Marketing in 2014
presented by: Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent . @ConversationAge . www.conversationagent.com


But if you keep going, and live with the
problem and peel more layers of the
onion off, you can often times arrive at
some very elegant and simple solutions.
Most people just don't put in the time or
energy to get there. We believe that
customers are smart, and want objects
which are well thought through.”
− Steve Jobs
Marketing in 2014
M a k e i t b e t t e r.
“When you first start off trying to solve a
problem, the first solutions you come up
with are very complex, and most people
stop there.

Foreword: The Promise Economy
by Valeria Maltoni
In 2014, themes related to the emergence of
technology from the last couple of years will
continue to impact business.
Specifically, we will continue to see examples
of the degree in which organizations have
come to rely on technology as part of the
marketing process, and customer adoption
challenges businesses and changes the skill
sets in demand on the people side of
commerce.
The pervasiveness of connected devices –
from smartphones and tablets to cars,
homes, and soon what we wear – is also
creating a clear mandate for design of service
to provide experiences worth having.
Built-in feedback loops make it necessary for
the co-mingling of interestingness with value
to make interaction sustainable and
investment worthwhile.
“Content” is a critical organizing factor in
design of experience and not just an
afterthought. Whether image-based or in the
form of copy or sound, creation and planning
should not be separate from the architecture
of the experience itself.
Knowing the type of experience a brand
wants to provide is very much part of
understanding the motivations, contextdriven intent, and tasks people want to get
done and deliver content and interactions
that map to them.
Every organization shares a strikingly similar
marketing toolkit. Sure, after years of waitand-see on designing better digital commerce
experiences, some brands are still in catch up
mode with social and mobile integration.

3
Marketing in 2014

And the use of robust analytics in measuring
what matters across channels has now
become a necessary part of doing business.
Yet standing out in this environment
continues to be the product of a thoughtful
approach to customer conversations.
Service and product experiences impact both
customer relationships and organizational
culture in an ever evolving loop, which means
they need to go beyond just working – they
need to be constructed to help the business
deliver on its promises time and time over.
I have been calling it the promise economy.
Although we are in a time of great chaos,
with incredible media fragmentation and
technology changes coming faster and
making it challenging to tell trends from fads,
higher customer expectation and stronger
pressure on margins, the answer continues to
be in closing the gap between the promises a
company and brand makes and the promises
it keeps.
As customers ourselves, we are grappling
with the ramifications of three main themes:
1. Technology is starting to fade into the
background.
Our preferences are dictated by
convenience and context: we use
smartphones, tablets, SmartTVs, and
laptops interchangeably and as appropriate
to get stuff done.
Wearable tech, connected homes, and
measurable self are not too far behind
(conceptually).
New device adoption has reached critical
mass and technology is starting to go from
novelty to necessity in people’s lives, with
plenty of choices among similar products.
Beyond getting the product right, smart
companies are making an investment in
understanding their customers and adding
a compelling service layer to the
experiences they provide.

4
Marketing in 2014

2. The line between physical and virtual,
personal and social, private and public is a
moving one.
Our digital/social behaviors are leaving a
data trail: where relevance might delight
us, excessive targeting and automation
continue to be a big turnoff. Empowerment
creates more work for individuals even as
it delivers benefits of going direct.
It is a “both/and” proposition. If technology
is more about understanding what’s going
on that matters, the human need to feel
safe and made whole dictated by privacy
and security concerns underscores the
importance of focusing on what change is
needed.
Massive systems aggregate a greater
number of data points from transactions.
Making a tradeoff between front-end
simplicity and failing to address potential
issues on the back-end will backfire.
3. Greater attention-deficit calls for the
design of experiences worth having.
We are human, and the more choices are
in front of us, the more we feel
overwhelmed. In this environment, signal
comes from appropriate, mindful,
imaginative, caring, and bold gestures.
Value flows to those who create guideposts
to help understand what is bedrock and
what is sand.
A coherent digital transformation roadmap
dictates the set of choices an organization
is committing to making, and will help
prioritize what should be done first, then
second, third, and so on. Implementation
takes focus, discipline, and keeping an eye
on effectiveness along with costs.
Building to iterate and improve takes rigor
and agility, a less glamorous proposition
when it involves large teams used to
working in separate silos.

5
Marketing in 2014

This new environment is also rich with
contradiction and filled with a cacophony of
questions competing for attention.
We need to get back to basics, and at the
same time let what we are learning and is
possible with technology inform us (
no, Big Data should not replace thinking.)
In a 2005 interview with Forbes magazine
Steve Jobs summarized the necessary
relationship between technology and culture:
“Pixar is the most technically advanced
creative company; Apple is the most
creatively advanced technical company.”
We need both – the desire to figure out what
is possible using technology, and human
ingenuity for the ability to zoom in an out of
experiences to connect the dots in new ways.
The mandate: make the service experience
better, keep putting out great products and
let that inform a better, more responsive
organization.
ABOUT VALERIA MALTONI:
A sought after speaker within the international community,
Valeria has 20 years’ experience consulting to Fortune 500
and fast growth organizations on how to drive business
results.
Valeria has delivered digital and social brand strategies to
Anheuser-Busch InBev, Allstate, GE Appliances, and the
Project Management Institute as well as provided
integrated marketing consulting for Target and SunGard,
developed multi-channel user experience journeys for GSK,
and worked with many more of the world’s most prominent
businesses.
Since 2006, Valeria’s Conversation Agent ranks among the
top marketing blogs in the world on AdAge Power150.
Handpicked by Fast Company as Expert Blogger, Valeria is
on the Advisory Board for the International MBA, Fox
School of Business at Temple University, adviser to
SmartBrief Social Media, and co-author of The Age of
Conversation. On Twitter @ConversationAge.

