Digital Marketing Masterclass 2018

Digital Marketing Masterclass

Attended on 2/13/18

Digital marketing has become one of the most effective and necessary methods in reaching out to people with a brand’s message. At the Digital Marketing Masterclass, five companies and Grubhub as the keynote speaker, spoke to the audience about their variation of digital marketing methods and how they break through the clutter as the digital space has become inundated and a need for newer methods to reach people has surfaced.

Each speaker had ten minutes to explain what their company’s services did in the space of digital marketing and how it benefited brands. Topics spanned from content creation and marketing to AI and social listening. After the five speakers, a rep from Grubhub addressed us with a 30 minute keynote about how they maneuver in the social media space. Below are the speakers and topics that were discussed.

“A New Era for Social Data”

Brand: Black Swan

Speaker: Alex Gould, Senior Insights & Innovation Manager

Black Swan uses data science to create valuable, actionable insights. With the hundreds of thousands of data they receive, they are able to make high-level suggestions to brands about their product, messaging and marketing methods. Alex shared his experience with Lipton as his client, who wanted to ensure that they were being innovative with their products. Black Swan retrieved data that showed people’s attitudes toward hot vs. cold tea in different areas. These insights allowed Lipton to engage in product innovation and message shaping so that their products were serving the consumers correctly. The platforms employed by Black Swan serve as a prediction tool since they are able to track conversations about a topic and/or brand dating back seven years until the present—ultimately allowing them to see when a trend is about to happen.

“Building Long Term Value with Influencer Marketing”

Brand: Obviously

Speaker: Mae Karwowski, Founder

Mae spoke to us about the Obviously platform which essentially matches brands with social media influencers. According to Mae, “Over 70% of millennials engage in ad blocking”. This shift in behavior has created the space for influencers to capitalize on using their platform to help brands reach their audiences with a product or message. Mae also shared the fact that “Eighty-three percent of consumers trust peers”, making influencers, but especially micro-influencers a strategic way to promote a brand. However, with that said, being strategic about which influencers to employ is where the effectiveness shines. Mae shared these four tips on choosing the right influencer:

1. Form a long-lasting relationship with an influencer who has an audience identical or very similar to your brand.
2. Work at scale. Try to work with 100s-1000s of influencers instead of just three. This will ensure reach.
3. When working with an influencer, primarily offer product and experiences instead of money, especially with micro-influencers.
4. Test, learn, optimize.

“Revolutionizing Search Intelligence with Al”

Brand: Adthena

Speaker: Ben Riggle, VP, North America

As per the previous speaker: ads are dying. But not all ads, according to Ben Riggle from Adthena. According to him, 46% of digital spend is spent on search advertising. Adthena’s platform employs artificial intelligence to analyze the search market for a company and provides solutions. Within this analyzation is a competitive report that allows small companies to have an advantage that they normally would not have with just using Google Adwords which does not allow you to see how other marketers are bidding for certain search keywords. With the popularization of search assistants like Google Home and Alexa, deploying search ads is a way to have a competitive advantage, and eventually machine learning platforms like Adthena will become intrinsic to success in ad buying.  

“How to Fuel Your Marketing with Visual Content that Performs”

Brand: Stackla

Speaker: Gary Zurnamer, Account Manager

When creating content, a marketer should always keep in mind what resonates with their specific audiences. Across all categories of digital consumer consumption, authentic content reigns king. According to Gary, “86% of consumers say authenticity is key,” and “60% of consumers say user generated content is the most authentic form of content.” With that information, Gary’s suggestion was to integrate UGC into the buyer’s journey for success. He also touched on the importance of integrating influencers into your strategy: “Get real people to validate your product.”

“How Can a Brand Beneficially Manage their Social Media Engagement”

Brand: BrandBastion

Speaker: Jenny Wolfram, CEO & Founder

Social Media has become a platform for consumers and brands to communicate with each other, but with the ever-growing number of people of social media, it has become inundated and quite difficult for brands to keep up with the influx of inquiries, comments and complaints directed to them. Often-times, missing some comments and/or complaints or not responding in a timely manner may cause a brand to go into a PR crises. BrandBastion’s goal is to eliminate this problem with their platform that keeps tabs on a social media campaign or simply a brand’s social presence by processing them and acting on behalf of the brand. According to Jenny, people want their comments/questions to be answered within 60 minutes.

Additionally, the average consumer scrolls through comments to retrieve 6-7 reviews on a brand or product during the consideration phase of their buyer’s journey. Of those consumers, in e-commerce, 15% of all comments include questions that show intent to purchase. Despite the mass of comments on a brand’s post that boasts over 100k followers, it would be a failure on the brand’s part to miss out on these opportunities to gain more customers. Jenny provided us with three R’s to manage engagement on social media:

React, Respond and Recognize.

KEYNOTE: “Creating Content that Engages and Converts Audiences while Working with a Limited Budget and Limited Resources”

Brand: GrubHub

Speaker: Mallorie Rosenbluth, Head of Social Media

During a time when content rules, it is imperative for brands to have a strong digital presence, specifically on social media, and to ensure that their content is relative and captivating. However, constant content creation takes time and money—two resources that small brands may not have a lot of. Mallorie shared with us how to jump over that hurdle with content that can be created easily and affordably, and can still make an impact. Her rules of content creation are:

1. Simplicity- avoid complicating content with too much information and imagery.
2. Scrappy- although the content is simply, make is stand out.
3. Snackable- make the content quick and easy to digest.
4. Shareable- make the content good enough to make people want to share. Make it easy to share as well.
5. Scaleable- make content that can be shared more than once.

Mallorie also suggested to have options for content including, UGC, brand generated, and partner/influencer generated content, to provide a healthy mix to audiences. When testing content to see what type resonates best with GrubHub’s audience, Mallorie uses Instagram as a testing ground; any content that received over 1,000 likes is placed in a carousel for Facebook and shared on Twitter.

When touching on influencers, GrubHub employs those that not only have an audience that mirrors theirs, but finds those that allow them to reach out to a demographic they cannot be themselves. For example, GrubHub cannot be a single mother, an urban dweller, and a teenager all at once, so they find influencers that fall into those categories to reach those audiences.

In addition to posting on their social platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat), GrubHub created their own content site called the Crave in 2017 that allows them to churn out content that their super fans can enjoy, playing to the platform and a niche audience.

Overall, the Digital Marketing Masterclass allowed me to learn about variations of reaching audiences in a cluttered space. After the keynote, I was able to network with professionals from A+E Networks, Apicii, Bayer, BNY Mellon, Colgate-Palmolive, Delivery.com, Elite Traveler Media, ESquared Hospitality, Hornblower Cruises & Events, Jaguar Land Rover, Kevyn Aucoin Beauty, Macquarie Group, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Mercer, Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions, NYC & Company, PayPal, Prudential, Quality Bath, Revlon, SiriusXM, Sony Music Entertainment, Tough Mudder, Triumph Hotels, Uber, Viacom and VisitBritain.

Takeaways:

1. Social media listening has become crucial to brands in making the right moves for the entire process of creating, including the four Ps: product, price, placement and promotion.
2. Due to the inundation of ads and the ability to block them on social media platforms, brands need to employ methods of reaching out to their audiences with the goal of receiving engagement, instead of simply relying on impressions.
3. Large brands that have the funds should employ AI tools for their marketing strategies, which will allow them to gain insight into what their audiences want now and predict what they’ll want in the future. Small brands need to be more engaging with their audiences and pay attention to comments on social media in order to properly strategize their communication and marketing plans.