Why, you ask? Let’s dive a little deeper.

First and foremost, understand that your bounce rate does not generate any income. Sure, there are instances where the two are connected, but more often than not, your bounce rate has little to no affect on revenue-creating results (conversions) or an increase in sales for your business.

Does your website contain a blog? If so, that is probably contributing to an increased bounce rate. Contrary to popular marketing belief, a blog almost always increases your bounce rate primarily because the nature of blog readers is to read and then leave. They have no intention of lingering or taking action once they have finished reading what they came for. The important number to look for in terms of your blog is the number of visitors. Even if they only remain on your site to read the most recent blog, odds are they will come back to your blog page time and time again. With that in mind, blogs are a great location to place inbound links.

So, is there any value in looking at your bounce rate? Sure. Bounce rates can help diagnose more specific problems. For example, if one page is underperforming in conversions, a bounce rate can help figure out what exactly is going on. Just remember that bounce rate is a signal and a diagnosis tool, not an end-all-be-all number to stress over.

Looking to gain more insight into your web analytics? Our team is at the ready! Contact us to get started today.

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However, this time period can also be viewed as an opportunity to get creative with different sales tactics, product/service offerings and building a stronger presence within your community. Fear and irrational decision-making never helped anyone – especially when it comes to your business. Instead, focus on what you can control, which is working to keep your business running in the highest capacity possible while keeping the safety of yourself and others as a top priority. We’ve compiled a list of ways to keep your business running strong right now so that uncertainty can be traded with productivity, community outreach and positivity.

1. Be Empathetic and Transparent
   • Empathy is critical and your brand’s voice is being scrutinized now more than ever. People will take note of the ways you present your company during this time. From donating to nonprofits to contributing to healthcare workers to simply expressing thoughts and concern on social media, all of these actions help to create a positive reputation for your company as well as build respected relationships with other businesses in your community.
2. Connect with Clients on a Virtual Level
   • Technology is a wonderful thing and can be used for any business, even those that are exclusively service based. Take a note from doctors, many of whom are conducting virtual assessments via video consultations and phone calls. You may also consider refreshing your social media accounts and increasing contactless engagement with new or former clients through video calls, webinars or virtual conferences. It might just take a little thinking outside of the box!
3. Consider Print Materials
   • Sure, we’re all shifting more into the digital realm, but that’s what makes print pieces stand out! Dimensional print pieces, such as brochures or mailer cards, still function as a means of message delivery while also giving the customer an interactive and memorable experience.
4. Consider E-Commerce
   • Maybe you’ve had an online shop for years and are wanting to expand it or maybe you’re looking into the e-commerce marketplace for the first time. Whatever the case, it is important to think of online sales as a chance to build out an additional revenue stream in a way that meets your customers where they’re at right now.
5. Plan for the Future
   • It may still seem out of reach, but COVID-19 will end at some point. With many businesses experiencing a little more down time, right now is the perfect time to carve out a piece of your day and dedicate it to evolving your business or marketing plan and revaluating your budget. Use this time to think about how to grow and pivot your business during the next month or year. It’s important to note that even in a post-COVID world, consumer behavior will shift, and you may see an increasing in digital or remote communication and commerce.
6. Communicate
   • Last, but probably the most vital, COMMUNICATE! Consistent and engaging communication is fundamental, especially during a time where face-to-face interactions are limited. Whether it’s updating your staff on a regular basis or speaking with clients on what changes your company is implementing to adapt to the times, communication is a key component to the longevity of any business.

Try incorporating some of these tactics and see how much they help your business maintain a sense of “normalcy” during these very abnormal circumstances. Remember, we’re all rooting for each other right now and Vista14 is here to help you during this difficult time. Whether to bounce around ideas or potential opportunities, our team is on standby to help anyway we can! Schedule your free consultation here.

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One of the biggest things to know is where each of these devices is pulling their information from.

