The past decade has seen a spike in mergers and acquisitions, as conglomeration and consolidation seem to be the trend of the future. Healthcare, technology and media-related brands have experienced the most consolidation. Mergers and acquisitions offer attractive opportunities to consolidate talent, infrastructure and relationships, but an equal number of challenges. Luckily, Bluetext has experience with many clients seeking digital marketing and branding guidance either after a successful M&A event, or with an eye to the future of the company and it’s M&A potential. A consistent lesson learned from our clients across a wide variety of industries is the importance of branding, especially in the early M&A planning.
WHY a company should rebrand after an acquisition
One of the key challenges includes branding, which when done correctly creates a harmonious industry presence built for long term success. But when branding is neglected, it runs the risk of introducing new problems that might damage a firm’s reputation or open up rifts between internal teams. While key stakeholders tend to focus on talent, business operations or business development, branding can fall to the back burner. Though as an experienced brand marketing agency, Bluetext knows the risk of deprioritizing corporate messaging & branding. Without unified brand creative and messages, a newly consolidated company lacks the foundation and united front to be successful in the marketplace and internally.
Often newly merged companies decide to either adopt one existing brand, or decide to create a new brand for a fresh look when they go to market. This decision is crucial to make early on, as it sets the tone for the entire process. While there are pros and cons to both avenues, Bluetext has observed companies that opt to create a new brand identity and corporate messaging often experience higher excitement, zeal and attention with the new company announcement. A blank slate for the brand story, key messages and creative visuals gives all stakeholders the chance to weigh in and feel heard in the process. The end result is a new brand that all internal stakeholders feel connected to and proud to represent both digitally via social media and physically via corporate swag.
HOW new branding affects the business
Creative brand agencies tend to think of two top considerations for branded materials: internal communications and external marketing. Both are of significant importance to any company, but especially of a newly merged or acquired one.
Well-branded internal communications can serve as a unifier for a new company and its employees, especially if two companies with distinct cultures are merging. Having the same style business cards, Powerpoint templates, or even branded swag creates a sense of kinship amongst colleagues. Especially in larger corporates, consistent brand assets can send a subtle but effective message of cohesion when connecting with new colleagues or other office locations.
The second, slightly more obvious reason for branding is external marketing. Your go-to-market strategy should be reinforced with strong branding and messaging. Whether your primary goal is to appeal to customers, stand out from competitors, or attract talent, you need well-developed marketing materials in your toolkit. Especially when pitching to prospective clients or customers, it would look disjointed and confusing to see conflicting branding across a company’s website, resources, or collateral.
From press announcements to rebranded websites and collateral, Bluetext is a full-service digital marketing agency that can guide your company through than rebrand or M&A process. Contact us to learn more about our services.
Whether you work for a big or a small company, I’m sure you’ve had the question of how to differentiate yourself from the competition. In the ever-growing B2B market, you want your brand to stand above the rest. Easier said than done, right? What if I told you that your market standing could be improved significantly through brand storytelling. Keep reading to learn more and how Bluetext can help you reach your branding goals.
Why Is Brand Storytelling Important For Me?
First of all, storytelling that is consistent with your brand allows your audience to peek behind the curtain to see more than just what you do and sell. Coupled with good company values, storytelling serves to humanize your brand, facilitating connections with your audience and explaining how and why you do and sell the things you do. As your audience gets exposed to your story, they’re more likely to identify with shared values.
While we often like to think fancy data callouts and graphics will convince your audience to convert, at the end of the day studies show we rely heavily on our subconscious feelings. Storytelling gives marketers the ability to share their products and services without diving into a hard sell. This allows your audience to be enticed by your company without being explicitly aware that they were pitched a product/service.
SonicWall
When SonicWall set out to update their messaging and branding to match their top-tier services across a variety of industries, they came to Bluetext. As a cybersecurity marketing agency, we were excited to work with SonicWall to bring their Boundless Cybersecurity to market with a bang. Previous campaigns had attempted to tell the Boundless story, but with muddled messaging and creative that didn’t result in conversions. Bluetext’s branding and creative team were tasked with bringing the Boundless Cybersecurity story to life. The new campaign focused on conveying a feeling of breaking free from cyber threats and thus feeling liberated. To visually communicate this, we designed imagery and messaging that supported this feeling of being free. Campaign ads depict a series of end-users in their industry floating in the air. This not only allows the audience to feel connected to their industry but also the benefits of being freed from the industry-specific challenges. The campaign was a smashing success, bringing a record number of visitors to their campaign landing page.
