WithinDigital is an almost monthly digital marketing podcast, featuring in-depth interviews with experts in digital advertising, SEO, social media, and everything in between.
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In episode 10 of WithinDigital, Nick Livermore is joined by Incubeta‘s Head of Measurement Consultancy, Kate Jervis, to chat about the ‘first-party data renaissance’ of 2022.
Data is at the heart of everything we do in marketing. And first-party data has been around for a long time. So, why in 2022 are we talking about first-party data like it’s this new thing?
Together, they cover…
This podcast first appeared on the Adapt Website here >>> https://www.adaptworldwide.com/insights/2022/withindigital-episode-10-the-first-party-data-renaissance
But what appears to be a shiny new toy for some marketers has actually been the mainstay for specialist CRM agencies like Flourish for years. Since its inception in 2003 Flourish has used data to drive customer journeys that help brands to be more relevant with their messaging.
At the back of 2021 Flourish delivered a personalised end-of-year round up campaign for Twitch, the global streaming site. Over 45 million Twitch users, viewers and creators received the email campaign which was translated into 28 languages.
These uber-personalised comms didn’t simply include the customer’s name or what they just bought. We’re talking whole-email personalisation; with eight different creative variants, based on a contact’s level of platform engagement, each in-turn sharing cool and interesting personal stats based on their year with Twitch. The decision to allocate individual users to different creative variants was driven by real world data insights that identified the type of user they were, the relationship they had with Twitch and their future potential.
Every email was personalised to the recipient, reflecting their year with Twitch. Users and viewers could see the creators and channels they’d watched most, what they’d supported with subs and follows and even what their favourite emote was. Creators could see how many hours they’d streamed, how many viewers they’d picked up, how they interacted with them and who their biggest fans were.
The roundup was a big hit with recipients and saw 500K+ shares on social media. As the campaign landed Twitch saw a 67% increase in traffic to the site as users and viewers reconnected with their favourite content. So much so that there was a 971% incremental increase in the number of hours watched.
Rich James, Managing Partner at Flourish and Twitch client lead said: “We’re always striving to help Twitch be as relevant to their audience of users and viewers as possible. But we’re also conscious for the need to support the content creators that do so much to make Twitch what it is. The end-of-year campaign did both perfectly. Presenting a summary that hyped creators, helped them understand their impact and achievements, whilst viewers were given a timely reminder of everything they’ve loved on Twitch. The campaign was the perfect example of how every member of the Flourish team lives and breathes personalisation in everything they do. The project was led by the amazing Sanni Haltunnen (Senior Account Manager) and Glenn Carver (Technical Campaign Manager) with the wider support of the agency. We’re really proud of what they and the team have delivered for Twitch”
If you’d like help to take your communications beyond personalisation and into relevance, you can get in touch with Rich James. Alternatively, you can take a closer look at Flourish.
We all know the power data and reporting can have in forming campaigns, convincing clients and understanding customers.
So with the new Google Analytics update, it’s crucial to get your head around this completely new model – especially if you’re going to get the most out of your data.
Learn from Jill Quick of The Colouring Department, an analytics consultant who has been working in digital marketing for a very long time!
We’ll cover:
Like all Buisness as Unusual webinars you’ll also get a chance to ask any questions about analytics or GA4 that you’re stuck on.
Date: 20th January 2022
Time: 3pm – 4pm
Location: Zoom
Get access to an entire hour of free advice on analytics and reporting at this month’s Business as Unusual webinar.
Register here: mnky.bz/bau
Since Flourish began its life back in 2003, we’ve always had charities on our client list. We’ve worked with organisations of all sizes, gaining a vast amount of knowledge of donor engagement and development, particularly in the area of Legacy Marketing.
It’s why Guardian Angel Network invited us to speak at their successful ‘Leg up for legacies’ webinar series, and last week we had the privilege of passing on our insights around the theme: ‘Storytelling: how to write an engaging case study.
Legacy marketing is unique; there’s no immediate benefit for someone today. And they won’t be here to see what good their gift does. Remembering a charity in your Will is a purely altruistic act. But even a charity’s most fervent supporters aren’t guaranteed to become legacy supporters – legacy marketing is about inspiring supporters to take the next step and pledge a gift in their Will.