6
Marketing in 2014

It’s 2014: Marketers Become Anthropologists
by Leslie Bradshow
Marketers, get out your field gear, because
the biggest trend for 2014 is actually going to
be more survivalist than theorist.
This will be the year of marketers who double
as not just cultural, but also nomadic,
anthropologists.
We must be prepared to move swiftly, camp
out, and fearlessly explore what makes our
fellow humans tick. And then we must be
willing to pack up and follow them where
they go next, not letting habit or platforminvestment hold us back.
To help guide you in your ongoing research,
I’ve shared six areas that I am watching—and
putting to work—this year.
1. Thoughtfulness
The success of thoughtful campaigns over the
last year should provoke more authentic
efforts in 2014. Focused on values rather than
products, Pantene had a huge win with their
sexism-fighting commercial that mentioned
shampoo exactly zero times, and Fox allowed
promotional budget for their movie The Secret
Life of Walter Mitty to
be spent on relief efforts in the Philippines.
Small gestures that affect just
one Alaskan town or one flight during
Christmastime can also make big impact with
a larger audience. We all need to buy
shampoo, plane tickets and the occasional
taco. If the people selling them want to work
against decades of damaging messages with
powerful stories and socially responsible acts,
aren't we all better off?

7
Marketing in 2014

2. Agility
3. Visual Storytelling
Working with a focus group in 2008, I asked
the young participants where they spent their
time online. “Facebook!” they all cheered.
When asked whether they thought they’d still
be using Facebook in several years however,
they all answered with a resounding “No!”
They intuitively knew something else would
be along by then. Rather than predict which
social network will be 2014's new breakout
star, I feel safer predicting that there'll be one
and we should all plan accordingly.
Understanding that people will shift over
time (and that marketers must shift with
them) is incredibly important.
Visual storytelling will continue to dominate
in 2014 and we can look forward to the
inclusion of more video and mobile-optimized
viewing. However, let’s get honest with
ourselves: as marketers, we've oversaturated
the market with infographics, branded
memes, and listicles of animated GIFs. The
novelty has worn off and now it is a lot of
“me too” marketing. We must find new ways
to repurpose internet phenomenons to
deliver real value, delight, entertainment, and
insight to our audiences.
To keep agile, brands need to be investing less
in specific communities and more in their
brand voice and general content that is
device and platform agnostic. Just look at the
migratory patterns of today’s youth from
Facebook to apps like Instagram and
Snapchat, and fast-risers like Selfie Club.
As my good friend Joe Chernov once put it:
"The secret to breaking through a noisy
landscape isn't more noise. It is sounding
different." Focusing on why tactics worked so
well will help breed the next generation of
visual content. Spending time on forums
where people assemble and consensus rises
to the top, such as Reddit and Imgur, can lead
to inspiration and insights to motivation.

8
Marketing in 2014

4. Automation
5. Curation
The days of using bubblegum and chicken
wire to quickly produce usable content are
through. Automation of the content creation
process has simplified everything from
workflows to talent searching. Automated
services such as Percolate and Contently aid
curation, a plethora of apps like Over allow
marketers to produce quickie content from
their phones, Wochit and my company Guide
help create cost-effective video, and ifttt
connects all the dots to get the content out
the door.
This is not a new concept to us; ever since
Pinterest took off in 2011, we’ve got on board
with the idea that creating meaningful
collections of things. Why? Because curation
is not only something we humans do
naturally (I admit to organizing my closet by
color, do you?), but in the face of an
increasing amount of Chernovian “noise”,
curation is something we do out of necessity.
Next year will be all about making sure your
team has the right tool kit to provide quality
content, cost-effectively and at scale. As
someone who is passionate about efficiency—
and yet spent the first part of her career
creating bespoke content—I am welcoming of
these new services and approaches. Heck, I
am even helping build one.
Curation also goes hand-in-hand with finding
birds of a feather with whom to flock
together. As you take on your personas (hip
mom! busy millennial! et al.) and targeted
demographics (men 18 - 24, women 45+, et
al.), ask simply: what can we filter and curate
to make their lives better? And where are
they already going to get this done? Digital
anthropologists, go by foot and carry a
notebook.

9
Marketing in 2014

6. Go Long
ABOUT LESLIE BRADSHOW:
Related to the idea of thoughtfulness, I am
observing an increase in our appetites for
longer, more thoughtful pieces of content. In
a world wrought with listicles and animated
gifs, I am pleasantly surprised at the success
of platforms like Medium and UpWorthy.
Their word counts and video lengths are
longer than the supposedly optimal 500
words / 90 seconds and yet we are still reading
and watching. But make no mistake, the
substance is still driving the interest and
engagement.
Leslie is a passionate entrepreneur, social scientist, and
data-driven storyteller. In addition to serving as the Chief
Operating Officer of Guide, she is a Fellow at the
US Chamber of Commerce and a regular contributor at
Forbes. Previously, Leslie spent six years building one of the
world’s top data visualization firms who counted Nike,
Google, Samsung, Intel, NASA, and C-SPAN as its clients
during her tenure. A PBK graduate of the University of
Chicago, Leslie has been recognized by Fast Company as
one of “The Most Creative People in Business” and by Inc.
Magazine as a “Top 30 Entrepreneur Under 30”. On Twitter
@LeslieBradshow.
What should your bar be? I like to use the “is
it TED-talk-worthy?” measuring stick. Are you
going to wow and educate your audience?
Then by all means, go long. Are you going to
make them want to change a habit or see the
world differently? Then fire up your keyboard
and get out your video camera.

