5 ways to build a creative and engaging story through the use of snapchat

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If we are looking at building creative and engaging stories through Snapchat we need look no further than aspiring Snapchater DJ Khaled. During the end of 2015 DJ Khaled took to snapchat to express himself to his ever growing fan base, and has now created a cult following through the social network.  His Snaps are entertaining, provocative, and offered a behind-the-scenes look into his lifestyle.

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Instead of building a huge Follower count, Snapchat lets you engage a smaller community of your biggest fans—people who are genuinely interested in what you’re doing, and this is how DJ Khaled built his success because of the nature of snaps, they are different, funny, and send a good message to those that watch.

The facts

  • There are over 100 million daily users on the platform.
  • Over 5 billion video views happen every day on snapchat.
  • According to ComScore, 11% of the total us digital population can be reached on snapchat.
  • 71% of snapchat users are under 34 years old (that’s a lot of millennials).
  • 30% of us millennial internet users use snapchat regularly.
  • – (Kumar, 2016)

Being able to provide content with a limited life span can be very difficult for marketers as they need to get their message across within a 10 second window, but if they plan to make the message longer they need a way to interlock each 10 second window with the next to make sure that it has a good flow and to continue the user’s engagement.

  1. Tell a story

It might seem very obvious but the key to use Snapchat well as a digital marketing tool you need to tell a story. Create a story from the morning to the evening sharing both photos and videos of the projects that you are working on, with exclusive sneak peeks of upcoming content, this gives the impression that you are taking your audience on a journey with your life. There is much more power in a story’s being told directly from the person whose story it is, then any document could ever present.

  1. Give exclusive behind the scenes look which the user otherwise wouldn’t get the opportunity to see 

Just like with other social media platforms, providing exclusive content is a great way to encourage people to engage with your account. Telling a story is a fantastic way of sharing content that wouldn’t usually be shared elsewhere online, however, offering more enticing content is always encouraged. Build anticipation by sharing previews of new content or products, host a giveaway, offer perks, and share exclusive promotions only available on Snapchat.

  1. Get Personal

If you’re feeling a little cut off from your viewers, reach out to them and engage on a personal level. Snapchat doesn’t always have to be about adding more and more content to your story. Snap content, products, or design ideas and ask viewers what they think; ask for feedback and reply on a personal level. You could even ask viewers to screen shot their favorites to vote. Snapchat was built for one-on-one engagement so it’s super easy to create a more personal social media experience.

  1. Be Memorable

As mentioned previously snaps USP is the content that self-destruct. Although this feature makes the service more engaging for users, it also means businesses have a very short window of time to capture customers and effectively deliver their message. The content can be produced by the company or by someone that you hire, this can be either celebrities or pop culture personalities that are well known. Therefore, making sure that marketing on it needs to state the value proposition very quickly, and call to action needs to be simple, easy and memorable.

  1. Relate to your audience

Snapchat marketing isn’t for everyone. The platform is primarily used by younger generations a third of 18- to 24-year-olds use Snapchat, making it a powerful marketing channel only if your business caters to younger customers. By understand the demographic of those users, you can make your content relevant to your audience, making the content something that they would want to watch as they can relate and that it would benefit them in some way. Doing this point will also make your content memorable.

References

Kumar, B. (2016). Snapchat Marketing: The Key to Discovering and Engaging Your Most Loyal Fans – Shopify. [online] Shopify’s Ecommerce Blog – Ecommerce News, Online Store Tips & More. Available at: https://www.shopify.co.uk/blog/75307013-snapchat-marketing-the-key-to-discovering-and-engaging-your-most-loyal-fans [Accessed 5 May 2016].

Angeles, S. (2014). 3 Effective Ways to Use Snapchat for Your Business. [online] Business News Daily. Available at: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7233-snapchat-marketing-business.html [Accessed 5 May 2016].

The advantages and disadvantages of Celebrity endorsement via social media

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For as long as there was marketing and advertisement, there have been organisations that use celebrities to endorse their product or service. Getting the right celebrity with the right background and with the right character can do wonders for your brand image. Jin and Phua, (2014) defines a celebrity endorser as “any individual who enjoys public recognition and who uses this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with it in an advertisement”

Friedman and Friedman, (1979) suggested that celebrities are more effective than other types of endorsers. Consumers tend to be generally attracted to celebrities as part of their social self and to the objects associated with them, therefore aligning their interest with those of a celebrity who they look up to and use that to promote a brand can be very persuasive (Dwivedi, McDonald and Johnson, 2014).

