Digital Marketing

Marketing with creativity a lot more successful

We all know that creativity is important. Incredibly important even and essential within B2B marketing; you can’t escape it.

Yet many campaigns have other priorities than creativity. And that’s a shame!

When you start creating a new campaign, you need to include the creative aspect from the start.

But… unfortunately, many organizations do not have the right data or the right knowledge to do this.

Or they lack good examples of creative campaigns or previous campaigns that have run well using creativity.

That’s why in this blog we tell you why you should never forget creativity in campaigns and what is important for a good, creative campaign.

A campaign that appeals to your target group.

 

Does creativity contribute to the growth of your company?

The answer is simple: YES!

Powerful ads leave more impact. They ensure that the advertisement and the message behind it are remembered by the consumer.

And the more it is remembered, the faster the link is made between the advertiser and the consumer.

Of course, you might say, but this is not nearly as obvious.

Good ads stick in the mind of your target audience.

Almost half of the success of your campaign and of good advertisements is determined by the creative aspect.

Once you have a strong creative strategy, create campaigns that win. Campaigns that appeal to the target group.

The interaction of these types of campaigns is higher and they get more clicks and conversions.

With the right campaign material, you have up to almost twice as much price power, and there is five times more shared market growth.

And in addition, a strong, creative campaign is also 16 times more profitable.

These are some of the results of a study by LinkedIn’s B2B Institute and System1.

 

Few creative ads according to research

LinkedIn’s B2B Institute and System1 examined what percentage of their analyzed ads scored between one and five stars.

From previous assessments (through the ESOV strategy) by System1 from more than 40,000 advertisements, the organization has been able to draw up the scale below.

The ‘star rating’ and market growth go hand in hand, assuming 10% ESOV in each category.

“Brands that set their share of voice (SOV) above their share of market (SOM) tend to grow (all other factors being equal), and those that set SOV below SOM tend to shrink. The rate at which a brand grows or shrinks tends to be proportional to its “extra” share of voice (ESOV), defined as the difference between SOV and SOM.”

– LinkedIn Ads Blog, January 2020

The score scale is organized as follows:

^ Image 1:LinkedIn’s B2B Institute and System1 report, page 10:

Of the 1,700 ads analyzed by LinkedIn’s B2B and System1, only 0.1% (!) achieved five stars on the one-to-five-star scale.

• 76.7% of all ads scored 1 star
• 18.8% of all ads scored 2 stars
• 6.0% of all ads scored 3 stars
• 0.4% of all ads scored 4 stars
• 0.1% of all ads scored 5 stars

^ Image 2:LinkedIn’s B2B Institute and System1 report, page 11:

 

Which aspects are important for the profitable and creative success of advertisements?

Before you can start with the creative part of your campaign, there are a few basic parts that need to be looked at:

• research ad recognition and ad recall;
• calculate the sympathy for ads and the clarity.

Once this is clear, you can move on to the creative part.

In general, the successes can be divided into these five categories: the storyline, characters, music material, emotion, and smooth advertising:

• Story: those who can tell the story well can achieve their goal;
• Characters: we all want to be able to encourage someone (or something);
• Musical material: music appeals to the heart and to the imagination;
• Emotion: like music, emotion speaks to the heart;
• Smooth advertising: brand recognition reinforces the message (by using recurring logos and/or characters).

Nikon:

Nikon has a recurring song that is used in a lot of video ads. ‘Welcome, Home‘ (2007) is a song by Radical Face and has been used since 2010 for the Nikon ads, which were broadcast in several European countries:

 

Albert Heijn:

When it comes to smooth advertising, the Dutch supermarket chain is a standout. For a period of 10 years, there was always the same premise: a character.

Namely Harry Piekema’s Henk van Dalen!

Actor Harry Piekema as Albert Heijn’s Henk van Dalen character (2004-2014)

 

Respond to the emotion

The emotional value associated with advertising plays a major role in your marketing success.