10
Marketing in 2014

How Agile Marketing and Marketing Technologists
Will Save Us from the Crushing Pace of Change in 2014
by Scott Brinker
Marketing is on fire. Growth, innovation,
and opportunity permeate nearly every facet
of our profession these days. It's a thrilling
time to be a marketer.
Of course, that doesn't mean it's easy. The
pace of change in our work is accelerating,
and keeping up is probably the single greatest
challenge that we face. But at least it's not
dull.
speed at which marketing manages its activities.
Previously, marketing used to engage in
relatively long-term planning cycles.
In particular, we usually invested significant
effort in assembling a yearly marketing plan.
From budgeting to scheduling, we'd aim to
predict what we were going to do for the next 12
months, often in considerable detail.
Two trends that I expect we'll see in 2014 are
greater adoption agile marketing
management and the proliferation of
"marketing technologist" roles. The common
theme with both of these is that they're ways
that marketing can better manage change.
While that used to be effective in a world that
shifted less frequently, such long-term planning
is increasingly foiled by the ever more rapid
changes happening in our markets. We need to
adapt to those changes more quickly than a
traditional yearly marketing plan would typically
support.
Agile marketing, which has evolved from the
agile software development, increases the
cycle
Agile marketing solves this dilemma by
organizing management around more shortterm planning cycles.

11
Marketing in 2014

Instead of trying to map out activities a year at a
time, agile works with smaller chunks of time
called "sprints" of 1-4 weeks. Planning consists of
updating and prioritizing a backlog of tasks to
do. The team then focuses on executing those
top priorities for the rest of the sprint.
Agile teams are usually small, consisting of no
more than eight people. (Larger marketing
departments can have multiple agile teams.)
A high level of communication and crossfunctional collaboration is encouraged within
teams.
The backlog and sprints provide a structural
mechanism for quickly, but sanely, incorporating
changes — "we'll queue that up for the next
sprint" — without having to constantly engage in
ad hoc fire drills that disrupt the current work
being done.
This truly empowers team members to make
a difference. It's not lip-service: it's one of the
ways in which agile approaches thrive.
Certainly a long-term vision is still important to
guide the choices being made in sprint planning.
But the vision can evolve based on what's
actually working with prospects and customers.
Agile marketing also encourages more
responsibility and authority for marketers on the
front-line, to take the initiative to address
problems or opportunities that arise "on the
ground."
[For a more in-depth discussion of agile
marketing, you might enjoy my articles on
Agile Marketing for a World of Constant
Change and
Debunking 3 Myths of Agile Marketing.]
The second trend is the rise of the marketing
technologist. A marketing technologist is a
hybrid professional who combines both
technical and marketing skills. This might be
a technologist who has a background in IT or
software development, but has since found
their passion working in the service of
marketing.

12
Marketing in 2014

Or it might be a marketer who has deeply
embraced technology in their work, learning
how to master software in the pursuit of
their mission.
Growth hackers. Search engine optimization
experts. Web developers. Marketing
automation system administrators. Data
scientists working in marketing. These are all
examples of marketing technologists.
These roles are rising in popularity because,
increasingly, marketing is a technologypowered discipline. Software mediates
everything in digital marketing — and the
argument could be made that all marketing
is, to some degree, becoming digital.
Now, not everyone in marketing needs to be a
technical expert. But marketing teams that
have such tech-savvy individuals within their
ranks are better able to tap the power of
marketing software in their strategy and
execution.
And the choices of marketing software out
there are extraordinary. My recent
landscape of marketing technology vendors
identified 947 different companies across 43
categories, from marketing automation to
content marketing, from social media
marketing to testing and optimization. It's a
huge space.
Marketing technologists are well-suited to
continuously evaluate and reevaluate this
landscape, to make sure that their company
is taking advantage of the latest marketing
technology innovations that can give them a
competitive edge.
Note that marketing technologists are not a
replacement for your IT department. In some
organizations, they actually report to IT. But
even when they report directly into
marketing, which is the more common
scenario now, they serve as bridge between
the two departments.

13
Marketing in 2014

By natively speaking the language of both
teams, they're able to promote better and
more effective collaboration. (For a deeper
introduction to the role of marketing
technologists, I'd humbly point you to my
article
The Marketing Technologist: Neo of the
Marketing Matrix.)
ABOUT SCOTT BRINKER:
Scott Brinker is the co-founder and CTO of ion interactive,
which provides a SaaS marketing platform for creating and
optimizing landing pages, microsites, and marketing
campaign "apps." He is also the author of the
Chief Marketing Technologist blog, where he covers the
intersection of marketing and technology and its effect on
marketing management and culture. You can reach him on
Twitter as @chiefmartec.
These two trends — agile marketing and
marketing technologists — are intertwined.
Marketing technology gives marketers the
technical capabilities to increase their
velocity, and marketing technologists make
those capabilities accessible.
Agile marketing then gives marketing teams a
management framework for taking advantage
of those capabilities.
Together, they give marketing the ability to
turn the fast pace of change from a "bug"
into a "feature." Here's to an awesome 2014!

