Tag: Blogs

Marketing to Gen Z: Authenticity Over Perfection

Posted on by Samantha Schmidt

Born into the digital era, Gen Z is the first generation to be fully immersed in a world of smartphones, social media, and constant internet access. Because of this, they have higher expectations from brands when it comes to digital advertising. This cohort makes up 27% of the U.S. population, and will soon become the largest group of consumers with significant buying power (Insider Intelligence). 

Brands marketing to Gen Z should prioritize meeting their media preferences, directly communicating to them without abandoning key channels for existing customers. In this article, we will discuss the values of Gen Z and how to best align your marketing strategy with those values. 

Authenticity Matters, Not Perfection

In a crowded media landscape, brands often compete for consumer attention with flashy creatives and mass media placements. With a “best foot forward” mentality, brands can get caught up in trying to show consumers the perfected image of their offerings. However, Gen Z consumers often ignore this type of content because it’s not relatable or different. They care heavily about a genuine showcasing of a brand’s values and offerings. They want to understand why the product matters, not just why they should buy it.

How can you achieve this?

Be Realistic

When using paid, over-glamoured models, Gen Z does not feel a connection with the brand. Gen Z wants to see a representation of themselves in the people showcased in advertisements, choosing brands that feel personable. Make sure your creative feels authentic to get the best attraction from the Gen Z audience. This is especially important considering this generation is the most ethnically diverse in the U.S., and they are passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Make A Stand

Gen Z consumers hold companies to a high standard for corporate social responsibility. These socially responsible individuals go out of their way to support companies that stand for social issues they value. Use marketing to showcase how your brand makes a positive impact on society. Position your brand so that when Gen Z consumers purchase they not only get a useful product but also support the causes or social views they find most meaningful. 

Show Transparency

Gen Z wants to feel involved with its chosen brands and understand how they operate. Be honest with consumers about your practices, and tell a story about why you do what you do. This will inform your audience about your ethical standards and build trust. A lack of transparency can damage a brand’s reputation. In fact, 22% of Gen Zs reported that a lack of transparency reduces their opinion of brands and products, which is more than any other generation. 

Being genuine with Gen Z audiences should be a primary concern when it comes to delivering a marketing message. This authentic approach can be executed by being realistic with your audience, making a stand for a social cause, and showing transparency in brand practices.

How to Reach Gen Z on Social Media

If you want to effectively reach Gen Z consumers, social media is the place to be. Social platforms are a key part of their daily routines. 

On average, Gen Z spends about 8 hours a day online. And 90% of Gen Z are spending a minimum of one hour per day on social media – primarily on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. These platforms are all dominated by user-generated short-form videos, which speaks to the need for brands to focus on creativity and authenticity in their content.

Sourced from E-Marketer

And they’re not just looking for entertainment on social media anymore. 50% of Gen Z make social commerce purchases (along with 51% of Millennials). Social media is a place to authentically reach Gen Z where they are spending time, but it’s also a tool to drive sales conversions.

Here are three tactics to win over Gen-Z consumers on social media:

#1 Short-Form Video

Gen Z spends less time watching TV than any other generation. They’re consuming digital video content on social media platforms instead. In particular, short-form videos have taken off in popularity over the past few years, especially among the Gen Z audiences. 

These 6-30 second videos are great for quick recognition. They require less attention span and quickly convey a message. One can argue that TikTok is the reason for the explosion of short-form video, as the platform continues to rise to the top of popularity rankings. As such, social media apps are redesigning their algorithms to prioritize this content. 

Short-form videos also tend to gain more Gen Z audience engagement, with the average engagement rate at 50%. This level is considerably higher than other generations. With storytelling potential, attention-grabbing power, and virality, short-form video is a must-have tool to drive full-funnel results in nearly all Gen Z marketing campaigns. 

#2 Influencer Marketing

What do Gen Zs want from brands? Honest, relatable, and compelling content. 

Where do Gen Zs spend their time? On social media. 

Influencers offer the best of both worlds – authentic content across various social media platforms. This makes influencer marketing a no-brainer tactic to reach Gen-Z consumers. 

Successful creators have spent time building trust and confidence with consumers, which brings meaning to their name as they hold a high “influence.” According to a GWI Report, “Gen Z puts more stock in the opinions and recommendations of influencers than past generations, and that’s heavily shaping how they approach media in general.” Micro-influencers, with smaller but more dedicated followers, are a great way to gain trust and narrow in on niche Gen-Z segments that best match your brand.

Read more of our best influencer marketing tips here.

#3 High Impact, Interactive Content

Interactive content is growing in popularity among younger audiences, which can boost awareness and engagement with your brand. Users want to engage with content, whether that’s a swipe, tap, click, vote, or like. 

