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Stuart O'Brien

Do you specialise in Brochure Printing? We want to hear from you!
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Each month on Digital Marketing Briefing we’re shining the spotlight on different parts of the print and marketing sectors – and in October we’ll be focussing on Brochure Printing solutions.

It’s all part of our ‘Recommended’ editorial feature, designed to help marketing industry professionals find the best products and services available today.

So, if you specialise in Brochure Printing and would like to be included as part of this exciting new shop window, we’d love to hear from you – for more info, contact Kerry Naumburger on k.naumburger@forumevents.co.uk.

Oct – Brochure Printing Nov – Creative & Design Dec – Online Strategy Jan 2024 – Content Management Feb 2024 – Lead Generation & Tracking Mar 2024 – Email Marketing April 2024 – Digital Printing May 2024 – Social Media Jun 2024 – Brand Monitoring July 2024 – Web Analytics Aug 2024 – Conversion Rate Optimisation Sept – Digital Signage

Personalised packaging pioneer Penny Black secures £1.5M investment
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Personalised packaging start up Penny Black, which is aiming to transform mundane ecommerce parcels into engaging branded unboxing experiences, has secured additional £1.5 million investment from AGFA and VC investor ninepointfive.

Both investment funds were triggered by the partnerships and wins across the UK and Europe, with the business having shown steady month-on-month growth and attracted a number of new customers. These include sustainable toothbrush retailer SURI, gin brand Warner’s Distillery and health supplements retailer Zooki.

Retailers and third-party logistics centres (3PLs) have been attracted to the easy-to-use marketing technology to help differentiate themselves from competitors.

“The moment consumers open their order will be an opportunity for brands to entice and retain consumers, helping them drive more revenue from existing customers,” said Penny Black CEO, Douglas Franklin. “Our software seamlessly connects ecommerce stores, marketing tools, warehouse management systems and fulfilment centres, making sure brands can bring in customer data and create hyper-personalised experiences and printed material that delights customers the moment they open purchases.”

Penny Black’s marketing SaaS tool for ecommerce brands is already being deployed across Europe by global fulfilment providers like Radial, Elanders, I-Fulfilment and Schroeders.

“3PL companies currently struggle to personalise ecommerce packages and can’t do much beyond mass-printed, one-design, gift notes thrown inside. Our unique offering helps automate a revenue-boosting process for on-demand, beautifully-designed printouts, specifically geared towards each customer, location, product or package,” Franklin explains.

Recent trials of Penny Black’s solution showed that retailers saw a measurable uplift in online sales after running personalisation campaigns. The toothbrush retailer, SURI, used Penny Black inserts to drive customer referrals and saw referral share rates up to 30% per cent, driving more customers to discover the brand for the first time. Other brands managed to equate up to an additional £2.20 in revenue per insert sent.

“Penny Black’s personalised inserts increased the size of our loyal customer base by six times; and once customers are in the community, their lifetime value (of sales) automatically rises. We can invite loyal repeat buyers to join the club, interact with fellow customers and take them on a physical journey of education and delight,” says Krisi Smith, Co-Founder at British tea retailer Bird & Blend Tea Co.

“As a young direct-to-consumer brand, enhancing our unboxing experience is a crucial growth opportunity for us. With Penny Black’s platform, we’re already seeing some brilliant results and delighting our customers. The integration with our 3PL was super simple, the personalisation process is intuitive, and with regular testing and iterating, Penny Black has helped us unlock tremendous value through this channel,” says Gyve Safavi, Co-Founder and CEO of SURI.

“Penny Black has solved the problem of creating a personalised unpacking experience for consumers in the world of ecommerce. The technology allows us to produce highly personalised campaigns, printed on-demand in our distribution centres, with engaging communications that elevate the consumer experience. This adds value to the service we provide to brands and delivers a solution that few other 3PLs can rival,” says Kevin Rogers, MD of Elanders UK.