14
Marketing in 2014

Social Grows up
by Tara Hunt
One of my biggest frustrations with the
world of marketing over the years has been
that metrics have focused on quantity over
quality.
I’m all for measuring outcomes and making
certain that our strategies and tactics align
with our goals - but as the customer
expectations shift and the airwaves get
noisier, we need to also shift our
expectations.
The definition of a successful campaign
usually ends with enormous numbers of
views or retweets or shares, but beyond the
obvious issue with this metric, there are
several underlying problems with a focus on
virality:
1. Views, retweets and shares are fleeting.
The video, tweet or post in question may be
popular today and celebrated across the
industry as a ‘best practice’, but you are only
ever as good as your latest viral hit in this
paradigm. Your unicorn success today will be
shelved for someone else’s tomorrow.
2. Focusing on a viral hit means that your
number one competitor is…your own
potential customers! That’s right. For every
branded viral hit, there are dozens of nonbranded viral hits. Of the top 10 2013 YouTube
viral videos, 3 were branded “ads” (Evian,
Volvo & Carrie the Movie), 2 were musical
comedy groups (Lonely Island + TVNorge) and
5 were by YouTube ‘makers’ (real people who
work to build their own personal brands
online).

15
Marketing in 2014

3. And though the end result may be a viral
runaway…brands get a leg up on their
competition by paying YouTube to boost
their videos. I did an examination of branded
viral videos about a year and a half ago that
showed that the majority of views branded
‘viral’ videos got were paid for. With the
hiding of stats in the newer versions, it's
difficult to assess the new ratios, but judging
from the signs, it hasn't changed.
4. These brands are competing with their
potential customers, but not getting the
same long-term loyalty from their efforts.
Volvo’s “Epic Split” may have over 67 million
views, but their account has 83,902 followers.
Compare this with maker, MisterEpicMann,
whose “How Animals Eat Their Food” got
more than 93 million views, but his
subscriber base is well over 3 million or
maker SteveKardynal who did the
Chatroulette version of Miley Cyrus’
“Wrecking Ball” (>95 million views) who has
over 4 million subscribers.
5. Do viral hits equal sales? Well, in some
cases, yes, but in most cases, no. For
instance, the famously viral Old Spice Guy
campaign increased sales by 107% - reviving a
lagging brand - but the follow up “viral” hits
resulted in dips in sales.
If you look at one of the viral hits of 2013, the
Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise promoting
the movie Carrie, the results were incredibly
disappointing. The YouTube video had over 52
million views, but the box office
underperformed.
Even Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2
made more money…$247,989,258 worldwide
compared with Carrie: $82,394,288
worldwide. And one of the top box office
winners Gravity ($670,209,910 worldwide)
didn’t even come close to having viral
anything.

16
Marketing in 2014

This is NOT to say that I think brands should
ignore social media. In fact, I think they
should increase their time investment into it.
The disconnect lies in looking at new media
in the same way they looked at old media.
A broken point of view that only worked ’50%
of the time’ (though that quote is generous)
for old media is even more of a broken point
of view for new media.
In 2014 and beyond, I’d like brands to:
1. Stop focusing on short-term wins or
“viral” hits. The social web is about
relationships. Long-term relationships. People
are having them with other people, with
celebrities and with brands they care about.
Think long term. Stop planning campaigns
and start building for the future. Figure this
out. It’ll look different for everyone.
2. Invest more time and less money. If you
follow point #1, this won’t be difficult. Spend
less on boosting viral success and your
budgets will drop significantly. Then put
some of that money into paying human
beings to help scale your efforts as they grow.
Invest in the community. Invest in your
product. Invest in long-term relationships.
3. Learn as you go. There are no best
practices or rules or formulas. Your customer
will be different from the next customer and
every single one of them will throw you for a
loop if you try to predict their behavior. What
you can do is learn from your interactions
and improve your approach. This will be
noticed and people will talk. And that’s
exactly what you want to have happen.
Remember, the bar is low. The brands with
the most ‘quantity’ aren’t necessarily the
most deserving.

17
Marketing in 2014

If you are going to learn from anyone, take a
look at the makers and individuals who are
‘winning’ on the web. They’ve spent no
money and a great deal of time building a
strong, loyal audience that will follow them
anywhere.
Attend fewer corporate CMO type
conferences and more maker type
conferences. Follow the people who’ve built
an audience with no money and lots of heart.
Collaborate with them.
ABOUT TARA HUNT:
Tara Hunt was named as one of the most influential
women in technology as well as a Woman to Watch in
Entrepreneur Magazine. She wrote The Whuffie Factor/The
Power of Social Networking (published in 7 languages), is a
conference speaker and co-founded the international
coworking movement. She was also on Twitter before it had
vowels (TWTTR) and can be followed as @missrogue.
Don’t just pay them to promote your brand…
hire them and work with them on bigger
ideas. (for example: I love what Casey Neistat
did with the $25,000 20th Century Fox gave
him to promote their movie). But it would
have been even better if 20th Century Fox and
Ben Stiller worked with Casey on this.)
The future of marketing success in this
shifting world depends on marketing
professionals shifting our focus from short
term to long-term results. Let’s make 2014 the
beginning of this shift.

