Welcome 2019 Pantone Color of the Year!

Vibrant, yet mellow PANTONE 16-1546 Living Coral embraces us with warmth and nourishment to provide comfort and buoyancy in our continually shifting environment. An animating and life-affirming coral hue with a golden undertone that energizes and enlivens with a softer edge.

In reaction to the onslaught of digital technology and social media increasingly embedding into daily life, we are seeking authentic and immersive experiences that enable connection and intimacy. Sociable and spirited, the engaging nature of PANTONE 16-1546 Living Coral welcomes and encourages lighthearted activity. Symbolizing our innate need for optimism and joyful pursuits, PANTONE 16-1546 Living Coral embodies our desire for playful expression.

Representing the fusion of modern life, PANTONE Living Coral is a nurturing color that appears in our natural surroundings and at the same time, displays a lively presence within social media.

PANTONE 16-1546 Living Coral emits the desired, familiar, and energizing aspects of color found in nature. In its glorious, yet unfortunately more elusive, display beneath the sea, this vivifying and effervescent color mesmerizes the eye and mind. Lying at the center of our naturally vivid and chromatic ecosystem, PANTONE Living Coral is evocative of how coral reefs provide shelter to a diverse kaleidoscope of color.

Millennials Will Soon Be Outnumbered.

Gen Z will comprise 32 percent of the global population of 7.7 billion in 2019, nudging ahead of millennials, who will account for a 31.5 percent share, based on Bloomberg analysis of United Nations data, and using 2000/2001 as the generational split.

People born in 2001 will turn 18 next year, meaning many will enter university, be eligible to vote and, depending on their citizenship, smoke or drink alcohol without breaking the law. Gen Zers have never known a non-digital world and have grown up amid events such as the “war on terror” and Global Recession.

“The key factor that differentiated these two groups, other than their age, was an element of self-awareness versus self-centeredness,” according to “Rise of Gen Z: New Challenge for Retailers,” a report by Marcie Merriman, an executive director at Ernst & Young LLP. Millennials were “more focused on what was in it for them. They also looked to others, such as the companies they did business with, for solutions, whereas the younger people naturally sought to create their own solutions.”

The demographic handover is good news for delivery services, gadget makers and the so-called gig economy. Meanwhile, it presents new challenges to educators, event planners, luxury brands and even golfers — a game where the average age of U.S. participants now exceeds 50.

“Each generation comes with a unique set of behaviors and presents a unique set of challenges for those looking to reach them,” according to a report by research firm Nielsen Holdings Plc. “Gen Z are bombarded with messages and are a generation that can quickly detect whether or not something is relevant to them.”

For this Bloomberg comparison, millennials were defined as people born in 1980 through 2000, with Gen Z classified as anyone born starting in 2001 — at least until the next meaningful cohort emerges. The U.S. Census Bureau also bookends the generations at the end of 2000.

William Strauss and Neil Howe, American historians and authors who first coined the term “millennials,” use 1982 and 2004 as the cutoff years. The Pew Research Center defines those born in 1981 through 1996 as millennials, a time-frame also used by Ernst & Young in the survey Merriman wrote about.

Even using Bloomberg’s 2000/2001 demarcation, demographics differ depending on location.

Millennials will continue to represent the bigger proportion in the world’s four largest economies: U.S., China, Japan and Germany. The combined population just shy of 2 billion in those four countries will have a ratio of 100 millennials for every 73 in Gen Z next year.

India, which has about 1.3 billion people versus China’s 1.4 billion, will see its Gen Z population rise to 472 million next year, 51 percent more than China’s projected 312 million.

According to an annual survey of young people by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd., “Gen Z respondents anticipate being slightly happier than their millennial counterparts,” with those in emerging markets in both groups more optimistic about economics and social progress than counterparts in developed nations.

“In China and India, 70 percent of the younger group expects to be happier than their parents,” according to the report, which surveyed about 10,000 millennials and 2,000 Gen Zers. “However, across Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States (39 percent), the outlook is much less optimistic.”

In Sub-Saharan Africa, where Gen Z already outnumbers millennials in all but two of about 50 nations thanks to reductions in early-childhood mortality or higher birthrates, growth comes with challenges. The World Bank estimates that one in seven youth in the region actively seeking work can’t find a job. In South Africa, the unemployment rate for those aged 15-24 is about 57 percent.

