The Daily Carnage

The savvy marketer's hub for industry news, insights, resources, and culture.

Today’s Issue

Your Brain on AI 🍳

This is “AI Brain Fry.”

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Explain Your AI Usage to Boost Sales

APRIL 23, 2024

People are more likely to trust and follow AI recommendations when they understand them.

If you’re providing AI or algorithm-based recommendations to customers, make sure to explain the logic behind the reco.

So, instead of “You may also like XYZ,” try “You may also like XYZ because people like you rated it 5/5 stars.”

In the case of functional, practical products, consumers were 12.5% to 17.6% more likely to follow these recommendations and purchase your product. Plus, 54.6% were more likely to click “See more details.”

Why does it work? Well, folks are still skeptical about AI, so building transparency into our AI usage—from e-comm plug-ins to content and beyond—can build consumer trust.

Check out the research over at Ariyh.

A B2B Copywriting Tip

APRIL 22, 2024

The insight: B2B buyers don’t care about your product. They do care about job security. Here’s how to speak to their anxiety:

On LinkedIn, locate the job description of the role you are targeting.
Bank the words you see under “Responsibilities” and use them in a headline with descriptive, action-driven language (“What we do is: XYZ”).
Communicate why buying your product will earn people points with their bosses by focusing on market share, stellar reviews, testimonials, and analyst reports.

Here’s a template to try:

Responsibilities of [Role]:
Power words:
Emotions:
“I wish I could ＿＿＿＿” :
Trusted by:

Check out the full tip by Tom Orbach at Marketing Ideas.

A Sustainable Webinar Strategy

APRIL 21, 2024

Yes, webinars should be part of your content strategy. No, you don’t have to burn yourself out keeping the calendar full.

Tracey Wallace has sketched out a more sustainable, quarterly approach to webinars.

MONTH 1

Content: Thought Leadership & Trends
Stage: Top of funnel
Format: Panel Discussion/Q&A/Fireside Chat
Purpose: Universally relevant subject matter that attracts prospects at all stages of sales consideration
Participants: Panel of customers or influencers, moderated by the content team or executive sponsor

MONTH 2

Content: Tactics & Tutorials
Stage: Middle-of-funnel
Format: Standard Presentation
Purpose: Showcase company’s expertise while providing value for prospects who are challenged by strategy and implementation
Participants: Presentation with 2–3 participants, usually a strategy implementation and success walk through by a partner

MONTH 3

Content: Platform Buy-In and ROI Selling
Stage: Bottom-of-funnel
Format: Product Walkthrough/Demo
Purpose: Increase tool accessibility, trigger “aha” moments, and drive urgency
Participants: Product marketing-lead and moderated with sales-led demo at the end

Sound feasible? Head to Workweek for a recommended distribution strategy.

What’s a PR Topic Tour?

APRIL 17, 2024

Create a PR topic tour around a trending topic—sharing commentary, data, resources, or unique insights—to establish yourself as an expert. Here’s how:

Identify an industry or media trend. Analyze the last six months of media coverage, use Google News, and reference social media and other tools to zero in on trends.
Identify topics. Once you locate a trend, find subtopics for which you have an existing asset or could create a new asset.
Create or optimize an asset. Create a unique asset related to the trend or optimize an existing one for different platforms.
Pitch or distribute at audience touchpoints. Create customized pitches to podcasts, journalists, op-ed sites, social communities, and blogs.

When you’re ready, Search Engine Journal recommends 22 places to share your content.

4 Design Trends in Content Marketing

APRIL 16, 2024

Heads up, brand leaders. These are 4 design trends that will come to define 2024 content marketing:

Feelin’ surreal. Gen AI has arrived just as people are looking to escape reality and relieve stress, resulting in a taste for visual complexity, surprise, and the bizarre. The stuff of dreams.
Retro is still a-go. When the future feels uncertain, we put on our rose-colored glasses and look backward. For the last five years, nostalgia has dominated design—from packaging and web design to full rebrands that reimagine the aesthetic and tech of the 90s and 00s.
Lo-fi or leave it. Nearly 10 years after the “pivot to video,” studio-quality content is out. Users respond more to UGC and testimonial content that feels live, unpolished, and authentic.
Texted ya. Visual platforms like Instagram and TikTok have seen a rise in text-based storytelling with branded typography. Think: zero-click carousels that adapt how-to articles, listicles, tips, and quotes.