• Apple pulls things like business data, reviews and photos from Apple Maps, Yelp, TripAdvisor and a few others.
• Google gets everything like basic business information, reviews, photos, etc. from Google My Business. A recent study showed that Google Home is the most accurate of all devices, answering 81% of queries correctly.
• Amazon pulls a lot of business data from Yelp and recently signed a deal with Yext, a business listings platform, that states that Yext will now submit business data directly to Amazon. If you are not yet listed on Yext, it is important that you do so.
• Microsoft collects business information from Bing but gets reviews and photos from Yelp and other sources.

But what does all this really mean in terms of optimizing voice search for your local business? The best way to optimize voice search for your local business is to enhance your normal desktop or mobile search strategy. You do this by optimizing your listings in Google My Business, Apple Maps, Yelp, Bing, Yext, etc., especially if you are not even listed on one of these. Take control of how your business is being displayed in the sources that these devices are constantly pulling information from. Optimizing through all of these is what impacts Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Cortana and how they respond to prompts based on your geographic location to the user. For example, if a user asks about plant nurseries in Houston, TX, the voice device will answer with a list of the top-rated ones within that user’s zip code or current address, the same as if that user were to physically type this into a search engine. How do you get your local nursery on that list? By monitoring your ratings and reviews online, keeping your business address and description up-to-date and making sure you have a listing in each platform that information is being collected from.

All in all, the first step to take when trying to optimize your voice search is to make sure you are currently being seen by those conducting a desktop or mobile search. From there, you can make efforts to claim and optimize how your business is being seen by the sources that voice devices pull information from. Contact Vista14 today to get started on a voice search strategy for your local business!

Butt, A. (2020, March 6). Voice Search Statistics And Trends For 2020. Retrieved March 6, 2020, from https://quoracreative.com/article/voice-search-statistics-trends

Shanfelt, E. (2018, November 19). How to Optimize for Local Business Voice Search – Alexa, Siri, and Google. Retrieved March 6, 2020, from https://localmarketinginstitute.com/optimize-local-business-voice-search-alexa-siri-google/

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If you haven’t implemented data into your marketing campaign, then you’re missing out on discovering customer insights and analytics that can help create stronger marketing campaigns. Rooted in research and analytics, data-driven marketing takes a scientific approach and utilizes proprietary technologies, artificial intelligence and machine learning to conduct hyper targeted marketing campaigns with AI-engineered content and influencers that are matched to your customers. Vista14 is excited to begin working with a data-driven influencer marketing company that custom curates and deploys highly effective campaigns that consistently outperform traditional marketing investments and yield better return on investment (ROI).

How is data-driven marketing different than traditional?

• Data-driven marketing collects millions of bits of public data to better understand, detect, manage and measure each campaign. Through this data collection and analysis, the content that is published is inspired by artificial intelligence (AI) to leverage the appropriate social platforms for each brand campaign. In addition, data-driven marketing does not use popular influencer databases or celebrity influencers, nor does it look at the number of followers to determine their influence. Instead, influencer research is conducted to find those that are engaged with their audiences and who’s content is best aligned with your company and the unique campaign.

What is Micro-Influencing?

• Micro-influencing is when brands partner with social media acconts that have smaller amounts of followers. This is done in an effort to have their brand promoted in a way that is more authentic and stands out from typical sponsored ads.
• These micro-influencers are usually well-known in their specific industry and have high levels of engagement with their followers, making them ideal for brands looking to extend their reach within a niche audience. In a recent survey, over 82% of consumers said they were likely to buy something a micro-influencer recommended because they trust their opinion.
• Another bonus? Micro-influencers are generally less expensive than celebrities, some even willing to promote products they like for free.

How does Artificial Intelligence (AI) Come into Play?

• AI marketing is a method of leveraging customer data and AI concepts in order to predict your customer’s next move and improve the customer journey. AI helps brands and marketers build a clearer picture of who their target audience is to ensure the right message is delivered to the right person at the right time, using the right channel.
• AI can also help marketers analyze search patterns to identify keywords, phrases or channels where brands should be focusing their efforts. This technology can also dig deeper into user demographics to discover potential clients and deliver the ideal content to them.

How is All of this Measured?

