Should you invest in Native Advertising as Marketer ?
I’m looking at it and I just don’t quite get it. Banner ads don’t work, and yet marketers still keep investing in it. According to a recent article in Smart Insight click-through rates remain impressively low with “banner blindness” as a key reason for ignoring ads.
One day, someone needs to explain me why a marketer doesn’t get fired by the CEO for spending thousands of ad euros and reporting a conversion of 0.2%. But let’s keep that discussion for another time.
Native advertising. They are the latest addition to digital advertising land. Named as the “disruptive” technology that will change the advertising business model. It is considered the fresh air that the beleaguered publishers need.
They seem to be more efficient, according to recent research from IPG Media and Sharethrough:
- Consumers looked at native ads 52% more frequently than banner ads.
- Native advertisements registered 9% higher lift for brand affinity and 18% higher lift for purchase intent responses.
- Consumers looked at native ads more than the original editorial content.
Some feel as native advertising is the same as advertorials or article marketing.
It’s not.
OK. So what is native advertising? And do you need to use it your marketing mix? Read more 
How to Embrace Digital, Social and Content as a Company?
The reactions where heartwarming. Although I knew I had a nice story, I didn’t expect these fantastic reactions.
A couple of week ago I presented to around 60 B2B decision makers. The topic was basically about the biggest challenges of marketers today, and how they can solve these challenges.
When I posted a trimmed down version of my presentation on Slideshare, I got another happy surprise. It got voted “presentation of the day” on Slideshare. I think that’s pretty cool. And that my friends, as you can imagine, made me a little bit proud and totally made my day.
Here’s what I presented… Read more
Digital Marketing Trends for 2014
As marketers, we have to “do” a lot. Just when we have social a bit under control, we need to do mobile. And just when we have our first “responsive” website ready, also this doesn’t seem to be enough. Nay, now it’s all context, big- data, gamification, customer experience and collaboration.
Pfffff.
It’s not easy today for marketers. And it won’t become any easier. How should a company deal with these changes? And how do you create new opportunities? Read more
Which Content is Most Relevant to Your Buyers?
Providing enough relevant content to buyers is one of the biggest concerns of marketers today, according to a recent study of CMI.
But how do you know which content is relevant to your buyers?
Showing business value is not differentiating
Building buyer insight is an important activity of marketers, resulting in buyer persona descriptions, or buyer insight maps as I often call them. Based on that buyer insight, content is created that shows the business value of your products or services.
The problem is that your competitors are doing the exact same thing. Read more
How do you become a C-Level Digital Marketer?
RU Ready for C-level?
I was really impressed. On his business card it said “Chief Social Media Officer”. He worked for a rather big, international company.
He told me he was busy with an impressive social media project, and was full of “influencer marketing”, “sentiment analysis” and “advocate” marketing. They were active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Wauuwww.
Just until I asked him how many tweets per week he was getting from customers. Then it became quiet. “Euhh, one or two” he answered. “But we are only starting to be active” he added quietly.
When I checked their Twitter stream just now, their latest Twitter post dated of one month ago. LinkedIn hadn’t been updated the last year, and they had 18 followers on Pinterest.
Everything is difficult in the beginning, you think, and it takes a while to grow a following, right? They had been active for 5 years on Facebook.
And when I check what they publish on online, mainly promotions and news about their own company and products, then it doesn’t surprise me they only have a handful of followers. Read more
11 Reasons that show you are not yet a real Digital Marketer
I could pull up Wikipedia, but let me quickly translate what most of us understand under the job-title “Digital Marketer”. A digital marketers is someone who wants to influence customers with websites, blogs, video’s but also with online ads, email and social media, so they will choose your brand.
Something like that? I think you agree with me this is close enough as a definition. The exact definition is even not that important at this moment.
Not so long ago Mashable published an infographic about the different types of digital marketing people they see. In that article they visualize “puppets” representing digital marketers who are all good in something: one is the social, the other is the data-person, and yet another is in the “let’s make it pretty” department.
It keeps surprising me that we marketers have such a hard time in selling ourselves, and this article certainly doesn’t help.
Why are digital marketers not busy with what is really important for the company? Read more
12 Thought Leaders in Marketing that Permanently Changed My Life
This is me in Torbole, Lake Garda, Italy
I have made a big decision in my life. Well, it’s a big decision for me at least. Already for a couple of years I have been dreaming of creating my own company, and I finally made that decision.
My wife is calling me crazy, but I’m going to do it anyway. As of January 2014 I won’t be working for an employer anymore.
It wasn’t an easy decision. I mean, I live extremely close to work, I have a decent pay, and lot’s of extra’s. But I’m going to do it.
Why am I doing this? Because I got really, really passionate about something. Read more
Are You Into Digital Marketing Patchwork ? Build a Digital Culture instead
This blog post gives you insight why fragmented digital marketing efforts are not giving the expected results. It explains how the C-suite must work together to build a digital culture, and create new opportunities.
Companies have been investing in digital, but in many cases as silo-run initiatives. By changing your company culture and leading the coordination of digital initiatives, companies can reap the benefits of digital to lead the competition.
Many companies have developed e-commerce, e-business, social and mobile strategies. These strategies usually haven been developed by business leaders out of fear, having seen the likes of Kodak, Barnes & Noble or Blockbuster fail to adapt the digital era.
Travel agencies, book stores, newspapers, and video renting are all industries that have been erased because of digital. Read more
The Shocking Truth about Sharing Company Secrets
A few days after I had trained some people about sharing on social media, I received an email from an account manager.
He was afraid we would be sharing too much details about what we do with customers. He was afraid we would give away to much information to competitors. And I heard the same remark of CEO’s holding back on press releases about customers wins because it could hurt the business.
This is an often heard dilemma: you make great new customers, you create fantastic webinars for customers, you do thought leadership speaking slots, and make customer cases. But by sharing this content publicly you are afraid you are providing valuable information to competitors. And that might hurt your business.
I do understand these reasons, I used to think the same. But companies that keep thinking like this will soon be gone. If you don’t want that, you’ll have to make a cultural shift to being open and authentic.
Let me explain you why… Read more
“You have to” versus “You Should” Marketing
Are you into “marketing patchwork” ?
You have to do social. You have to do mobile. You have to do content. You have to do inbound. You have to do digital. You have to do blogging. You have to do thought leadership. You have to do SEO. You have to do Apps. You have to do customer experience. You have to do context. You have to do community. You have to do gamification.
You have to be home on time.
You have to do Buyer Personas. You have to do brand journalism. You have to do opt-in. You have to do authenticity. You have to do collaboration. You have to do 1-1. You have to do collaboration. You have to do analytics. You have to do big-data. You have to do automation. You have to do Social CRM. Read more
