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5 Ways to Humanize Your B2B Content Marketing – And Why It Matters https://ift.tt/2M8mNvI Never underestimate the corporate world’s ability to take something that should be intuitive, and make it weird by overthinking it. Case in point: We used to say, “B2B doesn’t have to be boring.” Which indicates that for a long time, folks truly believed that B2B did have to be boring — that B2B buyers were a unique species of creature that operated without emotion and wanted the driest content possible. Now we’re talking about how we need to “humanize” B2B content. And doesn’t that sound like some kind of filter you run your content through after you make it? I picture something that looks like a fax machine, where you load the content in the top, and push a big red button marked “HUMANIZE.” “We’re ready to ship that blog post, Johnson — wait! Don’t forget to humanize it!” Now, I get that B2B brands are dealing with millions of dollars worth of business. It makes sense to be mindful about how you represent the brand. But there’s a difference between caution, and so much second-guessing that you end up having to relearn how to talk like people. We can’t make content first, and then “humanize” it as an afterthought. Content should be about humans, by humans, and for humans, from the early planning stages to publication and beyond. Here are a few ways you can make your content more relatable. 5 (More) Ways to Humanize Your ContentNearly all of the marketers I know are actual humans (I’m still convinced Brian Solis is a highly advanced android from the future, but that’s beside the point). We’re all capable of making content for and by humans — we just need to unlearn some misconceptions and give ourselves permission to do it. These tips can help you start. 1 — Talk Like a PersonCorporate jargon is a language all its own, with its own vocabulary, cliches, and even sentence structure. It can sound stiff, dry and deeply unnatural to your audience. For example, we might say: “Going forward, our software solution can be used by busy sales professionals to activate their data and achieve more meaningful results.” When what we mean is: “You can find more potential prospects in your data with our solution.” There are a few elements that set corporate-speak apart from actual human language:
2 — Feature Your PeopleThe first section is all about the minor adjustments that make your content sound more human. For the rest of the post, we’re going to talk about how to make sure it actually is more human. To start with, I said above that every piece of content should have an actual author who is present in the text. That means using first-person pronouns regardless of what Ms. Funke in 9th-grade English would say. But it also means having a point of view, an individual outlook on the world as opposed to a corporate one. One of the best ways to do this is to co-write the content with people in your company. Writing about your brand’s customer service? Interview a customer service agent. Want to explain how your solution works? Feature one of your R&D folks or engineers. As the marketer, of course, you’ll help shape and polish the content. But you’ll be ensuring each piece has a unique point of view, and that it doesn’t all sound like marketers trying to sound like other folks. 3 — Make Your Customers the StarsAnother easy way to make your content more human is to feature your customers. It makes sense: Your target audience is people who would benefit from your solution, which means they’re folks who are a lot like your existing customers. This goes beyond just featuring customer success stories or case studies. Those are a staple of content marketing, of course, but they’re not the only way to get customer voices into your content. Look for ways to bring your customers’ expertise to a wider audience. What do they know about their business that could help others in a similar situation? What can they say about current trends or upcoming developments? Putting customers front and center not only helps humanize your content and bring more value to your audience, it also helps deepen your relationships with the customers themselves. 