Marketing Trends

We’ve talked a lot on this show about how today’s marketers are consumed by data. After all, it’s how you get a better picture of who your customer is and how you get a clearer understanding of what’s working and what isn’t across your channels. But the real question is how are you turning all of that data and all of those insights into action that has a measurable effect? “Data isn't this thing that you look at every now and then, it's just something that becomes part of your everyday workflow.”Those are the words of Jay Wilder, Vice President of Product Marketing for Marketing Cloud at Salesforce, and on this episode of Marketing Trends, Jay dives into some of the ways that he has seen marketers optimizing data recently. He also gives an insider’s look at the latest Marketing Intelligence report, which analyzes the trends that are driving performance in 2021. Jay touches on everything from how the rapid shift to digital impacted customers’ expectations of companies and their behaviors, to how this digital-first world has led to an increasingly more complex marketing analytics landscape and he explains why the data we have now is not coming in fast enough.Main Takeaways:Marketing Analytics is Complex: On average, marketers today are using eight different channels, which can lead to 21 different marketing platforms. With so many different platforms collecting data at various locations, marketers are struggling to understand their overall performance.Single Source of Truth: 60% of marketers say it is imperative for them to prioritize a single source of truth for customers. By having a single source of truth for all your data, it allows you to build a better view of who your customers are, allowing marketers to build more personalized experiences.The Future of Data is Faster: The pace at which marketers are using data and analytics remains too slow. With data coming in at such a slow rate, by the time marketers receive monthly and quarterly reports, the information that they are looking at is no longer a complete picture of what is happening in the real-time market. Soon, marketers will be able to have a clear and distinct workflow of data coming in on a daily basis, which in return will lead to a better understanding of their customers.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com.---This message is brought to you by Salesforce.Hey marketers. Today’s B2B buyers are more complex than ever. And every buying committee has different needs and goals.Salesforce can help.We'll show you how to put each and every customer at the center of your B2B marketing strategy. And you'll learn how top brands like Lyft approach account-based marketing.Salesforce. Market to every account. Speak to every buyer.Find free B2B marketing and ABM resources at https://sfdc.co/every-buyer  Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

ROI no longer just means return on investment. Today, it also stands for revenue operations intelligence, which is all about how insights meet education and algorithms are used to help marketers target key personas in order to get ahead of the competition. It’s a game-changer, and People.ai CMO, Justin Shriber describes it as the ultimate tool for marketers.“It's the needle and the haystack problem, and we now have metal detectors that make it a lot easier.”People.ai is an intelligence platform designed to help enterprises align their sales and marketing goals through the assistance of A.I. in order to solve those tricky problems. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Justin explains what it means to be the  CMO of the company, and, he details how marketers should be using A.I. to help them with key tasks. Plus, he talks about how user-generated content has changed over the last five years, and he reveals the role experiential marketing should be playing in your overall marketing strategy.Main Takeaways:Time To Up Your Game: Five years ago, there was a rush to create authentic content that showed your consumers who you were, and marketers depended on customers to deliver a lot of that content. While user-generated content is authentic, the quality of that content can be compromised, so marketers need to find a way to strike a balance between high-quality and truly authentic content.It’s About Experiences: Experiential marketing is about creating unique experiences catered to your audience’s desires, and sometimes that means that the experience you curate has very little to do with your company or product — and that’s okay. The best companies have turned this tactic into a unique way to humanize client relationships.Where A.I. Fits: When aligning your sales and marketing strategy, A.I. should be utilized in a way that helps sales and marketing teams engage their clients, while simultaneously ingesting information that helps identify key personas and orchestrate strategies that helppower growth.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com.--- ---This message is brought to you by Salesforce.Hey marketers. Today’s B2B buyers are more complex than ever. And every buying committee has different needs and goals.Salesforce can help.We'll show you how to put each and every customer at the center of your B2B marketing strategy. And you'll learn how top brands like Lyft approach account-based marketing.Salesforce. Market to every account. Speak to every buyer.Find free B2B marketing and ABM resources at https://sfdc.co/every-buyer  Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