• There are a few factors that are measured through data-driven marketing, such as each unique campaign’s reach, ROI, content engagement relative to the reach, success of the micro-influencer and more.
• This data is analyzed by artificial intelligence, human intelligence and machine learning to better understand consumer trends and narratives relevant to the campaign. The result is the development of a marketing campaign that is scientifically created to market towards your target audience, thus increasing brand awareness and driving sales.

Utilizing data to drive marketing efforts is an efficient way to discover turn-key campaign solutions through insightful reporting and collaboration. Don’t let an inconclusive marketing campaign keep you from growing your business. Contact Vista14 today to get started on a successful campaign today!

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“Hey Alexa, where can I find XYZ?”

If you’re even remotely connected to modern technology, then you know what, or rather who, Alexa is, and that you can virtually ask her anything and receive an answer. These curated answers are entitled “skills” and there are currently more than 30,000 available today. With so many skills out there, it seems that adding a new skill to Alexa’s library is an easy task. So is it that so many companies struggle with how to integrate voice technology into their marketing strategy? If you’re one of the brands that finds itself lost on designing an Alexa skill for your brand, here are a few tips that may help.

• Plan Ahead. Don’t be so eager to get a skill onto the market that you fail to create a great and useful one. Alexa users are not shy to leave negative reviews on skills they find dissatisfying so make sure you go into the planning process with an idea of your skill, how it will be developed and how much of your budget you’re willing to allot to it.
• Keep The Human Aspect Alive. We aren’t arguing that Alexa is a real person, but users certainly interact with her as if she is. With that in mind, keep your skill dialogue brief and to the point, yet still upbeat and conversational. Avoid complex, industry-specific language that may leave your listener more confused. The best way to know if you have a good skill dialogue is to actually read it out loud to someone. Simple enough, right?
• Remember, Alexa Is Not Perfect. Just like we stated before, Alexa is a piece of technology, not a person. Therefore, her technology may encounter issues with your skill, such as not responding correctly or providing the wrong answer. To combat this issue, make sure your dialogue includes a wide variety of phrases people may use to address Alexa and have several error messages ready, like redirecting them closer to your original messaging or asking them to clarify.
• Make Your Skill Known. New skills are being added to Alexa’s library every day, making it more difficult for users to find your specific one without prior knowledge that it exists. As a result, it is important to heavily promote your skill through social media and on your website, with instructions on how to use it. The more users hear or read your skill’s language, the easier it will be for them to automatically remember it.
• Utilize Your Voice Search Strategy. Once you become more comfortable with voice search as a marketing strategy to interact with your customers, consider adding in voice shopping initiatives or digital voice advertisements to encourage users to ask Alexa to find your brand specifically.

If done correctly, developing an Alexa skill will do wonders for your brand in terms of brand recognition, customer interaction and sales. If this is something you’d like to consider for your company, Vista14 is here to help! Contact us here to learn more.

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In addition to inspiring a more focused creative effort, our data driven process enables the continued monitoring that a campaign needs to remain successful.  One of our most effective tools for evaluating success is our proprietary Committed Visitor Index (CVI). Keeping the customer journey as a focal point, our CVI breaks away from static metrics like bounce rate by breaking down where customers go on your site, how long they stay there and whether or not they take the actions that you want them to take. Where bounce rate lacks nuance and fails to account for context, CVI helps you to better focus on address the visitors who are actually engaging with your business.

One of the most significant tools in both measuring and increasing your CVI are strategically crafted landing pages. Across different industries, a quality landing page is a key difference maker in improving conversion rates. While the performance of standard issue landing pages varies drastically across industries, the top 10% of successful landing pages consistently perform three to five times better than average regardless of industry or focus. We tirelessly monitor these success stories and craft our landing pages to ensure that our clients are among them. With an optimized web site and the appropriate measurement tactics in place, we then position strategic consumer touch points across different channels to direct prospects to specific landing pages through a clear and effective call-to-action. Using these touch points, we can then evaluate media channel effectiveness in real time and make adjustments accordingly.

In an increasingly digital world, gauging when, how and even why your customers engage with your brand is essential to success. With this information in hand, both your media and creative strategies become a more dynamic product that can be meaningfully adjusted to compliment areas of strength and to convert challenges into opportunities for growth. With our tools and our team, there’s practically nothing that can stand in the way of you and your brand in 2020.