Why stop there? The Boundless brand story carried onto their annual partner event, which was turned virtual in the wake of COVID-19. Bluetext and SonicWall worked together to promote SonicWall’s Boundless 2020 Virtual event. This event resulted in a 135% increase in attendance over their previous events, going down in history as SonicWall’s largest virtual event ever.
Trusona
TrusonaAnother great example of brand storytelling is Trusona. When Trusona wanted to reimagine their brand presentation and messaging they turned to Bluetext. Priding themselves on creating a secure experience for users without the hassle of passwords, we wanted to deliver a brand that conveyed their hassle-free nature. As with any story, consistency is key.,Bluetext designed a library of brand elements inspired by their logo to be used across all communications. Every time you see a brand element, you’re reminded of the Trusona brand and their brand promise to simplify authentication.
As a digital marketing agency, we’ve worked across industries to learn the most effective ways to convey a story and foster connection. These stories help your audience understand that you are more than just a faceless corporation, but rather a trusted partner.
Are you interested in working with a branding marketing firm to help tell your story? Contact Us!
You’ve crafted your brand message, settled on a new visual strategy, or launched your new product. So what’s next? You probably have the urge to shout your new message from the rooftops. But in 2021, you may need a more modern digital media strategy. Paid media is essential to put that message in front of your target audience. While earned media (i.e. public relations, email, organic search, organic social) is also an important part of GTM, paid media can both expand your brand’s current reach and reel in interested parties, and convert them into customers.
A Full-Funnel Approach Drives both Awareness and Acquisition
As a top digital marketing & design agency, we know that the funnel is everything when talking about paid media. Online user behavior is very rarely linear or systematic. Consider how you browse the web. Do you click on the first link you see and immediately start a purchase online? If you’re like most people, you click around, do an informed search, and learn more before making a purchasing decision.
Awareness Builds the Top of the Funnel
When crafting a digital media strategy, we account for user behavior by focusing on the overall user journey. That journey can be broken up into two main parts: awareness and acquisition. Each category has an ideal mix of channels and tactics that accomplish specific key performance indicators (KPIs). At the top of the funnel is awareness: a user’s understanding of your business or specific product. The KPIs for awareness are typically impressions or site visits – really just eyeballs on ads and on your site content.
Channels that we typically include in awareness campaigns include programmatic media (which includes display, native and video ads), paid social, and other advertising (billboards, podcasts, etc.). These ads are meant to capture a broad audience and expand the awareness of the business to new – and potentially lucrative- audiences. Within these channels, we also use tactics that will increase impressions and site visits. Third-party targeting (showing kitchen tool ads to someone marked as interested in cooking) is particularly helpful, as is contextual targeting (showing kitchen tool ads to someone browsing a recipe site).
As a top digital marketing & design agency, we craft awareness ads that grab user attention and build an informed target audience. Our client, Appgate, urgently needed to drive brand awareness traffic to the website, recently redesigned by Bluetext. To do so, our brand creative captured user attention with eye-catching motion and sustained interest with useful and digestible information. It is key your ads give just enough information to be helpful, but also entice someone to click the ad and learn more. Within one month, Appgate’s campaign had increased sessions to the landing page by 17% and drove a 25% increase in site engagement.
Acquisition Tactics Convert Qualified Audiences
While all businesses need to start with an awareness campaign, some also want to focus on the acquisition with lower-funnel tactics and conversion-focused KPIs. KPIs for this part of the campaign include engagements on the site (form fills, content downloads, subscriptions, etc.), conversion rate, and cost per acquisition (CPA).
