How to identify the best channels for your next growth marketing campaign

This is the third in a series of articles on growth hacking, which I’m going deep into with a minidegree in Growth Marketing from the CXL Institute. Read more: What is growth hacking? | How to run a successful growth marketing experiment in six steps

***

Growth marketing requires a nuanced understanding of which channels are ideally suited for each campaign. Just picking the channels you used last time — or the ones that your competitors use — won’t cut it. You’re basically setting yourself up for failure if you don’t adequately align your channel strategy with the overall objective of the campaign.

To put yourself in a position to succeed, follow these four steps when identifying the best channels when planning your next growth marketing campaign.

Step 1: Specify a segment

If you set up your growth marketing campaign correctly, you have a clearly defined objective. Everything you do should be filtered through this objective; most especially, it should frame your approach regarding your target audience.

Let’s say your objective is to increase signups for the freemium version of your SaaS product. Your hypothesis is that your ideal users spend a lot of time on Twitter and you want to test if that’s the case.

This is where user research comes in handy. You need to know who you’re speaking with so that you can build your campaigns around a specific segment — and target the channels that this segment uses the most.

When specifying a segment, you can build it according to a few key criteria. Whether you select only one or build a blend that reflects your current marketing priorities is up to you.

Demographics: Who they are

  • Age
  • Income
  • Marital status
  • Family size
  • Job role
  • Ethnicity
  • Education

Geographic: Where they are

  • City
  • Country
  • ZIP Code/Postal Code
  • Geo-fenced

Psychographic: Why they buy and what shapes their personality and unique worldview

  • Personal beliefs, principles and opinions
  • Intrinsic motivations
  • Individual personality and temperament
  • Personal priorities
  • Activities and interests
  • Attitudes
  • Social class

Behavioral: How they buy and how they engage with your brand/the world around them

  • How often they browse
  • Where they buy
  • How much they spend
  • How often they purchase
  • How often they return to your website/store
  • Which aspects of your product/service they value most
  • Any other data on individual patterns and behaviors

You don’t just have to pick one of these as you segment your audiences. In fact, it’s often a blend that creates the types of precise segments that lead to the most valuable growth marketing wins. The better you are at segmenting down to your most “perfect” users, the stronger your focus will be when finding the channels those people frequent most.

Step 2: Choose one channel

The broader your campaign, the less valuable the insights can be. It’s much more insightful to segment your audience and pick a single channel to test.

You don’t want to test multiple channels at once because you are really trying to find the top 1 to 2 channels to focus on. There’s only so much time in a day. Its the growth marketer’s job is to find the channels that return the most results with the least amount of investment. That includes time — unless you have a large team, you don’t have enough of that resource to focus on many channels at once!

To identify these channels, take everything you know about your best users and find where those people hang out online (and offline too, if that’s part of your brand marketing plan).

As you research, don’t just observe. Dive in, create an account, Invest some time engaging on those channels where you can find your ideal users. It will be much easier to build credibility and competitive insights when you engage up close rather than observe from a distance.

Remember that the goal is to test whether or not your target segment a sense a lot of time on this channel and be as responsive to your brand!

Step 3: Test it out

Before you commit major resources to a growth marketing campaign on a certain channel, do a few small tests. Don’t invest a ton of time or money. Only invest as much as you need to deepen your understanding and see if your target audience is present and engaged on this channel.

A few questions to explore:

  • Is there a specific way that your audience speaks on this channel?
  • How does your target segment behave on this channel? What do they use it for?
  • How often do they use it? Are there peak times of engagement?
  • Are there any pockets of engagement that may be under targeted by other brands (potential low-cost growth hacking opportunities)?

Step 4: Measure results

There are two outcomes to each test: iterate and optimize when a channel shows promise or retest and move on when a channel underdelivers.

If the channel underdelivers on expectations then you need to determine if it’s just with that specific audience. As in: the channel is still a good one for your business but it’s not the right one for your chosen segment. To determine a channel’s overall viability, run another test. Circle back to the first step, select a new segment and run the test again. You may have simply had a channel/audience mismatch.

