Mastering Marketing | LinkedIn's New Feature, Puma's Tech Triumphs, and Blockchain's Impact

Hi Everyone,

Welcome back to another edition of Mastering Marketing.

This week, we're diving deep into the latest trends and challenges shaping the digital marketing landscape.

????In the News | LinkedIn's New Feature Unlocks Brand Potential

????Unlocking Success Across New Tech | Inside Puma's Innovative Approach

Then, we explore how blockchain technology is revolutionising digital marketing by addressing issues of trust, data fragmentation, and transparency, ultimately enhancing targeting and personalization efforts.

????In the News | LinkedIn's New Feature Unlocks Brand Potential

LinkedIn's recent rollout of a feature enabling businesses to sponsor organic posts is a really interesting move. In this analysis, we explore the implications and opportunities of this feature.

Impact and Benefits

LinkedIn's expansion empowers brands to leverage user-generated content and influencer marketing strategies, fostering engagement and authenticity. Sponsored organic posts offer enhanced reach, credibility, and a diversified content strategy, driving lead generation and brand awareness.

Targeting Capabilities

With diverse ad formats like single image, document, and video ads, brands can precisely target their audience, ensuring personalised engagement and impactful marketing performance.

Challenges and Considerations

While the benefits are substantial, brands must secure original creator approval, maintain content quality, and ensure transparency. Aligning sponsored content with brand image and resonating with the audience is crucial to avoid any potential backlash.

Comparison to Other Platforms

This feature mirrors the trend of sponsored content advertising, empowering B2B brands to cultivate relationships with highly targeted audiences, leading to qualified lead generation and increased engagement.

Recommendations and Best Practices

Brands should obtain user approval, ensure alignment with brand image, and track ad performance meticulously to maximise the impact of sponsored posts ethically and strategically.

In essence, LinkedIn's new feature offers a game-changing opportunity for brands to elevate their marketing strategies, expand their reach, and refine their targeting efforts. By embracing a strategic approach, brands can unlock the full potential of this feature and thrive in the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing.

Ready to maximise your brand's potential on LinkedIn and beyond? Reach out to my agency SK for expert guidance and support in navigating the dynamic landscape of digital marketing.

????Unlocking Success Across New Tech | Inside Puma's Innovative Approach

PUMA Group , the iconic sportswear brand, isn't just keeping pace with the times—it's setting the bar for embracing cutting-edge technology to connect with audiences in new and interesting ways. From NFTs to immersive metaverse experiences, Puma's foray into Web3 tactics showcases its commitment to innovation and staying ahead of the curve.

Success in the Metaverse

In a recent talk at ADWEEK ’s Commerceweek New York, Ivan Dashkov , Puma's head of emerging technology and media, shed light on the brand's ventures into the metaverse. Dashkov highlighted Puma's success in running NFT drops that sold out despite a bear market, with one drop of 10,000 Super Puma NFTs vanishing in a mere 38 minutes. Moreover, Puma's Roblox experiences have garnered massive traction, with 4 million users claiming its digital goods and an impressive 90% approval rating for its latest Roblox venture.

Challenges and Adaptability

But success in the metaverse comes with its unique set of challenges, akin to the early days of social media. Dashkov emphasised the need for adaptable success metrics, stressing that testing, learning, and occasional failure are all part of the process. Puma's approach involves constant adjustment of KPIs, eliminating ineffective metrics, and embracing new ones to navigate the evolving landscape of emerging technology.

Cultural Relevance and Social Commerce

For Puma, cultural relevance is key to driving sales in the metaverse. By fostering meaningful connections and empowering influencers to become retailers on platforms like emcee , Puma aims to create social commerce ecosystems where sales naturally follow cultural resonance. John Aghayan an, founder and CEO of Emcee, underscores the importance of authenticity and cultural relevance, asserting that sales inevitably follow when brands prioritise the "why" behind their products.