Selecting the right celebrity for a brand

Popularity is a large selling point when it comes to companies choosing you to be part of their campaign, therefore if you have a large following on social media, then your reach will also be greater. This is what companies look for, so that their brand, product or service will reach a large and wide audience. Jin and Phua, (2014) gives an example where the most-followed Twitter accounts as of 2013 belong to pop stars, including Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry (each with more than 30 million followers). The more followers one gains on Twitter, the greater perceived social influence one has. This is because tweets are broadcasted to each and every follower, who may then retweet these posts on their own profiles, which are then rebroadcast to thousands of other Twitter members. This would be the same for other social media sites like, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram which especially ideal way of endorsing products, because of the visual aspect of it.

In 2006 alone $2 billion was spent on celebrity advertising in the United States alone and in 2011, Nike spent $2.4 billion on celebrity endorsements. Companies invest in celebrities to improve brand recognition and trustworthiness and to create positive attitudes or distinct personalities for the endorsed brand. An example of this would be those consumers who aspire to be as successful and confident as Roger Federer, who endorses Gillette fusion razors. From this the consumer may engage in tennis and use Gillette razors and become motivated to enhance their own self-image by identifying themselves through that celebrity reference (Dwivedi, McDonald and Johnson, 2014).

Instagram

Instagram has become a huge tool where celebrities can post a picture or a short video of them using or experiencing a product or service provided by a company for them to endorse.

An example would be Gigi Hadid, because she signed a major contract with Maybelline in early 2015 (Wagoner, 2015).

Screen Shot 2016-05-04 at 23.43.02Audience:

  • Facebook: 2,816,711 likes
  • Twitter: 1.96 million followers
  • Instagram: 17.1 million followers

However, celebrity endorsement can be done badly giving off a bad image to the brand for example this sprite endorsement with LeBron James, it is obvious with staged imagery, bad photography and unrelated hashtags, marketing the drink so obviously it almost could be deemed offensive. Celebrity endorsements can be perceived as fake through the overuse of promotional hashtags, product placement and mock enthusiasm.

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Snapchat

Snapchat even though its new to social network market, it has been making strides in being successful in celebrity endorsements. Companies that want to snag millennial eyeballs turn to Snapchat for obvious reasons, Using the essence of stories to build up a creative story through the use of celebrities. Earlier this year, Snapchat found that 60% to 70% of users stopped watching ads on the app just three seconds in. Coca Cola have been able to turn that around through their snapchat account, being able to tailor its ad content to the messaging app. It’s important that If you’re hiring influencers for your campaigns, give them full control. Don’t censor your influencers; let them create content they know will be resonate with your audience. Cody Johns is a social media star who takes over Coca-Cola’s Snapchat from time to time. In a recent campaign for the beverage brand, he was given the keys to the account to help market their sponsorship of a NASCAR race.

And recently Singer Selena Gomez took over the profile showing backstage footage of her revival tour, all while promoting the Coca Cola brand.

DJ Khaled has recently been asked to endorse a book by Arianna Huffington, called ‘The Sleep Revolution’, its clear to see that this celebrity has been asked to be seen reading this book within his snapchat story, as his fanbase reach is wide and large, and this is a good way to get your book advertised to millions of viewers.  However this somewhat does seem disingenuous as those that view DJ Khaled’s snapchats are aware that he does not show that he enjoys the company of a good book within his snapchat story, therefore this is can be an example of poor product placement. 

DJ Khaled

 

Vine

Viner’s can make a lot of money by endorsements depended on their fan base, Curtis Lepore was one of the first users to get an endorsement, from clients like Virgin Mobile, Aquafina and Jolly Rancher. Lepore told the magazine he can make $1,000 for re-Vining someone’s video, similar to retweets on Twitter, or $8,000 through product placement in a six-second clip of his own (syracuse.com, 2016).

Therefore, the overall benefits of celebrity endorsements are that they help you to tap into new markets by adding a known face automatically attracts new target audience. It also helps to personify your brand; the attributes of the celebrity automatically get transferred to the brand. Finally, it builds trust and credibility for your brand.

There are also some downfalls however, once the celebrities’ popularity decreases so does your brand so you need to make sure that you revive with new celebrities to endorses the products to keep the market growing. Celebrities may also overshadow your brand because they focus more on how big they are and have absolutely no brand recall. Finally, celebrity endorsements are hugely expensive, so keep in mind that you might need to spend millions of your company’s revenue, to keep them on board.

References

Friedman, H.H. and Friedman, L. (1979), “Endorser effectiveness by product type”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 19, October, pp. 63-71.

