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Brand Archives - Page 4 of 6 - NVISION, A BradyPLUS Company

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

Print is Winning Millennials’ Trust: Here’s How You Can Maximize Engagement With Print

Millennials are set to become the single largest demographic of American consumers by the end of the decade. It means that within just a few short years, they will also be the largest audience that marketers will need to engage to maintain their market share, keep profits high, and establish lasting brand loyalty.

And despite the image many marketers have of millennials as a digitally-obsessed, online-only audience, print marketing is a surprisingly, especially effective means of engagement for a number of reasons. That’s according to Heather Fletcher of Target Marketing, who explains the hows and whys of engaging millennials with print marketing materials.

colorful printed books - print strikes back

Print Marketing Builds Trust with Millennials

Millennials are a transactional demographic. They believe that their relationship with a brand should be far more quid pro quo than blindly accepting the only available option. Put simply: millennials expect more value from brands than other demographics, and print marketing is an effective way to deliver value to them. “When markets provide useful content – and millennials value branded print ads more than other generations – consumers will remember it and turn to the print marketing when they’re ready to buy,” Fletcher explains. Unlike digital touchpoints like banner ads and emails, print marketing materials are far more memorable.

Fletcher suggests the following strategies for print marketing to millennials:

      1. Educational Content. Whether these are product how-tos or informative infographics, your print marketing materials should provide real educational value to your millennial audience that goes beyond just telling them where to buy your products.
      2. Use and Idea Suggestion Guides. Like the fashion “look books” that have become so popular with millennials, think of these as a type of recipe book for your product or solution. Show millennials exactly how your product can be used in their lives. Help them envision it with your print materials.
      3. Value-Adding Promotions. Things like personalized coupons or discount flyers add a real, tangible dollar value to your print materials that resonate with millennials.
female frustrated - digital fatigue

Print Marketing Overcomes Millennial Digital Fatigue

Millennials may be the most digitally-connected demographic, but that doesn’t mean that digital is the only way to engage them. As Daniel Dejan explains, “With all of these devices (most people own at least three), we reach the point of monitor fatigue. It is an actual physiological symptom where between looking at a computer, constantly checking your phone, possibly having your tablet on at the same time, going home and turning on the TV, playing games, etc… The brain reaches a point of saturation.

And when it does, it can no longer take in any more.” And that, Dejan says, is why even younger demographics seek out printed materials. In fact, a recent study found that 92% of college students surveyed prefer reading in print over any form of digital media. As a marketer, if you’re concerned about a heavily saturated market and finding a way to stand out above the noise, print materials are a clever, cost-effective, and popular channel to engage millennials.

Print Marketing to Millennials Boosts the Effectiveness and Attribution of Other Channels

Most millennials live on their devices. It’s where they’re comfortable. So many savvy brands are using print marketing to improve their digital attribution by leveraging direct mail with custom product URLs and discount codes printed on the mailers. When a shopper visits that tracked URL, or enters that specific discount code, the marketing teams knows for a fact that it was the print marketing material that drove them there. 

“So in an industry that’s become addicted to attributing sales to the ‘last click’ – even if that’s an in-store transaction – marketing professionals may gain insight into touchpoints via consumer engagement from print marketing,” Fletcher explains. What’s more, many CMOs are using print marketing to engage the portions of their millennial audience that digital channels are failing to reach.

“Direct mail has expanded many brands’ reach and relieved the pressure on email campaigns,” Fletcher says, citing a specific client case study. “Only 40 percent of customers subscribe [to their email newsletter] during the checkout process. Today, they are using print inserts and mailers to reach the remaining 60 percent, and it has made a big difference.” Whether they’re reviewing catalogs before purchasing online, applying discount codes from direct mailers to their online shopping carts, or recalling your brand from your unique print marketing materials, print marketing improves both the attribution and the effectiveness of all your customer channels.

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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, 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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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 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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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 ROI, Marketing Supply Chain, Marketing Operations, Accountability, Procurement

How Marketing and Procurement Can Work Together to Improve Revenue

There is no responsibility more important to marketing leaders than driving revenue. This can be done in two primary ways: growing existing revenue streams by acquiring new customers and improving customer retention, or by improving profit margins by effectively limiting costs. Nearly all marketers are focused on the former: “How do I win and retain more business?” But as Jon Smith of Marketing Week explains, there is another, even smarter way.

Procurement has a major role to play in managing revenue and marketing costs. So, how can marketing and procurement work together to improve revenue? We’re glad you asked!

people in the meeting room

Strategic Alignment for Procurement and Marketing

The name of the game for marketers today is accountability. Whether it’s in the form of revenue attribution, ROI, or highly granular cost analysis, new technology has made KPIs an even bigger part of marketers’ lives than ever before. As Worldwide Business Research Digital reports, “marketing teams are being held increasingly accountable for ROI.” Of course, for procurement teams, this level of accountability is nothing new. Cost reduction, optimization, and business process outsourcing (BPO) have been their primary job roles forever. Which is why aligning the goals of your marketing and procurement teams is so important.

