The Daily Carnage

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

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Fighting FOFO (Fear of Finding Out)

JUNE 16, 2021

We’ve all had FOMO at some points in our life, or have at least heard of it (fear of missing out). What about the opposite term? FOFO, fear of finding out, is used often in the medical field for those afraid to seek medical treatment and finding out they have a condition. However, FOFO is seen in the marketing realm as well. It typically arises when we don’t want the responsibility or have the right clarity.

Examples of FOFO in marketing:

FOFO that your marketing model is bloated: Restructuring and streamlining might feel like a struggle at first, but leaders are getting innovative and rebuilding their models.
FOFO that your money is in the wrong places: Finding leaky pipes and fixing them might mean a huge difference to your bottom line, but it will take the elbow grease to find them.
FOFO that you’re not planning ahead: No one can predict the true future, but how prepared are you for what’s next? Scary thoughts that keep leaders up at night.

Well alright, we’ve given you an existential crisis. Now what? How to fight FOFO:

Confront it: Get honest with your financial and auditing minds. Nothing beats transparency and a true understanding of weak spots or hidden strengths.
Create Confidence: Leaders don’t play the blame game. Let us repeat: NO BLAME GAME. Leaders create confidence and processes for when things go wrong, because they are prepared if things go wrong.
Think short and long term: “How” and “Why” should be at the forefront of every path.

Check out the full AdWeek article to see how brands have confronted FOFO in their marketing strategies.

Dad Descriptions for Design Blogs

JUNE 15, 2021

Creative Boom has a recent list of 50 of the Best Design Blogs. It gives lovely, thoughtful summaries of what these blogs are all about.

Yeah, we’re not gonna do that. In honor of Father’s Day coming up, we’re gonna give blunt, condensed versions of those descriptions (just like any dad would describe anything). Here are some favs from Creative Boom’s list:

BP&O (brand, packaging, and opinion): print nerds
Made by Folk: talking to nerds
Shillington Blog: design school chops
Creative Review: marketing is ART
I Love Typography: font nerds
Design Taxi: put on the news
Httpster: website eye candy
Sidebar: website nerds
Brand New: dad-level puns
Spotify: …not my playlist?
Visuelle: just eye candy

Creative Boom, as a design blog themselves, gives a full list of 50 design daddies to check out.

Go get inspired!

Employee branding as a Marketing Strategy

JUNE 14, 2021

Good service to customers goes a long way. And who are the peeps delivering your goods? Your employees. They are the people who can make (or break) your brand come alive for your customers. Employee branding is an essential part of your overall reputation strategy.

So let’s tap into your people! Much of these tips are for a long-burn strategy that involves strategic talent acquisition, so let’s get into it:

Building Employee Persona: Collecting data from across employees to create a representative group to know experiences and characteristics to represent the brand’s core values.
Employee Alignment: When employees believe in the brand, it shows in their work. Engage your employees with the brand, and they’ll want to support it as well.
Hiring in Tune with Culture: This might seem like an obvious one, but when hiring, you’ll want to ensure that there’s a cultural fit for your brand representation. Your recruiting should reflect your brand as well.
Create a Brand of Sustainability: Sustainable work-life balance for every employee is now essential to every business or brand worth promoting.
Role of Technology: The possibilities are limitless for engaging employees and having them engage back thanks to social networking and online portals. We’re in a virtual space more days than not, especially for the workplace.

Remember, every employee touchpoint mirrors consumer marketing touchpoints. There’s always an opportunity to reinforce the brand. Get the full shebang at People Matters’ article.

4 Tips To Help Marketers Battle Against Consumers’ Digital Fatigue

JUNE 13, 2021

Between social media detoxes, blue-light eye strain, and constantly being served ads, consumers can get pretty sick of the digital world. We all get digital fatigue nowadays (the world virtual event might even make you groan at this point). But what can we do as marketers to combat this in an audience?

CMS Wire has some tips to shape up your marketing strategy to reach people who are glued to their screens, but don’t want to be.

