by Fronetics | Nov 7, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Fronetics is conducting a survey to determine how companies in the logistics and supply chain industries are using content and social media.
Have you ever wondered how your competitors, customers, and business partners are using modern marketing tools like social media? Are you curious how many companies like yours have a blog, how often they publish, and, more importantly, how many are generating new business from it?
Fronetics was curious about these questions and more. So we conducted our first industry-wide survey back in 2014 to learn how logistics and supply chain companies were using content and social media as part of their marketing programs.
The results were very telling. Though all reported leveraging these tools for only a short while, the majority had already seen a positive impact on their business. To read the full reports, click below.
Well, a lot has happened in two years. And, once again, Fronetics would like to take the temperature of the industry to see how the use of social media and content has changed (or stayed the same). So we are launching a new survey for individuals working in the logistics and supply chain industries to weigh in on how their companies are using these tools today.
Each survey takes about 3 minutes to complete. Results will be reported in aggregate, using no personal or company information from respondents. Those wishing to receive the completed report can indicate this preference during the survey.
Please click the buttons below to take our surveys. We look forward to hearing your responses!
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by Fronetics | Nov 1, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing
Companies dedicate enormous resources to ramping up email marketing programs around seasonal pushes, like the holidays. But do they actually get more customers?
We all know the feeling — how the office buzzes, the anticipation starts to build. Busy season is around the corner, and your team is getting ready for the big push to make this the most successful year yet. But have you ever wondered if all the extra hours and money you pour into these seasonal marketing campaigns are worth it?
As the holidays approach, many businesses, especially retailers and e-commerce companies, are starting to ask themselves this question — or, at least, they should be. At what point will creating and sending another email to your database be detrimental, rather than beneficial? How much should your messaging change? Should you try something totally new and different to catch customers’ attention?
IBM Marketing Cloud’s 2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study has some interesting answers to these questions.
The holiday email-marketing study
The 2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study is an annual report that offers insight on how many people open, click, and ignore messages from email marketers around the globe. It aggregates data from messages sent by nearly 750 companies representing 3,000 brands in 40 countries. This year, the study also examined the performance of holiday messaging versus non-holiday messaging for retail/e-commerce vendors.
Most retailers send at least double the amount of emails during the holidays (defined as Thanksgiving to New Year’s) as they do during the non-holiday period. They entice potential buyers with aggressive pricing, free shipping, and deal deadlines. But do these more frequent, offer-loaded emails make a difference? Let’s take a look.
Click and open rates
In almost every respect, non-holiday emails outperformed holiday emails in a significant way. Open rates during the holidays were 18.8% lower than during non-holidays. Mean click-through rates differed by 28%. Mean click-to-open rates remained similar.
There are several takeaways here. Yes, open rates were lower during the holidays. But because the volume of emails sent during this period increased significantly, it’s likely that the total number of emails opened was greater during the holidays than non-holiday period. That’s a positive thing.
That being said, click-through rates decreased pretty dramatically. You would expect that special holiday offers would entice recipients to click through more often. But increased email volume seemed to detract from such motivating offers.
Similarly, click-to-open rates measure the effectiveness of email content (in driving a reader to take the requested action, e.g. redeem an offer). These rates remained relatively similar across both time periods, which is surprising. With more people looking to make purchases during the holidays, you would think that more recipients would act on the offers presented in the holiday emails. Again, increased email volume seemed to detract from their doing so.
List churn metrics
Increased email volume meant retailers processed more hard bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints during the holidays.
Here are the takeaways. Firstly, more emails equal more hard bounces. That seems logical enough.
Though unsubscribe and spam-complaint rates were slightly lower during the holidays, that doesn’t equal success. Because of the frequency math effect, retailers are losing a larger number of subscribers because they are sending more emails.
Say your company sends one email per week during the year, and two emails per week during the holidays. If you usually have 10 people unsubscribe per week during the year, approximately 20 people are unsubscribing during holiday weeks. That can deplete your database pretty quickly — especially if you’re more than doubling your email volume.
Conclusions
The folks at IBM Marketing Cloud had some interesting thoughts about their findings and how to increase the effectiveness of holiday emails.
