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.
Marketing metrics matter. Sit in enough meetings and you’ll see people read the numbers differently. You can feel it about five minutes in. That becomes a problem when you’re trying to move in the same direction.
Performance reports, KPIs, dashboards, they’re full of data. It’s usually easy to find. The harder part is getting the team to look at the same numbers, through the same lens, and arrive at a shared understanding of what to do next.
The Elephant in the Room
There’s an old Indian parable about blind men describing an elephant for the first time. One feels the side and calls it a wall. Another grabs the trunk and says it’s a snake. And so on. No one sees the whole.
Internal teams are remarkably good at recreating this parable. The SEO lead looks at the dashboard and sees an organic traffic problem. The channel manager sees a conversion rate issue. The CEO sees a revenue gap. Same data with different conclusions. Sound familiar?
Why This Keeps Happening
Part of it is structural. Marketing teams are often organized around channels and functions, which means expertise gets siloed right along with accountability. Each person or team is optimizing for something slightly different, spend efficiency, engagement rates, attribution, pipeline contribution. Those objectives don’t always point in the same direction.
The other part is they skip a step, going from data straight to action without pausing to ask whether everyone agrees on what the data is saying. We worked with one client who had different team members being “fairly certain” as to why lead volume had dropped, with different potential ideas on what to do. The issue wasn’t the data. It was that no one had sat down together to build a shared read of it first.
What to Do About It
The goal isn’t unanimous agreement on everything. Consensus by committee leads to mush. It’s about building a shared framework for making sense of what you’re seeing and using that to decide what to test and what to change. At Long & Short of It, this is often where we add the most value: not in the analysis itself, but in facilitating the conversation around it (with a bit of our own view on what the data says of course!).
Start with the business objective, not the metric. Before opening the dashboard, align on what you’re trying to achieve. Not “improve click-through rates,” but are you trying to drive more qualified leads? Increase fewer but larger dollar sales? Improve retention? That objective is the anchor. Every metric conversation needs to connect back to it.
Separate observations from interpretations. An observation is what the data shows: “Website traffic is down 18% month over month.” An interpretation is a theory about why or what the data is telling us: “We may be reaching fewer new people because we pulled back on paid media in Q3.” Keeping these two things distinct, and being explicit about which you’re doing, reduces the noise considerably.
Build hypotheses together. Once observations are on the table, bring the full team in. There is power in a collective discussion with different areas of expertise. A good hypothesis is specific and testable: “If our cost per lead is rising because we’re talking to the wrong audience, we’d expect to see plenty of clicks but very few conversions. We could test that by tightening our targeting and running a 30-day campaign to a more defined segment.”
Design a test, not a committee. Once you have a hypothesis, resist the urge to debate it indefinitely. We love the 80% rule – once you’re about 80% there, move on. It’s more important to take action, test and learn rather than debate or try to get to perfection. Pick one thing to change (not several at a time, because then you won’t be sure what affected the change!), define what success looks like before you start, set a timeframe, and measure. Sometimes a focused 30-day experiment tells you everything you need to know.
Close the loop to revenue. Channel metrics are useful diagnostic tools, but they’re not the point. The point is whether your marketing is contributing to actual business outcomes: leads, pipeline, sales, revenue. Build that connection explicitly into how you review performance, even when the attribution isn’t perfect.
The Real Opportunity
The teams that get the most out of their marketing data aren’t necessarily the ones with the most sophisticated tools. They’re the ones that have learned how to have better conversations about what the data means and how to turn those conversations into clear, testable decisions. A smart team, working together, and being curious is worth more than any software platform out there. Work with what you have.
My name is Lauren Peugeot, and I am the incoming 2026 Public Relations (PR) Intern for Sonnhalter. In the fall, I will begin my third year at The Ohio State University, where I am pursuing my Bachelor of Arts in Strategic Communication and minoring in Pharmaceutical Science. I am also working towards obtaining a Strategic Sales Certificate to complete my degree. Through both my coursework and extracurricular activities at Ohio State, I have developed a passion for creativity, marketing, and building lasting relationships with the individuals I work with.
At Ohio State, in addition to maintaining a busy academic schedule, I am engaged in social and leadership aspects of campus culture. Currently, I am an active member of the Sigma Kappa chapter of Kappa Delta, where I serve on council as the Vice President of Recruitment & Marketing. Within this role, I have taken on responsibilities such as delegating marketing content and managing PR-related initiatives for optimized recruiting efforts while maintaining Kappa Delta’s core philanthropic values.
