Insights

Customized incentives, establishing a stakeholder mentality and, above all else, respect will help senior-living operators counter labor market headwinds.

“It May Be Time for Chief Happiness Officers in Senior Living” was the title of the 2018 article. Yes, 2018, well before COVID-19, the “Great Resignation” and quiet quitting. Employee satisfaction and retention were concerns long before the dips and detours of this decade, and seniors housing and care staffing remain a huge challenge for an industry that, as of 2016, needed to attract 1.2 million more workers by 2025.Lument, which recently found that 62% of seniors housing survey respondents named staffing as the sector’s greatest challenge, set out to find ways to counter its labor struggles. Here are a few key strategies for attracting and retaining talent from the commercial real estate finance firm:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Whatever the industry, when it comes to managing people, the Golden Rule shines every time: treat others as you would want to be treated. That means respect, plain and simple.

Charles Turner, CEO of Kare, a staffing solution company for senior living communities, points to a disconnect between what operators think of as a strong culture and the view from frontline workers. The former operates in terms of mission statements, collective processes and a unified identity, while staff seeks individual respect, empowerment and “never to be treated like commodities,” Lument reports.

Kare found that around 70% of frontline workers are single parents and 35% have adult dependents, “making them caregivers at work and at home,” Turner noted. They deserve empathy and fair compensation.

To put their money where their mouth is, Turner suggests operators consider covering 100% of insurance premiums in exchange for a slightly lower pay. Kare also offers a “real-time pay” feature allowing staff to receive payment immediately after shifts are verified.

Actions yielding positive, personal, tangible results always trump vision statements. Show respect — and the money! — to retain talent.

Open Books, Open Paths

Transparency breeds trust. On the financial front, staff that are kept in the loop about a senior center’s performance are more likely to feel engaged and able to directly connect their work to fiscal results. It’s the substantial difference between merely punching the clock and having a stake in something bigger than self. As Lument reports, communities that offer staff bonuses based on monthly or quarterly performance further establish a sense of ownership across the company, which does wonders for staff morale and retention.

Openness works in another way, too: career advancement. Creating promotion pathways within senior living operations is an effective way to retain talent because it helps establish the staff mindset that good work will be rewarded.

Sevy Petras, CEO and co-founder of Priority Life Care, an Indiana-based seniors housing provider, reminds that there are plenty of expert needs in the industry in addition to nurses and thus many promotional routes, including in marketing and nutrition. Plus, caregivers can get burned out, which further underscores the need for good leadership to help reroute career paths as necessary.

“The days of finding the unicorn employee who wants to stay in that same seat for 20-plus years and do the same thing year after year are over,” said Petras, whose company has established a certification program at the community college level to help individuals and the industry alike. “It’s not a realistic expectation if we want to have top performance consistently.”

Vince Vitti, infinitee’s vice president of business development and the firm’s recruitment marketing guru, said, “Though we’ve yet to hire a Chief Happiness Officer, we are in the unique position of having marketed senior living communities in award-winning ways and helped recruitment marketing clients with their critical strategies. While the answers aren’t easy in this challenging labor market, combining the aforementioned staffing strategies with a time-tested marketing partner will position your organization in a good way.”

Of all commercial real estate pros, marketers might be challenged the most with striking the right balance between artificial intelligence and personal touch.

“This is heavy,” Marty McFly says multiple times in the movie Back to the Future. The future is now for the real estate industry with artificial intelligence and tools such as ChatGPT looking to make a heavy impact, although not including time travel back to the heyday of malls. Real estate people are currently assessing AI, where it fits and how far it can go.

AI’s use to date has been to lighten the load. Until the last year or so, the real estate industry predominantly used it for processing and analyzing large amounts of data. Then came along large language models or GPT tools “that use deep learning to generate human-like text” and training, not surprisingly, on huge amounts of data to “understand and analyze natural language, generate coherent responses, provide insights, and assist in various tasks such as content creation, customer support and data analysis.”

AI’s real estate application seemingly and perhaps dazzlingly blew up overnight. “Everybody wants to experience it,” Amit Koren, JLL Technologies CEO, Leasing & Capital Markets Technology, told Bisnow. “The degree of wonder associated with it is quite high. Relative to any other tech in recent years, it is capturing people’s attention.”

The systematic, time-saving uses for CRE companies include creating marketing materials and site selection based on lack of supply and/or competitor locations. The big opportunity involving such powerful technology does come with some no-no’s though. As Bisnow reports, JLL will roll out staff guidelines for using new AI tools, including the hopefully-goes-without-saying rule against entering confidential client information into one of those systems.