For one, while increasing the number of emails you send during the holidays isn’t inherently a bad idea, as more emails equates to more total opens, many retailers are going about it the wrong way, as is evidenced by lagging click-through rates.
That’s because when many marketers ramp up email volume, they forget all the best practices that make their emails successful in the first place: personalization, targeted content, and offers that are relevant to the specific recipient based on his/her place in the buyer’s journey. Personalizing email content will help improve click-through and click-to-open rates, which could dramatically impact sales given the increased email volume.
Further, a courtesy head’s up about increasing email frequency could reduce the number of opt-outs and spam complaints. IBM Marketing Cloud suggests that companies should “consider sending an email to subscribers before you ramp up frequency, explaining the increased frequency, what kind of promotions they can expect, and shipping and return policies. Include prominent language about frequency options and link to your preference center. In addition, revise your preference-center language and options to encourage unsubscribers to opt down or snooze emails instead of simply opting out.”
Application across verticals
While the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s are not every business’s busy season, the findings from this study are still applicable. If your prospects experience an uptick in marketing emails during a particular season from you and your competitors, you’re likely to experience similar results.
The key in ramping up emails prior to a big push is to retain quality — that is, customizing content and offers to the particular recipient. If you can’t scale, then you shouldn’t send.
Furthermore, this study speaks to the value of a strategic, year-round marketing program that builds brand awareness and customer loyalty, regardless of how close the busy season is. If prospects grow to know and trust your brand, they’ll turn to you when it’s time to buy, regardless of how many emails you send them in the weeks prior.
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by Fronetics | Oct 10, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media
If you’re not distributing content created by others, these six facts will convince you that content curation is an essential part of any content marketing strategy.
Content will help you grow your business. By creating and distributing valuable and relevant content in a strategic and consistent manner, you can drive profitable customer action.
But, it’s not all about you. And it’s not all about the content you and/or your business creates. In fact, content curation is an essential component of a successful content marketing strategy.
What is content curation?
Content curation is the process of sorting through the vast sea of content that is the internet and sharing only that content which is most relevant to your customers.
Being able to identify, make sense of, and distribute such information makes you valuable to your customers. Over time, readers will come to know you as a trusted, reliable source of knowledge — someone who is not always trying to sell them something. You are an expert in your area of business, and you save your customers and prospects lots of time and effort distributing relevant information so they don’t have to go searching for it from independent sources.
How are other businesses handling curation?
Companies that curate content report positive effects on their business. Here are six convincing statistics about content creation for B2B marketers.
The vast majority of businesses curate content.
- 82% of marketers curate content. (IMN Inc.)
- 83.3% of marketers curate/share content from third party sources (e.g., blogs, social media, industry publications or news sites) with their customers and/or prospects. (Curata)
How often do companies curate content?
- 16% of marketers are curating for their audience every day.
- 48% are curating from third-party sources at least once a week. (Curata)
How has curating content impacted business?
- Over 50% of marketers that curate content indicate that it has increased their brand visibility, thought leadership, SEO, web traffic and buyer engagement. (Curata)
- 41% of marketers that curate content indicate it has increased the number and/or quality of their sales-ready leads. (Curata)
Does your business curate content? How do you find content to curate?
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by Fronetics | Oct 6, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
What is influencer marketing and how can supply chain companies use it to win over customers?
All eyes were on Peyton Manning following the Denver Broncos’ win over the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50. Would he use this weighty moment to announce his much-anticipated retirement? The nation was a captive audience when a reporter asked him about plans for his future.
“I’m going to drink a lot of Budweiser tonight, Tracy. I promise you that,” replied Manning. He again mentioned the beer brand by name moments later on the winner’s podium.
Budweiser was quick to assure the Twittersphere that the company had not paid Manning for his endorsement but were “delighted” that he had. I’m sure that was an understatement, given Manning’s two (free) casual mentions were valued at about $13.9 million. The now-retired quarterback just likes a good Bud Light — and that’s very good for the Budweiser brand.