Instagram is known to have highly interactive content such as polls, carousels, quizzes, questions, prompts, and more. TikTok also recently introduced interactive add-ons that allow paid media content to further engage audiences with ad posts. Immersive content such as 3D, AR/VR, and the development of the metaverse introduce innovative ways to reach audiences in a “phygital” way. Interactive content allows your brand to be present with Gen Z as they shift deeper into digital connections and worlds. 

How Coegi Can Help

As a digital marketing agency, Coegi is well equipped to assist you in marketing needs to reach your Gen Z consumers. We ensure each campaign is carefully researched based on data-driven tools to strategically activate across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and many other platforms. Reach out if you are looking for a partner to effectively execute and optimize your campaigns to grow your brand.

How to Build an Effective Digital Marketing Strategy

Posted on by Madeline Martodam

What do the metaverse, Web 3.0 and the cookieless future have in common? They demonstrate the need for agility to build an effective digital marketing strategy. Three years ago, these topics wouldn’t have even crossed our minds. Now they’re in our inboxes on a daily basis.

Now we’re learning the implications they’ll have and adapting our routines to ensure our marketing strategies seamlessly integrate into the changing landscape. By clearly defining the business goals aligned to our strategy, digital marketers can make informed decisions faster than ever before, allowing for real-time adjustments. 

Let’s dive deeper into how you can build an effective marketing strategy with these four key steps. 

Define

Start by outlining your high level business objective. Is it to increase sales by 2X this year? Expand into four new markets? Or increase brand awareness among a new audience group? 

Whatever it may be, clearly establish that overarching goal with all key stakeholders. Then, define marketing’s specific role in supporting that goal. 

  • What are the marketing objectives that level up to the desired business result?
    • All departments in the organization should have a shared vision. Define marketing’s specific role in reaching success. 
  • How will you optimize your marketing efforts towards this goal?
    • If it’s brand awareness, set that expectation from the beginning and maintain focus. This will prevent you from getting sidetracked and optimizing towards tactics that do not ladder up to your primary goal.  
  • What are the key signals you will track to define short-term and long-term success?
    • Decide which KPIs will most accurately indicate your progress. We often choose a cost-based metric paired with an effectiveness metric for each key channel, to make sure we are prioritizing quality for our clients. 

Align

Before you proceed with any advertising campaign, it’s important to check for alignment within your marketing and across the organization. 

  • Does your creative messaging and channel selection align with your target audience?
    • Conduct audience research to understand the places where your audience is most active and receptive to advertising. One of the tools we use at Coegi is Resonate, an AI-powered consumer insights platform which allows us to identify and target audiences on the channels, platforms and sites they over index for. 
  • Do your marketing/media KPIs align with your overall business goals?
    • Ensure all campaign tactics and KPIs support your previously defined marketing objectives and business goals. Be strategic when selecting your target metrics and make sure you are measuring what matters for your brand. 
  • Is your advertising consistent with your brand values and aesthetics?
    • Regularly audit your content for consistency and alignment. Live out your brand values and maintain a cohesive identity across the board. This will establish a positive user experience and strong brand message. 

Activate

Now you understand where to reach your audience. You have impactful creative assets, and are armed with a strong understanding of how you will measure success. It’s time to put your plan into motion. 

  • Define what brand safety means to your organization.
    • Outline the content and topics you are and are not comfortable with your brand being near. Use these to set targeting parameters that ensure your ads are only shown in brand-safe environments.
  • Set guardrails for quality assurance.
    • Maintain updated blacklists and use bid exclusions for brand safety and suspicious activity filtering.
  • Use AI for efficient media buying.
    • Algorithms and machine learning can help personalize ads with dynamic creative optimizations, expand your targeting pool with lookalike audiences, and automate the media buying process. 

Assess & Optimize

Once a campaign is live, your job is not done. You must continuously assess the media mix and channel tactics to see where you can improve. 

  • Understand that what worked last year may not necessarily work this year. 
    • The digital landscape is constantly changing, whether it be due to data privacy laws, emerging platforms, or changing consumer preferences. Be agile and avoid complacency. 
  • Stay curious and open minded.
    • Don’t be afraid to be an early adopter of a new trend – if it makes sense for your brand. 
  • Continuously improve through experimentation.
    • Inform future strategy by testing and learning which messaging and creative imagery resonates with your audience. Place trust in your media experts, and the process, allowing time to try new things and test hypotheses. 

My final words of advice for fellow digital marketers are – be patient. Data trends don’t happen overnight, and neither do results. But by being intentional and strategic at every stage of your marketing process, your brand will be ready to weather whatever trends the industry has coming its way. 

For more insights on how to build an effective digital marketing strategy, contact Coegi today.

