SHOULD BRANDS FORGET ABOUT RETAIL ALTOGETHER?

Fighting for retail space is an ongoing and frustrating battle. Not only is it difficult to corner a sizable market share with retail, but retail also comes with associated costs that can be prohibitive for many brands. Fortunately, the online retail space brings some democratization to the sales process. But more than anything, the consumer experience is king, and meeting customer demands is what will make a company successful. The rise of the internet and eCommerce have fundamentally changed the way people shop. And with the increase in online shopping, consumer expectations have also changed. Brands should forget about retail altogether and focus on the online shopping experience if they want to stay competitive. Here are three reasons why:

Reason #1: People want instant gratification.
With the rise in internet shopping and smartphone technology, people have a ‘need it now’ mentality. It’s true that consumers aren’t as patient as they were a generation ago. Consumers expect that they should be able to find a product, buy the product, and have it shipped to their house within a few minutes. They don’t want to drive to a store. They don’t want to fight crowds or deal with the usual hassles associated with a traditional retail shopping experience. If brands want to stay competitive, then they will need to meet the customer’s need for instant gratification.

Reason #2: Brands need to shift their dollars to online marketing techniques.
With the rise in online shopping, brands would be well served to switch up their marketing techniques. Going forward, brands will need to devote more of their marketing dollars to online advertising. Online advertising, if done properly, will give brands some of the best ROI available. For example, the average Google AdWords campaign will give a business a 200% ROI.

Reason #3: Amazon has set consumer expectations high.
Amazon is one of the biggest reasons why consumer tastes have changed so drastically in recent years. More and more, consumers want the type of online shopping experience that Amazon can give them:

• Instant gratification

• Fast shipping

• The ability to quickly and easily comparison shop via reviews

• A variety of choices

Amazon is a multi-billion dollar company, so how can smaller brands even hope to compete with the online retail giant? It’s not as hard as some may think. It’s now easier and more affordable than ever for smaller companies to leverage effective digital marketing strategies.

Amazon has forever changed the retail experience for consumers. In the future, it’s going to be harder and harder to fight for a dwindling amount of retail space. Businesses will need to craft digital marketing strategies to stay competitive. By leveraging the power of Facebook, Instagram, Google, and other online advertising strategies, companies will be able to capture more market share in their industries.

It’s never too late to get started with an effective online marketing strategy. If you’re ready to ditch retail and rebrand your business for the future of online shopping, then you’ll need to consider digital marketing techniques to reach your ideal customer.

THE RISE & FALL OF CLIENT-AGENCY RELATIONSHIPS

Your agency just won an important new business pitch, and everyone's fired up! But then you run into what seems to have become the norm after 18-24 months. The client calls and informs you they decided to conduct a review. You feel totally blind-sided. What might have happened? How did you lose touch? And most importantly what "undermined the trust factor" that won the business? After all, chemistry and trust are most often cited as the key factors in victories.

Let's see what could have caused this:

• Did you on-board the client properly?

• Was there an open, honest  offsite meeting that you arranged and paid for? Did you continue these offsite meetings?

• Did you both share in the CEO's mandate for success over the first two years?

• Did you revisit the quality of service over this period? Honestly and openly.

• And, did you build a continuity team that proactively provided business building ideas in marketing, digital and analytics? Every month, every quarter.

That said, proof of performance is your greatest ally today. Here are some keys to keep it trending upward:

1. Outstanding Creativity: Across key connection points, with all members of your team owning them.

2. Relationship Building: All members charged with building relationships with their counterparts.

3. Budgeting & ROI: Pay closer attention to your compensation agreement and revisit it with an open mind. You don't want your profitability to be marginalized, but you do want your client openly engaged with budget concerns.

All of this points towards the major issues that are an impediment these days: Client/Agency trust, and most recently transparency, have eroded. Your focus should be to work everyday to make these non-issues. Breathe some life into the relationship every chance you get. And last, but certainly not least, "Love your clients, or someone else will".  

The end.

WHY GREAT CREATIVE REQUIRES A HUMAN TOUCH

In a post GDPR world, brands, agencies, and publishers are starting to take advantage of data-driven technology. While an ad's visibility is a crucial element of effective marketing, it’s not the holy grail that many businesses think it is. With the abundance of easily accessible data on their hands, brands and digital marketers have gotten away from creating engaging ads. In essence, they’ve forgotten about the importance of resonating with their viewers.

In today’s world, consumers are becoming savvier to marketing techniques and crave creative ads that resonate with them on a human level. Data and visibility don’t speak to your customers. If you want to differentiate yourself from the competition, your ad campaigns need to include an engaging, creative element. .

To what extent does visibility matter? 

An ads visibility only matters if the person seeing it is a qualified target. If you sell winter clothing, you don’t want your ad displaying to people who live on the equator. But, if you get your ad in front of a targeted member of your ideal audience, if the ad doesn’t have an engaging, creative element, it will fall flat.  

So, visibility is only one element of your campaign’s effectiveness, but many brands will make the mistake of thinking that visibility is the only means to an end. The right people can see your ad, but if those people don’t find the ad engaging, the campaign has failed. The ad’s reach isn’t enough to drive the campaign's effectiveness. You must provide a creative element that encourages the viewer to interact with the ad and take the desired action.

How can you increase the creative element of an ad campaign?

The most effective and engaging ads have the brand’s objective at their core. For an ad to reach maximum effectiveness, you need in-depth knowledge of your target audience to get the ad to resonate with them. If the goal with your ad is to drive sales, that needs to be the focus of your campaign. Don’t do both. 

While technology is becoming more accessible and sophisticated, brands don’t want to make the mistake of pigeonholing their ad into the latest digital trend because everyone else is doing it. Data is crucial to ensuring that your target market is reached. And ad technology enables it to be delivered as quickly and accurately as possible. But to drive engagement, your ad needs to be creative. It requires a human touch. 

To sum it up…

The advertising spectrum is complex. While it’s true that no single element should take precedence, the business’s objective and the creative must be the focus of the campaign to ensure maximum success. The world we live in is becoming increasingly isolating and commercialized. Consumers crave branding and advertising that is creative and resonates with their desires and pain-points. Visibility can’t do this. Collaboration with the goal of delivering a creative ad will.