Part Two: Digital marketing tips and tricks from Jason Fishman
The second post in a two-part series covering some of the common success factors, challenges, and nuances that Jason Fishman, SVP of Digital Strategy at the Digital Niche Agency, uses to design and execute ultra-performant digital marketing campaigns.
Part Two: Digital marketing tips and tricks from Jason Fishman
05-18-2020
Encountering teams with great products and services but without established marketing teams, channels or even strategies is a common occurrence at DNA. The agency works to help these teams present t...
Encountering teams with great products and services but without established marketing teams,
channels or even strategies is a common occurrence at DNA. The agency works to help these
teams present their technological value more clearly, better understand their audiences, and
clearly define the journeys their audience will take to perform the desired action (User stories covered in Part One).
If you missed the Part One from this series, check it out here!
Jason does point out though, that community engagement is a matter of style and that not every product or brand is best off connecting intimately with their audience. Recalling a story his dad shared with him about the first Superman movie, Jason points out how the only thing the movie advertised was the big “S”. There were no trailers, no sneak peeks, no information whatsoever. How did the movie franchise know that their audience wouldn’t care about anything but the premiere date? Well, they didn’t know for sure. They did know that their audience was a dedicated cult following of comic and superhero fans. They also knew these communities loved to talk about movies. They then took a risky strategy “Let’s communicate nothing in our messaging.” The result? Premiere day revealed lines around the block at most movie theaters across the country.
The key takeaway here is that a company must first deeply understand their audience before they can take creative risks in their marketing strategy. The Superman Franchise didn’t launch the “S” campaign because it looked cool, they did it so that their audience would talk about and become obsessed with the mystery of the upcoming movie. Why did this work? Because the franchise knew that this was the type of habitual behavior their audience practiced. Marketing is about storytelling, it’s about evolution. Jason believes that if you have a story to tell that presents your product offering as a clear and attractive value, go out and start telling your story. So then, we asked Jason, what is something that someone with a great product but zero marketing savvy could do to establish the foundation of their brand and audience? Jason recalls 2016 and 2017, when projects were raising larger amounts amount of money. Nowadays, projects face a more stark fundraising landscape and as a result, are much leaner in their approach to marketing.
Jason follows a strategy he calls smart entrepreneurial marketing, which all comes down to the process required to put an effective marketing plan together. Jason developed DNA’s 8-point marketing plan, and he says anyone can use this to improve their marketing efforts to drive more conversions.
Jason asks questions like, “What channels are they using to communicate?”, “What messaging is most effective?”, “How frequently are they targeting audiences?”, “Are they running ads, and on which platforms?” By gaining a baseline understanding of competitors’ marketing strategy, Jason helps teams use critical thinking to apply these messaging, channels and sequences to an initial marketing test of their own.
Once research is complete, the next step of the smart entrepreneurial marketing strategy is to launch that test, iterate it until audiences are converting (completing whatever your campaign’s objective is, i.e., campaign donation), and then scale up the winning combination of channels, messaging and sequence to target a larger portion of your audience. The process is simple: test, optimize, scale.
Testing is an incredibly important piece of marketing that often gets undervalued, either due to confirmation bias (This Ad is awesome, everyone will love it!) or just lazy assumptions. Jason points out that any given message or strategy that worked for one company may not work for another. Even within the same company, a message may work in one campaign but not in another. That’s because it’s impossible to predict what people will feel and how they will react to your marketing communications without first understanding them deeply. That’s why the smart entrepreneurial marketer conducts diligent research into their competitors' marketing strategy, and then makes an educated guess about an initial campaign, tests their hypothesis at a small scale and objectively observes the results.
It’s also important to pay attention to patterns and trends. While one message or channel may not work consistently for all competitors in a space, Jason says that its still important to pay attention to strategies used repeatedly by one or multiple companies. When strategies are deployed repeatedly, it tells Jason that something is working.
We’ve discussed the myriad nuances and tips that Jason and his team have to offer. We hope that you’ve gathered value from this two-part series and developed a new confidence to get involved and learn more about your team’s marketing strategy!
We hope you’ll share what you learned with us on our socials!
Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter to get the latest news and articles!
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If you missed the Part One from this series, check it out here!
Before You Launch
When we asked what’s critical for teams to undertake before beginning a marketing campaign, Jason comes back to audience. Building and engaging with a community of your users, your partners, your suppliers is the most valuable thing a young company can do. It’s not just about marketing either. Engaging with customers and audience is the only way to gather real insights about how people feel about your product, what they love, and what needs improvement. Those algorithms may tell you which channels aren’t performing, but the best way to gain an in- depth understanding of your audience is to engage with them, ask questions and learn from their answers.Jason does point out though, that community engagement is a matter of style and that not every product or brand is best off connecting intimately with their audience. Recalling a story his dad shared with him about the first Superman movie, Jason points out how the only thing the movie advertised was the big “S”. There were no trailers, no sneak peeks, no information whatsoever. How did the movie franchise know that their audience wouldn’t care about anything but the premiere date? Well, they didn’t know for sure. They did know that their audience was a dedicated cult following of comic and superhero fans. They also knew these communities loved to talk about movies. They then took a risky strategy “Let’s communicate nothing in our messaging.” The result? Premiere day revealed lines around the block at most movie theaters across the country.