Reflecting on the company’s swift ascent, Douglas Franklin, CEO at Penny Black, added: “The moment consumers receive their online orders is the only touchpoint left for ecommerce brands to have a physical connection with them. Brands need to surprise and delight customers to secure their loyalty, especially when acquiring new ones can be so expensive. Riding the wave of global growth in ecommerce, we’re delighted to be attracting more interest. And this latest boost in investment will help us develop even further.”

The UK tech startup first launched in the UK and Europe in April 2022. AGFA and 9.5 had the vision to support the business with an initial investment of £1.3m in October 2022. This further £1.5m investment is to help accelerate growth.

Digital Marketing Solutions Summit: Registration now open for May 2024
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As a leading professional in the digital marketing industry you can now register for your free delegate place at the Digital Marketing Solutions Summit, which takes place on May 9th 2024.

Unlike large expo’s, this intimate, hassle-free event allows you to build beneficial business relationships through your own itinerary of 1-2-1 meetings, with suppliers that match your current project/business requirements.

No hard sell, just a chance to meet and explore your options.

8th May 2024 – Hilton London Canary Wharf

Book Today

As one of our VIP attendees you will benefit from:

– The opportunity to meet with providers that can support your projects, plans, and events.
– Insightful and educational seminar sessions.
– Networking opportunities with peers who share your daily challenges.
– Lunch and refreshments throughout.

All the above will be included in your complimentary place, – contact us today if you have any questions at all.

63% of marketing leaders plan to invest in Generative AI in next two years
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Sixty-three percent of marketing leaders are planning to invest in generative AI in the next 24 months, with slightly more than half of respondents (56%) seeing greater reward than risk in using the technology.

A Gartner survey of 405 marketing leaders conducted in May and June 2023 revealed the utilization of their organization’s overall martech stack’s capability dropped to just 33% on average in 2023, marking a second consecutive year of decline (42% in 2022 and 58% in 2020).

“CMOs recognize both the promise and challenges of generative AI,” said Benjamin Bloom, VP Analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice. “There’s a clear tension between investing more in the current tech stack to drive utilization, or reallocating their finite resources towards the coming crop of generative AI applications that may not suffer from the same utilization problems.”

Gartner’s 2023 CMO Spend and Strategy Survey found that organizations are spending 25.4% of their 2023 marketing budget on technology. With the sharp decline of martech utilization, cost optimization pressure will be unavoidable upon recognition that marketers use only a third of technology capabilities that consume a quarter of their entire budget.

By contrast, for the few organizations that use more than 50% of their martech stack, they are significantly less likely to report being asked to cut their martech budget.

Increasing an organization’s martech utilization is difficult: Just 11% of respondents reported increasing their utilization of marketing technology by more than 10% in 2023, compared to 12 months ago. Complexity of the current ecosystem, customer data challenges and inflexible governance were identified by survey respondents as the most common impediments to greater utilization of their martech stack (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Impediments to Increased Marketing Technology Utilization (Percentage of Respondents)

Source: Gartner (August 2023)

“Marketers tend to acquire new technologies without a systematic approach for adopting them,” said Bloom. “Combined with multi-year contracts, under-utilized or abandoned technology can easily result in an unwieldy stack over time.

“CMOs should press martech teams to find opportunities to simplify so the rest of the function can flourish. Cutting underused technology within the current stack can also preserve some ‘dry powder’ for transformative applications that aren’t yet generally available.”

Call for wider awareness of implicit discrimination in marketing
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When looking at marketing messages, we should be considering different contexts in order to be aware of implicit discrimination, says new research from the University of Bradford, School of Management.

Marketers should take into account microsocial contexts, such as racial background, sexuality or migration status, as well as macrosocial contexts (geo-political settings, current political discourse, etc) when considering marketing messages. This, the researchers say, could help marketing practitioners better identify, understand and counteract racism and discrimination.

Professor Eva Kipnis at the University of Bradford said: “Nike’s 2017 advertisement, for example, ‘What will they say about you?’ failed to challenge female sports stereotypes in Saudi Arabia given the restrictions on women’s physical education at the time. In a different marketing campaign, a lesbian couple featuring in international supermarket chain VkusVill’s 2021 campaign had to leave the country due to Russia’s ‘antigay propaganda’ legislation. Practitioners can utilise this research to equitably address all consumers in multicultural marketplaces without exclusion, restriction or mistreatment.”