The content-creation side of AI should definitely get the attention of marketing professionals, including brand makers, storytellers and creative advocates for real estate firms. Its current value though seems to be again in time savings, helping things along versus overhauling the process and its parts.

“It’s OK for a first draft, but it’s a long, long way off from replacing any of my team,” WiredScore Global Head of Product, Jules Barker, told Bisnow. “It wasn’t better than if a senior member of the team had written [a commercial real estate company persona], but it may have been better than a new grad.”

There’s so much more than the black and white of the written word, of course. Tone, for example, which can depend on event, platform and more.

“What surprised me most is, while the general messaging was there, the tone was always wrong,” said Yoo Capital Director of Communications and Social Impact, Louise Page-Jennings. “It felt unauthentic, formulaic and almost heartless. We want to truly engage with the communities we invest in, and this should translate across all our communications. ChatGPT didn’t strike that tone for me, and to nurture relationships over written communications, genuine emotion and passion is key.”

Pros across the real estate industry will continue to conduct “their own tiny experiments” to assess and evaluate AI’s utility and applicability, asserts Bisnow. And why not? Tech is there to help companies improve performance, and those passing on a major innovation like AI will be playing at a disadvantage. Yet, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

“ChatGPT can help draft marketing pieces, but it may be a light year or two away from developing an integrated marketing strategy for a luxury residential community or helping a client reimagine the shopping experience,” said Tim Patton, CEO at infinitee. “Our team’s belief in endless possibilities and great ideas and always delivering service with a personal touch is here to stay.”

Multifaceted developments serve consumers with community activations, and  elevated entertainment and dining options, and boost foot traffic while improving land efficiency.

The Great Outdoors was the ‘in thing’ well before the demise of malls and the COVID-19 pandemic, of course, but those events have helped add more momentum to a fit, fresh real estate trend. Consumers increasingly value health and wellness and retail places that not only provide those types of products and services, but also package it all in a visually appealing, walkable and environmentally sound location. They find those things at open-air lifestyle centers.

RE Business Online defined the pedestrian-friendly, town center-like developments as “intentionally designed spaces that are set against beautiful landscapes and house high-quality dining, retail, entertainment, health and wellness uses.” A breath of fresh air literally and figuratively, open-air lifestyle centers have capitalized on the growing number of people prioritizing wellness amenities and services — 4 out of 5 surveyed intend to maintain or increase spending in the retail segment — and on the mall redevelopment trend, while thriving in the warm climate Sun Belt states from California to the Carolinas.

From a developer and owner standpoint, the retail center type lends itself to improved land use efficiency — including mixed-use with its ‘built-in’ consumer populations — a sustainable focus that not only achieves operational savings, but will only grow in importance with younger generations known for demonstrating their values through their spending habits. The walkable, inviting atmosphere at such shopping centers also encourages foot traffic and expands shoppers' time and money on site.

Tanger Outlets continues to transform the shopping experience across its 36 lifestyle centers in the U.S. and Canada. An infinitee client for over 20 years, the operator of outdoor outlet centers is rolling out a refreshed visual identity dubbed "Open Air" across its portfolio. With a goal to reimagine shopper engagement, the elevated mix of offerings may include micro-breweries, gourmet groceries, golf simulators, electric car recharging stations, selfie concepts and even robotic dinosaurs.

In addition to that innovative mix of offerings and a refreshed visual identity, including a new logo, Tanger will expand on the programming that boosts the community hub appeal of its open-air lifestyle centers. From environmental activations to holiday programming, the community events and experiences, coupled with elevated entertainment options, create outstanding and meaningful connections for guests.

This open-air shift is happening everywhere. For example, the Chicago suburbs have lost 40% of its enclosed malls in the last 30 years and could have only five to eight remaining by the end of the decade, according to one projection. A classic example of moving on from the classic, old mall is the Fox Valley Mall conversion in Aurora, Ill., where a vacant Sears store and parking lot will become 304 luxury apartments, part of a mixed-use community with walkable connections to entertainment and shopping.

Whereas many mall department stores back then viewed restaurants and other uses as competitors for parking, now the focus is on cross-shopping with the rising tide of foot traffic lifting all business hopes. A principal of Mid-America Real Estate, which has tracked more than 5 million square feet of lifestyle space over the past decade, told Bisnow that lifestyle centers have never been stronger than in 2023, citing the creative engagement potential of outdoor activations for fitness classes, concert series, outdoor movies and more.

