Last week, Ashley and I had the opportunity to fly out to California to attend the Google Partners All-Star Event. The event consisted of three days of talks (and new logo unveil) from top Google advertisers speaking on Programmatic, search, and the power of video. We, and 500 of our close friends from 51 countries, had the opportunity to learn from the people literally changing the Internet.
Since the event, I’ve been pondering the ideas, questions, and industry’s future that was discussed. What are my takeaways? What can I bring back for the team? Where did the serifs go from their logo? And though there’s no clear answer, I’ve been able to boil down the key concepts that will hopefully bring some clarity to a crowded industry.
My key takeaways:
- Micro-moments – These are the small interaction we have with our customers as they browse online. You want to make the most of that time and not alienate them. This is the time you have to establish a relationship that can blossom into a life long customer. You want to be able to provide value even within five seconds.
- Education – Now, being educated on the workings of online is not enough. We must work on educating our clients. They decide where to spend their marketing dollars and won’t choose something that they don’t understand, even if it’s the broadest concepts. It’s our jobs as marketers to help educate business so they have the tools to make informed decisions.
- Content Driven Ads – Ads need to grab someone’s attention and keep them there long enough for your call-to-action. The first five seconds are critical and that’s where content driven ads come into play. They provide a story (however long) and get your message out. They don’t annoy, distract, or alienate anyone. They provide a reason to click and learn more. They don’t spam the Internet with noise, but provide beautiful content that provides value.
- Target and Test – With ad technology growing every year, it’s easier and essential to target and test your digital campaigns. You are able to pinpoint the exact audience you want to target and deliver curated ads. By doing this, you are able to test different ad messages to see what resonates with the consumers. Specific targeting and testing is not an option anymore, it’s a necessity.
- Grow by 10x Method – This is a great way at looking at growing your products and services. Instead of trying to develop something new, work on a specific product or service to grow by 10x it’s current state. Don’t try starting from scratch, but take what you already have in place and make it great.
Ashley’s key takeaways:
- Search Targeting – Individual searches are more targeted. Accounts like Gmail and past searches are linked together to help the users have better experiences. Examples:
- “What’s my gate number?” search would link to your Gmail to pull recent airline emails to find that information of you gate number of flight.
- “My last order” would pull from your Gmail to find orders you previously made online.
- “What’s the weather like tomorrow” followed by “what about this weekend” would link the latter search to the former knowing you are still speaking about the weather.
- Video Marketing – We are now in the “Participation Age”, where we are no longer just sitting back and consuming information and advertising, but are actually participating and are part of the conversation. Video material needs to fall in one of these three categories; educate, entertain, inspire.
- Educate: transparency, teach, knowledge
- Entertain: intrigue, suspense, humor, clever
- Inspire: purpose, relatability, connect
Things to NOT do with video marketing:
- Don’t think you’ll get it right the first time.
- Don’t try to be something you’re not.
- Don’t make wonderful content and fail to promote.
- Analytics – Collect what matters. Measure the things YOU care about. Use transactions to measure monetary data.
This trip allowed us to take part in conversations about the cutting edge developments in our industry. At KeyMedia Solutions, we put everything that we learn to use and this trip was no exception. Hopefully, you’re able to take these concepts and apply them to your digital marketing or any aspect of your business. If you’d like to talk more about the event or even how many slides the Google Plex has, don’t hesitate to contact us.
