Focus on the Right Channels – What's Working in Marketing?

Welcome back to another week of What's Working in Marketing, a weekly newsletter where we share what's working outside your own four walls across the digital marketing landscape so you can be more effective. If you enjoy reading this,?follow me on LinkedIn ?or create a?FREE Insight Library account , our team is publishing tons of free research that you won't want to miss.

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Let's get into it... This week we're breaking down:

??The Highlights

• Diving into TikTok's latest "What's Next" trend platform report

?? Trending Research

• Breaking down how Tim Hortons garnered +35% more app downloads in one month through a celebrity partnership

???Time To Get Listening

• Untapping the power of audience research with Rand Fishkin of SparkToro

???The Watercooler

• Highlighting how to identify where and how you should be focusing on different marketing channels

?? #MarketingTwitter

• Three threads about how to re-align if Facebook Ads just aren't working for you right now, breaking down the learnings of spending $850K on TikTok ads and discovering the Klayvio strategy that led to $20K additional revenue a month.?

TikTok has launched a robust report of all the?latest insights from 2021 ?tailored to six different geographies. The reports cover top content categories and their trend lines over time to four deep dives on community commerce, the evolution of sound, the creative team capabilities, and how they are building a brand-safe environment.?

Here are the key takeaways:?

• Creator Marketplace:?Brands can now connect with over 100K creators across 24 markets.
• TikTok Shopping:?A suite of sales-driven eCommerce solutions which empowers brands and merchants to engage meaningfully with their customers was launched.?
• For You Page:?96.96% of video views came from the For You Page in 2021.
• Content Trends:?Self-care is winning - this category has seen a +186% increase in video views YoY from 2020 to 2021.?
• #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt:?73% of TikTok users say they feel a deeper connection to brands when interacting with them on TikTok as opposed to other platforms. This word-of-mouth association of the hashtag builds higher trust among viewers with creators.

On November 29, 2021, Tim Hortons, a Canadian coffee and baked goods company, launched a collaboration with Justin Bieber called Timbiebs.

Key Takeaways

Organic Social

• Instagram:?Tim Horton’s made 21 posts about Timbiebs from November 10 - December 23, 2021 making up 63% of organic posts during this time frame.
• TikTok:?The two most impactful aspects of Timbiebs on TikTok are (1) a native post Tim Hortons made and (2) the community response on the app through the #timbiebs hashtag featuring people’s first reactions to the new product.?
• YouTube:?Tim Hortons posted a video showing the ‘brainstorming’ process Justin had to come up with the upcoming new flavours.

Paid Advertising?

Untapping the Power of Audience Research with Rand Fishkin, Co-Founder & CEO of SparkToro

In this episode, Rand discusses the importance of audience research, why you need to deeply understand your audience, where audience research fits into a marketing strategy, the difference between being data-driven and data-informed, the benefits of episodic content, and so much more.

IT'S TIME TO GO FISHING???

Marketers need to spend more time fishing where the fish are.?

I first heard this quote: “fish where the fish are” from Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet’s right-hand man and Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. While he meant it in relation to investing, I’ve always found it so applicable to marketing, especially in the last 5-10 years as digital audiences and channels have changed so rapidly.

With so many different channels available to marketers today, choosing where to focus has become incredibly difficult for multiple reasons:

1?? Competition for audience attention is high, so it’s more important than ever to meet your audience in the places they actually spend time and focus their attention.

2?? No brand has unlimited resources so you need to be strategic and figure out which channels to focus on to be most efficient/effective.

3?? How does your brand make an impact on an up-and-coming platform, when you’ve never had a presence there before? How can you strike while the iron is hot, but not invest in the channel just for it to disappear or evolve into something you weren’t expecting?

The good news is that there is a way to "fish where the fish are" and the benefits are legit:

? Get clarity on the channels you SHOULD be focusing on, where your audience is spending time and competition is still low.

? Have data-backed evidence to confidently de-prioritize a channel that isn’t working anymore.

A good strategy is a good strategy, no matter where you find it. Here are three threads you should check out this week:

1.?How to re-align if your Facebook Ads are struggling

2.?Learnings from $850K of ad spend on TikTok

3.?Generating $20K extra revenue a month from a Klayvio flow

???? ???? ???? If you're new here or missed any previous editions, check them out below. ???? ???? ????

?? Thank You! ??

That's all for this week, I hope that you enjoyed it. If you found this valuable, I'd really appreciate it if you tagged someone who should read this in the comments.

I'll catch you next week. ???

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