Another role I hold is working as a Research Assistant for the Ohio State School of Communication. In this position, I help facilitate relationships with lab directors and assist research participants in successfully completing studies so that the collected data can contribute to new findings of communication styles. The study I specifically work on examines how utilizing different media channels affects personal relationships, which has further expanded my interest in public relations.
I am from Mayfield, Ohio, about 25 minutes northeast of downtown Cleveland. Besides academics and extracurriculars, I enjoy staying active and spending time with friends and family. One sport I especially enjoy is volleyball, and I play on an intramural volleyball team at Ohio State. Activities like this have taught me the importance of teamwork, communication, and adaptability, which are qualities that will hopefully benefit me throughout my time interning and learning more at Sonnhalter.
I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to join the team this summer and become part of such a welcoming and supportive company culture. I am excited to “connect the pipes” between public relations and marketing with the B2T mindset and gain firsthand experience with all “the nuts and bolts” of the industry. Through this opportunity I hope to build new relationships, contribute to the team, and make the most of this internship with Sonnhalter.
As more trade shows approach, many companies find themselves asking the same question, “How can we stand out and drive more traffic to our booth?” With crowded show floors and countless exhibitors competing for attention, creating an engaging booth experience is more important than ever.
Over the years, we’ve seen everything from puppies and arcade games to immersive brand experiences. Below are several proven booth ideas that can help attract attendees, keep them engaged and create lasting impressions.
Games That Engage
Interactive games are a simple yet effective way to draw people in. Whether it’s cornhole, spin-the-wheel, Plinko or another easy-to-play option, games add an element of fun that encourages attendees to stop, participate and linger longer at your booth.
Games also create a natural opportunity to give away branded swag or prizes, making your brand more memorable while starting conversations with potential leads.
Photo Booth Experiences
Photo opportunities are a powerful way to generate buzz on the show floor and beyond. A branded photo booth or backdrop gives attendees a reason to gather at your booth while incorporating your logo, colors and messaging.
Taking it a step further with branded filters or hashtags encourages attendees to share their photos on social media, expanding your reach and boosting brand awareness well after the show ends.
Virtual Reality (VR) Experiences
Virtual reality can instantly set your booth apart. VR experiences are immersive and naturally attract crowds, keeping visitors engaged longer than traditional displays.
VR can be used to demonstrate how your products work, showcase environments that are difficult to replicate on the show floor, or tell your brand story in a more interactive way. When attendees can see, hear and interact with your offering, the experience becomes far more memorable.
Hosting a Contest
Contests are one of the most effective ways to generate booth traffic, but success depends on promotion. To build excitement, start promoting your contest before the show through social media, emails and even trade media outlets.
At the booth, contests encourage participation while allowing you to collect contact information from attendees. This not only increases engagement during the event but also helps generate qualified leads you can follow up with after the show.
Final Thoughts
These ideas are just a starting point when it comes to creating an engaging trade show booth. The key is to combine creativity with interaction, giving attendees a reason to stop, participate and remember your brand.
By exploring these strategies and thinking outside the box, you can make the most of your next trade show and create meaningful connections with attendees.
Social media is no longer just a channel for posting updates, it’s a strategic tool that influences brand perception, engagement and growth. To use it effectively, brands must understand not only their own performance, but also how they compare against their competitors. That’s where social media competitive analysis comes in.
What Is Social Media Competitive Analysis?
Competitive social media analysis is the process of evaluating competitors’ social media activity to understand what content they share, how audiences engage and where opportunities exist.
This analysis typically looks at:
Platforms competitors are active on
Content types and posting frequency
Engagement (likes, comments, shares)
Audience growth
The goal isn’t to copy competitors, it’s to gain insight into what resonates in your industry and identify ways to differentiate or improve your brand.
A thoughtful competitive analysis helps brands make smarter, data-driven decisions rather than guessing what might work.
Identifies opportunities and engagement By seeing what competitors post, and what performs well, you can uncover gaps, trends or underserved topics your brand can own. Understanding how audiences interact with competitor content provides insight into preferred formats and top content.
Supports platform prioritization Competitive analysis shows which platforms matter most in your industry, helping brands focus time and resources where they’ll have the greatest impact.
How Often Should Competitive Analysis Be Done?
Competitive analysis isn’t a one-time exercise. Social platforms, algorithms and audience behaviors evolve constantly. Ongoing monitoring can help to spot trends or shifts across competitors and how your improved social media works.
