The recent Labor Day continued to shine a spotlight on an ongoing problem brought on by COVID-19: The Great Job Exodus of 2021. According to Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index, 40% of the global workforce is considering leaving their employer this year. While many companies adopted more flexible work policies to adapt to the pandemic — with some being here to stay permanently — employees are continuing to experience burnout and businesses are seeing employees flee by the dozens.
Social media platforms such as LinkedIn have exposed a high percentage of PR and marketing professionals leaving their positions no matter the industry or tenure. Businesses large and small are struggling to fill key marcomms positions — specifically those in the mid and senior roles. And who can blame them when they’ve been working for 5 years or more, exhaustedly grinding away with a pandemic raging?
Finding and retaining top in-house talent can negatively impact the ability of marcomms teams to execute. The absence of senior leaders can make it difficult to provide the C-Suite with the strategy and ideas essential to growing the business. Additionally, if you can’t fully staff the team with junior and mid-level professionals, it can bog down more experienced marcoms professionals in tactical, rather than strategic, work.
The current conditions make a strong argument to fill the gap with a tech PR agency, like Bluetext. Leaning on an agency partner for additional services and support can alleviate some of that workload and bring fresh ideas and perspectives to your business. However, picking an agency is no easy task. Businesses need to find trusted advisors and agencies that will be an extension of the company; trustworthy firms that understand your business, products, and values. So, how do you pick the right partner to fill these gaps? Let’s dive in!
Benefits of an Agency Partner vs. In-House Staff
While both options have their benefits, deciding on an agency or in-house staff really depends on what your business is looking for, and it can depend on a variety of factors. While an in-house employee will, over time, know the ins and outs of your brand, it is rare to find an in-house marketer who is adept at all aspects of digital marketing. And if you do find someone who knows all aspects of digital marketing, it could be an overwhelming experience for them and may impact employee retention.
With an agency, you gain the benefit of a team of individuals with complementary skills who already work well together. An agency can also bring a fresh perspective, based on work with others in your industry, and even competitors. In-house marcomm professionals are at times so close to the brand it can lead to overly subjective decisions.
As for media relations, a public relations agency will have years and years of experience in multiple industries. Their media relations roots are continuously growing as they’re passed from client team to client team. Agencies have a plethora of relationships with media that are nurtured continuously from client’s both past and present. In general, agencies have a better understanding of media, industry trends, and the ever-changing media landscape and can easily adapt a strategy to meet the needs of their clients.
What to Ask Yourself when Finding an Agency
1. What are my goals?
This is a no-brainer! What are your marketing goals? The answer will determine which agency is right for you, what resources an agency should have, and more. Does this agency have enough experience and resources to help you achieve core objectives, does it have a presence in your target market or will you be able to build relationships with media through this agency? All of these questions are important to ask when it comes to choosing the correct agency partner.
2. Does my staff have the required resources and skills needed to achieve said goals?
By understanding which marketing tactics your business needs and the resources and skill level needed to do it, you’ll be able to find the right agency for your business. If you’re looking for more comprehensive marketing services none of your in-house roles can accomplish, be sure to pick an agency that has a diverse skill set to cover your bases. As a fully integrated marketing agency, Bluetext has a variety of services we offer to our clients that include messaging, branding, website design and development, go-to-market campaign strategy, public relations, social media, and so much more.
3. What value will I get for the cost?
When evaluating an agency, the math needs to be done to compute the true cost of the output. With an agency, you get the support of an entire team rather than just one person, therefore, getting more for less.
4. What is my budget?
By determining your budget, you can decide how much you can afford to invest in marketing which will dictate how much work your agency will take on. Sometimes what you can afford is too little to drive real results with one agency but can work for another.
Once you’ve asked yourself what your goals, budget, staffing needs, and skillset needs are, be sure to contact Bluetext to learn how our B2B tech PR team can help you fill any in-house skills gaps you are facing.
Web designers are constantly looking for new ways to keep the attention of their users. An innovative way to do so is through what is referred to as “hidden interactions.” These subtle website design elements allow users to click or hover, revealing additional content or micro animations. In an effort to keep interactions simple and easy, here are Bluetext’s tips and resources to enhance a user’s experience on your website.
What are Hidden Interactions?
Hidden interactions open up a world of possibilities online. When implemented correctly, they empower users to uncover additional visuals, animations, actions, or content. A simple hover, mouse movement, click, or swipe can initiate a pleasant, yet unexpected, feature to your webpage. Some discrete interactions have become so common that users begin to consider them second nature. For instance, when you need to delete an email on your phone, what is the first step you do? Swipe right and it moves to trash. But notice, there is no explicit instruction to direct that action. As users, we have just become accustomed to these implied functionalities. These subtle features take place across a number of digital platforms, from desktops to mobile apps. These animations can determine how fondly users will remember their experience on your site and lead to increased conversions and sales.