Hung, K. (2014). Why Celebrity Sells: A Dual Entertainment Path Model of Brand Endorsement. Journal of Advertising, 43(2), pp.155-166.

Dwivedi, A., McDonald, R. and Johnson, L. (2014). The impact of a celebrity endorser’s credibility on consumer self-brand connection and brand evaluation. J Brand Manag, 21(7-8), pp.559-578.

Seno, D. and Lukas, B. (2007). The equity effect of product endorsement by celebrities. European Journal of Marketing, 41(1/2), pp.121-134.

Jin, S. and Phua, J. (2014). Following Celebrities’ Tweets About Brands: The Impact of Twitter-Based Electronic Word-of-Mouth on Consumers’ Source Credibility Perception, Buying Intention, and Social Identification With Celebrities. Journal of Advertising, 43(2), pp.181-195.

Wagoner, M. (2015). Exclusive! Gigi Hadid Is the New Face of Maybelline. [online] Vogue. Available at: http://www.vogue.com/8088203/gigi-hadid-new-face-of-maybelline-new-york/ [Accessed 4 May 2016].

Fast Company. (2015). How Coca-Cola Cracked Snapchat. [online] Available at: http://www.fastcompany.com/3052407/behind-the-brand/how-coca-cola-cracked-snapchat [Accessed 4 May 2016].

syracuse.com. (2016). Vine celebrities can make $8,000 with a 6-second video, ex-Syracuse singer reveals. [online] Available at: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/05/vine_celebrities_money_ads_curtis_lepore_videos_jessi_smiles.html [Accessed 4 May 2016].

How to prepare yourself for a showcase road show promotional event

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Preparing for any event can be a daunting experience, even more so for a corporate event, and even more so if the event will be a roadshow therefore knowing the fundamental areas to keep your focus on can lead to an eventful showcase to your demographic. Roadshows can be ideal as they can relate directly to the audience’s leisure.

Roadshows

Roadshows promotional events can reach pockets of wider target markets at a relatively low cost and can also build interest through anticipation and accumulating media coverage, as well as through UGC.

Have a look at another blog which I explain the benefits of UGC.

A road show has aspects of ‘the carnival coming to town’ in that news of it can travel from one location to the next before the actual event, to be anticipated.

A good example of a good roadshow, was Coca Colas ‘share a coke’ campaign, which saw a rise in people drinking coke because of the personalised labels.

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Source: Coca Cola

They saw an increase in interest throughout their user base and then moved to open kiosks as well as implementing a 65 experiential stops on the Share a Coke roadshow tour when they would go around the nation personalising coke bottles, the below promotional video from Coke explains all:

Source: http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/stories/history/advertising/share-a-coke/

Your Objective

You have to know why you want to plan this event and for what purpose, and who is your targeted audience, events can be a great communication tool. They can be used to promote a number of things like the sponsor’s brand or the event organiser’s service. Masterman and Wood, (2006) say that this type of promotion has emerged from lifestyle marketing which involves matching the offering to the consumer’s lifestyle.

Alongside these objectives should include the number of expected attendees, an expectation of this would be generated through the interaction and activeness of your user-base that are contributing within social media, once a campaign has been launched on various platforms and a number of those signed up to attend the event can give you a good indication.

Those attending need to be the best prospect of your objective, however you want to attract a new consumer base, therefore you need a mix between those already aware of your brand and those that have not yet been exposed to your brand, those existing customers can be your advocates that would ad credibility to your promotional message.

Adding value

Why should your audience take the time to come to your event, you have to make it desirable by adding some time of value, whether that is having popular artists and music, all the way to giving advice sessions, talks, networking opportunities with the presence of local media etc.

Quality is always better than Quantity, therefore giving away free samples is always accepted in any culture, so by doing this would really give you an edge, and would get your attendees is a good mood for the activities that are ahead.

Holding your Event

Choosing where to hold your events is very integral to the success of any event, therefore…

Areas to think about are:

  • Research into possible venues. Contacting local shopping centers, or large areas that can rent out a venue for this event.
  • Consider the cost, duration of hire, what time you can gain access, where can you store items, etc?

There are companies that you can consult that can help you with the planning process of your roadshow:

Have a look at On Show Events Website bellow:

http://www.onshowevents.com/roadshows.html

Exhibit yourself

The event needs to communicate something about the product, brand, idea or organisation to the target audience. This would be communicated to your audience through various social media outlets which would be repeated a number of times up to the day of the event. Informing the target market that the event is happening using a range of well-targeted media to reach the desired audience can also ensure that the event has a wider reaching impact than simply those that attend.

