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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 18, 2017 1:10 AM
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Ghost buttons are amazing UI elements that have been increasing in popularity over the years. These are basically action buttons with transparent designs and are often bordered with a thin line that creates a simple shape, rectangular, circle, square, etc. Ghost buttons have lightweight designs. Also, they tend to be in contrast with other elements, with the main purpose to draw attention to them. Moreover, their position is privileged, as they are often situated in the center of the page, in a larger size than regular buttons. Ghost buttons integrate easily with the rest of the website’s design, given their minimalistic form. However, you should be careful about how you use them, to make sure they stand out rather than being lost in the design. This article gathers 20 awesome examples of ghost buttons. See how the designers used them in their websites designs. Get inspired by these examples and start using ghost buttons in your future websites!...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 18, 2017 12:50 AM
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Appealing to the emotions of your website users is nothing new and certainly something that marketers and branding experts will have plenty of experience and specialist knowledge of. But because the online world is becoming so saturated with content, and because first impressions count, making people feel instantly at home on your site has never been more important. With SEO copywriters working hard on telling that all-important brand story and stunning images that inspire and uplift your visitors, you might think you’ve got everything covered. But if you haven’t looked at your use of colours in a while, you might be missing a trick. The simple fact is that colour is the first thing that visitors assimilate when they arrive on your site. It comes before images, typefaces, body copy or other online content, and without people even realising it, can change the way they think and act. Humans are programmed to equate colours to emotions, so whether you aim to soothe, energise, excite or promote trust, it’s essential to choose your colours wisely....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 17, 2017 1:11 PM
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To CMOs, politics can be like the Sirens of Greek mythology to marketers. The potential for brands to create emotional bonds with customers based on shared values is tauntingly alluring. Yet many fear that the controversy they invite is like a pile of sharp rocks lying in wait under the waves.
When I discussed this story with the editor of this channel, she told me that no less than a dozen marketing pros approached her after the election asking to write stories about why now is the time for brands to take a stand. That makes sense — advertisers are in the emotional connections business, and the Don Drapers of the world can see that this is rich emotional turf. But for CMOs, the decision to "take a stand" is not so simple.
This morning, over scones and coffee, the VP of marketing for a $15 billion retailer who told me her brand wouldn’t touch controversy with a 10-foot pole. The likelihood of alienating 50% of their customers was far too daunting.
Let’s face it — every brand faces its own reality. When Patagonia came out against Trump’s order rescinding national monuments, they were hardly taking a daring risk with their customers. For Target — a brand that serves a much larger and broader cross-section of the population — standing up for equality with its transgender bathroom policy led to widespread boycotts that had an impact on the bottom line.
The agency I run, Traction, witnessed this first-hand in recent weeks when I wrote a LinkedIn post called “Why We’re Offering Paid Leave for Activism” about our new Days of Action policy that allows employees two days per year to participate in democracy — however they see fit. They can join a protest, volunteer for a cause, or support a candidate.