Overcoming Hurdles and Championing Innovation

Despite challenges in social commerce and new tech adoption, Puma remains undeterred, choosing trusted partners and championing innovation within its organisation to stay true to its mantra of 'Forever Faster'

Blockchain for Marketing

The marketing landscape continues to evolve and, as with any evolution, along the way it encounters challenges that undermine its effectiveness. Marketing professionals face a significant dilemma with ad fraud, data breaches, and the complex task of obtaining accurate customer data. Compounded by fragmented data across platforms, the industry struggles to piece together coherent customer journeys and provide personalized experiences. Today, we’re exploring how blockchain technology stands to revolutionize the digital marketing industry by addressing these core issues.

In my new book, Marketing in Web 3, I discuss the future of marketing including how blockchain will play a role. You can pre-order my book on Amazon here.

Lack of Trust and Fragmented Data

Marketing has long been a game of trust, but this is being eroded in the digital age. Transparency of company behaviour, data leaks and hacking, amongst other concerns, are eroding trust every day. Alongside this, new technologies like Blockchain – designed to solve many of these issues – are not yet understood yet and we humans don’t trust what we don’t understand. That, combined with cryptocurrency scandals and fluctuations, has led to a major lack of trust for a platform built on trust – oh the irony!

On top if this, with every click and impression mired in uncertainty due to potential ad fraud, and customer data scattered across various silos, marketers are navigating a minefield of misinformation and lost opportunities. The lack of trust in data integrity and the difficulty in connecting fragmented data make it challenging for marketers to accurately understand customer behaviour and effectively target their audience. As a result, marketing budgets are wasted on ineffective campaigns, and customer relationships remain shallow.

Blockchain: A Solution for Trust

Enter blockchain technology. While most commonly associated with cryptocurrency, its potential extends far beyond financial transactions. At its core, blockchain is a decentralized ledger system that records and stores data in an immutable and transparent way. This addresses the issue of trust by creating a secure and verifiable record of every transaction, providing assurance that ad impressions are legitimate and customer data is accurate.

Continue reading the article on my blog

Book Recommendation | Building Distinctive Brand Assets

"Building Distinctive Brand Assets" by Jenni Romaniuk provides valuable insights for anyone concerned with their brand's visual identity. Romaniuk, a Research Professor and Associate Director at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, presents a comprehensive guide to building and protecting a brand's distinctive assets.

The book is divided into three sections, covering the creation, implementation, and ongoing management of brand assets. It emphasises the importance of long-term strategy, knowledge, metrics, and management systems in establishing a strong brand identity. It offers evidence-based strategies and practical insights for creating and managing distinctive brand assets. It is highly recommended for marketers, branding professionals, and anyone looking to strengthen their brand identity.

Grab your copy here

Here's an interesting read from my strategic marketing agency, SK…

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO TIKTOK MARKETING IN 2024

In a world where social media platforms are the new marketplaces bustling with potential customers, TikTok stands as a formidable presence. From its humble beginnings as the upstart of the social media world, it has grown into a creative haven for short-form video enthusiasts and, crucially, an invaluable marketing channel for businesses hoping to reach customers.

Latest TikTok Trends

Cultivating this emerging market requires an instinctive grasp of the trends that captivate, resonate, and foster engagement. Below, we’ve identified five latest TikTok marketing trends that are instrumental for your brand’s success in 2024.

TikTok Trend #1: The Power of Authenticity

In a world overflowing with staged photo shoots and airbrushed billboards, the TikTok audience yearns to connect with reality. Brands that can display vulnerability, spontaneity, and a willingness to experiment find themselves at the heart of the TikTok community.

But what does this authenticity look like in practice? Exemplifying this TikTok trend, we find Dollar Shave Club, known for their humorous ads, took a more vulnerable approach on TikTok. They created a series featuring real employees sharing shaving and self-care experiences,? the campaign resonated with viewers and garnered positive comments.

Read the full article....

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About Simon

I have been helping companies with their marketing from start-ups to global organisations for over 25 years and I’m also the author of 2 best-selling books in the field. Whether it’s growth, branding, performance, content marketing, SEO or many other areas, I have helped companies all over the world to deliver market-leading results and I'd love to help you if I can.

Simon

simonkingsnorth.com