• Acquisition
• Behavior
• Conversion

It’s built into Google Analytics, for God’s sake:

And it’s a tried and true methodology for measuring.

Problem is, we’re measuring to take action. If the lifecycle begins and ends with acquisition and conversion, we’re missing a lot of workflow steps as marketers. Every campaign needs planning and post-mortem phases.

That’s the real job — not the numbers, but what we did to attain those numbers and what we’re going to do in the future to beat those numbers.

So I think we need to evolve the ABCs into something a little more critical, a little more holistic and a little more, well, musical. (You weren’t expecting that word to go there, were you?)

Back to Basics

Campaign planning and optimization is very much a creative exercise. And for me, creativity is joined at the hip to music.

Whenever I feel like getting back to basics in music, I think of the first thing I ever learned — the C major scale on the piano:

It’s insanely simple, yet it is the key for unlocking complicated music theory.

Instead of starting with ABC, like the alphabet, the C major scale ends with ABC:

There’s some key work to put in before the ABCs and I’m going to tie that part of the scale, now, to marketing campaign creation and execution.

Campaign Planning

Context — What are we doing? Who will buy this?

Difference — Where do we fit in the landscape of competitors? What makes us unique?

Explanation — Explain C & D to key decision-makers in the company that can fund the campaign.

Fine-Tune — Firm up the philosophy for specialists and managers that will drive the campaign.

Gameplan — Get your nuts and bolts in order.

Acquisition — Take this campaign to the people!

Behavior — Observe how the people consumed your campaign.

Conversion — Make some money! Once that’s all said and done, we need a campaign reporting and evolution phase. We’ll use the same scale there.

Campaign Post-Mortem

Context — Stack up our performance against our goals and/or previous campaigns. (Only use goals for your context if they were set in some basis of reality. Past performance is the best context.)

Difference — Did it exceed or fall short of our expectations? Put hard numbers on that, not percentages.

Explanation — Explain why your campaign performed the way it did to your higher-ups. Don’t just vomit C & D at them!

Fine Tune & Fix — Tweak your campaign to compensate for what went right or what went wrong.

Gameplan — Give your team nuts and bolts, Pt. II.

Acquisition — Take this new campaign to the people.

Behavior — Observe how they consumed your campaign. Particularly the things you changed!

Conversion — Make more money!

It’s a constant process. And if you’re doing it right, you should reach each subsequent octave with higher and higher results.

The post The C Major Scale of Analytics appeared first on Portent.

Back in September, Starbucks rolled out its first global brand campaign via YouTube called “Meet Me at Starbucks”. An ongoing brand narrative stitching together real life stories of people meeting together at Starbucks in 28 countries shot in just 24 hours. It created a powerful story of convergence where shared commonality, memories, new ideas, business meetings, and romantic moments are interwoven to tell the human story within one common meeting place. They aligned this with their campaign slogan, “Inspiring and nurturing the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.” This isn’t the first campaign of its kind for Starbucks, but it is the first time they have done it to this scale.

One of the toughest things for companies to learn with regards to delivering digital narrative is that when you first launch it, it is simply the beginning of the journey. As with driving SEO, a consistent stream of relevant and engaging  content is essential towards building credibility with your audience. One of the great hallmarks of Starbucks success is in how they build their brand around both themselves and their audience’s stories. Taking cues from their success, here are 3 elements to an online presence that incorporates storytelling:

1. Tell true stories

Try telling your brand story through your audience’s real life conversations. Whether it’s featuring video testimonials on your site or blogging about an event you hosted for loyal clients, your audience will find empathy and trust in the faces of your customers. Retelling these narratives can provide a human element that engages your online audiences.

2. Your brand is only as strong as the stories people tell about you

Two common responses you’ll hear about online retailer experiences are, “I bought it online” and “I bought it on Amazon”. To use the company name as opposed to the vehicle of purchase implies a good example of brand loyalty. One of your goals should be providing an online experience that is both effective and memorable.

3. Every storyteller has a brand and every brand has a story

A storyteller can’t be separated from her story. If you Google yourself, you’ll see that you already have a virtual branded identity, whether or not you created it consciously. Companies need to ask if there’s anything memorable about the stories people are telling about them. People remember stories more than they remember names. Take a careful look at the stories being told about you online. Do they reflect the story you wanted or expected?

In order to help propel the brand story you envision, here are 3 questions that can help you focus your brand narrative:

Am I Relevant?

Do you have a target audience in mind? As in the Starbucks brand campaigns, are you making your audience the hero of the story? How are you serving, supporting, and empowering your audience to overcome their obstacles?

It’s important to shape your audience’s holistic user experience in a way that effectively connects their personal needs to the value of your brand and services.

What is my Origin?

Every memorable brand has a great origin story. The quality of that narrative can be established in any number of creative ways. The unique basis of your manufacturing process. How and why you got your company name. Where and why you use the ingredients that you do. One of the best ways to legitimize your brand is by anchoring it in the past.