When a channel shows promise — as in, initial tests were positive — you double down on that channel by iterating your experiments and optimizing how you use that channel.

Successful channel tests also help you catalyze your learnings into muscle memory. As you start to understand how your target audience is you specific channels, you simply get better at using those channels. So this is an additive and always improving process.

And that’s growth marketing: making many small tests and rapidly iterating based on what you learned from each test. Your knowledge builds with time and improvements compound to make growth marketing an exponential engine for your company’s growth.

The top COVID-19 coronavirus hashtags

During a crisis, communications move quickly. To keep track of the latest, it’s helpful to know which hashtags are being used. For brands, it’s even more important to understand the various hashtags so that you don’t inadvertently use one that is tone-deaf, inappropriate, or off-brand.

Here are the top COVID-19/coronavirus hashtags. The list will be updated as needed! Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay strong!

#AloneTogether

#BuildForCOVID19: This hashtag is for a global hackathon with thousands of participants. More info on DevPost.

#covid19, #COVID19, #covid_19, #covid-19: These are also used at a country level by adding the country name or shorthand to the end, eg #covid19USA or #covid19france

#coronacomplications

#coronacreations

#coronadontcare

#coronalife

#coronavirus

#coronaviruspandemic

#coronaviruslockdown

#forabetterworld

#pandemic

#QuarantineLife

#SARSCoV2: Mostly used by healthcare workers

#selfisolation

#socialdistancing

#StayHome

#StayHomeSaveLives

#StayAtHome

What is paid media? Defining the essential distribution channel for your brand marketing strategy

Ghost Works brand journalism

This article is the second in our series on defining the terms of content marketing. First, we covered owned media, the most important channel in a brand marketing strategy. Next up: paid media.

 What is ‘paid media?’

Paid media is spending money on platforms to distribute marketing messages, promotions, and other branded content. An investment in content distribution is the next stop after content creation. Except in the rarest cases, just creating the content isn’t enough. A comprehensive distribution strategy is necessary to get this content out into the world. Platforms are reducing organic reach, making it nearly impossible to get enough traction on a piece of content without some form of paid amplification.

The transition to pay-to-play platforms

Organic reach used to be much easier on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The platform sprints and devised to provide user attention to brands, so the brands got used to the power of the platform. Once the platforms became deeply ingrained in the global conversation, organic reach dropped in favor of paid placements. This trend continues, with organic reach no longer guaranteed.

Today, outside of owned media channels, paid placements are the only way for brands to have some control over which audiences see their messages.

Strategies for paid media

There’re three ways to leverage paid media online, each of which leverage another company’s audience to bring attention to your brand: sponsored content, social media ads, and search ads. We’re not including public relations or influencer marketing here, as there’s not a direct correlation between the money spent and results. Paid media should have robust analytics supporting each initiative.

Sponsored content. Paying a publisher to distribute your content has become quite popular in the past two years. As publishers seek to offset decline advertising revenue, new outlets for content distribution have emerged. For a price, most publishers will share branded content with their audience. Price varies tremendously, depending on audience size as well as audience demographics. Publishers have become quite sophisticated in audience segmentation so that messages can be hyper-targeted to specific demographics. The greater the segmentation, the more valuable the content placement.

There’s a caveat when it comes to sponsored content: Many publishers will only distribute brand journalism that has been created by their own internal studios. These in-house content studios approach commercial content with the editorial familiarity of the publisher’s brand. There’s also another benefit: the internal content studio has a closer take on the types of content that resonate with the publisher’s audience, including which mediums and topics get the most engagement. You’ll have to decide whether these insights are worth the markup these studios charge when compared to independent agencies or freelancers — in our experience, working with an internal content studio will cost at least 20% — and up to 50% — more than working with independent agencies or freelancers.

