A sign of the times
We don’t need to tell you twice that life has been turned upside down since we kicked off the ‘20s. But, as marketers, it’s good to know exactly how behavior and interactions online are changing in this new normal.
And, for looking at how behavior has changed, there’s nothing better than cold, hard data. For that reason exactly, Facebook just published a massive report about how people are connecting online.
Need insights for your marketing? Look no further:
- People just want a community. It’s something that’s been said time and time again since the spring: People are turning online for the communities they used to enjoy in person. A majority of people worldwide said they downloaded a free game just for the multiplayer mode, and more than 1 in 5 people are turning to online communities for stress management.
- This isn’t going away anytime soon. One theme throughout Facebook’s entire report is that many people who have developed new habits over the past few months plan on continuing them for the long haul. So, even though the world may be trying to inch towards normalcy, people’s habits may remain the same. Good news for e-commerce, right?
- Cash is no longer king. People are increasingly using alternate forms of payment, and consumers over the age of 65 are showing increased support for digital payments!
The Crew’s take: The entire report from Facebook is more than 20 pages, and you can check it out here to learn more. The big takeaway, though? The pandemic has accelerated the shift to digital, and it looks like that shift may be a permanent one.
In other words, keep those digital marketing skills sharp – you’re going to need them more than ever.
E-COMMERCE
Yes, no, or maybe?
If you’re in e-commerce, customers landing on your site can generally be classified into three categories:
- The “yes” customers, who love your offer and product – and are willing to get through a poorly-designed website to purchase from you.
- The “no” customers, who probably won’t buy your product no matter how great your landing page and offer is.
- Finally – and most importantly – the “maybe” customers. These are people who will be make-or-break depending on how effectively you’re marketing to them.
Those “maybe” customers are the most interesting. And generally, they’re the most important, which is why Youssef Bouzaien just wrote a guide in the Ecom Empires Facebook group with some landing page tips to convert that maybe into a yes.
He suggests using the AIDA model (Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action):
- Awareness. This doesn’t have much to do with landing pages – don’t worry too much about it when you’re optimizing for conversions.
- Interest. Your prospects should be able to understand your offer, and be interested in it, quickly – Youssef uses 5 seconds as a rule of thumb. Keep your landing pages snappy and efficient.
- Desire. Provide a section showing others using your product.
- Action. Include multiple, clear calls to action on the page.
You can check out Youssef’s full post here. The AIDA model is a foundational principle for more than just landing pages, too. It applies to almost all kinds of marketing!
This is one of those things that’s can be easier said than done, though… Don’t expect a perfect landing page on your first try!
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YOUTUBE
Handing over the keys
It’s not very controversial to say that there’s pretty much nobody better at YouTube than Jimmy Donaldson – aka MrBeast.
He made an hour-long appearance on the The CouRage and Nadeshot Show podcast yesterday, and he dropped some useful insights that are important for any of you out there who are interested in YouTube.
Whether you’re trying to create your own channel or you’re building one for a brand, here’s some advice from MrBeast himself:
- Get uncomfortably creative. Jimmy mentioned how it’s easy to look back and understand how a viral video got so many views (hindsight is 2020, right?), but at the time, those videos would have been viewed as risks. Take risks with your content and get rewarded!
- Q4 is good news for YouTubers. If the thought of Q4 being a time to kick back and rake in the cash makes you jealous, then you should probably start getting jealous. While marketers are frantically scaling up spend, YouTubers are benefitting from the rising CPMs – a good way to capitalize if you start a channel!
- Reinvest, reinvest, reinvest. Underneath all the glitzy YouTube videos, Jimmy is a marketer and he does it incredibly well. One of the selling points of his content is that it’s absurd – and it’s so absurd because he reinvests almost every penny of what he makes back into his content.
Think outside of the box, too. This advice applies for more platforms than just YouTube!
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
TECH: Google and Apple are under investigation for a secret deal where Google paid up to $12B per year to Apple for making Google the default search engine on iOS devices.
FACEBOOK: As an update to their existing Facebook Gaming framework, the company has announced several cloud-streaming games on the platform. It’s not fancy – yet – but it’s a promising start.
YOUTUBE: If you read the MrBeast section earlier in this email and are ready to create your own channel, a couple features announced yesterday should make the video process a little more engaging!
GOOGLE: The company is investing $350M into online shopping platform Tokopedia, alongside Temasek. Tokopedia is an online marketplace predominant in Indonesia.
BRAIN TEASER
What is in the middle of March and April?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
This is probably the best innovation of the century
Especially if you love McFlurries more than you love stable Facebook Ads CPMs…
But let’s get serious for a second: McDonald’s broken ice cream machines are one of fast food’s stickiest mysteries.
The problem is so common that you can find countless memes about broken McDonalds’ ice cream machines. Look at this one! Or this one!
Yes, enough memes… So let’s smoothly transition to the big piece of news:
A German dude fixed this widespread problem.
Rashiq Zahid is the name of the hero. And 2000 lines of code is what he needed to build a map that tracks which ice cream machines aren’t working at roughly 10k different McDonald’s restaurants across the US – so you can check the status at your local McDonald’s before you head out.
Unfortunately, social distancing rules prevent us from reaching this dude, giving him a hug, and enjoying a McFlurry or two. But rest assured, when the pandemic has settled down, that’ll be the first thing on our priority list.