Geo-tag, You’re It!

Image source: Meme Generator

Jokes aside, ever spent your evening lying on your bed and scrolling on Facebook, only to have annoying recurring ads pop up about Chadstone Shopping Centre’s latest shopping event? For all you fellow shopaholics out there like me, or someone interested in location-based marketing, read on!

Location-based marketing is marketing using a potential customer’s GPS on their mobile phone to discover their approximate location, and if they are near one’s business, sends out marketing content to promote and direct them to one’s business.

Other than just informing customers of promotions or events nearby, location-based marketing can help direct customers to stores by using the map feature on their mobile phones. There are many mobile applications that use this function, even every uni student’s favourite food outlets like Boost and McDonald’s. Both these F&B outlet chains have mobile applications, allowing users to order online and/or help users locate stores that are nearby.

If you are within the specific vicinity of one outlet, the respective mobile application often sends out short messages to inform one about on-going promotions as well.

These small marketing messages might not seem like much but it actually helps increase buyer awareness. As marketers, we understand the importance or product recall and recollection. Most people might not actively seek out products such as a Boost Juice or Big Mac weekly, but a small message like, “Haven’t seen you in a while, grab a $5 Boost today! Locate a store nearby now!” may trigger impulse buying.

Was there a case where you bought an item or attended an event after receiving a location-based marketing message? Let me know in the comments down below!

Is Sharing Really Caring?

Secrets should be kept a secret, right? But what about personal information, then?

 

The Difference Between Data Privacy and Data Security?

Data privacy is about controlling the flow of personal information. and the right to control how ones’ information is shared with others via digital channels.

Data security focuses on the safety of that information.

However, for consumers, the issue often isn’t about messing with the minute details of these definitions, its the fact that most (if not all) consumers would want for their information to be kept safe and secure at all costs.

In May 2018, 2.2 billion Facebook members had their data and privacy compromised. 

Facebook has since apologised and notified users who were affected. In addition, they rolled out new privacy policies and are more transparent with users now.

What did Facebook do wrong?

• Facebook failed to protect the privacy of its users
• Facebook exploited personal details of users to fuel its business.

What would you feel if you were one of these 2.2 billion members?

What does this mean for Digital Marketers?

The security concerns in digital marketers are much the same for anyone whose personal information goes through digital business pathways and platforms. On the other hand, cybersecurity threats tend to concentrate on the most lucrative and data-rich targets frequented by digital marketers.

According to the PWC, “in the last two years 45% of Australian companies were attacked by online criminals.”

In this day and age where sharing of information is almost vital and necessary to complete transactions of commercial nature and not, who’s responsibility is it to check whether information shared is safe and secure? Do you think it lies more in the hands of users or companies who collect and store information? Or both? Let me know down in the comments below! 🙂

 

 

 

Hey Sephora, How Do I Look? (AR Tools)

Sephora’s executive vice president of omni retail, Mary Beth Laughton, was once quoted saying, “We are very focused on our customers, and we know that her life is increasingly reliant on digital. So we know to be successful as a retailer, we’ve got to be where our clients are, and give her tools and experiences that meet her needs.”

In 2015, Sephora started offering customers a new shopping experience by trying on makeup virtually using Augmented Reality technology.

By investing in AR, Sephora has been equipped with augmented product offerings to differentiate themselves from other mid to high-end cosmetics retailers who have yet to enter this relatively new realm of bringing value to customers.

They have been able to utilise advancements in technology and tailor the customer experience, understanding that not every target customer revels in the thrill of seeing rows upon rows of makeup on shelves, or is able to physically navigate stores. In fact, having a ‘Sephora Virtual Artist’ allows one to try on thousands of different makeup products, colours, shades, and looks from the comfort of one’s home. Perhaps, this platform could even allow for customers to ‘try’ products that are only available for purchase from their online store, without committing to the splurge yet, or if sample products are not available in-store for swatching.

This platform was the first of its kind and brings about such a novel and unique experience to the table. ‘Sephora Virtual Artist’ was such a gamechanger in the makeup industry and continues to be an excellent example of how retailers could utilise AR.

Can you think of other ways digital marketers could possibly make use of AR in the future? Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but part of me hopes that one day we’d be able to test cookie samples through our mobile devices!

Let me know what you think down below in the comments section!

Smart Ways to Market

“Dumb Ways to Die”

You can tell if a piece of content is the sort that could be part of a content marketing campaign if people seek it out, if people want to consume it, rather than avoiding it.

With more than 182 million views on Youtube to boast about, “Dumb Ways to Die” remains one of the best viral advertisement campaigns to go viral in this new era of digital marketing.

Content marketing is the strategic marketing approach of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

Rather than a typically uptight (and boring!) public service announcement, McCann opted for a mix of morbid humour, a catchy tune and a collection of amiable animated characters to launch their message on train safety. Within 24 hours of its launch on 16 November 2012, the Dumb Ways to Die song reached the top 10 chart of iTunes.