18
Marketing in 2014

What You Need To Watch In 2014
by Bob Knorpp
Many of the changes to the marketing
landscape in 2014 are obvious and sexy. We all
like to imagine what the benefits of the
Internet of Things or wearable technologies
will bring to us. But we may be ignoring the
implications of some of the less obvious, but
much more important changes that are on
the horizon.
Here are the things that you can’t afford to
miss in the coming year:
Generic Top-Level Domains
You may have heard that the top-level domain
expansion is about to happen. The press likes
to talk about “.walmart” or “.citi” being the
new reality for the web, but generic top-level
domains (gTLD) are where the real disruption
will happen.
The owner of “.hotel” could control an
enormous portion of search traffic for the
travel industry and the owner of “.auto”
could completely control how we find our
next car. Plus, when tied to mobile apps, a
gTLD can create a virtual walled garden
around a search category.
The land grab is on, so brands need to protect
their trademark assets now or risk losing
significant amounts of web traffic.
Also, watch for a side market in risk
management to develop as startups like
DomainSkate emerge to manage the legal and
branding liabilities faced by the enterprise
and SMB markets.

19
Marketing in 2014

Collaborative Creation
Think about mix tapes. They are easy to
create, meaningful to the people who make
and get them, and a way to both celebrate
the original artist and get kudos for yourself
as the mixer. Right now the Internet is
beginning to burst at the seams with new
technologies and platforms designed to tap
into this idea.
MixBit is a fascinating example of this. A
video platform created by the YouTube
founders, it allows you to upload your short
clips, share clips with others and then remix
them into endless permutations of a final
video product. AuthorBee is another nascent
platform designed to aggregate many
contributions of text (and soon video and
pictures), then the owner of a thread can
remix the assets into a cohesive story or news
feed.
This ramping up of collaborative creation is
just beginning, but has the potential to
redefine how crowd marketing is done, and
how media is consumed. It provides a more
palatable blending of brand control while still
including the user’s input.
End of the “Black Hat” Goldmine
It’s been threatened for years, but the time
has finally arrived. With all the browsers now
employing some form of do-not-track as a
default position, coupled with ongoing
privacy concerns, the third-party cookie will
soon be completely useless.
Google and Bing are creating their own
unique tracking systems to replace the cookie
while still protecting users, which will create
plenty of problems on its own. However, the
biggest disruptions will be among those
brands that either intentionally or ignorantly
relied too heavily on what are known as
“black hat” SEO practices.

20
Marketing in 2014

We can expect sharp traffic declines on those
sites as a result, as well as a lot of internal
questions from management.
Chuck Schumer, expect to see rapid
deployment and benefit throughout the retail
sector in the coming year.
In-Store Mobile Signal Tracking
Sharing Platforms Becoming Transactional
Platforms
Websites have always had a huge tracking
advantage over physical retail locations. On
the web, we often know with great specificity
how a person moves through a site, what
attracts their eye, where their attention is
held and what influences them to buy.
Now startups, like Canadian company Mexia,
are bringing that level of detailed tracking to
brick and mortar retail operations using the
non-identifying signals emitted from mobile
phones. These signals can be used to monitor
traffic patterns, gauge effectiveness of instore displays and even deliver and monitor
conversion of offers. Plus, with the recent
code of ethics that this emerging field has
arrived at with privacy hawk, US Senator
We love to talk about the sharing economy,
because it decentralizes things like travel to
match availability to need. However, sharing
platforms like ride service Uber are beginning
to realize their power as transactional
platforms as well.
Over the past year, the company has staged
promotions that allow users to purchase
Christmas trees for delivery or even to buy
kittens. While primarily launched as
promotional stunts, these moves are proving
that sharing platforms can also be used to
facilitate great commerce and pose a
potential threat to existing payment
technology platforms.

21
Marketing in 2014

Look for a rapid expansion in this area over
the next 12 months as experimentation with
what’s possible here spreads and grows.
ABOUT BOB KNORPP:
Bob Knorpp is host of the award-winning Internet audio
program, The BeanCast Marketing Podcast
(www.thebeancast.com). He also created and hosted the
official podcast of Ad Age Magazine, Ad Age Outlook, and is
a regular content contributor to that publication. He has
been a featured speaker for MarketingProfs, The DMA, Blog
World and dozens of regional events.
After 20-years in marketing and running his own successful
consultancy, The Cool Beans Group, he now has embraced
full-time analysis of the branding and startup worlds as
Chief Analyst for Evol8tion, an innovation company that
connects blue-chip brands to early-stage startups. Bob is
based in New York. On Twitter @BobKnorpp.