4 — Co-Create with Influential PeopleIn the B2C space, influencer marketing is more like micro-level celebrity endorsement — it’s all about giving people money to feature your product. B2B influencer marketing is more about co-creation — working with experts to make content that is valuable to your audience. It’s not, “Bob Johnson says to try our solution.” It’s “Here’s what Bob Johnson says about the future of your industry, and we’re happy to bring you his insights.” When you involve influencers in your content, you’re adding additional human voices to your content. Let the influential people in your industry add their credibility, expertise, and most importantly, personality to your content. It’ll make your content smarter, more personable, and more likely to connect with people. [bctt tweet="“Let the influential people in your industry add their credibility, expertise, and most importantly, personality to your content. It’ll make your content smarter, more personable, and more likely to connect with people.” @NiteWrites" username="toprank"] 5 — Find the StoriesAs the survivor of many college creative writing classes, there are three words tattooed on my heart: Show, Don’t Tell. Look for the stories that illustrate what you want your reader to know. We understand this instinctively in conversation. Humans are hardwired for narrative. You wouldn’t say to a friend, “Our new dishwasher is 37% quieter than our old model! It registers at just 15 decibels, more quiet than a whisper!” Instead, you might say, “So last night, I started the dishwasher, but I forgot the baby was sleeping! I was so scared she would wake up — it took so long to get her down last night. And you know that old dishwasher sounded like a freight train when it hit the rinse cycle! But the new one is so quiet she didn’t even stir! She was in such a better mood today after a good night’s sleep.” Whenever you find your content getting sales-y, try to refocus on the story. Look for the emotions, the moments of drama that relate to what you’re trying to say. And no fair saying there are no emotional stories to tell about your brand’s solution. If human beings are buying and using your product or service, they are experiencing emotions and generating stories. [bctt tweet="“If human beings are buying and using your product or service, they are experiencing emotions and generating stories.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"] Humanize for Human EyesEvery B2B marketer is also in someone else’s target audience. We have all experienced an emotional connection with content, even with marketing content (mine will always be the Like a Girl campaign). So it should be intuitive to make the kind of content that we respond to — “humanization” shouldn’t be an afterthought. This doesn’t mean, of course, that your case study about your SaaS should make someone break down in cathartic tears. But it should mean that the case study tells a compelling story that it engages the reader’s attention and rewards it, and sounds like it was written by a person rather than a committee. Need help utilizing data-driven customer-centric content (just kidding)? Check out our content marketing page and hear what our customers have to say.
The post 5 Ways to Humanize Your B2B Content Marketing – And Why It Matters appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®. Mobile Marketing,SEO via Hubspot https://ift.tt/2wiHYzh January 27, 2021 at 08:50AM
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Google Starting To Meet Consumer Demand For Organic Search https://ift.tt/2KOQnpi Search engine optimization continues to decline, making it one of the most underused search strategies, according to Matthew Mierzejewski, senior vice president of Merkle’s Search and Performance Marketing Lab. “We’ve now seen a few quarters straight where organic click traffic rose, between 20% and 30%, year-on-year,” Mierzejewski said. “I think that’s a huge boon for organic. Google traffic volume rose during COVID times, with everyone locked in their house.” Organic search visit growth remained high in Q4, mostly from the 40% year-on-year growth seen in retail and consumer goods, according to Merkle’s Digital Marketing Report for Q4 2020. Essential goods -- and groceries in particular -- produced the greatest growth, with online grocery shopping continuing through the holiday season. advertisement advertisement Essential goods saw a 63% increase in organic search, but visits to grocery retailers fueled the overall category. Apparel visits rose 2% YoY in Q4 after seeing an 11% YoY decline in Q3, likely aided by holiday gift purchases. Growth in non-essential goods slowed, though remained strong YoY at 33%. On mobile devices, organic visits grew 33% YoY, about the same as growth rates in Q3. Phone growth was 37% Y/Y, but Y/Y declines in tablet brought down overall mobile growth figures. Higher click-through rates and a 28% YoY increase in impressions both contributed toward YoY strength for phones. Certain organic formats do better than others. Google shows strength in monetizing its search engine and creating the best layouts to generate revenue through paid search, but it is finding new ways to generate value for users in organic. SEO is often forgotten in many marketing initiates, Mierzejewski said, in terms of how it plays an important role. Merkle continually builds solutions to understand “what organic listing will Google likely favor to generate the increase in click traffic,” Mierzejewski said. “The goal is to win the space in the Knowledge Graph for strategic keywords, rather than focus on how some YouTube video