3 Things Every Pharma Marketer Can Learn from the EpiPen Price Rise

The EpiPen, produced by pharmaceutical company Mylan, is an emergency treatment for life-threatening allergic reactions. For the 3.6 million prescribed, the injection device is a need-to-have, not a nice-to-have. And according to ABC News, “there appears to be one other company making an epinephrine auto injector available in the U.S.” Add to that a price tag of $608.61 for the doctor-recommended pack of two, and it’s easy to see why consumers, lawmakers and lobbyists are outraged.

Their first attempt at softening the blow was to offer more financial assistance with co-payments for patients with commercial insurance and expand the number of uninsured patients eligible for free EpiPens. But the list price didn’t budge, and most of the critics didn’t, either.

So in their next move to alleviate the outrage, Mylan said on Monday that it would introduce a generic version of the product, with a price about half of the existing EpiPen’s. The company said the generic would be available in several weeks and be identical to the existing product.

As demonstrated over the last two weeks, this story is ever-changing—but based on what we know so far, there are a few solid lessons that pharma marketers can learn from Mylan’s missteps.

Anticipate and Have a Plan

Whether or not their decision is defensible, Mylan chose to significantly raise the price of the EpiPen over the course of eight years. 548%, to be exact. So, how could a company announce another >$100 price increase on a life-saving product without a) an explanation or b) an alternative option?

It took a week of negative press, plummeting shares and vocal politicians to send Mylan scrambling for a solution—and what they came up with still didn’t satisfy critics. Wells Fargo’s David Maris said in a note that Mylan’s moves lack “three important components:” lower prices, relief for families who’ve already bought the EpiPens and “responsibility and contrition.”

The shifting healthcare environment has led to plenty of changes and challenges for life sciences companies. It’s important for pharma marketers to realize that big decisions like the EpiPen price rise can put your brand in a vulnerable position. Marketers need to know their consumers well enough to anticipate reactions to these decisions, and have a proactive plan to ease any sudden shock.

Don’t Circumvent Fault

In a press release issued by Mylan, CEO Heather Bresch made the following statement:

“We recognize the significant burden on patients from continued, rising insurance premiums and being forced increasingly to pay the full list price for medicines at the pharmacy counter. Patients deserve increased price transparency and affordable care, particularly as the system shifts significant costs to them. However, price is only one part of the problem that we are addressing with today’s actions…”

While Bresch’s comments are not untrue, she completely sidesteps the public’s key questions of motivation and intent of Mylan’s price increase strategy. Not only does she exercise avoidance, but she takes the opportunity to shift blame elsewhere. She maintains this position during a sit-down interview with CNBC.

Accountability and transparency demonstrate responsibility. Marketers in the pharmaceutical space are tasked with establishing that responsibility in order to build trust with consumers. Now, this responsibility may not always take form in a national firestorm like Mylan’s EpiPen price increase, but it’s an important reminder to pharma marketers that in scenarios big or small, maintaining transparency and accepting fault will almost always benefit your brand.

Social Listening is Crucial to a Company’s Response

Social media continues to be an amplifier for critics during situations like Mylan’s EpiPen price hike. Celebrities, politicians and parents have been vocal on Twitter and Facebook as a means to voice their frustrations towards Mylan.

Sarah Jessica Parker, a former celebrity advocate for the EpiPen and mother of a child with a life-threatening allergy, announced on Instagram that she will cut all ties with the company. Both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton took to Twitter to weigh in on EpiPen pricing. Author and parent activist Robyn O’Brien referred to the matter as #epigate on her Facebook page. Combined, these statements have received over 65k likes… and counting.

These posts, along with thousands of others, explicitly state what the public is disappointed by, how they intend to react based on that disappointment and what it will take for the company to resolve their disappointment. And while no company wants to face this kind of crisis, easy access to the public’s unfiltered opinion never leaves them guessing where they went wrong or how they can make it right.

While maybe not as substantial as Mylan’s, all companies inevitably make tough decisions that lead to even tougher criticism. Mylan’s decision to continuously increase the price of the EpiPen was not well-received—and the knee-jerk nature of their response wasn’t either. By anticipating the public’s reaction, proactively demonstrating accountability and monitoring feedback, pharma marketers can better maintain the integrity of their company’s brand, even in a moment of crisis.

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3 Things Every Pharma Marketer Can Learn from the EpiPen Price Rise

3 Ways Marketing Analytics Benefit Political Communications

By now, it’s common knowledge that geopolitical organisations, for good or ill, have learned to excel at the game of digital influence, and impressively so. As global internet connectivity and digital communications drive down the barriers to entry for meaningful political engagement, such organisations have become increasingly adept at running their operations in ways akin to some of the world’s best-known brands.

For this reason, nation states and corporations are becoming increasingly concerned at the ability of dangerous non-state actors to influence global policy making and public opinion. The most innovative brands in the world have developed well conceived strategies to mitigate perceived threats, gain market share and influence public opinion. However, the same can not readily be said of political communication brands.

As the world becomes increasingly data-driven and political organisations make better use of their digital presences, corporations and organisations must reconsider and refresh their analytics strategies, and turn those insights to competitive advantage. Increasingly, decision makers must ask themselves, whether their current analytics programmes improve the ROI or effectiveness of political communications?

The means to understand the behaviour of key politically-motivated audiences and groups has never been more robust, or complicated. The dizzying range of digital touchpoints and devices available has spawned a flood of data and complex range of tools and methods to make sense of it all. However, the diverse activities of geopolitical actors large and small call for increasingly sophisticated approaches to successfully engage with them. By adopting and modifying some of the approaches seen in marketing analytics to impact brand behaviour, the activities of extremist, humanitarian and overtly political ‘brands’ become more transparent.

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Enter Marketing Analytics

Marketing analytics “comprise the processes and technologies that enable marketers to understand and evaluate the success of their marketing initiatives by measuring the performance of their various digital efforts using essential, innovative metrics.” Marketing analytics inform how your digital marketing efforts perform in the real world. By aggregating data from across all marketing channels, a common view from which to extract analytical results to drive your marketing efforts forward can be created.

Here are some of the main benefits:

• Data Input from Unlimited digital channels: with marketing analytics you get a deep understanding of each of the individual channels (such as blogging, social media, email marketing and SEO) and how well they perform individually and together
• Integration of people-centric data into digital campaigns: as marketing analytics moves away from single data sources, to the performance of particular people and groups of people, this allows you to understand the digital performance of individual organisations or people over time
• Speed of Analysis: machine learning and scalable cloud computing make the transition from data analysis to decision making is increased, and can occur in real time

Accurate marketing analytics are an essential part of political communication campaigns because they allow decision makers to gain insights about marketing programmes across the entire digital landscape. Social media data on their own are not enough, neither are web analytics. By analysing behaviour across all digital channels over time, decision makers can make better, more efficient and more impactful decisions.