When to Use Them?
When deciding where to implement micro-animations, first put yourself in the user’s shoes. It is important to then consider the function of the animation and how it enhances the user experience. While your hidden interaction should be somewhat intuitive, it’s important to recognize that not every user may uncover these hidden gems. Pivotal points and calls to action should continue to use traditional placements, but interesting “nice to know” or animations can be reserved for these interactive elements.
Finding a creative way to entertain your audience is a way to gain a competitive edge and ensure your webpage is as memorable as possible. Users are going to associate a positive experience with your brand, and a spark of joy can set the foundation for a long-lasting emotional connection.
Where to Find Hidden Interactions
GitHub, for example, uses animation and interactive hidden elements in their hero zone. The spokes on the globe animate as the user enters the site, but if one were to click and move the cursor the globe pivots. The core animation, which conveys connections between the global reach of GitHub users, still plays but the user is empowered to pivot the globe to their desired location.
Another great example is Pitch, which has multiple elements on their homepage that parallax to match the user’s on mouseover. Other components play videos or change visuals on hover, adding a nice little nudge to users considering clicking on different calls to action.
Bluetext client, SonicWall, has implemented hidden interactions on their homepage. As the user’s mouse hovers over the hero scene, the foreground floating objects subtly shift to mirror mouse movement. The beauty of this “hidden” interaction is that every user must naturally mouse over the hero zone to interact with any content on the homepage. Therefore, every user will get to experience this hidden “easter egg” animation.
In an age when users are faced with hundreds of websites to peruse per day, the challenge of standing out is getting steeper and steeper. Implementing subtle interactive elements and micro animations can significantly enhance the user experience and leave your audience with a positive impression of your brand. Interest, attention, and delight create a holy trinity of website user experience and will set brands that implement ahead of the pack. Be sure to contact Bluetext to learn more about how our design team can help you enhance any website with hidden interactions.
Video marketing can be a vital tool when it comes to leveling up your marketing program. Video, as a medium, is an exceptional opportunity to tell your brand’s story and mission using dramatic visuals, voiceover, and music. Video allows you to inject emotion and feeling into your content, something that written mediums like blog posts and product pages just can’t compete with. As some may say, the medium is the message. To humanize your brand and create a memorable connection, audiovisual content can build that bridge. Additionally, the ease with which you can upload your video content to a variety of social media platforms allows you to share your story with as many potential customers and reach as wide an audience as possible.
Below, we dive deep into the five reasons you need to use video in your marketing strategy and why partnering with a video design and production firm like Bluetext is the right choice for you.
1. Authentic Video Builds Trust
Perhaps most importantly, video content helps build trust between you and the prospective buyer. Trust is the foundation that drives conversions and overall sales. 57% of consumers say that videos give them more confidence to purchase online. With a great voiceover and a moving music track, videos can provoke a very emotive, and therefore, human response, more impactful than any generic landing page. Having your team on camera explaining your product or service is also a great way to provide prospective customers with a sense of your company culture and why they should work with you. Additionally, video content filmed and edited the right way evokes authenticity and transparency, both key points when aiming to build trust.
Through our work with Invictus, we produced a video around the story of their unique, military family-oriented mission that resonated with their prospective customers.
2. Explain Difficult Concepts With Ease
We live in a fast-paced visual-based world, where users are less likely to read through a product description and more likely to prefer an infographic or video that explains the solution succinctly. Technology has made us all accustomed to immediate satisfaction in finding the answers we seek. And if users don’t find the information they’re looking for, they lose interest or look elsewhere. Video content reduces the overall effort it takes to learn something new, especially when it may be a difficult concept to understand. If you’re launching a new product or service, explaining its features and advantages will be easier through video than a product landing page. The way the human brain processes information varies by individual, some are more visual learners, some auditory, and even some kinetic. If you don’t have the words to explain your product, the use of animation can help bring any concept to life. An audiovisual medium allows you to effectively reach a wider audience. The quicker someone can understand your product, the quicker the conversion from prospect to a customer will be.
Through our work with IoT cybersecurity company, Phosphorus, we told the story of their mission and the power of their groundbreaking platform.
