a goal of driving traffic to a website of available listings. In one month, the campaign reached 32,661 people and had 572 clicks to the website, but had only 5 reactions and no comments or shares. In another instance, a medical campaign had a goal of increasing awareness of their birthing services. In one month, they had 10 reactions, no comments and 1 share; however, they also reached 10,451 people and had 265 website clicks. In both cases, the campaign performances fell within initial estimates, meeting the goals for each client.

Looking at the campaign as a whole will help provide a complete picture of how it is performing. And remember – social media is one small part of the bigger picture. Advertising on social media has many puzzle pieces, you just have to find the ones that fit together for you and your business.

The media landscape is constantly evolving with new technologies and ways to consume information. One of the more recent additions to the audio space is podcasts. With a huge number of podcasts covering every imaginable subject and interest, recent research shows that 51% of Americans have listened to a podcast, with 32% having listened in the last month and 22% in the last week. While this remains a significantly smaller slice of the audio pie than AM/FM radio, listenership is growing. A 2019 Nielsen report shows among Adults 18 and older, the average age of those who’ve listened to a podcast in the past month is 39, and they live in a household with an average of three people with a combined income of $96,500. That casts a considerably different image of podcast listeners than the single Millennial that many have pictured when considering their audience.

However, Nielsen confirms a gender split remains. Its tally shows among those who’ve listened to a podcast in the past 30 days, 57% are male compared to 43% female. Most of the audience also remains overwhelmingly white, accounting for two-thirds of monthly podcast listeners.

Podcasting has experienced significant growth in the last few years and shows no sign of slowing down. AM/FM radio remains the largest piece of the audio media pie, but with more people listening to podcasts, they’ve become an additional piece of the media landscape.

Sources:
Insider Radio
Podcast Insights
Nielsen

Your landing page is the page a visitor arrives at on your website after clicking your ad, whether that’s a paid search ad, display ad, Facebook ad, etc. Specific landing pages tailored to different services or products help provide a quality experience for visitors. But what makes a great landing page? How can you make sure your landing pages produce good conversion rates? We’ve got some tips below.

Know Your Goal & Your Audience

This may sound simple but figuring out what you want site visitors to do after reaching your page is important. Do you want them to buy something? Fill out a form? This is the first step toward developing your landing page. It’s also crucial to know your audience – this helps you cater to their wants and needs.

Keep It Clean

A landing page should offer necessary information, but not so much as to overwhelm (and possibly drive away) your site visitor. Provide the essential information that will interest your audience, and make sure you have rich, useful, relevant content.

Make It Easy to Convert

The goal is to make it as easy as possible for visitors to convert, providing a clear path that makes the next step obvious. This tip varies depending on what your desired conversion is. If it’s form submissions, make that form noticeable. If it’s downloads, make a button that engages the user to click.

Have A Clear Call to Action

Tying in to the previous point, calls to action help guide your visitor to what you want them to do. Text should be clear and present in the headline text and the button text. Some examples include “Buy Now” or “Download Your Free Guide.”

Make It Easy to Scan

It’s vital that your visitors can capture the essence of your service/products with a quick glance. Make your page easy to scan by highlighting your main point in the headline while using subheadings and bullet points for added information. Use fonts and colors to indicate information hierarchy.

Only Ask for Necessary Information

If your goal is to get visitors to submit a form, get the bare minimum of what you need. The more fields you ask visitors to fill out in your form, the less chance you have of them completing your offer. Most users don’t have a problem providing their name and email address but asking for information about phone numbers and birth dates can cause your drop off rate to jump to 50%. The rule of thumb is not to include more than 7 fields in your form.

Are Fast as Lightning

Speed is essential, as loading times have a tremendous effect on bounce rates. You can reduce load time by not making your image files any larger than they have to be, using cache tools, and a fast web host.

No matter how someone arrives on your landing page, making sure they have a great experience once they get there can help boost your conversions. If you’re not sure where to start, we can help! Give us a call at (309) 693-2345 or drop us a line!

Have you ever been scrolling through your Facebook timeline and come across posts for pages you don’t follow? How many times have you seen a Facebook post with the word “sponsored” under the page name? These are all Facebook Ads. While one may think advertising on Facebook is easy (and Facebook does make it a simple process), there is a lot more thought that goes into each individual ad than one may think. Facebook gives advertisers guidelines and recommendations to help each ad gain the most traction and reach the most people.

Facebook’s business information pages offer great information on how to advertise on both Facebook and their sister platform, Instagram. In terms of Facebook ads, they give design recommendations so that your ad will look the best it possibly can. For a stellar image ad on Facebook, the company recommends the following design parameters:

– A .jpg or .png file
– Photo resolution of at least 1080 x 1080 pixels
– Body text of no more than 125 characters
– Images with less than 20% text

Where businesses can tend to fall short is with image text. Image text refers to the text you see on the actual image or creative in the ad. Facebook studies have found that photo-only ads will consistently outperform other ad formats in driving unique traffic. In addition, ads that contain images with less text tend to cost less, a plus for your business! To avoid using too much text in your ad images, Facebook offers these tips:

– Use Facebook’s tool to check the amount of text in your image
– Try using fewer words and/or reducing the font size of your text (However, if text is too small, it may be difficult to read)
– Try to have most text in the body text instead of on the ad’s image
– Avoid putting text all over the image

As you can see, the more text on the image, the more cluttered the ad seems. This not only causes Facebook to either not run your ad or not reach as many people, but if it does reach people, they may scroll past your ad because it isn’t eye-catching. Image text makes your ad seem messy, and even if people see the ad, there is less of a chance they will interact with it. We want your ads to perform to the best of their ability. Following the “less text is more” rule is a step in the right direction for your business and ads to reach the most eyes and receive more business!

