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How to Up Your Game with Marketing AttributionTips for Your 15-Second VideoTypography NewsLead Scoring Update

2018

Attribution is one of the most important elements of an effective marketing strategy, providing efficiency gains of 15-30%1. The more accurate your attribution model is, the easier it is to optimize your marketing message to focus on the most effective touch points. Accuracy helps you to shorten the sales cycle, increase conversions and reduce marketing spend.

Despite the real value of attribution, 77% of marketers believe that they aren’t using the right model (or they don’t know if they are).2 Therefore, what’s the solution?

Saying goodbye to first and last click There are several different attribution models you can use today, but many businesses stick with one of two:

• First click — the first touchpoint is given credit for 100% of the conversion.• Last click — the last touchpoint is given credit for 100% of the conversion.

Even the greenest of marketers knows how inefficient both of these models are. We call it a customer journey for a reason — there are a variety of touchpoints that work together, driving people to convert. Why settle for a “good enough” option like first or last click?

There are more sophisticated attribution models to choose from, such as time decay and full path attribution. Just because they’re fancier doesn’t mean they’re much more accurate. These models still have many gaps when audiences switch platforms, especially online to offline.

How do we capture the bigger picture? Even in 2017, no attribution model answers every question marketers have about what drives their audience to convert. However, marketers can do a lot better than settling for simple “good enough” models that can seriously cloud their understanding of important touchpoints.

1 . L I N E A R M O D E L SLinear is the simplest model. Credit is evenly distributed to every touch point in the buyer’s journey, and all channels are included.

2 . U - S H A P E D M O D E L SGoogle calls the U-Shaped model a “position-based” model. It works well for lead generation. While every touchpoint is tracked, it emphasizes the importance of two key touchpoints: the first touch and the lead conversion touch. Both of these two touches get 40% credit in the attribution model. The remaining 20% is equally split between all of the remaining touchpoints.

3 . W - S H A P E D M O D E L SThe W-Shaped model moves past lead conversion to the opportunity stage. The three key touches are the first touch, the lead conversion touch, and the opportunity creation touch. Each of these receives 30% of the credit, with the remaining 10% split equally among all other touchpoints.

4 . Z - S H A P E D M O D E L SThe Z-Shaped Model, also known as the Full-Path model, accounts for marketing beyond the opportunity stage. The four key stages in this model are the first touch, the lead conversion touch, the opportunity creation touch, and the customer close. Each key stage receives 22.5% of the credit. The remaining 10% is split equally among all other touchpoints.

H O W TO U P YO U R G A M E W I T H Marketing Attribution

F O U R CO M M O NAT T R I B U T I O N M O D E L S

the action of regarding something as being caused by a person or thing.

the action of regarding a quality or feature as characteristic of, or possessed, by a person or thing.

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FIRSTTOUCH

LEADCONVERSION

OPPORTUNITYCREATION

CUSTOMERCLOSE

1/X 1/X 1/X 1/X 1/X 1/X

Where X equals the total number of touchpoints

Linear Attribution Model

FIRSTTOUCH

LEADCONVERSION

OPPORTUNITYCREATION

CUSTOMERCLOSE

U-Shaped Attribution Model

40% 40%

20%

FIRSTTOUCH

LEADCONVERSION

OPPORTUNITYCREATION

CUSTOMERCLOSE

W-Shaped Attribution Model

30% 30% 30%

10%

FIRSTTOUCH

LEADCONVERSION

OPPORTUNITYCREATION

CUSTOMERCLOSE

Z-Shaped Attribution Model

22.5% 22.5% 22.5%

10%

Create a custom attribution model At the very least, every business needs to create a custom attribution model that fills the most gaps when mapping the customer journey.

Use a multi-touch attribution model (Linear, U, W, or Z-shaped are standard models) as a template, then work with your internal team or a data scientist to analyze your existing customer data and behavior. There will be some obvious insights about your specific customer journey. You can use this information to adjust the value that you give to each of your touchpoints.