3. Google Loves Video Content
There are a variety of reasons Google loves video. Perhaps most importantly, Google places great value in the length of time a user spends on your webpage. If your video content is enticing enough for the user to watch it all the way through, they’re more likely to spend more time watching a video on your site than reading through a lengthy landing page. Additionally, as we know, including keywords in your written content is important in any SEO strategy and helps improve your search rankings. Using the latest Video Intelligence API, Google can catalog the relevant keywords in your videos and increase your ranking in search engine results. Relevant keywords in your video and written content packs the maximum SEO punch into your webpage. Another great reason video content is a great SEO value is as video content can be adjusted to multiple screen sizes, Google ranks this content very high in search results.
4. Mobile Users Benefit
In the world we live in, everyone is glued to their smartphones throughout the day, watching, liking, and sharing content. According to a recent study, 90% of users actually watch videos on their smartphones rather than on computers or televisions. The ready availability of so much video content on smartphones is driving this statistic and will only grow as more and more content is produced. So what does this mean for you? Increasing the amount of video you put into the market will only increase the engagement with your content from prospective customers. Well-produced, informative content will be more likely shared and will lead to increased sales.
5. The Competitive Advantage
Stay one step ahead of the competition by producing video content. A lot of companies are still of the mindset that video content is way too expensive; and sure, some very well-produced content can get expensive when you’re factoring in custom shoots, actors, and multiple 8K cameras. That being said, video content doesn’t have to be expensive. With the right story and a camera as readily available as the one on your smartphone, you can create perfect video content that will resonate with your target audience and lead to many conversions. Being smart with your resources (financial & human) can result in an impressive video that no one would know was built on a budget.
Videos can play a massive role at every stage of the marketing funnel. That being said, creating high-performing video content takes time and effort. Ensure you have the right video content strategy from the get-go and that you maximize authenticity, creativity, and uniqueness. Need support putting together your video content strategy? Contact Bluetext today.
1,300 hours – that’s how long the average American spent on social media in the past year. People are on social media all day every day, with an average daily usage of about 145 minutes. Therefore, it is no surprise that social media has a large influence on us and the decisions we make in both our personal and professional lives. Today, social media is so prevalent that from a business standpoint, it would be a mistake to not take advantage of the medium.
Social media is a highly cost-effective way to market your brand and yield direct benefits. Social media is great for engaging with customers, keeping tabs on competitors, and developing a strong brand presence. Through social channels, you can heighten your brand’s awareness by cultivating a brand personality and quickly reaching not only existing customers but also prospective customers. Additionally, social media analytics, such as click-through rates, are able to give you timely feedback on what strategies work best to satisfy your intended audience. While it is important for your business to have a strong social media presence, you must also be careful to not overextend your social media program. Some businesses make the mistake of trying to maintain a presence on too many social media networks. Instead, it is best to focus on the few networks that will benefit your business the most.
3 Tips for Determining Which Social Media Networks are Worthwhile
1. Know Your Audience
It is crucial to know who your target market is and what social platforms they prefer. Ask yourself – what demographic is my target audience? Different social media channels appeal to different age groups, therefore it is important to identify what age group your target market falls under. For instance, TikTok has a younger audience with 60% of users being under 25 years old; whereas Facebook draws in a more mature audience, with most of its users being between 25 and 44 years of age. Therefore, if you are specifically targeting Generation Z, Facebook may not be the best route to take. Instead, your efforts should be on networks that draw in more youngsters, such as Snapchat or TikTok.
On another note, Facebook offers the largest audience with 2.7 billion active monthly users. The app has great features that allow you to customize your social media marketing and better optimize your corporate social presence. You can even go as far as creating a business account, making use of advertising tools and analytics offered. However, depending on the niche audiences you may be trying to reach, it is important to understand the pros and cons of Facebook relative to, say Instagram, where visuals are a key focus and artistic niches are known to excel.
2. Think About Engagement
How do you want to engage with your audience? Each social media network offers different mechanisms to interact with users. Twitter is the best for directly engaging with customers. With Twitter, you can provide short updates about your business and interact directly through hashtags, mentioning users, liking posts, retweeting, etc. The fast-food chain, Wendy’s, for example, has had success using Twitter to create a unique brand voice through their witty interactions with customers. In contrast, YouTube is a strong option for driving traffic onto other web pages. Through analytics, YouTube has proved to increase website traffic, in which users will view an ad/video on YouTube and then proceed to click on the link to your website homepage.
It is also important to consider how your customers interact with technology. Are they heavy smartphone users? If so, Instagram might be the best application, given that it is pretty much a solely mobile app with 1 billion active users. Channels like LinkedIn are optimal for those whose customers are heavy desktop users.