Grand Boulevard in Miramar Beach, Fla., not only offers the multifaceted appeal and resulting commercial commingling benefits of 765,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, Class A office space and three on-site hotels, but the mixed-use lifestyle center also drives greater consumer traffic with year-round happenings, including the 30a Songwriters Festival, ArtsQuest Fine Arts Festival and its signature event, the  South Walton Beaches Wine & Food Festival.

“As creative, people-centric advocates who believe in endless possibilities and great ideas, the open-air center trend is right down our alley,” said Michael Rivera, infinitee’s creative director. “Building unique and compelling brands is what we do, but their activation, especially in cool outdoor environments such as Tanger’s and others, is really one of the best, most exciting things that we get to do.”

Commercial real estate conversions spread revitalizing real estate value from the property at hand to the surrounding submarket and overall property sector.

U.S. office market vacancy recently hit a 30-year high while the housing market still registers a shortage of millions of homes and apartment units. One man's problem is another man's opportunity, it’s been said, and that’s reflected in the real estate world with the increasing number of conversions of commercial buildings into multifamily housing properties.

In the past decade-plus, the retail, industrial and office sectors have all gone through substantial real estate revolutions thanks to man-made (i.e., e-commerce) and pandemic disruptions. Property conversions have been a reality for decades, but those sudden shocks have brought them into greater focus, if not outright need. Behind the Facade: The Feasibility of Converting Commercial Real Estate to Multifamily, a National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) Research Foundation and Urban Land Institute (ULI)  report, explores the feasibility and applicability of converting obsolete or underused commercial properties.

‘Adapt or die’ can seem like a simple (yet stark) decision in business, but with real estate property conversions there are many details to cover. There are many advantages, too, beyond moving from, for example, suburban office, a 23^rd ranked real estate segment for investment and development prospects, to the No. 2 property segment in moderate-income apartments (averaged from its No. 1 and 3 rankings, respectively, in PwC and ULI’s 2023 Emerging Trends in Real Estate report).

According to Behind the Façade, speed and applicability are major benefits in property conversions. One developer said that six to 10 months can be saved on conversion work versus a ground-up project. Secondly, real estate repurposing works well from cities to the suburbs, according to first-hand data from the developers of 29 commercial-to-multifamily conversion projects. Lastly, one perceived disadvantage, dealing with existing occupancy before conversion work, seems to be less of an inhibiting factor. “The developers that needed to negotiate lease terminations with tenants of occupied properties did not report any impediments,” reported RE Business Online.

Adapting a building requires flexibility in planning and process, too. As REBO reported, redesign and reconfiguration can happen in real-time with conversion projects. In the high stakes business of real estate development, it’s always a good idea to have an experienced team of general contractors, architects and engineers. Not surprisingly, property conversions can throw developers a curveball or two. Call it the Forrest Gump-box of chocolates aspect of real estate.

“You really don’t know what you’re getting into until you take off the façade and walls, bring it down to the concrete,” said one developer that was converting a 1960s-vintage property. “Floor plates, column grids, floor-to-floor height, window systems, HVAC, sewer outfall and so much more need to be studied.”

Adaptive reuse and other real estate conversion projects offer great revitalizing value beyond the property in question to the surrounding submarket, sustainable savings, boosted tax revenues and a more balanced overall property sector.

“’Location, location, location’ has been the fundamental rule of the real estate industry, but to be spot on ‘highest and best use,’ another real estate maxim, must follow,” said Michael Rivera, infinitee’s creative director. “In short, be where the demand is and create — and sometimes convert — space that best optimizes the potential of the land or location. From award-winning ground-up development to national chains reimagining their built environment, we’ve been there to assist with innovation and expertise that deliver measurable marketing results.”

In the dynamic world of SEO, brands must stay on top of system changes and industry trends to keep marketing content in place and on pace.

Brands must stay on top of marketing trends, but SEO is a whole different beast as key changes can happen instantaneously, not organically, through algorithm updates by Google. A flip of the switch can leave your website optimization in the dark.

In our last post, we focused on search engine writing tactics to give your website the best chance of being found during web searches, but what if that connection literally changes overnight and your SEO content suddenly is not maximizing the opportunity to rank in results pages?

SEO trends are a content topic that has to be constantly updated “because there isn’t another industry which is as dynamic as SEO,” according to Stan Ventures. The SEO experts offered the following top SEO trends (and more) to keep in mind when optimizing your website content relevance and resulting traffic.