Social media competitive analysis helps brands move from reactive posting to an intentional strategy. By understanding the competitive landscape, brands can create more relevant content, engage audiences more effectively and strengthen their digital presence over time.
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.
There’s a lot going on right now and it’s stressing us all out. Wars. Politics. Economy. All of it has quietly become our new normal, often without us realizing the impact it’s having. Sometimes we just need a break from these stressors. A laugh, or at least a little distraction.
So, what are people doing about it, and even more interesting, what are brands doing? The answers might be more entertaining than you might expect.
The Permission to Be Ridiculous
One of the more interesting things happening in brand-land right now is a kind of calculated ridiculousness. Brands are leaning into strangeness, not as a creative accident, but as a deliberate strategy for giving people a moment of levity in an exhausting news cycle.
This is not new. Take Liquid Death, launched in 2019. It’s canned water. That’s the product. And yet the brand hired a witch doctor to curse plastic bottles, auctioned a casket cooler cobranded with Yeti (love that brand btw) for $68,000, collaborated with e.l.f. Cosmetics on a coffin-shaped makeup kit that sold out in under an hour. The whole enterprise operates as though someone asked, “what if a water company acted like a heavy metal band?” and then committed to the answer without blinking.
And things keep getting stranger. The Picklerita—a mash-up between Sonic and Grillo’s Pickles. A summer slush with pickle juice, lime, ice, and boba. Really? And why? Perhaps, it’s why not! Not to everyone’s taste, yet enough people couldn’t get enough of it simply because of its wackiness. It may quench your thirst but that’s not the point. It was designed to provoke curiosity, laughter, and more than a bit of confusion. We’d bet people were not thinking of the news while sipping on this exotic mixture (even if you like pickles).
Another favorite was the odd co-branding between Crocs and Krispy Kreme: a donut-decorated shoe. You can’t help but giggle or at least have your mind skip a beat and wonder again why, or more importantly, who would wear them? No offense to those that might own a beautiful pair of these glazed rubber whatevers as you walk around smelling like a blueberry cobbler since you bathed with the Dunkin’/Native body wash.
What do these all have in common? They all have a way for people to share in a fun experience, have a laugh, and maybe for a moment they realize that we’re all in this together and it’s OK to be silly if it helps.
The Great Logging Off
On the other end of the spectrum, some brands are doing the opposite of demanding attention. They’re offering escape from it.
According to the BBC, the biggest 2026 travel trend is quiet over everything—quietcations, also known as hushpitality. The movement centers around comfort, silence, and unplugging.
Hector Hughes, co-founder of Unplugged offers cabins in the UK where guests trade in their smartphones for Polaroid cameras, actual paper maps, and board games. “When we first started Unplugged in 2020, digital detoxing and analogue living was pretty much unheard of,” he says. “Now, over half of our guests cite burnout and screen fatigue as their main motivation for booking.”
Vogue ran a piece declaring being completely unreachable “the ultimate power move.” When fashion magazines start treating silence as a luxury status symbol, something cultural has genuinely shifted.
Rage rooms (spaces where you put on protective gear and smash things with a bat) are still going strong. What started in Tokyo is now a projected $314 million global industry. Cities are hosting outdoor scream clubs. Forest retreats are offering sledgehammer sessions in addition to gentler forest-bathing experiences. Different approaches for different folks, but the insight is simple: sometimes people need a physical outlet or shift for feelings that have nowhere else to go, and the brand that provides the room is welcome.
What This Means for Brands
There’s a common thread here. Whether a brand is handing you a pickle slush, sledgehammer, or solitude, what they’re really offering is the same thing: relief from seriousness. A moment, an hour, or a week away from the onslaught of everything coming at us. It’s kind of a release valve in a world that as hard as we might try, is not easy to brush off or realize the impact it is having on us.
This is not to say that you need to come up with something whacky or position your brand to being Zen-like. Though, you don’t need our permission to do so, and it might be fun even ideating about it. For these brands, it worked. They were attentive and in-tune with the broader world around them, and more importantly, their customers.
If your initial reaction is that this is too scary, weird, or not for my brand, then you are already on the right path. That’s how it should feel. Growth or change of any kind is initially uncomfortable because it’s not what we are used to.
Give us a call and let’s be scared together about the exciting opportunities that just might help your customers giggle, get curious, and never forget that you gave them a bit of respite when they needed it most.