METHODOLOGY: UN population division data reports population by five-year age groups. Headcounts for less than five full-year groups (i.e., Gen Z population ages 15-18) were extrapolated based on general distribution pattern. The 2019 Gen Z population was calculated by estimating crude births in 2019, adjusted for infant mortality (death per 1,000 live births for those under age 1), adding 2018 total Gen Z, adjusted for those affected by under five/child mortality not yet counted, millennial population in 2019 adjusted by the general adult mortality rate.

 

 

2018 Graphic Design Trends You Need to Know

2018 is shaping up to be an exciting year for graphic and print design.

Read on to discover the top five graphic design trends which will be making an impact in 2018, from color fonts to maximalism, and everything in-between!

1. Color Fonts

Color fonts, also known as chromatic fonts, are OpenType fonts with additional data attached in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format. This means that color font files store extra data, such as textures, gradients, and colors.

In line with the trend for all things maximalist (see below), color fonts are over-the-top and bordering on bad taste. Above all, they’re meant to be bringing the fun back into design, which makes them a welcome departure from the rigours of minimalism.

2. Animated Typography

In digital design, we’re also going to see the color font trend go one step further with animated versions of color fonts. These will bring an extra dimension of interactivity and fun to branding, social media content and apps in 2018.

3. Texture in Print Design

The design industry’s focus on digital design has shifted attention unfairly away from print design in recent years. Not ones to be discouraged, print designers have been quietly and skillfully carving out a niche for print design, which makes it just as relevant in an online-obsessed world.

There’s something about printed materials which web design can’t rival—it’s the physicality and tactility of print that makes it an indispensable marketing tool for brands.

In 2018 designers will play up this difference, and be more experimental with textures in their printwork. Recycled and bespoke papers, embossing, foiling, quilting and high-gloss finishes bring an extra element of textural surprise to otherwise pared-back designs.

The focus is on emphasizing the beauty of natural texture and imperfections in the paper stock, making these into business cards you can’t help but want to pick up and stroke.

The resurgence of fabric-bound books will also continue this year, with more cover designers opting for linen and wool textures in their designs, adding to the tactility and treasurability of beautiful books.

4. Maximalism and Eccentricity

There’s a sea change in graphic design at the moment. Tastefully minimal design suddenly seems a little, well, boring.

The worlds of fashion and interiors have already taken note of the new taste for maximalism.

In graphic design too, the mood for 2018 is maximalist, with designers starting to be more creative with color, embellishment and detail. Take your cues from folk design, retro styling and Wes Anderson movies to channel the trend in your own designs.

5. Line Art Branding and Packaging

Line art is the successor of flat design, and the style was popular across icon and app design last year. In 2018, we’ll see the line art trend move into branding and packaging design.

It’s a subtle style that instantly makes labels and boxes look cutting-edge, and it really sings when set in metallic foil against a backdrop of pastel colors. If you’re not completely on board with the maximalist trend (see above) this is a great halfway house. You can bring in lots of detail, and still keep the design looking simple and pared-back.

Be sure to call Radsick Ad Group if you would like a fresh, updated look for your businesses marketing materials in 2018.

6 Trends That Will Impact Digital Marketing in 2018 and Beyond

We’re more than halfway through 2017 and marketers already are looking ahead to 2018 to determine next year’s direction for their digital marketing campaigns.

Many are wondering if they should stay the course they charted in 2017 or make changes.

Here are 6 developing digital marketing trends to consider, both for the rest of the year and beyond.

1 – Personalized Content: Think Unique Customer Experiences

More than half of B2B buyers rely on content to research their buying decisions. What’s more, 47 percent want to review three to five pieces of content before they engage with sales reps.

Clearly, content is the beating heart of every marketing campaign. But as digital marketing matures, so does the nature of content. One of the increasingly important factors in creating content that connects with consumers is personalization—content specifically tailored to both customers’ needs and where they are in the buying process.