Different attribution models might also be appropriate for your various campaigns. For example, it makes sense to give more value to touchpoints closer to the conversion, when running a short-term promotional campaign.

Take advantage of tools and technologies If your marketing efforts span both online and offline platforms, you need the help of third-party tools and technologies to draw connections through this inherently disconnected data.

Kissmetrics and Mixpanel are established tools that can help with this. Google’s new Attribution tool, which is still in beta, is another promising option. It automatically imports your data from Google Analytics, Adwords, and DoubleClick, allowing you to connect usually siloed marketing channels to build a better picture of your customer journey. The paid version (Attribution 360) also integrates with third-party products and offline channels like TV.3

Wrapping up Whatever your business size or objectives are, all marketers need accurate attribution modeling to optimize their campaigns, stay ahead of competitors, and improve their ROI. 1. http://www.netimperative.com/2016/05/rise-cross-channel-attribution-shifting-staff-key-infographic

2. http://www.bizible.com/hubfs/State-of-Pipeline-Marketing-Report-2016.pdf?t=14934125983373. https://www.google.com/analytics/attribution

1 PRIORIT Y-PRESS.COM | How to Up Your Game with Marketing Attribution 2 | Four Common Attribution Models

135Tips for Your

15-Second VideoWe live in a world of instantgratification, social media scrolling, and short attention spans. If you don’t grab the attention and focus of your viewer or prospective customer on the first attempt, you may not get a second opportunity. But how can you do that?

A popular and productive form of quickly delivering content to the desired audience is the 15-second video clip. This quick bite of information, presented in a visual and audio form, allows viewers to see and hear your information without a large time commitment on their part.

The use of short, informational video clips has had tremendous growth in recent years. As social media continually evolves, so must our efforts and methods of getting our message delivered. To help you keep on top of this trend, here are tips from the experts for creating your 15-second video.

D O YO U R H O M E W O R K F I R S TVideo pro, Dan Reichard offered these words of advice on preparing to succeed:

• Whether you plan to produce your own video or you will be using an outside vendor – do your homework. Take a look at the current online content in your industry, as well as the :15 videos that creatively accomplish goals similar to your own and keep you engaged.

• What is your goal? The clichés are true. Keep it simple. Less is more. Don’t try to cram too much information into the :15 format.

• What do you want the viewer to take away from your video? Entertainment? Education? A call to action? Shorter videos are generally geared toward fun entertainment. They’re built for media outlets that cater to shorter messaging and attention spans. Use your time to create curiosity.

• Don’t sacrifice “production value.” The look, tone, and quality of your video should not be dictated by the running time or by the outlets where it will be seen. Although your viewers don’t expect the bells and whistles of a BLADE RUNNER 2049 from branded

content, they’ve seen the best of the best. Presenting a nationally competitive message is key. There are ways to do it without spending a fortune.

K E Y P R O D U C T I O N P O I N T S Jon Milavec and Jim Threlkeld of Mixed Bag Media shared these tips:

• For visuals, use a lot of close-ups and medium shots. This will allow the viewer to see something quickly and easily. Your goal is to engage them and make them want to learn more (by watching more videos or digging into the website) or get them to ask questions like – What is that? What are those people doing?

• Thinking in terms of a series can work well. For example, if you have a list of five bullet points that convey the essence of a company or organization, use those bullet points as individual short videos. If each one is engaging, then hopefully the viewer will watch more than one. They might start to have a clear picture of what the company or organization is all about. They will then dig into the website, send an e-mail, or make a phone call to learn even more.

• Text on-screen can be very useful and can work wonders as a storytelling device. When someone is scrolling through their social feed during a meeting, in traffic or wherever, they may not want to play videos with sound. However, with on-screen text, they can read a few lines about a certain piece of information you’re trying to convey and want to learn more.

• All short social videos should be designed with the idea of making the viewer want to learn more. They are devices that are used to make the viewer dig into the website, send an e-mail, or pick up the phone to learn more. Think strategically.