Marketing expert Les Binet says: “Use the power of emotion. Automatically thinking of your brand when buying is only half the battle. Advertising should also reinforce brand preference. The other approach is to create associations between the brand, the buying opportunity, and a relevant feeling and feeling that encompasses buyers to choose the brand.”

Responding to emotions also creates affection.

When we find a brand attractive, positive thoughts arise about its benefits.

For example, it is likely that customers will also rate your products and services more positively.

Creative work and data-driven marketing go hand in hand. Together they ensure success and more customers.

As already mentioned, creativity is important, but creative material is essential.

People are story thinkers, not logic thinkers.

So, there you go.

Invest in the creative!

 

Read More: 3 steps that will help you grow your brand

Discover the digital marketing trends for 2023

Xpert Digital marketing specialists have already looked ahead to the new year: 2023.

The end of 2022 is approaching and that means that the new year is not that far away from us at all.

Do you want to discover new trends in digital marketing? Here we will discuss the macro trends for the new year.

In 2023, we need to focus on three aspects: people, measurability, and margin. It is important for organizations to focus extremely on this in the coming year.

In today’s market, it is becoming more difficult to find and retain the right people. Competition is increasing, revenues are under pressure, there are high costs, and measuring ROI is becoming increasingly challenging.

Retaining people with Digital Marketing

Just like the previous years – something that has really started since the start of COVID-19 – the so-called ‘Great Resignation’, the large outflow, is underway.

Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, more and more people have left their work sector and have started working in another sector or have started working less.

Others have found a way to live life in a different way. For this reason, the effective capacity of labor is shrinking.

If you look at the media and the technology sector – that’s where marketing, or at least online marketing, comes in, there’s also more outflow than inflow. Namely 55 percent versus 45 percent.

Where does the outflow go?

That remains unclear.

These are some of the results that have emerged from McKinsey’s great attraction (2022) global study.

A possible reason that people are leaving their sector is that they dare to make more demands on employers (think, for example, of working from home or in the office).

It is also the case that employers can no longer expect employees to have certain studies or backgrounds. The employer is forced to look more at what the employees have to offer.

This brings the employee to a place where he functions well and performs work that the employee likes and can do well. A win-win situation for all parties involved.

A lot is changing within the field. People and organizations are increasingly going to work digitally.

This has a lot of influence on who performs the work, but digital developments also have a lot of effect on the work of marketers.

They are the linchpin in the organization when it comes to changing and moving with the latest market developments and customer demand.

They become centipedes and must be at home in all markets. Improving, changing, and continuously experimenting is the daily life of a marketer.

Maintain margin

For many organizations, it is becoming increasingly difficult to become or remain profitable.

The higher purchasing costs are partly due to the events in the Suez Canal, but also due to rising gas prices and inflation.

These aspects ensure that more and more people still keep their hands on the cut. And demand is already declining in some sectors.

The best way to deal with this is to start with an analysis of how you are doing. That’s step one.

In your digital marketing mix, you can then focus on that margin. See if the customer you bring in via channel A or B at the bottom of the line makes you money.

And how much?

Also, look beyond that initial purchase. And that lead that came in last? Has that become a customer?

In addition, it is also a pick your battle situation.

Because so many, and so fast, things are changing, it is almost impossible to make a profitable business case. Therefore, take a very critical look at your marketing mix.

The opportunity to switch from a target group or market to something else as a company can be rewarding for your organization.

It is often the case that companies start cutting marketing budgets. This is not always wise because it can mean a permanently deteriorated economic position in the market.

Improve measurability through Digital Marketing

Well-known programs used by almost every marketer will undergo many changes or updates.

In 2023, we will massively switch to Google Analytics 4 (now the beta version Web+App property).

Google Chrome will stop supporting and supporting third-party cookies in 2024. And this poses a threat to data quality.

Collecting data will therefore be done in a different way. But do you actually need all that data?

A large part does not. Often too much rather than too little data is collected. Or not the right data.

Solutions for this are certainly there, but they also cost time and money. Possibilities are:

• First Party Tracking;
• TraceDock or a CDP
• Server-side Google Tag Manager

Other possibilities and solutions are discussed in more detail in the Data & Automation podcast that will soon be online.