We’ve only touched on some of the benefits of marketing analytics for political communications. The true value of analytics in this burgeoning space is to ultimately improve the impact of your digital performance, and we will cover this in more depth in ways to make your analytics more actionable.

Author: Lawrence Ampofo

Dr. Lawrence Ampofo is the founder and director of Semantica Research Limited and Digital Mindfulness,  Analytics and Strategic Communications firms based in London (UK). He tweets at @lampofo.... View full profile ›

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3 Ways Marketing Analytics Benefit Political Communications

Have You Been Bitten by a Snake Oil Salesman?

Because of its popularity, Clark Stanley, also known as the “Rattlesnake King” decided to make their own version for Americans to use. However, he used rattlesnakes because there were no Chinese water snakes in America. However, it is less effective than the original Chinese snake oil and did not contain a drop of actual snake oil.Snake oil salesman and traveling doctors (also known as quack doctors) are the ones selling Clark Stanley’s snake oil liniment. Eventually, Americans banned this product as it is not effective in treating different conditions. It was around then that the snake oil becomes a symbol of fraud in the US.Until now, Americans would still refer a “Snake Oil Salesman” as someone who sells an product that claims their product actually works. They are considered as someone who misleads their customers just to gain profit from them. In order to push their products, a “snake oil salesman” would usually deceive their prospects that their products are effective and customers can benefit from it in order to get money from them.So how will you know if you’re dealing with a ‘Snake Oil Salesman’? Here are some signs that you’re dealing and have been bitten by a Snake Oil Salesman.

#1: They keep on pushing their product despite too many objections.

This type of salesmen doesn’t care whether you need the product or service. Their only goal is to get your money and for you to buy to them.

#2: They practice poor customer service.

A salesperson who failed to acknowledge their customers means they don’t value who you are. Also, when you hear a salesperson complain or say something bad about their competitors, it’s considered a sign. This way of pursuing a customer is not healthy.

#3: They’re the ones who are doing all the talking.

They don’t practice asking questions to gauge if their prospect has a need on what they’re offering. They wouldn’t even let you ask questions or worst, they disregard your question. Instead, they just keep on pitching their product and how you can benefit on it.

A good salesman use CHAMP lead qualification methodology to qualify their prospects and to know their needs and challenges. Listen more than you talk and be able deliver the best solution.

#4: They focus more on sales to meet their deadline.

We all know that every salesperson has a quota or a deadline to meet. Their goals when speaking with you is to get a sale, not to find out if this is something you might be interested because your company needs it.

A good salesman knows when the lead is ripe or when it is still unqualified and needs further nurturing.

Part of this lead nurturing process is sending digital downloadables that could convince them even more. Here are the digital freebies in sales that could be use.

#5: They’re claiming their product is the best.

They pitch in their product by being defensive. They claim that their product don’t have any failed experiments prior to launching it. And that everyone can benefit on their product in all possible ways.

Take note of these signs when dealing with any salesperson. In sales, all sales reps must gain the trust of their customers in order for them to patronize and consider using the product over and over again. Providing customers with good quality product or service is important because that’s one way of building trust and relationships with your current and future customers.

“A good salesman must consider your need for the product and service.”

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Have You Been Bitten by a Snake Oil Salesman?

The 411 on LLC Start-Up Costs Across the U.S.

When it comes to starting your own endeavor, choosing the best business structure is one of the most important decisions you’ll make. A popular option is to form a Limited Liability Company (LLC) — which acts as a separate legal entity from the owner(s) of the business. Benefits of this structure include asset protection, credibility, deductible employee benefits, tax savings and greater ease in raising needed funds. Each state has different rules when it comes to starting an LLC — including initial paperwork and the associated fees to file it. The fee range across the U.S. is somewhat extreme, from a low of $40 to a whopping $500. To help make it easier to visualize what each state charges, MBA@UNC, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s online MBA for executives, created a map of LLC startup costs from around the country. Here, we’ll take look at the nuts and bolts of an LLC and dig into the four states with the highest fees.

LLC basics

Throughout the nation, the LLC basics are fairly consistent in terms of what this business structure looks like. Here’s a description from the Small Business Administration (SBA):

“A limited liability company is a hybrid type of legal structure that provides the limited liability features of a corporation and the tax efficiencies and operational flexibility of a partnership.”

Each state has its own rules, but there are some basic nuts and bolts that generally apply to them all, including regulations related to:

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• Business name—it has to be unique and unrestricted.
• Articles of organization—include general information and member names.
• Licenses and permits—may be required, depending upon what you do.
• Operating agreements—are recommended if you have more than one member.
• An announcement—may be needed, depending upon your state.
• Hiring employees—has a unique set of rules, so be sure to check them out.

States with the highest fees

If you live in Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi or Kentucky — you’re in luck. These states have the lowest fees in the nation, topping out at $50 max. However, if you live in Massachusetts, Illinois, Tennessee or Texas—you’d better be ready to write a big check. Fees in these four states are higher than all others, with the top two at $500 each and $400 for the remainder. For each state, there may be other things to consider when deciding whether an LLC is the best option. Here are a few additional considerations from the highest fee states on the list:

• Massachusetts: In addition to the initial filing costs, a fee to file the required annual report is charged as well. In the Bay State, it’s $500 every year. Here, the manner in which you tailor your LLC is significant, too. Attorney Daniel Karpman writes, “Because the Massachusetts statute allows members to tailor the structure of the organization to their needs, avoiding characterization as a corporation requires careful planning.” Known as a “flexible” LLC law, failure to pay attention to specific details when you’re filing could lead to unexpected taxes down the road.

• Illinois: The Land of Lincoln also tops the list in LLC filing fees—at $500 a pop. Some business advocates — like attorney Jacob Huebert — say the state unfairly penalizes LLCs, since rates to both start and maintain a corporation are much lower. Initial filing fees for corporations are only $150, reserving a name is only $50 (for an LLC it’s $300) and it’s just $5 to dissolve a corporation — but if you want to retire your LLC you’ll have to pay $100. However, Huebert notes that these intermittent fees certainly aren’t the only consideration, since selecting the LLC structure may save big in terms of time and taxes. Corporations require a lot more paperwork ongoing, and typically owners get taxed twice — once for the business income, and again on their personal income from the business.

• Tennessee: The Volunteer State shares the dubious honor with Texas as being the region that’s second most expensive to start an LLC — with both charging $400 for initial filing fees. As with every state, there are unique factors to consider, and in Tennessee, some of the most significant are related to the state tax structure. In an article, Jay Hoover, CPA, briefly summarized the issue, writing, “In Tennessee, state taxes play an important role in entity selection, which is primarily due to the fact that Tennessee does not impose a tax on earned income from sole proprietorships and partnerships. Conversely, Tennessee imposes franchise and excise taxes on corporations, limited partnerships, LLPs and LLCs. The franchise tax is based on assets and capital utilized by the business, while the excise tax is based on the profits of the business.”