According to the 2017 report from Statista, internet users worldwide average 135 minutes a day on social media sites.1 That is up from 126 minutes in 2016, with these numbers continuing to grow each year. From a marketing standpoint, this means that there are more opportunities to get your message seen by the right people. Start planning your 15-second video now and see your numbers grow.

ABOUT OUR EXPERTS

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage-worldwide

D A N R E I C H A R D

is an Atlanta-based Communications/Business Development Professional. A resource for broadcast and content production for 25+ years, whatever the creative requirements and practical considerations of the task, Dan has a reputation for putting together the best artists and producers for the project. His clients have included: Vonage, Coca-Cola, NCR, J. Walter Thompson, Hospital Corporation of America, Kids II, BBDO, and C-Spire. Dan Reichard can be reached at 404.229.5639 or reicharddan@gmail.com

J O N M I L A V E C & J I M T H R E L K E L D

By telling the stories of people, companies, organizations, and technologies, Jon Milavec and Jim Threlkeld get to exercise their skill at taking big, complex stories and making short, easy-to-understand videos that raise awareness, raise money, or raise the profile of the current topic. The videos they produce often do all of the above. Contact them at Mixed Bag Media ~ 404.368.4248 or check out www.mixedbagmedia.tv

“Look at currentonline content”

3 PRIORIT Y-PRESS.COM | Tips for Your 15-Second Video 4 | About Our Experts

minutes a dayon social media sites . . .

2018 will be an exciting year in the world of design and font types. New font families and styles will combine with creative twists in the use of type.

Bigger and bolder text, along with a growing reliance on negative space and text, instead of images or graphics is expected. Web designers and marketing specialists will have many new tools available for sharing their message.

Design Elements

“A word is worth a thousand pictures when it comes to 2018 web trends and typography.”1 The use of text instead of images to convey messages will become more prevalent as the year progresses. Image overuse, especially that of royalty-free stock images, is leading designers to choose more creative ways of using text to both attract and educate the viewer.

Type fonts will continue to grow in size and weight.

There is a growing movement to use typography as the focal point, by replacing images with words displayed in unique ways. Adding elements of color and interesting stylistic choices allows designers to create unique textual messages. Using type instead of photos as a design element, also means faster loading times when content is viewed online.

The use of negative space is another method in which text will steal the spotlight from images. A trend towards minimalism will continue into 2018. The cleaner, easier-to-read pages, and marketing materials will focus on artistic and playful type fonts and graphics using text to deliver a message.

NEWS

According to Jeremiah Shoaf, the typography world has a lot to be excited about in 2018. The expert designer, behind the website Typewolf, predicts that there will be a mix of newer fonts gaining the spotlight – as well as a few older types making a comeback. Relying on over 16 years of experience in the designing world, he has compiled a list of fonts from various sources to look for:

• Canela • GT America • Sharp Grotesk • Eksell Display • GT Super Display • Acumin • Lydian • Untitled Sans • Pegasus • Styrene • IBM Plex

One of the biggest type announcements in 2017 came from IBM, when they created their own bespoke type font called, “IBM Plex.”

IBM had used Helvetica since the 1960’s. The movement to change started when a graphic designer named Mike Abbink joined IBM in 2015. Before joining IBM, Abbink had helped design GE’s Inspira typeface, as well as NBCU Rock for NBC Universal. There was also financial motivation, because IBM spent over $1 million annually to license Helvetica from Monotype. After two years in development, Plex was born.

IBM Plex will be free for the public to download and use. With a monospace, sans-serif, and serif version, along with various sizes and weights, it is meant to be a design tool as well as a premier type font for both digital and print applications. With Plex, IBM is finally ready to leave Helvetica far behind. Since it is free, they also hope to see wide usage in the design community.