Next, it is important to find the right amount of engagement with your customers. You do not want to be too active that you are annoying users, but then also not active enough that you don’t stay relevant. To combat this problem, it is best to have a posting schedule to maintain the right balance. The goal is to stay relevant in the minds of your customers, without irritating them to the point of losing followers. Also, engagement isn’t built on one-way communications; you must offer users an opportunity to participate in the conversation via thought-provoking questions or even surveys.
3. Consider What You Are Selling
Of course, your social media strategy factors in what you are selling and who you are selling to. If you are selling a product, then Instagram might be a better choice given its heavy emphasis on visuals. However, if you are selling a service then Twitter might be the better application to use, where the reliance is on words rather than pictures. On the other hand, Pinterest is great for small and niche businesses where you can market directly on the site. LinkedIn is great for B2B firms that are trying to reach business decision-makers who may not be as active or reachable on more consumer-focused social platforms. With LinkedIn, you can promote your business all while positioning yourself as an industry leader and recruiting top talent. Even more so, you can stand out from competitors through thought leadership pieces published on LinkedIn. Blog posts covering how your products/services related to issues pertinent in the world can put your business at the forefront.
In each avenue, social media provides an opportunity for businesses to control the narrative. You are able to pick out what content you want to display and dictate the kind of engagements you have with customers. It is great for reputation management, raising brand awareness, and establishing yourself as an industry leader. Using social media in the right way has the power to transform your business, making your marketing efforts worthwhile. Without a solid social media presence, your business and brand may be absent from key stages of the buyer’s journey or simply missing opportunities to extend overall brand awareness.
Choosing the right social media network to promote your business is crucial for success. Contact Bluetext if you are interested in perfecting your social media presence.
What’s your first instinct when you have a question? For most, it’s to Google it. Whether or not it’s looking up a restaurant or finding a solution to a business challenge, Google is the go-to. So the question is, how do you make sure that your company is at the top of its Google results?
This is the central question of SEO, or search engine optimization. SEO refers to any practices that improve your placement in search engine results. Bluetext does great work helping our clients find SEO success. Below, you’ll find our top four tips for improving your website’s search engine performance!
Enrich On-page Content with Keywords
Keywords are one of the first concepts to evaluate when you start improving your SEO. Customers will search Google using keywords, such as “best cell phone provider” or “easiest website making tool,” and you want to make sure your pages show up in the first page of relevant results. Once you understand what your customers are searching for and identify the keywords for your business and industry, you can interweave those keywords throughout the content on your site to advance your placement in search results pages. But beware, Google crawlers are smarter than you’d think. Be sure not to unnaturally force the keywords into your content or unnecessarily duplicate your content, both of which can negatively impact your SEO.
Add Meta Descriptions
Add Meta DescriptionsMeta descriptions are the small blurbs of text that appear under a link in a search result. Though small in size, they make a huge difference in your click-through rate. Customers are far more likely to click a link in a search engine when they can see a small promo description of the type of information that link will provide. It’s important to have accurate meta descriptions for your different pages, so do not repeat the same meta description on each page. The meta description should are the perfect opportunity to embed relevant keywords, and should tie back to the prominent H2 and H3 section headings on your page. Think of meta descriptions as invitations to users to click through to your site via powerful calls-to-action. Additionally, avoid using too many words in your meta descriptions, as Google will auto-truncate them and cut you off mid-sentence.
Be Careful with PDFs
Be Careful with PDFsPDFs may be an easy way to upload content to your website, but they are not very helpful from an SEO perspective. Search engines crawl web pages, but have a hard time reading the text on PDFs. Therefore, none of that content in the PDF is being used by search engines. With all the time and effort you put into creating the PDFs, it’s a lost opportunity to not reap that SEO benefit. By transferring some (or all) of your PDFs to on-page content, you can greatly increase the amount of content that Google takes into account when determining how high to place your content in the search engine results.
Prioritize your Pagespeed
Google does not just look at content and keywords to determine the placement of your website in search results. Google page speed is another piece of the SEO puzzle. Google ultimately wants to make their searchers happy, so they want to provide fast-loading pages, on both mobile and desktop devices. Therefore, having a good Google page speed will make it more likely that Google places your web pages higher in its results lists.
While SEO is always evolving with changes in search engine policies and algorithms, these are four great tips to help you get started on your way to SEO success.
If you are looking for an agency to put together and execute a customized SEO playbook for your company, contact Bluetext today to learn more about our SEO offerings.
In our modern world, nearly all marketing campaigns integrate some level of digital communication to broaden their reach across their target market. But technology is changing so fast that it can be difficult to keep up with the latest and greatest. And let’s face it, trends have an expiration date. So how do marketers know what digital assets will be the most effective for their campaigns and how do they know what will stand the test of time? Let’s take a look at some digital marketing trends with timeless potential:
1. Quality UX
With more and more digital users every year, it is more important now than ever to make your presence known in the digital sphere. Though, checking off the box for “having a website” doesn’t mean that you can sit on it and let it be. It is important to ensure that your website continuously provides a quality user experience for your end-users to keep them coming back and that it appears modern and relevant to new users.