• Texas: When it comes to LLC fees, it’s certainly true that “everything’s bigger in Texas.” As noted previously, the Lone Star State’s fees are second from the top — yet the state is advertised as being a great place to become an entrepreneur. With a slogan of being “Wide Open for Business,” the Texas small business environment is touted as a place to thrive due to geographic location, a highly-skilled workforce, a low tax burden, a reasonable cost of living and a predictable regulatory environment. A unique factor to consider in Texas regarding an LLC is the requirement to pay a “margin tax.” According to attorney Phyllis Lambert, this tax is imposed on almost all Texas businesses except sole proprietorships and a few instances of general partnerships.

Regardless of what state you plan to do business in, starting as an LLC may be a good choice. Key considerations depend upon your specific needs regarding location, taxation and liability protection. A good first step is to learn all you can about the various benefits and limitations of each business structure — and then find a trusted adviser or two to obtain the best advice. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) offers a wealth of resources to help you get started — and then grow your business after you’ve opened your doors.

Author: Alison Napolitano

Alison Napolitano is a Marketing Manager at 2U. She has a background in digital marketing and account management. She has a passion for helping great brands succeed online. Outside of work, Alison helps coach college athletes, volunteers for the Special Olympics, and can always be found dabbing in some form... View full profile ›

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The 411 on LLC Start-Up Costs Across the U.S.

Unconscious Gender Bias: We Are All Guilty

“Don’t be such a drama queen.”

“Would you man up?”

“In this office, it’s every man for himself.”

All pretty innocent expressions, wouldn’t you think? In fact, I can probably bet that each and every one of us has used these words and phrases at some point—as well as others—both in our professional and personal lives. After all, there isn’t anything offensive or off-color here, right?

Maybe not entirely true. The examples I provided at the beginning of the article could be considered sexist, even though we all probably use them innocently and without looking to offend (women included). However, words do matter. What we say to each other has the ability to either prevent or continue to promote unconscious bias. In order to change and improve our standards, we need to be aware of what is coming out of our mouths as well as the stereotypes we paint of other people unintentionally.

It’s Not Exactly an Episode of Mad Men, But…

No, our workplaces don’t exactly look like the set of Mad Men anymore—thank goodness. And of course, if Don Draper operated in today’s world he would have been hit with some pretty significant sexual harassment lawsuits on behalf of Joan, Peggy, and Co.

While blatant sexism in our workplaces might have toned down, the fact remains is that the language we tend to use is still very gender specific. And the gender that is most often highlighted in language is male-based. Think about it. Something as simple as “Hey you guys!” (something I use all the time) shows that “the man” is the anchor of our language, and “woman” is not. Even the words associated with leadership posts are traditional in the idea that we look to the “chairman” or the “congressman.” How many of us actually have to stop, pause, and think for a moment before using a word like “chairperson” or even more far-fetched… “chairwoman.” The assumption is that it is a man in charge—and with it, stereotypes continue to be promoted.

Pink vs. Blue Roles

The classification of “pink vs. blue” roles, responsibilities, and stereotypes has long been an issue. For instance, what image pops in your head when someone says the word “secretary” or “nurse”? It’s a woman, right? What about “soldier” or “engineer”? Probably a man. We definitely like to classify what gender should be filling what roles. And we do this automatically—our conscious mind isn’t even paying attention to our own discriminatory practices.

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I personally know that I am also guilty of this stereotype, and I consider myself a feminist. For instance, my wife and I were at a party once, and she got into a discussion with another guest about something cooking related. When my wife posed a question to this man on the topic, he quickly turned it around on her by saying, “How would I know that? I’m not a girl.” The assumption? The kitchen is a woman’s place; why would a man bother with learning anything about what goes on in that room of the house?

My wife was offended, even though I, at first, didn’t immediately go where her mind did. But when she explained that the stereotype the other partygoer just threw in her face was in fact sexist, I came around to her train of thought. She was right.

So the question is how do we work to be aware of the language and beliefs that allow sexism to perpetuate, albeit sometimes unconsciously? I think that the answer lies with mindfulness—of working to prevent ourselves from walking into stereotypes and breaking free from the pre-programming that each of us are wired with as humans. I’m not saying that any of us have bad intentions when we assume an engineer is a man or a secretary is a woman – it’s an unconscious bias we all have. Rather, by opening ourselves up to a new level of consciousness related to gender bias, we can create new levels of inclusion and equality in our workplaces.

Words with Gender Bias

Here is a more exhaustive list of phrases, verbiage and actions we use that has unconscious gender bias:

• “You do this [TASK] really well for a girl/woman.”
• “Calm down.” In response to when a woman expresses her opinion (something I am guilty of with my wife)
• “Hey! Why don’t you smile?”
• “You’re lucky I didn’t [DO SOMETHING MUCH WORSE].” Women are frequently told to be thankful when something relatively worse hasn’t happened to them.
• “Would you man up?”
• “Stop acting like a little girl!”
• “Oh, don’t be such a pu*^y!”
• “That guy was completely castrated.”
• “Don’t be so dramatic.”
• “Are you on your period?”
• Assuming women in the group will take notes

Do you have any stories or anecdotes about this topic? I welcome you to share your own experience with gender bias in the workplace and beyond.

Author: Abhishek Ratani

At Red Ventures, I am the President of RV Tech and I oversee the entire suite of proprietary technology and internal products we have built over the last 15 years. I started as an engineer 10+ years ago and have grown within the organization to run Red Ventures' largest and... View full profile ›

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All About Microlearning

Microlearning is all about the small, and it appears that small is the next big thing.

Tiny bursts of elearning in video (or any other highly digestible media) is defined as microlearning, and it usually means that the short subject of the training can be learned in a very short period of time. It’s a completely different approach than long-form training or macrolearning.

Here are the defnining characteristics of microlearning:

• It’s narrowly focused
• It’s presented in small chunks
• It’s designed to have a minimal time impact on the learner

All of the above make microlearning perfect for mobile. It’s also ideal for refresher training, and for training on the most important topics. Why would you use microlearning for your most important topics? Because you can keep these key topics front and center without infringing on your students’ time. You could hit them up every day with the same key topic if it’s mission critical.

Microlearning, when done well, can have the same enagagement and impact level as advertsing. Ads have a HUGE impact in a very short span of time. The car companies don’t need 12 hours of online learning to explain why you should buy their car. These types of messages are carefully crafted to make their point quickly and impactfully (a disclipline sorely lacking in the eLearning space).

Many have claimed that microlearning is the natural outcome of the millenial generation and their short attention spans. There’s some truth to that. But it’s also true that humans digest information in short “chunks” natively. It’s our natural way of understanding things. We actually can’t comprehend long form training as well as we can these microbursts.

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In fact, microlearning has been used for ages for memorization: flash cards, cliff notes, mnemonic devices are all examples.