Coca Cola

Source: http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/stories/history/advertising/share-a-coke/

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Figure 1: The process needed for successful implementation of an event, (Masterman and Wood, 2006)

Collaboration

Enterprisenation.com, (2016) suggest that because roadshows can be challenging, because of the multiple locations that you are to hold an event, they suggest collaborating with with local enterprise agencies, universities or colleges and local businesses.  This way they would be able to help promote your event to the local community as well as possibly helping with the support with venues and supplies.

Use Social media

Finally, the use of Social media is your biggest tool both during and after the implementation of the event. Therefore, platforms like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram can be very useful, along with a Hashtag so that you can collect data from those that participants that joined the event, to see their opinions, what they thought, what the company could do differently. From one event to another it wouldn’t be too difficult to incorporate these ideas in the next location during the tour. This can likewise help to involve non-participants, to encourage post-event interest in the brand and create an interest in future events.

Summary

All in all, the advantages of using a roadshow as a method of interacting with your audience directly, in a very cost effective way as a marketing tool. If executed well it can have a positive effect on your sales. Its allows the brand to have a direct and lasting relationship with their consumers, not just a corporation to customers, but putting a face behind to the brand. Consumers must be left with the feeling that they have connected with the brand through a multi-dimensional experience that triggers all of their senses.

The downsides of a roadshow are that that if you haven’t done your research prior to know who your audience is and why and how you aim to reach them, then there is a chance that you wont impact them they way that you hoped, participants may have had a great time at the event with this having little or no effect on their attitude to the brand.  therefore, you have to make sure that your message that your trying to portray is relatable to your audience.

References

Enterprisenation.com. (2016). Three top tips to running a successful roadshow. [online] Available at: https://www.enterprisenation.com/blog/posts/three-top-tips-to-running-a-successful-roadshow [Accessed 13 Apr. 2016].

Masterman, G. and Wood, E. (2006). Promotional Events. Innovative Marketing Communications, Strategies for the event industries, pp.215-233.

Filothea.com. (2016). Road Shows | FILOTHEA. [online] Available at: http://www.filothea.com/portfolio/road-shows/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2016].

Measuring the success of your roadshow promotional event

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After months of touring on a roadshow, you need to see a return on investment (ROI) on what this event has done for your company. Therefore, it’s imperative that each promotional event is evaluated thoroughly against the objectives set, as well as knowing the tools to see tangible results.

Evaluating the event’s effectiveness may be carried out by the organisation itself or by independent researchers, but it needs to be thorough, systematic and, above all, objective if it is to be of used in future campaigns.

Understanding the ROI of an awareness driven campaign like a roadshow is going to be measured by how many more people learn about your event than before you began your inbound marketing.

Google Analytics

One way you can measure a ROI would be an increase in traffic to your website, if you assume that your website has been generating 5000 visitors a month currently. Of those 5000, 40% are returning visitors and the remaining 60% are new, this would mean that 3000 of those visiting came because of the interest generated from their experience to your brand through your roadshow tour. Not only this but google analytics can be used in various ways also. URL Destination where your able to measure once a user has reached a certain page on your website, for example once they click your web link and reach your landing page, or if they sign up to a newsletter, and they get sent to a ‘thank you’ page this can be recorded to see how many people have signed up to your newsletter. Time on Site, where you can also measure how much time visitors spend on your site. You can judge success by the amount of engagement that you have, this could be an increase in comments, email signups or social shares.

Perception should be monitored before and after an event to track shifts. Social media has brought endless tracking opportunities, and it’s particularly useful for capturing longer-term results. It’s essential that conversations are monitored throughout a campaign and metrics from channels such as Facebook and Twitter are integrated as part of wider ROI measurements (Whelan, 2016).

Number of Twitter mentions

There are number of metrics which you can use like a hashtag where those can follow up upon the end of an event to share the views and also have other people that didn’t join the event to also continue on the conversation. An increase in exposure is always good and if you see that there is a positive conversation going on than this puts your brand in a positive light. An increase in followers on the twitter platform is a good indication. Along with other social media platforms.

Sales

Typically, you would expect for sales to increase on whatever you were promoting during the event.

Participation

Providing the means for businesses to talk directly with customers and prospects is one of the strongest opportunities presented by roadshow marketing. Evaluation must be able to facilitate and capture these conversations and an innovative approach using mobile devices or video booths can help encourage visitor participation.