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 17, 2017 10:10 AM
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Using Google seems straightforward enough. You enter in a search, and in return, Google gives you a list of web pages that help you find what you’re looking for. Right? Wrong. In 2016, 85% of Google searches contained significant additional elements beyond just a list of web pages, including bright, bold, click-attracting features that take up some of the most valuable real estate on the results page. Collectively, these features are known as "universal search." If you and your brand are only doing SEO for the standard "10 blue links" that comprise the web pages, you’re losing out. Currently, the universal search portfolio has more than 10 different features, including the knowledge graph, image bars, quick answer boxes, local packs and video snippets. Let’s look at three of the most common examples — and how you can leverage them for your brand.The Knowledge Graph The knowledge graph is a box filled with information that sits prominently at the top of the right side of the search results page. It appeared in 19.19% of total desktop searches, and 20.83% of mobile queries in 2016. Google pulls in information for the knowledge graph from several places across the web. There a few ways for brands to influence that information:...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 17, 2017 9:57 AM
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"The camera is already starting to replace the keyboard,” asserts Netra CEO, Richard Lee. The content that will dominate digital information flow will be visual, and for that reason image recognition is becoming a key component of marketing.His company derives insight from visual data, fostering understanding of how consumers engage with brands through engagement with images. Netra is a leader in visual intelligence and search that uses machine learning to help marketers make sense of imagery on social media. Some brands are already using image recognition to connect with and effectively market to their customers. They include Neiman Marcus. The upscale retailer offers its customers the Snap. Find. Shop app that enables them to use their phones to snap pictures of styles they like and find similar styles carried by the store. The app is demonstrated here:...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 17, 2017 9:28 AM
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Chatbots saw a massive resurgence last year, as Google, Microsoft and Facebook all jumped on the bandwagon. Facebook has been actively encouraging chatbot development with its Messenger platform, recently making it easier for users to find relevant bots. A few tech publications have taken to adopting bots on Messenger too, but which ones are worth using? We’ve got a few picks for you....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 16, 2017 10:58 AM
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A recent press release from the Acme Hotel Co. in River North, Chicago, included these phrases: Snapchat Spectacles, Amazon Echo, ESP Guitar, DIY cocktail. Yes, it may be time to provide a translating service for hoteliers trying to keep up with speeding changes related to technology and demographics. This hotel, whose website says it’s targeted at the “tragically hip,” offers Snapchat Spectacles at the front desk on a first-come, first-served basis. The glasses have a button on them which, when pressed, will create a 10-second video “snap” that is wirelessly uploaded to the memories page of a personal Snapchat, readied to be posted for friends and family to see. Of course, the in-room Amazon Echo — one of those personal digital “assistants” now rampant among the tech savvy — can help guests decide where to go in town to get the best videos. The DIY (do-it-yourself) cocktails can be created with an in-room kit that costs $18, makes two drinks “and the shaker is yours.”...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 16, 2017 10:28 AM
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Those using AI use it for range of reasons, the most frequent being to get news or information. Here are the tasks consumers utilize artificial intelligence to help them with most often: 35% -- Information, news, weather, stocks 21% -- Read, write, text, phone call 17% -- Play music 9% -- Set timer or reminder 5% -- Make purchases, shopping lists...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 16, 2017 10:02 AM
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What are the main ways AI/machine learning will impact marketers and their work in the next year or two? While AI has tremendous potential, I believe we are still a few years off from having it solve “real world” operational problems at scale. But in the meantime, marketers are benefitting from the speed and breadth of the insights afforded by AI. Early success examples have focused on creative – we've started to see the optimisation of creative using AI, such as improved digital product experiences (see Olay's skincare app as an example) and of course much better media targeting (such as Demandbase's new AI product). Both B2C and B2B marketing stands to gain from AI. In summary, what will be the long-term impact of AI/machine learning on marketing? AI and machine learning will enable full personalisation of the customer experience, driven by the real-time integration of media, creative and analytics. Marketers will be more efficient, and customers will receive more relevant information in the right place at the right time....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 15, 2017 11:17 AM