And all of the many one or two minute single-subject videos on YouTube. How to fix your faucet, etc. These are microlearning for the modern age.

Of course, in this busy day and age, attention spans are shorter. And that makes microlearning perfect for learning on your phone while you’re on the train to work in the morning. Or just getting started with your day—especially when you know it’s not going to take an hour of your time.

It’s not likely that microlearning will replace long-form training. In fact, just the opposite.

With its natural tendencies toward isolated chunks of learning, micro-learning is not so great at providing a framework, or the big picture of the training material, and be able to connect disparate elements of it into one coherent picture.

Microlearning is just another tool in the toolbox. It’s really ideal for refresher training and follow up training.

And it’s particularly good when it’s active, not passive. What I mean is, when the eLearning is sent to the student as opposed to the student having to go seek it out.

Passive microlearning is great for topics where the user is highly motivated to research and discover the information (the YouTube broken faucet example).

But what if you are trying to push information out to a set of learners. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to send it directly to their inbox or text them on their mobile phone?

In this new landscape, microlearning will be a wonderful new tool for modern eLearning, as it hits all the sweet spots:

– It’s short and therefore engaging
– It’s natural because it’s the way humans learn
– It’s mobile and can be done on-person anytime

Small is the next big thing!If you want to learn more about microlearning or ExpandShare’s microTuneUp microlearning tools, check them out at http://ift.tt/2c20nIn or check out our eBook on the subject.

Author: Will Holland

Will is the lead instructional designer, script writer and marketer for Expand Interactive. He has a talent for quickly understanding complex topics and creating engaging content appropriate for any given learning audience. With a degree from Purdue, he also loves investing, flies planes, drinks large quantities of swiss-pressed coffee and... View full profile ›

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How to Keep Brexits From Tanking Your Retirement

When the people of Britain voted to leave the European Union, it was the US stock market that, initially at least, went into a tailspin. Interestingly, financial experts say the terrified response of investors was unnecessary. It is indeed possible to create a safe, solid portfolio that will protect you from world events beyond your control.

An overreaction to the surprise vote

In the week leading up to the Brexit decision, investors seemed optimistic about Britain remaining in the European Union. The surprise result of the vote caused a massive selloff, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 610 points at close—it’s eighth-largest point loss ever.

“I would argue the Brexit simply is not a game changer for US investors,” says Robert R. Johnson, president and CEO of the American College of Financial Services in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. “It is merely the crisis de jour in the financial markets and is overhyped. The 24/7 financial media deems everything a crisis.” That view is supported by the performance of the market since then, as the average bounced back within a few days, and has spent much of the summer at record-high levels.

Johnson’s best advice for investors, in response to Brexit and other unprecedented events, is to do absolutely nothing. “Investment success is achieved by having an appropriate long-term strategy and avoiding short-term noise.”

Michael Fleischer, senior vice president of Morgan Stanley in Troy, Michigan, explains that financial planners don’t run from events like Brexit. “We remind our clients that corrections in the markets are something they should be prepared for and expect,” he reports. “The key is to have in place an investment plan based on your short- and long-term goals and make decisions based on that, not on current events or the news.”

Fleischer’s emphasis on having a plan and sticking to it is essential– especially when considering long-term goals, like funding your children’s college education and planning for your retirement. In addition to consulting with a financial planner, you should consider conferring with an estate planning attorney.

Creating a smarter portfolio

Britain’s vote is just the beginning of great uncertainty in Europe, which will be echoed around the world. Luke Glofcheskie, investment advisor at EchelonPartners.com, says investors can avoid losing their financial footing by sticking with solid investing principles:

Planning is critical. Every investor should have clearly defined investment goals and a plan for how to achieve them. “No matter what your goals, a plan will help you remain calm in a market slump and prevent you from panicking,” advises Glofcheskie.

Diversifying across asset classes & sectors can reduce portfolio risk. The asset classes are essentially categorized as: stocks, bonds or fixed income, and money markets. Diversifying within one of these asset class minimizes risks surrounding a company, sector, or market, explains Glofcheskie. Diversifying across asset classes minimizes common risks associated to each asset class. For example, buying stocks in a company is often considered high risk, high reward. Conversely, buying government bonds is relatively low risk and low reward.

Risk and reward go hand in hand. Investments have different types of risks. Glofcheskie says it’s crucial for you to know your appetite for risk and what you are comfortable taking on with your investments. So, if you are comfortable with the possibility of losing your investment, then it may be worth going after exiting yet uncertain stock options. Don’t spend the milk money on risky investments.

Earn interest on interest. The compounding effect of returns can build real wealth in the long term. “Your time in the market matters more than the timing of the market,” says Glofcheskie. The earlier you begin, the better.

Asset allocation is more importnat than individual investments. Asset allocations are strongly correlated to a portfolio’s long-term returns. The asset allocation should first and foremost analyze the trade-off between risk and return. In simple terms, a “high risk” portfolio may be comprised of 90% stocks and 10% bonds, whereas a “low risk” portfolio might be 30% stocks and 70% bonds. Furthermore, the financial needs (what do you want to do with this money?), risk tolerance (how willing are you to lose it?), and time horizon (when do you want to cash out?) should be accounted for.

Hold on to your winners and sell your losers. Don’t allow personal attachments to affect how you manage your portfolio. Sometimes, an investment you’re rooting for will do badly. “Don’t get attached to an investment, hoping that it will bounce back before you finally dump it,” adds Glofcheskie. “Take your losses quickly and your profits slowly.”

Investors should not be strangers to their investments. Knowledge is power. Understanding the characteristics of each investment may be time-consuming, but the rewards and sense of security are well worth it. “It is much simpler to create a portfolio if you know the role of each investment,” remarks Glofcheskie.

Get the best advice you can and think for yourself. Professional help costs money, yet it can pay off in the long run. “An advisor helps to clarify goals and simplify a complex plan; however, you will still be heavily involved in the entire process,” Glofcheskie explains. “Two head—yours and your advisor’s—are better than one.

Drown out media noise. “The media are in the business of selling stories,” Glofcheskie offers. “When a market falls a few points, the media tells us the world is going to end. But the next day, the market is back up and everything is rosy. Don’t confuse entertainment with advice.”

Bottom line

Don’t panic. A solid, long-term investment plan with an asset allocation that makes sense for your long-term goals will carry you through most any short-term world event. Remember, you’re in this for the long haul.

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How to Keep Brexits From Tanking Your Retirement

CMO’s Organizational Readiness Indicators for Multi-Touch Attribution

According to the State of Pipeline Marketing Report 2015, less than half of CMOs believe that their team is using the correct attribution model. This means that less than half of these marketing leaders are actually confident that their team is accurately attributing marketing activities to revenue.