22
Marketing in 2014

Human Marketing in 2014
by Aliza Sherman
For better or for worse, 2014 escalates the
ubiquity of connectivity. From a human
standpoint, we’ll be seeing - and experiencing
- social media overwhelm and overload and a
backlash to being hyper-connected.
Any company that has put all of their
marketing, communications and customer
service eggs in the social media basket will be
in for a rude awakening.
Too many of us have looked at “social media”
as the focus - the tools and platforms that
provide the conduit of connection to our
customers. We’ve facebooked, tweeted,
youtubed, linked in, pinned, vined,
instagrammed - maybe even latergrammed in the misguided hope of getting more fans
and followers. We’ve even…selfied. Madness.
Peel away the technical frameworks, features
and functionality and what you see
underneath is the fundamental core of
marketing and communications. Keep
peeling.
Beneath that is the intrinsic nature of human
beings. Why do we do these things? Because
human beings want to connect:
We want to be part of something.
We want to find a community where we can
belong.
We want to stave off loneliness.
We want answers to the sometimes
unanswerable.
We want to make a mark and to feel like we
matter.

23
Marketing in 2014

Some of us want distraction from our lives.
Some of us want more meaning in our lives.
Whatever our interests or motivations, they
are vast, diverse, and subject to change as we
grow, learn and experience life.
Social media - and social networks and social
networking functionality in particular - tap
into human urges to connect, belong and
matter.
Brands infiltrating online social spaces
reminds me of the 90s when companies
suddenly saw the web as the next silver bullet
of marketing and proceeded to clutter the
nascent network with commercials. Today,
companies clamor to figure out how to be in
social networks and how to use social
networks to market and sell. It’s the 90s all
over again. They throw more and more
money at trying to make a big social media
splash. In the early web days, we called it
hits, then visits, then visitors.
Now it’s gone from fans and followers to
likes, comments, shares and the distracting
and false Holy Grail of Viral.
In 2014, I think companies will find greater
long-term success in their digital marketing
efforts if they root their strategic plans and
tactics in being more human and
understanding human nature and behavior.
1. Understand that people in 2014 are ultraconnected. They carry their computer,
communications device and community
connector all within their portable, mobile,
wi-fi and cellular enabled device. The division
between online and offline is more
permeable. Knowing this fundamental shift
in human behavior leads way to providing
360-degree experiences of value for your
customers and potential customers. Bricks
and mortar companies keep trying to push
foot traffic, but when people arrive at
locations, there are few clues or cues of a
company’s online presence.

24
Marketing in 2014

Even for businesses without locations,
looking at ways to incorporate online in
offline and vice versa will create more
integrated experiences for customers and
help acquire new customers in unexpected
ways.
from the intensity of hyper-connectivity. This
may seem like a contradiction to #1, but it’s
the flipside, a yin to a yang.
Look at what is happening with wearable
technology, particularly in the fitness space
(FitBit, Jawbone Up) or geo-fencing with
Bytelight and PlaceAd. This is not your
grandparent’s version of “Integrated
Marketing.”
Anticipate the human recoil and be ready for
the impact. Bake relief valves right into your
strategy. Look at what is happening with
Camp Grounded, Reboot, and the #unplug
movement.
Social Media Marketing is not a separate
component of marketing at all. It informs and
reshapes all types of marketing, both online
and off. We have to stop calling it Social
Media Marketing. It’s Marketing, plain and
simple, yet totally transformed.
2. Understand that people in 2014 are
overwhelmed and inundated by the ubiquity
of connectivity. Look for ways to offer relief
So while you seek out ways to develop 360degree experiences for your customers, be
prepared for pushback or backlash.
Understand that putting all of your money
and efforts into online marketing misses
enormous opportunities to be present in
physical spaces. For bricks and mortar
businesses, this means re-imagining your
space. For companies without physical
locations, this means infiltrating physical
space.
Think pop-up shops; face-to-face meetings
and intimate gatherings within larger events.

25
Marketing in 2014

Don’t underestimate the value of being
“THERE,” actually being physically present
with your virtual, social fans/customers.
If I were to make one wild prediction about
marketing in 2014, it is that 2014 will be the
Year of Unplugging.
I actually encourage unplugging. For
consumers, this will happen for a myriad of
reasons - physical, mental, even spiritual. In
some cases, it will be forced on them
(repetitive stress disorders, for example). In
others, it will be self-imposed (digital detox).
For companies, this means stopping, stepping
back, and really examining what you’re doing
and why. Look closely at what is working and
what isn’t.
In our rapid social communications and
content landscape, we cannot afford to keep
doing what we’ve always done because that’s
the way we’ve always done it.
We have to be flexible and responsive. Better
yet, we have to be emotional and creative.
Formulaic will not cut it. Ever-changing
technology algorithms and evolving human
nature and habits won’t tolerate it.
ABOUT ALIZA SHERMAN:
Aliza is a Web pioneer, mobile strategist, and social media
innovator and commentator. She speaks around the world
and writes about Internet, social media, the intersections
of social and mobile, and women's technology and business
issues. Aliza specializes in making technology more
accessible to humans. Her mobile consultancy, Mediaegg,
provides strategy and app development to businesses and
nonprofits.
Named by NEWSWEEK as one of the "Top 50 People Who
Matter Most on the Internet," Aliza continues to explore
new technologies and their impacts on our work and lives.
Her latest books are
Social Media Engagement for Dummies,
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Crowdsourcing and
Mom, Incorporated. On Twitter @AlizaSherman.

