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Good morning, Marketers, how are you rethinking your approach to engaging consumers?
Salesforce’s recently announced roadmap updates, which you’ll find below, are a good example of the new capabilities marketers have to reach the right person at the right time.
Younger generations, especially, are listening. With the right messaging, more Gen Zers are willing to continue the conversation over email and text than some older consumers, according to a new study from performance marketing company Fluent that caught my attention. There’s more on that below.
Trust in brands also comes from transparency. More transparency means consumers are paying closer attention to brand values, which requires marketers in the organization to expand their thinking, according to Adriana Waterston, SVP of Insights and Strategy for Horowitz Research. See more from her below as well.
Capabilities are nothing without a good execution strategy. If you have a success story on how your organization rethought messaging or transparency, shoot me a note at cwood@thirddoormedia.com.
Chris Wood,
Editor
Table of Contents
Rethinking your whole approach to marketing and multiculturalism
The transparency forced on brands by social media today means that engaged consumers can monitor brand values and behavior year round. That channel isn’t just switched on in February for Black History Month, or one day a year for Martin Luther King Day or Juneteenth. It’s always on — and brands that forget that run the risk that their messaging, for Pride Month for example, will be viewed as inauthentic, especially by younger demographics.That’s what we learned in a wide-ranging conversation with Adriana Waterston, SVP of Insights and Strategy for Horowitz Research with special expertise in multicultural market research.
The agency recently conducted research on Gen Z — a generation brands are struggling to engage with, thanks to the fragmentation of the media ecosystem. They found that 28% of those surveyed identified as LGBTQIA. “That’s a substantial proportion,” said Waterston. “The story of Gen Z,” she said, “is one of allies and being inclusive. The big message from our data is that for brands to really engage with Gen Z audiences, the tokenism of Black History Month or Pride Month or Asian and Pacific Islander — that kind of pandering engagement during these marketing months just really falls short.”
It’s necessary to rethink your whole approach to marketing, Waterston told us. “It’s part of the whole conversation that’s happening in this country. It’s not just about LGBTQ; it’s about diversity overall. The marketing world has, for way too long, been very binary, meaning that what is white and straight is called the general market, and everything else is not. The reality is that what is white and straight is not only not the general market, but is actually a much smaller portion of the market than you would have thought.”
Salesforce announces enhancements to Digital 360
At Salesforce Connections yesterday, enhancements were announced to Digital 360, the platform which supports Salesforce Marketing, Commerce and Experience Clouds. Among the highlights:
- Within Salesforce CDP, Interaction Studio will track cross-channel customer activity and use Einstein AI to send a relevant message, product offer or content recommendation in real time. Loyalty Management will provide real time updates on membership status, loyalty tier and points balance.
- Within Marketing Cloud, Datorama will power new email, mobile and journey reports to support campaign optimization.
- Snapchat Audience Match will allow the creation of targeted Snapchat audiences within Marketing Cloud.
- A new WhatsApp integration will allow direct communication with customers on the channel.
- Commerce Cloud will integrate with Salesforce CDP out of the box.
- A new B2B2C Commerce app provides a no code environment in which B2B companies will be able quickly to launch D2C ecommerce storefronts.
Salesforce also announced a one-stop destination in Trailhead, the online education hub, for marketers to develop their career paths. The products noted above are immediately available, with the exception of Snapchat Audience Match and the B2B2C app, which are expected to be available in June.
Why we care. What we are seeing from Salesforce is continued emphasis on the CDP initiative, where Salesforce had lagged behind its most obvious competitors, plus a widening range of engagement with conversational channels. As more marketers prioritize data management and the elusive “single source of truth”, it’s no wonder Salesforce is shining its spotlight on CDP.
Keep them awake: Engagement and interaction in presentations
I was once told that a presenter should change a slide, add a build or include an animation every 90 seconds of a presentation in order to keep the audience’s attention. That was a while ago and I’m willing to bet that attention spans have decreased, especially in the past year as many of us have developed Zoom fatigue. Of course it’s harder to keep someone’s attention online to begin with so what’s a presenter to do?
Start strong: Start with a short story or a strong statistic related to your topic to get your audience’s attention. Don’t waste this opportunity by focusing on your bio and talking about why the topic is important.
Check the number of slides you have: For a 30 minute presentation, unless you have builds and animations on each slide, the minimum number of slides you would have is 20 not including your introduction and closing slides. That means you’re changing slides every 90 seconds, but as noted we want to do more than.
Use the chat: Most event sessions and webinars have them for viewers to talk to each other and ask the speaker questions so use this interactive tool. Ask viewers to answer a question by posting in the chat. Even when it’s a pre-recorded session you can do this. You just won’t be able to react to the answers if it’s not live.
Pause to take questions: Who says you have to wait until the end of the presentation to answer questions. If you see live questions coming into the chat, answer a few during the presentation.
Poll the audience: If there’s a polling feature in the technology you’re using, use it. You can poll the audience about their experience level, test them on what they might think they know about the topic, or ask them any number of things. Most people enjoy seeing the live results.
Raise the hand feature: Again, this depends on the technology but if you have this feature, take advantage of it. You can ask a simple yes/no question and ask people to raise their hand to indicate a yes. Save the polling feature for questions with multiple choice answers.
There are many options available to keep your presentation interactive. The important thing to remember is that your audience is likely to lose focus so plan a few ways to draw them back into your presentation. Feel free to reach out to me at kbushman@thirddoormedia.com.
Gen Z is watchful, but willing to share data
Gen Z consumers (ages 9 to 24) are least likely to trust that a brand will protect their information once they opt in, according to a new survey from performance marketing company Fluent. The same group is also least likely to be concerned with how brands use their data.
For a generational comparison, Boomers are 12% more likely than the overall pool to express concerns about how brands use their data, and 53% more likely than their Gen Z counterparts. Over half of all consumers (51%) trust that a brand will protect their info. Only 39% of Gen Zers feel this way.
What does this mean for marketers? They should be transparent by following the 71% of consumers who believe it’s important for brands to ask permission before sending communications. They should also, obviously, comply with all privacy laws that are applicable. They should take these actions, which Fluent concludes from their survey of over 14,300 consumers:
- Provide clear notice and choice, explaining what data is being collected and how it will be used; and
- Get the consumer’s definitive permission to use their data for the intended purpose.
This kind of clear communication about data use can open more opportunities for marketers, even and especially among the younger set. While special offers and free trials are attractive to consumers of all ages, Gen Z is 189% more likely than the overall pool to favor discounts via email, and 153% more likely via SMS.
Why we care. Gen Z isn’t a monolith, but they have two highly important attributes as a group for marketers. They are young, so they can potentially be customers for a long time. And they are the first digital natives, and fundamentally have a different relationship to digital channels than their predecessors.
Quote of the day
“It’s psychologically revealing that what some people call a roadmap, others call a backlog.” Ari Paparo, Head of Partnerships and Strategy, FreeWheel
The post Rethinking multicultural marketing, Gen Z privacy views: Thursday’s daily brief appeared first on MarTech.