There are many channels that can be used for acquisition campaigns, but one of the most common is paid search. Others include programmatic channels (display, native, video) and paid social. Account-based marketing – which targets specific businesses – is also more of an acquisition-focused tactic. Within these channels, the tactics that optimize toward acquisition are different. Retargeting (showing specialized ads to users that have visited or engaged with your site) is a commonly used acquisition tactic. All tactics and channels in an acquisition campaign rely on strong brand awareness. Paid search success, for example, regularly relies on traffic searching for a certain business or brand name. In addition, retargeting doesn’t build a new audience – it just converts the audience that has already interacted with your site.
Creative for acquisition campaigns are typically more urgent and action-based. Instead of “Learn More”, CTAs focus on specific actions (downloading a demo, registering for a webinar, etc.). Consider, for example, EXL. For this acquisition campaign, Bluetext focused on highlighting certain webinars and speakers, resulting in a 5% increase in ad click-through rate on programmatic display and a 185% increase on paid LinkedIn.
Upcoming Trends in Paid Media for GTM
All top paid media & content marketing agencies to know what’s ahead for GTM tactics and strategies. One major change on the horizon for paid media is the trend away from cookies and pixels. Though many companies have done internal media campaigns based on retargeting and third party targeting they’ve collected in the past, those tactics will become obsolete by the end of the year.
Privacy laws are becoming more prevalent and Internet browsers are moving away from collecting cookies – retargeting is becoming a thing of the past. In its place are solutions such as Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), among others. Need help navigating the new media landscape? Contact the experts at Bluetext for all of your awareness and acquisition needs.
Congratulations, you’ve launched your brand – now what? As a digital branding agency, Bluetext has seen many clients go through a rigorous rebranding process only to find themselves lost and unclear of the next steps. Our digital marketing recommendation? Focus on a ‘Go to Market’ strategy! After investing the time and resources in revamping your brand, it’s time to showcase the finished product with pride to your audiences!
What Exactly is a ‘Go to Market Strategy (GTM) Strategy?
At its core, a GTM strategy is a campaign to target audiences to ultimately get them to reach your rebrand. While the end goal may vary, announcing the brand and gaining recognition and attention is a critical first step for any newly branded company.
Popular end goals include:
- Raising awareness
- Recruitment
- Lead generation
- Showcase capabilities/products/solutions
- Stand out against competitors
- Solidify stance in the industry
Whether your company has adopted a new visual identity, brand name, messaging platform, or all three, you should make these changes across all advertising channels. Consistency is key. Users should be able to clearly recognize a shift and not be confused by residual legacy branding. You may need to update your digital marketing campaign assets such as display ad creative, social media profiles, and website content. These assets should be eye-catching to grab the attention of new users, but also generate interest in returning users familiar with the old brand. The most common and successful channels to include in your GTM strategy are:
- Paid search
- Paid display
- Organic social
- Paid social
The most effective campaigns combine channels & targeting/retargeting to drive top-of-funnel traffic all the way down the funnel for full conversion. The beauty of modern search and social advertising platforms is the ability to target extremely specific buyer personas. Especially in a wider GTM strategy, you want to ensure your advertising spend is smart and reaching the intended audiences. Bluetext recommends targeting by at least the following demographics:
- Industry
- Demographics
- Job title
- Income
- Geographic location
What About Merger & Acquisition GTM Strategy?
Centauri
Bluetext recently supported messaging, brand, and website launch of Centauri, a new company born from the merger of three powerful federal contracting agencies. Centauri’s GTM strategy followed the launch of their new website with two primary goals: brand awareness and recruitment. Bluetext served as the creative branding, website design, website development, and digital marketing strategy agency for Centauri. To meet Centauri’s goals, Bluetext created an omnichannel GTM strategy to drive users to the new website and complete applications.
To meet brand awareness goals, paid display, search and social campaigns were used to introduce the company and position them in the industry as the leading, mission-first experts. These campaigns used the brand’s creative and intriguing copy to attract the attention of top of funnel traffic. The brand awareness campaign ads targeted both current customers and potential recruitments, and when clicked took users to a custom landing page announcing the new company.
