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NVISION Insights and Innovation Team

NVISION Insights and Innovation Team
In Marketing Trends, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Online shopping, E-Commerce

Holiday Spending Will be Jollier in 2018: How Retailers Can Engage Shoppers to Increase Sales

woman holding shopping bags walking

As the air turns colder and the year winds down, many retailers’ thoughts are on one thing: the holiday season. The holidays are a critically important time for the retail industry, and businesses have reason to be excited for 2018: the National Retail Federation is projecting a 4.5% increase in retail sales over 2017. That’s thanks to many factors, including consumer confidence being high and unemployment being low.

Steven Barr at Forbes recently wrote about the upcoming 2018 retail holiday season, and what trends brands need to keep a sharp eye on if they want to capitalize on more than just tinsel and snowflakes this year.

Shoppers Are Spending More, Especially Millennials

According to a recent study by PwC, consumers plan to spend 5% more on average than they did last holiday season. Across the entire retail industry, that works out to approximately $1,250 per shopper. When you narrow that figure down to high-earning millennials (incomes over $70,000), retailers will be competing for over $2,000 of spending from each and every shopper. In fact, the same study found that millennials will pay more this holiday season for brands that will offer quality, convenience, speed, and personalized experiences.

Millemmial Marketing

Brick-and-Mortar Retail Will Work Together with E-commerce

When it comes to retail this holiday season, some things haven’t changed, and nothing beats the experience of walking through a store or shopping mall for picking out holiday gifts. 91% of holiday shoppers plan to make purchases at a physical retail location this season, so brands will need to invest in creating winning customer experiences with their retail signage and promotional materials. Creating positive, inviting store experiences encourages shoppers to linger for longer and, ultimately, spend more.

But in today’s digital world, that’s not the whole story. 75% of shoppers “expect an integrated experience across digital and physical locations,” so maintaining brand consistency and creating omnichannel customer experiences that track the buyer’s journey will be critical.

Create Memorable, Shareable In-Store Retail Experiences

As online shopping gets more and more convenient, retail brands will need to find ways to create customer experiences worth coming into the store for. While digital integration will be critical (promotional QR codes, email campaigns with in-store coupons, etc.), even more important will be what Barr calls “grammable” moments, after the popular social media platform Instagram. 

Barr highlights the outdoor apparel outfitter Canada Goose, who designed and created a “cold room” for their flagship retail store in Toronto where customers could try out puffy coats, gigantic scarves, and oversized hats. As intended, the cold room led to many shareable photos, and with a custom hashtag already in place, the campaign took off, and Canada Goose enjoyed a massive boost to its retail sales. 

Shoppers want a holiday filled with cheer. Brands can give it to them by creating these unique and engaging in-store experiences.

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For more than three decades we’ve partnered with Fortune 500 companies to deliver marketing operations solutions. Led by a strategic account management team, we’ll help you develop, procure, fulfill and distribute printed collateral, signage, point-of-purchase displays, direct mail, branded merchandise and much more.

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NVISION Insights and Innovation Team
In Marketing ROI, Marketing Trends, Marketing Operations, Marketing Strategy, Online shopping, E-Commerce

Top Trends for Influencer Marketing: Are Your Audiences Under the Right Influence?

influencer marketing

“Why should I trust you?”

This is the question from customers that even the best marketing departments dread. Because after all, why should a prospect or a customer believe marketers are telling the truth when their clear intention is for their audience to spend money on their products.

Studies have shown that overall consumer confidence in the trustworthiness of corporate marketing is declining. According to some estimates, as much as 69% of consumers inherently distrust brand advertising, and 43% of respondents report that they trust brand advertising less than they used to.

Enter Influencer Marketing.

While consumer trust in brands has fallen off a cliff, trust in their fellow consumers has risen precipitously. 70% of shoppers state that they are influenced by recommendations from their peers and fellow “normal people.” In fact, consumers today are 30% more likely to purchase if it is recommended by a trusted influencer, rather than a celebrity. And 74% of consumers say that they do trust social media networks to guide them to purchase decisions.

This is where influencer marketing presents an enormous opportunity for smart companies. Let’s take a look at what Brandon Brown of Grin has identified as some of the biggest current trends in influencer marketing.

Retail Influencer Marketing Is Growing

From lifestyle to home décor to fashion, retail brands are embracing influencer marketing faster than any other segment. In fashion, for example, well-known brands like Bloomingdale’s, Bergdorf Goodman, Zara, and Sephora are working with popular social media influencers to model their products and give audiences a taste of what they, too might look like in the featured clothes or cosmetics.