When considering whether to go with a publisher’s content studio, an independent agency, or a mix of freelancers, think first of your budget and then of your audience. If your budget can support it, a publisher’s content studio offers both content creation and distribution. This is handy but also limits your distribution somewhat — you may not have enough money left to distribute elsewhere. Independent agencies can provide a full-service approach that places content in a variety of channels — but have more overhead. A mix of freelancers takes a lot of management time but can provide the greatest value, as well as provide more specialization since you can select the best freelancers for the job. When making the next budget, we recommend trying out the options to see what works best for your organization. You may want to make the decision on a per project basis or stick with what works over time.

Social media ads. As we saw above, social media is mostly pay-to-play. While this is unfortunate for those who have invested a lot of resources in developing a large community, the upside is that content amplification becomes much easier. You just have to pay for it. These platforms have simplified targeting so that each message reaches the segment of your audience most interested in that message.

Budgeting for this can be tricky, as the average cost per click shifts every quarter depending on commercial interest. You also have to decide — or better yet, experiment — on how to bid on your audiences. For most content amplification opportunities, we recommend cost-per-click versus cost-per-impression. The goal is to bring your existing audience to your content, thus increasing the content’s impact through more engagement. Take time to experiment: test how different combinations of ad formats, targeting, and ad creative impact your costs and engagement rates.

When investing in social media ads, we recommend taking advantage of custom audiences. Most platforms allow you to upload emails and contact information that can then be used to target existing audiences on these platforms. Whenever there is an opportunity to craft unique audience segments, take it. Yes, there’s some time investment that seems intimidating at first. Even so, it’s really the only way to see a consistent and repeatable return on the investment in social media advertising.

Search ads. Search doesn’t work for every brand. Since search is a place where consumers express specific interest, some brands might not feel that the investment is worth it. Even so, we recommend experimenting with the power of search to drive traffic to blog articles, white papers, and existing branded content. This can be an unusual approach in a brand marketing effort, as its usually the product marketers that rely on paid search. Nonetheless, many brand marketers overlook the power of targeting specific questions on search engines. If you can identify 3 to 5 common questions related to your brand’s industry that prospects often ask, Then you should create content around these questions — and send traffic to them via paid search.

If you’re not confident that your brand is showing up at the top result for a branded search, you may want to purchase related search terms. Be careful though: This can end up costing a lot of money with little result. We recommend testing a period with these branded search term ads to benchmark against a period without. Then you can be sure that you’re investing you’re limited paid media dollars effectively.

For display ads, be sure to include graphics that are attractive and appropriate to the targeted audience. By honing in on what works for each of your audience’s segments, you’ll save money and you’ll reduce the risk of alienating your audience through serving irrelevant creative.

“Marketing used to be a creative challenge but it’s a data challenge now.”

Provocative words from HSBC’s former head of marketing in EMEA Philip Mehl. While creativity — and intelligence — still hold away, data is the third pillar of a smart brand marketing strategy. Data is especially influential across all of your paid media strategies, as clever use of data lowers cost, increases relevance, and generally improves results. This is especially true when the focus is on segment-level conversion rates. Now if only there were an extra hour in the day…

Why LinkedIn is going all in on original brand journalism

Brand journalism on Linkedin: Image Eric Laignel

The halo effect of ‘editorial credibility’

LinkedIn has been investing in original journalism for some time now. The company has used its position at the center of the professional world to attract top-notch journalists. This cohort was attracted not only by a steady paycheck but also for the opportunity to drive the daily narrative for professionals worldwide.

 It is their job to sprinkle editorial credibility on top of the mountains of user-generated content – of varying degrees of quality – posted into LinkedIn news feeds every day by legions of ‘thought leaders’. –The Drum

‘Editorial credibility’ is not limited to publishers or social platforms.

The concept is that consumers are much more likely to trust content infused with an editorial sensibility, rather than simply a commercial content exercise.

This is a key insight for any brand looking to content marketing for results: Talk less about yourself and more about your stakeholders, and how your brand sees your industry and the wider world. By providing analysis and insights from the perspective of the brand, there’s a trust that is built with the reader. But that reader is a prospect or an existing customer or an employee. Trust is invaluable.