Blogger Outreach & Influencer Marketing

With “the sun setting upon personal blogs” as most struggle to find their true audience, brands may have to reassess their influencer marketing strategy. Most bloggers will shift to reputable sites within their specific niche to publish content so that it gets the desired levels of engagement and traffic. As Google moves more towards being an entity-based search engine, i.e., mapping each author (an entity) to a particular niche (another entity), SV asserts that “authors and brands must ensure that they have enough digital evidence to prove their credibility and experience in a niche.”

Experiential Differential

Speaking of experience, SEO rankings eat it up. Actually, it’s the new addition to Google’s EAT acronym: Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. From online stores to product review sites, Google uses the EAT criteria to understand how accurate, honest, safe and reliable the content is so that its search results will appropriately weight the content and sites for online searchers to be able to make the best, most informed decisions.

Are you experienced? Google will be measuring that. “If I’m reviewing a Stock Market app, in addition to checking my experience in the stock market, Google will now check within the content if I’ve actually used the app,” writes SV’s Dileep Thekkethil.

“Passage Indexing”

Google’s new algorithm called Passage Indexing, in effect, combines the best of “keep it simple” and in-depth, long-form content, which we covered last time. It will now use the natural language processing feature while indexing web pages and try to understand the meaning of each passage within the page, SV reports. That means that short paragraphs or excerpts from a bigger content effort can stand on their own, i.e., stand out in search results, no matter how many sections down the info might be in your long-form piece. Tactically, to benefit the most from this algorithm, brands should commit to highly structured content, including sections that each focus on a subtopic.

“If creativity is intelligence having fun, as Einstein said, then SEO is like the scientific side of the content equation, the power and discipline that ensure a brand’s originality and expressiveness reach the biggest audience,” said Tori Alexis, one of infinitee’s  Brand Managers. “Combining the art and science in your marketing content platform is smart — and can be fun, too. We’re here to help with innovative, creative, highly-engaging and high-impact marketing strategies.”

CLICK HERE for Part 1 of this conversation.

Quality SEO content is the key to finding your digital audience and commencing the conversion funnel.

If a content piece posts in the worldwide web woods, and there’s no one around to see it, does it make a difference? Absolutely not. Like resume sending, audition getting and anything at the start of the marketing sales funnel, you and your content must be seen first. That critical online business priority has led to a global search engine optimization (SEO) market that is expected to reach $122.11 billion by 2028.

To give your website the best chance of being found during web searches you need to produce quality SEO content, which will “please search engines enough” that they’ll rank your work well in results pages. To do that, start with these search engine writing basics:

Learn & Leverage

‘Know your audience’ is the most common rule in the content business, but for SEO it means comprehending search intent and tactically what keywords people will use in their searches. The more content answers people’s questions and addresses their search queries the higher ranking it will get. “It’s almost impossible to create ranking content without finding the right keyword,” writes Smart Blogger’s Liliana Benzel. Find them, know them, a key step and part of your content strategy before the actual writing process starts.

A content corollary to understanding one’s audience is to know your competition. After all, your content is competing against theirs for rankings, clicks and conversions. Reading competing posts already ranking on Google for your keywords is a good way to know the focal and tactical standard that is required.

The Write Stuff

It’s important to write for your intended targets but also for the system. After all, the latter ranks on that search intent, which comes from the people and the keywords they search on.

There’s no second chance to make a first impression, and so it is with headlines in SEO writing. To boost click-thru rate (CTR), try to use the following in headlines: numbers and percentages, the current year and special characters, such as parentheses, brackets and ampersands. Benzel adds that meta descriptions are second only to headers as the first things that readers see on search engine results pages so keep them dialed in and optimized.

Long-form content not surprisingly tends to keep visitors on the webpage for longer, which is a good thing according to SmartBlogger. Size matters per Google’s algorithm, which can even penalize shorter content. And remember the importance of quality subheads to get readers, nearly 80% of which scan a new page before reading it, to commit to a fuller exploration of said content.

Old & New School Elevation

Google likes links. When creating SEO content, make sure to link to external, high-quality content and to other content from your own website. This leverages authoritative sites to boost SEO ranking and, in the latter scenario, maximizes readers’ staying time while also making it easier for search engines to index your site pages.

The old rules of engaging content still apply: visually appealing copy — always optimize images — with multiple entry points will attract the most eyeballs. And commit to multiple rounds of editing as if the world will be viewing your content… because that’s the goal for top-quality SEO writing.

