October, 2019 - Mason Interactive

Mason Interactive was a proud sponsor of the 2019 HighEdWeb conference that took place in Milwaukee, WI, during October 13-16. We were amazed how much quality networking, inspiring conversations, electric scooter riding and cheese curds (Milwaukee is a famous cheese town after all) the four conference days consisted of.

Photo courtesy of Higher Education Web Professionals Association.

The conference is produced by Higher Education Web Professionals Association, an international organization of professionals working to develop the future of digital in higher education. Over 700 developers, marketers, programmers, designers, writers and digital professionals came together at the Wisconsin Center to hear high-quality presentations and participate in networking events.

Attendees were able to build their agendas from over 100 sessions covering topics around accessibility, workforce, management, social media, video and web development. The sessions were a balanced mix of traditional 45 minute formats, 10 minute lightning talks, group discussions and interactive poster sessions to keep everyone energized throughout the day. We even saw a post-lunch session with swing dance lessons!

On Tuesday morning, Mason’s CEO Brook took the stage with our long time client, Joel Benway from TCS Education System. During their session “7 Proven Digital Strategies to Grow Enrollments”, Brook and Joel shared real life examples learnt from our partnership on how to bolster enrollment numbers. We were thrilled to see a full room of engaged attendees joining us.

The conference finale on Wednesday was a keynote session from bestselling author, social influencer and motivational speaker Erik Qualman, who discussed digital leadership and how privacy has become hugely challenging with our digital stamp being comprised of our digital shadow.

Each evening we got to meet other attendees in a more relaxed setting during social events. Sunday night’s welcome reception took place at the Milwaukee Public Market where guests had the opportunity to taste some of Milwaukee’s best culinary treats. Mason’s team hosted a fun social gathering on Monday night in a brewery with local brews and games. Tuesday’s “Big Social” was a one-of-a-kind night at the beautiful Milwaukee Art Museum where we explored the gallery, sang live band karaoke and watched fireworks over the river.

We left Milwaukee with many new friends, fuller hearts and fuller stomachs and are looking forward to the 2020 HighEdWeb Conference in Little Rock!

Last month’s Unbounce Call to Action Conference in Vancouver brought together some of the greatest minds in digital marketing to discuss the industry’s hot topics such as machine learning, the limitations of data in the how and why of human behavior, merging AI and humanity together and the science of purchasing behavior. Read the conference recap from Mason’s Performance Marketing Supervisor Andrew Womble.

Human Emotion in Digital Marketing

The overarching theme of this year’s conference was the human emotion side of digital marketing. As a data driven, results oriented industry, we often forget that potential customers are not just data points but real people with desires, ambitions and motivations, coming from any number of complex backgrounds in life. When we come back to this human element of marketing, the possibilities are endless in not only acquiring new, but life-long customers.

One of the most important questions to ask ourselves as marketers and business owners is: Are we excluding audiences who could potentially or who already like our products or services? Are we pushing people out as we strive for that perfect ROAS or CPL goal and thus failing to grow our brands into the future?

Many are guilty of advertising to only one segment of people, however the odds are that potential and current customers come from all walks of life. One of the first ways of inviting, rather than excluding customers is in realizing what makes us different such as weight, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and physical disabilities.

Tommy Hilfiger is an example of a brand that has decided to include customers with physical disabilities with their Adaptive clothing line for the Differently-abled.

Also Nike does a great job in connecting their products to varied backgrounds. The brand has introduced a line of apparel designed for muslim women, and they advertise not just for attractive, physically fit athletes but also for people taking their first steps towards a more healthy lifestyle.

Use Testimonials to Increase Credibility

Another important part of closely connecting your brand with the human element of your customers comes through messaging. Joanna Wiebe, original conversion copywriter and

the creator of Copy Hackers, spoke to the importance of testimonials as a way to connect personally with an otherwise faceless company. Testimonials do several things, they highlight the various people utilizing your product or service, they give credibility as to why others should buy into your business and it creates an emotional element in your sales strategy.

Joanna spoke of a test they ran on a landing page for a drug rehab client out of Florida using a simple quote from a former patient saying “If you think you might need rehab, you really do.” According to Joanna, conversion rates for this page increased by 30% because the testimonial induced an immediate emotional reaction and was given by a former patent which instantly gave the institution credibility which was an otherwise faceless hospital.

The Speed Matters

If we want to connect with the emotions of our customers and capitalize on it, we need to focus on how important it is to have fast landing pages. In November of 2018, Unbounce conducted a survey about landing page speeds and their consequences. Some key findings among those surveyed:

Consumers think that they are being patient about load times but they really aren’t
Consumers are much less likely to purchase or fill out a form on slow pages
The majority of marketers aren’t focusing on landing page speeds despite knowing that it’s important

How fast or slow are your current pages? Google’s own user data reveals that most users will leave a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. According to Unbounce’s survey, 26.9% of traffic drops off between 1-3 seconds and 32.3% of traffic drops off between 4-6 seconds. On average, over half of our traffic is leaving due to slow page speeds. Despite knowing these facts, 3% of marketers say they have made page speeds a top priority in 2019.

We got some great insights from the conference that we are ready to put into action to grow our clients’ brands not only from a KPI perspective but also in brand building and acquiring new customers. We are well versed in rigorous A/B testing for ad copy and landing page testing so reach out to us and let us know how we can help you.