Now, what could possibly explain this campaign’s success?

Perhaps, other elements that played a key role in making it a viral success include making it non-specific to Australia (for example, by deliberately including and referring to animals found in other parts of the world, such as grizzly bears and piranhas) and utilising social media platforms such as Tumblr, Pinterest and Reddit to spread, share and raise awareness about the campaign.

“Dumb Ways to Die” has inspired other regional safety campaigns and has certainly reached an audience larger than Metro Trains Melbourne ever dreamed of back in 2012 and spurs us on as digital marketers to imagine and push for the unthinkable, possibly by going back to basics with simple ways of conveying and bringing value.

 

Are you a fan of the “Dumb Ways to Die” campaign? Do let me know down in the comments below! I would love to hear your views. 🙂

 

Shopping as Entertainment?

Say no more to 19247 open tabs and redirection notices on your browser when purchasing products off the internet!

Social media’s immense popularity and influence have built a huge potential audience for shopping through social platforms.

Introducing: Social Commerce

Social commerce has indeed revolutionised the way we think about and carry out purchasing decisions and carry out our customer journeys.

Social commerce, also known as social shopping, is about selling products directly through social media networks.

It differs from social media marketing as customers not redirected to a seperate online store, but rather, are able to checkout directly within the networks that they are using at that very moment.

As we are all aware of, there are multiple steps along the customer journey whereby marketers and retailers hope for a successful purchase transaction. Social commerce helps minimise extra (unnecessary) steps for these conversions.

In essence, social commerce makes it easier for users to complete their purchase. Being able to purchase goods directly and immediately, removes the potential for confusion and thus the abandonment of carts, turning their social media engagement directly into sales.

Most e-commerce purchase journeys are too complex relying on redirects from one platform to another (some platforms requiring multiple steps themselves).

While social commerce is still in the early stages of adoption among both brands and consumers, the technology is there and ready for use. This gives the perfect opportunity for Digital Marketers to engage and experiment with social shopping, and emerge ahead of the curve.

What do you think about Social Commerce? Have you ever bought something off Facebook or Instagram? Let me know down in the comments below! 🙂

 

Little Miss Chatterbot

For the first time ever people are using messenger apps more than they are using social networks. 

Suppose messaging apps become the #1 way people communicate…it would make sense that if someone wanted to build a business online, they would want to build where the people are.

“Hi! How may I help you?”

Businesses could communicate with their customers on messenger platforms by having a customer service team work 24/7 on beck and call…but that clearly isn’t the most sustainable or cost-saving marketing plan, should this trend continue on the up-rise.

The solution to this would then be to have computer talk these customers. This computer would ideally be able to respond instantly, communicate with any number of people simultaneously and be incredibly cost-effective.

Well…surprise these computers actually exist! They are called Chatbots. Chatbots have permeated our daily activities and transformed the way we interact with digital platforms, from commerce websites to mobile apps, all the way to social media newsfeeds. They can be used for all sorts of things, but most often are “used to answer simple questions or help a user accomplish a simple task”.

Chatbots are software applications that mimic written or spoken human speech for the purposes of simulating a conversation or interaction with a real person.

What does this mean for Digital Marketing, one may ask?

Well, firstly, it depends what one intends the bot to be used for. An e-commerce platform or store like that of Adore Beauty, would most likely want to develop a bot that helps customers purchase something, whereas a company like Australia Post might create a bot that can answer customer support questions. Whichever the case, it seems like the future of e-commerce lies in how well one is able to harness Artificial Intelligence and leverage new opportunities through the usage of Chatbots to “improve the customers engagement process and operational efficiency, while reducing the cost of customer service”.

Have you ever experienced communicating with a Chatbot? How was it like? Do comment below! I would love to hear your experience! 🙂

 

 

 

Does Netflix know you better than your Significant Other?

Scrolling on Netflix on a Saturday evening…wondering what to watch when suddenly, you see a whole bunch of movies, documentaries and TV series pop-up and get recommended to you.

How does this happen?

Netflix’s recommendations system starts out by asking one to choose a few titles that one likes, during the initial phase of registering.

They then use Artificial Intelligence, in the form of an algorithm, to estimate the likelihood that one will watch something in their catalogue based on a variety of factors.

According to Netflix, these factors include things like one’s viewing history and how one rated other titles. They also extrapolate data and predict what one might like to watch based on what other members with similar tastes and preferences watch.

In addition to knowing what one has watched on Netflix, they go above and beyond, striving to personalise these recommendations by considering the time of day one watches, the devices one watches Netflix on, and the duration one watches for.

Netflix is just a prime example of companies engaging Big Data to customise the consumer experience, creating value and competitive advantage to be a cut above the rest. According to IBM, Big Data comprises of data sets that, due to its size or type, are unable to be captured, managed, and processed by traditional relational databases. These data sets are characterized as data that have a high volume, high velocity, or high variety.

