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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 3, 2017 11:06 AM
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Luckily, I have the privilege of working on a team of 150+ other marketers who specialize in different functions than I do. And because of that, I was able to curate this list of the top 58 tools every marketer should know about and being using in 2017. I'll make it easy for you. I broke up my list of recommended tools into different sections so you can get a better sense of what tools are available for different functions of the job. At the end, you'll see the whole list of 58 tools that you can skim and bookmark for later....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 3, 2017 10:49 AM
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Shoppable content is a form of visual commerce in which marketers use compelling imagery (often formulated in a storytelling format) with actionable purchase points or product recommendations, streamlining the conversion path from browsing to purchase. Interactive and shoppable content are now necessary assets for digital retailers. Convenience and a subpar return policy are no longer enough to capture new audiences and encourage customer loyalty. In fact, according to a recent shoppable content report, 33 percent of retailers stated that the improvement of customer’s digital experience was a top three priority in 2017. ECommerce brands championing this new form of social and content marketing are breaking down the traditional constructs of digital shopping. Their websites and marketing channels have transformed into experiences that are an inventive step beyond the dull and dated eCommerce environment.If you’re one of the 33% looking to improve customer experiences this year, take a look at the brands doing it best....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 3, 2017 10:28 AM
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When car shoppers visit a dealership, they aren’t necessarily looking to buy right away. A car salesperson must nurture the relationship, answer their questions, offer a test drive, and relieve their doubts before a purchase is made. Marketers take their online prospects through a similar journey as they move from the awareness stage to the decision stage. In the decision stage of the buyer’s journey, prospects already know they have a problem, have evaluated their options, and are testing out who they should purchase from. Marketers know this well, as an estimated 93% of web-based companies and startups offer a free trial at the bottom of their marketing funnel. That percentage is overwhelming because a free trial offer is the best way for prospects to experience the product and sell themselves on using it. Now let’s examine how businesses are using free trial landing pages to convert prospects....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 2, 2017 11:47 AM
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When I visited a dozen news organizations on our Innovation Tour last November, there was a surprising consensus among the biggest players on the next big thing they had in focus: Voice-activated news for devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home. As was true for Virtual Reality/360-degree video a year earlier, the medium is so new that publishers are just beginning to figure out where to start. But they believe that the eventual opportunity could be huge....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 2, 2017 11:16 AM
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There’s no question that many marketers are thinking about virtual reality (VR). At a time when it’s harder than ever to capture users’ attention, VR gives brands the ability to create truly immersive experiences. Through 360-degree and VR films, marketers can whisk viewers away to Thailand, take them on the open road in New Zealand, or drop them in the middle of a house party.It’s no wonder that VR has been named one of the top trends that will affect digital marketing in 2017. Yet, VR requires a big investment. And a company must align on goals, strategy, distribution, and measurement plans before launching any VR initiative. If you’re among the many brands considering VR as part of your 2017 content marketing strategy, here are helpful data points to keep in mind and possibly build your business case, via this infographic from Marketo and Column Five..