However overall these are some techniques to help you identify if your event was successful, but in truth it is quite difficult to measure its success, as there are not a lot of metrics that you can use to specifically get data and compare your position before and after a promotional event. But this also depends on the type of product that you are promoting. A concrete example would be if they signed up to come to this event with their email, and they are a new customer to your brand, and after the event they bought the product from your website and they use the same email, then you can easily identify that they event helped boost their intention to purchase your product as they liked what they saw, but unfortunately this can’t be guaranteed with each and every company.

References

Masterman, G. and Wood, E. (2006). Promotional Events. Innovative Marketing Communications, Strategies for the event industries, pp.215-233.

Kumar, A. (2012). Three Secrets to Using Google Analytics for Measuring Your Website’s ROI. [online] Entrepreneur. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222947 [Accessed 14 Apr. 2016].

Whelan, N. (2016). Effective roadshow measurement techniques. [online] EventMS. Available at: http://www.eventms.com/news/staff-blog/effective-roadshow-measurement-techniques/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2016].

Appealing to the next generation – Generation Z

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Millennials as of yet have been the largest consumer group for most brands with $200 billion in buying power. However, the next generation of buying power is with Generation Z, the next cohort in this cycle of commerce, the oldest of this generation being teenagers were born between the mid 1990’s until the present, with $44 billion in buying power and growing as they make up nearly 26% of the worlds population.  So its no wonder why brands need to start adjusting the marketing techniques in order to relate with this fast adapting generation, to gain their trust as they will become very valuable really soon (Garton, 2015).

Gen Z have grown up with the internet, iPhone and smart TV’s making them the most informed Generation with all the knowledge that they would need readily at their fingertips, therefore marketers need to change the way that they approach consumer campaigns over the next decade.

Lobato, (2015) wrote an article with Text100 after conducting a study of 1000 participants, from this it was outlined that Gen Z are less likely to be affected in the way Millennials where in terms of being traditional and conformity. As they were being influenced by so much technology and social media, they have learnt how to express themselves in a more creative way and “shuns social conformity and wants to make a difference in the world”.

Social media is obviously very important with Gen Z as they can never be offline, therefore being up to date with most of what is happening in the world is very important.Gen Z respondents admitted to watching YouTube for more than two hours every day.The report also suggested that Facebook still owns social media, with 84 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds and 46 percent of 8- to 12-year-olds holding active accounts.

Organisations need to tap into this idea of not advertising in a way which seems fake, where they are only saying that their product or service is helping the world, in which case would have been enough for the previous generation, however marketers need to take their campaigns a step farther to engage Gen Z more directly by showing how they are changing the world. What’s interesting also is the fact that 67 percent of Gen Z prefers narratives and storytelling, so it’s no wonder Gen Z is flocking to YouTube, and therefore other social media outlets could work quite well in this aspect like Snapchat which bases its heart in narrative story telling.

Not only this but by study conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc reported that Gen Z are the most positive about ethical diversity, by existing in the most diverse social circles and are most likely the last generation to believe in the ‘American Dream’ as well as being affected by blending gender roles, to find out more please click here (source: Gen Z).

A quote by Lenovo’s CMO David Roman: “Consumers want to feel inspired and part of something exciting, so telling a brand’s unique story is a powerful tool in achieving consumer loyalty and engagement,”.

Therefore, to conclude it is still early to understand how business will be able to adapt their strategies for Gen Z or how commerce or e-commence will be in the next 20-30 years? Will their openness to diversity create demands for more diverse representation in programming and advertising? Or will there willingness to make the world a better place allow business to change also to make themselves better as well as their products to suit this trend? Only time will tell.

 

References

Garton, C. (2015). 4 Marketing Tactics for Appealing to Generation Z. [online] Entrepreneur. Available at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252923 [Accessed 27 Jan. 2016].

Lobato, M. (2015). Marketing to Generation Z: Why Your Millennial Plan is Kaput. [online] Text100 Integrated Communications. Available at: https://www.text100.com/articles/digital-marketing/marketing-to-generation-z/ [Accessed 27 Jan. 2016].

User generated content vs Professionally generated content

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This day and age, social media plays an integral part in different marketing platforms and marketing strategies in general. It has gained more respect than just an area where younger generations can go to pass their time. However, businesses have realised the potential that this could have, by tapping into this as a means to reach out to wider audiences, that are already readily available.

Visuals are more stimulating to the mind than black lines on a white background and the cliché, ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’, is more relevant now then it ever was, using a single picture on Instagram which can say more than a paragraph on a page. The rising age of ephemeral content where Snapchat is taking the social media game by storm, where content can be shared and viewed for only a limited period, has this generation engulfed by it.

