Marketing

A survey of 750 U.S. consumers and a separate analysis of how U.S. retailers operate across multiple sales channels indicate that, in order to win consumer loyalty and achieve growth across all channels, retailers must enhance their mobile commerce offerings and improve the in-store shopping experience. Only 42 percent of shoppers found it easy to complete a purchase using a mobile device, and when asked which aspect of the shopping experience is most in need of an upgrade, 39 percent ranked the physical store first, showing that retailers have not made much progress in these categories since last year’s survey.

The brands Americans love say a lot about how they live.  In 2015, classic trusted brands increasingly comingle with “connected” internet brands based on the top brands in the 2015 Harris Poll EquiTrend study.

Using “acculturation” as a tool to define a brand’s target consumer in this day and age is akin to only considering network television as a medium to broadcast your message. The breadth and depth of research techniques and syndicated tools that are available today mandate that we dig deeper, across segmentation models and through attitudinal and behavioral variables, to hone in on a brand’s true target – the one that will most profitably build your business for the long term.

If your marketing isn’t working, it’s because you may not know whom you’re talking to.  After all, if you don’t know your audience, how can you know what they want to hear about?

Among client-side marketers and agency professionals studied worldwide, higher engagement and conversion rates were far and away the top business benefits of customer experience optimization. Better brand perception and loyalty were the second-biggest benefits for both groups, while renewals, cross-sells and upsells rounded out the top three. All of the top three benefits were more important to marketers than agencies, while the latter group was more likely to cite financial-related benefits, such as increased average order value, than the former.

As marketers increasingly look to attribution to better understand customers, not just build their media plans and justify budgets, figuring out how to act on cross-platform attribution findings as quickly as possible is on the minds of many.

We’ve all heard it—and probably said it: Content is king. Marketers are using the channel to boost customer engagement, lead generation and brand awareness. However, recent research suggests that there are plenty of boundaries preventing content marketers from reaching the ultimate level of success.

Burst Media released the results from its first Influencer Marketing Benchmarks Report, which looked at the performance of dozens of Influencer Marketing programs across 15 key advertising verticals in 2014.

Data-driven marketing (DDM) spending will continue on an upward growth trajectory this year.

Multicultural consumers are transforming the U.S. mainstream. Propelled by the twin engines of population growth and expanding buying power, they are at the leading edge of converging demographic and social trends that are reshaping how marketers and advertisers use culture to connect with increasingly diverse customers. By understanding the cultural essence that drives multicultural consumer behavior today, marketers and advertisers are getting a glimpse of future market trends and forging a long-term relationship with the most dynamic and fastest growing segment of the U.S. consumer economy.

Reliable genius is what you really want from your advertising. Why aren’t you getting it? Probably because you don’t take your advertising production process as seriously as you take many of the other processes in your company. Let me introduce you to the concept and practice of “Advertising Process Control.”  By Dan Beltramo, EVP, Product Leadership

As the first generation of digital natives, teens have grown up in an increasingly visual world, and retailers have to keep up with them when it comes to visual marketing. Sharalyn Orr, executive director at Frank N. Magid Associates, spoke with eMarketer’s Lisa Barron about how critical visuals can be in capturing the teen market.

The research examines how Hispanic Americans – the second largest and fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. today – use the Internet, smartphones, tablets and TV in their daily lives.

What does it take to hire a successful CMO in today’s marketing economy?  Answering that question is not easy because the environment keeps changing, but there are some key qualities essential for the person leading your marketing.

Trust issues are a key reason for pharma’s low ranking. When researching a disease, 66-and-older respondents had little trust in pharma company-sponsored sites.

Unlike survey-based measurement, which evaluates a consumer’s conscious reactions to ads, neuroscience taps into the brain’s subconscious. Neuroscientists believe the subconscious is the motivating force behind many of our actions, including which brands we buy from.

Programmatic advertising burst on the scene several years ago. Initially popular as a way to get the best rates on banner advertising, programmatic eventually spread to mobile, social and video. Now, the programmatic world is buzzing about something else: TV.

If they only knew. Not that anyone has to tell them that they’re hot, lack of self-esteem has never been an issue with Latinas…but boy, are they hot!  by Pedro de Cordoba – Chief Strategy Officer / Eventus

Can TV and radio stay relevant as advertising platforms in the face of the intense relationship consumers have with their digital devices?  Most forecasts believe so, but we think it’s an open question after reviewing the conclusions of two different research studies that were recently released.  By Daniel McCarthy / The McCarthy Group

The “haters” are the doomsday scenario fans that have declared TV dead, and long live digital! Then there are the TV-hater contrarians, who argue that TV is still a formidable medium in terms of reach, penetration, ability to engage, etc.