Let’s face it, third-party cookies and Ad IDs have been a crutch for advertisers over the past decade.
Well now as data restrictions tighten and tech companies (i.e., Google and Apple) make it harder for advertisers to track users, everyone is scrambling to find alternatives to using cookies.
One alternative is using your first-party data which is the data you collect on your audience based on their activity within your website, app, email services or social media.
A new study from LiveIntent and Advertiser Perceptions lists the top ways advertisers plan to grow or enhance first-party data, with the Top 3 areas being:
1) Growing email lists via newsletters
Nine in 10 advertisers see newsletters as valuable in understanding your audience. The use of growing your email list will help businesses to activate their data and fully understand their audience. Newsletters will also allow businesses to personalize their communication efforts and see who they should be targeting. Lastly, they will also help to provide first-party data and show you relevant content that businesses can use to build a connection with consumers.
2) Site/app visitation behavior
Website and app visitation can provide important behavior that can be used to track their data. When users connect to your website, the website can collect your audience details. From websites or apps, you can gain users email address, name, mobile number, location based on shipping information and behavioral data. With all this data you can easily see what audience persona or following you have and market directly towards them.
3) Social media
Social media is a vital tool in collecting your audience’s data. Your audience will most likely be using social media way more than just typical Google. Especially in this day and age, people are constantly on a social media platform throughout the day. With social media, you can directly see who your audience is and can even focus on paid media to target and get more insights. With knowing your audience, you can also look for ways to improve on social media to try and expand your first-party data.
Data is very important in knowing who your audience is and seeing who you should be marketing towards.
What’s your company doing to increase their first-party data?
Following is a guest post from our friends over at Long & Short of It, masters of ideation, customer insights and market research. They like to say they “dig and find lots of data and then turn it into actionable insights.” Following is their guest post.
Sure, some people are lucky enough to work with a product or service that they consume or want to consume, but most of us spend our days working on products or services where we are not part of the target audience. And, that’s okay. You don’t have to be the target audience to be able to market to them. However, you do have to recognize who they are and keep them top of mind when making marketing and product decisions.
It seems so obvious, but it’s not. For example, a team member may know that their target audience is a 45-64-year-old woman, yet they choose to put a 20-something model in their print ad. Sure, she looks good, but that isn’t the right choice to resonate with the target audience, and in fact, may actually turn off that audience. That is a simple example, but you get the idea. If those marketers were thinking about their target audience, the young model wouldn’t have been a consideration.
Getting into the minds of your audience may take some time and extra thought, but it’s worth it. You need to know them and also know what they say about your brand or product. If your audience says a product is practical, it’s practical. It doesn’t matter that you want it to be chic.
THERE ARE A NUMBER OF WAYS TO GET TO KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE.
See them in action. I spent a large portion of my career in marketing research, so I’ve had the pleasure of watching consumers interact with a variety of products from greeting cards to bank teller lines to welding equipment. There is no replacement for seeing them in action. Get out of your office. Trust me, you will learn something every single time. You can watch them and just observe, or better yet, ask them some questions. Why did you choose that? How did you decide to pick that up first? Was this something on your list or an impulse purchase today? Then listen to what they say and ask follow-up questions. People are more than willing to share their experiences. One thing to remember is that you’re only talking to a small number of folks. Yes, it’s helpful, but don’t make decisions based on what we like to say is “a focus group of one.” Combine this with other learnings.
Conduct primary research with them. There are many methodologies out there from quantitative to qualitative. Match the method to the objective. You’ll want quantitative (e.g., survey) if you want to measure something. An example here is finding the preferred marketing message. To choose a winner, a large sample size is needed which means quantitative. Qualitative (e.g., focus group) is used when you want to explore something. The example here is understanding what the target audience likes and dislikes about a selection of marketing messages.
Dig into secondary research. There is data available on many target audiences – especially if your audience is a common one (e.g., Moms 25 – 54). Understand that this information won’t be specific to your brand or product, but you can still learn a lot about various audiences this way. Try to look at secondary research first, because it can help inform what you want to know from your specific audience.
Knowing your audience is a key step in presenting your brand or product in a way that resonates with them. Take that step – it’s worth it.
Over time, we have seen many social media platforms rise and gain in popularity. TikTok has risen to be the third-largest social media platform out of the big five worldwide (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter). TikTokis a short-form, video-sharing app that allows users to create and share short videos on any topic. Many tradespeople have turned to TikTok to connect with existing and new customers to talk about their specific trade.
TikTok first launched in 2016 and started to grow rapidly in 2020, mostly due to the Covid-19 pandemic as people were stuck at home and needed entertainment. Over the past couple of years, not only has TikTok continued to grow, but we can see a variety of content on the platform. On TikTok, we see videos about plumbing, tools, construction, automotive and much more! With TikTok still on the rise, it’s important for the trades to be highlighted and for companies to be promoting their products. In this blog post, we will discuss why you should be on TikTok and the pros and cons of doing so.