So, how do you inspire people through marketing? Stories. Through the telling of stories, you can make an emotional connection with a prospect and demonstrate that your charity reflects their values. In legacy marketing, stories are told through case studies.
To make sure your case studies are as engaging as they can be, they must connect to your audience. We’ve shortlisted the below criteria to help you make the most of your case study stories:
1 Know the frame in which you stories will appear
Legacy marketing campaigns tend to fit into a few ‘narrative frames’. Understanding these will make sure your case studies fit with the broader narrative of your campaign.
The frame you choose is all about the audience you’re going after. Older people tend to respond better to autobiographical storytelling / symbolic immortality. Younger people tend to respond better to connection with friends and family / aversion avoidance.
2 Choose your narrator wisely
The messaging you’re trying to support should inform the ‘voice’ you choose. It’s all about where the authority lies. Can the case study legitimately comment on the thing you’re using them for? Only a service user can tell you what it’s really like to be homeless, have cancer, or be affected by depression. But a relative can tell you how much it’s affected the wider family. Trying to norm legacy giving? Legacy Supporters, their relatives and solicitors might be a good choice. The impact legacies can have on the cause? A Charity CEO can talk with authority about the facts and figures.
3 Relatability is important
The closer your audience is to your case study in age and experience, the more relatable their story will be. The obvious exception to this rule is first-hand accounts from service users. Supporters often choose a charity because they have a personal link, but most of your audience will have no direct experience of the cause, be it blindness, cancer, homelessness, poverty, asthma etc.
If you have a case study that isn’t that close to your target audience, instead look for common ground. A 45-year-old man might not easily relate to a 75 year old women’s view of the world, but does know what it means to be a parent. Just as your audience might not know what it means to be homeless, they can still imagine what it must feel like like having to use a public toilet to wash in.
4 You have to be authentic
There’s no point nailing relatability if what happens in your case study comes across as inauthentic.
Look at these two case study excerpts:
“My wife started forgetting things. We were going on holiday and she packed the wrong clothes. It was terrible.”
“We’d packed to go to Cyprus. Vera had three cases. We had to pay extra for them. When we got there she’d packed fleeces, warm clothes – I said: ‘what have you done that for love?’ She just shook her head and said she was sorry. I knew then that this wasn’t just a bit of forgetfulness”
Both excerpts are true. But the first feels less authentic. The key is just enough detail. Too little and your case study will feel generic. Too much and it will feel contrived. Look for the nuggets of detail in a story and include two or three in your case study.
5 Understand the narrative arc
Case studies in a social post, online video or even a direct mail pack don’t exist in isolation. We should think of them as individual tales in a bigger story. Every case study should support the narrative arc of the campaign or the brand.
6 Consider a story strategy
We’re all used to content strategies to ensure our messaging doesn’t fatigue and we’re constantly providing engaging material for our audiences. Legacy marketing is no different. The lifecycle of a legacy supporter from prospect to pledger can take decades. You need to make sure that the stories you tell them are fresh and keep them engaged.
7 The perfect case study doesn’t exist!
You need to use the most relatable story for your audience, depending on the stage they are at in their journey from prospect to pledger.
If you have any views on these points, or any points you’d add to this list, just reach out, we’d love to hear from you.
Lockdown puppies. Admit it. You considered one. A little companion to keep you company working from home, a playmate for the kids and a reason to get out for your 10,000 steps each day. And if you did end up getting one? You’re not alone.
According to the BBC more than 3.2 million more pets were bought during lockdown. Veterinary charity PDSA’s research shows nearly 2 million of these were puppies, with many owners saying it was the first time they had owned a pet.
Over the same period 1.4 million more claimants registered for financial support as the pandemic effectively stopped people being able to earn a living. More pets, more first time owners and more economic uncertainty. A perfect storm for PDSA who treat the pets of owners who cannot afford veterinary treatment.
PDSA turned to CRM specialists Flourish to develop a campaign to raise awareness and money to meet the forecast jump in demand for their services. The resulting Give Pets a Fighting Chance campaign went live in late November 2021.
An initial priming film was shared on social and via email underlining just how much pets mean to us and have enriched our live during lockdown. This was followed by a fundraising phase on social, email and via direct mail to existing supporters.
