Marketing Communications Knowledge Session

Marketing Executive Level 4 CIM Marketing Communication Day 1 Learning Outcomes Today we will be learning:  The features and benefits of different communication channels & media, both digital and offline, and when and how to apply them.  Marketing Communications roduction...

Marketing Executive Level 4 CIM Marketing Communication Day 1 Learning Outcomes Today we will be learning:  The features and benefits of different communication channels & media, both digital and offline, and when and how to apply them.  Marketing Communications roduction Since you very first started out in marketing, you will have been exposed to and probably implemented a number of different marketing communications. Marketing communications is another name for ‘media mix’ and involves all the different types of customer facing communication channels you could use to promote your brand or product messaging and support overarching marketing strategy goals. in 2022, HubSpot surveyed 600+ media planners on their goals, strategies, the tools they use, and how they pivoted their content strategy to meet the unique challenges of the past year (2021). In the next few slides we’ll talk about the findings and how they might reflect (or not) your current businesses. Content Planning Report - Theme 1 Eight main themes emerged from the survey, ranging from the importance of flexibility, the power of audits and automation, and the ultimate goal of reaching more people — and ensuring they’re engaged by the content in front of them. Theme 1: Marketers’ no.1 goal is engagement, and audience growth. Every marketing and PR project and initiative benefits from asking the question “What will success look like?” Creating goals is a critical and often time-consuming part of the media planning process, and we learned that marketers are largely finding that their content is over-performing: 62% say their content has performed better than their goals. But what are the goals they’re chasing? First off, it’s engaging and growing their audiences (33%). Whether they’re starting a content strategy from scratch or trying to grow awareness on multiple channels at once, reaching and engaging more people every month, quarter, and year is top of mind. But they’re also keenly focused on maximizing the ROI of their content (30%), meaning that they’re looking for tangible results from every activity —not just publishing a post and forgetting about it. Content Marketing distribution Budgets By tracking the success of various content initiatives, it’s easier to determine how much budget to allocate to them. The research found that almost half (49%) of marketing teams allocate between 30% and 50% of their budget to content. Only 5% spend 71+% of their budget on content, and only 4% spend between 1-10% on content. Content Planning Report - Theme 2 Theme 2: Marketers have figured out content, now they’re auditing and optimising. If you’ve been involved in content creation for a business for some time, you’ll likely already have a pretty sizable content library — with some pieces that are fresher than others. That’s where audits and optimisation come in. Many content marketers keep an eye on their most successful content types and keep them updated, but have found that there’s some deeper digging left to do. 2 in 3 media/marketing comms planners have run content audits before, and 30% of them run audits monthly so they can constantly track performance. They invest the time to audit their content libraries because they find it’s helpful in improving the user experience on their website (36%), identifying and increasing the visibility of their best performing content (34%), finding content gaps and opportunities (34%), improving their SEO and SERP ranking (33%), and crucially, identifying issues with their website like broken links and slow load times (31%) — all of which have impacts on their visibility online. 81% of media planners/marketing comms planners who run audits say they have been effective for reaching their business goals, and 67% say the results of their content audits have had a moderate to a significant impact on their media planning strategy. Hubspot predict that the use of content audits will grow significantly in 2022 as 37% plan to leverage them for the first time, and 15% of all media planners will invest more in content audits than any Content Planning Report - Theme 3 Theme 3: It’s time for a look at your audience, with fresh eyes. Marketers are conducting in-depth audience analysis When initially mapping out a marketing strategy for a brand, it can be tempting to create buyer personas to target early on and work off of that guiding light without wavering for years. But in 2022, Hubspot’s report results confirmed it’s worth it to conduct market research regularly to understand your target demographic and find the most effective channels to reach them. Why? The landscape shifts all the time. Back in 2020, many companies weren’t taking TikTok very seriously — and since then google announced that around 40% of gen Z were using tiktok as a search engine! 