The framework can be applied to understand the different forms of racism and discrimination that consumers might experience by identifying how multiple context expressions operate.

The research was based on the examination of carefully selected studies from peer-reviewed marketing and consumer research journals. These were categorised by micro- and macrosocial context expressions that might contribute to marketplace discrimination.

The paper was published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Harnessing digital signage opportunities: What you need to know…
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From storefronts to corporate settings, digital signage offers an innovative way to communicate, advertise, and engage. Before delving into this promising avenue, businesses should weigh several key considerations…

  1. Purpose and Objectives: Begin by clearly defining what you intend to achieve with your digital signage. Whether it’s brand promotion, conveying specific information, or enhancing the aesthetic appeal of a physical location, a clear objective will guide the design and content strategy.
  2. Location: The effectiveness of digital signage is closely tied to its placement. For retail businesses, high-footfall areas, like entrances or checkout queues, can be ideal. Similarly, corporate settings might benefit from having signs in communal areas such as lobbies or cafeterias.
  3. Content Creation and Management:
    • Dynamic Content: Digital signage provides the flexibility to showcase dynamic content, be it videos, animations, or interactive elements. Ensure that the content aligns with the brand’s identity and resonates with your target audience.
    • Regular Updates: To maintain viewer engagement, regular content updates are essential. Choose a system that allows easy content management and updates.
  4. Integration with Other Systems: Digital signage can be integrated with point-of-sale systems, website feeds, or even social media streams. This interactivity can provide real-time information, special offers, or customer testimonials.
  5. Regulatory Compliance: The UK has specific advertising standards and regulations. Ensure that the content displayed adheres to these guidelines, especially if it involves promotions, offers, or claims.
  6. Hardware Durability and Quality: Depending on its placement (indoors or outdoors), the digital sign should withstand various conditions. Prioritise high-quality displays with good resolution, brightness, and durability.
  7. Interactivity: Touchscreen kiosks or QR-code integration can take digital signage beyond passive display, transforming them into interactive points that engage and inform.
  8. Cost Implications: While digital signage can offer a good return on investment, upfront costs can be significant. Consider aspects like installation, content creation, maintenance, and energy consumption. Look for solutions that align with your budget without compromising on quality.
  9. Feedback Mechanism: Incorporate ways to gather feedback on the effectiveness of your signage. This could be through direct customer feedback, tracking QR code scans, or analysing footfall patterns in relation to sign placement.
  10. Future-Proofing: Technology evolves rapidly. Opt for systems that offer scalability, are compatible with emerging technologies, and can support updates to prevent early obsolescence.

Digital signage offers businesses a unique blend of visual appeal, engagement, and flexibility. While it represents a significant investment, the benefits in terms of brand visibility, customer engagement, and potential sales uplift can be substantial. As with any technological deployment, thorough research, strategy, and regular review will help in maximising its advantages.

Are you sourcing Digital Signage solutions for you business? The Digital Marketing Solutions Summit can help!

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Generative AI leads inflated expectations on the 2023 emerging tech ‘hype cycle’
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Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is positioned on the Peak of Inflated Expectations, projected to reach transformational benefit within two to five years.

The Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2023 report encompasses Generative AI within the broader theme of emergent AI, a key trend on this Hype Cycle that is creating new opportunities for innovation.

“The popularity of many new AI techniques will have a profound impact on business and society,” said Arun Chandrasekaran, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “The massive pretraining and scale of AI foundation models, viral adoption of conversational agents and the proliferation of generative AI applications are heralding a new wave of workforce productivity and machine creativity.”