Consider These Stats and Facts

  • 94 percent of digital professionals believe personalization is “critical to current and future success,” according to Monetate
  • Personalized content performs 42 percent better than non-personalized content, according to HubSpot
  • Marketers who deliver personalized web experiences are getting double-digit returns in marketing performance and response, according to Forbes’ Publish or Perish analysis
  • 94 percent of senior-level executives believe delivering personalization is critical or important for reaching customers, according to PWC’s Digital Services group

Tips to Leverage Personalized Content

  1. Start by targeting the “low-hanging fruit” in your client data: names and emails—most visitors will share these with you in exchange for valuable content, such as an eBook.
  2. Once you have this basic data, start lead nurturing campaigns offering prospects access to more great content in exchange for more data.
  3. Add value to visitors’ personalized experiences by asking: Will this help prospects and customers solve their problems and better understand our solution?

2 – SEO and Content Conversion: Help Them Work Together

Few companies discuss marketing without including a conversation about SEO. The two go together like peanut butter and jelly. However, the two functions have reached a point of conversion, according to a study by BrightEdge. In the survey, 97 percent of digital marketers believe that SEO and content have become more integrated or are converging into a single function. The marriage of content marketing and SEO impacts marketers’ three most important content performance metrics: conversions, engagement and traffic.

Consider These Stats and Facts

  • 52 percent of marketers recognize that fluency in SEO is critical to long-term content marketing success, according to BrightEdge
  • Organic search drives 51 percent of content consumption

Tips to Leverage the SEO and Content Conversion

  1. Use SEO data to discover how prospects consume and engage with your content. Identify what generates interest and results in prospects who take action.
  2. Conduct ongoing customer analysis, because prospects’ interests can change quickly.
  3. Consider how customers engage with different types of content across channels and devices and at different stages of the journey.
  4. Always be measuring. Set realistic and concrete goals for your content at every stage—from awareness to conversions.

3 – Social Media Marketing: Sharpen Your Focus

In the coming years, B2B marketing leaders expect to spend most of their time on social media. As a result, social media budgets will expand, according to a TEKsystems 2017 study. Central to the success of this expansion is understanding consumers’ point-of-view: Namely, they want consistent brand messaging and intuitive interactions whenever they encounter a brand or are considering making purchases.

Consider These Stats and Facts

  • Facebook continues to dominate social media use, according to Top Rank Blog
  • Social marketing is shifting toward emotionally engaging content and storytelling because strong emotions increase content’s “spreadability,” according to Oregon Web Solutions
  • By the end of 2017, we’ll likely see most of the major platforms enabling users to create and share video content, create and share live video content and discover news and what’s going on around them (based on location), according  to Buffer App

Tips to Leverage Social Media Marketing

  1. Ask: How do current customers feel about their experience interacting with our brand on social media?
  2. Determine which networks are most important for your business and spend the most time creating fully fleshed out social presences there.
  3. Consider dropping or reducing your time on social platforms that aren’t delivering lead generation and brand awareness.

4 – Video Marketing: More is Better

Remember the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words? Consider the new adage about video: Digital marketing expert James McQuivey estimates that a single minute of video content is the equivalent of 1.8 million words. Clearly, video is a critical direction in the future of digital marketing. Cisco Systems’ recent Visual Networking Index report found that video will continue to deepen its dominance on internet traffic with volumes increasing fourfold between 2015 and 2020. By 2019, video will represent over 80 percent of all internet traffic. Viewed another way, the internet will support 3 trillion internet video minutes per month by 2020, which equates to 5 million years of video per month, or about 1 million video minutes every second.

Consider These Stats and Facts

Tips to Leverage Video Marketing

  1. Assess how much video content you currently use and the ROI. If you haven’t done enough, expand production.
  2. To make your videos as memorable as possible, ensure that you’re keeping them in line with your brand strategy.
  3. Boost your SEO by adding video to your landing pages, website and content offers.
  4. Experiment with different lengths and subject matter for your videos.

5 – Mobile Marketing: Time to Get “Mobile Friendly”

It’s full steam ahead on mobile marketing in 2017—and beyond. For one thing, Google’s announced mobile-first algorithm is expected to launch in early 2018. With this change, Google will primarily index mobile content and use it to decide how to rank its results, regardless of whether you’re on desktop or mobile. There no longer will be any type of “mobile-friendly” adjustment done just for mobile users.