Find out how to leverage these trends from brand experts at StudioID.

9 Tips to Improve Email Marketing Performance

APRIL 15, 2024

When it comes to email marketing, the target is always moving. Here are 9 tips to optimize your performance:

Open Rates don’t tell the full story. Due to Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection, along with bot activity, open rates are inflated. Pay closer attention to human metrics like unsubscribes, clicks, and replies.
Prioritize list quality over quantity. Don’t take shortcuts to a bloated list. Focus on delivering real value to the people who have signed up to hear from you.
Inbox recognition > subject line optimization. Consider implementing Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) to display a sender logo alongside your messages in the inbox.
Go back to the basics on email deliverability. Make sure your domains are authenticated and that you’re following infrastructure best practices, including your DMARC, SPF, and DKIM.
Embrace the Gmail Promotions tab. It’s not such a bad thing that subscribers know that’s where to find your message. When they browse the Promotions tab, they’re in the mindset to take action and buy something.
Take your data if you move ESPs. Bring along both positive and negative signals, from opens and clicks to complaints and unsubscribes.
Clean your email lists quarterly. Segment your most engaged from your least engaged, and set a sunset campaign to dump contacts that have stopped engaging altogether.
Practice email list segmentation. Balance your campaigns with non-promotional emails that can help subscribers use your product or service to solve a problem.
Add value to your emails with interactivity and personalization. Engage and build relationships with your subscribers through countdown timers, live polls, surveys, animation, and GIFs.

Dig in to more email marketing tips at Litmus.

Diagnostic Questions for Declining Organic Traffic

APRIL 14, 2024

Have you noticed a decline in your site’s organic traffic? Identify and address the problem with these 13 diagnostic questions:

Are there signs this might be a tracking issue, like big data discrepancies?
Is this a brand problem stemming from negative press, sunset ad campaigns, or rollbacks in acquisition spend?
Where is non-brand performance down; which URLs and keywords are trending down?
Do we care about this traffic?
What does the trend line tell us? Is it a sharp or a sloped decline?
Did something change with our site content?
Are there new or major technical issues on the site?
Did we lose backlinks or referrers?
Was there a recent algorithm update?
Did the SERP change in meaningful ways?
Is the domain being penalized?
Did competition change?
Are users behaving differently?

Take a closer look at next steps with Search Engine Land.

YouTube’s New Shopping Features

APRIL 10, 2024

YouTube has announced new features to enhance its shopping ecosystem this spring in response to 30+ billion hours of views on shopping videos in 2023. Check it out:

Shopping Collections. Creators can curate product selections on the platform (like daily essentials or seasonal picks) based on their preferences and brand affiliations.

Affiliate Hub. Creators can now easily view info on monetization opportunities, including potential brand partnerships, commissions, promo codes, product samples, and more.

Bulk Product Tagging. With this expansion, creators can now tag items in multiple videos all at once, boosting revenue potential from evergreen content.

Fourthwall Integration. This partnership will enable creators to manage business directly through YouTube Studio.

Find out more from the YouTube announcement.

Social Philosophy > Social Playbook

APRIL 9, 2024

Investing time and resources in building rigid social playbooks that can’t keep up with platform updates and the speed of culture is OUT.

Investing in a living, breathing social philosophy that guides your brand’s approach to any trend is IN.

A successful social philosophy has 5 elements:

Intention. What’s your brand’s why for social? How does the mission and vision of the brand apply to which social platforms and conversations to enter or avoid?
Value. What are you offering your followers? They determine your place in the culture.
Creative fuel. How do your fans talk about your brand? What storylines are inspiring, impactful?What can you contribute to the broader cultural conversation?
Creative development. How immersed is your creative team in culture? You need to cultivate experts who can keep up with the pace of the conversation, adapt to shifts, and send the right assets to right places at the right time.
Reflection. Consider the creative lift vs. the impact of your strategy. Beyond just KPIs, does the work feel fresh? Are you listening to your community and striking the right tone?