Why Digital Out Of Home Advertising Will Gain New Life in a Cookieless Future

Posted on by Coegi

Digital out of home (DOOH) advertising came into fashion for marketers back in 2017-2018. Coegi was an early adopter of the channel, understanding its potential in driving mass scale with greater flexibility than traditional billboard activations. 

In its infancy, the targeting capabilities were limited to demographic visitation propensities and locations such as gas stations and taxis. This meant that it was primarily relevant for brands targeting metropolitan areas. Now, as more locations have adopted digital screens, digital out of home has become a valuable tactic for a wide variety of brands. 

The pandemic’s stay at home orders brought DOOH ad spending to an abrupt halt. But, now that consumers are gaining confidence in traveling again, digital out of home needs to make its way back into marketing plans.

How can marketers create sophisticated digital out of home strategies? Hear perspectives from Coegi’s Director of Operations, Julia Wold, and our tech partner Vistar’s Director of Client Service, Jared Reiner. 

#1 Choose Your Locations Wisely

Julia: How should brands select which DOOH advertising locations they target?

Many marketers are seeking out ways to add new tactics into their media plans as they prepare for the deprecation of the third-party cookie. DOOH has become one of the key tactics brands have turned to, capitalizing on a population that is more hungry than ever for outside experiences. Marketers should leverage venue locations in the same way you would leverage publisher specific partnerships, in a contextual manner that best resonates with key audiences. 

With Vistar’s vendor transparency, you are able to not only see the venue type and location, but also the media partner for an additional layer of brand safety. And, unlike traditional out of home, you aren’t limited to an always-on strategy. Instead, you can daypart, reaching consumers at the time that is most relevant for your messaging. 

For instance, consider reaching business professionals with placements at transit stations, office lobbies, skyways and Ubers at peak commute times. If you are messaging to families, consider waiting room screens, movie theaters, malls and recreational centers. We executed a college game night promotion for our NBA client with a presence in gyms, bars and transit hubs at the colleges and universities near the stadium.

Jared: How has Vistar expanded upon their location targeting since 2020?

There are a variety of ways to take advantage of location targeting in digital out-of-home. The Vistar platform has best-in-market POI data from Foursquare built in for seamless activation of proximity-based targeting. We have also on-boarded over 4,700 location-based audiences that are now available, including full taxonomies from Factual and Epsilon.

#2 Implement Post-Exposure Mobile Retargeting

Jared: What success have you seen from brands incorporating mobile retargeting on OOH buys?

OOH is one of the most trustworthy formats of media. It has been around for over 100 years! But what some people aren’t aware of is how well OOH interacts with other media channels. With mobile, we have the unique ability to capture audiences that were exposed to an OOH campaign and then continue the conversation on a channel where they can interact with trackable engagements. 

Brand marketers have seen great success in using high-impact OOH to convey messaging that resonates emotionally with consumers, followed by retargeting on mobile with a specific call-to-action. For example, advocacy campaigns seeking donations, universities encouraging students to request a brochure or schedule a tour, or brands promoting a discounted offer.

Julia: What’s the benefit of incorporating mobile retargeting on OOH buys? 

Mobile retargeting is an amazing way to re-engage with consumers who saw your original messaging. It’s also an efficient way to extend your media buy across new inventory opportunities on the device that 90% of the population spends an average of 4.5 hours per day on. 

For one of our tourism clients, we promoted digital out of home messages about an upcoming summer golf tournament in areas with an abundance of golf courses. Not only were we able to re-message users after they left the event, but we were also able to retarget that same audience the following Fall to remind them of late season golfing opportunities. This audience was the most highly engaged across the campaign and drove the highest conversion rate of golf trip guide downloads.

#3 Incorporate Advanced Measurement Studies

Julia: Why are advanced measurement studies important for DOOH buys?

Out of home, as with other forms of more traditional media, for a long time lacked a solid measurement foundation. Even if you could roughly estimate reach and frequency, it was harder to justify ROI to key stakeholders. Digital out of home takes the guesswork out of proving effectiveness with in-platform advanced measurement solutions like foot traffic, brand lift and sales lift. For a large tech client, Coegi leveraged a brand lift survey in tandem with DOOH delivery. We measured a 4% increase in brand consideration and a 7% increase in purchase intent. Without this study, these significant gains would have gone unnoticed. 

Jared: What advanced measurement studies are available through Vistar?

Vistar’s advanced technology allows us to capture OOH exposure which enables a wide array of attribution studies. For CPG and automotive clients, we partner with IRI and IHS, respectively, to provide sales lift. For clients with brick and mortar locations, we deploy foot traffic studies to understand an attributable number of store visits. 