Make it Personal: The golden rule for most marketing strategies is to personalize it for your user to make it more engaging and customized. There are a lot of ways to do this right, but a great way to start is to break your audience into segments to communicate in specific ways.

Make it Interactive: There are so many new ways to create interactive, interesting content today. AR, VR, 3D worlds, interactive quizzes, are to name a few. It’s easier said than done, but quality over quantity is your best bet here. Creating too many interactive pieces is just going to continue digital fatigue in your users.

Make it Human-Centric: It seems like an obvious one, but brands still forget it. Think of all the ways your users could use more direct engagement in your content and see where you can utilize conversational tactics.

Check out the CMS Wire article for the last tip for staying connected to your users and helping battle their digital fatigue.

Understanding Apple iOS 15’s Privacy Updates

JUNE 9, 2021

Let’s start this out with a big ‘ol “oof” heard from marketers everywhere trying to keep up with privacy and compliance rules. Apple’s WWDC21 announced A LOT. What does it all mean? Here’s the basics on the biggies that might be important to your marketing initiatives:

Private Relay: This will encrypt users’ internet traffic on Safari using two relays: one gives an anonymous IP address, the second sends the browsing query to the appropriate results. For the non-VPN nerds out there, traditional VPNs typically use one relay.

App Privacy Reports: New privacy reports will be available and include information such as which apps are using personal information, what kind of data, how frequently apps access device features (i.e. cameras, microphones, geographical data), and what data is being used for third-party tracking.

Mail Privacy Protection: This is a tab added to the Mail app itself. Users can decide how much personal information is shared with email senders. Users can also restrict access to their IP addresses and location information. Tracking pixels beware 👀

Hide My Email: This new feature enables the creation of single-use, randomly-generated email addresses that can be used to forward mail to users’ real accounts. Burner phone vibes.

Siri Updates: Our gal will soon be able to process audio without an internet connection. Siri will also be able to process speech right on devices, with the idea that it will help reduce nonconsensual audio recording.

The Drum dished up a detailed explanation of the keynote AND input from industry professionals.

Content Writing Vs. Copywriting In Digital Marketing

JUNE 8, 2021

There’s content writing, and there’s copywriting. Do you know the difference? They’re both essential in marketing campaigns, usually one used to support the other, they just have different purposes.

Who cares? Marketing nerds like us who like to prove a point! Let’s get into it.

Player 1: CONTENT WRITING

What is it: Content writing is the creation of text content to educate or entertain.
Examples: Blog posts. White papers. E-books. Tutorials. Email newsletters. News articles. Evergreen articles. Case studies. Social media posts.
Length: Typically longer form pieces.
Emotion: Can be cheerful or funny at times.
Grammar: Aim for flawless and proper.
SEO: Keyword booster!

Player 2: COPYWRITING

What is it: Copywriting is the creation of text content to persuade someone to take action.
Examples: PPC landing pages. PPC ads. Cost-per-mille (CPM) ads. Social media ads. Product pages. Website sales copy. Sales emails. Short Message Service (SMS) ads.
Length: Typically shorter pieces.
Emotion: Can invoke impulse, comfort, sometimes even urgency.
Grammar: Eh, write as you’d speak for the most part.
SEO: It ain’t gonna do the most.

So there are your fighters. The next time you’re in a position to hire a writer, or need content created, you’ll know which one to choose. There’s overlap, and copywriting is an umbrella term for a lot of text content creation, but this way you know the true difference. The Forbes article gives the full details on both, so check it out!

Best Practices to Eliminating Data Chaos

JUNE 7, 2021

Mo’ data, mo’ problems. We will not shut up about how important customer data is. But we’re all collecting it like crazy, usually making complex profiles or workflows that aren’t doing the most for us. Or worse, we’re collecting it and doing nothing. Or even WORSE, we’re not collecting it and mismanaging the data we have.

