‘Has it all gone too far? Are we losing the human connection? Consumers and brands are still figuring it all out, but when it comes to how businesses approach their relationships with customers, Houston, we have a problem. 

Customer experience, after all, is made up of a variety of touchpoints and interactions that a consumer has with a brand—its products, services, employees, even its cultural values—across multiple channels over the course of the relationship. Almost all of it is driven by emotion and how the customer feels about the experience. A PwC survey of 15,000 consumers found that one in three customers will leave a brand they love after just one bad experience.’

Marketing Dive, Hey marketing execs: People are human, not data points

We mustn’t forget how incredibly important it is to make the effort to personalise content and have that human touch when engaging our customer base.

Youtube have launched Youtube Shorts; a blog post from the tech giant reads:

‘Every month, 2 billion viewers come to YouTube to laugh, learn and connect. Creators have built entire businesses on YouTube, and we want to enable the next generation of mobile creators to also grow a community on YouTube with Shorts.”‘

‘User-generated short videos were born on YouTube starting with our first upload, a short 18-second video called ‘Me at the zoo.’ As technology advances, creators and artists can now take advantage of the incredible power of smartphones to easily create and publish high-quality content wherever they are in the world,” the YouTube post added.’

This is the first launch of the software and I’m excited to see how Youtube Shorts develops over the coming months. It will be interesting to see how businesses will start using more candid videography to promote their businesses.

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Ben talks to Claire Doré, a life coach about her tips on reprogramming your mindset and achieving your goals.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

Forrester’s report emerges alongside the ongoing debate on balancing the role of short-term direct response activity and long-term brand-building. Increasingly, the tendency to use short-term online metrics as primary performance measures will have implications for long-term brand success, as Mark Ritson’s recent article warns, with brand building techniques historically more intangible to measure and challenging to link to conversion.

‘If you look for returns from your marketing on a 12 month or shorter time scale, you will inevitably undervalue long-term brand building and move too much of your marketing investment into shorter-term tactical fare. This will result in superior ROI initially, but two very different stories will emerge over the next five years.’

Marketing Week, How the value of marketing has taken centre stage

The next 12 months is going to be interesting as marketers will held more accountable to justify and prove short and long-term effects of their campaigns.

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Ben speaks with Rod Hande, an up and coming magician on what marketing methods he uses to promote his business. Rod also does his first video conference magic trick!

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

How to use Instagram in your business, grow your audience and track progress.

Notes

Why are small businesses using photo sharing apps in marketing?

• Increasingly in popularity
• Businesses of all sizes and sectors are using it
• A great way to bring a visual element to your social media activity
• Reaching new audiences easier and quicker
• Sell products or services through the platform

Instagram as Marketing tool

• Who should use Instagram?

How to post

• Can only post using app
• Photos
• Video
• Importance of Stories & Reels
• Hashtag research

Planning Content

• Use your social media strategy for inspiration
• Variety is essential
• Post regularly
• Find inspiration from other accounts
• Consider including video

Tracking Progress

• Set Objectives to monitor progress
• Audience growth – size & quality
• Interaction – likes, comments, reach
• Performance on paid ads
• Sales of products
• Traffic to your website

Commit to action

What one action will you achieve over the next 30 days?

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Ben share’s his ultimate guide to proof reading marketing content in ten achieveable steps.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

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I am joined by Shayna Rattler a leading expert in corporate sponsorship and influencer marketing to discuss how this could benefit your business.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

In this marketing webinar Ben shares how to use Facebook in your business to grow your audience and win customers.

Janine Sullivan, a freelance illustrator who attended my Growth Hub Video Strategy workshop recently, loved my presentation so much she drew out some of the slides. It’s so funky and ‘remarkable’ I had to share it.

‘I loved your presentation and the slides were all very positive hence why I drew them.’

Janine even created a video of her work using Giffy, perfectly demonstrating some of my ideas about repurposing content and creating something remarkable that people will be compelled to share.

‘I just wanted to say thank you for such an informative and helpful workshop.
…Your workshop was so positive I wanted to encapsulate it in a video.’

If you like Janine’s style checkout her Depop Shop where you can buy various accoutrements based on her drawings. My favourites are the ones of her whippet.