or popular product would rank on page one.” Mierzejewski doesn’t believe brands are paying enough attention to their SEO strategy, especially when it comes to content on mobile. He said there is new data that suggests a huge demand exists for organic content and that Google is finally trying to meet the searcher’s demand. “It’s happening to the detriment of [paid search],” he said. An essential part of any strong SEO strategy are the third parties that link to a website, according to Eric Enge, principal of digital marketing solutions at Proficient. Content linked to by third parties is one way to build a brand’s performance and visibility across the web. For this reason, using backlinking tools is important, writes Enge in a recent report. The Proficient report -- commissioned by Moz, known for its backlink tools -- sampled 28 domains and downloaded the complete link reports from Moz, ahrefs, and Majestic. The findings show Moz has the largest index of links. SEMrush also participated. “Moz influenced the decision to conduct such a study, but the conclusions in this post are 100% our own, with no influence by Moz,” Enge wrote. The goal was to evaluate link index size across an array of domains using summary data pulled from each provider’s APIs. The analysis aimed also to determine how well each tool performed routine deduping of link data and whether it reports the same link in more than one form. Perficient selected 3,000 queries across technology, health, and finance, sourced without input from Moz. Google results for these queries were pulled, and a list of the domains ranking in the top 100 were built. Identical entries were deleted, which left 85,308 domains.
Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/2oB2PsH January 26, 2021 at 12:43PM
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Can Slice, The Pizza Platform, Save The Locals? https://ift.tt/2NzBrfL
It's the pizza lover's dilemma: Order guaranteed deliciousness from the small shop down the street, which probably means screaming into the phone? Or seamlessly send out for a mass-produced disappointment, trading bad pizza for top-notch technology? Slice, the pizza platform, is solving that problem, working with 14,000 pizza shops in 50 states. And with a new $4 million TV ad campaign as well as sharper tools for small-town pizza chefs, it's hoping to make America happier with all their 'za decisions. "We aim to be a first-party relationship," says Preethy Vaidyanathan, its chief product officer, "not a third-party delivery app." Slice sets pizza shops up with its mobile app and a website. People can order their custom pizza delivery from their local shop quickly and easily–without forcing pizza cooks to do digital maintenance. While massive marketing teams and social-media gurus back competitors like Domino's and Pizza Hut, "Mom-and-pop shops don't have any of that. They're not marketers or technologists. They just make great pizza. We give them a partnership that helps them compete," Vaidyanathan tells QSR Land. The company launched back in 2010 as MyPizza, the brainchild of founder Ilir Sela, a pizza lover from Staten Island. It has continued to grow and add venture funding, including $43 million back in May. "We think of it as an end-to-end platform, streamlining digital operations, lowering costs on supplies like boxes and sharing insights that help them grow," she says. But COVID-19 sent the company scrambling to help shops meet new demands as cities shut down indoor dining. It launched Slice Delivery, an add-on service for shops without in-house delivery, adopted by 2,800 shops. It's built contact-free delivery (20% of all orders), curbside pick-up (15% of all pick-up), and cash-free ordering to keep restaurant workers and customers safe. The TV ads are a first for the company and running on the East Coast from Maine to Virginia, as well as on streaming services that include Hulu and YouTube TV. One features a fast-talking pizza fan explaining what Slice does and lamenting pizza that tastes like cardboard. The second, called Underdogs, describes how the concept helps local shops. Both emphasize that Slice helps them avoid the "crazy high fees" of third-party delivery apps. Slice's new tool, Pizzeria Score, can help independent pizza shops double their orders. The diagnostic grades each shop on crucial survival skills, like ordering, personalized marketing and customer service. It also gives them detailed instructions and resources needed to improve their score. Vaidyanathan says Slice understands that many of its pizza shops are in the fight of their lives. In research released last month, the National Restaurant Association announced that 500,000 restaurants are in economic freefall and that 10,000 have closed in the previous three months. Almost 90% of those in its survey have seen revenues fall more than 36%. Still, Vaidyanathan sees exceptional resilience in the pizza category. "The price points are very reasonable, and you can feed your family for not much money. And compared to other categories, it carries well." Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/2oB2PsH January 26, 2021 at 11:00AM Algolia Acquires Startup Funded By Google Digital News Initiative https://ift.tt/2MpTfJT On the company's website it shared that in 2020 website traffic doubled, compared with 2019, and signups rose 250%. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/2oB2PsH January 25, 2021 at 09:26PM It's Raining Emails: Most Brands Are Sending More, But Engagement Is A Challenge https://ift.tt/3sZb43k Most brands are sending more email this year to some degree, according to Email Marketing Automation, a study by Ascend2. Of the brands polled, 74% are increasing their send, 36%, significantly, and 38% moderately. Another 20% are staying the same, and a mere 6% are decreasing their volume, 3% significantly. But emailers face challenges, the most difficult ones being:
And the respondents listed several areas for improvement:
advertisement advertisement Despite all this, 38% rate their email programs as very successful at meeting the goals set for them — or best in class. Another 50% say they’re somewhat successful, and 12% are unsuccessful. The brands polled do a certain amount of testing before they mail. They test:
Their most effective automated emails are:
How long should they keep an inactive subscriber before removing them from the list? Most would wait a fair amount of time:
Ascend2 and its Research Partners surveyed 298 marketers in December 2020. Of those, 31% were B2B, 40% were B2C and 29% were B2B and B2C equally. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/2oB2PsH January 25, 2021 at 02:14PM PUMA Leverages Taxis in NYC for a First of its Kind Programmatic DOOH Campaign https://ift.tt/36c29lj How do you stand out when launching your first retail store in New York City, the fashion capital of North America? Add to that an extremely limited budget due to prior financial commitments, and that's what PUMA faced when opening its flagship store on Manhattan's bustling Fifth Avenue. The German sportswear company knew they needed to be strategic with how and who they reached in order to get the most from their investment. For that they executed a digital-out-of-home (DOOH) advertising campaign with geo-targeting technology. By programmatically serving ads in motion fixed on top of taxis and rideshare vehicles, the street-level campaign successfully leveraged dynamic messaging that directed consumers to PUMA's NYC grand opening. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/2oB2PsH January 25, 2021 at 02:14PM
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Xaxis North America President Talks About Brand Safety https://ift.tt/3qOzCdh Verification technology for connected television media buying is underway at companies such as Integrated Ad Science. It’s not as advanced as desktop, mobile and tablet for many, but it's the next frontier to protect brands when it comes to validating an ad ran or implementing safety measures, said Gila Wilensky, president of Xaxis North America, WPP’s global programmatic arm. Wilensky declined to put a time frame on brand-safety technology for CTV from Xaxis, but said “it’s getting closer; perhaps, sometime soon.” Xaxis continues to put an emphasis on protecting brands -- not only in terms of verifying that an ad ran and is seen by the viewer, but ensuring the brand’s ads don’t serve up adjacent to undesirable content. advertisement advertisement The set of online measures a brand must take to protect its image and reputation against negative or damaging influences has become increasingly important. It's no longer an option to have advertisements run near questionable or inappropriate content. “Were in a unique time in terms of unrest and anxiety, but unfortunately there’s always something in the news like a natural disaster, war or tragedy,” she said. “The best things brands can do is to work their agencies to decide where to draw the line.” It’s not about suppressing topics in a negative keyword list, she said. Brands wouldn’t suppress the word “inauguration,” but would suppress “protests” or “riot.” These ongoing lists need constant attention and require updating at the beginning of each news cycle. “It’s not about eliminating the brand from breaking news events, because that takes out a chunk of topics,” she said. “You can’t just block huge chunks of places where the audience might spend 20% of their day. … Brands have different tolerance levels. Disney would be very different than an alcohol brand.” The advertising industry has learned a lot about brand safety measures during the past year. At the beginning of each news cycle there’s typically a lot of scrutiny around keywords, “trigger moments,” as Wilensky calls them. Much consideration goes into determining if it will “become a blip in the news or something more long term,” she said. Research to determine those keywords or trigger moments includes a group at Xaxis focused on keeping brand and their messages “out of the dark alleys of the internet” by continually “researching negative keywords at the beginning of every news cycle,” Wilensky said. “This might mean the creation of new terms,” she said. Based on the keywords, Xaxis creates safety guidelines and standards for each brand at the beginning of each news cycle. Those lists are brought to the brand’s lead marketer for sign-off, ensuring they meet all standards and guidelines. Implementing the strategy includes a combination of manual and automated processes. