Level Agency’s Leadership Team Weighs In
The first quarter of a new year is the perfect time to revamp your marketing strategy. Here are 6 tips from members of our leadership team to help get you started.
1. Low code/ no code tools.
Patrick Patterson
President
Low-code/no-code tools that enable non-developers to create software solutions will change the way businesses hire, operate, and automate. Google, Facebook, Hubspot, Salesforce, Slack, Airtable, Zapier, IFTTT, etc., are all investing a massive amount of resources into bringing complex tools that were traditionally out of touch for most to the masses. Companies will embrace these new technologies and encourage their non-developer team members to create products that ensure robots do the robot work and humans do the human work. As a result, 2022 will be when workflow and automation are demystified and adopted like Excel was in the workplace 35 years ago.
2. 1st Party, Cross Channel.
Patrick Van Gorder
SVP
Brands and agencies that embrace new strategies to run coordinated audiences across increasingly siloed devices (thanks Apple!) and media ecosystem will thrive, while those that rely on old, last-click measurement strategies to evaluate how well their media is performing will be left scratching their heads. Intelligent, privacy-safe use of 1st party-data will be at the center of it all, both for cross-sell campaigns and modeling new expansion audiences in pure prospecting. Agencies like Level that invest in Enterprise Data Analytics (EDA) capabilities and Customer Data Platforms will be able to show up for the right audience with the right ad on the right platform more frequently and consistently, and measure success in a rigorous way that turns skeptics into believers.
3. Do the Human Work.
Brad Stephenson
AVP Client Services
With artificial intelligence and machine learning becoming more advanced in marketing platforms, managing campaigns has become heavily democratized. Improvements in automated bidding, dynamic content testing, and other areas allow marketers to spend less time making manual adjustments and more time on content strategy. Take advantage of this shift by developing deeper audience personas that include more than demographic details. What do your customers need? What are their challenges? What do they value? Then, use this research to develop a full-journey plan that adds value at every stage, and leverage the robots to optimize delivery of the improved assets.
4. Proactively manage turnover.
JT Smith
AVP of Operations
Having a quality team in place makes all the difference, and turnover can be expensive. With millions of people changing jobs during this pivotal cultural moment, investing in your team can pay dividends. Take the time to evaluate the status of your current staff: Are they paid market rates? Are you contributing to their growth? Are their managers spending adequate time with them? These questions (and more) can help you identify target areas for investment and minimize the risk of key players leaving for greener pastures.
5. Make AI work for you.
Eric Liu
VP of Data and Analytics
From smart monitoring to refining business processes to real-time optimization, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming a much bigger part of our business lives. Going into 2022, every major marketing platform is using AI to help run campaigns. Why? With AI, advertisers can build campaigns with greater efficiency, deliver optimizations faster, and dig up insightful reporting metrics with greater ease.
We need to get used to working alongside these AI-powered tools in our day-to-day lives and using them to supercharge the completion of our business objectives.
Using AI-powered chatbots offers an easy way to get started with AI in 2022. Deploy them on your websites and landing pages to help with audience engagement, guiding users toward your business goals. These bots can be created in minutes and deployed without any technical skills. As the chatbots analyze more information through Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) they will adapt to your customers’ needs. This means giving them the answers they need, collecting lead information, and being there even when you can’t.
6. Actively and Effectively Look for Feedback and Use It as Opportunity for Growth.
Geoffrey Roebuck
EDU Team Lead II
Are you keeping yourself and your media open for honest, direct feedback, or is pride getting in the way of doing good work?
For yourself: Make sure you’re soliciting feedback about yourself and your media in the appropriate ways. “Is there anything we can do better?” doesn’t cut it. Instead, ask specific questions that force an open-ended response, such as: “What is one thing I could have done to support you better on this?”
For your marketing: Don’t assume everything is golden, and those who are recommending fundamental changes are just out to get you. Really ask yourself – “What are some of my assumptions about what is working that I haven’t tested in a while?” The world of marketing is changing every week, and the ways you execute on that marketing must change with it.
Accept outside perspectives – “Maybe SKAGs aren’t the only way to get good performance out of my paid media in 2022”.
Be diligent about Testing, Learning, and Growing. Be honest with yourself about how serious you’re taking the first two elements to really achieve the third. Learn a book about soliciting feedback – Dare to Lead by Brene Brown and Radical Candor by Kim Scott are classics I swear by.