26
Marketing in 2014

A Primer on Mobile App Analytics for 2014
by Adam Singer
With an explosion in mobile application
marketplaces (more than 1 million apps on
Google Play and 1 million apps on iOS at the
time of writing) and a shift in focus to mobile
(more than 80 percent of marketers are
planning to increase emphasis in mobile
initiatives, according to recent research
Google conducted with ClickZ), measuring
mobile is more important now than ever.
But even though Apps aren’t new, measuring
them is still a new area for many marketers
in 2014.
What exactly should you be measuring to
understand the success of your application
and improve results? How can you align your
app measurement to business goals? We'll
answer those questions in this story.
Apps are a different world than web, and thus
require a different methodology and set of
metrics. Regardless of the platform(s) your
app lives on or the tools you use to measure
it, it's critical to measure three key areas:
acquisition, engagement, and outcomes.
Next, we'll outline some sample metrics in
each area to help you understand them better
and become more effective at measuring your
app today.
ACQUISITION
ENGAGEMENT
OUTCOME

27
Marketing in 2014

Acquisition Metrics: Where Do Users Come
From?
Acquisition metrics show you how people are
finding your app and whether they're
continuing to use it. Similar to top-of-funnel
web metrics, your marketing team should be
analyzing acquisition metrics consistently to
ensure a healthy trend up. Some of the key
acquisition metrics to measure include:
• New and active users. Measure the
number of new and active users who
launch your app everyday. This will help
you understand if your application and
marketing are successful at a high level.
• App store traffic sources. Understand
which traffic sources account for most
new users and in-app conversions. This
data will help you refine your marketing
activities to focus on the traffic sources
that provide your highest quality users.
• App versions. Keep track of the
distribution of active users over the older
and newer versions of your app. Knowing
which versions are being used will help
you understand which versions of your app
need continued support and which are
safe to deprecate.
• Device overview. Analyze the top mobile
devices and OS versions that your app runs
on, and optimize the experience for each
device.
Engagement Metrics: Is Your App Sticky?
You've acquired a massive user base - now
what? Engagement metrics help you
understand how users are interacting with
your app so you can add more of what they
like and remove what they don't. You can also
identify potential reasons for attrition before
they occur, such as excessive crashing or slow
load speeds.

28
Marketing in 2014

Key engagement metrics you should keep an
eye on include:
Outcomes: How Does My App Impact the
Bottom Line?
• Screens. Determine how users move
Most importantly, identify the metrics that
show the business value your app has
created, and amplify the areas that are
showing the most value. Has it helped
increase sales? Brought in more high-quality
leads? This is shown through outcome
metrics tracked by your app analytics, and
may include such metrics as:
throughout your application by measuring
how they move from screen to screen. This
will help show how users actually engage
with your application and if they're
successfully getting to the screens you
desire.
• User behavior. Assess how loyal your users
are, how frequently they use the app, and
the engagement level of each loyalty
group. Understanding this information is
critical so you can see which users your
application resonates with.
• App crashes. Troubleshoot problems on
devices and operating systems by seeing
trends in crashes and exceptions.
Developers need to keep close tabs on app
crash metrics in order to understand and
fix problem areas.
• Goal conversions. Set up conversion
events in your app (for example, time
spent in app, or an in-app purchase, ad
click, etc.) to gauge success. Conversion
events are whatever you define as success
and should be customized based on your
business: whether that's making an ecommerce purchase or completing a lead
generation form.

29
Marketing in 2014

• In-app purchases. If selling virtual or
tangible goods purchases inside your app,
track the number of purchases and
revenue generated from them. With the
explosion in mobile purchases (ABI
Research projects total mobile app
revenue, which includes in-app purchases,
to soar to 46 billion by 2016), this is a
critical one to watch.
What’s the pillar to base your app strategy
around? Engagement. Let’s review some of
the reasons why:
Until you have loyal users, increasing
acquisition metrics doesn't make sense. Say
you launch a new application and decide to
dial up acquisition tactics. You increase your
online advertising spend. You engage a PR
firm. You start to attend conferences and
network. You put in all this hard work and
drive thousands of new, excited users to your
application.
And then 90 percent of them install your app,
launch it once, only to never open it again.
This is an all too common scenario for app
developers and marketers, especially brands
that are creating and marketing an app for
the first time. If this happens, you have a
loyalty problem, and should dive into the
"why" to discover the reasons your app isn't
as sticky as you think it is first.
Refine your app, build the right "hooks," then
when you're confident that relevant uses will
stick around (and you have the loyalty data to
prove it), make a case to increase your
marketing spend. To do so without
understanding attrition first could prove a
costly mistake.
Loyalty metrics tell you if your app usage is
becoming a "habit." The goal for mobile app
developers is really to make your application
a "habit" for users.

30
Marketing in 2014

This event can be anything, from when they
are bored waiting in line to when they're
seeking a certain utility to when they're
engaging in an activity.
I'm sure everyone reading this who is
developing mobile apps is working on ones
which, in their minds, provide a ton of utility
for users.
Engagement and more specifically loyalty
metrics such as session instances, duration,
screens, and conversion rate will tell you if in
fact your users agree that your app is a mustuse and has become a habit for them. If not,
you may need to go back to the drawing
board to ensure your app is "sticky" enough
to become a habit, or double your efforts on
the content front to educate your users on
what they're missing.
No loyalty, no or low outcomes! The business
value your app has created (sales, in-app
purchases, etc.) - are clearly important to
measure.
But if your users aren't returning, you likely
will see low or no outcomes from them. Just
like on your website, outcomes (or
conversions) may not happen on a user's first
engagement with an app.
Pending what your app does, this may take
multiple sessions. Or, if you sell something
within your app or your app generates
advertising revenue, loyal users will generate
much more revenue in the long term. Also
consider how loyal users map to new revenue
(a significant portion of word-of-mouth
referrals will come from them) and focus on
increasing this key audience.
While many app developers and marketers
think purely about new users and downloads,
think about active, loyal users and how to
make them happy. This is the path to longterm app marketing success, and app loyalty
reports can help show you the way there.