Cons:
Content Limitations
Like every social media platform, you do have some limitations when it comes to posting and the type of content you can post. TikTok is video platform that utilizes videos from 15-seconds to a minute. Since TikTok only allows videos to be posted and not static photos then you can’t use the platform like other social media sites. Because of this, you will need to reuse or produce videos, which your company might not have the budget for.
Labor and Quality of Videos
Short form videos are easier to produce than long form videos. When producing videos, you will need to think of everything this entails from potential scripts, shooting the video, editing and publishing it. Your videos are a form of storytelling, which means they need to be high-quality videos that are engaging with your audience. If you’re worried about shooting videos then check out our other blog post where we discuss five tips for video. Although TikTok has content limitations, it allows users to be creative in their content. The way TikTok has transformed over time, it provides a great way to experiment with your videos.
Third-Party Ownership
One con for some businesses might be the China ownership of the TikTok app. With ByteDancebeing the parent company of the app, they are able to access the basic information on each user. Although nothing has happened between the parent company and the US, this is definitely one piece of information to keep in mind.
Pros:
Increase Your Audience
On social media, one of your goals should be to increase your followers so you have more people viewing your content and engaging with it. TikTok mainly targets a younger audience so you can increase your brand awareness with younger people in the trades. TikTok content also feels more organic. It’s an effective way to increase brand awareness without feeling salesy.
Increasing Sales
Because we can closely connect with our audience, it’s easier to get your content in front of people who are interested in it. As a company, you can freely post any appropriate video which means you can have endless possibilities to promote your products or services. In fact, 49% of TikTok users have purchased something because they saw it on the app.
Less Competition
While TikTok has grown and a lot of businesses have joined the app, you still have less competition than Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Other popular social media apps have been around for a while and have become supersaturated with other brands. Because of this, it’s much harder to grow organically on these platforms. Due to TikTok’s algorithm, it’s much easier to target your audience and grow your business.
Although you want to be careful before jumping on the latest marketing trends, TikTok is definitely a platform you will want to consider. Sit down with your company and review the pros and cons and see if TikTok is something you are willing to invest in. Sonnhalter believes now is the time for manufacturing companies who target the trades to join TikTok to grow your brand and marketing strategy.
Each month, Alan Sipe, a contributing editor for Professional Distributor magazine, writes a sales skill article targeted to the independent business people who own and operate the various branded tool trucks you see parked at automotive repair shops everywhere.
Grew up in a rural area outside a small steel town in Latrobe, Pa. For a small town, we had some pretty famous residents: The golfer, Arnold Palmer, and Fred Rodgers of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
We brewed Rolling Rock Beer. Latrobe is the preseason training camp home of the Pittsburgh Steelers. And most importantly, David Strickler, a 23-year old druggist apprentice at Tassell Pharmacy in Latrobe, invented the banana split ice cream treat in the summer of 1904.
As kids, we would watch Palmer practice his golf shots for hours on end, and even though he was the best golfer of his time, he practiced every day. Palmer was one of those people that when he talked to you, for that moment in time, you were the only person on earth. No distractions; just you. He made you feel special. Additionally, during his prime, Tiger Woods, probably the best golfer of all time, was known to play 18 holes in a tournament, and then practice for four or five hours into the evening to fine tune his game for the next day.
We would also go to Saint Vincent College to watch the Steelers training camp as they prepared for the season ahead. Again, here was, at that time, the best football team on earth, practicing the basics, over and over again. Heck, even my dad, who was a real-life Marcus Welby country doctor making house calls every day, took the time to study the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) each month.
The point of this bit of Latrobe history is that to be the best at whatever your chosen field is, in addition to the daily work routine, it requires continuous learning, practice, and perseverance.
So, how about you?
Selling is a profession that no matter how long you’ve been at it, and how successful you are, you could always do better — and better increases your revenue and paycheck.
I typed “selling skills books” into Google and got 175,000,000 hits in 1.4 seconds. I typed “selling skills videos” into Google and received a whopping 304,000,000 hits. There is no lack of sales skills training material available to you and much of it is free.
Invest some time and effort in your career, pick up a few new closing skills, learn and develop your social media presence, or just figure out how to make one extra profitable stop per day.
Remember though, unlike many types of skill training, sales skills learning is similar to putting money in your personal savings account — you will probably not use your new skill all the time. It will sit in your mind percolating until just the right selling situation comes up, and you bring it out it to make the sale.
Here’s some ideas:
Boost buyer engagement by bringing your existing product presentations to life. Develop your presentation skills in a way to get your prospect involved from the very start. Asking specific questions about product applications usually works to perk their attention and interest in your product: “Do you find it annoying when your greasy hand slips when you’re turning a screwdriver?”, or “Does it cut into your productive time when you have to wait to use the company scope since you don’t have your own?”
Learn the “puppy dog close.” Just like taking your kids to the animal shelter and saying, “Ok, we will not take the first puppy you see.” Yet, the fist puppy your kids play with is it, and off you go with your new dog. It’s the same with tools. If at all possible, allow a squeamish buyer the opportunity to keep and use that new tool for a week, and it’s a sale.