In an ever-evolving world full of raw and untapped potential, brands require a CMO who can keep up and take charge. That’s why when VICE Media Group was in search of its first Global CMO, Nadja Bellan-White was at the top of the list. For more than a quarter century, Nadja has used her voice proactively to challenge brands to think differently, think creatively, but most importantly to think about how they can make an impact in their communities.“My belief is I've worked around the world, and I've always been about being the change. I'm not just going to sit back and complain about something. I'm going to be part of the change, or part of the action. If I want to have a say in how people are portrayed, and in a fair and equitable way, I need to be at the table to help drive some of that change.”On this episode of Marketing Trends, Nadja details why she was excited to accept the challenge of running a marketing team trusted with pushing VICE’s vast portfolio forward. Plus, Nadja details why marketers are in the midst of a renaissance and must alter the way data powers their decision making.Main TakeawaysThe Predictors: Every marketer utilizes data, but it’s no longer just about having data to power your decisions. It’s about how you use that data to continually grow your business and broaden your reach. Data is now the engine which feeds the enterprise and is the center of every marketer’s strategy, which means how you use it must be continually workshopped and refined.Understanding the Zoomers: Generation Z places a premium on if they can trust a brand, which means marketers and their brands must adjust accordingly. If you are not actively trying to fit into where the audience finds value, or where their interest in social  issues intersects with your business, you better be prepared to lose their interest and dollars.A Whole New World: One of the biggest strategic advantages the pandemic has brought about is the efficiency that distributed workforces provide. This also means that marketers now must alter their hiring practices and step outside of what is comfortable. When bringing on new talent, don’t box yourself in. Continuously ask yourself, is this hire coming from a global perspective or a market view?---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com.---This message is brought to you by Salesforce.Hey marketers. Today’s B2B buyers are more complex than ever. And every buying committee has different needs and goals.Salesforce can help.We'll show you how to put each and every customer at the center of your B2B marketing strategy. And you'll learn how top brands like Lyft approach account-based marketing.Salesforce. Market to every account. Speak to every buyer.Find free B2B marketing and ABM resources at https://sfdc.co/every-buyer  Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

What kind of power can a World Series ring wield? Think of it like this: For nearly a century, no sports franchise dealt with, more frustration and heartache than Boston’s beloved Red Sox. The brand was known for the famed curse from the deal that sent Babe Ruth to the Yankees and a bouncing ball that squeaked under the glove of Bill Buckner. Sure the Red Sox had Fenway Park, the Monster, and Pesky’s Pole. But you don’t play the games to dance in the shadows of your competitors — and you don’t sell tickets that way, either. You play to win, and winning sells.That’s Adam Grossman, the CMO of the Boston Red Sox, one of Major League Baseball’s most iconic, prideful, and long-tortured franchises. But also one of the most popular and in recent years, one of the most successful in the win column and in the marketing world. Adam joined the club in the spring of 2004, just before the club’s run of four championships over a 16-year window, and just before Curt Schilling’s bloody sock helped will them to their first championship since 1918. And during that time, the club’s image has changed dramatically, from loveable loser to perennial champion. While success on the field plays a big role, sports franchises are responsible for their own brand, and when you’re the Red Sox, being entrusted with that brand is a major responsibility. In this episode Marketing Trends, Adam breaks down the ins and outs of stewarding a sports club’s marketing efforts, how baseball must continue to reinvent itself to appeal to a younger generation, and why managing the customer experience outside of the ballpark is a growing challenge.Main Takeaways:The Ballpark Gets Bigger: The biggest challenge facing sports marketers today remains the expanded customer experience. Marketers have to meet their consumers at various touch points beyond just the ballpark. So from interactions within the community, to the brand’s voice and interaction on digital, the marketing playing field continues to expand at a rapid rate.It’s A Different Game Now: Baseball has its challenges, just like any other industry. One of those is appealing to younger fans. While baseball maintains its popularity, marketers are working on new ways to interact with fans to grow the game even more and they are using everything from virtual experiences to unique behind-the-scenes content on digital platforms to do so.Do We Have Enough Bats and Balls?: In sports, your revenue streams are limited to big-bucket items such as ticket sales, sponsorships and broadcasting rights. While marketing departments are small in sports, because you have limited opportunities, marketers must be creative when it comes to maximizing those streams and being conscious of where you funnel your resources.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com.---This message is brought to you by Salesforce.Hey marketers. Today’s B2B buyers are more complex than ever. And every buying committee has different needs and goals.Salesforce can help.We'll show you how to put each and every customer at the center of your B2B marketing strategy. And you'll learn how top brands like Lyft approach account-based marketing.Salesforce. Market to every account. Speak to every buyer.Find free B2B marketing and ABM resources at https://sfdc.co/every-buyer  Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