The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies is unique among Gartner Hype Cycles because it distills key insights from more than 2,000 technologies and applied frameworks that Gartner profiles each year into a succinct set of “must-know” emerging technologies. These technologies have potential to deliver transformational benefits over the next two to 10 years (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2023

Source: Gartner (August 2023)

“While all eyes are on AI right now, CIOs and CTOs must also turn their attention to other emerging technologies with transformational potential,” said Melissa Davis, VP Analyst at Gartner. “This includes technologies that are enhancing developer experience, driving innovation through the pervasive cloud and delivering human-centric security and privacy.”

“As the technologies in this Hype Cycle are still at an early stage, there is significant uncertainty about how they will evolve,” added Davis. “Such embryonic technologies present greater risks for deployment, but potentially greater benefits for early adopters.”

Four Themes of Emerging Technology Trends

Emergent AI: In addition to generative AI, several other emerging AI techniques offer immense potential for enhancing digital customer experiences, making better business decisions and building sustainable competitive differentiation. These technologies include AI simulation, causal AI, federated machine learning, graph data science, neuro-symbolic AI and reinforcement learning.

Developer experience (DevX): DevX refers to all aspects of interactions between developers and the tools, platforms, processes and people they work with to develop and deliver software products and services. Enhancing DevX is critical for most enterprises’ digital initiative success. It is also vital for attracting and retaining top engineering talent, keeping team morale high and ensuring that work is motivating and rewarding.

Key technologies that are enhancing DevX include AI-augmented software engineering, API-centric SaaS, GitOps, internal developer portals, open-source program office and value stream management platforms.

Pervasive cloud: Over the next 10 years, cloud computing will evolve from a technology innovation platform to become pervasive and an essential driver of business innovation. To enable this pervasive adoption, cloud computing is becoming more distributed and will be focused on vertical industries. Maximizing value from cloud investments will require automated operational scaling, access to cloud-native platform tools and adequate governance.

Key technologies enabling the pervasive cloud include augmented FinOps, cloud development environments, cloud sustainability, cloud-native, cloud-out to edge, industry cloud platforms and WebAssembly (Wasm).

Human-centric security and privacy: Humans remain the chief cause of security incidents and data breaches. Organizations can become resilient by implementing a human-centric securityand privacy program, which weaves a security and privacy fabric into the organization’s digital design. Numerous emerging technologies are enabling enterprises to create a culture of mutual trust and awareness of shared risks in decision making between many teams.

Key technologies supporting the expansion of human-centric security and privacy include AI TRISM, cybersecurity mesh architecture, generative cybersecurity AI, homomorphic encryption and postquantum cryptography.

NBA on course to generate sponsorship worth $1bn in 2023
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Sponsorship remains key in supporting the National Basketball Association (NBA) in maintaining its global status as the most popular professional sports leagues in the world.

For the 2023 season, the basketball league generated more than $1 billion in sponsorship review, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData’s latest report, “NBA Finals 2023 – Post Event Analysis” reveals that in 2023, the NBA’s enormous sponsorship revenue is topped by its deal with Take-Two Solutions, worth $157.14 million annually. In return, the video game developer, Take-Two Solutions, has partnered with the basketball league to create the NBA 2K video game series, the most popular basketball video game on the planet, which was sold 10 million copies in 2018.

Joe Pacinella, Sport Analyst at GlobalData, said: “The NBA’s deals with 2K Sports, Nike and PepsiCo offer a huge source of revenue for the league and resonate with fans, as many NBA fans play the 2K video game, wear a lot of Nike apparel and drink some of PepsiCo’s beverages during matches in stadiums. These are the top three deals with the NBA, all worth over $100 million annually, a testament to the incredible popularity and exposure of the basketball league.”

Tissot, the luxury Swiss watch brand, serves as the official watch and timekeeper of the NBA, in a deal worth $60 million annually. The brand has spent $61.15 million annually in total over three deals with the NBA, ranking as the fourth highest spending brand on its roster and illustrating the value of partnering with the basketball league, which focuses heavily on marketing itself globally and expanding its reach.

Deals with Rakuten and Michelob Ultra also offer a huge source of revenue for the NBA, both worth $50 million annually, and will provide solid foundations for the NBA’s operations.