“Your website is your window to the world, but it’s a big place that can be daunting to navigate,” said Marcia Homer, infinitee’s Director of Brand Management. “To find your audience amidst all the commotion and ultimately feed your business, quality SEO writing is essential. Brands must do all they can to maximize connections back to their 24-7 marketing hub, the company website.”

TO BE CONTINUED

STAY TUNED for Part 2 of this conversation!

These key marketing metrics will provide insights on volume, activation and costs, while helping to keep tight with sales.

A wise man once said that marketing alone is just art, and sales by itself is “just talking.” But joining forces, the two disciplines “can work magic.” To work wonders or simply better grease the conversion funnel, B2B marketers must crystallize how their efforts are supporting a company’s sales platform. That means cold, hard numbers, better known as key performance indicators (KPI).

Before setting KPIs — and before getting to LinkedIn’s 10 most common B2B marketing KPIs and how to use them — you and your marketing team must get SMART. That means Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound with your campaign goals. Without those important criteria, the KPIs will not provide an effective indication of your progress.

In simple terms, let’s divide the most common B2B marketing KPIs into the following groups: getting people to show up, getting them to participate and, like every business must do, figuring out what the varying degrees of participation and action all cost.

Volume KPIs

Website traffic, the total number of visitors to your website, is a general measure, but it can be helpful as a baseline to compare other metrics, such as organic and paid traffic. The former is the total volume of visitors arriving at your website from a search engine while the latter is the number of people coming to your site through paid promotion. Organic traffic indicates that your content is successfully being discovered in searches while paid traffic tells you how much ads, sponsored content and paid search efforts are driving people to your content and landing pages.

Activation KPIs

Window shoppers might make your store look popular, but it’s not what businesses are all about. The objective is getting customers inside and buying products and/or services or, of course, the virtual equivalent. From a KPI perspective, click through rate, conversion rate and marketing qualified lead (MQL) to sales qualified lead (SQL) conversion rate tell you whether or not your marketing efforts are compelling visitors to take the desired action.

Click through rate (CTR), the number of total impressions divided by the number of clicks, sheds light on how your messaging, creative content or calls to action are getting visitors to take action and respond to your email marketing, paid search, sponsored content or other campaign. Conversion rate measures the number of visitors to a page who take whatever action your campaign intended, whether downloading an ebook, filling out a form or making a purchase. And the MQL to SQL conversion rate reflects “the relevance and readiness of audiences being reached through a campaign,” writes LinkedIn’s Alexandra Rynne.

Cost-Based KPIs

Smart business calls for constant cost-benefit analysis. With cost-based KPIs can come a lot of benefit. After all, it’s not enough to achieve a result; a business must do it efficiently. Cost per click, cost per lead and customer acquisition cost help reveal the level of efficiency and more specifically how well marketing is working together with sales.

“We hear of ROI a lot in business, but it’s important to focus on and commit to KPIs on the tactical front line to be able to properly assess how your marketing efforts and campaigns are performing,” said Tim Patton, infinitee’s CEO. “The big-picture priority we should commit to more is customer lifetime value, how when you’ve successfully moved beyond a transaction to developing a relationship with a customer that not only supports the long-term bottom line but also helps you optimize all of the above.”

The goals of digital marketing may stay the same, but not the how-to, forcing marketers to stay on top of the latest tactical trends to maximize customer connection.

“If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me” wasn’t written by a Millennial, but the song might as well have been. In its own, unique and perhaps unintentional way, that generation has taught us there are more effective ways to communicate and connect. So it is with digital marketing, which with its benefits of wider reach, hyperlocal penetration, easier personalization and targeting, better customer connection and higher conversions, has quite a nice ring to it.

The centrality of digital marketing in modern-day business for promoting products and services may not change much, but the practical trends for maximizing a company’s online efforts do. According to Data Science Central (DSC), “if businesses can pay attention to [the following] trends and curate marketing practices to align with them, they will have better opportunities to boost their growth and generate promising leads.”

Top Tools

Let’s face it: making your customers or would-be ones wait for a response or do an often times frustrating search on their own for actionable info is not the way to encourage them to proceed through your marketing-sales funnel. That’s why chatbot use on business websites will continue to grow in popularity as a marketing tactic. Chatbots increase customer engagement, convenience and that sense of reliability, which is a key part of customer loyalty.

And why should bottom line growth stop at the border? Some businesses may cite the language barrier as a reason, but increasingly machine translators on international brand websites are allowing customers to access information from any location in the world, a rising trend according to DSC.