Many changes await us in the new year, but a new year also brings new opportunities.

For marketers, it can be fun. At least, if you have a growth mindset. There is still a lot to be gained and you can outsmart your competitors in many ways.

Keep looking at all the opportunities!

 

Read More: 3 steps that will help you grow your brand

SEO strategy – this is how you succeed in successful development!

Search engines regularly update their requirements for websites, which rank them at different levels. Many companies are now aware of the importance of SEO Strategy, but the expenditure which is behind it is often underestimated.

Hidden opportunities in Google Ads: discover them today

Today I will take you through various possibilities of Google Ads, the existence of which is not known to everyone. Interesting!

If you have been involved in the SEA profession for years, you will know these possibilities. But as a less experienced user, you might miss some of the hidden parts of the interface.

No worries – I’m going to help you! In this blog, you will discover a number of lesser-known features within Google Ads that can help you make your marketing activities even better.

Advanced control technology of Google Ads

Sometimes you just have to look for those parts. There are all kinds of features and possibilities that hide, simply waiting to be discovered.

Such a hidden tool is the advanced control function. To find them, navigate to Tools & Settings > Strategies. Next, look for the button labeled “advanced controls”.

Once you’ve found it, you can adjust two things: Data exclusions and Seasonal adjustments

With data exclusions, you can exclude certain data from the total dataset. This can be useful if there has been a measurement problem or if you want to exclude certain outliers that cause noise in the algorithm.

The data remains visible but is no longer included by the Google Ads algorithm.

With a measurement issue, it may be that the algorithm has become upset.

If you suddenly measure twice as much turnover, that is a signal for your bidding strategy to start bidding. While this is actually not the case at all. Data exclusions ensure that this is resolved.

The other functionality is seasonal customization.

This method allows you to adjust bids during upcoming events, such as a sale or promotion.

Only use seasonal adjustments if you expect a serious change in conversion rates, as “Smart Bidding” already manages seasonal events.

Seasonal adjustments are ideal for short events of one to seven days. They don’t work as well if you use them for longer periods of time (more than fourteen days at a time).

If an event is coming that you think could benefit from seasonal adjustments, be sure to take advantage of it.

You say to Google: “Please note, I expect a peak in sales coming, do you make sure you are ready?”.

Automatic extensions

The next tip is really hugely well-hidden. And actually, we think Google doesn’t want you to use it either:

Automatic extension settings.

Item library

The item library is actually not hidden. But so little use is made of it that I take it with me.

It’s like a drive where you can store all your images and banners grouped together. In the item library, you can create your own folders. For example, easily sort your footage based on seasons/promotions, etc.

Do you use a lot of different content? Then this is a very nice tool!

The ‘Make video’ function is quite hidden here. You’ll find it under the same heading.

This way you can immediately make a beautiful video of your images. Which can be useful for Performance Max.

Migration tool Performance Max

Performance Max?

A little SEA specialist has known for a few months that this is coming.

Google is constantly changing the way we do things.

Sometimes it involves small things, such as a new button or layout in the interface. But sometimes it’s a big change that affects the way we work every day.

For some a curse, for others a blessing. Whatever you think about it, you will have to learn to work with it.

Note: you still have to add a few things yourself, but it is an easy way to keep your current Smart Shopping set-up.

If you’re like most marketers, you’ve probably cursed Performance Max at least once. We don’t get a lot of information about the distribution of expenses by channel.

We challenge you to dive into the ‘reports’ tab and see what insights you can find.

The first step is to get a better understanding of where your money is going.

So go ahead, take the plunge and see what you can discover about the performance of your Performance Max campaign.

Portfolio bidding strategy in Google Ads

Old school, but still alive and working: the portfolio of bidding strategies.

Portfolio bidding is a great way to manage multiple campaigns at the same time.

It’s very simple: where you normally use one strategy per campaign, here you use one bidding strategy for multiple Google Ads campaigns together.

Now we come to the hidden part. You can still work with a maximum CPC under advanced settings.