To achieve Centauri’s recruitment goal, Bluetext’s GTM strategy aimed to draw a connection between the new brand and their work/mission. This campaign was geared to lower funnel traffic, targeting specific candidate demographics. Using robust targeting options, Centauri was able to reach only the type of people who would fit the qualifications and be interested in their national security mission, such as veterans, engineers, and government cleared individuals. These campaign ads drove viewers directly to Centauri’s career portal to view job descriptions and apply directly.
BlueHalo
Another recent Bluetext success story is BlueHalo, formally AEgis. BlueHalo sought out Bluetext to assist with their new brand messaging, creative, website, and digital strategy. Similar to Centauri, their GTM strategy kicked off following the website launch to raise brand awareness and recruit new talent. Their brand awareness campaign focused on introducing the new company as a merger of various companies to create one unified and solid force in the industry. The campaign ads drove users to the new website, where they could learn more about the merger, strengthened capabilities and industry presence. Recruitment focused ads used the precise targeting of paid social, search and social channels to retarget qualified individuals and tie the new brand to company mission. When clicked, users could view all job openings, or those most relevant to their skills set.
Bluetext has observed incredible success of clients who implement a GTM strategy. Having a game plan to follow the launch of your new brand or website allows you to swiftly transition from building a new brand to building business success. A GTM strategy helps reach customers, recruits and other audience members and provide competitive advantage.
Benefits of GTM also include, but not limited to:
- Creating awareness of a specific product or service.
- Generating leads and converting leads into customers.
- Maximizing market share by entering new markets, increasing customer engagement and outperforming competitors.
- Protecting the current market share against competitors.
- Strengthening brand positioning.
- Reducing costs and optimizing profits.
Want to make a splash with your GTM strategy? See what Bluetext can do for you.
2020 will forever mark a significant milestone in remote work practices. To comply with COVID-19 safety protocols many companies have closed or limited office capacity and enabled their workforce to work remotely. There is a significant change in everyday work practices, but even more significant change in large industry events from trade shows, networking events, and conferences. While industry events as we know them are not yet possible, business must go on. Luckily, digital-based agencies such as Bluetext, have been hard at work to innovate solutions that can replicate the in-person experience as much as possible with virtual events.
Virtual events will become a universal industry standard in the future, regardless of when large gatherings become safely possible again. Hosting a virtual event eliminates the time and cost associated with work travel and allows flexibility to attend event sessions while keeping up with the normal day to day operations. Virtual events allow employees or colleagues from anywhere in the world to easily join from the comfort of their own home or office and can choose to be present at only event sessions relevant to them and their interests. Rather than having your whole team out for three days, there is the flexibility to attend select sessions for a couple of hours at a time.
If your company is considering hosting a virtual event, there’s a couple of things to consider first. After the success of Citrix Bootcamp and SonicWall Boundless 2020, Bluetext has rounded up their top tips for the first step of any virtual event: registration.
Ace the Virtual Event Invite
One of the first things to consider with any event is: Who is the audience? Is this a trade show for a number of different companies? An employee only training? Select clientele? A virtual event marketing agency will assist with the outreach to attendees, whether that strategy is based on a specific email list or advertised publicly. From email nurture campaigns to targeted paid advertising, the options are endless for inviting attendees. Based on who the target audience is, a digital marketing agency can prescribe the right strategy for your company and design promotional assets to get people interested in the virtual event.
Load Up the Landing Page
Once you’ve sent out invites or promotional messages, attendees will need a place to RSVP. Just like a traditional in-person event, a headcount of attendees is needed to properly plan and test for specific traffic levels. Registration numbers are also a great KPI to measure event success. To fully close the conversion, the landing page for the virtual event must be clear, concise and enticing. There’s no formula for the perfect virtual event registration page, but at Bluetext we recommend the following components:
- A concise listing of event details (date, time, time zone, etc.)
- Spotlight of the top event sessions to get users interested
- A sizzle reel to showcase the event highlights in a minute
- A clear and easy to find the registration form
Who’s On the List?