Third & Zero Parties

As we’ve said before in this space, influencer marketing will continue to grow, helping build trust and authenticity with consumers. After all, whom do you trust more about a product or service – a stranger posting on Twitter, a TV advertisement or an established authority on the matter? Influencer marketing aims to leverage influencers, whether creators, subject matter experts, industry pros or others, to that effect.

From the influence of third parties to the data collection of none: “zero-party data” methods, such as form building, are ways brands can better understand their customers by the latter’s intentional sharing of personal information so that companies can then tailor their marketing practices.

Application Elevation

Email marketing, a core competency in any successful digital marketing platform, will see a boost this year, according to DSC. To connect with consumers in a fresh, personal and special way for product launches, remember the e-marketing importance of customer behavior tracking and proper audience segmentation.

On that timely, targeted theme, real-time messaging is becoming an advantageous way for brands to connect with customers. Conveniently and cost-effectively informing and empowering them with promo updates, product news and more is becoming more and more popular with businesses, DSC asserts.

Also, marketing applications are increasingly helping brands advertise products and services. It’s simple, efficient and gets brands in front of new audience segments.

“We need to remember a consequence of this digital marketing age is the decline in consumer patience,” said Vince Vitti, infinitee’s VP, Business Development. “A critical question then follows: how do we as brands react to that reaction? We can help with brand gratification methods to keep customers positively engaged during those times when their expectations might not be met.”

Marketers can use automation in different ways to maximize audience engagement, increase sales and free up bandwidth for more strategic pursuits.

Easier, faster and more accurate amount to the Holy Grail of business. No matter what market, industry or era, these have been constant objectives. That’s why tech always advances and why business always follows. Marketing automation helps companies generate leads and sales, while freeing up people for more strategic efforts.

The Sends of Change

Tech tools might be viewed as an “easy button,” but for effective marketing, you still have to do the work to get to know your customers and target audience. From junk mail to spam calls and emails, there are plenty of reminders in daily life of messaging attempts that aren’t targeted and finish way off the marketing mark.

With customer behavior tracking and proper audience segmentation, targeted emails can be an excellent way to use marketing automation to nurture leads, while also allowing marketers to track campaigns and measure ROI, according to Syed Balkhi, company founder and content management system expert. Targeted emails include content relevant to the receiver’s interests, thereby helping them get to know your brand more and increasing the likelihood of turning them into customers. Also, a personalized email drip campaign keeps recipients engaged over time at various touchpoints and thus more likely to proceed down the marketing funnel to sales conversion.

As discussed before in this space, getting a potential customer’s attention is not enough. By offering deals and incentives with marketing automation, i.e., email marketing, “you can give leads an extra nudge that encourages them to take the next step and become paying customers,” Balkhi writes. In a similar automation vein, push notifications can be used to seize the marketing moment by sending timely reminders to prospective customers who are about to leave your website or are exhibiting other visitor behaviors.

In Game

Outreach is naturally the main thrust of a marketing program, but prospective customers need to have a place to go when interested in your products and services. Creating custom landing pages is another great way to nurture leads via marketing automation, according to Balkhi. There’s a reason why they are sometimes known as lead capture pages. It’s not advantageous to direct targeted visitors to a general homepage; time is money or rather less money if you’re adding too many steps to the customer’s journey.

Custom landing pages should be designed to appeal directly to the needs and interests of leads. Depending on where the person is in the buyer’s journey, the appropriate landing page could offer a free trial, guide or other resources.

Right Time & Place

The idea of a blog post on a billboard is absurd, but companies do regularly churn out content without thinking of the proper distribution and engagement. “You need to repurpose your content or simply share it with the right people at the right time and through the right channels,” Balkhi writes.

A content experience platform can help. It allows marketers to tag content according to different factors, including buyer persona, sales funnel stage, channel, and content topic and type. Couple that with the customized landing pages and companies can be on the level with each segment of their audience and thus more likely to convert leads.

Of course, content marketing and distribution must involve social media. Automation platforms can help distribute, organize, and publish material in a much more targeted and comprehensive way. They help maximize valuable engagement by tagging or categorizing content based on the mood, intention, or type of post and then automatically assign pieces to different social media networks, saving lots of valuable time.

“The  numbers don’t lie — spending on marketing automation software will more than double by 2031 to $11.2 billion,” said Marcia Homer, infinitee’s Director of Brand Management. “Marketers have to do more to connect with potential customers and with marketing automation they can actually do more with less. We are here, of course, to help with the extra time and resources you’ll have to devote to elevating your branding strategy.”

Marketing bloggers can follow these content creation steps for the best chance to generate internal traction and trigger external action.

