Marketing Trends

Let's get into some marketing 101: Every marketer has some kind of base they market their products to. For example, if you’re in the market for a tire, Goodyear is probably on your radar. At Adobe, the marketing team attempts to appeal to customers who want to tap into their inner creative side. But what happens when you don’t have a defined customer base? What if your customer base is literally any business and every industry? “[We’re] dealing with every single industry out there. You're getting to see customers who are going through some of the biggest challenges from going global, and that drives activity and questions in the marketplace that we try to jump on and have better answers for. They're getting into new products and services, new markets, and they need to rely on us for our expertise about how to handle customs in any marketplace.”Meet Chris O’Brien, the Chief Commercial Officer for C.H. Robinson. Through his 25-plus years at C.H. Robinson, Chris has seen it all. From dealing with customers at both a regional and national level, to working on supply chain management around the globe. On this episode of Marketing Trends, he details how and why the supply chain industry has seen increased visibility over the last few years, and he explains the importance of building a customer experience that puts the user at the forefront and the implications that doing so will have on your company’s culture.Main Takeaways:Increased Visibility: The stress the pandemic has placed on global supply chains is a brand new challenge in the industry. As a result, there is increased visibility and the relevancy of companies like C.H. Robinson.Level Up: Your customer experience should not only touch consumers at multiple levels, but it needs to be more proactive and less reactionary. By being proactive, you can create a better overall customer journey from start to finish and serve your customer in multiple ways.Brand Over Everything: In the current climate, the power and stability of your brand is more important than ever. Maintaining a strong, stable, and meaningful stance among customers is a top priority for marketers.---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.

Joel Windels, the CMO of NetMotion, says if you’re working on building the ultimate customer experience, you should shift your mindset and instead look at it as an overall consumer experience. The difference is subtle, but the applications and implication of that mental move are necessary in a world where buying something goes far beyond just the basic transaction.   “The quickest way to describe why it's important is unboxing videos on YouTube,” he said. “You don't just buy a gadget or a phone anymore. You're buying the presentation of the box that it comes in and how it slides out and how it sets up. It's much more than the utility of the product itself. From the moment you first hear about us, to the moment you finally login, it's all of those micro touchpoints. How do you make sure every single interaction you have with us as a business is just really good.”On this episode of Marketing Trends, Joel takes us further down the consumer experience rabbit hole. Here he provides some key marketing strategies to help curate a positive 360-customer experience, including tactics that not only drive customer engagement, but then turn those customers into champions for your brand.Main Takeaways:Surprise and Delight: Every time you have an engagement with a customer, you have to be thinking about how to turn that customer into an advocate for your brand. This is especially important when a customer has had a poor experience with your brand. Find all the points in the customer journey where you can go above and beyond what is expected in order to mend that relationship and earn a loyal customer for life.And Now, Something Completely Different: There is no doubt that marketing in 2020 was vastly different than ever before — but that just meant that marketers had to find innovative ways to engage with customers.,  To get and stay ahead, continually find ways to turn routine, potentially rote events such as webinars into something new that a customer would want to take part in. In fact, studies show that webinars and virtual events that featured unique twists often receive higher engagement and longer participation.To Infinity and Beyond: The customer experience is more than just the overall journey from product identification to checkout. The journey also includes all the other touchpoints as well. From presentation, to unboxing, and feel, marketers must always be thinking about how you can turn every single interaction into a positive experience.---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.