An exciting new offering focused on online performance is our partnership with MIRA, which allows us to connect real-world exposure to OOH with online conversions. Finally, many advertisers choose to run brand studies. These are excellent not only for measuring the impact of your messaging and media strategy on consumer awareness and intent, but also asking research questions to learn more about your audience, your competitor’s status, creative impact and more!

#4 Test Dynamic Creative Messaging

Julia: What success has Coegi seen from dynamic creative messaging?

While dynamic creative just launched at scale in the Vistar platform in April 2022, Coegi has been using dynamic creative on other programmatic platforms for some time. The flexibility can’t be beat. You are able to reach the right audience at the right time, with a message curated up to the minute. This capability on out of home media will allow us to scale data driven messaging to every available screen, anywhere in the world.

Jared: How does Vistar envision dynamic creatives impacting the effectiveness of  DOOH advertising?

We just released our universal dynamic creative solution for DOOH and believe this will be a game changer for the industry. By unlocking the power of dynamic, we can deliver messaging that changes within a person’s environment in real time to be more relevant. This will create better conversations between brands and consumers leading to significant investment in the space.

Finally, what are some best practices that marketers should consider when activating a digital out of home campaign?

Jared:

Programmatic DOOH advertising unlocks the ability to take the targeting and messaging techniques we have developed in the digital space and apply them to the oldest format of media. It’s critical to consider both the media strategy (what time should your ads show? In what contexts? With which audience segment?), as well as your creative strategy (does this creative match the physical world context where it will be shown? Is my brand name visible if someone is just quickly passing by during a video?) Taking the time to curate the right audience, then having simple, relevant messaging goes a long way in the OOH space.

Julia:

Forecast, forecast, forecast. Venue availability and inventory is constantly changing, and with demand fluctuations, so can anticipated CPMs. In order to make sure your DOOH advertising plan is solid, take these steps. 

  • Create a plan prior to launch. This is especially important in smaller geographic footprints and less densely populated areas.
  • Develop assets in all sizes dictated by the DSP’s media plan to ensure proper scale at the most efficient cost. The plans will always tell you the available impression percentage by spec size.
  • Lastly, understand the format and scale that your message will be delivered in. Clear font and simplicity of the message is key when you consider you only have 3-6 seconds to make an impact. 

 

Interested in exploring digital out of home from your brand? View our comprehensive digital out of home primer here to learn more!

How to Drive D2C Sales with Digital Marketing

Posted on by Maggie Gotszling

Brands of all sizes are exploring how to drive CPG product sales through a D2C model. This is no surprise as US D2C sales will surpass $197B, with a rapid trajectory in 2024. While this only accounts for 2.6% of all retail sales, brands cannot ignore this emerging growth channel.

D2C models offer immense value for brands beyond just profitable sales due to the opportunity to collect consumer data and establish brand loyalty. 

However, with convenience as a leading factor driving purchase decisions, how can you steer your audience away from mass retailers as the default and generate interest in your direct-to-consumer site? The key is to add value with a seamless, personalized, and memorable shopping experience. 

In this article, you’ll learn how to create a successful D2C commerce experience by optimizing your omnichannel strategy at each stage of the purchase funnel.

Maximize The Shortened Purchase Funnel

How can you make sure the right individuals are finding your brand and, once they have, ensure they complete the purchase? 

Understand the purchase funnel is becoming shorter as information is available at our fingertips. Consumers can search for a product, read reviews, compare brands, and make an informed purchase in a matter of minutes. Take Carvana for example – they transformed the lengthy process of purchasing a new car into a quick, digital transaction. 

Knowing this, marketers need to create compact omnichannel marketing campaigns that align with the user journey and product life cycle. A well-tailored digital media strategy accounting for each stage of the consumer journey is paramount to driving D2C sales. Let’s explore how to accomplish this for your brand. 

Create Brand Awareness And Product Consideration

We start at awareness – testing and amplifying messaging within well-researched prospecting audiences. Then, by activating a flexible, omni-channel approach, we can learn who our best audience is. We’ll also learn what channels we can reach them on and what messaging resonates best with them.   

An important part of establishing awareness for D2C brands is using SEO and PPC to show up in product search. Combine PPC search ads with organic SEO to optimize your efforts. Once you’ve reached users in the discovery phase, deploy smart retargeting to stay top of mind until purchase. 

Move Seamlessly From Consideration To Sales Conversion

As a consumer nears purchase, machine learning and algorithms need to get to work. Use AI to predict and serve the right messaging at the right time. Also, use technology like dynamic creative optimization to tailor messaging to complement previous touchpoints (e.g. add to cart or don’t forget the items in your cart for abandoners). 

At Coegi, we bring together over 20 technology integrations, alongside certified experts on all digital platforms, to deploy advanced retargeting focused on recency and frequency analysis. As a result, we are able to deliver more efficient results, creating greater ROI for brands. 