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Whether you’d like to admit it or not, unless you’ve recently done so, your website could probably undergo some updating. If you aren’t sure where to start, here are a few reasons why your website may need to be refreshed:

1.Your website is not mobile friendly, as in if you open it on a phone or tablet, you have to squint to read the content.

2.You have watched your rank in Google decline in the last six months.

3.You know you’re better than your competition, but your website information doesn’t show that. Consider adding in some interesting statistics and company information that makes you stand out.

4.Your current sales or product focus is not the first thing a visitor to your site sees.

5.You aren’t “connected” to the social platforms where your customers are. Do a little research to see what social media platforms your clientele uses most and make sure you’re using the same. In addition, it is helpful to have links to all your social media accounts somewhere on your website for ease of access.

6.You notice some “not so nice” things said about you when you Google your company. Read through the criticism and see what needs improvement!

7.You have “cool” flash intros and banners built into your site.

8.You find yourself asking “Is that information even on our website?” It’s smart to have a few people from your company complete a “web audit” of your site to compose a list of what important information is missing.

9.Your site is littered with stock images, clip art, or images scanned in by your assistant in 2015. Consider adding in more personal photos or simply refreshing the stock photos with more current ones.

10.You couldn’t update your website if you tried – and you haven’t. If updating your site isn’t in your company’s bandwidth right now, consider hiring someone who can take care of it for you and even teach you the simpler aspects.

11.You actually have made some changes to your staff.

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It should come as no surprise that selling to someone who has already purchased from you is easier than selling to someone new.  It has been drilled into our marketing psyche that loyalty and retention drive revenue and referrals – not to mention really happy people in corner offices. Gartner even put out a stat that I am sure most executives are having tattooed on the inside palm of every VP of Sales or Marketing – 80% of your future revenue will come from just 20% of your customers.

A healthy bottom line is a key metric at the heart of growing any sustainable business. And while there is much talk that it’s about 50% easier to sell to existing customers than to brand new prospects, Marketing and Sales tend to focus on the HUNTING versus the FARMING. Why? Because in most cases, there is little alignment of assets, processes and manpower dedicated to reducing churn. In other cases, it is discounted merely because of the notion that unlike lead generation or customer acquisition, retention efforts take comparatively longer before producing results.

But wait, shouldn’t resources be applied to where you get the biggest return? Yes, they should! But it is up to the mighty members of the marketing field to help our fellow sales teams and executives recognize the value of doing just that. And here is how…

Think Loyalty First

If unhappy customers do not want to do business with your company again, then it stands to reason your onboarding of new clients and operations play a vital role in retention. As Marketers, we are trained to look “out”, not “in”.  But in doing so, we miss specific information that will help offset “unmet expectations” throughout the lifecycle of a customer inside our own organizations. Mapping your Customer Journey is a common practice – with most attention focused on the collateral, communications and experience that drives the conversion of a prospect to a customer – not the post-sale loyalty.

So look deeper. What does a “new customer” need to experience in the first 90 seconds or 90 days with your business to re-affirm their purchase decision, confirm their pronouncement of trust and demonstrate to others (influencers, stakeholders or subordinates) that they made the right choice? Understanding what the customer needs to see or hear from you post-sale to remain loyal to their purchasing decision is paramount to a brand’s marketing and sales messaging throughout their Customer Journey. The strategy is to outline the assets and collateral you must create to align those expectations.

Develop Nurturing that Achieves Alignment

Great marketers must become proficient in operations in order to best understand the Voice of the Customer. Recently the Harvard Management Update reported that 80% of companies surveyed by Bain and Co. said that they offer superior customer service, but only 8% of their customers agreed with them. “Can you hear me now?” Don’t be fooled by the “false positives” of singular data points including likes of Facebook or customer satisfaction surveys. Those often give a false sense of hope – and margin growth just doesn’t spring forth from the well of eternal optimism. At least that’s what my CFO friend tells me.