A high percentage of the readers of Professional Distributor magazine carry one of the major brand’s logos on their trucks. All the major brands are deep into using a broad-based social media program. What I mean is that the weekly email I receive from the major brands is the same email thousands of others receive at the same time. This is good marketing, but you individually, have the opportunity to take it one financial step farther. Start your own simple weekly email to your customers. Show pictures of your customers standing by their new tool storage unit or using their new grinder. Mention something about you or your family to help bond your personal relationship, and adding something about a customer like a birth or wedding also adds a personal touch. End with a picture of something you are promoting or maybe even a used tool you have for sale. An hour a week invested will reap significant long-term results.
Learn the “now or never” close. Normally, the promotional periods for the major mobile jobbers last four to six weeks. If it is getting near the end of a promotional period, and you have a buyer on the fence, a simple sentence like, “I know you’re still deciding on this new tool, and I’m not here to push you, but the promotion is over, and I don’t want you to be upset when the price goes back up. Should we go ahead a get this deal done?”
Finally, set a personal goal to read at least one sales skills book every two months to keep up with the latest selling skills and increase your income.
Videos are one piece of marketing content that is not going anywhere anytime soon. With TikTok and other social media platforms promoting the use of videos, it’s important to understand how to produce the best video. The advances in technology have made it easy to whip out your phone and shoot a video for your own business without relying on professional gear. Obviously, having a clean, professional looking video is great sometimes, but authentic phone videos can help to make the video feel organic. In this blog post, we will cover the five best tips and tricks for shooting videos that you can use for your phone or camera.
Plan for Your Video
Occasionally, some videos might be filmed on quick notice, but if you know that you’re filming well ahead of time, make sure to plan. When creating a video, you’re not just pressing record, but many other factors come into play like location, script, objectives and video type.
Before filming, ask yourself what the goal of the video is going to be. Are you making an educational video, behind-the-scenes or testimonial? Knowing the type of video you’re making ensures that you know what kind of videos and b-roll you’re shooting, what questions need to be answered and who needs to be filmed. Also, know where this video is primarily going to be used as that will dictate if you’re filming vertically or horizontally.
2. Lighting
Lighting is essential for your video quality when producing a high or low budget video. When it comes to lighting, there are two different kinds that you can use.
Natural lighting
Professional lighting
Natural lighting is a great cost-effective option for users—but make certain you know the risks. If you don’t have enough natural light, then your video may look dark and grainy, making it hard to see what’s happening in the video. Too much light will lead to harsh lighting on your subject or cause the video to be “blown” out, making the video not usable. When using natural light, work with the sun and overhead lights to make your video look the best.
Professional lighting is something you can invest in to help boost the quality of your video. Using a lighting kit can help to light your subject and make your phone video look like it was taken on a professional camera. When using a lighting kit, ensure you use the three-point lighting system to illuminate the scene. Three-point lighting is when you’re using light sources from three distinct positions. The three types of lights are key light, fill light and backlight.
Key light is the primary and brightest light source in the three-point lighting setup.
Fill light literally fills in the shadows that the key light creates on a subject, bringing out details in the darkness.
Backlight is the third source in this lighting technique; the backlight shines on a subject from behind, completing the light setup.
3. Audio
Audio can make or break your video. If the audio isn’t usable and it’s necessary for the video, then the video is going into the trash. The best and ideal way to capture audio from your subject is to use any microphone other than your camera’s built-in mic. No matter how good your camera’s built-in mic is, it’s still not enough to replace a dedicated external audio recorder. Although, remember to listen to the noise around you before filming to guarantee you get a good quality video. Are you in a loud area? Is there a noisy HVAC system? Are there overhead announcements every five minutes? Take notice the noise around you as that audio, whether you have a microphone or not, will be picked up in the video. If you’re in a loud environment, and it’s possible, move to a quiet or secluded area to film your video.
4. Avoid Shaky Footage
Shaky footage can strain the eyes of your viewership and may cause them to stop watching. We suggest either purchasing a tripod or using the built-in stabilization on your camera to see if you’re holding the phone at an angle. Tripods obviously only work if the subject is still, so looking into external stabilizers might be the best option if you have a shaky hand.
Many video editing software programs also have a built-in feature to stabilize shaky footage, but the results may not be perfect each time.
5. Video Composition
Video composition is how you frame your subject in your video. The ideal way to frame your subject is to follow the “rule of thirds,” which divides the frame into a three-by-three grid, creating intersections that are areas to place your focus.
The rule of thirds is where you mentally divide the frame or screen of your camera/phone into thirds, both vertically and horizontally. This grid overlaying on your screen will help you to place your key subject where the lines intersect. This means that placing your subject into the center of the screen will create a less interesting composition.
One important thing to keep in mind when filming is where the head of your subject is. Make sure they have ample head space, but not too much, as this causes negative space. Also, don’t provide too little head space as you may cut the person’s head out of frame. Framing is an important component of video production that helps tell the story of your video.
Conclusion
Filming videos can sound intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be! By following these tips, you can increase your video production quality and know the basics when it comes to shooting. Remember, whipping your phone out to film is easy and shouldn’t be stressful. So, what are you waiting for? Get out and start filming your videos!
Each month, Alan Sipe, a contributing editor for 