Data, data, data. In 2021 it’s all you hear… especially if you’re a marketer. Whether you are taking calculated risks to ensure campaigns are rooted in what the data is telling you, or conducting massive rebranding campaigns, just about all of your activities are rooted in analyzing the numbers and mitigating risks. But data these days is more than just numbers and graphs on a spreadsheet. It comes in all shapes and sizes and can be used to build a valuable connection between brands and consumers. And that’s where Lisa Giacosa comes in.“What gets exciting when you're on the agency side is that you can look at understanding consumers' entire spectrum across multiple touch points, across multiple products and services, and start to stitch those journeys together and think about alliances and the way that you can bring things together. We've been able to go to our clients and say, we know that we can measure this correctly. And we know that we can get this to a point where we can give you a guaranteed outcome against what's going to happen for your business.”Lisa is the President and Global Head of Data, Technology, Analytics, and Insights at Spark Foundry, a global media agency that’s all about bringing the heat to brands by driving higher engagement, affinity, and transactions. Lisa helps make that happen by guiding brands to take calculated risks through the power of data strategy and technology. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Lisa details what that looks like, and she goes deep in one particular area that is on the cusp in the marketing world: TV attribution..Main TakeawaysForget the Jargon: Don’t get lost in three-letter acronyms. Your team should never rely on buzzwords or acronyms when describing a marketing strategy. Teams that rely on these acronyms often lack the ability to articulate how their business or marketing strategy will benefit your team in the long run.We Don’t Have the Whole Picture: One of the biggest obstacles when it comes to TV attribution right now is there is no one single source of truth when it comes to providers. Instead, marketers are left to piecemeal their CTV strategy through multiple vendors.Understanding Data Privacy: There is starting to be a shift now where consumers are becoming more educated and beginning to understand what data privacy means and how it impacts their value exchange when it comes to consumed media---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com.---This message is brought to you by Salesforce.Hey marketers. Today’s B2B buyers are more complex than ever. And every buying committee has different needs and goals.Salesforce can help.We'll show you how to put each and every customer at the center of your B2B marketing strategy. And you'll learn how top brands like Lyft approach account-based marketing.Salesforce. Market to every account. Speak to every buyer.Find free B2B marketing and ABM resources at https://sfdc.co/every-buyer  Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

Sometimes marketers can be too nice, or too respectful, or honestly, just not bold enough to either go wild or just say no. After all, the primary goal of any marketing team is to serve the clients’ best interests, but what if what the client is asking you to do is wrong? Or just too vanilla? Sometimes, the answer is to have the courage to think outside the box.“I love crazy ideas. The crazier the idea, the better. That's where true marketing genius comes from is the crazy things where you go, ‘Well, what if we could… and then let's figure out how we do it.’ So I always tell them, we live in a world today where there's very little you can do besides posting something inappropriate on social media that can't be taken back and that you can't stop from a digital perspective. So you have a lot of flexibility to test out ideas, to come up with a concept, run with it and see if it works.”Stephanie Cox has made a career in thinking outside of the traditional marketing constraints. What others might perceive as an obstacle, she tackles head on. She is a modern day marketer with a  no-holds-barred, just-get-it done mentality and she joined Marketing Trends to discuss her role of VP of Sales and Marketing at Lumavate, a company that is helping marketers create apps using low-code. On this episode, Stephanie details how Lumavate pivoted from a sales-led approach to one focused on product, and she gives out some tips and tricks for leveling up the customer journey, and how she flat out gets things done.Main TakeawaysIt’s Not Technically Stealing: Imitation is the highest form of flattery. That’s why marketers that are looking to make the pivot to a product-led strategy should attempt to imitate companies within the space that are already successful. Don’t copy their strategy verbatim, but there is nothing wrong with understanding and using the building blocks that made their campaign successful and then ideate on top of that foundation based on the needs of your company.Be Bold, Folks: When it comes to digital marketing, there is no excuse for sticking to a conservative strategy. It’s very rare for marketers to not be able to pivot if something is not succeeding in a way you thought it could. Don’t be afraid to try new ideas to see if they work, because if they don’t, you can pivot at a moment's notice.The Magic Number: Data is and remains the key to every marketer’s success strategy. If you take a bold leap, make sure your reasoning is rooted in what the numbers are suggesting. That way, if that leap doesn’t pan out, you have a logical explanation for why you attempted it.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