Establish D2C Brand Loyalty

To build loyalty, find ways to delight users with unexpected incentives, promotions, or gifts. Utilize the first party data collected from their initial purchase to re-message in a personalized fashion. Email marketing is a strong tactic to keep that ongoing pulse without fatiguing your customers with ads. But, serving ads for complementary items to previous purchases can be effective with sufficient buffer time post-purchase. 

Ironically, if you hyper-focus on selling, you’ll miss out on sales opportunities. Instead of constantly pushing for purchases, also explore ways to create conversations through your marketing. Engage with your audience and establish a brand community. This authentic relationship is what creates loyalists who will continue to support your brand for years to come. 

To learn more about how to create a successful omnichannel digital marketing strategy, view our CPG Digital Marketing Playbook here. 

5 Ways to Refresh Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Posted on by Jennifer Burleson

Looking to breathe new life into your marketing strategy? It’s easy to feel stuck using the same messaging or the same tactics over and over. But, there are subtle ways to reinvigorate your advertising without reinventing the wheel. 

Here are five easy ways you can refresh your digital marketing strategy and approach to better reach your audience and optimize campaign performance. 

Step 1: Adjust Your Audience Targeting

Digital media strategists need to place audiences at the cornerstone of their planning. As campaigns perform, evaluate if you are reaching your target audience in the most efficient ways. 

Continually review your target audiences through a combination of research, performance analysis, and product/service feedback to understand who your best customers are. Once this is established, your digital media agency or in-house operations team can build on these learnings by activating relevant first, second, and third party data sets available across platforms to reach their audiences on channels where they are known to engage and are available to target.

Note: Be vigilant about staying ahead of shifting policies and privacy laws that impact platform targeting capabilities. This will become more prevalent as cookies diminish. 

Step 2: Keep Your Creative Fresh

Everyday, consumers are bombarded with ads across every digital platform. To help break through the clutter, update creatives every three to six months and carefully monitor frequency. If your audience is constantly seeing the same creative, ad fatigue is likely to set in and even negatively impact your reach. By rotating in new creatives, you can keep engaging content in front of your target audience.

If you’re not using video ads, incorporating this medium is a perfect way to invigorate your advertising. 

Why? Because videos are: 

  • Attention-grabbing – the motion and sound of videos captures attention driving higher engagement 
  • Engaging – videos convey more information and drive higher engagement than static images
  • Versatile – video creative can be adapted for use across various channels such as YouTube, Connected TV, and social media 
  • Shareable – users are more likely to share entertaining or interesting videos on social media giving your brand greater exposure 

Step 3: Authenticate And Test Your Messaging

Make sure the message you are sharing is relatable to your audience. This doesn’t mean you have to constantly be coming up with new ad copy and creatives. Instead, use a test and learn strategy. You can use AI optimizations  to find the best combinations of existing creative and messaging for your core audience groups. 

A/B testing various creatives and headlines also allows you to utilize your top best performing ads to guide future collateral, bringing informed ideas to each marketing touchpoint. 

Step 4: Audit And Optimize Your Website User Experience

If you are sharing a different message in your advertising than on your website, you will quickly lose user interest or, at minimum, confuse your customers. Analyze your messaging as well as your customer’s journey. Make sure ads have cohesive messaging that aligns with the corresponding website landing pages. This not only allows for a positive user experience, it also helps with relevancy score to help martech platforms prioritize your ads. 

Additionally, with the ever-increasing number of users on mobile, prioritize design, targeting and optimizations for a mobile-first environment. Creating this seamless user experience will help guide your audience down the funnel towards conversion. You can use Google Analytics or other web analytics platforms to understand website behaviors and make adjustments based on where consumers are abandoning their journey with your brand

Step 5: Be Bold And Adopt Relevant, Emerging Channels Early

Set aside a portion of your budget for testing new channels and platforms. Run test campaigns to see your audience activity and engagement on new platforms. Once you find the top performing channels and tactics, you can meet your audience where they are most active. You can also keep an edge on your competitors by being a first-mover with new trends. 

Some emerging advertising channels to consider testing include:

  • Influencer marketing
  • Emerging social platforms: TikTok, Twitch, Reddit, Clubhouse, etc..
  • Podcast advertising
  • Digital-out-of-home
  • Connected TV/OTT advertising

This can also be as simple as testing a new ad format in a platform already included in your media mix. 

In the fast paced world of digital advertising, marketers cannot afford to be complacent. Always keep an eye on your marketing strategy and how it aligns with your company goals. Not all strategies need a full overhaul to stay competitive. Making a few small adjustments can make a big difference in staying relevant in the advertising space. Use these five steps to analyze, update and refresh your digital marketing strategy on an ongoing basis. 

