I mentioned in a recent blog post that your social media plan “needs to adapt as the social landscape changes.” It’s helpful to know how changes and new trends might affect your strategy so you can determine if you need to course correct. Digital strategy shouldn’t be reviewed only once at your annual planning meeting. It should be an evergreen conversation to help you keep up-to-date on the tools and trends you can use to make your digital strategy as successful as possible. Here are some things I’ve noticed in the first few months of 2019: Using Stories to Tell Your Story Are you using Instagram and Facebook stories? The idea started with Snapchat, where you share an image or a short video that disappears after 24 hours. Both Instagram and Facebook have launched similar features on their platforms and they are steadily growing in popularity with users. Consider creating content that you can share across all areas of Facebook, including stories. Also consider using stories to help you create content that your customers will connect with more. Buffer suggests…
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The Future of Typography (KCDesignCore Recap)
In this blog post I won’t be sharing information on how to get customers to your store or how to increase your sales, but for those graphic designers out there, this may spark your interest. I occasionally visit the monthly Adobe users group meetup here in Kansas City, called KCDesignCore. This month Dan Rhatigan, manager of Adobe’s in-house type foundry, presented some new cool stuff Adobe has been working on in typography. Dan took us back in history to when type was set and printed on a page. Certain fonts were considered “good typography” and were more legible than others when printed. But we don’t engage in text the way we used to. We now read on digital screens. We have adapted to moving objects and 3 dimensions. Even in the early days of web design, there were limitations on fonts. When I first started designing websites, we had only 5 or 6 fonts available for use. Verdana was suggested to be most legible on computer screens so we were pretty much locked into using Verdana for everything. Well, at…
Unlock the Power of Generations to Grow Your Business
It was 8am at AWG’s Innovation Showcase and some of us were still consuming our first cup of coffee for the day. If you’re a millennial…ok, maybe even if you’re not a millennial, it was pretty early in the morning to sit and listen to an hour-long presentation. But with Jason Dorsey as the speaker, we were sure to be both educated and entertained. Jason is the President of The Center for Generational Kinetics, whose mission is to separate generational myth from truth through data. In Jason’s talk, the generations he covers are Baby Boomers (born in 1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1976), Millennials (1977-1995) and Generation Z (1996-TBD). For the first time in history we have 4 generations working together. For those of us who work with people of many different ages, it can cause some challenges, especially when it comes to communicating with each other. Jason uses humor during the presentation to poke fun at each generation but makes some key points. He illustrates a scenario. “Who here has ever had a conversation with a young person and you just…
Episode 14
We are at the Innovation Showcase this month. The show was great. There was no way to talk to all the amazing vendors. We did talk to Melanie Greben from Conagra Brands about snacking (:54), Pat Hughes from eGrowcery on how to optimize your labor force for online shopping (5:34), Steve Mehmert from T4 Solutions about e-commerce delivery solutions. Finally, we talked to one of the main speakers at the show, Jason Dorsey (26:38). Jason studies generational differences, and how retailers can harness those differences both in terms of sales and workforce management. Apologies for the sound issue on the conversation with Jason, but the information was too good to leave out.
