News & Events - Mason Interactive

Mason’s third fashion marketing event in 2019, in partnership with Google, brought together 50 fashion marketing professionals at the Soho Grand Hotel to explore the best holiday sales tactics.

We saw four inspiring industry insiders take the stage:

Katie Klencheski, SMAKK Studios
Steph Schmidt, Google
Piper Flusser, Walgreens Boots Alliance – Global Brands Americas
Brook Shepard, Mason Interactive

Here are the highlights of the day!

Key trends influencing the holiday sales in 2019

Steph Schmidt, who leads Retail & Shopping on Google’s Performance Agency Team, encouraged the audience to really think about how to make a difference this holiday season and build a strategy that not only brings in new shoppers, but long term business growth. She shared proprietary data from Google to shape the landscape for the season.

Loyalty is replaced by practicality, access and speed

How to succeed as a retailer hasn’t changed, and as always, retailers have to differentiate on one or more of the 5 core levers: price, assortment, convenience, service, and experience. However, loyalty has given way to practicality, access and speed. Consumers can now buy what they need, when they need it and from different retailers. Statistically, consumers are willing to buy from a new retailer, if they have something new and superior to offer across one of the 5 core levers. During the holiday season last year, 51% of shoppers said they were open to purchasing from a new retailer, and 35% actually did.

Get to know your customers

According to Google, personalization can bring you 2x increase in basket size and it is estimated that $800B of the consumer spend will shift to those who personalize in the next 5 years. Simply put, if you are not yet providing a personalized experience to your website visitors, you are likely losing sales. For retail brands, this means continually optimizing for an individual customer experience that is more assistive, such as showing products in their size, or showing products that compliment the products they already purchased from you.

Following the trend, Google is redoing the Google shopping tab to build more coherent shopping experiences. In the new tab everything will be personalized based on products and brands you have searched and shopped. Another development from Google is ‘Shopping Actions’, a one-click-buy model that allows customers to turn browsing into buying instantly. The transaction will take place directly in Google without the need to visit the brand’s website.

Rethink your convenience model

Online retailers such as Amazon are upping the convenience standard. As a result, mobile searches for same day shipping have increased by 120% over the past two years. Steph used Net-a-Porter as an example of a brand who has excelled adding convenience through same-day concierge services. Another example is Happy Returns, a new concept that makes returns less stressful with kiosks around the city providing instant returns. The service handles packaging and sending the goods back to the company, and customer’s credit card will be credited instantly.

Optimize the mobile experience

In 2018 63% of holiday shoppers made a purchase on their mobile phone, whereas in 2017 the number was 48%. When talking about mobile shopping experience, speed has a significant impact. Statistics show that 50% of users would leave the site already after a 3 second loading time and 62% of consumers are less likely to purchase from a brand again after they had a negative mobile experience. According to Google, already 1 second improvement to the site speed can lead to a 20% increase in conversions.

Omnichannel is the future of retail

Even though more and more sales are happening on e-commerce platforms, Steph reminded us of the value of omnichannel where the consumer is being served wherever they are, both online and offline. And digital should support offline. Global in-store sales influenced by a digital touch point has grown 43% from 2004 to 2017, and this number will likely keep increasing.

When asked, most marketing professionals say omnichannel is part of their strategy. However, many brands are still missing a huge opportunity by not measuring the impact digital marketing has on in-store sales. Google data shows that 76% of shoppers who conduct a local search visit the store within 24 hours, and 28% of those searches result in a purchase. Instead of using digital marketing only to spike e-commerce sales, today’s successful marketers also use it for in-store efforts.

The power of storytelling

Katie Klencheski from SMAKK Studios spoke about using smart content to cut through the Black Friday inbox clutter during aggressive Black Friday marketing and skyrocketing Holiday email volume. Due to excessively frequent messaging, email open rates drop 18.8% lower than during non-holidays and the unsubscribe rates skyrocket above average (50-55% increase). Katie challenged brands to take this as an opportunity to break through the noise with unexpected and authentic content.

The power of storytelling matters beyond the holiday season. Katie shared statistics that show a change in consumer expectations towards more authenticity:

8 out of 10 people want brands to tell more interesting stories
85% can’t give an example of a memorable story of a brand
48% of millennials are more likely to buy from a brand if they know the people behind it
72% of millennials would rather spend on experiences rather than on material items

It’s time for retailers to step up their game to tell stories, create experiences and purposeful, impactful content that consumers want to be part of and get personal value from.