To stay up to date with the latest marketing strategies and trends, subscribe to our bimonthly newsletter, The Loop.

Recommended Reading

How to Build an Effective Digital Marketing Strategy

Targeting Tourism Audiences With CTV Advertising Campaigns

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

A state tourism client tapped Coegi to implement a CTV advertising campaign with the primary goal of driving awareness. We used a test-and-learn bidding strategy to identify optimal bid numbers across platforms. This allowed us to allocate the client’s budget across the most impactful CTV channels. Using this strategy, we achieved more even spend, higher unique views, and improved cost efficiency.

Highlights

2.75MM
Total Views

470,867
Unique Reach

$0.31
Cost per Unique Reach

Challenge

In programmatic CTV advertising campaigns, platforms will often optimize spend distribution towards total views. This oversimplification causes premium placements like Hulu to consume a disproportionate amount of the budget.

That risk was actualized when early reporting showed 99% of campaign spend going to Hulu and only 1% driving views on other high-indexing channels. As a high-impact platform, Hulu was important, but we wanted to ensure we were using other channels to expand the audience reach and maintain cost efficiency. 

Solution

Our specialists manually adjusted and optimized bids across different channels to create an even spend distribution. The goal was to identify the “sweet spot” that would give each strategic channel an appropriate amount of the budget.  Once the optimal channel mix was identified, the spend evened out to be 60% in Hulu and 40% distributed among other channels.

By serving ads to more niche channels such as Travel Channel, HGTV, and Discovery, we were able to reach key audience segments and boost overall ad performance. This generated 2,750,490 total completed video views, a cost-per-view of $0.05, a unique reach of 470,867 and a post-per-unique-reach of $0.31. 

Premium CTV channels can consume a disproportionate amount of budget. Correcting these standard optimizations with a manual test-and-learn strategy is necessary to find the ideal budget spend and maximize cost efficiency.

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Social Media Marketing for Food and Beverage Brands

Posted on by Julia Read

Food and drink is inherently social, whether you are sitting around a dinner table, sharing a recipe with a friend, or meeting a date for cocktails. Social media marketing for food and beverage brands allows you to lean into this element even further. It has proven to be a highly successful tool for driving viral food trends (think avocado toast, macaroons, shaken espressos, etc.). 

But you don’t have to go viral to see the benefits of social media. Food and beverage brands can drive results by identifying and targeting their core audience on their preferred platforms with highly ‘craveable’ content, using tactics like influencers and shoppable ads to showcase their products. 

Understanding Your Core Food/Bev Audience

The first step to finding your audience is to understand who organically engages with your brand. What specific niches are they involved in and how can you share your content with them? Audience research will lead you to a deeper understanding of your likely brand advocates and loyalists. Once a clear audience is defined, creating ads and messaging becomes intuitive.  

Search for the answers to these three questions in your audience research process: 

  1. Who is your core demographic? 

Identify basic demographics such as age, gender, education, geographical location and socioeconomic status. These variables will give you concrete indicators on your key audience profiles – what life stage they are in, what they could be interested in, and more. Age, for example, gives you tips on what kind of content they will likely resonate with. Younger ages tend to enjoy emotional posts (funny or tear-jerking), such as the recent Gushers TikTok campaign. In comparison, older audiences tend to prefer informative, trustworthy content, such as this Clinique campaign. 

      2. What does your audience value? 

Are they more likely sharing food to present an image of prestige or luxury, or to share a special family recipe? These internal motivations should inform the ad creation process. Creating messaging that resonates with your audience’s core motivators and/or beliefs make them more inclined to click or convert.

      3. Where is your audience active online?

The medium in which your ads run is critical to the success of food and beverage digital marketing campaigns. This ensures each dollar you spend is going towards a platform where your audience actually spends time. Use platform data as well as third party data research platforms to identify your audiences’ media consumption habits. 

Identifying Social Media Influencers

Once your target audience is defined, you can make them come to life by creating personas. Or better yet, finding an influencer online that matches your brand’s beliefs, values and aesthetic. Brands that have a strong image and story can easily find influencers that complement their mission. 

Food and beverage social media marketing is primed for influencer partnerships. There are endless YouTube cooking channels, food review websites, and food bloggers across all social media platforms. The creators have a huge impact on consumer purchase decisions. In fact, 49% of consumers depend on influencer decisions. This virtual word of mouth is extremely influential in the consumer journey. 

Adding influencers into your strategy can also drive conversions, not just awareness. This is particularly helpful for food and beverage brands with an ecommerce presence. Use affiliate links and coupon codes to link POS data back to influencer campaigns in addition to awareness metrics, such as reach and engagement.

