According to Receptional, digital analytics is the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from your business and the competition to eventually drive current and future customers toward a desired outcome. Digital analytics is used to better understand your paid online media advertising placements’ overall performance, good or bad. This means that your digital ads can measure how many potential customers viewed information about your product or service, took interest in it and what they did with the information you provided them.

This is particularly important in maintaining and acquiring customers because it gives you insight into their purchase decisions, whether they placed an order, visited another page on your site, added an item to their cart, became interested in another one of your products or took another action. This can all be measured and tracked by digital analytics. The most important things about digital analytics is knowing what to measure and how to use that information to improve your market share.

Understanding what your desired audience is looking for will help focus your initial testing of ads. Through testing, you can use digital analytics to understand whether you achieved certain preset goals and, if not, what you can do to reach audiences more effectively with future campaigns.

Results for digital ads can be measured by types of consumer engagement. For example, you can look at the number of people that visited your site as a result of seeing your ad and the steps they took once they were there. When using ad serving platforms, like Google DoubleClick, we always make sure that we tag all client URLs correctly. The tracking tag allows us to monitor our clients’ prospects to see what actions they take as they click ads and navigate through our clients’ websites. Being able to tell what pages they visit and what products most interest them helps us better understand who they are, what they want, how we need to reach them and what we need to say to them in the future to optimize the campaign’s performance.

Obviously, your digital analytics results will not always tell you good news, but there’s almost always something valuable to glean. Understanding the results can help you create a better-targeted campaign for your ultimate digital advertising success. Part of this comes from having an individual or team who can help you sort through the data to give you the key information you need, something the Digital Campaigns team at Mod Op does for clients every day.

Instead, creators should focus on telling stories – for marketers specifically, the stories of their brands or products – and then how to tell those stories using all the interactive tools at their disposal. Stop and think for a moment about the most compelling experience you’ve had online. I’m willing to bet your experience included a seamless combination of words, images, videos, animations and infographics. As you navigated the page, or moved from page to page, the story unfolded before you and kept you rapt in its message. You weren’t just exposed to it, and you didn’t merely read the words. You were affected by and engaged in the entire experience.

Oftentimes, these experiences are not from companies marketing their products…buuuuuuut…why not? Why should the New York Times be one of the only content creators that’s mastered the digital story? Why can’t marketers tell better stories about themselves and their products using all of the interactive arrows in their quivers?

Of course, brands can, should and, if they want to make an impact with their audiences, must become better digital storytellers. To be frank, other than outdated mindsets or underfunded budgets, there’s nothing keeping marketers from creating stories that captivate their audiences. After all, brands have some of the most creative thinkers, strategists and spokespeople working for them already as agency partners, and they have direct connections to web development talent. They just need to take the leap of faith to do something new, back it up with a financial commitment and challenge their content creators to step up to the plate. While the timid and old-fashioned might say this is risky because it’s unconventional, I’d raise the danger of playing it too safe when people expect more from their media experiences. Can you afford to let your brand feel boring and stale?

If not, better storytelling could be your ticket to Moderntown!

That’s my 10,000-foot view on what content and digital storytelling could mean to brands. I’d love to get into more specifics about how to make it work specifically for YOUR brand. And if you want to learn more about brand storytelling in general, be sure to check out our other blog posts.

Hey, don’t worry. It’s a familiar story to many. And here’s the good news: there are steps you can take to solve the issue. Three of them, to be exact:

1. Understand why your image looks strange online.

All social platforms will resize the artwork you upload—yes, even the files your designer provides at the exact dimensions required. These sites want to help mitigate the amount of space images take up, so they crunch and crunch, which can result in color loss and image compression. Sometimes they’ll even reshape the file you provide. You can keep track of which platform does what with handy tools like this.

2. Keep the concept of teeny tiny artwork in your mind during the actual design process.

Fine, minute details can be lost no matter how accurately you size your file. This can be mitigated by designing logos and art that doesn’t rely on intricate detail.

3. Lean on your designer’s expertise.

If you plan to use the logo on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever—let the designer know. He or she can provide you with the assets necessary for each platform, which will save you the headache of sizing things down yourself. And what’s more, keeping an open dialogue about image usage will help with step two—the designer will know how best to create an image if they know exactly where it’ll end up.

And that’s it. Sure, it’s only three steps—but this process can be daunting nevertheless. That’s why collaborating with an agency and a team of designers is a worthy endeavor. At Mod Op, we have artists that are intimately familiar with the requirements of various publishing platforms and social media, and you can rest assured that any design done by us is done with all these steps in mind—and more.