Whether you are looking to update the look and feel of your website every two or three years, or keep your content strategy up-to-date every few months, it is important to connect with a digital marketing agency, like Bluetext, who can work with you to create a well-informed and exciting new website plan. Digital marketers can work with you to keep your thought leadership up to date, create a new digital brand presence, and develop a smart, sustainable navigation strategy to ensure that your users are able to find what they are looking for on your website. User experience is a broad discipline, with many proven principles that should lay the foundation of every unique design. Quality, well-informed UX will help drive leads, make conversions, and ultimately boost revenue for your business.
2. Virtual Events
We know that the coronavirus pandemic led to a hunkered-down workforce, many working from the confines of their makeshift home offices and connecting with coworkers and clients virtually. Large-scale events were unimaginable and virtual events quickly took their place.
Virtual events are exactly what they sound like ― virtual. This means that attendees don’t need to travel to attend a virtual event as they can enjoy them from the comfort of their own homes. No venue means no geographical constraints and the elimination of travel expenses. Attendees can join from all across the country, and all around the globe without costing their companies a dime.
Virtual events also allow companies to shift their budget away from venue fees and reallocate it toward production costs for their event. High-quality production captures and sustains attendee attention. If your event is lacking in production value, your attendees will be more inclined to spend time on their email instead of participating and actively listening to your hosts and guests.
See how SonicWall successfully garnered a 135% increase in attendance over their previous high-mark partner event. The high-quality production of pre-recorded videos, a custom website with a quasi-live experience, and motion graphics all worked together to untie attendees in a shared interest no matter their physical location.
3. Augmented Reality
3. Augmented RealityFor a few years now, brands have been experimenting with augmented reality to help place their products directly in front of their potential customers. For example, Wayfair and other furniture companies have an augmented reality feature that places a new piece of furniture directly in your space, allowing you to see how it would fit before making the purchase. Warby Parker leverages augmented reality to show consumers how a new pair of glasses may look without going into the store to try them on or waiting for their at-home try-on box to arrive.
Augmented reality truly allows brands to revolutionize the way consumers interact with their brands, and ultimately their products. And if you’re thinking, ‘that’s neat, but only for flashy consumer brands’ you might want to think again. B2B companies are adopting and innovating on the trend to make this technology applicable to their offerings. Because, why let consumer brands have all the fun?
Bluetext worked with AppGate to provide an immersive augmented reality experience at RSA® Conference 2020, the world’s leading information security conference in San Francisco. Bluetext conceptualized, designed, developed, advertised, and coordinated the ground-breaking Kill Your VPN campaign and augmented reality booth experience to help AppGate stand apart from the 658 other exhibitors in 2020.
4. Content from Micro-influencers
The influencer marketing industry was worth $8 billion in 2019, and it is estimated to grow to $15 billion over the next two years. But according to Kali Ridley, a marketer on Google’s Brand Studio team, the future lies not with megastars and their millions of followers; it’s with micro-influencers.
Micro-influencers are those with smaller followings, somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 followers, who are able to form a community within their reach and share messages that will resonate with their fans. More and more, marketers are discovering relatability outshines star power. Relatability feeds directly into trust, therefore, creating a much stronger argument for your product or service.
LinkedIn has undoubtedly made changes to its platforms that enable these micro-influencers to make a further impact. The new “Creator Mode” for LinkedIn allows users to pin specific hashtags to the top of their profile to signify the themes they frequently post about. With creator mode enabled, the presentation of profiles is altered to emphasize the hashtags directly under job titles. Additionally, users can “Follow” these influencers rather than adding them to their personal networks. Now instead of feeling uneasy sending network invitations to a complete stranger, users can follow their favorite thought leaders just as easily as on other social networks.
These small changes in the social media platforms signal that micro-influencer marketing strategies are worth the investment and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
If you want your brand to stand out and succeed today, and tomorrow, consider getting in on any of these trends. Each of the four above have a promising future of long-term success. As a digital marketing agency, Bluetext expects these trends to be adopted by many companies over the coming years, and only improve with iterations on previous success. Contact Bluetext today if you’re interested in a future-focused marketing strategy.
Have you ever searched for a term or product, then had to wade through a sea of ads before you could find what you were looking for? What’s even more frustrating is seeing the same ads over and over again. As a social media firm and B2B marketing agency, Bluetext knows there’s a fine line between getting your message in front of users and overdoing it.
