MarketingDojo #15: Can Influencer Marketing Deliver ROI?💰💰
The winning combination of influencer and performance marketing, ByteDance has more than one winner, podcast recommendations and more.
Hello Everyone,
My week has been a blur. Captain Haddock and I have something in common this week (except I am drowning in work, not whiskey).
So here’s what we will cover in this issue:
😎Achieve Branding and Performance Goals with Influencers
🎧10 Essential Podcasts for Savvy Marketers
🍎Gen Z's Steadfast Devotion to Apple
📈Retail media’s growth spurt
And a lot more…
Beyond the Hype: How Influencer Marketing Drives Both Brand and Performance Wins.
Calculating return on investment (ROI) for traditional influencer marketing campaigns can be challenging.
Working with influencers is a great way to connect with consumers. Influencers create engaging video content for a living - Successful influencers develop a sense of what resonates with their audiences.
Yet organic-only influencer marketing has some significant drawbacks that don't get frequently discussed:
Instagram & TikTok do not allow external links on most formats: Social media networks aim to drive engagement within their platforms. The algorithm punishes any links that move customers outside of their network.
On average, the organic reach for influencers on Instagram is 0.81%. Fantastic content does not get the engagement it deserves since it rarely reaches a significant audience size.
One tried and tested way of improving the ROI on influencer marketing?
Separate creation from distribution.
Unless you work with mega-influencers or celebrities, consider budgeting for content creation & paid promotion.
If the ad's objective is to encourage the customer to buy or learn more about your product, ads from the influencer's account will help reach the right target audience with great precision.
When a distribution budget supports content, the number of followers matters lesser than the quality of the content.
Paid & organic influencer strategy provides the best of both worlds.
Organic content can create long-term brand awareness
Ads can focus on short to medium-term returns on investments
Note: If the primary objective of your marketing strategy is to drive top-of-mind recall, you can safely ignore this advice.
10 Essential Podcasts for Savvy Marketers.
I 🧡 podcasts. If you like podcasts too, here are some must-listen ones for marketers.
1. Behind the Numbers: an eMarketer Podcast: Daily update on all that's happening in the marketing world, backed by data.
2. Marketing Against The Grain: Non-obvious insights and strong opinions loosely held by the podcast hosts - Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot’s CMO) and Kieran Flanagan (Zapier’s CMO).
3. The Daily CTA: Short on time? Stay updated on everything marketing in under 5 minutes daily.
4. This Old Marketing: Two legends of content marketing, Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose, catch up weekly to discuss what's new with marketing. What's not to love?
5. LinkedInformed Podcast. The LinkedIn Show: Whether you want to use LinkedIn to build your personal brand or for professional purposes, Mark 'Mr LinkedIn' Williams has something for everyone.
6. LinkedIn Ads Show: Another incredibly useful podcast on the LinkedIn platform by AJ Wilcox. If you run ads on LinkedIn, this podcast is an incredible resource.
7. Uncensored CMO: No list of marketing podcasts can ever be complete without mentioning Jon Evan's Uncensored CMO. Listen to it to learn from the unfiltered views of industry veterans.
8. Social Media Marketing Podcast: Social Media Examiner’s founder Michael Stelzner weekly podcast is choc-a-bloc with actionable advice to improve your marketing strategy and tactics.
9. The Marketing Book Podcast: Douglas Burdett interviews authors of marketing & sales books. I have picked several books after listening to the interviews.
10. MarTech Podcast // Marketing + Technology = Business Growth: How can you integrate tech into your marketing stack? The podcast does a deep dive into tech for marketers.
Do you have any podcast recommendations for me?
Meme-time: Too many cooks approvers spoil the broth campaign.
Applemania: Gen Z's Irresistible Loyalty to the Tech Giant
Only a few brands stay relevant across different generations.
Commonly, brands that were popular with one generation lose their appeal with the next. People don't want to be stuck with their "daddy's brand".
But Apple has no such problems; in fact, quite the opposite.
Piper Sandler released their 45th Generation Z survey targeted at teens in the US. Some facts point to the power of the brand Apple: 87% of teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone.
That is some unmatched loyalty!
Despite its premium pricing, Apple holds 57% of the market share in the US. But it feels like their future is even brighter.
Another brand that is a favourite across generations? Nike. It ranked #1 for both sports shoes and apparel.
The beginning of the end: Twitter plans to reduce ads for Twitter Blue subscribers.
Twitter Blue subscribers will now see 50% fewer ads in their For You and Following tabs.
Social media companies maintain a delicate balance between user engagement & return on investment for advertisers. Ad-free or limited ad experiences reduce the total addressable audiences for an advertiser and generally drive the advertising costs up.
Twitter Blue subscription has yet to be off to a solid start. Reducing ads in the feed will have little or no short-term difference for brands that continue advertising on Twitter.
But keep an eye on this one. If there's one thing that has happened more than once in 2023: bad ideas get copied at lightning speed.
Retail Media’s Growth Spurt.
Retail media ad spending in the US doubled in 2020 and 2021. BCG estimates that digital retail media will grow by 25% yearly for the next five years, but I am confident we will end the year with a much higher growth rate.
Recession-ish economy and pressure on brands to deliver immediate results are spotlighting retail media.
What is retail media?
Retail media refers to retailers monetizing their online & physical presence by allowing advertisers to promote their products throughout the user's browsing experience.
While Amazon makes up a third of the total retail media ad spends, plenty of other emerging players exist. Online first companies such as Amazon, traditional retailers such as Walmart & Target, and department stores such as Macy's & delivery services such as Instacart are some players in the ever-growing retail media category.
For years, retailers have gathered deep customer insights & first-party data of their customers. With brands vying for mind space closer to the point of purchase, retail media has a bright outlook in the otherwise dim 2023.
Rainbow after the rain for ByteDance.
Positive news all around for ByteDance this week after last’s week US congressional hearing session.
First, Advertising on TikTok in the US grew by 11% in March. Top spenders included - Pepsi, DoorDash, Amazon & Apple. The potential of a ban isn't keeping the advertising money away. (Paywalled)
Second, ByteDance reported record profits, overtaking Tencent & Alibaba. It recorded a 79% surge in earnings in 2022. Despite its size, TikTok contributes little to ByteDance's overall earnings. (Paywalled)
Third, Lemon8, a new social media platform owned by ByteDance, entered the top 10 in the US app stores. Its marketing-led growth is coming straight out of TikTok's growth playbook.
With TikTok, video editing app -Capcut, and now Lemon8, ByteDance seems to be growing at an appropriate time when the social media landscape looks ripe for defragmentation.
Short Stuff:
Spotify shuts down its Clubhouse competitor -Spotify Live ( Yet another sound-social product bites the dust)
Germany accuses Twitter of failing to stop the spread of misinformation (More legal troubles).
Twitter open-sourced a part of its algorithm leading to some interesting insights about the platform. Most surprising for me: likes» retweets» comments (Under the hood).
Meta to introduce generative AI tools that help in ad creation by the year-end (AI for marketers)
That’s all for this week. Your time is important, and I hope this issue was worth it.
I will catch you in your inbox next week.
Ciao,
Garima
P.S: Last week, I often caught myself laughing while commuting & walking. Nothing’s wrong with me. I listened to one of my favourite books, “Right Ho, Jeeves”.
If you are a P.G. Wodehouse fan, wait till you listen to the audiobooks - they take the humour up a notch. The narrator uses pacing, pitch and volume to bring the dysfunctional characters alive in the audio form.
I highly recommend getting your hands on the audiobook and getting some much-needed laughter.