Creating Compelling Content

Food and beverage brands have a unique opportunity to engage audiences with user-generated marketing content on social media. People are eager to share recipes or new food explorations online, which is a win-win for brand and consumer. Brands are able to capitalize on authentic content that builds trust, while consumers are fulfilled by interaction and admiration. 

Beyond UGC, there are many ways brands can create compelling content on each unique platform. For example, how-to/recipe videos, Instagram Ready Images, and short form videos are all popular ad variations. Keep your audience learnings in mind and tailor your content to each unique social platform to resonate with consumers. 

Measuring Food and Bev Social Media Marketing Success

To measure the impact of advertising you can first look at granular, platform-level data. These metrics show campaign-level data, such as video completions, ad clicks, and site visits. Additionally, brands can utilize tactics like coupon/QR codes, flash sales, and hashtag challenges to track media’s success in driving immediate conversions and online buzz. 

However, the majority of food/bev sales still happen in-store, so it is important that brands keep themselves top of mind during that experience. Also, brands need a method of tracing media’s impact on in-store sales. Whether in a grocery store or a restaurant, brands can utilize CRM connections to track offline data or offer coupon codes/QR codes that translate both in-person or online. 

To better understand marketing’s impact, consider advanced measurement studies. These are surveys that can measure the incremental lift in metrics such as foot traffic and in-store sales due to marketing campaigns. 

Eating and drinking is, and has always been, social. Food and beverage brands should lean into this and explore the vast opportunities social media platforms offer to create and build community. Get creative with your media execution to stand out from competitors and drive sales. 

Recommended Reading

The CPG Digital Marketing Playbook

5 Marketing Tactics to Drive Travel Bookings

Posted on by Coegi

The travel marketing industry is rebounding as stir-crazy leisure travelers, vacationing families and business travelers are eager to explore new places and experiences. How can travel and tourism brands ensure they are incorporated in those travel plans? 

Here are 5 ways to drive travel bookings:

1) Show Up In The Research Phase

The purchase funnel for travel brands is shrinking as travelers are shortening the trip planning process. 

Speed and agility is crucial for travel brands to ensure they appear as a top option for their relevant audiences during the research and discovery process. Optimize digital discovery and drive travel bookings by doing the following: 

  1. Optimize paid search presence to show up for relevant, high value queries
  2. Activate audience search retargeting on display and social to stay stop of mind as the customer moves from research to the planning and booking phases
  3. Work to gain quality reviews on owned websites and travel sites

2) Segment Customers To Provide Personalized Offers

Carefully segment your existing customer list and use AI to inform personalized messaging to each group. Understand their unique motivations and deliver the offer most likely to resonate with them. 81% of consumers say personalized experiences are very important when vetting travel and hospitality brands. 

So, consider who you are talking to. Are they solo travelers seeking adventure? Or young families seeking a cost effective, kid-friendly trip? Or are they foodies looking for luxury and avant garde dining experiences?  

Once a trip is completed, the customer journey should not end. This will leave you constantly scrambling to find new audiences to fill your funnel rather than cultivating brand loyalty. Instead, explore how you can entice past travelers with a new trip or experience based on their past interest. 

3) Adjust Creatives And Channel Placements To Reflect Your Target Audience

It’s important that you don’t create a one-size-fits-all approach when marketing to future travelers. Consider demographic attributes such as age and lifestage to choose the most impactful channels to reach them on when making travel plans. 

Key stats and trends shaping the travel and tourism industry today

Not accounting for differences in media consumption and sources of authority will inevitably cost your brand dollars. Instead, carefully tailor your campaigns to reach audience segments on the channels they are most active on and deliver the style of content they trust and are already seeking out. 

4) Look Beyond Standard Media Metrics To Gauge Success

How can you measure the results of these campaigns and make sure your carefully tailored campaigns are driving the desired results? Simple media metrics, like impressions and clicks, often do not tell the whole story. For travel brands, incorporating advanced measurement studies such as foot traffic lift can provide a clear view of how marketing tactics impacted incremental increases in visitors. 

5) Use Non-Media Data To Understand The Travel Climate

In a 2020 report, Google analysts stated that traditional data and analytics for travel patterns “do not account for more immediate upper funnel demand drivers, such as the progression of COVID-19, government travel sanctions, and dynamic flight availability.” Using more advanced, macro-level data can help brands gauge the travel climate from an industry-wide perspective. 

Coegi worked with a tourism client to create a proprietary data solution to track Covid-19 and consumer interest in travel using CDC data and real-time interest indicators. We used this tool to score geographies based on the safety and likelihood of travel within each region. This allowed for real-time insights to inform media buys and campaign flighting strategy and media planning. 