Roger Britton from Community First shares his thoughts and feedback on how Rather Inventive helped and delivered in making his new website.

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I am joined by Clare to discuss the reasons why you should be making video testimonials and how your business will benefit by them.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

Republished from a short feature in an email newsletter for Start and Grow Enterprise.

Over the last 12 months, people have shifted dramatically to buying online. According to McKinsey, ‘more than three quarters of buyers and sellers say they now prefer digital self-serve and remote human engagement over face-to-face interactions – a sentiment that has steadily intensified even after lockdowns have ended.’

So it’s more important than ever to understand who your best customers are and appeal directly to them, especially if you cannot see them face to face or speak over the phone. When you know your customer, it helps you find more people like them, find better customers, and make your marketing more manageable by focusing on what matters.

A great way to make sure you are talking your customer language is to write out how your product or service fits your customers’ needs. It’s a simple process but it can highlight what’s important to your customer and helps you to focus on what to write.

To start, note down at least three goals or needs your customer has. For example, if you were a food box delivery service, these could be to: Save time cooking, Save money or Save stress. If you aren’t sure what your customer’s needs are, it won’t hurt to ask them why they buy from you. Send out a survey or ask them next time you are on the phone or chatting in Facebook Messenger.

Once you have your customer needs, you should match how your product or service addresses these needs. For our food box example, you may help them save time by pre-measuring the food. Your boxes could have a fixed weekly cost to save money. And to reduce the stress of cooking a healthy meal, you can provide free tasty recipes.

Focusing on your customer needs and how your product benefits them will show your customer that you understand them and help your product stand out from the crowd. I find it also makes writing copy easier for social posts or your website as you’ll know what to focus on.

Ben chairs a discussion with Nicky Ayers (Ecl-ips CCTV), Catherine Every (Pippin Copywriting) and Jon Johnson (Mountain Perspective) looking at how future trends and challenges could impact on our strategies for lead generation.

Notes

What could the future of marketing look like?

You don’t own the platform

• Rely on social and ads for new customers
• The sales funnel is out of your control
• No direct access to audience
• What happens if their policies change?

People prefer to buy/work online

• People prefer digital experiences – Easier, quicker.
• Remote working reduces town centre visitors
• How do they find out about you?

Search is voice only

• In the car, jogging, cooking
• Voice assistants only surface the first few results
• How do you get found in a sea of a thousand results?

Tracking is dead

• Browser tracking cookies are being blocked
• Email is hiding your opens and clicks
• How can we target them on other platforms?
• Do we need to collect so much data?

What you can do about it

Build a strong brand

• Trusted and consistent
• Meet people where they are then invite them back to your place – your website

Tribe Marketing

• Work with partners or as a group
• Make use of their audience
• Refer often

Use Video

• Focus on personality (brand)
• Make it useful, share something of value, have fun
• Great audio/lighting

Use structured data

• Answer questions, add FAQ schema
• Be the ultimate answer on Google 
• https://soundcloud.com/rather-inventive/interview-duane-forrester-yexts-vp-industry-insights

Be remarkable
Create email and social posts people really want to read, watch or be part of

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I share our process for reviewing your blog posts to find out which articles are getting the most visits and cause people to take action, and which ones are deadwood that needs cutting away.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

Ben is joined by Benjamin Catley-Richardson (Brand Clear) to share how to be clear on your business brand. We walk through how to be easier noticed, easier to remember and easier to choose.

Ben shares three ideas that could help grow or even kick start your social media engagement. He has been developing the ideas over the years so you may already have heard a few of them but it’s always good to have a refresher.

Notes

Be Remarkable

How to create remarkable content that spreads further by working with others 

• Choose a social network you like 
• Where your audience hangs out 
• Reach out to your audience 
• Be remarkable 
• Be consistent
• Connect on a personal level 

Be the First to Follow

Understand how to attract people and create a movement 

Start a Social Tribe

Local businesses promoting local businesses on the web and through social media 

• Find your tribe 
• Follow your tribe
• Spend 15 a day minutes engaging 
• Recommend what you love 
• Feedback to improve 
• Don’t talk about yourself 

Stats from McKinsey on the changes and what this means for the future of online sales. Via Jonathan Pollinger.