In fact, Lord & Taylor recently ran a successful campaign where they tapped 50 influencers to each post photos wearing the exact same dress and tagging it with a predetermined hashtag. The result? The dress sold out of every Lord & Taylor in America in three days. Retail brands should give influencer marketing heavy considering in their marketing plans.

people whiteboarding-marketing assessment

The Rise of B2B Influencer Marketing

The power and promise of influencer marketing isn’t just limited to retail and B2C brands, however. And one of the ingenious ways B2B brands are leveraging it is with employee advocacy programs. Over the last three years, employee advocacy programs among B2B brands have increased by 191%.

Employee advocacy programs offer the best of both worlds in influencer marketing. The brand, for its part, enjoys the trust, authenticity, and believability that only real social media advocacy from real employees can garner. The employees themselves, on the other hand, benefit from the increased “professionalism” that such content brings to their social media pages.

The fact is that B2B brands need to capture the attention of their audiences, and more so, they need to do it in a way that is authentic and lasting. Influencer marketing and employee advocacy programs are an efficient way to do both.

The Ability to Measure ROI Will Be Crucial

As with all marketing efforts, the ability to definitively prove the value and effect of influencer marketing programs will be critical to securing ongoing buy-in from key decision-makers within your organization.

Fortunately, many savvy brands are implementing clever ways to improve their ability to measure influencer marketing ROI. Just as many brands are linking their digital and print marketing channels with the use of custom URLs and promo codes, so too are they measuring influencer marketing ROI. On the simple end of the spectrum, fastidious use of one or two set hashtags for each campaign enables marketers to easily search the engagement of those hashtags.

Likewise, many brands are now distributing custom discount and coupon codes to their influencers, encouraging them to share them with their audiences. That way, whenever a customer enters that unique discount code, the brand can know for certain that they were referred by that particular influencer, and his or her promotional activities.

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As consumer trust in brands and marketing departments continues to plummet, B2B and B2C brands alike are turning to influencer marketing as a smart, cost-effective way to make their marketing budgets go further. If your brand is struggling with trust and authenticity, influencer marketing may be an excellent solution to consider.

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For more than three decades we’ve partnered with Fortune 500 companies to deliver marketing operations solutions. Led by a strategic account management team, we’ll help you develop, procure, fulfill and distribute printed collateral, signage, point-of-purchase displays, direct mail, branded merchandise and much more.

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NVISION Insights and Innovation Team
In CMO, Hospitality, Marketing Trends, Digital Marketing, Marketing Performance Measurement, Marketing Strategy, Online shopping

Millennial Marketing: It’s a Whole New Ballgame

Millemmial Marketing

The world is changing, thanks largely in part to the efforts, habits, and preferences of “millennials.” And the field of marketing is no exception.

Millennials, those of us born between the early ‘80s and early 2000s, are now the single largest age demographic in the United States. There are currently 87.5 million millennials living in the U.S., compared to just 83.7 million “Generation X” Americans (those born between the mid-‘60s and early ‘80s) and 66.4 million “Baby Boomers.” This means one thing very clearly: to be successful in marketing today, you must engage with these millennials, and savvy marketers must understand their psychology.

Which is why NVSION has gathered some of the latest data on the psychology of millennial shoppers, and how marketing organizations can leverage this information.

hand holding mobile phone with AR

Millennial Spending Preferences: What Marketers Should Know

Due to broader differences in modern culture and values, millennials show distinct preferences for certain industries when it comes to how they spend their hard-earned money. By understanding this fact, marketers in these industries can feel confident in strategically focusing their efforts on capturing this millennial audience and allocating their marketing budgets accordingly.

Here are the Top 5 areas where millennials spend their money.

  1. Socialization. Whether nights out on the town, social organizations like recreational sports leagues, or just fun, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, millennials spend the lion’s share of their disposable income on socialization. Fun is on the menu for them.
  2. Education. We’ve all heard horror stories about student loan debt and for-profit colleges. But millennials are also spending their money on personal continuing education opportunities, like language courses, classes that teach specific skills (like cooking or brewing), and other opportunities to increase their knowledge.
  3. Apparel. We all want to look our best, and that’s especially true for millennials. Clothing retailers and marketers would be wise to closely study the psychology of millennials’ shopping behaviors.
  4. Services. The most precious commodity to millennials is time. As such, they are more willing to pay for time-saving services than any generation before them.
  5. Eating Out. Similar to the Services industry, millennials love to get their food out because it saves time and effort. They’re willing to pay a little more for it. Just look at the success of on-demand food delivery services like GrubHub and Uber Eats.