Good content turns your head, fixes your eyes and engages your mind. From a bookstore to a billboard, a wide variety of written content is designed to be consumed — or, more precisely, marketing and other creative minds have put forth their best content effort to attract people to products with the staying power that leads to successful business.

The attention of some audiences, like sports or Harry Potter fans, comes easier, but what about engaging people who have no prior connection to your products or services? That’s the big challenge facing marketing bloggers. Maximizing the following “AIDA” content creation path will help:

Attention

Nothing is achieved with a blog post if a person’s attention is not captured first. So what are the critical elements to get your content noticed and pull readers in?

First, create a catchy, topical headline. A descriptive deck can help explain the blog post’s more fully, ensuring that the audience quickly identifies the goal and relevance of the write-up. Also, make sure titles and headings contain relevant, search-able keywords.

Consistent, easy-to-process article structure is a must, as are appealing photos and other entry points, such as pull quotes and graphs. This first step in creating attractive and effective blog posts has only grown more imperative with social media distractions and the other factors contributing to shorter consumer attention spans.

Interest

After capturing the reader’s attention, it’s time to cultivate their interest in your content. As covered in ReadWrite, the best way to do so is by using simple language and authoritative phasing and always staying sharp with grammar.

Gaining the interest of readers first requires a smooth experience: they want to get the scope of the work right away without any hurdles or confusion. Simple wording and good flow, i.e., transitions, make that possible. An authoritative tone adds to the momentum of the reader’s experience and compels them to continue on to the value statement and call to action. Finally, air-tight grammar, which exudes focus and professionalism, is like the glue that keep the boat together and readers onboard with your content mission.

Desire

Congratulations, you’ve gotten your readers’ attention and gained their interest. Many bloggers unintentionally offer an exit ramp from their content goal during those steps, but you’re ready to go further, into a prospective client’s mind where they feel actionable desire.

You must understand the topic thoroughly so you know the audience, the appropriate tone to use, the needs or challenges they experience related to the subject and then how your solution or argument brings value to that audience. Relatability is essential so use ‘real life’ examples. Statistics not only display your knowledge about the effectiveness and reliability of a product or service — always provide authoritative links to data, ReadWrite reminds — but also provide a real world, metrics-based picture of the implications of the offering.

Action

You’ve provided in blog form the compelling stepping stones to decision time. Now tell the reader how they can take action. Engaging with the blog post (including sharing!), asking the audience for feedback and asking the prospect to subscribe are “ideal” components of a call to action, according to ReadWrite. Keep the audience engaged and interacting and they will keep your company and value proposition in mind.

“We tend to think of a blog post as one topic or angle, but it’s also a series of connections and steps that are only reached if the one prior to it has effectively done its job,” said Marcia Homer, infinitee’s Director of Brand Management. “Like enticing a deer to eat from your hand with a string of measured, trust-earning steps, it’s about deft persuasion, rather than any push or pull, that will get readers to consume your blog content and then ultimately act on your offering.”

At infinitee, we’re INto tracking trends that impact our clients. For more than 30 years, our Atlanta-based agency has helped clients capitalize on branding and marketing trends, including print and digital media. To learn how we can help your company, call Vince Vitti, VP of Business Development, at 404-231-3481.

B2B influencer marketing helps build lasting relationships, improve brand reputation and awareness, and generate new leads.

The marketing-sales funnel turns 125 years young in 2023, and marketers still approach it with youthful zeal to try to squeeze every ounce of energy and advantage from it to benefit their bottom lines. A renewed focus on the last stage of the funnel, trust, has led to a new approach: influencer marketing.

Whom do you trust more about a product or service – a stranger posting on Twitter, a TV advertisement or a long-time, influential friend? While influencer marketing isn’t about enlisting your buddy to sell you on stuff, it does attempt to leverage influencers, whether creators, subject matter experts, industry experts or others, and the authenticity and trust they engender.

“B2B influencer marketing provides an ideal way to combat disintegrating brand trust,” writes Lane Ellis, a veteran social media and content marketing manager, adding that this type of influencer marketing is the “business-oriented cousin to the B2C Instagram entertainment and lifestyle influencer.”

The marketing move is definitely getting results, i.e., customers to proceed through the marketing-sales funnel and buy the product or service in question. The B2B influencer marketing vertical was projected to reach $11.7 billion in revenue at the end of 2022, with over 38% of B2B firms exploring influencer marketing for lead-generation and more, according to AdAge. Average brand boost could reach 16.6% with a sound influencer marketing strategy, according to an analysis by the Harvard Business Review, with influencer originality accounting for a 15.5% rise in return on investment.

