Ultimate Guide to Blockchain Growth: Marketing in a Decentralized World Posted by John Assalian on April 23, 2018 The future is blockchain and blockchain is the future. There is no doubt about this. Blockchain will be the technology that an array of industries is based upon, including forming contracts, keeping track of ownership, distributing data, and yes, marketing! Blockchain is best known as the technology that cryptocurrencies are built upon, but they have nearly limitless uses outside of crypto as well. A blockchain is basically just a ledger that, instead of being stored in a single location, is distributed to all users so that each transaction can be verified by everyone who has a copy of the ledger. Large companies such as Walmart and JP Morgan are already investing in blockchain technology, a move that is mirrored on the start-up side as well with over $2 billion dollars invested into ICOs in 2017. It is only a matter of time before customers in all types of businesses expect the value of blockchain technology to be a part of their user experience. So, how do you approach the marketing of blockchain to various audiences? We set out to answer that question in our new eBook. Learn more about the future of blockchain marketing here: Ultimate Guide to Blockchain Growth If you are fanatic about marketing the blockchain as much as we are, Viewstream would love to discuss what we can do for you. Let’s talk!
From AI to ABM: 2018 Trends Every Marketer Should Know Posted by John Assalian on December 19, 2017 1. Video Domination In a world where we spend a billion hours on YouTube every single day, video content isn’t going anywhere and will only continue to grow. This is especially true when it comes to explainer videos and tutorial content. We’re also seeing an increased shift towards mobile content. For years non-mobile dominated the video ad market, but it looks like 2017 may be the final year of that being a reality. Zenith says that 2018 will be the first year in which mobile ad spending finally outpaces its non-mobile counterpart. According to Recode 25% more video will be watched by people on mobile in 2018, and in the coming year spending on mobile advertising is expected to increase by almost 50% to $18 billion. Due to all these factors, it will be effective for companies to find new ways to incorporate video into their advertising. In social media, for example, big platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn often charge less on a CPM basis for video views. Also, think about places to use video that aren’t that traditional, in the example being Video Brochures created by Viewstream, which deliver HD-quality sound and video in the form of a paper brochure. 2. Artificial Intelligence Buzz As Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and customer data become more advanced and user-friendly, we are seeing them become much more a part of the successful marketers toolbox. A report from Salesforce shows that the most successful marketing teams are 2x more likely to include AI in their campaigns, so marketers expect more growth in this area than any other over the next two years. Effective use of consumer data will be just important as AI over the same time period. Consumers prefer to be engaged in ways that feel personalized for them, and their data will play a critical role in creating content that has a genuine human touch. That extra spice that makes the difference. 3. Chatbots: The Voice of the Future One specific aspect of artificial intelligence worth talking about on its own is the rise of chatbots as consumer agents. Moving forward you will continue to see an increase in companies large and small using chatbots to improve their customer service experience and, according to Gartner, the majority of buyer-business interactions will be facilitated by chatbots. While chatbots may not be everyone’s vision of the future companies may be warming up to the idea of them. In a recent article, Forrester Research predicted that 70% of companies will expect to implement some kind of artificial intelligence in the next 12 months. Forrester claims this increase in AI-adoption can be attributed to improved user interfaces and analytics solutions for these AIs. Chatbots are something that most people are already familiar with, but advancements in technology and chatbot personalization means that they will only become more widely used as we enter into 2018 and the years beyond. 4. Personalization Creates Engagement It is really not possible to understate the effect that personalized communications can have on your marketing. Consumers are much more likely to be engaged and responsive to a message that is personalized in some way for them, making it critical that companies know what each individual needs. Even something as little as industry personalization of your campaigns will show an improvement in conversions. Personalization is such a big influencer for buyers that a lack of it can affect their purchases going forward. Salesforce found that 65% of B2B consumers and 52% of B2C were likely to switch brands if the company in question did not personalize messages to their consumers. This is even true of traditional email marketing, Maven Commerce showed that personalizing emails can increase open rate from 15.03% to 56.43%, and CTR from 1.13% to 31.13%. 