News and Analysis
What the Rise of Generative AI Means for Marketers
While these are still early days for OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, marketers have begun to pounce. From creative production and versioning to content generation and customer service, marketers are finding innovative ways to use AI chatbots to generate more reliable results for their clients.
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Identifying Content Opportunities from SEO Keyword Trends During Covid-19
Keywords that were optimized to improve inbound sales aren’t doing their job because people are no longer inputting those search terms. Does that mean that your product or service isn’t needed? No, absolutely not. Your brand’s content is needed. But the keyword trends that you had been relying on have changed.
To be able to once again reach your audience, you need to study search trends as they stand now and determine how you can create content around those terms.
7 Shoppable Video Platforms
How do you engage customers when in-store shopping is in many places all but obsolete? One solution that brand retailers around the country have been digging into this year is shoppable video. Using recorded and live video streams, brands have been able to capitalize on the shift toward mobile video and give customers direct links to buy their products online.
Here are seven examples of shoppable video platforms brands are using right now.
Location Weekly: Party City and Nextdoor Launch Halloween Campaign
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Ferrara’s Trolli brand creating an AR game for Halloween, Party City and NextDoor launching a Halloween campaign, Burberry teaming with IBM for product traceability, and Walmart redesigning its stores with a touch of airport way-finding tech.
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Companies Are Struggling to Manage IoT Data. Here’s Why
The devices around us are getting smarter. From the consumer’s perspective, that means refrigerators are sending notifications when the milk is running low, and thermostats are turning down the temperature when there’s no movement in the house. Businesses are relying on the data generated by connected devices to improve algorithms and make their existing products even smarter, but collecting and managing large volumes of data is creating a new set of challenges.
Globally, the IoT market is expected to reach $212 billion by the end of this year. With the worldwide number of IoT-connected devices projected to top 43 billion by 2023, the challenges associated with managing large amounts of data in real-time are growing at a rapid pace.
Apps Dominate Mobile Holiday Shopping
App fatigue, the feeling that a consumer simply cannot add yet another corporate app to her phone at a time when all enterprises seem to be competing for a place on mobile displays, is a major roadblock to successful app-based mobile strategies for retailers. But data from this holiday shopping season suggests that consumers are willing to download apps for the right incentives.
Converting Prospects to Customers Through Event Marketing
The marketing journey is not as predictable as it once was, and there are potential roadblocks to conversion at every stage within the funnel. Today’s buyers have access to high-quality information about products and services through digital media, so they’re not reliant on the sellers for insights. In the most successful companies, sales and marketing organizations overcome these roadblocks together. They work in concert to generate brand awareness, educate prospects, forge relationships, and ultimately to turn prospects into customers. Event marketing plays a key role in these efforts.
3 Data Trends to Watch in 2020
Data-driven marketing investments are growing rapidly. In the US, data spend grew almost $3 billion in the last year. Not surprisingly, the number of data-related challenges has increased as well. 2019 saw privacy regulations usher in broad changes across the ecosystem, causing widespread concerns around the future of data-driven targeting.
Ahead of the new year, we identified three key trends to look out for. These trends — as well as some proactive steps companies can take today — will set up data partners for success in 2020 and beyond.
6 Ways Wearable Tech Is Reshaping Retail
Rather than being spooked by these new retail engagement strategies, surveys show most consumers are excited by them. Sixty-seven percent of wearables owners say they find dynamic user experiences that vary based on location “useful and exciting.”
Here are six examples of strategies that retailers can employ to improve the shopping experience using wearable technology.
The Future of Work Is Not That Far Away
If you read through the litany of commentators who wax extemporaneously about what workplaces will be like in years to come, you hear about things like “open concepts” and “remote workers.” You also hear a lot about creating effective workplace culture and crafting maximized organizational structures. And of course, you hear a lot about the benefits of AI. These are buzzwords, and if I had a nickel for every buzzword that gets thrown at me on a daily basis, I would have retired many years ago. That said, if you peel away the buzzwords, you uncover some truly impactful trends that are driving the workplace of the future.
LBMA Presents Location Weekly: Bandit’s Mobile Ordering and AR Visualization at the NYT
In this week’s episode, Asif and Aubriana discuss the New York Times’ location-based air pollution AR visualization, Bandit taking them to mobile order ahead only for coffee, Dentsu Aegis Network India launching hyperlocal insights tools for OOH, Mood Media combining divisions to create Technomedia, Chick-fil-A wanting people to spend time together this holiday season, and the Salvation Army unveiling donations via Apple Pay & Google Pay.
5 Tips for Growing Affiliate Programs Through Social Channels
According to a recent study by the Performance Marketing Association (PMA), the affiliate marketing channel is expected to grow to over $6 billion by 2020. A Mediakix study found that US influencer marketing spend on Instagram alone is expected to grow $2.3 billion by 2020. The PMA study also indicated that content, bloggers, and social media accounted for 40% of ad spend by affiliate type in 2018, and that number is surely going up. All of these numbers support the idea that influencers and social media bring an incredible monetization opportunity to affiliate marketing.
Let’s look at five ways that brands active in the partner and affiliate channels can benefit from leveraging social media, and ultimately drive more revenue.
Report: Reviews for Local Businesses Are Essential. Ratings Below 4 Stars Are Deadly
If it had not already been clear that building up a significant inventory of positive online reviews is key to attracting new customers to a business, let doubt linger no further.
A whopping 52 percent of consumers ages 18-54 “always” read reviews when searching for local businesses, and only 53 percent will consider a businesses with fewer than four stars, according to survey of 1,005 US-based consumers by marketing platform BrightLocal. Eighty-two percent of consumers overall read online reviews.
Follow the Money: Will Wearables Inflect in 2020?
Apple is far ahead with Watch and Airpods, which may have sold 3 million units since Black Friday. Google meanwhile acquired Fitbit to buttress its wearables play. Amazon and Microsoft launched wearables lines in the past quarter, and smaller players like Bose and Snap are planting seeds for a wearables future.
There’s an underlying driver for this activity that goes back to the perennial analyst exercise of “following the money.” This is all about extrapolating product roadmaps based on tech giants’ motivations. This is often to future-proof their core businesses or diversify revenue in the face of maturing products.
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