However, what is more effective, content that’s made by the user for the user or content that is made by business intended to entice the consumer?

In any case content using the means of a video, which you are trying to portray some sort of message needs to be succinct and presented in a memorable way. Done well, a video can be extraordinarily persuasive.

However, to make good and often effective content which resonates with the consumer can be quite costly, hiring out cameras and cameramen, developing a script on what you want the audience learn and bring this altogether with editing can be time consuming and expensive. Therefore, having those that will use your product or service (the consumer) to produce your content in the eyes of the consumer to the consumer (user-generated content), could be more effective and less costly.

The benefit of this is that for consumers, besides the potential to inform or entertain, the content gives a glimpse into real data from other people, un-touched by regular media outlets (Krumm, J., Davies, N. and Narayanaswami, C., 2008).

Snapchat has really invested in this idea of user generated content, with a new feature called live stories, this essentially is the users posting content of pictures and video of a particular event as it happens, Snapchat are relying on their user base to post onto these stories which others around the globe can view as it happens.

Not only this but once you see a particular moment in these stories you can swipe to see other angles of this moment taken from other users on the social network using an algorithm-based curation, which they call story explorer, this is essentially creating more engagement between their users, creating an integrated network of people contributing to produce a story that can be enjoyed by potentially billions of people.

Once more this is an opportunity for advertising where business can use this to increase their brand awareness to the billions of those that are not there during that event (Wagner, 2015).

In an article by Mashable UK with the help of marketing start-up Crowd tap and the global research company Ipsos they explore how the connected generation get their news. Knoblauch, (2014,) outlined that in actuality millennials (those born between 1980-1995) trust user-generated content (UGC) as much or more than professionally made content, in fact UGC is also 20% more influential when it comes to purchasing and 35% more memorable than other types of media.

They surveyed 839 people aged between 18-36 in 2014, what they found was that within an 18 hour per day media intake, 5 hours was spent on UGC which equalled to 30%, 33% was spent on traditional media (TV, radio, etc) while the remaining 37% was spent on other media. Most of UGC came from social networks at 71% while 60% was content from the TV outlets. Please have a look at this image bellow which would outline more about the advantages of UGC over traditional content.

Millennials-Heart-UGC-Infographic

Image 1: Millennials love UGC

Most consumers, regardless of age, go to the internet to research purchases. And most of them look for user-generated content (UGC) to help them buy. According to the survey, over half (51%) of Americans trust UGC more than other information on a company website (16%) or news articles about the company (14%) when looking for information about a brand, product, or service. (source: Bazaarvoice)

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Image 2: Top purchases that wont be completed without UGC (source: Bazaarvoice)

However, with all this in mind, it does look very convincing that UGC is much better than professionally made content. A study by comscore a leader in measuring the digital world, and EXPO, the first consumer network focused on creating and distributing high impact product videos found that UGC and professionally made content work better hand in Hand, they both work very well as their own entities however when combined they were more effective than both elements individually (comScore, Inc, 2012).

A quote from comscore on this study:

“It seems that professionally-produced content and user-generated product videos are each successful at delivering different key elements to a consumer through video ‘advertising’,” said Jessica Thorpe, Vice President of Marketing at EXPO. “We found that consumers perceived feature benefits as more believable when coming directly from the brand through professionally-produced content, while the unbiased user-gen videos were more believable in verifying specific product claims, such as superiority and convenience. When used together, all of the perceived gaps get filled in and consumers become more confident in their purchase decision, resulting in better sales effectiveness from the advertising.”

You can find the results and more information, here: comscore.

Therefore, in conclusion those companies that are only producing professionally made content are not harnessing as much as they can without allowing a means for UGC as well, with means such as Snapchat stories, mini viral videos or even interactive videos for more engagement etc.

References

ComScore, Inc, (2012). comScore Study Finds Professionally-Produced Video Content And User-Generated Product Videos Exhibit Strong Synergy in Driving Sales Effectiveness. [online] Available at: http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press-Releases/2012/3/comScore-Study-Finds-Professionally-Produced-Video-Content-And-User-Generated-Product-Videos-Exhibit-Strong-Synergy-in-Driving-Sales-Effectiveness [Accessed 26 Jan. 2016].

Knoblauch, M. (2014). Millennials Trust User-Generated Content 50% More Than Other Media. [online] Mashable. Available at: http://mashable.com/2014/04/09/millennials-user-generated-media/#uWA4UGZB9gqa [Accessed 26 Jan. 2016].

