Do you want to run an account-based marketing campaign? Do you find tracking down contact information to be the most tedious part?
What if there was a way to have the accounts come to you and willingly provide their information?
Under the guise of a different campaign, this can be possible, read on to find out how this can be done.
Before we get into that, here’s a peek at what’s to come:
- Is longer Facebook ad copy actually more effective than shorter?
- Walgreens is waltzing into the first-party data monetization party.
- Zoom meetings, virtual conferences, and now simulated training sessions for office employees.
The Folks At ProfitWell Are Profiting Off Giveaways
The toughest part of any account-based marketing (ABM) strategy is finding your audience’s contact information.
Once you have a hold of their email, address, or phone number it’s game on because you can begin to personalize your outreach, build a personal rapport and create an organizational chart.
Flipping the traditional marketing funnel and working bottom-up is the basis of ABM, but starting from the bottom isn’t easy.
The team at Profitwell has cracked the struggle of gathering contact information with a brilliant new strategy: The Recurring Drop.
What is The Recurring Drop?
Basically, it’s a set of giveaways but with a catch – no one knows what they are signing up to receive until the drop is revealed.
It’s enticing, surprising, and targeted to the accounts Profitwell is going after.
The first drop was a set of limited series collectible cards for subscription executives – think of it as your Pokémon card collection but make it B2B icons.
The caveat and secret being: in order to get your hat in the ring to enter the giveaway pool, you need to provide your first and last name, address, email, and phone number.
Hmm, that sounds like everything you would need to run a successful ABM campaign.
And that is exactly the point of what makes this campaign so brilliant.
By targeting the accounts with an attractive giveaway tailored to their interests, you can generate a bank of contact information. This information is then ready for when you decide it’s time to take action and begin targeting them with your campaign.
In fact, this is also the beginning of an ABM campaign as it opens the doors for conversation, offers a little merch that we know everyone loves and generates goodwill – it’s also a great branding opportunity.
Additionally, ProfitWell encourages the sharing of a personalized link that is generated after signing up for the drop; by sharing the link you increase your chances of winning.
Not only have they gathered the contact information, but they are creating brand exposure for Profitwell as well as generating free press as accounts share their code.
With this new strategy of collecting target customers addresses, the only thing I can say about ABM going forward is that we, 🎵Started from the bottom, now we’re here Started from the bottom, now my whole team fuckin’ here 🎵
Key Takeaways:
- Incentivizing link sharing for giveaways generates free press
- Getting creative with campaigns is a great way to create an ABM contact arsenal
- Providing a targeted product that will attract your target audience through a signup wall takes the grunt work out of ABM
Debunking The Myth: No One Has Time For Long Copy
When it comes to ad copy, we tend to believe that it is better to keep it short and sweet rather than long and detailed.
However, AdEspresso ran an experiment proving that shorter isn’t always better.
Within the study, they tested seven different Facebook ads for the same offer, with the same image, but with different copy.
- One sentence – a claim with data
- One sentence – framed as a question
- Bullet points
- Bullet points and emojis 😁
- One paragraph
- Three paragraphs
- Six Paragraphs
You’ve been primed by reading the intro to this piece but I still want you to take a guess at which performed best.
Did you choose the fifth ad copy variation – one paragraph?
If you did then you are acing the use of ad copy on Facebook 🎉🎉
Following closely behind one paragraph, three paragraphs were the most effective and in third place six paragraphs.
Having longer ad copy allows you to expand on details, appeal to a larger audience, back up points with data, and conclude with a strong call to action.
So now you know longer copy works better on Facebook and Facebook works well for generating B2B leads when you know how to leverage it.
Just so we are on the same page here, copy belongs in the description and not over images.
Although Facebook has removed the less than 20% copy over ad rule, they still recommend reducing the amount of text over images.
Key Takeaways:
- Longer Facebook ad copy reaps great benefits
- Split test your next Facebook ad to see if longer copy works well for your brand
- Facebook recommends limiting text over images; keep your copy to the description
Another Player in Cookie Replacement
At the beginning of this month, Walgreens unveiled they are opening their own advertising group, appropriately named Walgreens Advertising Group (WAG).
WAG is a full service, personalization-driven advertising group offering insights rooted in owned first-party data. Their goal is to maximize ROI for brands using data-led execution and optimization through Walgreens-owned platforms and additional external brand-safe channels.
Luke Kigel, vice president of Walgreen integrated media and head of WAG states that:
“At Walgreens, we have an unparalleled insight into consumers’ needs and shopping preferences when it comes to health and wellness items and everyday needs. Leveraging advanced technology to unlock the power of our first-party data, we can help brands accelerate ROI by delivering relevant and personalized experiences to their highest-value consumers.”
Since they are able to combine more than 9,000 stores and 100+ million loyalty members, it isn’t hard to believe that they have the data to provide these insights.
From their inception – loyalty cards have been designed to track consumer buying behaviour as well as providing user benefits. And now with the added benefit of corporate knowledge, previously used to understand their buying behaviour, loyalty cards are proving to be a generous new source of revenue.
Pairing that with advanced data modelling, WAG will be able to deliver highly customized audience personas tailored to brand goals and objectives.
Not only does WAG allow clients to access their first-party data, which will be paramount as third-party cookies are phased out, they are also provided access to advertising platforms to which customers are directly connected to.
This is new in making a move away from the traditional method of digital media buying as users are connected directly to an advertising platform.
Outside of the technical benefits, WAG is also going to provide the creative services we’d expect to see from an ad agency.
As the battle for cookie replacement is underway, we have seen Verizon’s ConnectID rise up with a focus on partnership for access to their first-party data and now WAG is stepping in. And they’re going the extra mile to secure access to their data behind an ad agency wall.
Key Takeaways
- Cookies are being replaced with competition around data selling
- The real winners will be those that can monetize their first-party data
- With a rise in first-party data competition WAG has come on strong offering a range of services along with access to their data
OTHER NEWS OF THE WEEK:
🥘 Expanding further into the restaurant industry Lightspeed POS is acquiring restaurant software company Upserve for $430M.
📈 Bizzabo has raised $138M in funding to support its platform that aids in building and running both virtual and in-person conferences.
🕴Claiming to automate up to 80% of customer service tasks ultimate.ai secured $20M in Series A funding which brings their total raised amount to be over $25 million.
BRAIN FOOD OF THE WEEK:
Imagine being able to practice delivering bad news, be it letting go of an employee or having to have a hard conversation with a client. Well, now you can!
With Murison you can run through simulated office encounters from the comfort of your favourite work from home location. A Murison specialist can play up to seven different characters in the simulation which allows them to react accordingly to the conversation so that you can prepare for blood pressure raising – cold sweat inducing situations.
They use real people to run the simulated characters as CEO Mark Atinkson laughs when stating “a bot can’t create that kind of stress.”
TWITTER THREAD OF THE WEEK:
Brand Differentiation by Marketing Examples
ALBUM OF THE WEEK:
Destiny Fulfilled by Destiny’s Child (Best Track: Girl)
Originally Sent Out Thursday, December 17, 2020. Stay up to date with all of our latest findings by subscribing to our newsletter today. Signing up also gives you early access to Ross’ Tuesday essay full of exclusive industry insights.