Ad fatigue, the term for “when your audience sees your ads so often that they become bored with them and stop paying attention,” can be costly and can make your advertising ineffective. Over the years, as a social media firm and B2B marketing agency, we’ve found several of the most effective ways to avoid ad fatigue. Keep reading to learn 4 ways you can avoid wasting your paid media budget:
1. Decrease Ad Frequency
The best and most obvious way to decrease ad fatigue is by limiting the number of times a user sees your ad. Unless you place a frequency cap or have an audience of millions, advertising platforms will continuously serve your ads to the same users. For the user, this can be frustrating and can even turn them away from your brand. In fact, AdEspresso conducted a study to see the impact of ad fatigue on Facebook and found the following results:
In this study, as frequency increased, CTR decreased and CPC increased. Of course, there is no one size fits all approach to frequency; that said, however, through our time as a B2B marketing agency, we recommend making changes if frequency surpasses 4 or 5 on Facebook.
2. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.
Another great way to reduce ad fatigue is by updating your creative frequently. By doing so, users get to see fresh ads all the time. Your company and message may remain the same, but a new visual approach will catch the eye and give the impression of a new, shiny nugget of content. If you don’t have the resources to constantly update your ad creative, something as simple as adjusting the description text, links, or CTAs on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social platforms can help refresh your content. Otherwise, a social media firm, like Bluetext, can be a helpful resource for achieving scalable creative production.
3. Test Your Audiences
One of the most important ways to optimize your creative and reduce ad fatigue is by A/B testing your creative. From CTAs to copy, A/B tests can vary in goals. It’s vital, however, that you run the test for long enough to reach a large enough sample size. Using a sample size calculator is the best way to ensure your audience is large enough to reach statistical significance.
4. Create Custom Segments
By creating custom audience segments, you can exclude users who have already completed the desired action on your landing page. In turn, you can avoid overwhelming users and make sure you’re spending your media dollars as efficiently as possible. With custom segments, you can also create retargeting audiences. With specific retargeting and dynamic creative, you can serve customized content to users based on their previous search queries and interests.
Needless to say, ad fatigue negatively affects campaign performance by increasing CPCs, decreasing CTRs, and frustrating users. Taking steps, like the ones listed above, to combat ad fatigue will ensure you are spending your money efficiently and keep your audience engaged.
Interested in working with a social media firm and b2b marketing agency to ensure your ads have a positive lasting impact? Contact us here!
Mergers and acquisitions occur every day, but are they setting their companies up for success? One of the challenges with M&As is ensuring your company’s values remain clear in your brand’s image. Customers need to be assured that their service won’t change, but rather improve. Bluetext, as a full-service marketing agency, has a proven track record of helping companies navigate complicated integrations while increasing their overall value.
So your company went through an acquisition, why should you rebrand?
In any acquisition, companies are left with the challenge of combining two or more entities with different brand values. While acquisitions often enable companies to expand or improve their service, customers will inevitably remain skeptical until they see their trusted service remains up to par. Bluetext has the acquisition marketing knowledge to guide your company through a successful acquisition. By focusing on marketing from the start of your acquisition, you can seamlessly align previous companies’ brand values to a new, better than ever entity.
After the private equity firm GTCR acquired Sage Payments, they came to Bluetext to re-design and launch Paya, their joint venture. The initial launch was slated to create a simpler payment system for users but left much to be desired by their parent brand. Bluetext helped create a new corporate Visual Identity (CVI) that conveyed the essence of partnership. We conducted a logo study to find a logo that would convey the user-friendly nature of Paya while establishing it as a payment company. Additionally, by utilizing a dual-journey hero, we were able to satisfy two different customer needs while providing a unified site experience. Learn more about Bluetext’s brand development agency work in our Hall of Fame.
When Integrity Applications Incorporated was acquired by Arlington Capital Partners, they came to Bluetext as a trusted brand marketing agency to help launch their unified brand, Centauri. Opting for an approachable logo, we designed a custom lowercase typeface for Centauri that evokes a modern feel, complemented by a logo based on the Centauri constellation. Combining these visual elements helps establish Centauri as a trusted security company. To ensure all of this was successfully received by their customers, we launched a go-to-market campaign that encompassed PR, digital advertising, and social media.
How will new branding affect your business?
As with any change, it’s important to manage expectations. With our help, we can create a strategic plan to proactively reach out to your customers and explain any management changes at the brand launch. Set your customers’ minds at ease by letting them know what to expect from the merger. Energize your employees with the promise of the new brand, with everything from new corporate messaging to branded collateral. Geared with all the right communications tools, they can feel confident reaching out to customers and stakeholders on how the merger can benefit them. Beyond setting expectations, your new branding can build a stronger relationship with your customers. Kristopher Jones highlights the importance of leveraging your branding to connect with your customers on a more human level.
