Marketing, Startups, and Venture Capital
Drew is a data-driven marketer with a passion for crafting exceptional brand experiences. He currently runs marketing at High Alpha, an Indianapolis-based venture studio, and previously held roles in content marketing and product marketing at ExactTarget and Salesforce. At High Alpha, Drew advises and runs marketing in the early days for the High Alpha Studio portfolio companies, helping them scale to their first $1M in revenue and build world-class marketing teams.
As I've written before, social media can be a great place to generate new leads. Your organic social reach, though, typically will reach people who have already heard of your brand and products. Social ads can be a perfect solution to augment your social strategy and bring in more new leads, brand awareness, and engagement with a unique audience.
Read MoreSuper Bowl XLIX is officially in the books. The New England Patriots have been named World Champions once again, Katy Perry wowed the world riding in on a lion, and many people now understand what it is that GoDaddy.com actually offers. After a night of parties, cheering, and some of the most prolific advertising of the year, our team here at Salesforce Marketing Cloud is providing you with a comprehensive analysis of Super Bowl XLIX advertising and social media trends.
Read MoreI've recently seen a great deal of Liberty Mutual's new commercials around accident forgiveness and new car replacement. They have a number of these commercials where a Liberty Mutual customer tells a story about their accident in front of the Statue of Liberty.
These commercials, though, are a little lackluster and bring no specific affinity toward Liberty Mutual or their brand. I think the lackluster performance of these commercials is a perfect way to demonstrate the power of visualization in advertising.
Read MoreAs the month of Christmas campaigns unfolds, I wanted to put together a list to top holiday campaigns over the last few years — except I thought I would give it a little twist. Technology has certainly changed the way brands and their audiences are interacting and communicating. This has also left an impact on holiday campaigns.
Below I’ve featured some vintage Christmas campaigns and advertisements and highlighted some of their modern-day counterparts. I hope you enjoy!
These campaigns are not creations by or related to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud. We just admire these campaigns and strategies.
Read MoreOver the past year, Salesforce Marketing Cloud has conducted a number of original research studies, benchmark reports, and marketing leadership surveys. All of this new research has given us quite a library of data and mind-blowing statistics on how both brands and consumers use technology to interact with each other.
I've compiled many of these statistics into a single list of 75 digital marketing stats from 2014 research.
Read MoreSocial media has changed the communication landscape for marketers. We know it can be hard to keep up, so the next time you’re in a pinch and don’t know how to solve a social media problem, consult this list—you might find the answer you’re looking for among these 50 social media best practices.
We’ve compiled the best benchmark tactics based on customer reviews, colleague interviews, and internal research into one comprehensive guide, 50 Social Media Best Practices. We covered everything from social media listening and engaging to advertising and measurement.
Read MoreLast week I wrote a beginner's guide to Facebook mobile app ads and discussed the different Facebook mobile app ad units and the benefits of using Facebook mobile app ads.
As a refresher, last year Facebook launched mobile app install ads and mobile app engagement and conversion ads that are designed to help you on the path to discovery, acquisition, engagement, and retention for your mobile app. This allows advertisers to engage customers at key stages in the mobile decision journey and gives you the ability to connect your mobile and social audiences in their journey with your brand.
Read MoreFacebook introduced Mobile App Install and Engagement Ads last year (see video below). Many marketers, though, are still struggling with what exactly mobile app install and mobile app engagement ads really are and how they can provide value to their business.
Read MoreYesterday Instagram announced a “new suite of business tools for brands” that will be rolled out over the next weeks and months. The suite included long-needed tools for account insights, advertising insights, and ad development. They also announced the rollout of these tools and Instagram ads for all Instagram brands in the coming future, not just their original launch brands.
Instagram, now a “community of more than 200 million worldwide”, is quickly becoming a powerful platform for businesses. There were some of the first to jump on Instagram videos—a study late in 2013 found that 40% of the top 1,000 most popular Instagram videos were from brands.
Read MoreI recently found this quote from Brian Wong, Founder and CEO of Kiip:
Read MoreThe future of companies in the advertising space shouldn’t be about the number of clicks—it’s about changing how the brand is involved in the consumer’s life. There’s an obsession with the old metrics used to define success, like reach and frequency. In the old model, the number of times a users sees something is when the brand wins.
Faith in advertising is dying while faith in peers is gaining. It has been for a long time. We as consumers are not as stupid as advertising makes it out that we are. We understand their tricks and sneaky ways. Just think, when was the last time you actually clicked on a pop-up not by accident?
The future of advertising is not in psychological tricks, gimmicks, and stretched "facts." Mass media advertising is shifting towards pure entertainment to the viewer, but the future of advertising is in facilitating word-of-mouth marketing and building brand ambassadors. The future of advertising is in trust and word of mouth, not bigger spreads.