Consider These Stats and Facts

Tips to Leverage Mobile Marketing (From Google)

  1. If you have a responsive or dynamic serving site where the primary content and markup is equivalent across mobile and desktop, you should not have to change anything for Google’s upcoming mobile-first algorithm.
  2. If you have a site configuration where the primary content and markup is different across mobile and desktop, you should consider making some changes to your site, including making sure to serve structured markup for both the desktop and mobile version.
  3. If you’re a site owner who has only verified your desktop site in Search Console, add and verify your mobile version.

6 – Digital Advertising: Dominating the Future

If you’re not yet engaged in digital advertising, now is the time. According to a new report from Facebook and IHS Technology, by 2020, media buyers will spend $84.5 billion on mobile advertising, with mobile accounting for 75.9 percent of all digital ad spend globally.

Consider These Stats and Facts

Tips to Leverage Digital Marketing

  1. Experiment with ads on different social media platforms to see which perform better for your brand.
  2. Leverage advanced ad-targeting tools, such as location-based advertising, which put your ads in front of users at the moment they’re in your area of interest.
  3. Privacy is a real concern for all customers, so be sure to enable opt-in and opt-out in your advertising.

The future developments in digital marketing are approaching at blinding speed. This is no time to rely only on what’s worked in the past. Now is the time to start planning for—and even implementing—the leading trends that will impact digital marketing success in 2018 and beyond.

Don’t delay…Call Radsick Ad Group at 727.866.9365 to get a jump start on your 2018 Marketing Plan.

 

5 Logo Design Trends for 2017

Paying attention to design trends can help define your brand voice.

Applying trends to your logo creates an ‘at-a-glance’ reminder of what your company represents. A great logo conveys answers to big questions about your brand, such as: What message are you trying to convey? Who are you trying to reach? What does the design represent? A logo has to answer these questions in a split second— now, that’s a lot of pressure!

Design trends definitely ebb and flow, but the foundation of a good logo design never changes. New design approaches can elevate your brand (or sadly the opposite, trends used in the wrong context can lead to trouble for your brand image), but learning the fundamentals of what makes a good logo is key. It never hurts to get a refresh on the characteristics that make a logo great:

It’s memorable.
If consumers can’t remember what your logo looks like, they’re not going to remember your brand.

It can stand the test of time.
The world around your brand will change, but your logo shouldn’t be redesigned every year to accommodate the new world; it needs to be able to hold its own.

It’s appropriate.
Find what is most important for you AND your brand to convey. What works for another brand will most likely not work for yours. A pretty font and beautiful colors won’t mean anything to the consumer if it doesn’t relate to the brand; a logo needs to be meaningful.

It’s unique.
A brand needs to stay relevant. Don’t get lost in the shuffle of the thousands of new start-up ventures with a logo that looks just like everyone else.

Now that you know what makes a logo great, let’s take a look at recent trends in logo design:

Hand-drawn:  Sincere. Fresh+ Fun. These are just some of the emotions that this type of logo design helps exude. A lighter approach is perfect if you are trying to stray from sophistication. Set your brand apart from the rest with this style  of design.

Simplified: Lately, brands have been switching gears and are going back to basics. Minimalism is here to stay, and we should all be happy about that! What worked in the golden age of design is definitely still working now. Sometimes keeping it simple is the way to go.

Geometric: Circles, triangles, squares, lines… these are the elements that make up the classic approach to geometric logo design, making it another trend that will never die. Simple geometric shapes are universal and have a long history in the design world. Modern businesses are adapting this trend and running with it. Interesting new logo forms emerge when designers start to play with geometry.

Color Transitions: While there is something strong about a solid color logo… a nice gradient or ombré can really help set a tone for a brand. Bold colors make a statement! This trend is all over the design world in 2017 and is definitely not limited to just logos.

Vintage: Looking for a throw-back vibe? Nostalgia is always in style. Your brand personality can really shine with this trend.

Bonus: Who doesn’t love a bonus trend? Animated/dynamic logos are holding their own this year. Motion design gives your brand a little pizzazz, but don’t animate your logo just because you can. The animation needs to relate to your brand, solidifying what your brand stands for.