For example, you can set up a tCPA or tROAS where you determine your maximum click price yourself. This is not possible with a separate bidding strategy.

Spoiler Alert: tCPA and tROAS will be phased out to convert and maximize conversion value.

There is a good chance that with this phase-out, this tool will eventually disappear.

Customer value

Ready for the first step towards CLV?

Then think about optimizing customer value over the past 12 months. This option is located under ‘Added value for the customer under the tab ‘Measurement’.

You can see here exactly how many weeks a customer is on average. But also how much the average customer generates in terms of turnover over a longer period of time.

Easily see the distribution between your valuable customers, average customers, and one-time customers. Think about how a strategy increases the share of valuable customers and analyze whether the strategy works.

6 great tips to get started!

Have you implemented everything? And are you looking for more? Coincidentally already heard about reporting conversions with cart data and costs_of_goods_sold? There are always new things to discover in Google Ads. That’s what makes the profession so beautiful. Please contact us if we can help you with anything!\

Read More: The SEO Trends for 2023

5 reasons to use LinkedIn for B2B marketing

With more than 750 million members worldwide, LinkedIn has become the number one website for companies.

That alone should convince you to focus on marketing via LinkedIn.

Curious about 5 other reasons to get started with LinkedIn for B2B marketing? Then read on!

On LinkedIn, as a B2B marketer, you can find a new business partner, introduce a company to potential customers and attract new talent to join your company as an employee.

But you can also get valuable benefits from it with the right use of marketing.

Reason 1: Content!

Where social media channels are often used as a pastime, which is different from LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is mainly used for professional networking and for development. A time investment!

LinkedIn users are often engaged in self-development and gaining knowledge about their field.

When you use LinkedIn for B2B marketing, you have the advantage of context. Users are open to content that is really relevant to them.

As a company, you can perfectly respond to this with your content!

Example: A LinkedIn user is looking for a time management solution for his/her company or training software for their employees, and look – there you are.

When you advertise on LinkedIn, your ads appear in a news feed filled with industry news, expert advice, and insights and recommendations from colleagues.

An advertisement on LinkedIn will therefore be better received in this context than an advertisement on Facebook.

When a lead generation ad is shown on LinkedIn, it is shown to people who want to improve their industry. When it is shown on Facebook, it is visible to someone between different private photos.

This may be the same person, but think about it: When are you most likely to fill out a form to read a work-related white paper or case study? When you’re in relax mode? Or when you’re in work mode?

Much of the data LinkedIn uses for ad targeting comes directly from its users.

If used in the right way, this data brings your company to the attention of the most valuable target groups.

Reason 2: Business targeting capabilities

For each campaign, you need to carefully consider which target group you want to reach and how you can reach them.

This way you can reach users who are actually looking for your product or service. This way you can respond to their questions and needs.

But what possibilities are there in terms of targeting?

Target at the company level

Often you already have an idea of which or what kind of companies you want to focus on.

Based on a company level, you have several options.

On the one hand, you can choose a specific industry and, for example, companies with a certain number of employees with LinkedIn for B2B marketing.

Do you already know specific company names? Then you can also reach the employees of a specific company by targeting company names.

Depending on your target group, you can already target very specifically with this option.

Target at the job level

Do you not want to focus on specific companies, but on functions?

Then you can target based on job titles.

Because everyone on LinkedIn has entered a job title, you can target very specifically in this way.

In addition, you can also select based on seniority. For example, don’t want to reach interns with your ads? Then you exclude it.

Targeting on a personal level

Don’t know someone’s exact job title? Or do you want to reach beyond industry or function?

Then you can also use targeting based on skills, groups, education level, etc.

For example, when you use multiple IT job titles, you might reach people with those job titles, but not someone in IT with an unclear job title.

One way to address this is to also target skills. This way you also reach people who have IT skill on their LinkedIn profile.

What works best? That’s a matter of testing!

Set up different audiences with the same ads and compare the results.

Reason 3: Use your own data effectively

Do you already know who exactly you want to reach?

Upload a list of emails and LinkedIn will match those emails with user profiles.