The level of insight is simply spectacular and ahead of its time. Is Big Data the future of Digital Marketing? I think YES!

Email Marketing: Just Spam? Perhaps not…

Hello all,

As of 2019, 293.6 Billion emails have been sent out…Isn’t that incredible?

The first email was sent out in 1971 and the first marketing email was deployed in 1978 by a man named Gary Thuerk. It seems like everyone wants a piece of this pie, with most marketers or marketing departments for companies choosing to engage in email marketing nowadays. Email marketing has changed considerably in the past decade, adapting to the rise of the new age of mobile devices (with more people choosing to surf the internet and check their emails on the go, as opposed to desktop!). 

However, no matter how well-intended a marketing email could be, the very nature of it being delivered to a mass audience could deem some emails irrelevant for parties on the receiving end. The greatest strength of reaching a large audience without having to physically contact an individual is, therefore, its greatest flaw. 53.49% of emails sent are classified as spam, with many making the effort to mark emails as spam even if the email was not actually spam!

Does that mean that marketers should no longer engage in email marketing then?

The answer is a solid resounding NO! Research shows that people still read a majority of their emails and do not mind receiving emails as long as they are RELEVANT!

As of 2018, email marketing was still ranked as the most effective marketing channel, out-performing social media, SEO, and affiliate marketing.

I guess now the challenge for marketers is to remain relevant in an increasingly saturated landscape of companies clamouring for attention via email marketing…but that, of course, is easier said than done.

There are several metrics used to determine relevancy but one way of determining whether an email marketing campaign has been perceived to be relevant by recipients is to check the average unique open, click, bounce, and abuse complaint rates through ‘Email Marketing Benchmarks’.

The numbers don’t lie and knowing what works and does NOT work is a step in the right direction for any marketing team!

Just think: When was the last time you purchased something online (and even in-store!) without providing an email address?

 

Instagram Influencing: Dead?

HELLO,

This week we’re gonna talk about something that has been making waves within the Instagram Community. In early July, Instagram started hiding ‘like counts’ across a select group of countries, with Australia being one of the first. This was a test by the Social Media platform in an attempt to “remove the pressure of how many likes a post will receive, so you can focus on sharing the things you love”, said Mia Garlick, Facebook’s director of policy in Australia and New Zealand.

In 2017, a study conducted by The Royal Society for Public Health found that Instagram was rated as the worst social media platform when it comes to its impact on young people’s mental health.

I guess it was a matter of time before Instagram undertook measures to and minimise this purported amount of ‘pressure’ people were facing. In June 2019, the boss of Instagram was quoted saying, “Instagram is working to make sure that…everyone else using Instagram – has a positive experience using the app.”

 

Is the age of digital marketing via Instagram influencers really over?

Most companies look at the number of likes as one of the ways to determine how popular an account on the social media platform is, and determine its reach.

How are media companies going to know who to liaise and work with to push products out? It has been speculated that in the grand scheme of things, companies might have to work with Facebook (Parent company of Instagram) to roll out targetted ads instead as opposed to engaging Influencers for sponsored posts. Is this truly an attempt for Instagram to create a more loving and less judgemental avenue for people to share what they like?

What do you think? Comment down below! 🙂

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: Youtube Edition

HELLO,

Ever wondered how Youtubers make money on Youtube? There are multiple ways one may go about doing so, but the most common ones are mainly through monetising Youtube videos with advertisements, affiliated links clicked on and found in Youtube video descriptions bars, or even through partnerships/sponsorships with selected brands.

In the time it takes to count from 1…2…3…hundreds of hours of video has just been uploaded to Youtube.

In total, 6 billion hours of video are viewed on YouTube every month. Video marketing through social media continues to double every year, thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices too.

What could this mean for social media marketing?

More than half (51%) of marketers now run YouTube video ads. 

70-90% of Youtube ads significantly raise and aid in brand recognition and recall. And to think Youtube did not even exist 15 years ago…the digital marketing scene has changed drastically over the past few years and it is showing no signs of stopping!

Next, what is affiliated marketing all about then?

Affiliated marketing involves referring a product or service by sharing it on a blog, social media platforms, or website. The ‘affiliate’ earns a commission each time someone makes a purchase through the unique link associated with their recommendation. When the unique link is clicked on, traffic is redirected to an affiliate landing page. More touchpoints in the customer journey are introduced to interested parties and potential consumers, and successful sales are tracked before a value is attributed and rewarded.

So if you’ve ever thought of quitting school to become a Youtube Influencer, trust me…so have I!

Can you recall the latest ad you saw on Youtube? Do you think these ads have had any significant impact on our consumption of products? If you have any thoughts, please comment down below!

See you next week!