5. ABM Goes Beyond Hype to More Content Tailoring Account Based Marketing has become one of those buzz words that means anything to anyone. ABM is essentially a strategy to focus on prospects that truly fit your ideal customer profile. Using a targeted account list (think the exact customer profile that buys your stuff) makes the whole marketing process, from strategy to creative to media, more focused on those likely to buy. It’s like a billboard that only your target customers can see. Most companies have some ABM initiative in place for the last twelve months and will expand in 2018. We recommend really focusing on the target account list and keeping that constantly updated. This allows you to do more targeted content tailoring to specific industries, roles and account names. The more tailored the better the results. Due to ABM’s hyper-focused human strategy, be strategic when compiling “the list” and give more weight to warm leads with whom you’ve already established some type of relationship. Finally, stop doing billboard marketing, and use your Account Based Marketing list in your actual media spend, with such tools as Google AdWords Match, Facebook custom audiences, and your DMP custom segments. 6. Marketing in the Decentralized Era Blockchain begins to mature in 2018 and is a megatrend that will change most aspects of computing as we know it. We are really in the infrastructure building stage of blockchain, so the tools for marketers don’t yet exist. With that said, there is a lot to learn for all marketers on the overall ecosystem for the decentralized era. To do so, check out this article “The Two Spheres of Blockchain Marketing” by Joshua Shane, Managing Director at Viewstream.
Market Share from Marketing Posted by John Assalian on April 25, 2017 How much of your market share do you get from marketing? Most people overestimate what marketing can do over a couple quarters, but underestimate how effective marketing can be over ten quarters. The goal is to get to the goal faster: a great marketing campaign will help a great product take off, or a bad product fail faster. In other words, if your marketing doesn’t work, then you save money in the long run by failing fast and moving to your next successful campaign. We believe marketing is about scale. We must constantly move the market with your product and brand vision. The biggest problem in marketing today is irrelevance. In a world bombarded with marketing messages, retreat is not an option. You must stand out and advance. Viewstream would love to help you scale through our insights, strategy, creative, media and analytics.
The Magic Bullet is Not Magic Posted by John Assalian on April 11, 2017 No matter how great your product is, if you are marketing to the wrong person and/or industry, you will have challenges. Identifying the right target audience is the most important thing you can do for your business and marketing. This market/customer fit, and the continual process to discover and rediscover the fit as times change, is the eternal task of business. Some businesses have tight fits that make marketing relatively easy. For other businesses, we need to perform more trial and error between offers, content and targets, using various media, like 3rd party publishers, 1st party data, social media, email lists and others. Don’t assume the marketplace cares about you (they don’t). Put in the time and effort to identify the right targets, reach them with creative, put them through a funnel and then sell. The only thing you can count on is that the magic bullet is not magic. The latest algorithm, creative trick or marketing automation tech won’t solve your marketing problems. You need a human touch.
Predict innovation through search keywords. A beer example. Posted by John Assalian on April 10, 2017 “Change before you have to.” Jack Welch What Jack Welch means by that is that all business revenue lines eventually lead to zero. Think about the graveyards of businesses: Blockbuster. Kodak. Borders. Myspace. We can never rest on a single revenue line. But how? What is the right market? What business ought we be in? What products and services will define the future? Here’s a quick and easy way to get some instant feedback on what’s next. Using a SEM/SEO keyword tool like Google Keyword Planner or Sem Rush, look at search keywords to identify future market trends. What’s interesting are the long tail keywords, down the list in the twenty-five spot or the fifty-spot depending on keyword volume. That’s where things get interesting and opportunities are identified. Let’s look an example: beer. Say we want to innovate in the beer market. The keyword “Beer” gets over 1.3M searches a year. Let’s look at some of the long tail keywords that are insightful in identifying new markets. Root Beer: 27K per month Root Beer is trending up strongly. Diversify up market with a craft, non alcoholic play? Nonalcoholic beer: 18K per month A lot of interest in nonalcoholic beers – could be another way to diversify up market. Beer cheese dip: 18K per month License your beer brand and recipie to a company making cheese products? Yum. Sapporo Beer: 15K per month Sapporo is a rice beer, so perhaps this is a health trend showing demand for beers that avoid gluten? A gluten free beer? Beer Belly: 15K per month Could be a marketing stunt of some kind? Hard root beer: 12K per month Even better than regular root beer – add some alcohol. Grapefruit Beer 12K Grapefruit beer is a German type that further fits into the health trend. It’s 2% alcohol and even has vitamin C. If you are in the beer business, those are some great ideas. I developed those ideas in a few minutes, so a bit more time and testing could yield significant dividends. And if you do happen to end up in the dustbin of history, have a beer and get back to the Keyword Drawing Board! If you want some help identifying new markets, let Viewstream know. We would love to help. One other thing: once you have a new product identified, use this handy tool to define your market position.