The campaign celebrated pets, paying homage to just how amazing they are for our physical and mental wellbeing. This celebration provided the platform from which to ask for donations witch communications suggesting that: “For all pets do for us, they deserve a fighting chance.”
The response to the campaign has been incredible, with celebs including Ricky Gervais, Michaela Strachan, Alesha Dixon and James from the Vamps showing their support on Twitter.
Preliminary results are incredibly encouraging with the campaign being well on track to meet its financial targets to make sure any increase in need for PDSA services will be met.
Laura Tovar Senior Account Director at Flourish said: “The potential increase in need for PDSA services had to be addressed, and quickly. We’ve been working with PDSA for 3 years now and in that time our campaigns have always hit their targets and often smashed them. Our Give Pets a Fighting Chance campaign has been well-received and I have no doubt that many pets lives will be saved as a direct result of it”.
If you have a CRM project you’d support with, you can get in touch with Flourish by contacting Steve Davis. Alternatively take a look at some of our work.
Our Ops Director Mike Sharp gives his take on what to expect next year.
As we roll towards the tail end of 2021 it is that time of year where agencies and thought leaders start to roll out their predictions for the coming 12 months. In fact, a quick search online yields my own article from a previous life written six years ago. What did I predict then?
A change in attribution – the growth and importance of Data-Driven Attribution as it became mainstream
Year of the mobile continued – the switch to mobile-first and the growth of mobile-first formats
Hyper local search – A move towards Minority Report style ads thanks to improved accuracy in tracking
Google Shopping advances – since Google’s switch away from the free listings, Google Shopping would push forward significantly with new formats and local ads
It’s strangely comforting that even six years on these could still be relevant in 2022 – everything has changed in advertising, but also nothing has! Although hopefully everyone realises that ‘the year of the mobile’ prediction has definitely run its course.
So, what could be dominating the digital marketing industry over the next 12 months?
It’s safe to say that people are now more comfortable than ever talking to things around their house and expecting to get coherent answers – not something as a parent I can quite relate to!
Our industry’s been predicting voice search uptake for years, but now the interesting part comes with how these searches get monetised. From an SEO perspective the What, How or Who queries have long been valued as a way of owning these results, but over the next 12 months I expect to see more from audio ads with advances in Google’s existing YouTube Audio ads offering.
Android Auto penetration is also on the rise, which is further boosting voice searches, so there is another captive audience waiting to be advertised to by Google.
We take it for granted now that Smart paid media campaigns are the norm and will outperform most human-led ones. They’ve helped to free up Account Managers’ time with automation, allowing marketers to focus on strategy and creative processes to push our clients even further.
We’ll see the use of AI increase even further as companies big and small lean into it to help with predictive modelling and forecasting as part of the standard planning cycles.
The pandemic has also seen the rise of conversational AI in the form of bots and digital assistants – again, something that will continue to grow over time, helping with onsite conversion and customer retention.
Expected to surpass 1.5 billion users in 2022, TikTok is going to absolutely dominate social media in 2022 – bringing with it the continued captivation with influencers, memes, and trends.
TikTok has quickly advanced its ad platform to become more accessible for more brands. In the coming 12 months I think we’ll see smaller brands using the platform, moving it away from the playground of the mega brands and into a core part of the media mix. ‘Always on’ micro and nano influencers will also become more valuable as brands try to target their niche in an affordable way.
Between the impending death of third-party cookies, talk of first-party analytics and even zero-party data, much has already been said in this space, so I won’t dwell on it too much.
Given Google’s already delayed deadline of 2023 for them phasing out, we should expect to hear a more about the possible alternatives. No doubt Google will desperately be finding a way of protecting its revenue streams whilst tipping its hat to the more privacy-conscious consumers and advertisers.
So we can all expect to become more familiar with terms like Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoCs) and Unified IDs or Authenticated Traffic Solutions… exciting!
One of the biggest struggles in digital marketing is the constant battle to improve attribution modelling – especially cross-channel and cross-device.
Google spent many years teasing Google Attribution, only to pull it and pretend it never happened. GA4 is now stepping up to fill some of this gap as well as staying on the right side of the incoming privacy changes.