Data chaos is not fun and can end up costing you in wasted ad spend if you aren’t careful. As we are moving towards a cookie-less world, this is not where you want to be. So let’s run through your data-wrangling best practices.

Embrace Cloud Collaboration: This is where it all starts. Cloud systems mean documents, files, and records can be accessed and synced between various systems and devices without worrying about duplication or legacy issues.
Integrate Content Applications: By leveraging APIs and connectors, you can find data harmony with seamless integration of modern content services with existing systems while also getting a deeper level of analytics and insights.
Secure Your Assets: Privacy and security: two of the biggest data priorities. Data security always needs to be a priority. But if you want an open, accessible platform that allows the unfettered flow of data and information across the company and with external third-party partners…how do you keep it on lock? Luckily cloud-based platforms meet industry-specific requirements while giving strict control over access and privileges.
Empower Employees: Legacy systems often rely on IT or the person wearing the data crown of the company to configure reports for them. Cloud systems allow remote teams to take control of their workday and be more proactive with data.

See KMWorld’s full write-up on the best practices for eliminating data chaos and information silos in 2021.

Inclusive UX in an Era of Anxiety

JUNE 6, 2021

Accessibility should always come first in design and user experiences. This is especially true in industries that involve complex tasks and understanding like healthcare, insurance, and finance. As designers and developers, it’s important to remember not to have UX exist in a bubble to cater to one group or our testing alone.

This past year has been, understandably, increasingly difficult for many to cope. Handling more and more of daily life online doesn’t always make things easier. Here are some ways of making UX less stressful for all involved:

Backups and Alternatives: For any essential task, the more channels the better. This could be web, phone, email, chat, or the forever important medium: paper. Make sure every channel you have talk to each other so that your users have options without obstacles.

Back to the Basics: Write your copy to be as clear but concise as possible. For the sake of brevity in a digital experience, only request information you absolutely need. We’re huge fans of knowing our users, but nobody wants overkill with questions on forms, or unrelated fields.

Better Glitch Fixes: Prepare for both System failure and human error. Without proper error states and messaging explaining what’s next or an alternative path, some may be completely at a loss. Yeah, we’re human, and mistakes happen all the time, so think through all the ways something could be goofed and fixed.

For more insights on user experience being accessible to those with anxiety and depression, check out the rest of the UX Collective’s piece.

A Guide to Defying Rainbow-Washing

JUNE 1, 2021

Pride Month is officially here, and we’ve already been giving you the skinny on all the lovely, rainbow campaigns we’re seeing. The thing is, it’s not enough to participate. Consumers want allies and advocacy outside of June. Brands need to put their money where their rainbow logos are.

Some examples of brands doing just that:

Procter & Gamble: This year, they released a landmark study with GLAAD, “LGBTQ Inclusion in Advertising and Media,” and featured lesbian moms with a transgender child in their Pantene ads.
Pepsico: With their brand, Bubly, they hosted the year-round “Drag for All Flavors” showcase of talent from people of color, drag kings and queens, and transgender artists.
Citi: The first bank to launch a version of Mastercard’s “True Name” initiative in the U.S., allowing trans and nonbinary people to use their self-identified first name.

How to Avoid Rainbow Washing:

Get Educated: There is an intersectionality of culture and semiotics that has a huge potential for brands to engage with on personalized levels. Make LGBTQ+ education an ongoing commitment for your company and MarCom team.

Hire LGTBTQ+: Use a predominantly queer team to develop queer campaigns (makes sense, right?).

Get Involved: Partner with LGBTQ+ nonprofits, advocacy groups, and projects to fuel a year-round narrative with groups such as GLAAD, GLSEN, The Trevor Project, It Gets Better, Our Family Coalition, The Transgender Law Center, and PFLAG. Brands can impact their own community by sponsoring local queer spaces.

Go All the Way: Many brands launch LGBTQ+ campaigns in progressive cities. Advocate in markets where the work will make people uncomfortable.

Read the full piece on MediaPost for more information and ideas.