Digital Summit Chicago 2019 – Key Takeaways and Marketing Tips
Conferences are a great way to connect with peers and learn from experts. This summer, I attended the Digital Summit in Chicago after winning a professional development scholarship from the Association for Women in Communications Bloomington-Normal. The focus was on all things digital marketing: analytics, content creation, email best practices, customer experience, the works. Since you all weren’t able to attend, I wanted to share some of my top takeaways. Boiled down from 7 pages of typed notes (plus some post-conference screenshots from sessions I wasn’t able to attend in-person), here are some actionable bits of wisdom and marketing tips I feel most small businesses or nonprofits can apply.
Content Marketing Tips
Content marketing is a wonderful way to build authority with potential customers and brand supporters without a constant stream of overt sales copy. Through storytelling, providing value such as insider information or tips and tricks, and other engaging ways to reach your target audience, you can put words to work for you as you grow your business.
Move Prospects Through the Customer Journey With a Solid Content and Digital Marketing Strategy – John Triplett at VERTICAL MEASURES
Building Ideas for the Attention Economy: Increasing Connection With Your Content – Isaac Pagan Muñoz at Facebook Creative Shop
Fact: people scroll through 300 feet of feed every day.
Ideas need to be projected via a platform. Isaac suggests the “Pitch +” method to resonate with customers across their journey, which isn’t always linear. This method includes pitch, play, and plunge content.
TOOL: Facebook Mobile Studio – a collection of apps and tutorials for optimal mobile creation.
How to Run a Content Practice (Without Inciting Mass Panic) – Matt Ingwalson at HEINRICH
Content is portable marketing that connects people to a business and builds relationships. It’s something people can watch, read, share, and return back to over and over. Content is rarely seen in a silo and it moves people in exchange for value (time, trust, money).
Plan for the “zero-second promise”—give them a taste of what they’re getting themselves into from the title, thumbnail, etc. Then, give them a strong ending.
Nobody wakes up to watch “best practices.” When you’re creating content, do what your audience wants.
Keynote Talk: SETH GODIN
The internet is a collection of beliefs, ideas, and intent. The purpose of marketing is to make change happen. There is no “mass” media on the internet—the internet is only good for micro-media. Aim to reach a particular someone, not everyone.
Identify the smallest viable group, then delight them. Once you do, they will tell their friends and it won’t be spam, but a culture. You earn permission to engage when someone would miss your presence in their inbox if you didn’t show up.
4 Important Lessons Every Product Storyteller Should Know – Ben Bowers at GEAR PATROL
“Above the fold” is now equal to about 3 screens of content.
Follow the serial period effect: people remember things from the beginning and end, but not the middle, so make your point and have your call to action early, then reinforce it at the end.
When creating content, use the SLICE method to shape the ideas you pursue: Service, Learning, Insight/Inspiration, Connection, or Entertainment.
View content through the audience’s lens. Creators are usually desktop-centric, making them focused on home/landing pages and Instagram profile pages. However, the audience is generally using mobile and land everywhere but the homepage.
Accessing content is different for new users versus repeat users/loyal fans. Your social media and email funnels should adapt accordingly.
TOOL: Chrome DevTools show how pages look on different mobile devices.
Consumer Bias Marketing Tips
The Psychology of a Website: Optimize for Cognitive Biases, Conversion Triggers, and Google’s RankBrain – Matthew Capala at ALPHAMETIC
Use cognitive biases to your advantage, rather than fighting against them.
Anchoring bias: we latch onto key concepts to evaluate the world
- Negative anchoring: place the big number first, followed by a sharp price contrast
- Positive anchoring: supersize the value of your offer
- Either way, herd people toward the offer you want them to take
- Decoy effect: offer access via the web for $50, a paper subscription for $100, or web and subscription for $100
- Control price comparisons that will naturally occur by showing price vs value
- Example: you can get this service for $200/mo instead of needing all these other programs that would cost you $500/mo to operate at the same level
*This image is from AB Tasty as I did not have screenshots from the actual presentation.
Bandwagon bias: people adjust behavior to the group they’re in
- Mark a menu item you want to push as the “Most Popular”
- “More than x people use this service”
- Show social proof of social media following or engagement stats
Authority bias: we tend to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure
- Show expertise with guides, tutorials, case studies, links to sources
- Show authority with “as seen on” claims, testimonials, reviews, ratings
- Build trust by showing people badges, awards, certifications
The Authenticity Lie: How to Build Loyalty Through Storytelling – Eric Thomas at Saga MKTG
As content creators, we’re “world building.” People come in at the middle of the brand story, but reality is what you make it as the storyteller. Consistency creates its own reality and personas vary across platforms and contexts.
Real stories don’t talk about minutiae unless it’s about minutiae (like The Office). At then end of the day, we want emotional honesty. We do not want to know every part of the business or product, but rather, we care about the sentiment. In this way, a good story describes what, but a great story describes the intent. For example, when someone is passionate about something you never would have sought out or cared about on your own, you might still get invested because of their passion.