When your list successfully matches 300 or more profiles, the end result is a matched audience that you can use in any campaign on LinkedIn.

Do you want to reach people who are similar to your current customers?

Then create a look-a-like audience based on your customer list.

In this way, LinkedIn looks at which profiles match and match your current customers.

This way you reach a completely new target group.

Reason 4: The right tool at the right time

Of course, it has been known for a long time that it is becoming increasingly difficult to reach people organically on social platforms.

Social advertising is one of the ways to reach prospects.

LinkedIn’s advertising platform provides everything a marketer needs to ensure that the ads reach the right people with an effective ad spend.

In addition to the countless targeting options that LinkedIn offers, there are also multiple advertising products available.

Re Objectives

LinkedIn offers different advertising goals so that there is always a suitable objective for your campaign! Below they are listed:

Knowledge

Brand awareness: Tell people about your product, service, or organization.

Consideration

Website visits: Drive traffic to your website or marketing landing pages.

Interactions: Increase engagement with your content, such as likes, comments, shares, landing page clicks, or clicks or tracks from your LinkedIn page.

Video views: Share videos with more people.

Conversion

Lead generation: Find leads on LinkedIn using a lead generation form pre-populated with LinkedIn profile information.

Website conversions: Capture leads on your website or drives leads that are valuable to your business.

Applicants: Tell more people about relevant vacancies at your company or send applicants to your vacancies.

Talent leads: The talent leads objective is only available to companies with an active LinkedIn Recruiter contract. Generate leads from candidates who are interested in career opportunities within your company.

Reason 5: Make use of your employees

As with everything in business, your employees are the most important thing.

Give them the resources they need to thrive.

Employees can be a good source for distributing content on LinkedIn.

With well-optimized profiles, employees can become important assets and spokespersons for your company.

Optimized profiles — both your company’s and employees’ — boost visibility in search results.

Google doesn’t leave LinkedIn out of the page-crawling fun. Google will crawl both employee and company profiles. So use your profiles and update them regularly to highlight what’s important.

Another way to get more out of LinkedIn is through employee reinforcement.

When an employee shares one of your LinkedIn posts, the organic reach will be strengthened.

As with Facebook, organic posts on business pages rarely appear in the average user’s newsfeed.

But once someone shares the post, it will appear in many more feeds. Take advantage of that!

Time to get started and get the most out of your LinkedIn page! Do you want to know more about LinkedIn for B2B marketing or do you need help? Please contact us!

 

Read More:  Create perfect lead magnets that customers can’t ignore

Create perfect lead magnets that customers can’t ignore

You scroll for hours and hours on social media along different pages. Ask yourself: “What really catches my attention?”. When do you stop scrolling and take the time to read something?

While scrolling, you are distracting your brain, overstimulating it, and taking your focus away. As an organization, you want your content to stand out. You want to stimulate the customer and ensure that you come to the attention.

In this blog, we tell you how to create lead magnets that do not pass your customer by.

A good example: how do you tell a detailed story to a good friend during a big and busy concert? Pretty tricky huh? It can also be difficult to make your ads stand out on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

Productive Mindset for lead generation

Advertisements on social media are often aimed at getting people off the platform. So basically you use a platform to advertise and then you want the customer to go off that platform and visit your website. Quite a difficult task.

If you want to succeed in that, you have to ensure a productive mindset among users. A productive mindset consists of:

• Focus
• Attention
• Interest

Focus, attention, and interest can be retained by sending the perfect message at the right time and in the right place. What helps you with that are lead magnets.

The secret ingredients for epic lead magnets

When you start using lead magnets, you have to focus on a target group that is problem-aware. After all, they are looking for a solution. The image below shows you where they are located.

A lead magnet ensures that you make this group solution-aware. With your lead magnet, you offer a solution to their problem.

Ingredient #1: the target group that benefits from the lead magnet

Ask yourself: is the target group defined without being too niche?

Below you can see examples of lead magnets that have worked and have not worked. The bottom lead magnets did not achieve the right result because the focus was too much on a niche target group.