The key takeaway here is that a company must first deeply understand their audience before they can take creative risks in their marketing strategy. The Superman Franchise didn’t launch the “S” campaign because it looked cool, they did it so that their audience would talk about and become obsessed with the mystery of the upcoming movie. Why did this work? Because the franchise knew that this was the type of habitual behavior their audience practiced. Marketing is about storytelling, it’s about evolution. Jason believes that if you have a story to tell that presents your product offering as a clear and attractive value, go out and start telling your story. So then, we asked Jason, what is something that someone with a great product but zero marketing savvy could do to establish the foundation of their brand and audience? Jason recalls 2016 and 2017, when projects were raising larger amounts amount of money. Nowadays, projects face a more stark fundraising landscape and as a result, are much leaner in their approach to marketing.
Jason follows a strategy he calls smart entrepreneurial marketing, which all comes down to the process required to put an effective marketing plan together. Jason developed DNA’s 8-point marketing plan, and he says anyone can use this to improve their marketing efforts to drive more conversions.
The Eight-Point Marketing Plan
The plan starts with research, conducting real-time industry and competitor audits. Jason says that understanding what competitors in a client’s space are doing to capture their share of the digital audience right now. Be diligent when it comes to research, the answers probably aren’t sitting on the first pages of Google search results. Following what your competitor did last year to reach their audience is almost as bad as not knowing your audience at all!Jason asks questions like, “What channels are they using to communicate?”, “What messaging is most effective?”, “How frequently are they targeting audiences?”, “Are they running ads, and on which platforms?” By gaining a baseline understanding of competitors’ marketing strategy, Jason helps teams use critical thinking to apply these messaging, channels and sequences to an initial marketing test of their own.
Once research is complete, the next step of the smart entrepreneurial marketing strategy is to launch that test, iterate it until audiences are converting (completing whatever your campaign’s objective is, i.e., campaign donation), and then scale up the winning combination of channels, messaging and sequence to target a larger portion of your audience. The process is simple: test, optimize, scale.
Testing is an incredibly important piece of marketing that often gets undervalued, either due to confirmation bias (This Ad is awesome, everyone will love it!) or just lazy assumptions. Jason points out that any given message or strategy that worked for one company may not work for another. Even within the same company, a message may work in one campaign but not in another. That’s because it’s impossible to predict what people will feel and how they will react to your marketing communications without first understanding them deeply. That’s why the smart entrepreneurial marketer conducts diligent research into their competitors' marketing strategy, and then makes an educated guess about an initial campaign, tests their hypothesis at a small scale and objectively observes the results.
It’s also important to pay attention to patterns and trends. While one message or channel may not work consistently for all competitors in a space, Jason says that its still important to pay attention to strategies used repeatedly by one or multiple companies. When strategies are deployed repeatedly, it tells Jason that something is working.
Research Synthesis
Once you’ve gathered sufficient information about your competitors’ marketing and communications strategies, there are a few things you can do in order to synthesize that information most effectively. The first is to define your target audience. During your research, you should have identified what platforms your audience uses, what makes them take action, and what their habits and expectations are. With this information, you can create a profile of your target audience. With this profile in place, move on to consolidating the most effective channels used by your competitors. Your initial test should probably look similar to “what channels worked.” You can see which channels are more effective by comparing engagement and activity within each channel.Predict
Jason says his team’s use of algorithms is hugely important to their ability to optimize campaigns over time. Simple formulas to track impressions, clicks and conversions can actually help pinpoint the areas needing improvement in your campaign. For example, if Facebook advertisements aren’t working as a channel, with performance tracking algorithms in place, you can identify exactly what’s not working. Are people clicking but not converting? That means your ad is effective but your point-of-conversion isn’t getting the job done! Or, if your impressions are high and clicks are low, you should probably considering optimizing the messaging in your ad.Test and Optimize
Jason reminds that the “test, optimize, scale” also applies to optimization itself. When you’re looking to optimize your ad messaging, don’t just switch to new copy, instead test your original ad alongside the new one, and see which performs better. If it does, you’ll know your new messaging is an effective optimization.We’ve discussed the myriad nuances and tips that Jason and his team have to offer. We hope that you’ve gathered value from this two-part series and developed a new confidence to get involved and learn more about your team’s marketing strategy!
We hope you’ll share what you learned with us on our socials!
Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter to get the latest news and articles!
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