1. https://www.theedesign.com/blog/2017/top-web-design-trends-2018Artwork courtesy of Cris Wicks

It’s Cost Effective

11 fonts to keep an i on

B2B marketers have used lead scoring for many years. In the traditional model, marketers use data to create numerical qualifiers for leads. The data could be publicly known and explicit, such as a job title or a NAICS business code. It could be implicit, where information such as visits to a website, opens in an email campaign, or viewing content on a blog post implies interest in a product or service.

While traditional lead scoring is effective, we are starting to see a market shift, as more enterprises embrace predictive lead scoring models.

Predictive lead scoring is a data-based methodology. By using the pool of data that has been accumulated from past successes, marketers identify patterns and relationships in their sales cycle. Data-backed reasoning also reduces human bias and errors, and helps the marketing team to improve lead scoring criteria.

The Forrester Wave™: Predictive Marketing Analytics for B2B Marketers, Q2 2017, published by Forrester Research, listed multiple benefits for predictive marketing analytics.1

• Minimizes energy that marketers spend on low-priority leads• Identifies and helps to engage good-fit accounts that are not yet in-market• Helps identify total addressable market• Enables new market expansion• Advances account-based marketing by identifying account by fit and behavior• Identifies key audience attributes on which to focus messages• Informs content strategy for specific account planning

While predictive lead scoring will continue to grow, marketers who are not yet ready to make the switch can improve traditional lead scoring programs by

doing a quick audit of their system. Start by looking at the profile of your ideal lead. Mintingo, one of the leaders in predictive lead scoring analytics, calls this the “Customer DNA.” Determine if your profile needs tweaking. One fast way to do this is by comparing the last ten new buyers to the profile to check for accuracy. Look at your tech stack and the tools you currently use. How do you identify potential customers and determine interest levels? What is your process for managing leads, pushing out communications, and tracking them through the pipeline? When you spot a gap, resist the urge to look for shiny new software. You should instead do a deeper dive into the functionality of existing tools to determine if you can close the gap with your current resources.

Lead pools are dynamic environments. Therefore, decay is a real issue. Leads decay results when potential buyers decide to purchase another product, lose interest in solving a problem, or proactively decide that it is not the right time to make a purchase. Individuals change companies, or they remain at a company, but their role changes, so they are no longer either a buyer or an influencer. Look at the triggers that you have set up around inactivity, and determine if they can be improved.

The last place to look is lead follow-up. Look at the activity thresholds. What happens when a lead crosses a threshold? Improving follow-up improves conversion.

Direct mail is effective at multiple touch points in the buyer’s journey, including:

• Building mindshare• Educating buyers to be included in the consideration set• Motivating leads to take the next step in the buying journey • Actively selling to convert leads into customers

When selecting a format, choose one to fit your objective. Postcards are perfect for quick reminders and simple offers. Letters are viewed as formal business communications. Brochures with multiple pages and lots of pictures are effective for telling in-depth stories about a product or service. You can also use a dimensional mailing to stand out in the mail stream and grab the lead’s attention.

Conventional V S

Predictive Lead ScoringConventional Lead Scoring

• Based on rules or logic• Small data set• Rank prospects• Activity-based• Subjective (opinions-based)

Predictive Lead Scoring

• Based on patterns in conversion data• Massive data set• Identifiers determine purchase probability• Objective (fact-based)

If you would like to see samples and ideas for your direct mail piece, talk to your Priority Group Account Executive.

Conversion is the true job of a lead scoring system. That’s why an audit to find ways to improve outcomes will pay off for you.

7 PRIORIT Y-PRESS.COM | Lead Scoring Update

Lead Scoring Update

D I R E C T MA I L

Making it Payoff

8Conventional vs. Predictive Lead Scoring | Direct Mail Making it Payoff

From The Evolution from Traditional to Predictive Lead Scoring from Lattice predicatABILITY

1. http://content.6sense.com/rs/958-TTM-744/images/ForresterWaveReport.pdf

Seth Godin is the author of eighteen bestsellers, including Permission Marketing, Purple Cow, and Tribes. He is also a well-known (and highly paid) speaker, and one of the most popular marketing bloggers in the world. In 2013, he was inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame.