A key component to consider with virtual event registration is registration security. Will there be proprietary information discussed at the event? Will sessions be targeted at only your employees to introduce not in market products or strategies? If so, you may want to consider white-listing your company’s email domain. If the event is centered around internal strategies and training, you may want to also black-list the email domains of your top competitors. Depending on the size and subject matter of the event, it may also be important to reinforce security by black-listing personal email addresses and ensuring all attendees are relevant business partners and colleagues.
Always Say Thank You!
Once a user has found your enticing landing page and successfully registered for your virtual event, don’t let the excitement end there. Be sure to send them an equally interesting thank you page. In our virtual event marketing experience at Bluetext, we have found that dynamic countdown clocks are a great way to get users excited about the event. A great thank you page may also want to link out to event FAQs, or highlight a special session to look forward to.
Reminder Emails They’ll Want to Read
Once a user is registered don’t let your virtual event fall off the radar. Use the registration email list to trigger a nurture email campaign that can send additional event details, reminders, and more! A full event agenda can be overwhelming to a user two months out but would be useful when they’re blocking off their calendar a week or so in advance. It’s always a best practice to remind users a week, a day, and an hour in advance of the date. Check out the recent SonicWall Boundless 2020 virtual email for some inspiration on event teasers and reminders.
With polaroids and vinyl making a comeback and tiny sunglasses making their appearance on the fashion scene once again, the trends re-emerging over the past few years have solidified the value and power of nostalgia marketing. Regardless of if you are a millennial looking to relive 90’s fashion, or a parent reminiscing about the good old days, nostalgia has something special to offer all customer groups – and that’s why it is such a powerful marketing tactic.
A Jump Back in Time
Nostalgia marketing has been leveraged by brands from all industries. By tapping into positive cultural memories from previous decades, companies can drive energy into their modern campaigns and build trust for new ideas and brands. These campaigns allow companies of any age and background to link their brand purpose with old ideas to evoke feelings of security, comfort, and engagement in their audience.
But why does nostalgia marketing work so well?
Science Daily reported that when people feel nostalgic, they tend to spend more money. When people have higher levels of social connectedness and feel that their wants and needs can be achieved through the help of others, their ability to prioritize and keep control over their money becomes less pressing. Naturally, this makes for the perfect sales and marketing tactic.
Let’s take a look at four companies that have leveraged nostalgia as a marketing strategy to boost sales and brand awareness over the past decade.
General Mills
In 2011, General Mills partnered with Target to introduce retro cereal boxes in their stores. The cereal company released limited-edition box designs for some of their most iconic cereals, recreating the original packaging from the years they were released. Not surprisingly, the sales results were astounding.
The plan not only showed how deeply the brands connect consumers across all generations but also gives today’s parents the opportunity to share memories from their own childhoods with their kids. The campaign has since transformed into an annual one, where sales [doubled] over the first year.
Adobe
Regardless of if you were around in the 1980s to experience the ingenuity of Bob Ross, you surely will recognize him after he surged to popularity again in 2016. Adobe rode the wave of the Bob Ross meme and leveraged the iconic artist’s resurgence, creating a series of tutorial videos to promote their “Adobe Photoshop Sketch” application for the iPad Pro.
Not only did this ad campaign leverage nostalgia marketing to promote Adobe’s new app, but the campaign also took advantage of the trends at the time.
Swiffer
Now, brands don’t need to only use visual branding to evoke feelings of nostalgia. Music is a very easy and straightforward way to instill the feelings of comfort and happiness in your audience.
One very memorable ad campaign that we saw in the aughts was the set of Swiffer commercials that leveraged the song “Baby Come Back” and other early 80s hits. Both humor and nostalgia were hard at work in this campaign, giving the audience a chance to reminisce about the past in a longing way, helping promote the brand in a comforting light.
Apple
When Apple was promoting the release of the iPhone 6s, they notably leveraged a more nostalgic celebrity guest‒Cookie Monster. Everyone’s favorite sweet-toothed Muppet graced our screens and showed us just how simple it is to use the Siri feature on Apple products.
Whether it is visual or auditory, nostalgia marketing can take many different forms. It frequently strikes a chord with audiences of all ages, promoting strong, positive feelings with the featured brand. Leveraging nostalgia marketing in your campaigns is often a smart tactic to help your brand resonate with a wider audience. When you’re considering leveraging nostalgia in your next marketing campaign, be sure to keep in mind whether this strategy is best for your brand. Reach out to the top marketing and branding agencies, like Bluetext, to consult if this marketing strategy is best for your business.