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 2, 2017 10:32 AM
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In the 1970s, designers were treated as rock stars–album cover designers, that is.“You were regarded almost like the fifth member of the band,” says Aubrey Powell, whose studio Hipgnosis was responsible for the album cover designs for artists like Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Genesis, and Led Zeppelin. A new book, Vinyl. Album. Cover. Art, revives Hipgnosis’s complete catalogue, displaying 480 illustrations from the studio’s archive. It’s a glimpse into a pre-digital era when a single illustration could take months to complete. Hipgnosis got its start in 1968, when Aubrey Powell and his creative partner Storm Thorgerson were asked to do an album cover for their friends’ second album. Lucky for Powell and Thorgerson, their friends happened to be the members of Pink Floyd; lead singer and guitarist Syd Barrett was their roommate. At the time, Powell was sneaking into the darkrooms at the Royal College of Art in London, where Thorgerson was a student, and experimenting with infrared film....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 2, 2017 10:02 AM
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The Netflix queue is one of the most dangerous time-sinks on earth. But to designers, it can actually be a great source of inspiration, with everything from design documentaries to films that are pure visual art. Here are 22 must-see design movies and shows on Netflix....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 1, 2017 11:19 AM
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Josh Tetrick was standing in a Dollar Tree in Oakland, California, when he asked a customer which brand of mayo was best. The woman pointed to a gleaming white jar of Kraft.But Tetrick asked, “What about the Just Mayo?”–the flagship product of his company Hampton Creek–which sat nearby. “She said, ‘No, that’s the private-label brand at the Dollar Tree,’” Tetrick recounts. In other words, Just Mayo’s craft paper label–a label that had first been X-Acto-knifed, one at a time, for its initial appearance on shelves at Whole Foods–it didn’t register as some Brooklyn-inspired, vegan artisanal good to this bargain shopper in Oakland. It looked like the generic stuff sold by a budget retailer. “That was an important learning for me,” says Tetrick. “It shows how important context is in design.” And it cemented a hunch, that Hampton Creek, with the lofty, sometimes controversial goal of bringing sustainable, transparent, healthier processed foods to the mainstream consumer, simply didn’t make sense where many low-income and middle-class consumers were shopping: Walmart and Dollar Tree....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 1, 2017 10:57 AM
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The fourth edition of Street Fight’s Local Merchant Report, based on a survey of small business owners and decision makers, launched today. The data shows a continued movement to social media as a preferred marketing tactic among local merchants. They deem it their most effective tactic, so they’re increasing their spending. Analysis of the survey suggests that would-be marketing suppliers can help them integrate social with their own site and email campaigns, as well as assisting them with reputation management and reviews. Street Fight surveyed over 250 local merchants on their marketing and e-commerce usage, effectiveness, and challenges. The digital marketing usage trend is consistent with what we’ve seen in previous years’ surveys. Social usage is up slightly from last year, and email marketing retains its number two spot. That’s at the expense of print: newspaper and Yellow Pages advertising are each down by almost half. Those patterns will only get more pronounced. Over 40% of local merchants we surveyed said they would increase their social media spending. Email and local sites will see increases, according to 35% of those polled....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 1, 2017 10:36 AM
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While the restaurant industry represents nearly $800 billion in annual spending in the US, it remains highly fragmented, with 90% of restaurants supporting fewer than 50 employees and 70% of restaurants operating just one location, according to the National Restaurant Association. To help restaurant managers improve operations, startups are aiming to integrate tech into nearly every aspect of the business, from CRM to inventory to engaging visitors while they wait for a table. Investors have poured nearly $2.5B into the restaurant tech category globally since 2012, across over 600 deals. There have also been a number of acquisitions, including Yelp’s recent acquisition of seating management tool Nowait, and Subway’s acquisition of mobile restaurant payments platform Avanti Commerce. Revel Systems, which had been one of the most well-funded companies in the space with $128.5M, was also acquired for over $580M by private equity firm Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe. We’re also seeing new investors in the space. Food delivery startup Just Eat, for example, recently launched a food tech accelerator whose investments included several restaurant tech startups. To better visualize the emerging restaurant tech startup scene, we put together the infographic below highlighting over 100 of these startups and the parts of the restaurant they target....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 1, 2017 9:59 AM
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Bringing ideas to life in an organization can be a bumpy ride. We’re all familiar with the myth of Isaac Newton sitting under the apple tree, waiting for inspiration to fall on his head. Newton’s apple is one of the more common symbols of innovation, right up there with Archimedes shouting Eureka from his bathtub. Metaphorically, that’s what we do when go to a brainstorming meeting to come up with new ideas. If the conditions are right, and the coffee strong enough, the next great idea just might fall on our heads. What is often overlooked is what happens next, after the apple falls, when we have to actually bring that idea to life. If we’re not careful, Newton’s apple can turn into Newton’s applesauce, a watered down imitation of the idea. One of my first cartoons (back in 2002) was about this phenomenon.j...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
April 30, 2017 9:43 AM
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If you have a beer in your hand, life is probably good. And if you have the best beer, life is probably even better, especially if it's from the best craft brewery in your state. How are we defining "best brewery" here? Obviously, making fantastic beer is a must -- although that's happening in so many places these days that it's becoming an extremely delicious problem. Does size matter? To a degree; if two breweries we like are pretty close in quality and one of them is providing beer to many more people, that could tip the scale in its favor, but we might also go with the smaller place that's inspiring fans to drive hours for its beers. Check out our picks below and read about some beers to add to your bucket list, or just scroll down to your state and head straight to the comments section to heckle us about our brewery choice. However you want to play it, happy drinking!...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
April 30, 2017 9:16 AM
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Marketers may be investing heavily in content marketing, but their efforts may not be very memorable to people who come across it. An April 2017 study of internet users in the UK, conducted by software company Prezi and Censuswide, found that eight in 10 respondents forgot the branded content they had seen just three days prior. What’s more, roughly half couldn’t remember a single detail about it. But there are attributes that can help consumers remember the content they see—and they’re not at all surprising. Roughly a quarter of respondents said that if they saw content that told them something new—or if it taught them something new—then that would help them better remember it. Branded content that inspires, entertains or even shocks would also be more memorable....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 3, 2017 11:00 AM
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Below are 32 free online courses you can take to beef up your skill set. These offerings vary in time commitment, but many are self-paced so you can work on your own schedule. We'll fill you in on the details below, or you can also skip ahead to check out classes in the following categories:
- Content Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Social Media
- SEO
- Coding, Design & Other Technical Skills
A brief explanation of each course creator accompanies their first mention on the list.