To learn more, visit sethgodin.com.

N I N E Q U OT E S F R O M Seth Godin As consumers, we’re too busy to pay attention to advertising, but we’re desperate to find good stuff that solves our problems.

Marketing is a contest for people’s attention.

We’re not going to outgrow our need for information.

If we live in a world where information drives what we do, the information we get becomes the most important thing. The person who chooses that information has power.

Do you have the email addresses of the 20 percent of your customer base that loves what you do? If not, start getting them. If you do, what could you make for these customers that would be super-special?

In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.

A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.

What could you measure? What would that cost? How fast could you get the results? If you can afford it, try it. If you measure it, it will improve.

Go for the edges. Challenge yourself and your team to describe what those edges are, and then test which edge is most likely to deliver the marketing results you seek.

Ephemeral marketing continues to be a hot topic in 2018. In 2017, Instagram, owned by Facebook, experienced tremendous growth in its platform. A great deal of the growth resulted from the addition of the Instagram stories feature on the app.

An Instagram Story allows people and brands to tell an ongoing story through photos and videos, without interfering with normal postings. Stories expire after 24 hours, so they attract viewers who are looking for new and novel content.

According to TechCrunch,“ Instagram Stories has blossomed from a Snapchat clone into an integral part of the world’s largest dedicated visual communication app in the first year since its launch. Half of the businesses on Instagram produced a story in the last month, and it’s boosted the app’s average usage to 32 minutes per day for those under 25, and 24 minutes per day for those 25 and up.”1

NASA, GE, the retail brand Loft, and Travel + Leisure magazine have all used Instagram Stories. If you’re already on Instagram but haven’t added the stories feature to your social strategy, maybe this is the year to give it a try.

Whether you are a B2B or B2C brand, there are numerous ways to use Instagram stories in your social marketing strategy including:

• Event coverage • Product or service close-ups • Limited time offers • Sharing news • Telling brand stories • A look behind-the-scenes • Tips and information from experts

• Webinar follow-ups • Buzz creation for a new product or service • Enticing viewers to visit your website or to view longer-form content • Countdowns to events, product introductions, and promotions

On their blog, Buffer (a social media management technology platform) reported that more than 400 million people use Instagram daily.2

photo courtesy of sethgodin.com

Need some inspiration? Check out these intriguing thoughts from one of the most original thinkers in marketing today.

STORYTHE

STORIES

ON

According to The Pew Research Center, audience demographics for Instagram break down as follows:3

• 28% of all adults online use Instagram• 51% of the total audience uses Instagram every day• The two biggest groups of users are 18 to 29-year-olds (59%) followed by 30 to 49-year-olds (31%)• More women (32%) than men (23%) use this platform• 67% of users either have some college or have received a degree• 34% live in urban settings, 24% live in suburban locations, and 25% live in rural areas

9 PRIORIT Y-PRESS.COM | Nine Quotes From Seth Godin

400 MILLION PEOPLE

10The Story on Instagram Stories | Demographics for Instagram

1. https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/02/instagram-stories-anniversary 2. https://blog.bufferapp.com/instagram-marketing-tips-studies 3. http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/social-media

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What’s on your agenda for 2018? Priority Press can help!

About Priority PressPriority Press assists discerning marketing and sales organizations who need data-driven, multi-channel brand communications. An integrated business communications provider, Priority delivers return on investment (ROI) by innovatively producing brand communications creatively, effectively and consistently in the print, mail, email, mobile and web channels.

Unlike a typical commercial printer or mail house, Priority Press provides:

1. Data analytics, creative design, and technology services;

2. Comprehensive print, mail and inventory fulfillment services integrated under one roof;

3. Cloud-based, marketing and sales-driven software;

4. Deep marketing and technology expertise; and,

5. A proven track record helping our clients build great brands since 1980.

We believe all great brands have a promise. Let us help you communicate your promise and build your brand today.

Call your Priority Press Brand Builder at 888.955.PRINT

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