Pacinella added: “American Express (Amex) has a $40 million-a-year deal to sponsor the NBA and serve as the official credit card partner of the professional basketball league. The American banking brand provides exclusive game access to Amex members and has collaborated with the NBA to enhance fan experiences and increase engagement.”

Brand logos flooded the NBA Finals, with many noticed across the Ball Arena and the Kaseya Centre. The average attendance for this year’s NBA Finals stood at 19,687, with fans paying from $500 to $31,629 for certain games, evidencing the demand for the NBA Finals and how defining the level of exposure can be for the NBA’s partners.

Pacinella concluded: “Over 50% of the NBA’s 85 deals are worth over $5 million annually, highlighting the high price for brands to partner with the competition and demonstrating how worthwhile the exposure is. This is also proven by the TV audience numbers during the NBA Finals, with Game 5 of the Denver Nuggets’ triumph averaging 13.1 million viewers on ABC in the US, and the 2023 NBA Playoffs accumulating eight billion viewers across the NBA’s social platforms.”

Elevating Your Conversion Rates: Top tips for optimising Calls to Action
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Calls to Action (CTAs) serve as pivotal triggers, steering your audience towards a desired response in your campaign. Crafting an irresistible CTA can make all the difference between a lost opportunity and a successful conversion. Here’s a guide on how to optimise your CTAs for better campaign outcomes…

Be Clear and Concise: A compelling CTA is straightforward. Use clear, concise language that conveys exactly what you want the user to do. Whether it’s ‘Sign Up,’ ‘Learn More,’ or ‘Shop Now,’ ensure your message is unmistakable.

Harness Action-Oriented Verbs: Initiate momentum with powerful, action-oriented verbs. Instead of passive phrases like ‘See our collection,’ use dynamic prompts like ‘Discover our latest range’ to evoke enthusiasm and urgency.

Create a Sense of Urgency: Motivate users to act swiftly by instilling a sense of urgency. Phrases like ‘Limited Offer,’ ‘Only a Few Left,’ or ‘Sale Ends Tonight’ can nudge fence-sitters into taking immediate action.

Make Them Stand Out: Visually, your CTA should be the star of the show. Utilise contrasting colours, bold fonts, and a size that’s easily noticeable without being overwhelming. A well-designed CTA button can significantly increase clicks.

Position Matters: Place your CTAs strategically. While ‘above the fold’ is a popular choice, consider the user’s journey on your page. Sometimes, a CTA at the end of an informative blog post or after an engaging video might yield better results.

Personalise When Possible: If your marketing tools allow for personalisation, use it. A CTA tailored to a user’s previous behaviours or preferences, such as ‘Continue Watching’ or ‘You Might Also Like,’ can feel more engaging and relevant.

Test and Iterate: The digital realm offers the advantage of easy A/B testing. Experiment with different CTA designs, wordings, and placements to discover what resonates most with your audience. Monitor performance metrics and adjust accordingly.

A Call to Action is more than just a button or a phrase—it’s the bridge between your content and the desired outcome. By giving due attention to its crafting and placement, you can significantly enhance its power, driving higher conversion rates and achieving your digital marketing goals. With these tips, make your CTAs not just seen, but also irresistibly clicked upon!

Are you looking for solutions to help make your campaign stand out? The Digital Marketing Solutions Summit can help!

Image by Albrecht Fietz from Pixabay

You can now secure your place at February’s eCommerce Forum
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Registration is now open for the eCommerce Forum February 2024 – A must-attend event for eCommerce and retail marketing professionals.

Hilton London Canary Wharf

6th February 2024

Your complimentary guest pass includes:

– A personalised itinerary of pre-qualified one-to-one meetings with solution providers of your choice

– A seat at the industry seminar sessions

– Lunch and refreshments provided throughout

– Networking breaks to optimise your opportunity to make new industry connections

Areas covered at the event include:

CRO, Customer Retention & Loyalty, User Experience, Customer Engagement Solutions, SEO, Social Media Monitoring & Management, Web Analytics & Reporting and much more…

To book your free place click here, or to find out more information about the event, contact us.