Remember, a logo is a shortcut a consumer will use to figure out a brand. First impressions and snap judgment of your company will most likely be based on this very design element. So while they may be small, logos are your best silent partner.

6 Tips For Running A Social Media “Influencer” Marketing Campaign

Influencer marketing is all the rage these days.

Businesses that utilize influencer marketing have a 37% better retention rate  than those that don’t rely on word of mouth. Again, a Forrester report showed that 80% of all B2C and B2B purchases involve some form of word-of-mouth recommendation during the purchase cycle.

Though there are pros and cons with social media marketing, using influencers leverages the commercial value of influence and gets quick results, usually without any cons when properly executed. Adding this to the huge decrease of the CTR for display ads, which is 0.06%, many businesses have started to add influencer marketing to their arsenal.

But how can you create an effective influencer marketing campaign?

Here are 6 tips to use.

  1. Know your “who”…This is the biggest mistake people make in any form of marketing: they just jump in and try to get anyone who can pay them money.

You need to target small groups of people. You need to be the one who comes to these people’s minds when it comes to solving the problem your product solves.

So how can you do this? You need to know your target audience better than they do. That’s why you need to go target small groups of people and make your message clearer and sharper by targeting it toward that group.

How can you know your “who” demographic better than they know themselves?

Do the empathy map exercise. It’s a simple exercise where you can either bring members of your target audience into your company, or you could imagine yourself as a member of your target audience.

Then start answering these questions:

  • What does your customer see in her environment?
  • What does she hear from her friends and family and everyone else with whom she associates?
  • What does she think and feel? What is important to her? What are her most important emotions?
  • What does she say and do? What are her attitudes?
  • What is her pain? What are her biggest frustrations and obstacles?
  • What does she stand to gain from your product? What will she achieve with it?
  1. Start with the end in mind… Before you actually start your campaign, you need to start with the end in mind.

You need to know the goals you want to achieve from that campaign and work backwards. This will help you determine the budget you need to set aside to reach your goals. Make sure to keep key performance indicators (KPIs) in mind to measure the effectiveness of your campaign from the get-go.

These indicators could be:

  • Audience reach
  • Views
  • Engagement
  • Increase in followers
  • Sales
  1. Make sure the influencer is a good fit…Before you hire an influencer and start thinking about your campaign, you need to make sure that he or she is the perfect fit for you and your brand. Use a platform like Promo Affiliates which connects brands with suitable social influencers.

The influencers will be representing your brand, and if he or she has values that don’t align with your social media governance program, they’ll do more damage than good in the long run.

  1. Don’t make all the content yourself; have the influencer create it…The influencer has a very specific, attention-grabbing personality. That’s what attracts people to them. That’s why you don’t need to make the content yourself. Actually, you shouldn’t. Let the influencer do most of the creative work.

He or she already knows their audience and they know what’s going to resonate with them. But you can always offer to help. Give them a hand and maybe share things that are working with other influencers so they can try for themselves and see the results.

The most important part is that your influencer should be the main act when it comes to creating engaging content because he or she knows the audience better than you.

   5. Don’t always go with big names…When people start thinking about influencer marketing, they think they should go to the big people in the industry, the people who have more followers and so on.

Actually, that’s not always the best strategy, especially when you’re just starting out.

You need to go to the people who have the biggest number of people who are part of your specific “who.” Also, when you go with smaller names, they may be more engaging, which will give you higher ROI.

Plus it’s easier to go with people who haven’t done any campaigns or have only done a few. It will be less expensive, of course.

  1. Track, measure and analyze…Your job isn’t done after you create the content and publish it. You need to track the results and analyze them based on the KPIs you set.

It’s not just about the likes and views your content receives. Check your traffic stats and your sales count. Did you reach your goals? If yes, then great! Keep rocking with more campaigns.

If not, then you need to find where the problem is and how can you solve it the next time. After all, influencer marketing is a long-term game.

So track the results, measure its effectiveness and analyze your metrics to make sure you get the most bang for your buck.

Call Debbie at Radsick Ad Group to help you with your next “Influencer” marketing campaign.

Reprint: Forbes 5/17

 

 

Tried & True Web Design Practices

When thinking about your website – think about your users/target audience.