A fantastical idea, a powerful pitch, and energetic enthusiasm from all sides of SonicWall stakeholders. Only one task remaining: execution of the over the top Boundless Campaign.
SonicWall came to Bluetext with one main objective: bring their Boundless Cybersecurity campaign to life. As such, the SonicWall team needed creative assistance in bringing the campaign visuals up to par with their brand value. The Bluetext team was asked an age-old question of B2B companies, “How can we make this campaign memorable?”
Especially in the saturated cybersecurity market, it can be challenging to differentiate from strong competitors and help visual abstract brand promises. So the Bluetext team presented a thought-provoking approach to the campaign’s new creative and campaign taglines.
“When cyber threats are limitless, your defenses must be Boundless.” Break free with SonicWall Boundless Cybersecurity.
To communicate and contextualize this message, Bluetext presented a creative direction that would showcase the end-user in a gravity-free surrealist state, which literally breaks free of the constraint of cyber threat. The creative would be scaled across main industry verticals in order to personalize and target advertisements. The idea was over the top, innovative, and ambitious but well-received with client buy-in. Next came the challenge of execution, which was overcome using a custom photoshoot complete with realistic costumes, props, and even a trampoline. In order to achieve the effect of floating in an anti-gravity state, professional ballet dancers were hired to jump on the trampolines. Photographers captured the dancers posing mid-air, then flipped the photo 180°.
Once the in action shots were captured, the images were edited to remove the backgrounds and impose on industry-specific scenes. Related props were also imposed onto background images to make the scene appear as if person and objects had been magically released from the pull of gravity while the world remains grounded around them.
At the time of the new Homepage and campaign landing page launch, these static images truly came to life with a subtle parallaxing effect.
To drive users to these newly premiered pages, SonicWall needed eye-catching advertisements that viewers would — no pun intended — gravitate to. Bluetext designed a variety of verticalized static banner ads and further animations to drive page traffic.
As the world has changed in the blink of an eye, so has the way we market to consumers. Now, more than ever, your website exists as BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT doorway to your brand and your brand experience. While stores stay shut, and face-to-face interaction is vastly limited, brands will rely on reaching their target audiences via their websites. Therefore, your website is mission-critical to your success.
Bluetext has published a 5 part blog series to help you think about and pressure test if your website is the best it can be.
Virtual Executive Briefing Centers are a valuable resource for companies wishing to show customers and prospects their full range of solutions in action, especially new solutions that the partner may not have implemented yet in its own organization. Customized presentations, live demos and in-depth discussions can be arranged. VEBCs offer a lot of great benefits for organizations including:
- Present your brand in a very innovative way with the latest HTML5 and video technologies
- Reach a wider audience, save money and drive efficiencies by reducing travel costs to visit a physical center
- Get your thought leaders delivering their message to a wider audience than their physical weekly calendar allows
- Deliver vertical specific messaging and solutions in a customized fashion
- Personalize the experience based on the understanding of the audiences job title, history with the enterprise, and other components the digital environment can capture and feed into the site
- Juice up your SEO with a smart build and customer journey that enhances your SEO footprint
Bluetext has had a lot of experience designing and developing Virtual Briefing Centers. Here are just a few examples of the innovation we have helped drive for our clients:
McAfee and Intel Security’s Future Agency
McAfee and Intel turned to Bluetext to design a campaign to demonstrate the advancements in cyber security that the companies are driving across the Federal Government. Named The Agency of the Future and found on the web at futureagency.com, the solution integrates an interactive, 3D experience and a series of videos with lead generation integrated throughout. The experience was enhanced with a continuous monitoring webcast that targeted federal IT security experts and drew more than 3000 leads. The campaign won major kudos at McAfee corporate.
CSC’s Digital Briefing Center
CSC’s Digital Briefing Center is where customers, partners and prospects from across the globe can come to learn more about the key technology conversations and market shifts CSC is driving into the market.