This moment illustrates the power of influencer marketing. When celebrities or other popular figures become brand advocates, customers quickly follow. The potential bottom-line impact has both B2C and B2B companies thinking through how they can leverage influencer marketing in their promotional efforts. In fact, it was identified as one of the next big trends in content marketing for 2017.
What is influencer marketing?
Forbes describes influencer marketing as “a non-promotional approach to marketing in which brands focus their efforts on opinion leaders, as opposed to direct target market touchpoints.” Basically, highly visible people become brand advocates by employing your products or services in their everyday lives. There are two types: earned and paid.
Earned influencers
Earned influencers, like Manning to Budweiser, use a company’s product regularly because they like it. The most obvious examples come from the sports and entertainment sector: Marshawn Lynch and Skittles; country duo Florida Georgia Line and Fireball Whiskey; Oprah and everything on her annual Favorite Things list.
Paid influencers
Paid influencers receive compensation for using certain brands. Popular bloggers and social media users, specifically those targeting the growing millennial and mom demographics, are the most prevalent example. In fact, a number of sites — like BrandBacker and Tapinfluence — now exist to help connect brands with social influencers.
How supply chain marketers can leverage influencer marketing
Peer recommendations are increasingly important to the B2B buyers’ purchase process. In fact, nearly half listed their peers and colleagues as a top source of information when evaluating vendors, according to Demand Gen’s most recent B2B buyers survey. This sets the stage for organizations to leverage influencer marketing as a strategic tool to gain new business.
While celebrity endorsements probably aren’t feasible for the supply chain, that doesn’t mean influencer marketing is out of the question. In fact, your company likely has a number of natural brand advocates at your fingertips. Here are a few examples.
1) Your social media followers
Social media has played a prominent role in the rise of influencer marketing because it “enables peer recommendations to play a much greater role in purchasing decisions,” according to Forbes contributor Kyle Wong. So your company’s social platforms are a natural place to begin any influencer marketing campaign. As a start, check your Twitter Analytics dashboard to see who your top follower is this month.
2) Your customers
Happy customers are your best influencers. When customers discuss their experiences with brands on social media, as is the norm these days, their entire networks see this interaction. And review sites are becoming an increasingly popular research tool for B2B buyers. Offering superior service to your customers can prompt them to praise your company on these platforms — not to mention, recommend your business to their peers and colleagues offline.
3) Industry experts and analysts
Who do your buyers turn to for information and opinions about what is happening in the current marketplace? More than this, who are up-and-coming thought leaders in the space?
4) Journalists and bloggers
Having an industry publication drop your company’s name is any marketer’s dream. Engaging in thoughtful discussion with the writers and editors behind that media — either online or at industry events — can be the beginning of a professional relationship that leads to brand advocacy.
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by Fronetics | Sep 22, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Supply Chain
Companies in the supply chain and logistics industries should take note of these 19 content marketing trends.
Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute recently revealed his predictions for the biggest trends in content marketing for 2017. As the leader of CMI, Pulizzi dedicates much of his time discussing where content marketing is heading with enterprise marketers around the world.
Since 88% of B2B marketers use content marketing as a part of their marketing programs, you’ll likely see some of these trends and issues arising among your competitors, your clients, and, ideally, your company in the near future. As you start to strategize for next year and beyond, be sure to consider these ideas in your supply chain marketing plans.
Creation of a real content marketing strategy
We can’t say it enough: Organizations that have a documented content marketing strategy are more likely to be successful than those that don’t. You would never operate a business without 1) creating a strategy, 2) documenting it, 3) following the strategy, and you should feel the same way about your marketing plan. Here are a few resources to get you started:
Native advertising
Native advertising is a paid, content-based promotion delivered in stream, within the same format as the channel the reader (or viewer) is using. Think of sponsored updates on LinkedIn, which look just like regular posts, or when a radio DJ promotes a product within the regular broadcast. I’ll be writing more about native advertising in the coming months and how the supply chain might use this opportunity as part of their content marketing efforts.