When you compare these trends to the top areas of spending focus for Gen X shoppers and Baby Boomers (things like pensions and insurance), it becomes clear that a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy just won’t work. Personal insurance marketers should be investing their marketing budgets differently than socialization marketers because their audiences – and their audiences’ preferences – are different.

Best Practices for Marketing to Millennials

Keeping the above spending preferences in mind, here are some best practices for marketers to leverage and increase millennial engagement.

Millennial Personalization

According to a study by the University of Southern California, millennials are 85% more likely to purchase a product if they have been exposed to it via personalized content. Whether this is with marketing promotions based on their personal shopping history or unique materials segmented for their unique buyer persona, millennials prefer highly personalized marketing.

In fact, a 2018 SuperOffice study found that 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for a product if marketed to them with personalized experiences. And that trend will only continue: customer experience will overtake price and product as a key brand differentiator among consumers by 2020. Agile marketing operations that can accommodate the creation of personalized experiences will win more millennial business for your brand.

Multi-Channel Marketing to Millennials

More than any other generation, millennials engage with brands across multiple different channels, including digital, mobile, in-store, and direct mail.

A recent study by the Harvard Business Review found that 73% of consumers regularly engage with their preferred brands via an average of four (4) different channels. What’s more, retail brands that engage their customers with a multi-channel marketing strategy see an average increase of 89% in customer loyalty and retention.

These numbers only increase for millennial shoppers, who own on average 7-8 internet-connected devices each. In fact, 60% of millennials expect a consistent experience across all of that brand’s channels. By working to establish well-organized, agile marketing operations, marketers can create the unified, multi-channel marketing experiences that win over millennial shoppers.

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The millennial generation becomes a larger portion of your marketing audience each and every day. By understanding their unique preferences, spending habits, and preferred methods of engagement, marketing teams can capture more of their business, increase overall revenue, and improve brand loyalty.

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Why NVISION?

For more than three decades we’ve partnered with Fortune 500 companies to deliver marketing operations solutions. Led by a strategic account management team, we’ll help you develop, procure, fulfill and distribute printed collateral, signage, point-of-purchase displays, direct mail, branded merchandise and much more.

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NVISION Insights and Innovation Team
In Marketing Trends, Digital Marketing, Print Marketing, Direct Mail

2019 Top Marketing Trends: The Holy Matrimony of Digital and Print Marketing

print-holy matrimony

As forward-looking brands begin to build their marketing plans for 2019 and beyond, a few key trends have already started to emerge and will be important areas of focus for CMOs and marketing teams in the coming year. That’s according to John Hall of Forbes, who explains that more than ever, effective management of marketing operations resources – and its benefits – will be the way savvy brands set themselves apart in 2019.

Digital Advertisements Are Losing Effectiveness

Call it digital fatigue or an inevitable result of technology, but online advertisements – which used to be the hottest new things in marketing – are beginning to reach their saturation point. In fact, according to Business Insider, 30 percent of all internet users are expected to be using some form of online ad blocker by the end of 2019. Explains Hall, “[This] means that traditional digital ads now won’t even reach 30 percent of possible target audience members.” To get around this and reach that untapped audience, CMOs will need to get more creative with their marketing materials.

Creative Marketing Materials Can Set Your Brand Apart

As we mentioned above, no one is saying digital is dead. But to maintain (and grow) its effectiveness, ROI, and conversion rates, CMOs must find creative new ways to keep it fresh. And one of the best ways to do that is by linking it to your print and physical marketing activities. “People have been saying for a long time that print is dead,” Hall explains, “but I recently came across a company that used software to obtain physical addresses for clients and started sending them print newsletters. I also found that this campaign was extremely successful.”

Another compelling new trend using print marketing to add increased value to digital marketing is using postcards and direct mailers with URL links to digital assets. Sending direct mailers with URLs to digital assets is a clever – and creative – way to make your marketing rise above the digital noise, spam folders, and ad blockers.

man shaking hands partnership

Strategic Partnerships Correct Many Internal Roadblocks

Many otherwise savvy brands balk at the idea of using an external partner to manage any aspect of their marketing operations. But understanding the strategic benefits of these partnerships can add real value and help internal marketing teams hit their quotas. “There’s too much red tape with other departments,” Hall says as he describes the attitude of many internal teams. But bringing in outside management of certain activities can “fuel other parts of the company, resulting in better talent, lower costs, and improved relationships with investors.”