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During Wednesday’s Snap earnings call, chief strategy officer Imran Khan name-dropped L’Oreal as a brand that was reaping the benefits of his company’s vertical video ads and sponsored lenses. His company, which owns Snapchat, has long espoused that the app is not really an influencer-focused platform because it doesn’t want to differentiate celebrity from regular users. L’Oreal’s Paris U.K. division wouldn’t necessarily disagree, though it’s evidently found an ad-free, influencer-heavy formula on Snapchat to complement its paid campaigns. Working with BzzAgent, a network of so-called everyday influencers owned by shopper data company dunnhumby, the cosmetics giant deployed 2,000 U.K.-based women who were 20 to 55 years old for an endeavor that ran across Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube. “They are regular people who are socially savvy,” said Brian Covali, global head of marketing at BzzAgent. “[Their] campaign activities emphasized Snapchat, which is where most of the activity occurred.” ...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 15, 2017 10:54 AM
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There is no perfect landing page design, but there are proven design best practices. In our latest Landing Page Design Best Practices guide, we help you answer all of those questions and many more. With this guide, you’ll learn: - Why landing pages should be focused on a single goal and best practices to convert visitors into leads and customers - How to use Cialdini’s principles of influence and other psychological techniques to your advantage - Specific tips on how to design each landing page element to achieve your conversion goals - Why the visitor’s post-click experience is just as important as the pre-click experience and how to optimize each component....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 14, 2017 11:43 AM
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Jay says a lot of people do very well with YouTube videos, and just as many do well with Facebook videos. However, not too many people do equally well with both because each platform has a specific use case. People watch YouTube as a replacement for television entertainment or they’re searching for how-to videos. On Facebook, videos appear in the news feed and can interrupt people while they’re on the platform. At Convince & Convert, Jay says they advise clients to think about what the video is and under what circumstances people will want to watch it. Based on that assessment, choose one of the platforms as the primary home for the video. I mention how views of The Last Jedi trailer on Facebook far surpassed views on YouTube within the first 30 minutes of its release. Jay responds by noting a few factors that might have contributed to that difference at that particular point in time....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 14, 2017 10:58 AM
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Wondering how to retarget your website visitors on LinkedIn? Want to use LinkedIn ads to reach your non-responsive email contacts? LinkedIn Matched Audiences lets you deliver marketing messages based on website retargeting, account targeting, and email contact targeting. In this article, you’ll discover how to target your prospects and customers using Matched Audiences on LinkedIn....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 18, 2017 1:00 AM
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Having access to free WordPress web design resources is a real life saver. So much goes into creating and running a quality site, from code and images to background graphics, fonts, icons and other elements. Not to mention the knowledge necessary to put it all together. Imagine you had to pay for all of that! How ironic would it be to use a free CMS to run your site and then go broke over making it the best it can be? Thankfully, with the amount of free stuff out there, it doesn’t have to be that way. In this article, we have compiled a boatload of free WordPress web design resources. With their help, you can build an awesome site or improve your existing one and still pay rent on time....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 18, 2017 12:30 AM
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Polar tested different ad formats including image-based content (graphics, image galleries, and slide shows), article-based content, and video-based content. It tested more than 30 pieces of content, with each type tested by a minimum of 1,000 people via desktop, mobile, and both. Among the findings of the study, conducted in March 2017: --Consumer awareness of a brand increased to 69% after engaging with branded content, while purchase intent was 51%. The study also used a control group with no branding. --Incorporating companion display ads next to branded content improved purchase intent by 17% and didn’t have a negative impact on brand perception --Imagery (infographics, image galleries, and slide shows) performed the best among content formats. And notably, video isn’t always needed to tell the story. However, imagery outperformed articles by 11%. "We found that consumers responded a bit more favorably when there was less obvious branding,” Bella said....
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Rescooped by
Jeff Domansky
from Business Improvement
May 17, 2017 11:02 AM
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Free images for blogs and marketers. I have collected a bunch of sites that give you free images for commercial use. Check it out!
Via Daniel Watson
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 17, 2017 10:06 AM
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AI and machine learning are central topics right now for anyone involved, not just in marketing, but in the whole lifecycle of the customer experience, through sales, service and retention. Massive advances are taking place in the space, and DMN is keeping on top of them.Here are some of our favorite recent AI pieces.