At the end of the day, change is tough — but necessary. To navigate a merger or acquisition successfully, partner with a digital branding agency that can guide you and execute your branding plan from day 1 through completion. If you want to minimize the growing pains and maximize the end results, get in touch with us to help develop your acquisition marketing strategy.
Last week the goliath of technology conferences held in the U.S., CES, announced that its January 2022 event will require vaccination proof for in-person attendees. The motivation for the Consumer Technology Association, the show’s organizer, to resume a face-to-face component is strong: exhibitors recognize that generating enthusiasm for new consumer products and technologies through virtually is not nearly as powerful as live demonstrations.
Few in the tech marcomms space have endured a more challenging professional pivot over the past 18 months than those responsible for conference and event strategy and execution – whether it is determining what kind of investments should be made in industry events as well as how to manage their own annual user conferences and smaller events so critical to cultivating customer, prospect and partner relationships.
Pre-pandemic, there was of course no need to make decisions on whether to hold in-person, virtual, or hybrid events — often several months in advance of the event date itself. And through the first 15 months of the pandemic, COVID-19 in effect made the decision for marcomms and event decision-makers as everything shifted to virtual. This was no easy feat but at least the decision was.
The emergence of the Delta variant, right as tech companies were resuming planning for in-person events, exponentially complicates the decision-making process for the 2021-2022 tech conference strategy. While CES is planning in-person for vaccinated attendees, plans for other events run the gamut. As this Marketwatch article notes, tech companies with large user and developer events are re-assessing given Delta. Salesforce.com’s CRM Dreamforce is still planning for an “in-person experience” for the Fall event, but so many others have already reverted back to virtual or hybrid experiences with a limited in-person component.
As you evaluate your 2021-2022 tech conference and event strategy in light of the Delta variant and other unpredictable developments we should all expect in the months ahead, keep the following strategies in mind:
Look at the event track record
Tech conference organizers that have already executed a virtual event last year during the pandemic offer a track record that can be analyzed when it comes to attendance, engagement, and results. The Marketwatch article raised the valuable point that what virtual events lack in intimacy they make up for in some cases with larger attendance, citing feedback from Juniper Networks that attendance for its virtual Global Summit held in April was more than 2x in-person attendance for recent and similar events. It is of course easier and more cost-effective to hop into a live panel discussion on your laptop at home than it is to fly halfway across the country to attend in-person.
But for every Juniper, there is a Mobile World Congress, which forecast a significant in-person attendance drop for its hybrid 2021 Barcelona event, where the 50,000 in-person attendees expected to attend was half the number compared to its “normal” pre-pandemic numbers.
The more information you have from organizations that have already executed events during the pandemic, the less guesstimating you have to do when it comes to the right investment level for attending, speaking, sponsoring, exhibiting, or skipping altogether.
Track records matter because, with conference and event investments, you can’t just assume that all of the money will be recouped if the in-person event is canceled. There can be a difference between an organizer canceling of its own volition, and an organizer canceling because it is subject to city or state directives that are issued prior to the event. The more confidence you can have in the event organizer, the lower the risk of a negative financial and business outcome.
Size matters
If the pandemic has communicated anything to marcomms professionals it is that bigger isn’t necessarily better. Most attendees are going to baby step back to live events, so going from working from home to a crowded pavilion with 100,000 of your closest friends may be a bridge too far.
Dialing it down from potential ‘super-spreader’ to ‘super-intimate’ events that still allow for facetime but in a more controlled environment with modest numbers of people can support corporate and sales objectives. If you are a tech company evaluating what in-person events to attend, don’t discount these smaller events and if you are an event organizer, converting a large annual event into, for example, quarterly smaller regional events can pay off.
The key for user events is data. You can’t just guess how attendees might act when presented with options between in-person, hybrid, or virtual, or what size of in-person event they might be comfortable with. Survey, survey, and then survey again. External third-party data has value, but you know your customers best and keeping your finger on the pulse of their event and travel preferences is critical.
In its latest PULSE Survey, Northstar Meetings Group found that two-thirds of the 826 respondents will hold their next in-person event in Q3 or Q4 of this year – with half of them requiring attendees to wear masks indoors and 28 percent requiring proof of Covid-19 vaccination. But the survey also reinforces the need for conference organizers and meeting planners to be nimble and resilient in the face of constantly evolving federal, state, and local policies.