Good luck out there. Hopefully with your newfound knowledge, and with Mod Op at your side, you won’t need those tragic ballads—unless that’s your jam. Adele is pretty great.

Start Writing 

Seems easy enough, right? It’s actually much harder in practice. Make sure to create new and engaging content on a consistent basis. That means delivering multiple quality blog posts each month without letting fatigue set in. Writing consistently will not only help increase the traffic to your blog or website, but it will also improve your writing skills. In turn, you’ll be able to provide better content and attract even more readers. It’s the snowball effect. The more you create, the more practice you’ll have and the better your posts will be. In short, if it were easy to be an effective blogger, everyone would be.

Stick to a topic 

Pick a topic and stick with it. If you bounce around and write about 30 different things, you won’t find a consistent audience. If you are in the energy industry, write about topics that relate to your audience, such as oil and gas, natural gas and renewable energy. It’s easy to stray from your desired topic and target audience without realizing it. If you stick to similar topics while writing, you’ll reach a familiar audience and establish yourself as a thought leader, keeping readers coming back for more.

Ask why 

While writing, you should continually ask yourself why. Why does this matter? Why would people want to read this? Why am I even writing about this? If you keep asking yourself these questions, your writing will improve, you’ll likely stay on topic and your content will be much more engaging. In other words, you’ll write content your readers enjoy instead of going through the motions just to get a blog article out. A little effort goes a long way.

Make it concise 

Keep your content short and to the point. 

Remember to write consistently without getting off topic and keep your readers in mind. It’s not easy, but if you keep these ideas in mind while writing, you’ll already have a leg up on most other bloggers. Lastly, thanks for reading my blog article about improving your blog (so meta) – now go get writing!

Let’s take a look at three reasons why in-house teams consider an outside agency.

1.      Agencies offer an objective perspective to help find creative solutions to driving business.

One of the reasons you hire new people for your in-house team is for outside perspective. Often what happens, though, is that outside perspective eventually falls victim to groupthink – when the team becomes so similar in their outlook that they lose the ability to be creative in their decision-making. Sure, similarities can help create a strong team culture, but tunnel vision keeps the other critical information from being explored. This is where an agency can provide the most value. I really like how Theo Fanning, an industry peer of mine, says it. He says, “Agencies, by design, are always acting as strangers in strange lands. The crossroads where internal brand experts meet with external agency experts is when the significant marketing magic can happen.”

2.     Clients want to leverage specific sets of skills that agencies have developed over time working with a variety of companies. 

Clients see agencies as the authority on the services they are seeking. Many times, this is because an agency’s services are filling a gap that’s missing from a company’s internal team. In addition, clients also value an agency’s experience in different markets. An agency is often able to apply relevant knowledge and experiences from one industry to another.

3.      Clients appreciate access to premium talent only when they need it. 

Most companies don’t need a large in-house team full of creatives, PR practitioners, social media managers, digital marketers, etc. They would, however, benefit from all of these marketing services. Working with an agency gives you access to these experts when you need them without hiring those experts yourself. And chances are building an in-house team will cost you more than it will save your company.

I’m certainly biased when it comes to the agency vs in-house discussion, but if you feel like you need an objective opinion from a team of experts who can save you money, partnering with an agency may be a good fit for you.

Before discussing the value of sub-branding, it’s important to understand an organization’s brand architecture – the structure of brands within a company or organization. This is the way in which the brands within a company’s portfolio are related to, and differentiated from, one another. The architecture should define how the corporate brand and sub-brands relate to and support each other and how the sub-brands reflect or reinforce the corporate brand to which they belong.

Generally, there are three defined levels of branding:

• Corporate brand– Examples of corporate brands include Nike and Dell. These are brands used across all the company’s activities, and the brand name is how they are known to customers, employees, shareholders, partners, suppliers, etc. These brands may also be used in conjunction with product descriptions or sub-brands, e.g. Nike Air or Dell Inspiron.
• Endorsed brands and sub-brands – For example, Residence Inn by Marriott, Sony PlayStation or Apple iPhone. These brands include a parent brand as an endorsement to a sub-brand or product brand. The endorsement is intended to add credibility to the endorsed sub-brand in the eyes of the market.
• Individual product brands – For example, Procter & Gamble’s Gillette or Coca Cola’s Sprite. The individual brands are presented to consumers, and the corporate name is given little or no visibility.

Let’s focus on sub-branding. A sub-brand is a brand that distinguishes a part of the product line within the brand system. For example, Ford uses the sub-brand Focus to distinguish a specific model from another model, such as the Mustang. Both are Fords, and both enjoy the equity of the Ford name, but each is a distinct product and is marketed as such.

