7 Steps To Create A High-Conversion Ad

 

Creating a high-conversion ad is not rocket science. It involves several key steps: knowing your target audience in terms of demographics, interests, and behavior so that you can tailor the message accordingly; writing a clear, compelling, preferably short and direct message that speaks to the unique value of your product or service; using visuals that are interesting enough to capture attention, while at the same time aligning with your brand identity. Plus, all CTAs should be powerful, using words like "Shop Now" or "Learn More." When you do an A/B test, conclude which of the two versions is better at marketing the advertisements. Lastly, optimize for mobile, track performance, and change your strategies based on the insights of the data.

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Customer data for marketing and business

 

A comprehensive checklist for auditing different customer data types in a CRM or Email marketing system

In today’s world of ever-increasing data availability, volume and variety the challenge to know which data is valuable to you is a key step in starting to build a marketing solution. An often-cited response is that ‘all data is important’ and this may be true, but to help decide which elements are critical in the initial stages of building your solution a method to identify at the value of each type of customer data is key.

In this post, I will look at how to audit customer data based on its type and value.  The examples will show why it's important to be selective when reviewing customer data in CRM and Email marketing.

Over numerous implementations of Marketing Database solutions, I have seen many types of data, including ‘pet’s name’, ‘favourite colour’, ‘number of car doors’ which all have potential value to different markets:

• Pet’s Name – Pet Supplies Retailer.
• Favourite Colour – Retail, particularly clothing.
• Number of Car Doors – Motor Insurance industry.

When first considering each data element, the ability to classify it can help determine how valuable and which phase of a solution it should be delivered in, if at all.

The following list provides examples of data elements and will help you quickly identify the critical pieces of information to your business and goals from the various different data sources. Typically the priority order of the data is as follows:

1. Customer Identity Data

At the heart of database marketing is the individual, so knowing who the individual is and being able to build and maintain a Single Customer View provides the first type of data, Identity. This includes any information which enables an individual to be uniquely identified and includes:

• Name Information – Title, First Name (Forename), Last Name (Surname), Designatory letters, etc.
• Person Information – Date of Birth, Gender, etc.
• Postal Address Information – Building Number, Building Name, Address Lines, Town, County, Postal/Zip Code, Country, etc.
• Telephone Information – Home Telephone No., Work Telephone No., Mobile No., etc.
• Email Address Information – Personal Email Address, Work Email Address, etc.
• Social Network Information – Facebook Identifier, Twitter Address, Linkedin identifier, etc.
• Account Information – Details of your customer’s account ids or user ids.
• Job Information – Company Name, Department Name, Job Title, etc.
• Permission and Suppression Data – Not distinctly an identity element of data, but equally important is the information concerning permission to communicate and reason for not communicating (suppressions).

2. Quantitative Data

Once you understand who the individual is the next key element is the measurable operational data, which enables you to understand how your customer has behaved, transacted or reacted with your business. This includes any information which describes activity completed between the customer and your business:

• Transactional Information (Online and Offline) – Number of products purchased, actual products purchased, Order/Subscription Value, Order/Renewal dates, product abandonments (abandoned baskets), Product Returns, etc.
• Communication Information (inbound and outbound) – Communication date, communication channel, Opens, Click throughs, etc)
• Online Activity – Website visits, product views, online registrations, etc.
• Social Network Activity – Facebook likes, Twitter interactions, etc.
• Customer Services Information – Complaint details, customer query details, etc

3. Descriptive Data

Understanding who the individual is and the type of activities they complete with you provides a good starting point for any marketing database. To gain a fuller perspective of your customer additional profile information is crucial. This provides additional information about your customer, beyond the identity and quantitative details, covering:

• Family Details – Marital status, number of children, age of children, etc.
• Lifestyle Details – Property type, car type, number of car doors, pet ownership, etc.
• Career Details – Profession, Education level, etc.

4. Qualitative Customer Data

The final type of data you will come across provides further description of your customer and potential behaviour and is usually provided by questionnaire type information where an attitude, motivation and opinion is provided:

• Attitudinal information – How do you rate our customer service, how do you rate the value of the product, how likely are you to purchase our product again, etc?
• Opinion – What is your favourite colour, where is your favourite holiday destination, etc.
• Motivational – Why was the product purchased (personal use, gift for someone, etc), what was the key reason for purchasing our product (locality, price, quality), etc.

Using this simple classification process and relating them to your core business goals, will enable a quick identification of which data provides the information critical to the core success of your business. This can then be used to plan the appropriate delivery phases, with clear understanding of the value achieved from each data item included, enabling you to answer the question ‘How valuable is knowing my customer’s pet name?’ to your business.