Re-imagine your traditional event approach
Pre-pandemic tech conferences and events were far from perfect, which helps explain why many have seen value in the shift – as temporary as it might be – to virtual and hybrid events. Marcomm and conference decision-makers should use the challenging environment as an opportunity to re-imagine traditional approaches.
Virtual and hybrid events unlock new content and access opportunities, new ways to engage with and receive feedback from attendees in real-time to drive experiences not possible with in-person events where individuals are scattered and engagement is harder to measure. While larger tech conferences made great strides in trying to make their events “smaller” when it came to networking rather than releasing thousands of people into venues to try and find each other, the results were imperfect.
Each event model comes with its own challenge. User conference organizers know that while virtual events may be easier for customers to join, they are also easier for them to blow off because it doesn’t require the same level of travel, financial, and planning commitment. Hybrid events create challenges for tech brands unsure of which path provides the better value for lead generation, networking, sponsorships, speaking, and exhibiting. And for all of these models, trying to figure out whether it still makes sense to shell out $20,000 for a sponsored virtual speaking slot in lieu of being on the big stage is no easy task.
When it comes to working with B2B tech PR, B2C tech PR, and B2G tech PR firms, Bluetext has been helping clients navigate tech conference strategy for industry events as well as client user conferences. If you are looking for the right partner to maximize your tech conference investments in the months ahead, contact Bluetext to learn how we can help.
TikTok — the clock is ticking on traditional advertising strategies. As conventional methods wane, a new star player, TikTok, is making waves. At inception, TikTok gained a sticking association with Gen Z via dance videos & lip-syncing parodies. It’s true, TikTok is a popular platform for many teens or young adults to create and send entertaining video content. However, this platform is not just a fleeting fad, but very much here to stay and continue to evolve.
Like any trend, TikTok’s high number of young users caught the attention of older demographics. All wanting to know “what the cool kids are doing”, TikTok’s user base matured. As of March 2021, research found that teenagers are only 25% of the TikTok audience. Who are the rest? Well, it’s a pretty even split of users in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, with even a significant slice of people 50 years and older!
A more diverse user base brought new opportunities, as marketers observed new niche categories rise in popularity. For example, trending hashtags such as #financetok or #taxadvice providing financial advice to users during tax season. Just one of the many unique use cases of the social media platform, as everything from investing to cleaning hacks, has been reenergized by the fun, engaging nature of video clips.
So what does this mean? Well, it’s time that digital marketers begin to take TikTok seriously. Here’s why:
1.Video Content is on the Rise
Video content is on the rise — and won’t pause anytime soon. That’s why popular video publishing platforms, TikTok and Vimeo, have joined forces to become an advertising powerhouse. Recent updates have integrated Vimeo creation tools with TikTok AdManager. This enables businesses of any size to create and publish ads directly to TikTok Ads Manager. Effectively breaking down prior production banners, smaller and medium-sized businesses can easily create and distribute engaging video ads at low cost. Going a step beyond, Vimeo offers ad templates specifically optimized for the TikTok platform. Known as Spark Ads, this format allows businesses to take organic content and quite literally re-energize ads on a new short and snippy platform.
2. Self-Served Success
Speaking of the TikTok AdManger, a few of the hallmarks of this platform are the self-service ad publishing, creator marketplace, and other features that empower content creation. With an easy-to-use publishing experience, it allows for more experimentation and freedom with campaign concepts, creative or targeting. The format pushes brands to make their advertisements everything they should be: short, succinct, and engaging. Time limitations force marketers to cut the extraneous details that users wouldn’t retain anyways and hone in on a single direct message. It’s like the bootcamp marketers didn’t know that they needed.
3. Live it Up
That’s right, TikTok has jumped on the trend of live streaming video content (thank you Instagram & Facebook). While this has playful applications, it’s also a prime opportunity for commentary from thought leaders and brand ambassadors on new product launches, industry events, or current trends. Live stream content has been popularized on alternative platforms (looking at you, Facebook & Instagram) for hosting Q&As and panel discussions. New TikTok features allow both the scheduling & promotion of a live-streamed event but also co-hosting to allow for multiple speakers. This creates a split-screen view and allows hosts to interact one-on-one with another, and with live audience comments.
While the first wave of use cases for these features may be tied to e-commerce and pop culture, it will be the next wave of marketing pioneers who bring a more practical flavor to the platform. Facebook and Twitter started out as purely ‘social’ social media platforms, but look what business opportunities have arisen from there. TikTok will be no different, and the businesses that invest now in their video content creation and production skills will have the upper hand.
Need to amp up your video & social media marketing? Contact Bluetext to learn more about our creative & digital marketing services.