Ask: what do you want them to feel when they see/experience this content? (For example: captivated, heard, appreciated, etc.)
SEO Marketing Tips
Six Data-Validated Tactics to Increase Marketers’ Qualified Lead Volume – Garrett Mehrguth at DIRECTIVE CONSULTING
Use _ after your keyword to see questions people search for surrounding that keyword. This will give you content ideas so you can become the source for those answers. If you so thoroughly answer the question that they don’t have to leave your site, you’ll rank well.
Internal linking also shows Google which pages are important from the outside, so be sure your internal links are as interconnected as possible.
TOOL: Use [Site:url “target keyword”] to see which pages on your site (or your competitors’ sites) are associated with that keyword.
Overcoming Content Overload: Marketing Tactics for 2020 – Paxton Gray at 97TH FLOOR
Only 48% of marketers feel proficient in their job, especially in this digital age of so few consumers even seeing the content you create. Paxton recommends using the analytics of computers to inform the creativity of humans, thereby maximizing both resources.
Viral content is the wrong idea—it’s self-centered instead of aiming to improve your key audience. A good marketer is an advocate of the consumer, not the business. At the end of the day, it’s about the human algorithm—give people what they want.
Using “sideways marketing,” you can reach people around main keywords in relevant ways that serve your audience and your brand. This is especially useful for smaller companies who can’t rank in search against huge corporations. Example: Blendtec had a successful campaign promoting a buffalo wings sauce, something that isn’t normally associated with a blender, but which blender consumers cared about making.
Advanced SEO Tactics for 2019 – Janet Driscoll Miller, Marketing Mojo
This was an EXTREMELY in-depth presentation about the nuances of SEO strategy, but the 3 slides below are useful even for beginners.
Customer Experience Tips
Making Memorable Moments: Charming Customers With the Balance of Physical and Digital – Alex Macleod at FITCH
Follow the Peak-End Rule: if you have peaks/high points in the customer experience, people will remember it in the end (as long as it ends well). This forgives and overrides any low or average points in the middle of the experience.
The Contrarian Marketer: B2B Trends to Differentiate Your Company – Mike Weir at LINKEDIN Marketing Solutions
In B2B work, you need to build deeper relationships with clients because their choices mean more than the average consumer (aka their job is on the line if they don’t make the correct purchasing choice).
Use the SCORE algorithm for content:
- Structure: gives simplicity and consistency
- Contrarian: sets you apart from the competition and allows you to add value
- Ownable: makes you distinctive, otherwise your ad is working for the market leader and their existing loyalty base, not you
- Replication: makes its value proven over time
- Expertise: profitable via thought leadership
Big bets are more profitable than small bets across all industries (1:6 ROI vs 1:1). Small bets are actually riskier because they’re almost guaranteed to fail. This means go big on creative and distribution. According to Mike, you need to own more share of voice than market share (aka: share of exposure a brand gets > the portion of a market controlled by a particular company or product).
Mike also believes in a “click-through conspiracy.” There’s such a push to “get clicks”, but research shows there’s no correlation between clicks and success on ad recall, awareness, or conversion. Clickbait is bad for your brand because it draws traffic that won’t convert.
Email Marketing Tips
Get New and Repeat Business on Autopilot with Email Marketing – Dave Charest at CONSTANT CONTACT
A 5% increase in retention increases profit 25% to 95%, while gaining a new customer can be 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. That said, stop asking people to “join our mailing list.” Don’t make it about receiving more email. Instead, focus on what’s in it for them, such as promotions and discounts, exclusive content, etc.
When people do join, personalized emails deliver 6x higher transaction rates. A successful sales funnel will also have a welcome email series. Emails for special anniversaries together or milestones can also be effective.
The Funnel is Dead: Long Live the Marketing Flywheel to Engage Customers – Dave Meyer at BIZZYWEB
This presentation took an innovative approach to how customers interact—hopefully engage—with your brand.
Get More Out of Every Email You Send – Zachary Hanz at ActiveCampaign
In emails and in all marketing content, keep your audience’s needs and wants at the center to get the best conversion rates.
Summit Wrap-Up
The location at McCormick Center was convenient and the views and weather were gorgeous. It was fun to geek out on seeing the nearly-mythical Seth Godin speak live. Plus, walking around any city energizes the soul. (So does eating leftover Pad Thai for breakfast in your hotel room…)
While I understand how data is a huge trend and powerful resource, I didn’t love the heavy focus on analytics and software since that’s not as accessible to the small businesses and nonprofits I work with. That’s why I didn’t include much analytics information in the marketing tips above.
The content and caliber of speakers at the summit was impressive, but the amount of networking really disappointed me. I will admit, I’m introverted, but no one I crossed paths with seemed remotely interested in connecting with anyone besides vendors and people they already knew. I’m not sure if it was a fluke, something about me, or just the conference’s culture.
I would potentially attend again, but I might opt for a conference or workshop with more copywriting or freelance flavor in the future.
What do you think?
Let me know which of these marketing tips was the most useful and how you plan to implement these ideas in your own business!