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 17, 2017 9:46 AM
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I talked to Zo for most of the plane ride home from Seattle, where I’d just spent the day with the people responsible for developing her. Chatting with her, I quickly discovered, can sometimes feel like talking to a mildly capricious child, like when, out of the blue, she tells me to “quit creepin’!” But Zo’s replies often sound sharp, relevant, and funny. When she doesn’t have the knowledge to talk about a particular topic, she’ll say “let’s talk about something else.” Other times, her replies seem like reports from a world only Zo knows. Sometimes you connect with her and sometimes you don’t. Like many other chatbots–think the Domino’s pizza bot (on Facebook Messenger), which takes your pizza order and your money, or Microsoft’s surprisingly foulmouthed Twitter bot Tay–Zo is a work in progress. She’s also meant to be one of the torchbearers of a new kind of computing. Everyone at Microsoft remembers when CEO Satya Nadella declared that “bots are the new apps.” It was at the company’s annual Build conference last year, and it accompanied the launch of the Microsoft Bot Framework, a platform on which developers both inside and outside Microsoft could build bots for a variety of environments, from Skype to Alexa to Facebook Messenger. A batch of plug-and-play cognitive tools would allow them to leverage the company’s extensive research in AI....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 16, 2017 11:24 AM
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The way that companies handle customer communication has changed dramatically in recent years. Prior to the World Wide Web, the only way for a customer to contact you was by phone or direct mail. Today, new channels have emerged and as consumers become more tech savvy, businesses are now finding themselves engaging with their customers through a wide range of digital platforms, such as web forms, email, self-service, forums and social media networks. The biggest challenge to serving your customers in several communication channels is response time. Customers demand immediate service and slow response times of “within 24 hours” are no longer acceptable....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 16, 2017 10:36 AM
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Representing 1,300 Google AdWords accounts and more than 176,000 active campaigns, the iProspect report provides an analysis and overview of the trends and opportunities relevant for brands that are taking a strategic, performance focused approach to paid search marketing.i iProspect’s Q1 year-over-year Google AdWords data showed strong mobile growth in terms of both impressions and clicks. Volume on desktops and tablets, however, was down, indicating an overall decrease in demand for those devices. Other key findings include: Cost per click increased across all devices, reaching the highest CPC recorded since this report’s inception in 2014 Mobile CPC saw a particularly significant increase, up 40% YoY, further closing the gap on desktop Mobile click share also continued to grow, as advertisers adapted their strategy based on the device-specific search preferences of consumers, and now represents 59% of all paid search traffic Google Shopping investment continued to grow, with advertiser investment up 44% YoY. Voice search, for instance, is quickly becoming the search method of choice for many consumers, says the report. Today, 500M people use a voice search-powered digital assistant of some kind, and half of all searches will be voice searches by 2020 (Tractica, 2016)....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 16, 2017 10:19 AM
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Hootsuite founder and CEO, Ryan Holmes, dishes on why social media is not just important for brands, but for the heads of the brands as well. When it comes to marketing, social media is often discussed as a channel directive. It is a channel marketers need to cultivate an audience on, and can be used to humanize their brand to an extent. Social—especially in the age of Trump—is now often a medium where brands must defend themselves against major scandals. But we rarely bring CEOs into the marketing/social media mix.Ryan Holmes, founder and CEO of Hootsuite, spoke with us in the latest DMN One on One podcast. We caught up with Holmes a few days before the release of his latest book, "The 4 Billion Dollar Tweet." Here's our conversation on how CEOs can, and why they should, get savvy with social media....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 16, 2017 2:10 AM
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Looking for the perfect font for a branding or logo project? We’ve researched some of the very best fonts for tackling a new logo design – and complied them into a handy list for you to refer back to whenever you need.Whether you want an elegant serif, stunning slab, high-impact stencil or more, you’ll find a wealth of inspiration here. Scroll down for 15 of our favourite logo fonts...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 15, 2017 11:06 AM
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With the Digital Content NewFronts’ second week taking place in recent days, digital marketing stats—like last week—were aplenty. Here are nine that caught our eye from across the industry. Check out Mother’s Day video numbers, new social data and a rising retail star....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 15, 2017 10:43 AM
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We set out to find a company that has a deep knowledge and expertise in driving results with Facebook advertising. The company we landed on? Classpass. Classpass’ Mary Rykaczewski has been an integral part of growing their customer base through the use of Facebook and Instagram advertising. And that part of their media budget has only continued to grow due to its success. In episode #44 of The Science of Social Media, Mary shares Classpass’ specific approach to Facebook advertising and how marketers (just like you!) can repeat this scientific process....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 14, 2017 11:16 AM
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What’s the difference between the sales email no one opens and responds to and the one that generates dozens of new customers? Is it the subject line, the length, the way the copy is written, or the ideas contained in the content? The answer is a combination of all of the above. If you have a targeted lead list and your response rate is less than 10% with personalized emails, your emails could use some work. Earlier this year a B2B company came to me for help with their emails. They offered an incredible service for the SaaS space, but weren’t very successful with their sales emails. Their response rates were below 2%....
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Ghost buttons are amazing UI elements that have been increasing in popularity over the years. Get inspired by these examples!