Influencer marketing
Forbes describes influencer marketing as, “A nonpromotional approach to marketing in which brands focus their efforts on opinion leaders, as opposed to direct target market touchpoints.” Basically, highly visible people become brand advocates by employing your products or services in their everyday lives. There are earned influencers, influential people who use your product regularly because they like it. And there are paid influencers, who receive compensation for using certain brands. More to come on this topic as well.
Purpose-driven marketing
Companies can appeal to a target audience by promoting their shared interest in a worthy cause through content. Examples from the supply chain include these six companies that are doing well by doing good.
Video and Visual
Video is not just for funny cats and cover artists anymore — it’s the most popular form of content being consumed online. Smart marketers are developing a visual storytelling strategy that offers consistent delivery of valuable content. Consider how your business might utilize features like Facebook Live or channels like YouTube.
Snapchat
Yes — Snapchat. Before you roll your eyes, check out this convincing article, Why Snapchat Will Be Great for B2B Companies, by Gary Vaynerchuk of Vayner Media. Keep your eyes on this social media platform in the coming year.
Facebook
One thing about Facebook you can count on is that it will always be evolving and adding features to keep up with user preferences. Also, Pulizzi is convinced businesses can do better when it comes to promoting content on this platform. Companies should keep a close eye on what’s to come with Facebook in the near future and how organizations are using it to distribute content and generate leads.
Teams and workflow
Take a good look at content production in your organization. Do blog posts go unedited? Are projects frequently late? Is your team clear about who needs to approve what? A strategic, consistent way to track and complete content-based projects can help streamline production and improve efficiency — not to mention quality.
Content strategy (pipes and process)
Developing a strategy that helps your organization scale its content-production efforts, re-purpose existing content across multiple channels, and properly leverage user experience and technology is key to content marketing success.
Mobile
Google announced in May 2015 that the number of searches on mobile devices has now surpassed those conducted on desktops in the U.S. And we know that reality isn’t limited to personal internet use. Evidence suggests B2B buyers are increasingly using mobile devices to do research, make inquiries, and purchase products. If your website and marketing emails aren’t mobile-friendly, your company is missing out the significant share of customers who demand mobile-optimized content. Try these tips:
Content technology
The marketing software market is expected to grow to more than $32.3 billion by 2018. The number of options companies have is almost blinding. Count on content technology to continue to demand a lot of attention — and, potentially, financial resources — in the next few years.
Writing
Josh Bernoff’s recent article in the Harvard Business Review hits the nail on the head: Bad Writing is Destroying Your Company’s Productivity. In a vast sea of crappy content, superior writing and storytelling can make your business stand out, win customer’s trust, and earn new business. Here are some resources:
Integration with sales
Integrating your sales and marketing teams is one of the most impactful ways to leverage content to gain new customers. For example, merging one of our clients’ sales and marketing databases to improve team communications played an important role in helping the company increase new business by 30%.
ROI and measurement
Making a business case for content marketing is one of the top priorities for the majority of B2B marketers year after year. Check out these resources:
Email and marketing automation
Marketing automation can expand your content’s impact, improve conversion rates, generate leads, and drive repeat purchases. Additionally, it can remove cumbersome manual tasks from your content workflow, freeing up your resources to add value to other, more meaningful tasks. Pulizzi says an expert recently revealed to him that companies are utilizing approximately only 10% of the functionality behind marketing automation — meaning, there’s much room for improvement in this area.
Content distribution and promotion
Even the best, most valuable content is worthless if it fails to reach your target audience. Companies are now focusing on the strategic distribution of their content assets to ensure their success.
Executive buy-in
Earning C-suite support for content marketing is a challenge for many marketers in the supply chain and logistics industries. See “ROI and measurement” above for some resources to support your efforts to win executive buy-in.
Global integration
Organizations and their supply chains continue to become more complex and global in scale. This can put a strain on communication, processes, meeting customer needs and expectations, etc. Content marketing strategies should account for the challenges of global operations.
Construction of a media organization
Pay attention to the recent flux of organizations purchasing media companies or properties to become media enterprises. Microsoft’s purchase of LinkedIn comes to mind, as well as Arrow Electronics’ acquisition of a number of technical and media properties from UBM.
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