Know your superpower

Closing the summit, Brook Shepard, from Mason Interactive, ran a workshop for attendees taking them back to the fundamentals of brand building by asking an important question; what is your superpower? What is that wow factor you can add to your marketing message that creates the “thumb stopping” effect amongst consumers when they scroll down their Instagram feed? Whereas big, established brands are backed with large marketing budgets, smaller brands must make more intelligent decisions to stand against competition.

Thank you to everyone who attended the summit for making it a day to remember!

For more information on how to win the consumer during the upcoming holiday season, reach out to Mason’s digital experts.

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.

Who doesn’t love discovering the latest, best-in-class goods from pioneers in the consumer goods market? FounderMade’s Consumer Discovery Show brings together founders, retailers and influencers from the most innovative beauty, fashion, wellness and food up-and-comer and start-up brands.

This week, we had the pleasure to host a booth at the Consumer Discovery Show East 2019 at Spring Studios, New York. This was our third year at the show, and as always, we were impressed by the passion of these innovators.

In addition to great conversations we enjoyed with the attendees on our booth and in the Discovery Lounge bazaar, we heard awesome insights on the hot topics in each industry during their well-curated sessions. The panels featured thought leaders, founders and C-level executives from companies like Alibaba Group, Cannuka, Walmart and Whole Foods Market.

The top 3 trends we discovered at the show this year:

CBD industry is booming. We saw everything from CBD oils, balms, cookies, protein bars to dogs’ biscuits! All of them having the purpose of healing, enhancing wellness and general mindfulness.
Environmentally, economically, and socially-sourced materials are continuing to take over the market whilst consumers are increasing their interest in, not only what the goods contain, but how they are manufactured, where and by whom.
Standing out in the Direct-to-Consumer industry is more challenging than ever with giants like Amazon & Google setting up the rules of the playground. Many brands are relying on influencers’ power to attract organic traffic alongside traditional marketing and branding methods.

To show our love towards all the up-and-coming brands out there, we’ve put together a limited-time-only FounderMade SEO package. This comprehensive, personalized, SEO package is tailored for brands who are looking to improve their website in a simple, no-strings-attached way. Sign up for the offer here.

Google Marketing Live is an annual invite-only event that Mason Interactive is proud to be part of. Last week, we travelled to San Francisco for the two-day event to learn about Google’s new ad products and how we can utilize them to reach customers in more enriching and assistive ways throughout their journey.

The journey of Paid Search marketing has been an exciting one with more automated ad units coming into the picture even as we are writing this blog post. 20 years ago we only had text ads that were difficult to personalize, but thankfully, Google makes an effort to always put the customer first.

Let’s review a few new product announcements that will help enhance our strategies in the very near future.

Discovery Ads

People are willing to interact with new information that they find interesting and valuable. Google is now claiming that they can anticipate this interest and openness to discovery, which allows marketers to reach consumers with rich and relevant creatives to make brand introductions. Qualified and performance-based awareness brings value to customers and marketers alike.

Gallery Ads

Everyone knows carousels from Instagram, but they never come to mind when thinking about Paid Search or the text heavy environment of traditional SERP. Gallery Ads is Google’s newly introduced ad format that should be combined with an optimal rotation of both expanded (ETA) and responsive (RSA) search ads. Advertisers and brands can upload up to eight images that users will be able to swipe through and click to expand for a more immersive experience. We see these being a great addition to fashion brands’ strategy, where we can reach a broader set of keywords with more enriching & assistive visual experiences.

Let’s talk more about Google Marketing Live and how you can apply these new customer experiences to your marketing strategy.

Our fourth event is in the books, and honestly I enjoyed it more than ever.

Because it wasn’t at Google, we were allowed to branch out a little bit. Kelly Faller kicked us off, I presented as though I was a Google employee – our rep went on maternity leave a bit early, and I covered, The Micro Influencer Hitha Palepu wowed the room with fantastic advice – and 45 minutes fo straight Q @ A! – before lunch.

After lunch, we ran a quiz, Adrian Padron spoke about deep tactics, and then Vadim Grinberg came and spoke for 1+ hours about helping to make Dagne Dover the best work bag company, and beyond.

Thank you everyone who attended! We sincerely appreciate it.

Micro Influencer Hitha Palepu addressing 30+ CMO’s, VP’s and Directors on March 27th at Mason Interactive’s Lunch and Learn. Vadim Grinberg, VP of Consumer Growth & Insight at Dagne Dover with Kelly Faller, our VP of Marketing Communications.