Never before have consumer expectations shifted at such a rapid pace. As brands and marketers try to keep up with an always-evolving consumer landscape, what they are quickly discovering is that just because you operate in one sector, doesn’t mean you are just being judged amongst your peers. As the  Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing, Product and Digital Officer at City National Bank, what Linda Duncombe has discovered is that while the customer always comes first, the way customers interact with other brands and platforms across multiple sectors greatly alters the expectations they have for yours.“They're not comparing me to banks. They compare me to the experiences that they're having in their lives. When we think competition and innovation, it's really easy for us to say this bank is doing this and this bank is doing that, but that's a big mistake because that is not what we are being benchmarked against. Innovation now has to start thinking very differently about how we meet the client experience. It's evolving.”On this episode of Marketing Trends, Linda discusses why City National Bank has widened its scope of technology services in an effort to make the customer experience a more streamlined experience. And she discusses why the customer’s voice is larger and more important to marketers today than it has ever been before.Main Takeaways:Can You Hear Me Now?: Never before have clients played such an integral role in the development and launch of products. As clients’ voices rise in importance, marketers need to develop a workflow that now incorporates the client more in order to ensure that their needs are being met. Co-creation helps develop a working and personable relationship with the customer while making sure they have a seat at the tableThink Outside the Box: When you are hiring a marketing team, think outside the typical personnel you are comfortable with. Don’t lock yourself into hiring individuals with only banking experience, or only content expertise. When you confine yourself to those boxes, you often find the same types of candidates and a lack of diversity in skill. Instead, go outside of your organization and industry in order to create a diverse team filled with passionate marketers who can help innovate your space.Expectations Rising: Banks and companies are no longer being measured solely based upon their products. Instead, customers are measuring a company's value based upon a variety of factors, including the social good they contribute to their community. Incorporating some sort of social mission or community initiative will help the upcoming civic-minded generation feel comfortable working with and remaining loyal to your 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.

It’s no secret that the power of a brand can make all the difference in the world of marketing. When people think of Apple, they think of clean, sleek and innovative designs. When you think of Wendy’s, its smart and clever Twitter account has become the high water mark for how brands should interact with their base. But what happens when you’re a smaller brand still building your message? How do you go about finding your base and voice?“We can talk about the quality of the food and the antibiotic-free chicken. We can talk about our made-from-scratch Southern sides. We can talk about that hospitality experience. We want you to feel like a guest when you're [at Joella’s]. And we thought that was just the bigger play to help educate people around hot chicken and also have a little bit more of that broader appeal. So we're not just that destination to come try hot chicken once we get the hottest thing. We want to develop customers that love our flavor and love our experience and want to continue to come back to us for more.”Those are the words of Katie Wollrich, the CMO of Joella’s Hot Chicken, and on this episode of Marketing Trends, she dives into the importance of messaging and understanding where your brands live within the marketplace and in the minds of consumers. Plus, Katie provides insights on how marketers who are accepting their first CMO position, can hit the ground running.Main Takeaways:Be Our Guest: When your brand is regional and not national, it’s important to recognize the impact of being a community partner. This means putting more of a focus on understanding the impact local public relations can have on your brand. Being able to partner with local organizations and then using those partnerships as opportunities are important when it comes to brand awareness.Building Up Your Brand: When it comes to developing your brand’s message, finding your voice doesn’t happen overnight. Instead, you need to be methodical and opportunistic with your approach. Keep your message simple and consistent. Start with gathering strong strategic insights and then reiterate that same message over and over again.Rewarding Loyalty: One of the best ways to get to know your customers and to understand them is through loyalty programs. Not only are you consistently rewarding your guests when they come into the store, but the data you are gathering from those visits is far more valuable. When you have a better understanding of your customer, who they are, and what drives their purchases, it provides a better chance to reach them in the moments that matter most.---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.

Tim Glomb has never been one for doing things the “traditional way.” From his days producing reality television shows, to his current gig as the Vice President of Content and Data for Cheetah Digital, Tim has consistently operated under one founding principle: To create content that makes people say, “‘That was awesome.”“You want to know if your content is resonating. Yeah, jumping out of a plane and having Tommy Lee FaceTime you and all these things sounds crazy, but we had CMOs and CEOs and some of our clients writing our CEO notes and emails going, ‘Did I just watch your team jump out of a plane to kick this off? That’s [awesome]. That's different. You got my attention.’ You have to experiment, you have to jump-off ledges, but they’ve got to be calculated risks. You have to be doing things that people are going to look at and go, ‘Why the heck did they do that?’ Some will fall flat — so, fail quickly, and move on, but you've got to take those risks and you go to have fun. If you're not having fun, why are you doing it?”Fun is the keyword, but in the B2B industry, it can sometimes get lost in the day-to-day marketing tactics being used. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Tim discusses how B2B marketers can think differently and start injecting a little more adventure into what they do, and he talks about the power of creating meaningful and engaging content, even in a space that’s not known for it.Main Takeaways:Viva La Content!: In a world driven by content, you need to constantly be thinking to yourself, ‘Is this content something that I would want to consume?’ If the answer is no, you need to rethink what you are producing for your clients. Put your client first and don’t just produce content that improves their metrics. Produce content that inspires and energizes your clients and makes them excited to work with you.Through their Eyes:  One of the biggest mistakes marketers often make is not letting their clients tell their own story. Don’t tell the story for your clients — let them convey their message and then it’s the marketers job to find a unique way to make the audience engage with that.Data Know-How: When you’re looking at your data, ask questions, and really listen to what the market is telling you. The goal of any content should be engagement, but make sure that you are listening to the people on what they want, even down to the medium and the format.---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.