Some questions to ask:
– What type of device is your end-user searching on – desktop, tablet, smartphone?
– What do they want to do when they arrive at your page?
– How do you capture & maintain their attention?
– What about next steps for them?

In the ever-changing world of web design, adaptability is imperative to ensure usability.

User experience is a key component when building and designing your website. Remember, your website is not for you – it’s for your users.

Tried and true practices that assure your website is delivering your brand message efficiently and effectively.

Responsive Web Design: It is critical that your website is responsive – remember screens come in all sizes. Your website must respond and adapt to the user’s device, whether that be a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. This can mean the difference between losing and gaining a client – 40% of users will move onto a different search result if yours isn’t mobile friendly.

As a user, there is nothing worse than jumbled content, impossible navigation and long load times. Consider the goals of your user. Is your typical customer making purchases on their tablet? Or are you trying to deliver impactful content to commuters using their smartphones? First, is assuring navigation buttons are visible and easy to interact with – think clicking a mouse or tapping a fingertip. When it comes to mobile, high load times scare users away – almost half of users expect a load time of two seconds or less. On that note, considering your image and video specs is imperative. If you need to have them on your mobile page at all, keep them compressed and manageable – this will help the speed and performance of your website.

Long Scroll: People are scrolling. With approximately 50% of end users on mobile devices, be it a tablet or a smartphone – easy, scrolling navigation has been proven in the market. Implementing a long scrolling website creates a platform for storytelling and visual experience. If you look at social platforms, the constant updated feed from Facebook, Twitter, and Pintrest utilize an efficient and pleasing long scroll format. It has become second nature for users to scroll through a web page.

There are important components to consider when implementing long scroll. For instance, sticky navigation, keeping your navigation bar in view while content scrolls below, assures that users can control the page at their own pace without getting lost.

Creating cohesion by changing backgrounds in order to emulate the appearance of a single page is important to consider. This breaks up the content and helps walk your user through the site.

When implementing long scroll you also need to think differently about how you analyze your SEO.

It may appear that clicks aren’t as high, however the session duration time has gone up. This is due to the amount of homepage content and information that is available and scrollable to users.
Responsive web design and long scroll are surely combatting old conventions, like the above-the-fold concept. The seamless load of a responsive webpage on any device, and the ease in which users scroll through a web page, will lead to a superior user experience – it has been tried & true.

To review your current website & to explore ways to enhance your end-user experience call Debbie at Radsick Ad Group 727.866.9365

 

Looking Ahead: 2017 Marketing Trends

It’s that time of year again, when we start looking ahead to what the new year will bring.

There were changes in 2016 in our approach to marketing, social media, and design. It was a year that focused on the consumer: consumer-centric marketing, consumer experience, consumer insights, and ways of tracking and analyzing those perceptions.

As we look at what’s ahead for digital marketing – we will need to rise to the challenge of staying ahead of emerging technologies and find strategies that emphasize targeted marketing.

Here are some key things to focus on for 2017:

Interactive Content: Last year, it was reported that audience attention spans have shortened as result of a more digital lifestyle. Keeping what little of consumers’ attention we have will depend on engaging them in the content. Blog posts, white papers, and infographics are still great content for people and search engines, but attention can easily shift away from static content. Interactive content like assessments, calculators, training modules, and games to keep your audience clicking, swiping, and sharing information will be key in engaging your audience. A great way to generate items such as these is through marketing automation.

Marketing Automation: The software used to automate repetitive marketing actions such as email, social media and other website actions.

As you are gearing up your digital strategy for 2017, there are a few things you will want to make sure you have in place.

1) Dynamic content: Dynamic content is content that “talks” to your subscribers. It puts a personal spin on your messaging and the more personal you are, the more likely you’ll convert subscribers into customers. As this strategy becomes more the norm, consumers will expect email to have more relevant content. But beware of over-personalized content – studies are showing that consumers have less tolerance for advertising that crosses this line.

For example, there are two forms of personalization:
Personal which involves facts related to an individual person; and Intimate – most people would feel hesitant about sharing the information in a professional setting. There’s a good chance that your marketing might feel a bit “creepy” for your audience if your marketing personalization is based on information that is both personal and intimate.