One of the advantages of implementing a sub-branding strategy is the mutually beneficial nature of strong corporate and sub-brands. Successful sub-brands can help build positive perception and increase exposure for the parent brand and establish brand loyalty and trust. Likewise, customers who trust a corporate brand are more likely to try a new product under that main brand. Take, for example, Apple or Amazon. Anytime the companies debut a new product or service, they capitalize on the goodwill of their corporate brands, which creates trust in these new products or services.

When considering a sub-branding strategy, it’s important that the sub-brand is consistent with and supports the company’s brand identity. It should also somehow add value by better describing offerings, distinguishing offerings, augmenting the brand identity or exploiting market opportunities.

The advantages of sub-branding can also be disadvantages. When a sub-brand is unsuccessful, the failure can negatively impact the parent brand and affect loyalty, trust and business. Bad customer experiences can also create poor perceptions of the sub-brand and parent brand’s image. Sub-brands can also create confusion in the eyes of customers instead of clarifying and distinguishing brands. This can take away attention from a strong corporate brand.

One of the biggest issues we see with sub-branding is the lack of investment that companies make in supporting that brand. Building and maintaining a sub-brand requires additional budget to market and promote. Sometimes that means taking investment and attention from the corporate brand, which can weaken both brands. A sub-brand should be cost-justified in that it requires little investment to establish or the sub-brand business is large enough to provide resources needed for its own development.

The decision on whether or not to pursue a sub-branding strategy is unique to the company and its objectives and desired outcomes. There is a strong case to be made when sub-branding can serve companies well when the right combination of variables exists and vice versa. The key to the decision should be anchored in the business objectives of the company and thoughtful consideration based on the pros and cons.

Contributed articles are often written by experts within a company versus the publication’s writers and can cover many different topics including current industry news, growth potential and new or future strategies.

While each industry and trade publication have different requirements, there are a few things to keep in mind when trying to make your news interesting to editors:

1. Research – First and foremost, do your research. Understand what your company has to offer from a writing standpoint and make a list of publications you want to reach out to for particular topics. If your company has specific vertical markets you want to focus on, create separate lists for each market. Additionally, when doing research and creating these lists, make sure you have the right contact for each publication and limit your contacts to no more than two individuals per publication to avoid confusion and prevent oversaturating the publication. Creating an editorial calendar for pitching that includes contact names, publication information and upcoming topics is a great way to keep track of pitching deadlines and opportunities.

2. Know the publication’s audience – Whether the publication is new to your editorial calendar or one you reach out to often, understanding the publication’s audience is vital to creating content. You wouldn’t want to submit an article with a focus on topics or areas of interest in Europe or the Asia-Pacific region to a publication whose audience is primarily based in the United States.

3. Provide original content – When it comes to contributed articles, always submit original content. This doesn’t just mean to avoid plagiarizing from other sources (DUH), but not to submit the same content to multiple publications, even if your company created the content originally. Publications want unique and interesting information.

4. Secure the placement before writing – Always get verbal or written approval on a topic or abstract from the publication before spending time researching and writing an article. There is nothing worse than spending a good amount of time perfecting a piece only for your contact to tell you the publication doesn’t have room or that your piece doesn’t fit within a chosen theme.

5. Avoid overly promotional phrasing – This is not an ad. I REPEAT. THIS IS NOT AN AD… When writing an article, try not to sound overly promotional. Depending on the guidelines of the piece, you can still include your company’s name and a product, as long as it doesn’t sound like you are trying too hard. It’s best to speak to the industry as a whole.

6. Write about what you know – If you are writing an article, more often than not, it’s because you are the subject matter expert. Don’t try to overcompensate. Instead, write about what you know. You can include your opinion on trends and industry growth but avoid speaking about areas where your knowledge is limited.

7. Know your deadline and stick to it – Reporters and editors often have strict material deadlines for a reason. A lot goes into producing a print publication, including laying out what the article or piece will look like visually and sending the full publication to print with enough time for distribution. Ask for deadlines at the beginning of a project and stick to them once you have committed, but don’t risk quality for speediness. If a deadline isn’t feasible, make it known. Some editors can provide extensions, while others may suggest pushing the article to a future issue.

8. Respond quickly – The job isn’t quite done when you hit send on the email to your contact with the attached article copy. Many contacts will follow up with questions, image requests or to have you proof the article before it goes to print. Because their deadlines are often tight, responding quickly will help you solidify your relationship.

9. Develop a repertoire with your contacts – Developing a relationship with your contacts can help with future article requests and even interviews. If they know you are reliable and supply high-quality content, they are more likely to request or approve additional articles.