Lead magnet |	Target audience
9 Health Benefits of Beans	Healthy foodies ✅
A legal checklist for starting a business in Rotterdam	Entrepreneurs in Rotterdam ✅
5 must-haves for reaching retirement age	Parents reaching ❌ retirement age
7 Tax Saving Strategies for Pharmacy Owners	Pharmacy owners ❌

Don’t make the target audience too specific. It becomes all the more difficult to get hold of them.

Ingredient #2: The applicability of the content

Ask yourself: Can the reader use this now or is there more work to be done?

We’ve been talking about attention retention. You can only hold a user’s attention for a short time. After all, they want to scroll further quickly to see holiday photos or cool videos.

In this short time frame, you have to make sure that the reader does not have to do too much work to take action. Otherwise, you’ll lose them. Below you can see two examples of lead magnets that have or have not worked. Are you watching?

Lead magnet |	Kind
Spaghetti with scallops	Recipe ✅
5 easy exercises to learn the English language	Exercises ✅
7 financial strategies for brokers	Strategies ❌
How to: buying investment properties	Buyers guide ❌

Recipes always do well. You read the lead magnet in the afternoon and can get started the same evening. Users can put themselves to work right away.

The same goes for 5 easy exercises to learn English. This lead magnet is successful because an important ‘keyword’ is used. The word ‘easy’ tells the reader that there is not much work behind this lead magnet. Other words you can use are for example: simple, simple, or small.

For example, a word that you should avoid in a lead magnet strategy. That word makes the reader think that there is still a lot of work to be done. At that point, readers drop out.

Ingredient #3: The relevance of the lead magnet

Ask yourself: is the content on time or is it poorly timed?

The title of your lead magnet is important. With this, you finally trigger the reader. A successful lead magnet often contains a year or time in the title. It makes the reader aware that it is or may be relevant at the moment.

Take a look at the examples below:

Lead magnet |	Timing
Why you should buy real estate in East Groningen right now	Good content: right time ✅
Why You Should Consider Building a Modular Home in 2022	Good content: right time ✅
How to buy a house as a starter	Good content: wrong time ❌
How to sell your dental practice	Good content: niche time ❌

Two lead magnets have had no success. Why is that? The timing of both lead magnets was wrong. For many people, it is currently hardly possible to buy a house because of the scarcity of the housing market. Starters continue to rent and cannot yet buy a house. A good example of timing is key.

Ingredient #4: The emotion the lead magnet evokes

Ask yourself: Could this topic work in small talk or is it too focused on productivity and work?

When the latter is the case, you won’t get many downloads. Topics that appeal to the reader are often topics that you also discuss in the bar, for example. It should be a topic that people like to talk about.

Lead magnet |	Emotion
How we can positively influence our daily lives with compassion	Compassionate and caring ✅
10 lessons to find happiness in life	Happy and fulfilled ✅
Is it cheaper to buy or rent a water heater?	Productive and informative ❌
Three essential checklists for a safe working environment	Practical and work-related ❌

When you scroll through your social media feed, you don’t think of a water heater. That is exactly the reason that this lead magnet was not a success. It’s a topic that doesn’t appeal to readers easily.

To respond to the emotions of readers, you can use a number of smart words. Words like positivity, impact, and happiness release dopamine in our brains. We make a connection between these words and our feelings. A successful lead magnet responds to these emotions.

Convert readers to buyers

A successful lead magnet contains the above 4 ingredients. The last step is that users actually read the lead magnet. The infographic below gives you insight into how you can ensure that a lead magnet is read.

It doesn’t stop at sending one e-mail. Many emails end up somewhere between the dozens of emails you receive in a day. Therefore, send users a reminder to open the lead magnet.

Follow the further step-by-step plan to actually turn readers into buyers. Step by step you create the perfect lead magnet and if you need help from any marketing agency then we are always ready with our market-tested lead generation strategies.

If you are looking for a good Website Design Company in Kolkata that makes SEO-friendly websites, then you may check our reviews on Google.

Good luck!