*Examples from https://www.facebook.com/business/help/980593475366490

Central States Media was recently recognized for its work with several partners receiving a total of 7 national and 3 local awards.

On April 1, 2019, Higher Education Marketing Report recognized the work of CSM and 3 of its partners as winners in the 34th Annual Educational Advertising Awards. Midstate College, Methodist College UnityPoint Health and Illinois Central College (ICC) each received recognition with ICC receiving a Gold Award for their Integrated Marketing Campaign, “Your Smart Choice.”

On May 1, 2019, Healthcare Marketing Report recognized the work of CSM and 4 of its partners as winners in the 36th Annual Healthcare Advertising Awards. OSF HealthCare Saint Francis Medical Center, Falcon, Inc., Jeffrey S. Poulter, M.D., FACS, and Illinois CancerCare each received recognition with Illinois CancerCare receiving a Gold Award for their Total Advertising Campaign, “You Are More Than Cancer. So Are We.”

And on May 15, 2019, the Public Relations Association of Central Illinois recognized CSM for three public relations campaigns. The Peoria Park District received the top award in the category of “Bang for your Buck”, Bremer Jewelry received the top award in the Social Media category, and EP!C received the People’s Choice award.

As a team, CSM is so proud of these awards but are prouder to partner with such great business and institutions that let us put our creativity to work in meeting their strategic goals.

In today’s viral world, word of mouth – either good or bad – travels faster and consumer expectations are higher. Customers and clients want to be treated well, respected, and get the product or service they want in a timely manner. Recent studies show why it’s more important than ever to deliver a positive experience:

86% of customers will pay more for a product or service if they can get it more easily and quickly

75% of customers now expect businesses to predict why they are calling before they actually do

70% of customers feel an increased loyalty to businesses after receiving a great customer experience.

Whether it’s customer service, product quality or how customers feel about companies they do business with, customer experience is the top decider in whether or not a customer will keep doing business with you. Did you know that a totally satisfied customer contributes 2.6x as much revenue as a somewhat satisfied customer, and 14x as much revenue as a somewhat dissatisfied customer?

It’s also crucial to make sure you don’t forget about your current customer base – acquiring a new customer costs 7x more than maintaining existing ones*. The voice of the consumer is only getting louder, with more channels – like social media – for them to share their experiences (either positive or negative). Few things impact your reputation more than how your respond to negative feedback. Make sure you respond politely and make them feel heard – even if you need to take that conversation offline. 95% of people who had a bad experience are willing to give a company another chance if their issue has been handled correctly and promptly. It’s no surprise that on average, companies with exceptional customer experience deliver an average of 17% revenue growth within 5 years, while those with poorer customer experiences deliver only 3% over the same period.

With higher customer expectations and fast word of mouth, the importance of customer service is increased. Competitors may deliver similar products and services to yours, but may not deliver the same quality customer experience. Everything your company does plays a role in the customer experience. Focusing on that experience can be the single most important decision you can make in today’s competitive business climate.

Sources *InfoQuestCRM **Marketeer ***QuestionPro.com ****eConsultancy.com

In a world where customers are bombarded across every possible channel with brand messages, targeting is more important than ever before. It’s crucial that campaigns feel relevant and personal in order to keep up, but the processes involved – collecting, organizing and interpreting customer data to make it actionable – are often intimidating.

Collecting, organizing and learning from your customer data is critical no matter how large your team is or what stage of growth you’re in. In fact, there’s no better time to consider your processes for data than when you’re just starting out. And getting started with basic strategies for building customer relationships doesn’t have to be difficult – there are some simple steps you can take to save yourself a lot of time as your business grows and scales.

From the moment you start your business and establish an online presence, you should be laying the groundwork for effective CRM strategies. This includes: establishing a single-source of truth for your customer data, being thoughtful and organized about how you collect information and setting up the right processes to interpret that data and put it to work for your marketing. Here are some actionable steps (with examples) to take now:

Collect:

Make sure you’re set up to onboard people who want to be marketed to. Whether you’re interacting online or in person, you should be collecting as many insights as possible (for example, adding a pop-up form to your website to capture visitors, or asking people about their specific interests when they sign up for your email list in store) and consolidating them so you can use them to market.

Organize:

Once you have this data, make sure you’re organizing it in a way that will give you a complete picture of your customer, and make it easy to access the insights that are most important for your business to know. Creating a system where you can easily sort your contacts based on shared traits – such as geography, purchase behaviors or engagement levels – will make it much easier to target the right people with the right message.

Find Insights:

Find patterns in data that can spark new ideas for your marketing. For example, the realization that your most actively engaged customers are in the Pacific Northwest could lead to a themed campaign targeting this audience, a plan for a pop-up shop in that location or even just help you plan your email sends based on that time zone.

Take Action:

Turn insights into action, and automate to save time. As you learn more about your audience and what works for engaging them, make sure you’re making these insights scalable by setting up automations to trigger personalized messages based on different demographic or behavioral data.

Doing this right won’t just result in more personalized marketing campaigns and stronger, more loyal customer relationships – it will also help you be smart about where you focus your budget and resources as you continue to grow.

Originally published on MarketingLand