The center is driven with immersive 3D video technology that is completely interactive through Html 5 overlays throughout the user journey.
Following launch, Bluetext’s collaborative creation with CSC’s Digital Marketing team became the top performing component of the csc.com global web presence, a huge feat for a Fortune 500 corporation.
Version 2.0 features new capabilities spanning:
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Multi-floor scalability
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Triple screen experience
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Dynamic social media integration
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Triggered infographic visualizations synched with briefing videos
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Chaptered video interactivity
The following video of CSC’s head of global brand and digital marketing talks about this project:
TalkShop by Cooper Thomas
From corporate meetings to conferences and workshops, connecting with your workforce and customers is an essential element of business. Bluetext was hired by Cooper Thomas to help enhance their virtual training and meeting services and next-generation virtual platform that can help their customers get the most out of their customers’ virtual events.
With their virtual event platform, you can now connect with employees, customers, and clients conveniently and cost-effectively. The unique speaker-training program guides your presenters to deliver more effective and engaging virtual presentations. The speaker coaches provide focused support to help busy subject matter experts become polished presenters. They also provide project management and program support for events ranging from single training sessions to multi-day conferences, as well as on-site support for virtual and face-to-face events.
Interactive content is here to stay. Just take a look at the 96% completion rate on BuzzFeed quizzes. Even more, a 2016 Content Marketing Institute (CMI) study found that just over 80% of marketers say that interactive content is more effective than static content when it comes to grabbing consumers’ attention.
Well, what even is interactive content, anyway? Interactive content is “content that requires the participants’ active engagement — more than simply reading or watching. In return for that engagement, participants receive real-time, hyper-relevant results they care about.”
Digital branding agencies, such as Bluetext, will ensure you are leveraging all that interactive content has to offer. Here are the top 3 types of interactive content to look out for in 2020.
Quizzes and Assessments
Quizzes and assessments are pieces of interactive content in which the user provides answers to a few questions in order to receive insights based on them. They are fun for the user to complete, and if the results are what they were looking for, they will help you build trust with your audience.
This type of interactive content doesn’t only boost engagement — they also help you get to know your audience. So when you plan to incorporate quizzes or assessments into your content plan, seek out a brand strategy agency to help you develop your content and ask yourself: What do I want to know about my audience? You may discover something new and gain some essential insights that can help you tailor your marketing efforts to be more effective.
Bluetext, a leading branding company, worked with the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) to develop a microsite to invite top-of-funnel business school candidates to learn about what is available to them in the world of graduate business schools. The introduction page on the website is an interactive quiz that helps direct users to content specifically geared toward them based on where they fall in the business school process.
Polls
Polls are the easiest and simplest way to introduce interactive content to your marketing plan. They provide a quick way to get in touch with your audience and allow you to build a genuine connection with your followers.
The most straightforward way to use polls is to ask your audience for opinions on your content, service, or product. This not only helps you drive engagement online but gives you great insight into how your audience is feeling about your brand.
You can also invite your audience to interact with your profile by asking fun, light-hearted questions that invite them into learning more about what your company has to offer.
Contests
According to the CMI report, marketers believe that contests are the most effective type of interactive content you can use, especially in the early stage of the buyer’s journey.
Contests can include traditional raffles or giveaways. They can offer the chance to win a prize if they refer a friend to your company’s offerings. You can even introduce photos or hashtag contests where you invite your audience to submit their own user-generated content.
We have seen a rise in these types of hashtag contests and challenges across all social media platforms, especially on TikTok. The platform allows companies to leverage a hashtag to promote their brand, and users are eating it up.
Guess was the first brand in the US to release a marketing campaign as an official partner with TikTok. They ensured that every time a TikTok user opened the app, they were directed to the #InMyDenim hashtag challenge. Since its launch, videos with the hashtag have garnered over 38 million views and introduced the Guess brand to young Millenials and Generation Z.
Contests are great at bringing out people’s natural curiosity and competitive spirit, so encourage them to participate by providing an engaging contest.
Interactive content that is engaging and personalized provides your audience with a new way to engage with your brand and can build trust with your audience. Learn how Bluetext can help you leverage interactive content in your content marketing plan here.