U.S. organizations are expected to spend $6.16 billion on influencer marketing during 2023. Nearly six out of every 10 (59%) marketing leaders noted that they considered B2B influencer marketing a priority today, according to 2022 survey data from the  Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

Focus & Favor

The world of media messaging has never been more expansive while consumer attention spans have never been shorter. B2B influencer marketing helps counter that challenging landscape, building lasting relationships, improving brand reputation and awareness, and, of course, generating new leads. And given Hootsuite’s findings that 42% of organizations exceeding 1,000 employees work with influencers and creators and only 28% of smaller businesses (under 100 workers) do, your company could seize almost instant upside with a quality influencer marketing initiative.

The “influencer economy” is undeniable. Influencer recommendations have even surpassed those of friends and family among the most important factors in purchase decisions, according to one report. Ellis does offer a note of caution though: given that “crafting award-winning B2B marketing content that elevates, gives voice to talent and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort” it’s a good idea to partner with a leading digital marketing agency.

“We talk a lot about the need for brands to be authentic, responsive and create meaningful experiences for consumers,” said Marcia Homer, infinitee’s Director of Brand Management. “An effective influence marketing program definitely hits on the authentic and meaningful. People relate to and trust people more than companies so brands are smart to lead with that personal embodiment of expertise and reliability.”

What new trends should retailers stay on top of to find success in 2023?

Staying on top of trends can sometimes sound business cliché, but being in the know about new and changing industry currents can open up new opportunities and differentiate your company in all the right and revenue-producing ways. As we’ve discussed before, retail is an especially dynamic sector that requires constant monitoring. Be sure your company stays abreast of these retail trends in convenience, service, and safety and reliability.

Convenience

E-commerce, which was born out of the Great Recession and surged during COVID-19, is here to stay. That should be a no-brainer, but did you know that there are now an estimated 12 to 24 million e-commerce stores globally and that nearly 6 of every 10 Internet users are buying online each week? eMarketer predicts that e-commerce’s cut of the total retail market will eclipse 22% this year, and global e-commerce sales will grow to $8.1 trillion by 2026.

On the in-person retail convenience front, self-service checkout will become more and more of a factor. Driven by increasing costs of retail store space, longer customer wait times and, of course, labor headwinds, both shortage and costs, the self-service checkout market was expected to grow at 13.3% from 2022 to 2023 after reaching a $3.44 billion worth in 2021.

From high-tech to high-touch service, appointment shopping allows consumers to schedule exclusive time in-store to browse products. This omnichannel and experiential retail sales strategy gives customers greater choice as well, where they can browse and test products or book an appointment to buy online and pick up in-store.

From clicks to bricks, customers want efficiency and the ability to choose their own retail experience. Retailers should be able to deliver these conveniences in quality, personalized ways.

Service

Okay, Boomers, we know chatbots aren’t your favorite part of retail user interface and customer service, but the numbers and efficiency don’t lie. Gartner predicts that one out of every four companies will use chatbots as their main customer service tool by 2027. And it’s little wonder why considering the cost savings, always-on customer service and other benefits the tools provide.

Speaking of always-on, retailers navigating the unprecedented level of customer service expectations should be providing reliable 24/7 customer support. Hootsuite cites a Retail Dive survey showing that 93% of respondents would be more patient about shipment delays if the brand offered great customer service. A conversational AI chatbot works around the clock and never complains!

Safety & Reliability

Safety first, it’s been said, but it’s an even bigger priority given how social media platforms gather and utilize data and the fact that since 2020 the retail sector has been the most targeted industry for cyberattacks, according to Hootsuite. Statistics show that more than four out of every 5 Americans (81%) have expressed concern about how companies collect private data, and governments from the EU to California to China are responding with new laws. There should be no cutting corners when it comes to protecting your retail customers’ data.

Supply chains have not been safe nor sound in recent years as major upheavals, including pandemic and war, threatened retailers’ flow of goods. There’s definitely no convenience or even service without healthy and reliable supply chains. Retailers should rely on innovation and, yes, staying atop the trends to keep their logistics flexible, agile, and thus successful.

“Retail trends change, but the values — convenience, service, safety — stay the same,” said Marcia Homer, infinitee’s Director of Brand Management. “Find people and a marketing team that match your strong values, and it helps if the team has navigated 30-plus years of trends. Our team’s experience and belief in limitless possibilities can guide you down the long and winding road of retail.”