Automation is hot. It’s new, exciting and it’s sexy. And let’s be real for a second, everyone loves it when their job gets just a little bit easier. Every day, new tools are added and implemented into the modern marketing stack, and personalization tools and chatbots are being used with more and more regularity But how can we optimize those tools even more? What does the optimal marketing tool look like? “The most overlooked thing is people forget that people are human. They use automation to make a bunch of robots, and I don't know about you, but I don't like hanging out with robots, I like hanging out with people. And if your marketing makes me feel like I'm a human and I'm interacting with a human, I'm usually going to be much, much more engaged.”Dan McGaw is the founder and CEO of McGaw.io, a company that focuses on helping marketers get the most out of their technology stack. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Dan details how marketing tools can and should become more human, and he explains the key obstacle that prevents marketers from having a clean revenue-generating funnel. Plus he reveals the one big tweak every marketer should make to their SMS channels to drive better results.Main Takeaways:No End in Sight: It’s hard to define what inning we are in when it comes to analyzing the marketing stack because new software and tools are constantly being built. This constant evolution of technology means you need to strategize on how and what you’ll implement in your own stack. Don’t jump the gun and rush to use  the newest tools that likely still have a lot of flaws to workout. Instead, focus on integrating the tools you already have to make sure they work as a cohesive unit before adding something new.Can You Profile the Subject?: Personalization has never been more important than it is today. But as a marketer, you have to make sure that the people who give you their information are being profiled correctly so that when they sign up for your email list, the information and content that you are sending them directly relates to their needs.Mr. Robot: Your SMS strategy needs to toe a fine line between  effectively relaying your message and content to the consumer, but also making sure that you are speaking directly to them as a person. If your text content makes it feel as if the customer is interacting with an actual person and not a chatbot, you are more likely to see engagement.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

There are a few things in life Chris Thomas loves: The first is a delicious slab of ribs sitting on his dinner table. The second is playing the harmonica. And lastly, Chris lives to help small businesses find their voice and their audiences, and he does that through his agency, Yonder. Chris started Yonder in his basement and has grown it into a full-fledged agency that companies of all shapes and sizes trust to help them with the most fundamental of problems: finding their audience. “Every time [clients] walk in the door and they're like, ‘We can't generate leads, or nobody knows who we are.’ I'm like, ‘Well, who's the audience? Who are you trying to reach?’ That's really the biggest [obstacle] for everybody. You're a boutique for women over 45 and you're on Facebook trying to market to 50-year-old dudes. That's not going to work. And once they figured out their audience, the rest is easy.”On this episode of Marketing Trends, Chris explains his passion for helping SMBs discover their audience as well as their own brand identity. Plus, he details some of the best strategies for how companies can retool their SEO approach, and he reveals the reason you should never equate retooling your brand with fixing the nuts and bolts of your business.Main Takeaways:Who Is Your Audience?: This is the fundamental question to ask a client that is having trouble generating leads or finding awareness. Once you have clarity on this, targeting efforts and generating meaningful leads becomes much easier.Have Some Self Awareness: As a marketer, success comes by knowing your strengths and weaknesses and adjusting your plans based on those things.  Don’t overstretch yourself in areas that you know are out of your wheelhouse. When you start dipping your toe into unfamiliar waters without a paddle, you’re doing your client and yourself a disservice.Your Brand is Not Your Business: When a small business believes it needs to reposition and work on its brand, what marketers need to be stressing is for them to go back to the basics of the business. They should examine their website and SEO practices, and educate their customers on who they are. Once those business fundamentals have been addressed and results follow, then it’s appropriate to n refocus your efforts on the brand.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