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 3, 2017 10:36 AM
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Amanda Stent, a natural language processing researcher at Bloomberg, said data scientists want to work with journalists to create mutually-beneficial solutions. “I see the newsroom working with data science to create very forward looking, fast and accurate journalism, both text and multimedia,” she said. “I think it’s incredibly exciting and really helps people who are consumers of media to make better decisions and be better informed.” John Borthwick, the CEO of Betaworks, said that humans need to begin to discuss the ethical implications of machine learning and to understand how machines interact with human experiences. “Our sense as human beings that we have this ability to be able to do things that machines can’t do is going to be challenged, and we need to start thinking about this,” he said. Borthwick pointed to the fact that political bots had a significant impact on how Americans thought about the 2016 presidential candidates and how they voted.
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 2, 2017 12:14 PM
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This marks the fourth year in a row that Politico Magazine has surveyed the White House press corps, our annual snapshot of the highs, lows and general chaos of trying to cover the most powerful office on earth. Every administration has its own running fights with the press, but this year the context was different from the start: a new president who gets unparalleled media attention, yet has publicly attacked the press over and over since taking office. President Donald Trump has called the media “fake news,” the “enemy of the American people,” “dishonest” and much more; he has singled out individual reporters with criticism and name-calling. At the same time, Trump has welcomed multiple outlets into the Oval Office for interviews, makes a point of praising the journalists he likes, and devours print and TV coverage of him and his staff. And in case there was any doubt that this was a new team with a whole new relationship to the media, for the first time (that we know of), someone in the press corps leaked our questions to the administration—and, for the first time, the White House emailed Politico Magazine demanding detailed answers about the survey and how it was conducted. (The answers are in the fine print at the end of this piece.) So what’s it really like to cover Trump? Does he really treat the media like the “opposition party,” in his adviser Steve Bannon’s words? Finally, how do reporters rate their own coverage of the Trump presidency?...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 2, 2017 11:31 AM
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autohome roof tent MINI: if the day comes to an end, autohome's rooft tent offers an impromtu place to spend the night.