In 2017 Facebook pushed out its own attribution tool, which seemed to be gaining momentum – only for it to be pulled again this year.
So, my hope is the next 12 months will bring with it improvements in how we measure clients’ success and attribute that fairly across the channel mix – but a part of me suspects it will still be a hot topic for the next few rounds of predictions.
It should be another exciting year in the paid marketing sphere this year. After what’s been a fairly strange 18 months for everyone, these advances will allow us to drive forward our clients’ businesses and continue helping them capitalise on opportunities.
All the best for the festive season!
Children’s Hospice South West are one of the largest children’s hospice charities in the UK, providing Children’s palliative, respite, end-of-life and bereavement care for children with life limiting and life threatening illnesses and their families from the South West England region. Before the challenges of the 2020 pandemic, CHSW had already identified a need to boost fundraising income and grow their well established support base. Working with AgencyUK, the team have developed a strategy to raise brand awareness and start building a younger base of donors.
The first integrated campaign launches CHSW onto TV this Christmas, targeting the brand to potential new donors in the South West (Cornwall, Devon, Bristol). The strategy looks to connect CHSW with this new audience whereby a lasting relationship might be established.
“We wanted to create a campaign for CHSW which raises awareness of the brand, and the vital work they do. The sensitive nature of the subject matter meant the creative had to be researched and tested prior to final production and release. The advertising tells the story of families of children with life-limiting conditions, emphasizing their journey with the charity. Children’s Hospice South West is so much more than just end-of-life care associated with the term hospice – the charity supports their families to create times that matter; time to laugh, time to share, time to rest, remember, and most importantly, time to just be a family – something that any parent can relate to. Our creative approach therefore was to create a relatable campaign with an authentic narrative that was far more positive than a traditional charity TV campaign, that our audience feels good about supporting rather than guilt tripping people into giving,” says Nix Boulton, art director, AgencyUK
“As the creative work developed and more time was spent telling the stories of the families, the AUK team became emotionally attached to the work CHSW do. I don’t think one person involved in this production left the set without their life having been touched in some way,” says Amy Mansourpour, director, AgencyUK.
“We are delighted with the work we have created with AgencyUK, and the support the families have given us throughout this process. We’re looking forward to seeing the campaign go live, and the opportunity for us to build on it throughout 2022,” says Jess Patel, director of marketing and communications, CHSW.
“At AgencyUK we pursue opportunities to work with brands and organisations that we truly believe in and want to get behind as a team. We’re incredibly proud to call Children’s Hospice South West a client, as the work they do is truly remarkable. This isn’t just about a project or the next advertising campaign, this is about turning our skills as marketers and using them to make a difference each and every day. It’s about solidarity and human empathy,” says Sammy Mansourpour, managing director, AgencyUK.
The new CHSW campaign will be live over Christmas 2021, and will be launched on TV and YouTube, before amplification through broader social media channels and digital advertising formats.
The new ‘Intro to Game Art’ short course will give you an insight into the world of game art, exploring the range of roles and essential skills needed to get you started when exploring a potential future career in game art. There is a host of exciting modules that your tutor will guide you through, including:
Planning and producing work to a design brief.
Working in the games industry
Concept art for computer games
Modelling for computer games
This new and exciting programme is designed to equip individuals (aged 19+) with the technical skills, knowledge and understanding needed to produce digital content across several platforms, ensuring you can use social media most effectively for your small business, sports team or trade.
This course will provide a great opportunity for you to develop media production techniques, such as camera operating (on mobile devices, DSLR cameras and broadcast cameras), video editing, graphics and motion graphics to produce content for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and more. There is a host of exciting modules that your tutor will guide you through, including:
Planning your Project
Camera Production Techniques
Sound Recording Techniques
Editing Techniques
This new and exciting programme is designed to equip individuals (aged 19+) with the technical skills, knowledge and understanding needed to produce digital content across several platforms, ensuring you can use social media most effectively for your small business, sports team or trade.
This course will provide a great opportunity for you to develop graphic design techniques, such as designing and producing a brand identity and branded graphics for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and more. There is a host of exciting modules that your tutor will guide you through, including:
Planning your Project
Typography and Layouts
Working with Illustrator and Photoshop
Creating a Brand
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