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/2oB2PsH January 25, 2021 at 10:07AM Google Expects 'FLoC' To Replace Third-Party Cookies In Ads https://ift.tt/3sUh90O Google on Monday released information on the progress it has made to replace third-party cookies for online advertisers in its project called Privacy Sandbox, which consist of technology that represents how its online advertising and measurement products will work on the web. The company feels "confident" in the progress being made with Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), a solution that focuses on privacy that clusters large groups of people with similar interests by hiding them in the crowd and anonymizing then, and keeps the user information on the device rather than sharing it across the web. “It might be hard to imagine how advertising on the web could be relevant, and accurately measured without third-party cookies,” Chetna Bindra, group product manager, user trust and privacy at Google, wrote in a post. Tests show advertisers can expect to see at least 95% of the conversions per dollar spent when compared to cookie-based advertising. advertisement advertisement Google’s push to protect user privacy and adhere to government regulations worldwide led it to create Privacy Sandbox, which it made public in August 2019. The project consists of many tools changing the way Google will conduct online advertising and privacy in the future. In turn, it will alter the way advertisers work with its products. It started with the idea that groups of people with common interests could replace individual identifiers. The ad-tech community also has worked with Google, which has received proposals from Criteo, NextRoll, Magnite, and RTB House. Chrome also published a new proposal called FLEDGE which expands on a previous Chrome proposal called TURTLEDOVE, and takes into account the industry feedback they have heard, including the idea of using a “trusted server” designed to store information about a campaign’s bids and budgets. Google intends to make FLEDGE available for testing through trials later this year with the opportunity for ad-tech companies to use the API under a “bring your own server” model. Google also worked on a way for companies to distinguish actual visitors from fraudulent traffic. Chrome’s March update to support a new type of Trust Token issuer that would improve the detection of fraud on mobile devices while safeguarding user privacy. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/2oB2PsH January 25, 2021 at 09:23AM
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5 Standout Traits of the Best B2B Content Marketers https://ift.tt/3phFewm My favorite part of playing a sports video game is the “Create a Player” function. It gives me the opportunity to set realism aside and dream up the most legendary, dominant athletic specimen imaginable. On the basketball court, no real-life point guard would be able to match up against “Dimes McGee,” my customized 7-foot-10 wunderkind with 99 ratings for shooting, passing, ball-handling, speed, and defense. Talk about optimization! What if you could “create a player” in B2B content marketing? Which attributes would you want to max out in order to fabricate the most successful practitioner possible? It’s a fun and interesting question to contemplate, in large part because the answers now are different than even a few years ago. Which traits and characteristics define the most effective B2B content marketers in 2021? Optimized: 5 Traits of the Best B2B Content MarketersCertain requisite skills, such as being creative and a good communicator, are so obvious as to go without stating. But a new set of traits are emerging that differentiate the best B2B content marketers in this reshaped business environment. If you’re looking to hire a content marketer (or agency), or you’re looking to grow your own skills, these are the traits worth emphasizing.CuriousThe game is changing. New innovations are disrupting the profession and many fundamentals are in flux. In charting the top B2B marketing trends for 2021, TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden envisions a massive shift toward digital-first