If your customers are leaving, find out the reasons. For every customer complaint, there are more people who likely have not complained. Take these pain points and then map back to how your messaging, collateral or sales department might have set that “unmet expectation”. Create a wall of sticky notes listing the “Why They Buy” and “Why They Leave” and invite your interdepartmental team members to share in the discussion. How must your marketing, sales and operations better function together to deliver on the Brand Promises you are making along the Customer Journey? Then, and only then, can your Nurturing Program be an effective tool in fighting churn. Just slapping in an automated marketing email system that elegantly ties to your CRM and ERP platform will not solve this problem.

Recognize Advocacy as the Key to Profitability

We are all a fan of something – a team, a player, a beer. Being a “fan” means more than just cheering, it means evangelizing others. This comes in many forms, but the result is always the same – someone else telling the story besides you. As marketers, we don’t just want to build customer base, we want that customer base to share their (great) brand experiences with others – to recommend or refer their friends and colleagues to us. We call this “word of mouth” marketing. But stop for just a moment and THINK. That is an “Acquisition” statement – meaning those customers get tagged with a lower Cost of Acquisition because they were referred and not “earned”. What if we put “Word of Mouth” marketing in the retention and advocacy bucket? Would that not change our approach to tracking “Loyalty and Nurturing” such that we could demonstrate the value of spending on existing customers to produce these referrals over time?

Tracking “Cost of Referral Acquisition” is a new methodology that will result in your advocacy efforts creating a new conversation with Sales and Executives. If it costs 5 times more to acquire a new customer than keep existing clients (Forester Research), then it stands to reason more effort and dollars should be appropriated to driving greater “Share of Wallet” within existing clients or helping sales get deeper and wider with larger, disparate organizational structures. Did we not just demonstrate this will have a more effective ROI? (NOTE: In this case I did mean Return on Immediate – because ALL sales have a component of time.)

Budgeting for Retention Marketing

As you are formulating your spreadsheets, strategies and objectives for 2020, consider this: Understanding your customer “failure rate” will lead to greater promise of retention returns. Look for new ways to hear the voice of your customer, understand their pain points (both within their business and yours) and communicate in new ways to clearly set expectations throughout their journey with your brand. Anyone can put a line item in a budget that says, “Nurturing Program”, “Automated Marketing Platform” or “Net Promoter Score Survey”. But a great marketer looks at the best way to personalize and streamline the touchpoints along the path of the “Prospect to Customer to Advocate” journey.

It’s time to go beyond just Acquisition and Activation. Only by truly understanding the resources that should be applied to your existing customer base can you be part of the “bottom line” equation. Failure to act now only delays the future of your brand’s reputation, effectiveness and value.

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When creativity and analysis work together, amazing things can happen for you and your company. Throughout our partnership with your brand, Vista 14 will deliver dynamic and adaptive creative campaigns bolstered by industry-leading analytics. While very different from one another, both creative and data-driven efforts ultimately have the same goal: achieving growth for your business.

Knowing Your Audience and Inspiring Action

Vista 14 views advertising as audience acquisition. What this means for you is a creative product that aims to inspire growth as well as awareness, both of which begin with discovering potential clientele and mapping out their journey from prospect to paying customer. To achieve this, we utilize “look-a-like modeling” to identify smaller, existing audiences whose traits we then use to build a larger audience. We make sure that the desired audience can find and respond to your message and break things down by channel, media and format so that the right creative reaches the right audience in the right places. With a creative game plan based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis of your customers’ journey, we are able to deliver advertising that inspires genuine interest and sustained growth.

With the target identified and their interest piqued, we seal the deal with a strategic call-to-action. Our calls-to-action are designed to serve two important functions – inspiring engagement and directing customers to specific touch points – allowing us to evaluate which creative channels are working and which aren’t. From placement to word choice, we take stock of every last detail that could affect your conversion and dedicated visitor rates. For instance, most CTA’s are placed at the bottom of an article. Meanwhile, 50% of articles aren’t read to completion. Knowing these details about your prospects and their engagement patterns allows us to deliver a more dynamic, adaptable campaign that can improve upon any such shortcomings in real time. Settling for a mere creative makeover leaves too much room for everyday business needs to go unaddressed. At Vista 14, we place both creative and strategic factors at the forefront of our efforts to bring you both stronger sales and an overall stronger brand.