Usually, this is due to the fact that their marketing org continues to use single-touch attribution models. These are models that give 100% of the credit for customer revenue to a single marketing touchpoint along a 3-6 month buying journey. Understandably, this isn’t the ideal way to assess marketing’s contribution to the bottom line — far too many touchpoints go unnoticed.

Established B2B marketing orgs use anywhere between 5-10 channels, and occasionally upwards of 15 channels, across both online and offline platforms. It’s critical for attribution models to properly weigh all the touchpoints that belong to each channel and assign the correct amount of credit to the most important ones.

The 2015 report also concluded that 1 out of 4 B2B marketers don’t know which attribution model they’re using, or they’re not using attribution to gauge marketing’s impact on revenue.

How does a marketing leader know when their organization is ready to adopt a multi-touch attribution model across their marketing org? What sorts of situations, problems, or goals reveal that it’s time to move forward with a more sophisticated attribution solution?

1. You want to accurately connect marketing to revenue

Some marketing teams are fine to stay where they’re at — reporting on top-of-funnel metrics, CTA click rates, pageviews, lead volume, and other traditional metrics. However, for those B2B marketing teams who are ready to focus on conversions further down the funnel (and the revenue that results from those conversions) attribution is an indispensable asset.

If you’ve transitioned to a revenue-focused mindset, then multi-touch attribution will help inform your strategy with down-funnel insights — such as which keywords, ebooks, articles, and emails generate the most opportunities and customer conversions.

— — — — — —

2. Your marketing org uses 5+ marketing channels

Essentially, if your marketing org is doing more than email, organic, direct, and events, you would greatly benefit from multi-touch attribution. Since the model assigns the revenue credit given to all the touchpoints along an account’s buying journey, every channel will be represented in the mix.

15 Popular Marketing Channels:

• Email
• Blog
• Organic
• Social
• Direct
• Paid social (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
• Paid search (AdWords, Bing ads, etc.)
• Display (Google Display Network, Adroll, etc.)
• Retargeting
• Outbound
• Partner
• Referral
• Trade shows / conferences
• Direct mail
• Field marketing

If you’re using more than four of the channels listed above, then multi-touch attribution will help you determine the respective ROI of those channels. Single-touch attribution with a fewer number of channels could prove workable, though it still won’t be nearly as accurate as multi-touch attribution. However, once you’ve moved past five or so channels, multi-touch will equitably represent each channel’s effectiveness through the funnel.

— — — — — —

3. Your team needs omnichannel tracking that isn’t siloed by platform

Metrics provided by individual platforms are siloed — they work within themselves but never reach outside themselves to compare, contrast, or syndicate data from other programs. Their data is reported independently of the other data in the mix.

Recommended for You Webcast, September 1st: Discovering Content Marketing Trends Using Big Data

Marketing automation programs (MAPs), ad networks, paid social, paid search, outbound efforts, etc. are all measured based on their isolated metrics that each one collects.

This easily results in inaccurate lead counts because leads are double-counted across platforms. As a result, marketers also risk reporting inaccurate cost-per-lead numbers because their data sources aren’t integrated.

Omnichannel tracking creates that “single source of truth” that spans all platforms. This means that conversions and leads aren’t double-counted, and data hygiene is far easier to achieve.

— — — — — —

4. You invest in paid media (search, social, display, retargeting, etc.)

Investments in paid media can yield huge returns, but only if you know which keywords, ads, and campaigns result in down-funnel opportunity conversions.

In our use of multi-touch attribution on the Bizible team, there have been numerous instances across multiple channels where we discovered that an ad, a campaign, or an ebook generated less leads but proportionately more opportunities.

Connecting top-of-funnel activities to down-funnel metrics helps to optimize a marketing campaign, which we dive into deeper in the next point.

— — — — — —

5. Your team needs more granular metrics in order to optimize

There’s a difference between optimization and just “trying something new.” Optimization requires knowledge of the past, used to gauge whether the “new” attempt is actually better. To know whether or not a strategy is improving — there has to be proof in the data that the new strategy is comparatively superior to a previous alternative.

Forming this historical basis requires granular tracking methods and equally granular metrics. Multi-touch attribution through an advanced attribution solution provides both of these benefits. It reveals the standard for improvement, and it also shows historic “wins” that inform the optimization process.

— — — — — —

6. You care about accurately measuring the impact of offline channels

Are you doing direct mailers, conferences, trade shows, industry events, or field marketing? Are you ready to see how the sales team’s outbound activities line up next to your marketing strategy? If so, you’re ready for multi-touch attribution — a model that will assign revenue credit to any and all marketing activities. Offline touchpoints are integrated into the mix of digital touchpoints in a seamless fashion, because all data is synthesized and consolidated within the CRM.

Campaigns created inside salesforce based on offline activities are pulled into the touchpoint records that form an account’s buying journey.

As a B2B marketing leader, if you’ve identified with any of these readiness factors, then multi-touch attribution would prove useful to your org. It keeps your people informed, and they can strategically craft their campaigns based on integrated, accurate, historic data that reveals the past and shows how to optimize for the future.

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CMO’s Organizational Readiness Indicators for Multi-Touch Attribution

10 Ways Artificial Intelligence Will Change the Customer Experience

The huge amount of data we generate is a mixed blessing. It gives us better insight into human behavior, but it’s also a lot more stuff to sort through. For helping us wade through our data, and make better use of it, we’ll turn to AI (artificial intelligence) for things as complicated as navigating the sales journey to just figuring out what the doggone temperature is outside.

Christophe Coenraets is the Principal Developer Evangelist for Salesforce. He talks about how our relationship with our data will change as we develop better tools to interact with it, and better insights to learn from it.

1. AI lets us play with data in new ways.

Coenraets: “I’ve been building apps for many, many years using all the different technologies that came and went and looking at the different ways people access information,” Coenraets says. “Bots caught my attention as a really new disruptive way that people were going to use to access and apply information. It’s not ‘read-only’ with data anymore. It’s interactive.”

2. AI streamlines the process, whatever that process is.

“Customer interaction — the sales process — is always the same idea: making information available to customers at their fingertips without asking them to go through hoops or different steps. We base it on what we already about you, and boom! You get the super-targeted information. Basically, it’s making the information available to customers in new ways, reducing the friction that customers have to make to get to the information. It can be as simple as what we learn from you, but also the trends that we learn from other other customers like you.”

Basically, AI makes the information available to customers in new ways.

3. AI uses data that was once ignored or thrown away.

“The basic trend we are experiencing today is data overflow. We capture so much data. You get data from everywhere, from devices, from public data sets, from your phone events and applications. Capturing Big Data has been around for a number of years now, and I think people started to realize, ‘Okay, I have that huge amount of data. What do I do with that? How do I make sense of the data? How do I learn from it?’”

4. AI presents you with better future options.

“Capturing data in any kind of vertical or domain is the easy part; the harder part is to make sense of that huge amount of data that you have. It’s applicable to anything these days. You can look at the way people use your applications, and that’s going to be your data stream. Based on that, the next stream that you present to the user is derived from historical trends or what you learned from other users.