Krumm, J., Davies, N. and Narayanaswami, C., 2008. User-generated content. IEEE Pervasive Computing, (4), pp.10-11.

Wagner, K. (2015). Snapchat Gets Deeper Into Live Events, Wants More User-Generated Content. [online] Re/code. Available at: http://recode.net/2015/11/23/snapchat-gets-deeper-into-live-events-wants-more-user-generated-content/ [Accessed 26 Jan. 2016].

Cineworld E-Newsletters, a nuisance? or pure genius?

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After reading the journal article by (Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F, 2012) on the role e-marketing plays within website advertising. I started to looked into the types of e-mails i receive.

Annually, monthly and seasonally I’m bombarded with E-newsletters from Cineworld enticing me with all the latest and greatest movies that are currently released during that period of the year for me to go and watch. However do they actually work?

There are many areas of concern for most folks about receiving e-mails from organisations as they see it as spam or otherwise known as unsolicited e-mails (Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F, 2012).

From the extreme number of complaints this caused, permission based emails, where enforced, which meant that only companies can send e-mails if consumers opt-in to it. This could happen when they first sign up to the organisation to purchase a product or service, they can give them the option to sign up to receive information/newsletters from the company.

This is exactly what happened to me, I use Cineworld quite often as I love movies, I purchase my ticket online and I was offered to receive information about the latest movies which I agreed to. Recipients are more likely to open and read such messages if its more personalised to them, as Cineworld will track my movie habits, this was a major incentive for me to “opt in” to the companies e- mailing list in the prosect of receiving material thats tailored to myself.

Analysing Cineworld’s newsletters there are certainly areas that stand out and areas of concern.

Firstly when having received the e-mail into my inbox, the E-mail subject line was  ‘my cineworld newsletter’, from the study that was conducted,(12 cases); out of the 20 companies, had their company name plus the word newsletter. There was nothing really to entice the customer to open that email, if they are subscribed to many newsletters, then this could just add to the pile and discourage them from opening it up, if it is that plain. However if the subject line was different and unique, still a newsletter but called something different, this could intrigue them to see what its about.

“Approximately 44% of marketing e-mails offered no incentive (in the subject line) and most commonly these were newsletters, product information e-mails, or “teaser” messages about forthcoming new products”

(Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F, 2012).

What is good, what works well?

Headline

The first noticeable part of the newsletter would be that you know it is from Cineworld, by the brand logo on the top left hand side of the e-mail. A study conducted by Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F, (2012), on 20 companies, all receiving their emails, throughout the year explained that ‘Brand logos were used in 99% of the e-mails in their sample’. The managers interviewed from this study confirmed this to be the most important position on the page.

Alongside that would be links to various social media sites which would link to Cineworld’s pages on those platforms, as well as this, if the recipient likes what they saw within the newsletter they have also opted for the option to ‘send to a friend’, which is easier and convenient.

The very large header also works well as its drags the recipients eyes straight away and dials them into the story of the newsletter.

Benefits of E-newletters (perspective of the company)

  • Highly trackable- the company can track what has happened to the e-mail once received by the recipients, how many have acknowledged it, opened it, put it in their Junk folders etc.
  • Delete or opened- They know how many people clicked onto it and read through it or just opened it and then deleted it, or deleted it straight away before opening it.
  • Number of seconds open- Once opened they can track how long someone has spent viewing the page.
  • Any scrolling?
  • Links followed- any links followed once clicked, as this would link back to their website which can be tracked also.

Call to action

The CTA from the landing page is very simple, they want you to buy tickets to see the movie, the way that they can see if the newsletter is working in that aspect is simple, the increased number of clicks which lead to an increased number of traffic on their website, which leads to an increase in sales of tickets. All this can be tracked and monitored by Cineworld.

Personalisation

There is a small sense of personalisation, as it has your name at the top of the newsletter, even though they have spelt it wrong, this alone can put me off from reading the newsletter, as it is not addressing me right from the start. It does not feel like its addressing you personally. More like a generic e-mail sent to 1000 other people, which it is, don’t get me wrong, however it should not feel like that. It should feel more welcoming speak to me as if they know what I like and what I should go an watch. E-mails such as this for a company such as Cineworld should try their best, so that every section the reader scrolls past makes them want to go an see that movie ASAP!

10 out of the 20 retail firms studied, 50%, used no personalisation. The other 10 cases, the level of personalization varied from specific customer details such as title, given name, and family name. Therefore this is quite common for organisations not to put a lot of personalisation in their emails which should be a key concern of theirs.