31
Marketing in 2014

ABOUT ADAM SINGER:
Adam Singer is Analytics Advocate at Google, a marketing,
media and PR industry speaker, startup adviser and blogger.
He previously was digital director for a 300+ person global
consulting team and over the course of his career has
provided online marketing strategy for B2B & B2C brands in
a variety of industries including marketing technology,
healthcare, manufacturing, advertising/subscription-based
web startups, and much in between.
Singer and his campaigns have been cited by top media
outlets such as TechCrunch, AdWeek, NY Times and more
for creative use of digital marketing and PR. Singer blogs
at The Future Buzz - an award-winning blog with more
than 25K subscribers and frequently-referenced source of
what's new in digital marketing. Connect with Adam on
Twitter and Google+.

32
Marketing in 2014

Marketing…The New Technical Position
by Nelly Yusopova
"You’re an engineer…how did you become a VP
of Marketing at OnSIP?” I asked Nicole
Hayward at the NYC Webgrrls Holiday event
when we met. It is always great to run into
another female techie but I was curious how
she ended up in Marketing.
Nicole told me “Our President has only hired
Technologists for marketing roles”, which I
think is brilliant and makes a lot of sense.
Many companies are now starting to hire
techies for marketing positions.
Digital Marketing has grown far beyond
crafting the message, sending an email, or
working with Twitter. It doesn’t yet require a
Computer Science degree but it does now
require a significant understanding of
technology.
I am a developer and a marketer. I am lucky
to have come from a technical background. I
can conceive of a campaign, wireframe it,
prototype it, and code it… and that allows me
to work pretty independently and use less
time and fewer resources. I can see how
important a good understanding of
technology is for even the simplest marketing
campaigns. Now, in addition to thinking
about what software to buy to support
marketing efforts, marketers have to think
about what software the company needs to
create to better connect with their customers
- web applications, widgets, Facebook apps,
Mobile apps.
If you want a career in marketing and want
to have security in your position, you will
have to get technical. You will not survive in a
marketing job if you lack technical
knowledge.

33
Marketing in 2014

Here are 4 things I think every marketer
should know:
And in a world where everything is happening
real time, getting custom reporting in a
timely manner is super important.
1. How to evaluate the tools that are
available
In addition to knowing how to use the tools,
you need to be able to evaluate whether or
not they will be able to integrate into your
existing tools. This integration usually
happens through something called APIs.
Do you know SQL? SQL stands for Structured
Query Language and is the most widely used
language to query data from databases. If you
are not, I would recommend that you learn
the basics. By learning simple query
commands, you can slice and dice the data
you collect in many more different ways than
what a tool might provide you.
API stands for Application Programming
Interface and gives you the ability to use
other people’s code in your application. If
you’re not familiar with API, you’ll need to
learn what they are and how they work to be
able to ask the right questions from the
vendors and make an informed decision on
whether the tools you are considering will
work for you.
2. Analyze the data that you collect
Information is power…it allows you to make
better decisions.
3. Wireframing, prototyping, and have an
understanding of the development process
A wireframe is a blueprint for what an email
or web page will visually look like.
Prototypes allow you to test product concepts
before you build them. These are two
valuable skills for marketers to have to better
communicate your ideas to developers who
will be coding the ideas and concepts you
have.

34
Marketing in 2014

Also, I would highly recommend taking the
time and understand the steps that
technology people take to develop web and
mobile applications. By knowing the process
and the terminology you will be able to speak
to developers in their language, bridge the
communication gap and get the things you
need done a lot quicker.
There are a lot of resources online that you
can learn from. I also teach a bootcamp
called TechSpeak where you can learn this
process in an intensive 2 days.
4. Learn how to code…at least a little bit.
Once you understand the development
process, I would highly recommend that you
learn to code a little. Knowing how to code
will enable you to implement some of the
easier day-to-day tasks without having to be
dependent on a developer to “find time to do
something for you". Start with HTML (the
building block of how web pages are coded).
Then learn some CSS (this is the font style
language). And if you are adventurous, you
can learn JavaScript. Here are some online
resources where you can learn how to code:
Codecademy, Code/Racer, The CodePlayer.
With so many tools and technologies coming
out on a daily basis, it is nearly impossible to
stay on top of everything. So surround
yourself with groups of people of similar
interests and goals and through sharing and
frequent information exchanges, you can
learn at a much faster rate.
ABOUT NELLY YUSUPOVA:
Nelly Yusupova is the CTO of Webgrrls International
and the Founder of Techspeak for Entrepreneurs, a 2
day intensive workshop for non-technical
entrepreneurs. For more than a decade, she has built
and maintained all the technology at Webgrrls and
developed tech strategies for many companies to help
them grow. You can follow her on Twitter at
@DigitalWoman.

35
Marketing in 2014

Thank you.
Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent . @ConversationAge . www.conversationagent.com