By Jim Roberts  - https://tinyurl.com/2s4xf8em

Unlocking Marketing Potential: Understanding the Power of Customer Data Platforms (CDPs)

Joshua A. Joseph

Staying ahead of the curve is paramount to success in the dynamic realm of modern marketing. One powerful tool that has emerged as a game-changer for startup marketers is the Customer Data Platform (CDP). This article aims to provide you, my sweet fellow marketers, with a comprehensive understanding of what a CDP is and how it can revolutionize your marketing strategies.

What is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?

To grasp the concept of a Customer Data Platform, let's break it down into its fundamental components:

Customer: In marketing, the customer is your North Star. Understanding their behaviors, preferences, and needs is the cornerstone of effective marketing.

Data: Data is the currency of the modern digital age. It's the raw material that fuels marketing campaigns. This data can include everything from demographics and purchase history to website interactions and social media engagement. But we often run into problems with data compliance with GDPR and PII

Platform: The term 'platform' denotes a unified system where all this valuable customer data is collected, organized, and made readily accessible for analysis and action.

A Customer Data Platform, in its essence, is a specialized software that empowers marketers to collect, organize, and leverage customer data from multiple sources in a unified and user-friendly interface. This technology acts as a nexus for all customer-related information, providing a holistic view of each customer's journey.

Why Do Marketers Need CDPs?

To answer this question, let's dive into some of the core challenges marketers face daily:

1. Data Silos: In the age of digital marketing, data is spread across various channels, such as email marketing, social media, web analytics, and CRM systems. These data silos make it challenging to gain a 360-degree view of the customer.
2. Personalization: Modern consumers expect personalized experiences. Marketers need a tool to gather and use customer data to craft tailored messages, offers, and content.
3. Real-time Insights: Staying relevant in the digital landscape requires the ability to access and utilize real-time data. This can be a challenging task when dealing with disparate data sources.
4. Compliance: Privacy and data protection laws are evolving rapidly. Marketers need to ensure they are adhering to these regulations, which can be a complex and daunting task.
5. Data Security: As stewards of valuable customer data, marketers need to ensure the highest standards of data security and protection.

A Customer Data Platform is the solution to these challenges. It serves as a bridge between the scattered data points, enabling marketers to harness the full potential of their customer data.

How Does a CDP Work?

A CDP works by unifying data from various sources, transforming it into a structured format, and making it accessible for marketers. Let's break down the process step by step:

1. Data Ingestion: The first step is collecting data from multiple sources, which can include CRM systems, website analytics, social media platforms, email marketing tools, and more.
2. Data Unification: After data is collected, a CDP standardizes and organizes it. This is crucial for ensuring that all data is in a common format and can be effectively analyzed.
3. Customer Profiling: The CDP creates detailed customer profiles, combining data from various sources to provide a holistic view of each customer. This includes demographic information, browsing behavior, purchase history, and more.
4. Real-time Updates: A key advantage of CDPs is the ability to provide real-time insights. Marketers can access the latest data on customer interactions and behavior.
5. Segmentation and Personalization: With unified data, marketers can segment their audience based on a wide range of criteria. This segmentation enables the creation of highly personalized marketing campaigns.
6. Cross-Channel Integration: CDPs often offer the ability to integrate with various marketing channels, ensuring consistent messaging and customer experiences across platforms.
7. Reporting and Analysis: CDPs provide robust reporting and analytics tools, allowing marketers to gain valuable insights from the data.
8. Compliance and Security: To meet regulatory standards, CDPs often include features for data protection and compliance monitoring.

Real-world Applications of CDPs

Now that we have a grasp of how CDPs work let's explore how they can be applied in real-world marketing scenarios.

1. Personalized Email Marketing:

Imagine you run an e-commerce store, and you want to send out personalized product recommendations to your customers. A CDP can help by analyzing purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographic data to craft tailored emails. This not only increases engagement but also drives sales.

2. Dynamic Website Content:

For an online news publication, CDPs can be used to personalize the content users see when they visit the website. By analyzing a user's past reading habits and interests, the platform can display articles that are most relevant to them.

3. Customer Journey Mapping:

Marketers can use CDPs to gain insights into the customer journey. By tracking touchpoints and interactions, they can identify areas where customers drop off or become disengaged. This data can then be used to optimize the customer experience.

4. Cross-Channel Campaigns:

A CDP allows marketers to seamlessly integrate their data across multiple channels. For example, if a customer receives a special offer via email, the same offer can be displayed on their social media feed or when they visit the website, providing a consistent brand experience.

5. Compliance and Data Protection:

CDPs can play a crucial role in ensuring that customer data is handled in compliance with privacy regulations. They can monitor data usage, provide transparency to customers, and help in quickly responding to data breach incidents.