tactics and practices, citing AI and chatbots as technologies that will help lead the way as organizations zero in on digital customer engagement. Adapting to this revolution requires a curious and open mind. Those who are rigidly set in their ways, or committed to conventional thinking, will be in trouble. We must be willing — eager, even — to challenge our own assumptions about our audiences’ needs, and how best to meet them. A great B2B content marketer is not someone who insists they know everything. Instead, it’s someone who readily admits what they don’t know, questions what they think they do know, and shows a fervent curiosity to learn more. [bctt tweet="“A great B2B content marketer is not someone who insists they know everything, but someone who readily admits what they don’t.” @NickNelsonMN #B2B #ContentMarketing " username="toprank"]AnalyticalThis can be a sticking point. Given that content marketers tend to be writers by trade, many of us (myself included) are averse to math. So the idea of crunching numbers and calculating metrics can feel a bit daunting. The good news is that marketing analytics tools can handle most of the math for us; it is incumbent upon B2B content marketers to take these insights and draw meaningful, actionable conclusions from them. Put another way, being analytical means being scientific in our curiosity. Intuition and instincts are important, but they should never overshadow solid evidence in our thinking. The widespread availability of data today brings a world of opportunities to verify, validate, or revise any theory we might have. For practical guidance on the subject, I encourage you to check out Annie Leuman’s post on how data insights can lead your B2B content marketing strategy, from benchmarking and goals to audience and personas to content mapping and more.BoldA critical caveat: being analytical doesn’t mean content marketers should get bogged down in a chronic state of decision paralysis. While remaining flexible, and vigilantly mindful of analytics, we should be ready to pursue our convictions decisively and take the lead. The newly released Edelman Trust Barometer 2021 lays out a mandate for businesses and CEOs: “Act first, talk later.” With businesses currently being rated as more trustworthy than NGOs, government, or media, content marketers have a unique opportunity to speak up and solidify the credibility of their brands. Those who boldly capitalize and deliver for their audiences will separate themselves this year. [bctt tweet="“Act first, talk later.” - @EdelmanPR on the path to boldly building trust in 2021. #B2B #ContentMarketing" username="toprank"]EmpatheticAnother key directive from Edelman’s latest report: “have the courage to provide straight talk, but also empathize and address people’s fears.” This is not necessarily an easy balance to strike. In a recent survey by Singular, CMOs identified empathy as the biggest supertrend in marketing this year after digital transformation. Nothing else came remotely close. Content marketers are the primary conduits between a business and its potential customers. They help internal stakeholders understand the audience’s needs and values, and they shape external perceptions of how the brand is serving those needs and values. Empathy is instrumental in ensuring these two sides align. To an extent, empathy comes naturally, but it can be honed and strengthened through a curious and analytical mentality. “Experienced marketers are being more strategic about ways to invest in customer experiences to showcase customer satisfaction and retention in addition to complementing customer acquisition strategies,” wrote Brian Solis in a post from Forbes last year that remains highly relevant today. “By measuring the customer’s real-time and aggregated experience, marketers can learn exactly how and where to improve them, in times with-COVID and post-COVID markets.”PatientIt was almost exactly one year ago that I laid out this top priority for B2B marketers in 2020: slow your roll. From customer experiences to strategy-setting to social media management and SEO tactics, I saw opportunities to take a beat and become more methodical. As it turns out, we didn’t have much choice. The arrival of a global pandemic soon after forced the business world at large to slow down as budgets were reduced, employees were confined to their homes, and buying decisions were delayed. Distractions and disruptions ran rampant. LinkedIn’s State of Sales 2020 report found 44% of respondents saying their customers’ sales cycles had grown longer in the face of COVID-19. Now, we just need to adjust. Patience will be a virtue for those B2B content marketers who thrive in the year to come: patience with coworkers, customers, business partners, and measuring results. Keeping a positive and productive mindset through a year of transition and uncertainty projects confidence and stability. As the