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 2, 2017 10:54 AM
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Social media is crucial to the success of any company's digital marketing strategy. Despite this, brands of all kinds and sizes are not using this tool to its full potential. Although the number of "follows", "likes" and "shares" is still important, the credibility of a brand is distinguished by far more than just this. Today, social media requires a unique set of skills whereby brands need to fully understand the needs of their audience. To help you out, I've put together 10 social media strategies you need to implement this year, whether you are a young entrepreneur or a well-established brand....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 2, 2017 10:23 AM
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Infographics can also be a helpful device to generate more leads. Generally, the same rules apply here as for creating any effective visual content -- it serves as a conversion path as a result of shareability and informative nature. But what are the specifics there? What are the different ways to create the infographics that are going to generate leads? We identified five of our favorite ways to go about doing that, and outlined them below....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 1, 2017 11:30 AM
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Less is a bore, as Robert Venturi once said. Minimalism has held a tight grip on the modern design industry for the past decade. We embraced the Apple aesthetic, extolled the logic of Helvetica, and worshiped at the church of Dieter Rams. It served its purpose, most recently, as a correctional to the excesses of the 1990s. But lately, as dispatches from Milan Design Week have shown, asceticism has given way to audacity. Every April, hundreds of thousands of people trek to Milan for its trendsetting design week, which ultimately influences the furniture, accessories, and textiles that make their way into homes, offices, hotels, restaurants, and virtually every other interior. This year the artistic influences ranged from ’30s art deco to ’70s eclecticism. Designers and manufacturers experimented with digital fabrication–like 3D knitting–and rediscovered artisanal craft techniques, like lacquering, metal casting, and jacquard weaving. But one thing was consistent: They’re embracing luxurious materials and textures, testing ambitious silhouettes, and piling on the details to yield products and furnishings that are visually enticing and emotionally evocative.In other words, minimalism is dead; maximalism has arrived....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 1, 2017 11:08 AM
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As Facebook embraces an increasingly mobile audience, are publishers still benefitting from Instant Articles?According to Facebook, an Instant Article is 20 percent to 50 percent more likely to be clicked than a regular link post. Since January, Facebook says the number of publishers using Instant Articles has increased to over 9,000, a 27 percent increase.We last looked at Instant Articles in September, and noted the high engagement. Facebook has recently added several Call-to-Action options to the format so that readers can now be prompted to like a Page or sign up for a publishers’ newsletter.While some publishers are struggling with how to increase direct monetization from the format, we’ve previously seen social media engagements around Instant Articles run high....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 1, 2017 10:44 AM
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Twitter’s transformation into a TV network is edging ever closer with the company’s announcement that it is teaming up with Bloomberg to create a 24/7 news streaming service directly on the social network. The move comes as little surprise given Twitter’s recent escapades in the video-streaming realm. The company announced last week that 800 hours of live premium video were watched by 45 million viewers in Q1 2017, up 31 percent on the previous quarter, with myriad video partnerships over the past 12 months helping drive new users to the platform. Last year, Twitter won the rights to stream Thursday night NFL games, and it also partnered with BuzzFeedfor a U.S. presidential election livestream and nabbed some PGA golf coverage. More recently, it has signed video deals across sports, esports, and politics, and it’s also preparing to begin producing original content. Ahead of its Q1 earnings announcement last week, Twitter revealed that it eventually plans to stream video 24/7, and it now seems the first of those deals is already in place. The as-yet-unnamed new service is expected to begin operating this fall, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, and will extend beyond Bloomberg’s existing TV news coverage by mixing broadcasts from its global news outlets with a “curated and verified mix of video” from Twitter’s users....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
May 1, 2017 10:07 AM
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Thanks to multitasking (and our method of accounting for it, explained in a moment), US adults’ average daily time spent with major media will slightly exceed 12 hours this year, according to eMarketer’s latest report, “US Time Spent with Media: eMarketer’s Updated Estimates and Forecast for 2014-2019” (available only to eMarketer PRO subscribers). But while our reports early in the decade told a story of robust gains—with increases in digital usage more than compensating for declines in time spent with non-digital media—growth has been petering out. Of course, media multitasking is what has made so much usage possible. Like a Coney Island contestant stuffing hot dogs into his mouth with both hands, people are often using multiple media at the same time....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
April 30, 2017 9:53 AM
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The most amazing swimming pools you've ever seen. Seriously!
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
April 30, 2017 9:27 AM
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Since Facebook and Kik debuted their chatbot channels last year, thousands of bots have been built by brands, media companies and developers on the platforms, with more expected in 2017. (Just last week, Facebook unveiled its Messenger 2.0, with brands like Subway, Aeromexico and Food Network coming onboard.) However, while bots might seem like just another extension on social media, there is still a lot to figure out in terms of performance and measurement. And just like the early days of social media, understanding what clicks and what doesn’t is still a work in progress. “When we were creating chatbots and thinking about it as a new medium, we wanted to go back to the drawing board to assess how these things should be measured,” said Kik product manager Laura Newton. “Although bots are still a niche product and aren’t super widespread, they cover a vast variety of use cases and we think they need to be treated different.”...
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