10. It’s okay to hear “no” – Finally, while not ideal, don’t be discouraged when your request is denied, especially if it is from a trusted contact. Whether it just wasn’t the right fit for the publication at the time or there simply isn’t room in the issue, a rejection isn’t the end-all be-all. Not all topics and requests will pan out, but that makes the ones that do worth it.

As Jack Canfield once said, “don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.”

If you need help securing and writing contributed articles, pitching opportunities or simply want to learn more about what we can do for you, give us a call!

TAKE A DIGITAL MATURITY EVALUATION

TAKE A DIGITAL MATURITY EVALUATION

TAKE A DIGITAL MATURITY EVALUATION

Are you worried about competitors or upstarts nibbling at pieces of your business, or worse? Are you looking for new areas of growth or new product opportunities?

Many clients come to Mod Op Strategic Consulting because they are looking to redefine their product or service, expand their place in their market, fend off competition, or find entirely new markets to capture. We use a proven, thorough methodology in our market assessments based on our principles of outside-in thinking and incremental progress toward broader strategic goals. Here are five questions we consider:

1. MAPPING THE MARKET – Who serves your customers? 

Every Mod Op Strategic Consulting market assessment starts with a mapping exercise that puts your customers at the center of the market ecosystem, and then identifies the major types of businesses or organizations that enable, serve or supply them.

In the case of a non-profit association for example, we would place their members (the “customers”) in the center. Surrounding these members are the professional or trade groups, technology vendors, data providers, business services, media, content and event producers, workforce and career development companies, and other significant suppliers to the industry all competing to serve them. Mapping out the “universe” of service providers that enable an industry, market, supply chain or a specific professional group in this way provides you with a baseline for all your opportunity assessments. One thing to remember is that many organizations can and do serve several different customer types, so a complete assessment framework may require designing multiple maps to visualize the entire market in which you operate and compete.

2. CURRENT MARKET POSITION – Where do you play?

Next, we look at where and how you currently serve your customers: In which sectors of the mapped ecosystem do you play in now and with what products and services? You may find you are concentrated in just one or are playing thinly across many of the industry service and supply opportunities. Oftentimes when our client sees this universe laid out with their current product suite it sparks new and interesting conversations about why they are strong in one vertical or how they could take what they are doing for one set of customer needs that might be effective for another set.

3. MAXIMIZE YOUR CURRENT BUSINESS – Where are the incremental “inside” opportunities?

We like to dive deep into a client’s operations and business, working with front-line staff and management to evaluate current products and services and, hopefully, identify new opportunities based on what is working well or not working at all.

4. FIND THE OPPORTUNITIES IN THE MARKET – Where are the “outside” opportunities?

The bulk of our market assessment engagements focuses on outside-in research based on these maps. We size the markets (and verticals within the markets) and then identify key players, potential competitors, partners, and other best-practice examples. We combine this research with survey and interview data from actual customers, prospective customers, and lapsed customers to give us a holistic view of the marketplaces.

5. CHOOSING YOUR BEST OPTIONS – How can we prioritize what we do next?

Once we have engaged with our client’s customers and staff and research the market ecosystem we build hypotheses as to where new opportunities lie. Each hypothesis is then passed through five filters:

• MARKET NEED – How strong is the need for this product or service in the marketplace? Is there a willingness to pay? Is anyone else delivering a similar product or service and, if so, what can your organization do to deliver it better?

• RIGHT TO PLAY – How closely does the proposed product or service fit into your brand? There may be a great opportunity but if no one would understand why your organization is providing it then it may not be the right opportunity for you.

• REVENUE POTENTIAL – What is the market size the opportunity addresses and what percentage of it can your organization reasonably expect to capture with the right product mix?

• MISSION ALIGNMENT – How well does this opportunity align with the evolving mission and vision of your organization?

• DIFFICULTY TO EXECUTE – Using rough people-power estimates (+/- 50%) how much time and resources would need to be dedicated to the delivery of this product or service? Can you do it alone or do you need partners to execute?

We engage with our clients (our goal is to innovate with our clients, not for them) in interactive workshops to run the hypotheses through the above filters and prioritize the ones that make the most sense. These opportunities tend to have the best mix of potential revenue, brand permission/ organizational mission, and ease of execution.

By following these five steps you can lead your company through a very useful exercise, utilizing  both inside-out and outside-in customer-centric thinking, while identifying opportunities, partners, competitors and more that can impact your business. Then comes the fun work of executing on these opportunities and making them into new businesses that can sustain a company’s growth!

TAKE A DIGITAL MATURITY EVALUATION