old saying goes: “Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.”Bring Your Marketing ‘A Game’ in 2021Through curiosity, analysis, boldness, empathy, and patience, B2B content marketers can be prepared for everything that comes their way in 2021. Let these traits shine and your output will do the same. Ready for more advice on overcoming the challenges ahead? Learn which attributes will drive the most successful influencer marketing efforts this year by clicking over to Lee’s post for tips and examples.The post 5 Standout Traits of the Best B2B Content Marketers appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®. Mobile Marketing,SEO via Hubspot https://ift.tt/2wiHYzh January 25, 2021 at 07:04AM Still Casual, But Less Dirty: Mobile Gaming https://ift.tt/39ZrrUB About a year ago, I explained that mobile gamers are, in the eyes of console and PC gamers like myself, "dirty casuals." This is not meant to be an insult, but rather an acknowledgment that the mass majority of mobile gamers are counted as such regardless of what kind of game they play on mobile devices. For example, people who play solitaire on their phones are just as much the "mobile gamer" as people who now play "Call of Duty" on mobile. Obviously, those two games are worlds apart -- shooting enemies left and right vs. flipping cards at your own pace -- but more and more marketing opportunities are coming to mobile gaming. In light of this, I am revisiting this subject to make an important addendum. While mobile gaming still might be for more casual players overall, many high-profile gamers have created mobile-friendly versions of their games, signaling the increased presence and marketability of mobile gaming. "Fortnite," "Call of Duty," and "PUBG," while generally played more often on PCs and consoles, are garnering a strong mobile presence. "League of Legends" is the most recent on this list, with the upcoming release of "Wild Rift," a mobile version of the original PC/Mac game. advertisement advertisement Just the other day, Twitch announced that Samsung will be the exclusive mobile gaming partner for its "Twitch Rivals" esports competition series. While details have not yet been provided, Samsung users will get bonus perks and rewards for tuning in to Twitch via their smartphone, and have a regular event called “Mobile Mondays” where mobile gamers can compete for cash prizes. Samsung is not the only mobile provider to move further into esports and gaming. AT&T -- a company that has recently become involved in gaming through its relationships with ESL Mobile tournaments and 5G capabilities -- just entered another partnership with esports/gaming brand 100 Thieves. Together they will create “original gaming content and live events highlight 5G and AT&T Fiber.” In addition, mobile gaming is getting some console integration support. Many console controllers can now be connected by Bluetooth to phones for convenience, with phone-case maker Otterbox even producing clips to interconnect user's phones with the controller at a comfortable resting position. Mobile gaming generated $73.8 billion in 2020 -- more than half of total digital video game revenue at $126 billion, according to SuperData. Total revenue for 2020 is projected to be somewhere around $180 billion. In addition, 8 of the top 10 highest-grossing free-to-play titles in 2020 were mobile games. While I still believe mobile gaming is less sophisticated than PC and console gaming, from a marketing perspective, mobile gaming not only brings in dollars, but also garners a significant player base, with the rise of major titles becoming mobile-friendly. Ultimately, the question will be how advertisers and marketers can work with mobile games to create unique and engaging partnerships, rather than continue the status quo of 10- to-15-second ads that interrupt free-to-play mobile gameplay and get little attention from players. In fact, many of those targeted ads will no longer be possible, as Apple -- and probably soon Google/Android -- have announced that for further privacy protection there will no longer be automatic IDFA -- aka Identification For Advertisers -- for iOS/Apple products. What this means is that advertisers will no longer be notified when a phone user has taken an action such as clicking on their ad in a browser and then installing, using, or interacting with ads in their app. Although the data was always in aggregate form and never individual, it enabled advertisers to make more insight-driven decisions. Without IDFA, advertisers can't just target and fire away ads on mobile platforms. As mobile gaming gains an increased streaming and esports presence, marketers will have to consider authenticity, creativity, and format to achieve the best results. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile https://ift.tt/2oB2PsH January 25, 2021 at 04:59AM |
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