Why are you special? Posted by John Assalian on March 7, 2016 Getting marketing right requires a real understanding of why your product and company is unique. To help, Viewstream created a “Positioning Generator“. It’s the marketing team’s Mad Libs. Fill in the blanks based on the prompts provided and get your positioning statement. It’s sure to get you thinking, at least. This type of statement ought to be a default part of your messaging, communication and go-to market arsenal. Check it out here: http://viewstream.com/positioning-generator/
In between the panels… Posted by John Assalian on March 3, 2016 What can marketers learn from comic books? Succinctly said, the power of comic and graphic novels occur in between the panels. Between panel A and panel B, a world of curiosity, sensibility and feeling is unlocked. It’s not what is said or shown, it’s what is not said or shown that is unique. Think about that from a marketing perspective. How many times do we try to say too much about our product, solution or brand? Comic books teach us to think about what occurs “in between the panels”. Say and show something creative. Then let your audience imagine. Let your audience translate their needs and desires into something our offering delivers. What would happen if, for your next marketing project, instead of saying everything, you left some things for ‘in between the panels’? Give it a shot and let me know how it works.
Viewstream Marketing Recognized for Creative Excellence in Art Direction Posted by John Assalian on January 5, 2015 Viewstream was recently presented with two 2014 Telly Awards in the Art Direction category. Our video for ERA Real Estate revealed the location of their 2015 International Business Conference (IBC15) to their global community at IBC14 this past March in Los Angeles. The IBC15 Reveal video earned the highest honor of the Silver Telly Award. Additionally, a Bronze Award was presented for Viewstream work for Autodesk Point Layout in Internet/Online Video. We were up against a lot of competition—12,000 entries from around the globe were submitted. Entrants included ad agencies, interactive agencies, production firms, in-house creative professionals, graphic designers, design firms and public relations firms. The winners were announced in New York on June 16. All the work was judged by a panel of 500 Silver Telly Council members representing a variety of distinguished media, advertising and marketing firms. Each year, the council honors creative excellence for communications professionals across the world by recognizing the best in advertising, corporate communications, public relations and identity work for print, video, interactive and audio. We’d like to congratulate all of our fellow Telly Award recipients and thank them for their important contributions to the industry.
Viewstream Discusses Skeuomorphic Design Posted by John Assalian on April 8, 2014 Here at Viewstream we are very interested in design trends. So one afternoon we put the entire company on pause to talk about a favorite topic — the future of skeuomorphism. Our design team gave an internal presentation that explored the rapid evolution of this design trend since touchscreens became an everyday part of our lives, from the first iPhone, to iOS 7, and beyond. We also discussed how skeuomorphism impacts our experience of User Interfaces and our senses of reality, objectivity, and perfection. Check out the visual portion of our design team’s presentation here.
Top ten marketing trends Posted by John Assalian on February 3, 2014 View the top ten marketing trends for 2014 from Viewstream. Any trends resonate for your marketing mix in 2014? View the trends