One step would be to have a robust, creative, or innovative “about us” section, for example a car part distribution owner blogging about their first exotic vehicle purchase coupled by a single point of measurable engagement that links the origin to their audience such as, “When I was kid, my dream vehicle was…?”

Is it Authentic?

There is an age old marketing adage that “content is king” but that is only part of the truth. If content is King than trust is the empress. If you can’t answer the question why your audience should trust you, than you should reconsider your approach. How are you making yourself real, accessible, approachable, and so on?

Remember this…

A memorable story helps you get beyond the numbers to breathe life and meaning into the value of your audience. To do that, you need to create an effective online experience that incorporates elements of humanity and empathy. Now is the time to get personal! People forget facts, but they never forget a great story.

The post Starbucks stirs the heart: Strength in the Brand Story appeared first on Portent.

It’s undisputed that other areas of the digital marking world, like SEO or PPC, are valuable to your website and your business because those are areas that increase traffic to your website, and often lead to more conversions. So, why is it that social media gets a bad rap? Why do I continue to work in a field that is constantly the underdog? Short answer: I believe in the power of social media for businesses, and I believe in doing it right.

I’m going to discuss three reasons why social media (and social media strategists) matter in the digital marketing realm, and perhaps educate other sectors of the digital marketing space who think that we just “play on Facebook all day.”

Social impacts all sectors of digital marketing

When working at a digital marketing company like Portent, there are several departments to help clients with many different online strategies. It can be argued that social can affect all of these different departments.

Content and social fit together like peanut butter and chocolate – we’re pretty good individually, but together we’re magical! Creating content that is easily sharable on social is exactly what your online marketing campaign needs. You want audiences reading and sharing your content, which is where social comes in. Posting a link to your content isn’t going to cut it anymore. It takes some great messaging, smart timing and an eye-catching format. Marketing your content effectively across your different social media platforms can give it that extra push, and hopefully others start sharing that content with their friends.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social, while once separate, have come together quite nicely. Links and interaction on social media can make a considerable difference on a website’s search rankings, making an optimized social media page beneficial for SEO. Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest can make significant differences on SEO, especially if they are set up properly and you are posting sharable content to these sites.

Pay-per-click (PPC) and social are becoming more closely related than ever. The big social networks are using targeted paid ads on their platforms so that your content can reach more people (at a price). The gold can be found when organic and paid social come together on high quality posts. In fact, according to new research from Marin Software, search campaigns perform significantly better when they are managed alongside social campaigns (average of 26% higher revenue per click, in fact).

Social media can even impact website design. Social follow and share icons across your website are important. What’s even more important is putting them in the correct places. We want people to visit your new website, and also easily find your social networks and share your content on social directly from the site. In addition, social can help with testing new websites. Do all social buttons work? Do all social sharing buttons go to the correct places? Does your website’s look and feel coordinate with your social media channels? Are your website URLs up to date in your social media profiles so that social users can easily find your site? All of these things matter to create a cohesive online presence, and stellar experience for the user.

Social is constantly changing

Social media marketers are fully aware that the social media landscape is always changing. With new social networks popping up all the time and well-established social networks like Facebook and Twitter changing their layouts and algorithms, how are companies possibly able to keep up? That’s where we come in! It’s our job as social media strategists to know the ins and outs of these different social networks, and to help clients (and the companies that we work for) work through the changes.

We also develop our fortune telling skills (Oh, that paperweight? I think you mean my crystal ball?). We must predict what will work for our clients in three months, rather than relying on today’s best practices. We also help early adopters decide where the potential benefits outweigh the risks of trying something new or different in social.

Not only do the social networks change – the audiences evolve as well. With more and more people flocking to social media (72% of all internet users), it’s important to understand your audiences. You can’t just think of them as your social media audience. You have to think in terms of your Facebook audience, your Twitter audience, your Google+ audience and so on. Your social media strategists spend hours on these different social networks, and they understand these different audiences – use their knowledge while marketing your content across multiple platforms.

Social without a strategy can fail – big time

It’s not enough anymore to simply push your content out onto social media and hope for a good response. It requires a lot of effort. A successful social media strategy requires time to grow and maintain your audience, learn what they engage with, and execute based on how they operate.

Social isn’t an immediate source of revenue for companies (generally, it’s second-hand ROI). So, clients often ask me “why should I hire a social media strategist?” A presence on social media can help you build trust with your audience, and, if done correctly, turn that audience into lifelong customers.

Social drives micro conversions

Social media may not directly drive sales (at least, not always), but social is a key driver of micro conversions-actions that users take before making a purchase. These can include email list opt-ins, social follows, new visitors to your website, lead generation, etc…In essence, social media can drive users to become familiar with your brand and, hopefully, lead them to become a future customer.

In social media, you need to map out your goals, build a strong foundation, and then begin building on that foundation with a strong strategy. That’s what social media marketers do. Yes, we love to play on Facebook (and Twitter and Pinterest and…). But, we spend most of our time studying, learning and improving ways for you to grow your business using social media, so you don’t have to. That’s why you need us.

The post Why Social Media Strategists Matter in the Digital Marketing Realm appeared first on Portent.