Benefits of Implementing a CDP

By now, you might be wondering about the concrete advantages of integrating a Customer Data Platform into your marketing strategy. Here's a list of benefits that could revolutionize your approach:

1. Improved Customer Understanding:

CDPs provide a comprehensive view of your customers, allowing you to understand their behavior, preferences, and needs more effectively.

2. Enhanced Personalization:

With a deep understanding of your customers, you can create highly personalized marketing campaigns that resonate with your audience.

3. Real-time Insights:

Access to real-time data ensures you can react swiftly to changing customer trends and behaviors.

4. Increased Efficiency:

CDPs streamline data management and reduce the time spent on data integration, freeing up resources for more strategic tasks.

5. Higher ROI:

The ability to target your audience more effectively and personalize your messaging leads to improved campaign performance and a higher return on investment.

6. Cross-Channel Consistency:

Consistent messaging across channels strengthens brand identity and fosters trust with your audience.

7. Compliance and Security:

CDPs help you stay in compliance with data protection regulations, minimizing the risk of costly data breaches.

Challenges and Considerations

While CDPs offer numerous benefits, they are not without their challenges:

1. Cost: Implementing a CDP can be a significant investment. Marketers must weigh the potential ROI against the initial cost.

2. Data Quality: Garbage in, garbage out. CDPs rely on accurate and high-quality data. Marketers must ensure that the data sources are reliable.

3. Integration: Integrating a CDP into your existing marketing technology stack can be complex. Ensure that the chosen CDP is compatible with your current tools.

4. Data Privacy: The handling of customer data raises ethical and legal concerns. Marketers must prioritize data protection and comply with relevant regulations.

Choosing the Right CDP

Selecting the right CDP for your business is a critical decision. Here are some key factors to consider:

1. Integration Capabilities: Ensure the CDP can seamlessly integrate with your existing marketing tools and platforms.

2. Scalability: Look for a CDP that can grow with your business. It should handle increasing volumes of data and evolving marketing needs.

3. Customization: The ability to tailor the CDP to your specific business requirements is crucial.

4. Data Security: Ensure the CDP prioritizes data security and compliance with privacy regulations.

5. Vendor Reputation: Research the vendor's reputation and customer reviews to gauge the quality of their service and support.

Conclusion

Customer Data Platforms are becoming essential for marketers who seek to stay competitive. These platforms are more than just a tool; they're a key to unlocking the true potential of customer data. By unifying, analyzing, and leveraging data effectively, marketers can offer personalized experiences, drive engagement, and boost their ROI.

As you contemplate the adoption of a CDP, remember that it's not just a technology decision; it's a strategic one. The right CDP can be the catalyst for your marketing success, but it requires careful consideration, integration, and ongoing management.

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How to argue

 The web is turning writing into a conversation. Twenty years ago, writers wrote and readers read. The web lets readers respond, and increasingly they do—in comment threads, on forums, and in their own blog posts.

Many who respond to something disagree with it. That's to be expected. Agreeing tends to motivate people less than disagreeing. And when you agree there's less to say. You could expand on something the author said, but he has probably already explored the most interesting implications. When you disagree you're entering territory he may not have explored.

The result is there's a lot more disagreeing going on, especially measured by the word. That doesn't mean people are getting angrier. The structural change in the way we communicate is enough to account for it. But though it's not anger that's driving the increase in disagreement, there's a danger that the increase in disagreement will make people angrier. Particularly online, where it's easy to say things you'd never say face to face.

If we're all going to be disagreeing more, we should be careful to do it well. What does it mean to disagree well? Most readers can tell the difference between mere name-calling and a carefully reasoned refutation, but I think it would help to put names on the intermediate stages. So here's an attempt at a disagreement hierarchy:

DH0. Name-calling.

This is the lowest form of disagreement, and probably also the most common. We've all seen comments like this:

u r a fag!!!!!!!!!!

But it's important to realize that more articulate name-calling has just as little weight. A comment like

The author is a self-important dilettante.

is really nothing more than a pretentious version of "u r a fag."

DH1. Ad Hominem.

An ad hominem attack is not quite as weak as mere name-calling. It might actually carry some weight. For example, if a senator wrote an article saying senators' salaries should be increased, one could respond:

Of course he would say that. He's a senator.

This wouldn't refute the author's argument, but it may at least be relevant to the case. It's still a very weak form of disagreement, though. If there's something wrong with the senator's argument, you should say what it is; and if there isn't, what difference does it make that he's a senator?

Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem—and a particularly useless sort, because good ideas often come from outsiders. The question is whether the author is correct or not. If his lack of authority caused him to make mistakes, point those out. And if it didn't, it's not a problem.

DH2. Responding to Tone.

The next level up we start to see responses to the writing, rather than the writer. The lowest form of these is to disagree with the author's tone. E.g.

