• Arby’s is adding burgers to their menu for the first time, expanding into fast food competitor terriroties
• The National Gallery of Art made its own Wordle alternative called “Artle”
• Spotify made “tapestry billboards” for unique outdoor advertising
• TikTok is letting marketers crowdsource content through a new ad product

Lights, camera, action!

Actually…skip lights. And the studio. And all that editing business. When it comes to video content, you may be better off going all natural. This is especially true when it comes to eCommerce. Customers want to see how things really are, they’re not impressed by just the pretty, edited version of things.

Tips For Creating More Authentic Video Content:

• UGC is always a winner – There’s power in real-person reviews! Leverage customer first-impressions, testimonials, and product reviews.
• Get the team involved – Same with putting a personal touch on reviews, put a face to your offerings by showcasing your employees.
• Mobile-shot videos are expected – Remember when you would be mocked for filming in portrait orientation? Well between TikTok, Reels, and Shorts, that’s now the more natural format.
• Keep it on-brand – Some brands benefit from a little editing and polish. Others benefit from on-the-fly and raw footage. Think about how much editing effort your brand should have before going all-in on studio quality filming.

Check out the full Forbes article for more video shooting tips, stats on how customers react to video content, and ideas from other brands.

Spam is no one’s jam.

Check your spam level and ways to improve your score with this nifty tool by mail-tester.com. All you have to do is send an email to the unique inbox the test gives you. Then it will give you the results of your email with any HTML errors and pointers on your domain’s security.

Get a feel for what’s real.

Today we talked about keeping content authentic and more natural to appeal to a lot of audiences. But the first step to understanding what content your audience loves most is to ask.

And the best place to ask? Right at the source.

Scalemail Polls is a polling system that can be integrated right into your email instead of redirecting users to a third-party survey. That way you can start asking Q’s right where your content already is.

Sound groovy? Let us show you what it’s all about.

Jimmy John’s has a campaign featuring actor Brad Garrett as mafia-like Tony Bolognavich, or the “King of Cold Cuts.” He’s realizing that if Jimmy John’s uses all fresh ingredients for their sandwiches, that could be a problem for him, ya see? This is no laughing matter.