Template/design

The Design and layout of this newsletter is very angular and have a very structure layout, very many boxes and only one long rectangular box in the middle to split the body of the newsletter. I think the longer the e-mail, the weaker it gets at the bottom and If an e-mail is unnecessarily long the customer will switch off.

What does not work?

From looking at the pure content that this email has to offer me, I would say that it does catch my eye with the first Large Picture of the new movie, The hunger games part 2, as that is something I would want to see, however as I scroll and continue to scroll the content becomes less personalised, less towards my interests, and just information and all the new releases which put me off and will make me close down the email and delete it. It does not speak about any offers/promotions on offer. Nor does it encourage the unlimited Cineworld card, which I would recommend should be on each issue to re-remind the reader and persuade them to get it.

There are certain way to improve your e-newletter, take a look at this online article -> 10 Ways to Improve the Open Rates of Your Marketing Emails.

What  could be improved? Popular now

I think adding some form of animation or interactivity would be a good idea, as of now its all static. It could be a good idea to an the trailer to some movies right on the newsletter, instead of having to view it once clicked to go onto the Cineworld website.

Opt-out

As illustrated by the image below, if you so wish to opt out to the e-mails and e-newletters that you get from these companies, there is an option to do this, most emails have it. Once you scroll all the way to the bottom, you find some information which looks like this:

Opt-out

It asks you if you no longer wish to receive emails, to press the unsubscribe button, most of the time it would automatically once clicked, or it could re-driect you to their website, where you can enter you email address again to be taken off their mailing list.

Use of imageOther things available s

You would expect for the use of images to be used quite often and to be quite vivid, however they are all linked with hyperlinks back to their webitsite, presumably for more information, however Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F, (2012) have stated that too many graphics, and too many hyperlinks have a negative effect. “If an e-mail is too complicated, the customer can feel overwhelmed or lost, which may cause them to lose focus and interest rapidly.”

Finally…

Therefore to answer the question is it a nuisance? or pure genius? I would say that it would be mostly a nuisance. Main reasons are that the personalisation towards the reader are low, its way to busy, with a lot of graphics and hyperlinks which overwhelmed me. What to take away from this is very simple, to spend to engage with those you are trying to address, todays modern world has a lot to offer. To use tracking software more intelligently and build and an algorithm which can determine what the reader would find more appealing. With e-newsletters the purpose is to inform, which this e-mail did do, but their presentation made it difficult.

All companies use e-marketing in various ways, some do it very well, some do not, what is important is to find a balance.

 

References

1. Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F. (2012). Web advertising: the role of email marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), pp. 843–848.

 

Case Study on the use Brandwatch within Argos

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This information is coming from a Case Study released by Brandwatch.com and how they are leading a ‘high street revolution’.

Summarising that the ‘UK’s leading digital retailer’ known as Argos have a new concept to open 53 digital stores around the UK.  Using the words leading social media listening platform, Brandwarch analystics, Argos wants to understand your reaction towards these stores.

The digital age is upon us, and Argos wants a slice of that pie. With a staggering 20 million people around the UK already owning a tablet, it makes sense for them to be targeting that sector.

Instead of walking in a store, and finding catalouges, you will be greeted with an IPad/Tablet to make your purchases.

But how will this affect you?

To find this out, Argos thought that if the customer had something to say they would turn to social media, which they call it the modern day ‘word-of-mouth’.

But with all the customers that come into the store each year, 123 million to be exact, how can they manage the data, compress it and make sense of it and find out exactly how the customer would feel about this change, and quick enough to do something about it..

Using this intelligent software Argos intended to use data such as location, gender, city of origin to work out where the complaint was coming from, and to fix it. Or if Argos is being spoken about in general within the social media platforms, they would know.

Brandwatch use ‘inteligent sentiment analysis’  to create a natural language which Argos can understand. This would allow them to undersatand the person behind the comments and work how they felt, why they felt that way, and from there they can provide tangible solutions instantly.

They can also find out from this data which store is performing the best amd praise staff for their hard work.

They have staff which monitor each section or area within the UK so if a tweet was made it can be filtered into the relavent catergory and can be picked up by a member of staff and then instantly be fed back into the store.

Another benefit that Argos quickly realised is that they can see what parts of the new stores men and women appreciated best, and this would work in their favour allowing them to adapt each indiviual store to the needs to those customers that visit that store! Brilliant!

At the end of the day gaining feeback from your customers is possibly the most important aspect of your business and its imperitive that you get this right, and Argos looks like they are on the right path!

 

For more information please have a look below:

Source: https://www.brandwatch.com/2015/01/argos-using-social-insights-lead-retail-revolution/