I can't believe the author dismisses intelligent design in such a cavalier fashion.

Though better than attacking the author, this is still a weak form of disagreement. It matters much more whether the author is wrong or right than what his tone is. Especially since tone is so hard to judge. Someone who has a chip on their shoulder about some topic might be offended by a tone that to other readers seemed neutral.

So if the worst thing you can say about something is to criticize its tone, you're not saying much. Is the author flippant, but correct? Better that than grave and wrong. And if the author is incorrect somewhere, say where.

DH3. Contradiction.

In this stage we finally get responses to what was said, rather than how or by whom. The lowest form of response to an argument is simply to state the opposing case, with little or no supporting evidence.

This is often combined with DH2 statements, as in:

I can't believe the author dismisses intelligent design in such a cavalier fashion. Intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory.

Contradiction can sometimes have some weight. Sometimes merely seeing the opposing case stated explicitly is enough to see that it's right. But usually evidence will help.

DH4. Counterargument.

At level 4 we reach the first form of convincing disagreement: counterargument. Forms up to this point can usually be ignored as proving nothing. Counterargument might prove something. The problem is, it's hard to say exactly what.

Counterargument is contradiction plus reasoning and/or evidence. When aimed squarely at the original argument, it can be convincing. But unfortunately it's common for counterarguments to be aimed at something slightly different. More often than not, two people arguing passionately about something are actually arguing about two different things. Sometimes they even agree with one another, but are so caught up in their squabble they don't realize it.

There could be a legitimate reason for arguing against something slightly different from what the original author said: when you feel they missed the heart of the matter. But when you do that, you should say explicitly you're doing it.

DH5. Refutation.

The most convincing form of disagreement is refutation. It's also the rarest, because it's the most work. Indeed, the disagreement hierarchy forms a kind of pyramid, in the sense that the higher you go the fewer instances you find.

To refute someone you probably have to quote them. You have to find a "smoking gun," a passage in whatever you disagree with that you feel is mistaken, and then explain why it's mistaken. If you can't find an actual quote to disagree with, you may be arguing with a straw man.

While refutation generally entails quoting, quoting doesn't necessarily imply refutation. Some writers quote parts of things they disagree with to give the appearance of legitimate refutation, then follow with a response as low as DH3 or even DH0.

DH6. Refuting the Central Point.

The force of a refutation depends on what you refute. The most powerful form of disagreement is to refute someone's central point.

Even as high as DH5 we still sometimes see deliberate dishonesty, as when someone picks out minor points of an argument and refutes those. Sometimes the spirit in which this is done makes it more of a sophisticated form of ad hominem than actual refutation. For example, correcting someone's grammar, or harping on minor mistakes in names or numbers. Unless the opposing argument actually depends on such things, the only purpose of correcting them is to discredit one's opponent.

Truly refuting something requires one to refute its central point, or at least one of them. And that means one has to commit explicitly to what the central point is. So a truly effective refutation would look like:

The author's main point seems to be x. As he says:

<quotation>

But this is wrong for the following reasons...

The quotation you point out as mistaken need not be the actual statement of the author's main point. It's enough to refute something it depends upon.

What It Means

Now we have a way of classifying forms of disagreement. What good is it? One thing the disagreement hierarchy doesn't give us is a way of picking a winner. DH levels merely describe the form of a statement, not whether it's correct. A DH6 response could still be completely mistaken.

But while DH levels don't set a lower bound on the convincingness of a reply, they do set an upper bound. A DH6 response might be unconvincing, but a DH2 or lower response is always unconvincing.

The most obvious advantage of classifying the forms of disagreement is that it will help people to evaluate what they read. In particular, it will help them to see through intellectually dishonest arguments. An eloquent speaker or writer can give the impression of vanquishing an opponent merely by using forceful words. In fact that is probably the defining quality of a demagogue. By giving names to the different forms of disagreement, we give critical readers a pin for popping such balloons.

Such labels may help writers too. Most intellectual dishonesty is unintentional. Someone arguing against the tone of something he disagrees with may believe he's really saying something. Zooming out and seeing his current position on the disagreement hierarchy may inspire him to try moving up to counterargument or refutation.

But the greatest benefit of disagreeing well is not just that it will make conversations better, but that it will make the people who have them happier. If you study conversations, you find there is a lot more meanness down in DH1 than up in DH6. You don't have to be mean when you have a real point to make. In fact, you don't want to. If you have something real to say, being mean just gets in the way.

If moving up the disagreement hierarchy makes people less mean, that will make most of them happier. Most people don't really enjoy being mean; they do it because they can't help it.


Thanks to Trevor Blackwell and Jessica Livingston for reading drafts of this.

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