43% of media planners/comms marketers conduct market research to find the most effective channel to reach their target audience, and this number is expected to grow significantly, with 53% planning to leverage it for the first time. 70% of media planners who do market research say it’s the most effective media planning strategy they leverage, and 22% of all media planners plan to invest more in market research than any other strategy in 2022. Content Planning Report - Theme 4 Theme 4: More than 40% of marketers are switching up their media mix in 2022. And finding the sweet spot is still the biggest challenge. Deciding which channels to invest in each year is a decision that’ll impact your budget, team growth, and potentially, the success of your content overall. So, do you stick with what’s been working well enough, or mix up your media planning? For 2022, 45% of surveyed marketers will stick with their media mix, while 41% plan to change it up. Email marketing, paid and organic social media content, and organic search are the most leveraged media channels, with the highest ROI, and they’re all set to grow significantly in 2022. And with free tools such as Canva readily avaibile, marketers can do more than ever before. This is where your buyer personas (and keeping them up to date!) can be extremely helpful in reaching the right audience. Does your audience spend time listening to podcasts on their commute? Do they watch YouTube videos over dinner? Find out and let your findings guide your media mix. Top 10 media channels planned for 2022 Diving to the most popular channels Email Marketing & Paid Ads Email marketing came out on top! It Paid Ads There’s power in putting can reward you with very high ROI and money behind your strongest social huge potential for personalisation and media ads, ensuring that they’ll be reach. seen by your target customers. And with powerful marketing It’s a popular tactic that can be automation tools, there are infinite managed through social media opportunities to customise emails by platforms themselves, but can be segment, by product, by buyer stage, made even simpler and more and more, leading to higher powerful with marketing engagement than ever. automation. Email marketing is the most leveraged Paid social media content is used media channel, used by 1 in 2 media by 47% of media planners and has planners, and will continue to grow as the highest ROI and highest marketers work smarter and micro- engagement of any channel. market communications to their audience. Use will grow significantly as 14% of all media planners plan to invest Email marketing has the third highest more in it than any other channel, Organic Social & Search Organic social If you know your audience spends Organic search A robust, effective a lot of time on social media, there’s one more content library takes work to build up, but layer of digging you’ll need to do before you start is rewarding. Some companies work with to create content. freelance writers or agencies as they Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and build out their library, while others grow Pinterest all have very different user bases, and it’ll their content marketing teams internally be helpful to understand where to put your best from the start. efforts to meet your audience where they are. However they approach it, writing useful, Organic social media content is used by 43% of clear articles that match up with what media planners and will continue to grow. people in your industry are searching for is an effective way to build trust with your Organic social has the second-highest ROI and community, and eventually, drive leads second highest engagement levels of any channel. and new business. FUN FACT: Did you know that Pinterest’s Organic search, or blogging, content audience is made up mostly of millennials, but they marketing, and SEO optimization, is also do quite well with Gen Z, Gen X, and Baby leveraged by 36% of media planners, and Boomers? That’s a good range for any marketer! 45% of them say it has the highest ROI of any channel they use. Content Planning Report - Theme 5 Theme 5: Planning ahead is worth it Planning a content calendar isn’t easy Marketers told HubSpot that they struggle most with determining the most effective media mix (39%), budgetary limitations (36%), lacking time to plan properly (30%), wasted impressions (29%), staying up to date with digital marketing trends (24%), and lacking time to measure results (24%). But despite these challenges, the following media planning statistics speak for themselves. Marketers said that thorough planning helps foster an understanding of which channels or platforms are most effective for sharing content (29%), and where their audience spends their time (28%). Planning ahead helps with effectively targeting your audience with relevant content (27%), and analysing the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy (26%). Finally, it means that it’s easier to maximize ROI on content as a whole (24%). Content Planning Report - Theme 5 Theme 5: Planning ahead is worth it Planning a content calendar isn’t easy Marketers told HubSpot that they struggle most with determining the most effective media mix (39%), budgetary limitations (36%), lacking time to plan properly (30%), wasted impressions (29%), staying up to date with digital marketing trends (24%), and lacking time to measure results (24%). But despite these challenges, the following media planning statistics speak for themselves. Marketers said that thorough planning helps foster an understanding of which channels or platforms are most effective for sharing content (29%), and where their audience spends their time (28%). Planning ahead helps with effectively targeting your audience with relevant content (27%), and analysing the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy (26%). Content Planning Report - Theme 6 Theme 6: Almost half of media planners say templates are their most effective strategy for hitting goals It takes time for a marketing team to figure out which content marketing activities work best for their business. But you don’t have to start from scratch: that’s where marketing strategy templates come in. The group of surveyed marketers shared that ‘working off of planned ahead content calendars helps manage the drafting, review, editing, and publishing of content.’ Social media strategy templates, and social content calendars, help managers post on behalf of their company in a timely way that resonates with their audience. And a clear reporting template/structure keep marketing analysts organised and ready to pull and share metrics for insight. Finally, infographic templates in Powerpoint or Illustrator help marketers to quickly customise the way they present data, share insights, and promote offers. Media planning templates are leveraged by 40% of media planners, and 46% of them say it is the most effective strategy they use to reach their business goals. Think tools like HubSpot for this! Content Planning Report - Theme 7 Theme 7: Agile marketing is here to stay. 74% of marketers who pivoted campaigns said it was effective. The word ‘pivot,’ may be quite familiar to some of you (not only because it is similar to the word pivotal). Marketers have learned a lot in the past two years of disruption (think external factors - PESTLE) and one of the biggest takeaways has been the importance of flexibility. 99% of marketers who have ever pivoted their content plan did so in 2021, with 39% of them pivoting three times that year. 78% of them said it was for the best, and that it gave them an extremely effective strategy. COVID-19 was the number one reason for pivoting, but here’s the breakdown of all the reasons why marketers pivoted in 2021: Marketers felt they needed to make big changes to their strategy and campaigns due to their competitors Content Planning Report - Theme 8 Theme 8: Automation and media planning tools are enabling smarter, more personalised marketing campaigns at scale. It may seem counter-intuitive, but in marketing, leaning into automation can make your initiatives feel more human — and more engaging. It doesn’t mean that a robot is writing your eye- catching copy, it’s just that the more tedious tasks are taken care of. That’s why 78% of media planners use automation and media planning tools. The most well-known application of marketing automation is email, but there’s a lot more that teams can do to take advantage of marketing technology.  Back to the media mix "A media mix” is a marketing term for the combination of channels a business uses to meet its marketing goals. It can include billboards, email, websites, and social media (plus loads more). Businesses might refer to their marketing mix when thinking about how to hit future campaign goals. A media mix is another term for an overview of the channels businesses choose to execute their marketing strategies on. Ultimately, media mix optimisation is the Task – Owned, Earned, Paid Individually, note down the media mix you use in your business between the three types of marketing communication categories and report back to the group. How effective do you feel your current marketing mix is? What do you think could be added to improve the effectiveness of your marketing to your target audiences? 20 minutes Customer Journey Maps A customer journey map is a diagram (or several diagrams) that depict the stages customers go through when interacting with a company, from buying products online to accessing customer service on the phone to airing grievances on social media. It is based upon insight from business intelligence through customer research, which can be done via surveys, reviews, feedback, testimonials, CRM systems and many more areas. Customer Journey Maps & Marketing Comms A customer journey can be a very useful tool to build up an ideal mix of marketing to occur at different stages of a customer’s conversion journey, with each media having a potentially different purpose, depending on what stage of the customer journey it is used at. Although a customer journey map is usually the final product of your hard work, you can look at additional marketing models to help you plan your marketing communcuations in, against product launches, overall strategic annual planning and campaign specific needs. Below are some other models we will discuss that you can use: Push & Pull tactics in Marketing Communications Let’s look at the following channels and discuss how they might be classified (it’s not as cut and dry as you might think) TV Advertising Sky Ad Smart DAX radio Traditional radio Being able to identify PUSH and PULL Organic Social tactics by activity allows you to better understand the CONTENT PURPOSE. Email Marketing Routinely considering the CONTENT Experiential PR PURPOSE before embarking on any implementation will help you to create PPC more effective marketing communications.