Google thinks marketers should be more tech-savvy
If you thought being a marketer was all about creating cute ads, Google has a message for you: Wrong. In Google’s diplomatic language:
“As digital marketing becomes increasingly complex, businesses need help to solve challenges across and beyond our products, such as first-party data solutions, machine learning and more.”
This is the reason the search company just launched their first skill-based certification for marketers: Mobile Web Certification.
What you’ll learn: Mobile best practices, such user experience optimization, website speed and performance measurement.
No seriously, why does Google want me to know this? Money. “A mere 0.1-second decrease in site speed can boost conversion rates by 8%,” according to Steph Clippert, Google’s Marketing Product Manager. Google also claims that 72 percent of customers are more likely to be loyal to a company if that company provides a personal experience.
Do you feel better now, statistics nerd?
The Crew’s take: With Apple’s ATT, FloC and other recent changes, “knowing something about tech” is quickly becoming a must-have for any competent marketer. So we definitely agree with Google’s sentiment that marketers need to be more tech-savvy.
TIKTOK
TikTok wants to party in the U.S.A.
You’re only invited if you run a small business.
According to TikTok’s (party) press release, “Today we are announcing our first ever Small Biz Block Party, a 20-event workshop series where business owners can come together to learn industry-leading tools and tactics that will help them reach new communities and grow their business. All events are free and open to anyone who works at or owns a small business.”
Educational in nature: No, it’s not that type of party. It’s focused on material for growing your business using TikTok.
When: Beginning August 5, 2021.
Where: Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, etc. (the full list of cities is on the bottom of the blog post).
Alcohol? Well, it doesn’t hurt to ask. But, seeing as this is a virtual event, it’s probably a BYOB type of situation.
SPONSORED BY UTOPIA
For every problem holding back your business growth, there’s a marketer that already fixed it
And within a 3-minute talk with that marketer, you could get rid of every bottleneck stopping your business from making the money you wish.
This is why Utopia was created by @wizofecom, a community of 2200+ advanced marketers, some of them rolling 9 figures per year. And you can join it for the price of a large pizza.
E-commerce, agency, paid media, conversion rate, SEO, email marketing. There’s a question you have about those?
Turn to Utopia, and get an expert to answer it. Seriously.
Don’t be the marketer that tries to start a fire with 2 sticks. That’s what you’re doing if you rely on Google search results polluted with shallow knowledge.
If you’re just starting out, you can get a roadmap from a person that years ago was exactly where you are now.
And there’s way more in Utopia:
- 3333+ battlefield tested strategies. You can copy/paste them right away to start getting sales.
- 33+ courses on mastering any marketing skill. If you wanted to buy these courses singularly, you’d have to shell out thousands of dollars.
- Bi-weekly live calls with 7,8,9 figure brand owners.
Join Utopia for free for 3 days.
INFLUENCER MARKETING
A new, massive, influencer marketing opportunity, created by this new rule
There’s a new NCAA rule (National Collegiate Athletic Association):
It states that all Division I college athletes can make outside endorsements.
It’s a massive opportunity. NCAA sports, especially basketball and football, are huge in the United States. There will be many headlines about brands making a lot of money thanks to this new deal.
But Taylor Lagace, influencer marketing expert, and former NCAA player, has a heads-up:
Don’t fall victim to paying Division I athletes a lump sum of money in exchange for posts without doing the leg work first.
Here’s what he suggests doing to capitalize on this new rule:
1) Instead of reaching out to players, reach out to graduate assistants (GA). Every team has different GAs. They’re always looking to build rapport with the players, as they want the head coach to give them a full-time position with the team.
GAs are listed online, so you can easily find them.
2) Tell the GA you want to send free products to all the team players, with “no strings attached”.
3) According to Taylor Lagace’s experience, when they send free products to creators, around 30% of them end up posting. Each player who posts shares 2 to 3 pieces of media.
If a team has around 120 players, it means 36 players posting about your product. And roughly 72 to 108 pieces of content shared.
All this promotion comes free of cost, except for the COGS of the products.
4) Identify the 36 players that posted, and ask them to onboard an affiliate program.
5) Out of this batch of affiliates, identify the ones that bring more sales. And then, only then, start to pay them with upfront money in exchange for a promotion.
This strategy sounds extremely smart. Especially the part about reaching out to graduate assistants. However, since the opportunity is big, sending free products might not work if your competitors are already in the locker room signing paid deals.
It’s definitely worth testing if you’re on a lower budget. And something to test as soon as possible, before the big boys jump in.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
COPYWRITING: Difficult to ignore and hard to resist. That is what we all want for our copy and Joe Cunningham goes into greater detail on how to accomplish this.
SEO: If you’ve got a bunch of PDFs on your website and you’re panicking about Web Vitals, take a sigh of relief: Google will ignore PDFs for this update.
E-COMMERCE: Mayday, mayday! If you’re running WooCommerce, you should update ASAP due to a critical vulnerability.
SNAPCHAT: Did you know? Snapchat has a pixel for tracking conversions. Here’s how to put it to use.
FACEBOOK: Emojis are about to get a lot more louder. Facebook has introduced “Soundmojis” for Messenger.
SHOPIFY: If you ever wanted to create a Shopify App, this is a good time: Shopify has announced their “App Challenge” for 2021, an eight-week program to make your first Shopify app.
YOUTUBE: The video platform has a few important features for streamers. Our favorite: easy clipping. Streams usually don’t go viral, but short, 2-minute memorable clips usually do.
BRAIN TEASER
Why did the crazy train get arrested?
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.
Video games = A+ in Biology?
Some people consider video games a waste of time. Others consider gaming an educational experience.
A published study has found that Red Dead Redemption 2 players know their animals. 587 participants were asked to identify 15 different species that appear in the game, based on real animal photographs.
The results: Participants who played RDR2, on average, identified 10 of 15 animals correctly. For non-players, the average score was 7 of 15.
And the score was even higher for people who’ve played the game more recently.
While we’re not sure that spending hours playing a game is the most efficient way to learn about animals, this is a pretty cool study. If you’re a parent, next time your child’s Biology test comes up, don’t be surprised if they “practice” by playing RDR2. Science proved it works 😉