Perhaps the Cookie Monster said it best when he uttered the phrase, “Cookie not diet, because Cookie is Lifestyle.” For Tom Carusona, the CMO of Insomnia Cookies, that mantra has never been more true. But after more than two years as the head marketer for Insomnia Cookies, he’s learned one key lesson…“From a content perspective, authentic cookie shots are what people want. They want to see a warm, delicious, melty, cookie that you can practically smell through your phone. I remember when I started, I was [saying], ‘I don't want to just see a string of a zillion photos of cookies,’ but it turns out that actually, that's exactly what people want.”As a marketer, it can be hard to go against your creative intuition, but on this episode of Marketing Trends, Tom goes into detail about how Insomnia Cookies has built such a loyal following, the importance of using marketing tools that resonate with your brand, and why sometimes it’s best to just give your audience what they want.Main Takeaways:Insomniacs: When you are working with influencers, it's of the utmost importance you are working with individuals that represent your brand in an authentic way and believe in your product. The influencers you work with should have an audience that is in line with the core demographics of your own business.Nom, Nom, Nom: Make sure the content you are producing resonates with your audience. If your followers want to see warm, melt-in-your-mouth cookies, give them pictures of those same cookies. Don’t try to force content down their throats that they are not asking for. Keep it simple and stay true to your brand.Evolution of the Field Marketer: Field marketing is now more about having a pulse on what is happening within your stores and then providing your brick and mortar locations with a toolkit that their sales teams can utilize to reach their goals. The trick is creating a toolkit that stores across the country can utilize successfully.---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.

When we’re wandering around the internet, the hard truth is that we are constantly at risk. There are bad actors constantly attempting to perpetrate cyberattacks on unsuspecting web surfers. And, more and more often, those bad actors are utilizing some pretty sophisticated marketing tactics and we don’t even realize it. Matt Gillis, the CEO of Clean.io, says it’s time to change that mindset.“Most of the CMOs and marketing leaders that would be listening to this podcast, you're buying ads at a dollar CPM, and you're hoping that you get a half a percent click-through rate. These bad actors have figured out how to buy those same ads for that $1 CPM and inject JavaScript and create a 100% click-through rate.”On this episode of Marketing Trends, Matt explains those tactics in-depth, and he discusses the role bad actors are playing in the end-user’s overall experience. Matt explains why the No. 1 goal of this nefarious activity is not necessarily compensation, but more so engagement and, he identifies why popular extensions are not acting in the user’s best interest.Main Takeaways:Customer Experience is No. 1: The mission to make ad experiences better on publishers is rooted in the idea that customer experience is the No.1 priority. If someone comes to a publisher’s website and has a bad experience due to ads or bad actors, more than likely, they won’t return to that site.The Best Performance Marketers in the World: Marketers and publishers need to stop thinking of bad actors as just cyber attackers. Instead, they need to begin to understand that these same bad actors think just like marketers, but are not bound to the same rules and regulations that marketers abide by.It’s All About Engagement: The No. 1 goal of any bad actor is to draw engagement. Bad actors want the end-user to get to a certain landing page by enticing them with a discount code, gift card, etc.---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.