Cutting the cord is not new, it’s just getting more popular as companies such as Netflix and Hulu, which have each been around for more than a decade, continue to rise. But as consumers continue ditching traditional broadcasting platforms with more frequency, brands are being forced to find new ways to reach their audience, and one way they are doing that is through connected media devices and CTV. Unlike traditional broadcasting platforms, which offer a limited amount of commercial inventory per show, CTV is providing brands more flexibility and thus, more opportunity.“When you think about what's possible in this new digitized version of TV, and when you think about the fact that more and more consumers are cutting the cord, it allows you to secure more reach than ever has been available before through connected television and online video inventory, but it allows you to be more specific and targeted in how you buy that connected inventory.”But how brands distribute to platforms and reach their target audience is the challenging part. Stephanie Geno, the Seniior Vice President of Marketing at  Innovid, is here to help. Innovid is an online advertising technology company that offers distribution and management of digital ads and on this episode of Marketing Trends, Stephanie dives into how the company is harnessing CTV to change the ad game. Plus, she discusses best practices for targeted advertising, and why personalization is a great tool, if you can get past its downsides.Main Takeaways:Cord Cutters: More and more consumers are shifting their viewing habits from relying on traditional broadcast and cable companies to subscribing to streaming services. And while this is not shocking, what is surprising marketers is the amount of inventory and targeted advertising that is available to them through connected tv and the smart marketers are putting that inventory to work for them.Universal Metrics: There is a growing need to create a universal metric system that allows marketers to have a baseline of comparison across various forms of digital marketing. Advertisers need to think in terms of both macro and micro effectiveness across their ad buys, and they need to optimize both.Personalized to My Needs: Personalization creates greater relevance for marketers, but it’s also creating a greater ability to be agile. However, it does not come without its pitfalls. When one-to-one personalization entered the market, it set off a chain reaction of overly-complicated strategies and forced marketers to overthink things. Personalization tactics should be used as a tool to broaden your reach, but also to help marketers extend their creative efficiency, with the ability to test, learn and optimize their practices.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com.Show Less Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

2020 will forever be remembered as the year of a once-in-a-century pandemic, but it should be recognized that it was the year we all got reacquainted with our homes. From streaming a late-night movie in the living room, to hopping on early-morning conference calls in our home offices (or closets or spare bedrooms), in 2020 our homes were asked to do it all. Almost a year ago David Marine, the CMO of Coldwell Banker, joined Marketing Trends to detail the company’s ambitious rebranding strategy and he’s back now to update us on how it all worked out. “2020 was going to be the year of the rebrand, and what a great year it was going to be with all these plans. And as you know, 2020 happened to all of us. So things had to change, but here we are a year later and I can honestly tell you with a straight face that 2020 was actually the perfect year for Coldwell Banker to rebrand.”Things may have worked out for Coldwell Banker, but it wasn’t easy. Campaigns had to be altered, messaging and digital strategies were scrapped and shifted on a dime, and David was along for the ride every step of the way. On this episode of Marketing Trends, David tells us what it was like, he details the wins and losses of 2020 for Coldwell Banker, and he dives into how marketers can be agile in their digital efforts so that they, too, can rebrand or adjust when the time calls for it.Main Takeaways:A Brand You Can Trust: When you have more than 100 years of company lineage, consumers have had time to build trust in a brand. But just because you have heritage and time on your side, doesn’t mean your messaging doesn’t have to meet the moment. Consumers are more likely and willing to trust brads that deliver authentic messaging that matches the purpose of your brand, the story you are trying to tell, and that meets the moment of the ad and acknowledges whatever might be happening in the world.Is That a Hybrid?: A new way to look at your ad spend should be a mix between traditional broadcast channels and streaming services. Your digital strategy should be a mix of your larger media plan. Focus your broadcast plans on marquee events that drive live audiences, such as sporting events. Then use your digital channels to supplement that audience with platforms such as Hulu, that allow you to target your audience while snagging a different demographic at a lower cost.This is Us: When thinking about partnerships, you have to be strategic. Don’t just go out and partner with the first company that is willing to give you money. Instead, ask yourself how this partnership brings value to your brand and does this company meet the standards and expectations that you have already set for yourself?---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.