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One simply cannot be great without a great rival. There can be no measure – no comparative of skill, readiness, or wit. The challenge of a rival can change a vision – and can even change the world. The biggest of the brand rivalries can teach us much in the way of secretive strategies, brilliance through failure, and nobility in victory.

As a marker, you must “Know Thine Enemy”. There must be a list of those who chew up your market share, excel at captivating your target audiences’ share of mind, or who compete for your customers’ share of wallet. There must be a name (or names) of those against whom you benchmark your business. We chose some of the best examples to demonstrate how healthy competition can change a market for good.

Coke vs. Pepsi

This legendary rivalry almost needs no description since it seems to be one of those “grass green, sky blue” facts of life. Coca-Cola currently controls a staggering 50% of the soft drink market, while Pepsi claims just over 20%.

Tesla vs. BMW

It seems like in the past few years, Tesla had everyone’s attention, conservatively outselling the nearest competitor by over 30 percent. BMW’s response? To also create an electric car they felt would rival Tesla. However, while they are both considered luxury cars, they are quite different. Tesla had the advantage of promoting the first electric car, one that was desirable enough to get the public’s attention. BMW took the stance of fulfilling a role that Tesla currently couldn’t by standing out as a vehicle that was deemed to be more accessible. It’s safe to say we haven’t seen the last of the Tesla competition, as electric vehicles, particularly from BMW, are becoming more popular to produce and sell.

GE vs. Westinghouse

The War of Currents is a fascinating period in American history that rarely finds its way into classrooms, probably because it makes Thomas Edison look bad. Very, very bad. When Serbian engineer and scientist Nikola Tesla filed seven patents for utilities and products powered by alternating current (AC), he caught the attention and patronage of George Westinghouse of the Westinghouse Corporation. The pair would continue to try and develop this technology, and paved the way for battery and solar cell technology using DC current. Unfortunately, arch-nemesis Thomas Edison, co-founder of General Electric (GE) and a major developer of DC technology, was nota fan of AC. (Or, more specifically, the threat AC posed to his profitable empire.)

Edison fought dirty just to make sure Westinghouse and its prolific prodigy Tesla didn’t get a fair share of the market. The ensuing parade of propaganda to make this happen went to some dark and deeply unethical places. Edison resorted to horrific displays of animal cruelty in order to discredit AC, going so far as to hold demonstrations where he electrocuted homeless cats and dogs with AC current to confuse and panic the public.

As entertaining as well-executed brand rivalries can be, there is a point where they can go too far and cross over into grossly unethical territories. Please don’t do that.

Marvel vs. DC

Mainstay comic book publisher Marvel has been locked in heated battle with its rival DC for decades, with each one gently mocking the other in letters sections and other publications. They even crossed over their superhero comics in a 1996 miniseries, pitting their most popular characters against one another and letting fans vote on who should win.

These days, their rivalry has spilled into Cineplexes and home theaters. Warner Brothers owns DC, and Disney owns Marvel, and the calendars of moviegoers are saturated with adaptations of their most popular comics (though in the case of Guardians of the Galaxyand Big Hero 6, most obscure). Although neither company could be accused of floundering financially at the box office, Marvel seems to be the darling of the duo right now. The aforementioned Guardiansalone netted an applause-worthy amount of records, largely thanks to a brilliant marketing campaign that turned a C-lister like Star Lord from a “Who?” to a household name. Meanwhile, online response to the first Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justicetrailer has been . . . less than positive, if we want to spin it kindly. While DC’s Wonder Womangrossed $821.8 million at the box office, it didn’t come close to the $1.13 billion from Marvel’s Captain Marvel or the $2.8 billion that Marvel’s Avengers End Gamebrought in.

Brand rivalry is often the key driver a creative arms race of sorts that ultimately benefits the consumer. Regardless of whether or not you love blockbuster movies, soft drinks, or greasy to-go breakfasts, at least brands are putting forth a genuinely laudable effort to entertain people in the heat of competition.

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