And indeed, that is the real added value of strategic marketing partnerships in 2019. With more and more “X as a service” industries opening up, more and more areas for highly specialized expertise have emerged. And by leveraging this expertise in specific areas – like print management or marketing supply chains – your brand can actually do more and enjoy a greater ROI than would be possible without the partnership.

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As 2019 draws near, new marketing trends are on the horizon for CMOs everywhere. By keeping these tips in mind – not relying solely on digital, using print marketing to add value to your digital efforts, and leveraging trusted partnerships – your brand can succeed and stand out from the crowd in the new year.

 

[This] Business Insider, Mar 23, 2017. “30% of all Internet users will ad block by 2018.”

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Why NVISION?

For more than three decades we’ve partnered with Fortune 500 companies to deliver marketing operations solutions. Led by a strategic account management team, we’ll help you develop, procure, fulfill and distribute printed collateral, signage, point-of-purchase displays, direct mail, branded merchandise and much more.

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NVISION Insights and Innovation Team
In Print Marketing, Direct Mail

Print Marketing Strikes Back with Stronger Force for Retail

colorful printed books - print strikes back

When it comes to retail and print marketing, a changing landscape is shifting the priorities of marketing teams everywhere. Digital media marketing continues to grow – industry estimates forecast digital marketing spend to hit $100.8 billion in 2018[1] – and this means CMOs must find new ways to get the most from their print marketing activities. But according to the same estimates, print marketing spend is expected to reach $97.8 billion this year – nearly equaling digital media marketing. There are a few big reasons why print marketing is still huge for retailers, and why smart CMOs are finding new ways to leverage it. That’s according to Neil O’Keefe of DMA, who breaks down the big uses for print marketing today.

NVISION postcard - direct mail insights

Direct Mail Marketing Driving In-Store Retail

O’Keefe points out that one of the largest drivers of 2017 holiday sales was direct mail marketing activities. “Retailers often use print to leverage their private label offerings, as a means to drive visitors into their stores,” O’Keefe says. Though it may seem counterintuitive, physical mail is now a far more unique means of outreach than email. While countless junk emails go directly into customers’ spam folders each and every hour, an actual letter or mailer from a brand shows a much more personalized touch. And because of its physical nature, direct mail is an extremely effective way to drive customers to your brick-and-mortar stores with by-mail only promotions and coupons. Plus, you don’t need an up-to-date list of email addresses and several spam filter-dodging best practices to deliver it!

Print Marketing Still Reaches More Customers Than Digital

Digital channels are growing rapidly, but that growth still hasn’t equaled the overall market share that print still holds. “Print advertising is still very effective and doesn’t show signs of going away any time soon,” writes O’Keefe. “A recent International News Media Association article cites a Nielsen Homescan survey and concludes that about 80% of U.S. households still use traditional printed sources as their primary medium for information about stores, sales, and specials.”

QR code scanning from direct mail

Combining Print and Digital Marketing for Greater Conversion

One of the newest and most ingenious ways CMOs and marketing teams are leveraging print marketing is by using it to promote their digital marketing assets. Many marketers have discovered that a key way to take advantage of the higher open rate of physical mail is to send mailers with custom URLs and hyperlinks, directing the recipient to go online and download an asset, like a case study or infographic. This type of print outreach can make your digital marketing assets go further, too.

What’s more, many savvy retail marketers are using what they’ve learned about targeting and segmentation from digital marketing and applying those lessons to print marketing. “Retailers are doing more experimenting with new ways to send out deals on paper, sometimes mining online behavior or databases of shopper trends to improve their print marketing,” O’Keefe says. “This form of marketing reactivation is seen as cutting-edge, and capability that is generating much retailer interest.”

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It’s no secret that digital marketing is growing rapidly. But, as O’Keefe says: “It is hard to imagine a strategy which accomplishes its goals without print as an integral component of the overall plan.” By understanding the new ways marketing teams can leverage print marketing, and how print marketing fits into a comprehensive marketing strategy, CMOs can make their budgets go further and enjoy a greater return on investment.

[1] MediaPost, Jan 12, 2018. “Digital Ad Spend To Surpass Traditional in 2018.”

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Why NVISION?

For more than three decades we’ve partnered with Fortune 500 companies to deliver marketing operations solutions. Led by a strategic account management team, we’ll help you develop, procure, fulfill and distribute printed collateral, signage, point-of-purchase displays, direct mail, branded merchandise and much more.

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