More than three quarters of buyers and sellers say they now prefer digital self-serve and remote human engagement over face-to-face interactions—a sentiment that has steadily intensified even after lockdowns have ended.

Safety is one reason, of course. But self-serve and remote interactions have made it easier for buyers to get information, place orders, and arrange service, and customers have enjoyed that speed and convenience. Only about 20 percent of B2B buyers say they hope to return to in-person sales, even in sectors where field-sales models have traditionally dominated, such as pharma and medical products.

I enjoy in-person contact for connecting and relationship building but buying online is almost always easier especially for repeat purchases. Also where it reduces the need for travel I’m all for it.

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In this episode I share an extract from my conversation with Michelle Evans onhow developing a marketing funnel can take your from simply surviving, to SOLD OUT. Michelle takes us through the steps of developing a funnel from understanding your audience before jumping in to develop a funnel that will nurture more customers into working with you.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

Ben is joined by Jack McCaughtrie (Core Tree) and Clare Harris to discuss the current state of social as well as tips and advice.

Notes

Social Media Round Table

• We look at social media accounts by activity
• Has social media use changed during 2020 lockdown? Has it brought us together?
• What kind of content works best?
• Does it pay to create personalised content and making the effort?
• Does social media work for customer service?
• How can I get more followers on social media?

Commit to action

What one action will you achieve over the next 30 days?

Need some Marketing help?

I guested on Benjamin Catley-Richardson podcast about a failure in my business past and a challenge that I’m currently facing. As he mentions at the end we could have talked for hours, and we often do. A great person to have a coffee with.

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In this episode I share an extract from my club webinar where I look at the uses of email marketing and what clicks and views to expect.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here ratherinventive.com/club/

From Jacob Kaplan-Moss on just doing the hard work.

‘The secret is mundane, but to me it’s thrilling. The card choice is a force. But choice from those dozens of boxes of tea really is a free choice, and the choice of tea bag within that box is also a free choice. There’s no sleight-of-hand: the magician doesn’t touch the tea boxes or the teabag that the volunteer chooses. The card really is inside of that sealed tea packet.

The trick is all in the preparation. Before the trick, the magician buys dozens of boxes of tea, opens every single one, unwraps each tea packet. Puts a Three of Clubs into each packet. Reseals the packet. Puts the packets back in the box. Re-seals each box. And repeats this hundreds of times. This takes hours — days, even.

The only “trick” is that this preparation seems so boring, so impossibly tedious, that when we see the effect we can’t imagine that anyone would do something so tedious just for this simple effect.’

I’m lazy and if I can get a chance to automate or simplify a task I’ll take it but sometimes there is magic in just doing the hard work.

For example when working on a new website we often need to copy of blog content. If there is a simple way to export the posts to the new site I’ll take it but if the site doesn’t provide this and there aren’t many posts (say less than 25) then it’s often quicker to copy and past between the two sites.

3rd party cookies are dead, so Google has been cooking up their replacement, Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoC for short. Read more about FloC in this article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

‘If you have been assigned a FLoC ID, it means that your browser has processed your browsing history and assigned you to a group of “a few thousand” similar users. The FLoC ID is the label for your behavioral group. This numeric label is not meaningful on its own. However, large advertisers (like Google) and websites (like… Google) will be able to analyze traffic from millions of users to figure out what the members of a particular FLoC have in common. Those actors may use your FLoC ID to infer your interests, demographics, or past behavior.’

As a marketer I find a few tracking metrics such as which web pages have the most visits and where (broadly speaking) people came from highly useful but I don’t want to get lost in the data and would rather focusing on making great content and working with clients. And as an advertiser It’s great to refine your spend to only show ads to people who will be most interested. But I don’t agree that we need pervasive tracking to achieve this.

Some of the best advertising that has influenced me, has been from places of trust such as podcasts I love or blog I read daily. If a company wants to get in front of more people they might be better to tie into content providers with the right audience rather than target individuals on any platform with hyper personalised automated ads. The problem is that social media platforms have inserted themselves in between us and the content and are now charging rent.