Basing your marketing around personal facts like what city or community they live in, how many children they have, or what they do for work are good examples, although privacy limits are always subjective. By contrast, if it’s intimate, and you’re basing your marketing display around intimate details like you overheard them talking on the phone about troubles with their wife and you start showing them ads to purchase flowers in their city, you may be crossing the line into “creepy”.

2) Drip campaigns: Drip campaigns are a set of marketing emails that will be sent out automatically on a routine schedule. These can be essential for businesses with long sales cycles. A drip campaign can help your team stay in contact with prospective leads and provide touch points that help in closing a sale. Setting up a drip campaign is the most efficient way to run a campaign without having to constantly monitor it.

3) Nurture campaigns: Just like dynamic content that changes depending on who you are contacting, a nurture campaign will segment your audience based on interaction. A nurturing campaign can be particularly effective with leads who are on the fence and need a little nudge.

The Social Scene: We’ve been seeing the influence of social media on marketing for years now. It’s a form of marketing that’s been embraced by most companies and viewed as a must-have to appear relevant in today’s world. Almost 70% of companies are still not collecting data from their social media channels – that is a crazy number, considering that social channels offer the greatest marketing opportunities out there. Suggestion for 2017: invest in social analytics.

Content…Content…Content: People’s attention spans are getting shorter. With that in mind, consider the content of your website. Information needs to be accessible as quickly and easily as possible. Great copy will always add strength to your website and is invaluable for SEO, but if something can be said clearly with a photo, animation, or short video, then do it. It all goes back to finding a better way to engage your audience in a concise and shareable way.

Remember too that your content doesn’t end with your site.

Your marketing strategy should interweave those valuable nuggets of information and brand messaging into all aspects of your digital existence. Social content and blogs are crucial aspects, and marketing channels like videos will be what blogging was seven years ago.

Content strategy is not a trend; it’s an evolution of where marketing is and will be in the foreseeable future.

Keeping up with the latest and greatest strategies is always a struggle for any business.

Give Debbie @ Radsick Ad Group a call to help your business stay ahead of the curve in 2017.

 

2017 Pantone Color of the Year: GREENERY

PANTONE 15-0343
A refreshing and revitalizing shade, GREENERY is symbolic of new beginnings.

GREENERY is a fresh and zesty yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew. Illustrative of flourishing foliage and the lushness of the great outdoors, the fortifying attributes of GREENERY signals consumers to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate.

GREENERY is nature’s neutral. The more submerged people are in modern life, the greater their innate craving to immerse themselves in the physical beauty and inherent unity of the natural world.

This shift is reflected by the proliferation of all things expressive of GREENERY in daily lives through urban planning, architecture, lifestyle and design choices globally.

A constant on the periphery, GREENERY is now being pulled to the forefront – it is an omnipresent hue around the world.

A life-affirming shade, GREENERY is also emblematic of the pursuit of personal passions and vitality.

What is the PANTONE Color of the Year? A symbolic color selection; a color snapshot of what we see taking place in our global culture that serves as an expression of a mood and an attitude.

Nature’s neutral, GREENERY is a versatile “trans-seasonal” shade that lends itself to many color combinations & can easily cross over fashion, beauty products – as well as – graphic design applications.

Welcome…PANTONE GREENERY!

 

 

 

 

Linkedin Updates

LinkedIn Launches Conversion Tracking
LinkedIn introduced conversion tracking, which offers a set of capabilities built directly into LinkedIn Campaign Manager that lets you easily measure how many leads, sign-ups, content downloads, purchases and other specific results you’re getting from your Sponsored Content and Text Ads campaigns.

This new tool will help marketers understand more about the specific ads and even the unique LinkedIn audiences that are driving your campaign conversions and generate high-quality leads, acquire new customers, and raise brand engagement among LinkedIn’s global audience of 450 million professionals.

LinkedIn Updates Publisher Experience
LinkedIn rolled out a new publishing experience that makes it even easier for you to reach and engage with your audience on LinkedIn.

The new and enhanced desktop publishing experience on LinkedIn includes a sleek intuitive interface, more text and font options and a beautiful new reading view that removes distractions and noise from the page.

According to the LinkedIn Official Blog, the new desktop publishing experience is currently only available in the U.S. and will be available to international [publishers] soon.