5. AI adapts when you have too many options.

“The way I started my presentation at TrailheaDX was to ask people, OK, tell me the outside temperature.’ And then I asked people, ‘What app did you use to get me that information?’ And you get all sorts of responses. My point was most people don’t even know which app to use. Information is getting too hard to get at because you have so many apps that you lose track of which one you use to do what. How do you make these applications smarter?”

“What makes the difference for a good system is to have pattern analysis. That depends on the field you’re in. Say you’re in some kind of sales process: You can analyze the patterns all the way through the sale, from the beginning of your first interaction with the customer all the way to the closing of the deal. If you just focus on a part of the process, you may have false positives. Where you think you’re getting a good interaction, it’ll never materialize to your desired outcome. Collecting complete data sets and analyzing patterns within them, all the way to the positive outcome, is what gives you good data.”

Bots, AI, and machine learning are just the next evolution in the focus on user experience.

7. AI focuses on the user.

“AI and machine learning is really at the heart of these smarter, more targeted applications. These apps are user-centric as opposed to system-centric. In the old days, with these system-centric applications, designers didn’t really care about the user experience at all. Then, a few years ago, people restarted to refocus on user experience. That became the heart of new systems that were being developed. Bots, AI, and machine learning are just the next evolution in the focus on user experience. They can be used to dramatically improve the user experience in general by either making the application, or the data, more available.”

8. AI makes systems simpler.

“Consumer apps like Facebook and eBay were really starting to focus on customer experience, and designers saw that consumer apps were becoming easier to use — and self-explanatory. You didn’t need a course or a user guide. And so there was no reason that other apps, like enterprise apps, couldn’t be that way. Some companies were driving that focus on user experience to the point where it became unacceptable to have systems that deliver really poor user experience.”
9. AI knows you don’t care how the sausage is made.

“Designers want the user experience to be simpler and more intuitive. But at the same time, we have a lot more data that we need to process to deliver that UI. So the only way to do that is through the new systems of intelligence to deliver really targeted and relevant data.”

For a company, user experience can be the differentiator between success and failure.

10. AI evolves the user experience.

“It became a competitive advantage for many companies in many industries to deliver user experience because there came a point where ease-of-use became commoditized. Users now expect that all their systems will just work. For a company, user experience can be the differentiator between success and failure. We started by making the graphical user experience better, and now, with AI, we take user experience in unexpected places. Now, it’s not necessarily graphical — it’s voice-activated; it’s text-based. It collapses many apps into one seamless experience. It’s not about navigating a bunch of apps; it’s about asking what the weather is and finding out.”

6. AI gets better the more data you feed it.

“What makes the difference for a good system is to have pattern analysis. That depends on the field you’re in. Say you’re in some kind of sales process: You can analyze the patterns all the way through the sale, from the beginning of your first interaction with the customer all the way to the closing of the deal. If you just focus on a part of the process, you may have false positives. Where you think you’re getting a good interaction, it’ll never materialize to your desired outcome. Collecting complete data sets and analyzing patterns within them, all the way to the positive outcome, is what gives you good data.”

Bots, AI, and machine learning are just the next evolution in the focus on user experience.

7. AI focuses on the user.

“AI and machine learning is really at the heart of these smarter, more targeted applications. These apps are user-centric as opposed to system-centric. In the old days, with these system-centric applications, designers didn’t really care about the user experience at all. Then, a few years ago, people restarted to refocus on user experience. That became the heart of new systems that were being developed. Bots, AI, and machine learning are just the next evolution in the focus on user experience. They can be used to dramatically improve the user experience in general by either making the application, or the data, more available.”

8. AI makes systems simpler.

“Consumer apps like Facebook and eBay were really starting to focus on customer experience, and designers saw that consumer apps were becoming easier to use — and self-explanatory. You didn’t need a course or a user guide. And so there was no reason that other apps, like enterprise apps, couldn’t be that way. Some companies were driving that focus on user experience to the point where it became unacceptable to have systems that deliver really poor user experience.”

9. AI knows you don’t care how the sausage is made.

“Designers want the user experience to be simpler and more intuitive. But at the same time, we have a lot more data that we need to process to deliver that UI. So the only way to do that is through the new systems of intelligence to deliver really targeted and relevant data.”

For a company, user experience can be the differentiator between success and failure.

10. AI evolves the user experience.

“It became a competitive advantage for many companies in many industries to deliver user experience because there came a point where ease-of-use became commoditized. Users now expect that all their systems will just work. For a company, user experience can be the differentiator between success and failure. We started by making the graphical user experience better, and now, with AI, we take user experience in unexpected places. Now, it’s not necessarily graphical — it’s voice-activated; it’s text-based. It collapses many apps into one seamless experience. It’s not about navigating a bunch of apps; it’s about asking what the weather is and finding out.”

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10 Ways Artificial Intelligence Will Change the Customer Experience

3 Strategies to Research and Locate Your Audience Using Social Media

There are billions of people on social media, and it often seems impossible to reach the right ones. But only after finding your target audience online and making sure they see what you have to offer, you know that your SMM efforts aren’t in vain.

Start with a full picture of what your customers are like. You should not only know their demographics, income, and location, but also their interests, lifestyle, values. Basically, everything that might give you a clue to the kind of marketing campaigns that will affect them most.

The first step to researching and locating your audience is to have an idea of what kind of people you’re looking for. Take a moment (or rather an hour) to come up with an image of a perfect customer. First, answer the question of who your buyer is, in as many details as possible, including:

• Age
• Location
• Gender
• Income
• Education
• Occupation
• Ethnicity
• Marital Status
• # of Children

and then answer the question of what moves their action. Consider:

• Values
• Challenges
• Personality
• Interests
• Lyfestyle
• Opinions
• Attitudes

For example, I could come up with an image for a brand that sells rather expensive skin care products women. Let’s assume it has a reputation of an environmentally-friendly brand that is committed to stop animal testing. Although it is rarely the case when all factors are important to your business, it is worth considering all that might be. I would have an image like this:

• Female
• Aged 30-45
• Educated
• Household income $60K+
• Occupation – people oriented
• Values honesty, fairness, morality
• Concerned with health, appearance, global issues
• Independent, with medium to high self-esteem, extroverted
• Leads an active, busy, healthy lifestyle
• Has strong opinions of politics and environment

Now the question is, how do you find people similar to your perfect customer?

First, research the audience that you already have by looking at your social page insights. Some platforms provide you with a report on your current followers. Twitter, for example, shows your followers’ gender, country, region, main interests.

And then start the hunt for the new people.

1. Research your direct competitor’s audience

Similarly to you, your competitor has brand pages on a number of social media platforms. You can see who is following them and who is active on their pages. As a priori you and your direct competitor have the same target audience, it is very much likely that you will find their audience profitable to you too. However, you can still go through the demographic and psychographic qualities of your competitor’s audience by looking at their “bio” fields. This information is usually open to anyone.