When your company is 113 years old, internationally known, and well respected, you would think by now everything has been figured out. Turns out, though, that even the biggest legacy companies in the world have room to grow and lessons to learn.“We found that at UPS, we had tons of data. We were swimming in data. [Shipping] traditionally has been an industrial, engineering, and operating company. So data was everywhere, but synthesizing that data and distilling it and transferring that data into knowledge, and information into insights we were lacking.”That’s what Kevin Warren, the CMO of UPS, had to say about some of the challenges they have faced recently. Kevin joined Marketing Trends for a deep dive on why it’s important for even the most established companies to take an honest look at their marketing approach and not be afraid to make changes. Plus he discusses why SMBs are becoming more of a focus, and how to put your purpose and mission at the forefront of every campaign and business activity.Main Takeaways:Make it Stick: When you’re thinking about hosting events, make sure the experience is worthwhile to the customer. Think to yourself, “Is this something that would be memorable?” Make your events memorable, useful, and accessible so that they become something  your clients will move their schedules to attend.That’s Logistics… Or Data: When you have massive amounts of data, the noise can be difficult to sift through. But when you harness all your data, synthesize it and really dive into what the numbers are telling you, it provides you with the tools to improve your approach and reach your customers in a more impactful way.One-Stop-Shop: Customers want the ability to have everything exist in an integrated and streamlined format. For UPS, that means customers need to have the ability to conduct checkouts, fulfillment and delivery all within one simple system. If customers have to go through multiple avenues to get to the end product, your customer experience will lag.---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.

The core goals for any marketing department revolves around the customer experience. But when you think about the customer journey, what is the difference between the marketing of a product and the experience of the product itself, and how should each of those blend together? “When you think about the customer experience, it's hard to tell whether it's part of the marketing experience or the actual product experience itself. As a result, the more consistency that you can deliver  for the end-user, between all of the different touchpoints that they have with the company, the better that experience will be.”Those are the words of Erin Hintz, the CMO of Barracuda Networks, a leader in security — protecting email, networks, data, and applications for businesses of all sizes. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Erin discusses how marketing departments can prevent the confusion that might happen between the marketing and product experiences in order to create a more cohesive overall customer experience. Plus, Erin discusses the importance of having a strong digital marketing program in place for inbound demand and the (messaging and content) shifts Barracuda made as companies went into the pandemic lockdowns.Main Takeaways:Let’s Get Virtual: Marketers need to come prepared with an idea of how they can convert in-person events into educational and entertaining online events. When events move to a virtual format, you need to be thinking about unique ways that you are making that webinar more impactful for the audience so that they are inclined to take part.Five Star Experience: Marketers need to take a hard look at the customer experience they are creating. Often, it’s hard to tell where the marketing experience and product experience differ. The more consistency that marketers can deliver for the end-user between all the different touchpoints along their journey, the better the user experience will be.Pivot on a Dime: Sometimes it’s necessary to alter your strategy, especially when unforeseen events occur. As marketers, your campaigns must be agile with the ability to alter your messaging to meet the moment. When your campaigns are flexible, it allows you to portray a more timely and impactful message to your audience.---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.

In a world driven by content, the B2B space is no exception. That fact, according to  Farnaz Maters, the Executive Director and CMO for Principal Global Investors, means that grabbing someone's attention is more difficult now than ever before, and it’s a marketer's job to create things that rise to the top in the sea of content.“Where we are in B2B, it’s basically a content war. It's about having differentiated content that our clients actually care about. People have gotten closer to the brands that they know and the asset managers that they've got long-standing relationships with. But at the same time, as people are hunkering down and being selective in who they're engaging with, it's made it more difficult to be able to expand our reach to people who don't necessarily know us.”So the natural question becomes, how can B2B companies create content that not only grabs the attention of its clients, but goes one step further and gets them to engage as well? On this episode of Marketing Trends, Farnaz dives into how B2B marketers should be thinking about the content they create. She challenges them to ask themselves a simple question: What is the purpose of this piece? Plus, she discusses why the hardest aspect of working with data is sometimes just deploying it correctly. Main Takeaways:Make Content That Drives Conversions: Your content always needs to have a purpose. When you are ideating new creative ideas, don’t just create content to have for your channels. Instead, strategize around the direct purpose of that content and what outcome you hope it leads to.Are You Using Your Data?: When you make the investment in being data-driven, make sure you are actually utilizing your data to its fullest potential. Make sure that data is being used to inform your marketing strategy and activation efforts, and that it’s being used within other departments, such as sales.What’s the Value in This?: Everybody wants access to your data. But it’s important to constantly be thinking about what the roadmap is, where you’re going to deliver business value, and making sure that the value you are bringing is iterative. When you take on big strategic projects you have two options: You can work toward the perfect state, or you can take on a mindset of iterating and delivering business value while strategically thinking about what your endpoint is.---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.