Balancing quality with quantity

Sure, there’re some struggles with quality. Like any social platform, the quality of shared content rests on the shoulders of the network’s members. And LinkedIn struggles with a certain rogue element of spammy members that don’t grasp the point of the professional networking platform.

But the volume of content is important for global traction. The platform needs to showcase opinions from all kinds of different industries, each of which has its own style and sophistication when it comes to thought leadership. If it would rely only on user shares, and not original content, there would be less incentive for users to return each and every day. If the content that users find on the platform is valuable, users trust the platform even more.

Trust then turns into engagement, as users return to the platform for more.

This is the halo effect of ‘editorial credibility’ — a halo effect that any brand can easily enjoy, not only on their own company blog but also (thanks to LinkedIn’s own efforts) especially by publishing compelling content on LinkedIn itself.

‘Each engagement is a vote of confidence’

The platform maintains its place at the center of this universe by staying at the leading edge of business conversations across all industries. If it slips from that edge, the platform starts to lose relevance to its core constituencies.

This is the impact of original brand journalism: Consistent engagement thanks to content that readers can’t easily get elsewhere.

Each engagement touchpoint is a vote of confidence. Each time a user engages with a shared link, a colleague’s comment, or an original article published to LinkedIn, it further entrenches the platform’s aura of inevitability when it comes to professional networks worldwide.

Each engagement is also a vote of confidence in the individual sharing the content. This is an added benefit of LinkedIn’s focus on original content: It allows users to vouch for others, support their network, and engage in soft relationship building. This further facilitates engagement and makes the LinkedIn experience more sticky. This is by design,  director and senior managing editor Isabelle Roughol told the Drum:

“People put their professional identity on the line when they are publishing and sharing on LinkedIn. They’re using their real name with their boss and their employees and their customers seeing what they’re doing. So I think that helps people self-police and think about what they’re sharing and what it says about them, and it helps us maintain a high-level conversation.”

This engagement drives the utility of the platform for professional life. LinkedIn’s mission is to “create a digital map of the global economy to connect talent with opportunity at massive scale.” With original content peppered within user activity, the platform can target topics and guide conversations throughout its global network to achieve its stated mission.

LinkedIn’s focus on original brand journalism is a powerful tool to drive thought leaders to contribute, while also further cementing LinkedIn’s brand in the marketplace of professionals worldwide.

Lesson’s from LinkedIn’s brand journalism approach

As brand builders and professional communicators, we have lots to learn from LinkedIn’s investment in original brand journalism. Here are three key points:

  1. Invest in content. It’s not surprising that this would be our perspective. We obviously believe passionately in the power of content. However, it’s always worth highlighting. Great content isn’t cheap. And it most certainly doesn’t create itself. Make an investment, even just a small experiment, to see how publishing to your company blog, LinkedIn, and/or Medium can evolve/establish/define the narrative around your own company. You’ll be surprised at the shift in engagement your marketers, salespeople, and customer success managers have.
  2. Write for your audience, not just for yourself.  Just like a dinner party, no one really wants to keep talking to the person that only talks about themselves. Don’t be that guy — approach your brand marketing with an editorial sensibility, and you’re well-positioned to see a long-term return on the investment in a smart, cogent, and consistent content strategy.
  3. Test and learn. LinkedIn has been involving their approach to regional content for years. As the company hired more editors, who in turn started creating more content, the process improved. It became a defining feature of the platform today. So as you decide to make the financial investment and begin writing for your target audiences, don’t expect immediate results. Give the project space to breathe, so that there’s time to test and learn. Don’t rush, don’t come to premature decisions, and allow enough time to analyze the results. Then you have a clear picture of how an investment in brand journalism pans out for your specific situation. This is more of a shift in brand strategy rather than an initiative with an expiration date.

With these three steps, you’re well on your way to enjoying the long-term benefits of brand journalism for your company, and its executives, employees, and stakeholders.

Photo courtesy Eric Laignel.