Send your found target audience an invitation to Like your Facebook page, follow them, or do whatever the given social network requires. Go one step further: find people who are not signed up for your competitor’s social media pages, but are their customers anyway. This can be done by searching for mentions of your competitors on social media. Your competitor’s customers can engage with your competitor by only mentioning them on their own social page. After you’ve found the ones that have mentioned your competitor, go through their demo/psychographics, and add the right people to your list of potential customers. It will be even more effective, if you’ve found the customers that are unhappy with your competitor’s products. They aren’t only your target audience, they are also warm leads, and it is always nice to have two in one.

SMM tools for monitoring your competitors: Awario, Brand24, Mention

2. Research your influencer’s audience

Find your influencers by searching for keywords of your product category with a Social Media Monitoring tool. Influencers are active social media users that are believed to be experts in a particular topic. They have a large following of people that are often engaged and hungry for new information, brands, and products.

Let’s say you’re selling spices. In this case, finding a cooking expert on a YouTube channel will get you access to your potential target audience, which subscribers to the expert’s channel are. Then essentially you do the same as you have done with your competitor’s followers. You look through the information they have made public, compare them to the image of your ideal customer, and then follow people that you have found, invite them to Like your page, and so on.

3. Find groups of your target audience

Depending on your target audience, there can be whole communities on Social Media platforms of people you are interested in. Such communities are engaged, active, and although their main goal is communicating and sharing advice, they are not hateful about relevant promotions either. Online communities that count millions of users exist for mothers, book lovers, travellers, gothic subculture, video gamers. Billions types of smaller but no less powerful communities (as they can be, for example, local) exist on social media.

Recommended for You Webcast, September 1st: Discovering Content Marketing Trends Using Big Data

Use a search option within a platform to find your kind of community. For example, if you sell backpacks and are based in Manchester, you can find your target audience by typing “hiking Manchester” in Facebook search. Before pushing your website, you might want to start with being useful within the community. Find out if people are posting questions, and, if the page owner is ignoring them, you can take up an expert role.

Once you’ve found a decent number of followers, grow and refine your community. Regularly delete spam comments and fake accounts, attract new followers, and engage your community by posting relevant content, asking questions, and being a valuable source of entertainment and information.

Author: Aleh Barysevich

Aleh Barysevich is Marketing Director and Co-Founder at Link-Assistant.Com. Aleh's company is a leading software house with products, SEO PowerSuite and BuzzBundle, used by 500,000+ SEOs and social media enthusiasts worldwide.... View full profile ›

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3 Strategies to Research and Locate Your Audience Using Social Media

Digital Transformation: How Leading Consulting Firms Define It

In boardrooms across the world, CEOs, CDOs, and CIOs are rushing headlong into the world of digital using big data analytics, smart machines and automation tools for key aspects of their organizations. This change in mindset is being driven by two things – the growing density of digital capabilities and the increasing demands of customers. And, as these leaders continue pushing their digital agendas forward, it is worth taking a pause to understand the vocabulary and see its implications across different segments of a business.

Leading consulting firms and publications have shed light on the topic of digital transformation. We looked at the best minds in the business, summarized their themes, and highlighted what we thought constituted the best.

Digital Transformation and its impact on Business

Accenture

Business success today requires a customer-focused digital transformation. It starts with prioritizing a superior and relevant customer experience and aligning the organization, processes and technology to power it.

Source: Accenture, Digital Transformation, Re-imagine from the outside in”, 2014

Deloitte

“Digital has been a driving force of change across industries, and the transformation is accelerating. One can measure the pace of digital disruption in months while it takes years for an organization and its people to fully embrace such fundamental changes in the way they operate.”

– Emmanuel Durou, Partner and Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Leader at Deloitte in the Middle East

Source: ‘Digital Transformation Key to Organizations’ Survival’, April 13, 2016

9Lenses

Digital transformation is about changing the way processes, people and technology work to create efficiencies, new sources of innovation, and new insight that was not readily available previously. More importantly, digital transformation is most effective when putting the customer at the center of the digital ground swell.

Source: State of the Consulting Industry Analysis: The Impact of Digital Transformation, July 2016

KPMG

Transformation is the continual evolution and alignment of:

An enterprise’s strategic and financial objectives

Its business, operating, functional, and human capital models

Its ability to deploy change and adapt within continually evolving external environments

Source: KPMG, ‘Empowered for the Future, Insurance Reinvented’, June 2016

Bain and Company

Data interactions create exponential growth in innovation; adoption cycles shorten as frequent innovation becomes the ‘new normal’. Companies begin to digitize ‘standard’ business processes previously made by paper, in-person or by workers.

Source: Bain and Company, ‘Anatomy of a Digital Consumer’ December 2015

Boston Consulting Group

Leveraging digital technologies is more than just good business—it’s crucial to staying relevant and profitable. Companies lagging in this area risk losing ground to newer entrants and business models that are poised to disrupt markets with innovative products and services.

Source: Boston Consulting Group, Corporate Website

Microsoft

“Digital transformation isn’t just about procuring a CRM, ERP, or office automation system. It requires building out what we refer to as systems of intelligence — digital feedback loops that help you better engage with your customers, empower your employees, optimize your operations, and reinvent products and business models.” – Satya Nadella, CEO

Source: Microsoft, ‘Why Businesses Should Embrace Digital Transformation, Not Only to Survive – But Also to Thrive, April, 2016

On its importance in Change Management

Capgemini

Digital transformation has become the ultimate challenge in change management because it impacts not only industry structures and strategic positioning but all levels of an organization (every task, activity, process) and its extended supply chain.

Source: Capgemini, Corporate Website

Harvard Business Review

Technology offers professional services firms a way out of their predicament. By leveraging the power of algorithm-driven automation and data analytics to “productize” aspects of their work, a number of innovative firms are finding that, like Google and Adobe, they can increase margins as they grow, while giving clients better service at prices that competitors can’t match.

Source: Harvard Business Review, ‘Putting Products Into Services’, September 2016 Issue

KPMG

Change management does not just enable organizations to achieve their transformation objectives. It also provides enhanced benefits such as reduced disruption to the organization, a more resilient and adaptable workforce and overall de-risking of future change.

Source: KPMG, ‘Empowered for the Future’, June 2016

On its Relationship with Asset-Management

Accenture

To optimize the potential of digital technologies, asset management firms should concentrate on end-to-end solutions that streamline and automate as many processes as possible.

Source: Accenture, ‘Digital Transformation: The Central Challenge For Asset-Management Firms’

On helping you stay ahead of competition

Deloitte

The power of a digital transformation strategy lies in its scope and objectives. Less digitally mature organizations tend to focus on individual technologies and have strategies that are decidedly operational in focus. Digital strategies in the most mature organizations are developed with an eye on transforming the business.