For more strategic tips to drive travel bookings, view our complete Travel and Tourism Marketing Guide. 

Make Smarter Marketing Decisions with Media Mix Modeling

Posted on by Lindsey King

Every brand wants to pre-optimize their campaigns for success right out of the gate, with parameters in place to quickly attribute success to specific channels, audiences, and creatives. However, as we look toward a future without the simple attribution offered by cookies, we need to get back to our statistical roots of traditional media strategies, those without the easy button involved. That’s why marketers should lean further into the value that’s offered with media mix modeling.

What Is Media Mix Modeling?

At a high level, media mix modeling is a way to define optimal budget allocation for media channels by looking at previous campaign performance. It requires analyzing sales-related data and media metrics (Coegi’s data and technology team recommends 2-3 years worth) to make predictions and strategy optimizations that will, in theory, improve future campaign performance. 

Is Media Mix Modeling Superior to Attribution Models?

In short, these models should be considered and analyzed alongside each other, as they both offer valuable insights from unique perspectives.

  • Attribution gives you quick, real-time information about how specific media parameters are impacting your business goals. This information is useful when making mid-flight optimizations and short-term reporting.
  • Media mix modeling zooms out to give a bird’s-eye view of how all the pieces are working together to affect long-term strategy and performance. Each model informs the other, but tells different stories. 

How Can Marketers Build Strategies from Modeling Learnings?

It is crucial to fully understand the data you’re analyzing, not just the standard media metrics from campaign reports. What are all of the factors that may have contributed to performance fluctuations?

  • Creative?
  • Messaging?
  • Audience strategy?
  • Seasonality?

Knowing the context surrounding the numbers will give you a strong foundation to build future strategies upon. Using that context as the framework, determine what story the data points are telling you. The numbers don’t lie, but they don’t always tell the whole story. By asking the right questions, and maintaining a test and learn mentality, you will ensure strategic decisions are based on multiple factors rather than just one KPI.

How Do You Know Your Media Mix Model Is Working?

A media mix model makes predictions, but it’s not a crystal ball. Just because Facebook historically performed well does not mean it will continue to do so forever. That said, it is important to develop a continuous learning agenda to design your models.

Test your assumptions based on historical performance. For example, what will happen if you increase the budget for programmatic channels? Do overall business results change? The only way to know is to strategically make the budget adjustment and measure incremental results. From there, you can make more informed decisions about your channel strategy and budget allocation. 

Priming Your Media Mix Model For Success:

  • Keep business goals at the center of your strategy 
  • Gather quality, historical data to measure actionable results 
  • Understand the contextual factors impacting your data results 
  • Consider the sales cycle when designing tests – a longer cycle needs more time between strategic adjustments
  • Share strategic details and learnings across teams. Seemingly trivial aspects to you may impact how a model is built. 
  • Data can be easily manipulated to tell an inaccurate story. Think critically and apply business acumen to make sure you have sound methodology. 

Further Reading:

Drive Travel Consideration by Leveraging Local Collaborations

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

A travel and tourism client proposed a collaboration with a local chef to boost traveler consideration for their location. Using a cross-channel social media strategy, our teams saw strong results across Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest with below benchmark CPAs for this co-branded campaign.

 

Highlights

126
Tour Guide Downloads

800K
Instagram Post Engagements

2.47%
Facebook CTR

Challenge

Our travel and tourism client tasked Coegi with executing a co-branded, mid-funnel campaign to boost website traffic as well as increase awareness. We were given high quality ‘how-to’ video creative from the popular chef. By presenting this to targeted audiences in mid-funnel campaigns, we were able to drive travel consideration among key audience groups.

Solution

We used a multi-channel paid social media strategy to target each platform’s specific audiences. Pinterest encapsulated the ‘foodie’ audience, while Facebook and Instagram’s goal was to drive the large travel audience to their site. Both platforms included look-a-like and retargeting segments to reach engaged users. Success was based on key website actions such as landing page views and post engagement.

This multifaceted strategy provided strong results. The Instagram and Facebook campaign achieved a CPLPV of $0.67 that came in well below our benchmark of $1.83. In addition, we also saw a 2.47% CTR, well above the 0.90% benchmark. The Pinterest campaign, despite having a smaller percentage of the budget, generated nearly 1.7MM impressions with a post engagement rate of 1.27% including 1,365 pin saves.

Key Learnings

  • Well-curated and professional creative catches eyes. This pushed our audience down the funnel quicker than most – generating 126 Tour Guide Downloads.
  • By partnering with an authentic, trusted figure such as a local chef or celebrity, travel brands can boost their image and drive audience engagement. 
  • Using “how-to” style Pinterest posts have a higher likelihood of being saved. This ultimately drives site traffic and brand awareness.

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