Thanks to BPO, procurement can offer powerful solutions to marketing’s biggest problems. Solutions around time-to-market, brand control, cost reduction, and responsiveness are all under the purview of procurement but matter immensely to marketing as well. That’s likely why, according to WBR Digital, 51% of companies rely on BPO for marketing execution, especially around print production. By recognizing this natural synergy, and formalizing the alignment of their goals, procurement can help marketing departments do more with less.

Why BPO for Marketing Procurement?

Optimization can only follow where visibility exists. That’s why your marketing and/or procurement teams should always be looking for opportunities to achieve greater efficiency, optimization, and cost reduction through BPO. This visibility opens the door to more profitable outcomes. With reliable, granular information about marketing costs, delivery timelines, and critical areas to improve these figures, marketing can not only make more accurate predictions and plan for success, but can better understand – and subsequently optimize – how they maintain brand control, guarantee quality, and keep production velocity running smoothly.

As Smith says, it’s a “win-win” for marketing. With BPO carried out by marketing execution experts, your marketing team can focus on improving their customer experience and sales results, and leave the optimization to trusted partners.

meeting in the conference room

Marketing Execution and Print Procurement

According to WBR Digital, the majority of businesses already agree that they reap greater benefits from managing their print procurement externally. 58% of those surveyed believe that their supply chain and marketing execution partners do a better, more efficient, cost-effective job with print procurement for marketing materials. In fact, they identified the top 4 reasons why they prefer to outsource their print procurement to partners:

  1. Cost Reduction
  2. Improved time-to-market versus competition
  3. Better ROI
  4. Stronger brand and quality control

These are powerful benefits to marketers, made possible by outsourcing their print procurement.

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Procurement has a major role to play in managing revenue and marketing costs. By outsourcing it to a trusted partner, your business can enjoy the benefits of greater visibility, optimization, and success. Whether your marketing department measures success by ROI, cost reduction, or overall revenue, understanding the value of aligning your marketing and procurement goals, and the insights BPO can deliver, is a sure-fire way to increase your odds of hitting your annual goals.

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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 CMO, Marketing Trends

Top Characteristics of Transformational CMOs of Tomorrow

back of a man with arms crossed - transformational cmo

One of the most significant challenges facing modern CMOs and marketers is how rapidly the marketing industry changes. Between new technology, new customer demands, and new cultural trends, it’s more important than ever that CMOs keep their brands positioned for rapid success. That’s why Bob Van Rossum at Business2Community.com spoke with some of the top marketing recruiters in the industry and has put together what he believes are some of the key characteristics of “the transformational CMO of tomorrow,” the type of marketing leader that is equipped to lead his or her brand into the future.

Let’s take a look at a few of the most important characteristics.

Focus and Understanding of the Buyer’s Journey

For many brands, the sales cycle is a long and protracted one. For others, the intricacies of the marketing supply chain – from the creative team’s demands to the CFO’s strict budget requirements – make for extremely complex marketing operations. Either way, as the buyer’s journey becomes longer and features more distinct “moments,” transformational CMOs must be ready.

As Van Rossum says, “We look for leaders that are capable of understanding the various pain points a consumer may encounter during the customer journey. By truly understanding the buyer’s journey, CMOs are better able to drive engagement and growth.”

And that doesn’t just mean knowing which marketing materials will resonate best at each stage. It also means planning ahead and enabling an agile and responsive marketing supply chain that can quickly adapt and react, allowing the brand to capitalize on each moment of the buyer’s journey. Transformational CMOs will be sure to work with partners who enable this responsiveness and success.

be the change - brand activism

Creating Emotional Connections to the Brand

In increasingly crowded markets, it’s no longer enough to simply offer a superior product. Transformational CMOs must use their marketing materials to create a meaningful, lasting, emotional connection with their customers. “A strong brand goes far beyond a memorable logo or slogan…it needs to be immersed in every element and strategic move of your organization to make a true impact,” Van Rossum says.

Developing these connections between your brand and your customers requires both a close examination and an intricate understanding, of changing customer demands and cultural trends. But capitalizing on them, and using them to create lasting, deep bonds with your brand requires agile and responsive marketing operations. When an opportunity arises, your marketing logistics should be simple and fast enough to seize on it before your competition does, and execute on it in a way that keeps costs low and ROI high.

Foster an Agile Mindset

Transformational CMOs must be familiar with what Van Rossum calls “lean and agile” methodologies. “Lean and agile methodologies have transformed other industries, and have a great potential to improve practices within the marketing space,” he says. A lean mindset is one that helps brands maximize customer value (which should always stay top priority) while optimizing for a specific desired outcome. An agile mindset, on the other hand, helps your marketing efforts adapt in real time as you keep your customers the central focus in building effective solutions.

To this end, partnering with a marketing supply chain and logistics partner can take much of the burden of searching for ways to stay lean and agile off of the CMO themselves. By working with an expert whose business is keeping costs low and production time short, CMOs can foster this transformational attitude in all areas of their operations, saving time and preparing for changing definitions of success.

Subscribe to the Blog

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.

LEARN MORE