Organizations across the board are using digital to improve efficiency and the customer experience, but higher-maturity organizations differentiates themselves by using digital to transform their business, allowing them to move ahead of the competition.

Source: Deloitte University Press, ‘Strategy, Not Technology, Drives Digital Transformation’, 2015

Gartner

A competitive advantage introduced by one company forces competitors to respond, creating a cycle of advance and respond that drives transformation. Digital technology accelerates this cycle, making it more difficult to erect and maintain barriers to entry.

Source: Gartner, ‘Competitive Advantage and Business Transformation Innovation Key Initiative Overview’, April 2014

Concluding Thoughts

Despite overwhelming agreement on the power of digital transformation and its capability to disrupt existing business models, our recent research on ‘Digital Transformation: State of the Consulting Industry’ we found some disparities. A significant number of consultants who participated in our research felt that they are not too far in their own digitization path. But, they do, consequently, offer digital transformation services to their clients.

Firms are only making surface-level changes, like value proposition, in response to digital trends. Respondents stated that their firms are only making surface-level changes, like value proposition, in response to digital trends. The largest changes their firms are making are not the capabilities, skills, or people that will help them in their priorities.

Interestingly enough, most respondents thought of digital transformation in terms of operations and customer experience. What stood out is the omission of culture and leadership in the descriptions, which when combined with the biggest hurdles to a more digital process (lack of appropriate IT infrastructure and management buy-in) and makes it clear that this is an area that requires additional focus.

For the full summary report, click here

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Digital Transformation: How Leading Consulting Firms Define It

4 Ways to Make the Most of Your Influencer Relationships

Word of mouth has always been the holy grail for marketers, and this rings even more true in the social media age when good and bad reviews spread like wildfire.

Consumers once relied on friends when making purchasing decisions, but they now increasingly look to influencers to help them decide where to spend their hard-earned money, with 49 percent of individuals highly valuing influencer recommendations.

Influencer marketing isn’t a new phenomenon; brands have long used celebrity endorsements and sponsored partnerships to attract customers. However, today’s influencers are more organic, building followings based on the content they produce — whether that be blog posts, video tutorials, or reviews on YouTube. Influencers’ audiences trust them and view them as real people — more so than a traditional celebrity like Angelina Jolie, who feels inaccessible.

Niche influencers also have greater reach than traditional media partners. If a fashion company runs sponsored content in a major magazine, it can expect to reach between 1 million and 3 million subscribers per month. In reality, the brand can increase those numbers several times over by instead working with online influencers.

Brand-influencer collaborations are particularly effective. When Tarte Cosmetics teamed up with vlogger Bunny Meyer to develop a makeup collection, her nearly 8 million followers were ecstatic. Meyer’s audience was eager to support this accomplishment and couldn’t wait to get their hands on the products. The presale of the collection sold out within a few hours.

Companies can earn significant ROI through influencer relationships if they approach them correctly. Here’s how to get influencer marketing right:

Work with Influencers Who are Appropriate for Your Brand

Finding the right partners requires time and research. Just because a vlogger has millions of followers doesn’t mean he or she is the right fit for your campaign. Tools such as BuzzSumo and Followerwonk can help you identify a wide range of experts who hold sway with your audience. Be sure to follow them across their social media channels to observe their interactions before reaching out.

Look for people whose content is relevant to your products and who demonstrate strong engagement with their audiences. High search rankings are good indicators that people have real clout within their spaces. At Beautycon Media, we curate our influencers very carefully. Each influencer we work with who launches new editions of our subscription box need to have the right tone and audience for our brand. We meticulously research influencers’ engagement metrics, the number of brands they’ve previously partnered with, and how they interact with their fans.

Once you’ve zeroed in on the personalities who have the best rapport with their fans, identify how you can help amplify their brands. Influencers want to know that the relationship will be reciprocal and benefit their business as well.

Send Products to Your Partners for Review

After you’ve selected your influencers, send them your product, and ask for honest feedback. Create a step-by-step guide for how to use each item, and make your team available to answer any questions your partners might have.

Whenever Beautycon Media launches a new box, we send boxes to hundreds of influencers. Each package has detailed unboxing instructions printed on the lid, so our influencers never feel at a loss when documenting their experiences. They’re so excited to be included in our community, and the content they create in response to that inclusion perfectly encapsulates the honest and organic connection we want to foster with our audience.

Specify in your agreement that influencers must showcase your products in a video, but don’t dictate the format. By all means, send supplemental materials or a suggested outline, but remember to grant them creative control — they know what will resonate with their audiences and what will not.

Capture and Promote Influencer Content

When you’re working with influencers, you need to know their audiences as well as you know your own. It’s not enough to have these partners create content for your brand — you need to amplify that content to optimize your exposure.

Determine which times of day are best for boosting their blog posts, videos, and Instagram photos. Our team studies our influencers’ audiences, so we can retarget them effectively. For example, when we notice that their followers are particularly active on Facebook and Instagram, that’s where we focus our budgets. We can convert them from viewers to subscribers at significantly lower costs than if we were simply investing in SEO and standard social advertising.

Also, be sure to develop a social media schedule for sharing influencer content. Research shows that 53 percent of business owners acknowledge the importance of a content distribution strategy, but less than half actually have one. Share your content proudly and frequently, and never be shy about repeatedly posting the same links. Twitter offers you a prime window of only 18 minutes, and Facebook’s algorithm changes almost constantly, so you want to make sure each and every piece of content gets viewed by as many individuals as possible.

Promote your influencers on your company’s social media channels, and feature them on your website. This not only generates goodwill with your partners by enhancing their profiles, but it also maximizes your marketing spend. The more popular they are, the more likely you are to hit your target KPIs. Madewell regrams photos from brand advocates like fashionista Jules Denby, while ASOS dedicates a section of its website to its “Insiders.”

Empower Content Creators to Speak in Their Own Voices

Trust your influencers. They understand their audience members’ personalities and know how to present your products to them.

Micromanaging your partnerships with influencers will actually counteract the power that you want to tap into. Besides, people know when someone is reading from a script. I’ve seen too many comment threads bashing brands because of stiff, false-sounding partner messages. You’ll earn greater ROI if you let influencers do what they do best.

You can also invite your partners to add a personal flair to your products. When Bunny Meyer helped launch our spring box, she worked closely with us on item selection — including a babydoll key chain based on her personal doll collection.

The keychain branded the box as Bunny’s unique compilation, and it became a huge hit on social. By giving the influencer a say in the creative process, we created a more meaningful connection with her fans.

Influencer marketing works because it’s authentic. If you choose the right individuals to work with your brand, you’ll reach people who are natural customers for your product. You can create an ecosystem based on value and relevance — and that’s good for your brand, your influencers, and your customers.

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4 Ways to Make the Most of Your Influencer Relationships