It’s no surprise that video has taken the digital ad space by storm. It’s rare that you scroll your newsfeed or surf the web without being served an ad that is relevant to your specific interests. In 2019, 87% of marketing professionals were leveraging video in their media strategies and more than 80% of video marketers saw a stronger ROI than when they ran static banner ads or paid social image ads.
So, why are video ads so popular? And why should marketers continue to invest in video advertising in 2020?
Expanded Inventory
For starters, video inventory is incredibly robust. You can reach users across a variety of different platforms and sites – from social platforms to Connected TV devices. That’s right, you can now tailor ads to reach users while they’re streaming a show through their smart TVs. Marketers can also place video pre-roll ads across premium website inventory, along with video-specific platforms like YouTube, where ads play before or during video content that a user is viewing.
Video ad inventory has expanded across social platforms in the past few years as well, and the results have been significant. Platforms such as Instagram and Facebook see 49% higher interactions on video ads than with image ads. With such impressive engagement metrics, it makes sense that marketers are investing more of their media dollars into paid social video ads. In fact, paid social video ad spend accounted for 28.7% of all video ad spending in 2019 ($10.35 billion). This number is projected to grow to $12.48 billion in 2020.
Unique Ad Formats
The unique ad formats offered through video is another reason why marketers are investing more of their paid media budget into the medium. Sprout Social reports that marketers are increasing their digital video budget by 25% year-over-year due to the increase of new ad formats. For example, marketers are now leveraging Instagram stories to connect with users for :15 seconds through an immersive experience with a full-screen interactive video. In 2019, one-third of Instagram’s most-viewed stories came from businesses, and 20% of those stories drove users to directly message businesses.
Another evolving ad format that businesses are taking advantage of is YouTube’s 6-second bumper ad. YouTube bumper ads are non-skippable, and while quite short, marketers have been able to successfully story-tell through a sequence of these 6-second ads. Google Ads shares that “many large brands are using bumper ads to drive upper-funnel goals like ad recall and awareness…. [they] are a cost-effective way to reach your target audience, ensure your message is seen and heard, and keep you top of mind.”
As mentioned previously, the ability to target users through Connected TV (CTV) devices is a huge win for marketers. There is a shift happening between traditional TV and CTV; many households are ditching cable subscriptions and switching to subscriptions with streaming services such as Hulu, Amazon Prime and Apple TV to get their news and entertainment. By 2022, it’s projected that 35 million viewers will watch TV exclusively through streaming services. The result? Marketers are investing less in traditional TV commercials, and instead, putting those dollars behind non-skippable :15, :30 and :60 second CTV ads. The best part of CTV advertising is that you actually have access to ad data! With traditional TV, networks will provide projected impressions for running commercials during specific time slots; however, with CTV, you’ll know exactly how many users watched your ad, along with viewability metrics and insights into ad recall.
The Future of Video
While banner and image ads have seemingly run their respective courses, the future of video advertising looks promising. With new formats and campaign functions rolling out across platforms specifically for video, marketers should set aside a healthy media budget for testing new video opportunities in 2020.
One new practice that Google Ads recommends is to make your video and search ads work together. Google Ads states that marketers who run search and video together will experience a 45% higher lift in ad recall, and a 180% higher message retention. One brand, in particular, found that running video alongside paid search led to a 4x increase in branded search, and dropped their CPA by 70%.
Another new trend popping up across paid social is the use of live video. Marketers are investing in live video as a means of building trust and transparency with consumers. We’re used to seeing this trend across Instagram and Facebook Stories, and video-first platforms like Snapchat. However, some businesses are migrating live video to LinkedIn to help tell brand stories and to show followers the real people behind the company name. Live video is helping to break down walls and let users connect with businesses in a personal way.
Other new video opportunities coming our way are: shoppable video ads, augmented reality campaigns, new possibilities on IGTV and Facebook Watch, and so much more.
Bottom line: Invest in video advertising in 2020. You’ll be glad you did. Find out how Bluetext has leveraged video ads in successful go-to-market campaigns.