AWG Brand Digital Promotions: April Edition
The warmer weather brings a smile to lots of people. Below is the digital content created to share with your customers on your website, social media platforms, emails and more to promote AWG Private Brands. Best Choice Recipe of the Month The April Recipe of the Month from the Best Choice Calendar is for Lemon Coconut Bars. The recipe can be shared from the Best Choice website or from the Best Choice social media sites, likeFacebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest. The native files can be found here. Best Choice Recipe Video The April recipe video is for Frosted Peanut Butter Brownies. You can share this short video from the Best Choice website, YouTube, or using the native files found here. Digital Coupons April digital coupons can be found here. Consumers can access these coupons through a store’s loyalty program. If your store does not have a loyalty program, but is interested in setting one up, please contact Chris Higgs to get started. If a retailer is not on the AWG Brands preferred Loyalty Lane platform but wants to display these coupons for their customers on their own coupon platform, they will need to…
Mastering your goals using KPIs
“Never believe that one number by itself can be meaningful.” -Unknown I recently attended a seminar hosted by emfluence called What Gets Measured Gets Done: How to Set Goals and KPIs for Your Campaigns. The speaker for the presentation was emfluence’s Customer Success Director, Joe Ramsey. Though the presentation was geared towards a marketing-minded audience, the lesson of measuring your goals is relatable to all. What is a KPI? Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) act as a map and a compass to determine your overview performance of a campaign or event. The purpose of a KPI is to alert you to potential problems and allows you to make the best decisions with data. What are you measuring? There are several things to measure when looking into KPIs. You could reflect on your audience or the impressions you have gained. You can focus on subscribers or engagement growth. Whatever you are measuring needs a why. Your “why” explains what is your reasoning behind seeking the information. It can also be considered as your goal. For example, if you are seeking to understand…
The Stew and What It Means for You
Sometime in December, New York Times food writer Alison Roman published a new recipe for Spiced Chickpea Stew with coconut & turmeric. By late January, it had gone viral on Instagram, gaining millions of fans who gave the recipe it’s own hashtag: #TheStew. What made people want to try this recipe and share this post? It’s easy to make, hard to mess up, uses ingredients that people have in their pantry or are easy to find in any grocery store and it looks pretty. But we can find a deeper meaning behind this. It turns out millennials are growing up and staying in more. For years, we’ve been told we those millennials that we thought were eating out all of the time are settling down, having kids, and looking to cook for their families. They want to create restaurant-quality dishes at home that are healthy, easy, and relatively quick. That’s good news for the grocery industry. Social media has transformed the once solo activity of home cooking into a social experience, shared with friends via Instagram pictures and Facebook posts.…
Trending Now: March
It’s happening, folks. The Brits are after us and they aren’t even trying to hide it. Over the past month, I’ve seen quite a few articles that compare how Americans do things in the kitchen to that of the Queen’s underlings. As a side note to this clash of UK and USA culinary delight, March brings with it a flurry of recipes that date back to cobblestone covered streets in Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day. (I know, Ireland is neither part of the UK, nor is it British. Though Northern Ireland is. Don’t @me.) These recipes and traditions, along with some new fuel to the Revolutionary War fire, all top the charts for what’s trending through March. Nothing Particularly Healthy Unless you’re into that “good clean livin’” part of life, as you should be. Corned beef hash, corned beef and cabbage, corned beef and corned corn. It’s all out there, just take a few antacids before you fall too far down the rabbit hole. So many recipes this month seem to revolve around the idea that Irish folk only eat…
A Case Study for Customer Surveys
Have you ever considered conducting a customer survey for business? You might think it would be a waste of your time but consider this statistic from Zendesk: “96% of consumers don’t bother to complain, making consumer surveys an excellent way for organizations to better understand their customers’ problems.” Instead of making assumptions or viewing your business from the owner or management perspective, go directly to the people who affect your bottom line: your customers. I’ve worked with several stores on crafting and maintaining customers service surveys for both their overall customer service and specifically for their online shopping programs. I used my experience working with these stores to develop a case study of how and why to create a customer service survey. To read the full case study, click HERE. Here is a quick summary of what I cover in the case study: When to Use Customer Surveys Consider running an ongoing general customer service survey so your customers always have the option to provide feedback. I highly recommend running a separate customer service survey for your online shopping program,…
Be Inspired – Creative Mornings
More inspirational quotes brought to you by Creative Mornings events “It’s important to respect tradition and to challenge it as well.” — Jim Gray “It is selfish not to be honest.” — Meriah Garrett “Bravery: it means accepting responsibility for the impact of our actions and the weight of our words.” — Eleanor Perry-Smith “Our actions tend to have a ripple effect. Even a small act of kindness might mean more to someone than you can possibly even imagine.” — Stephanie Glaros “Jobs are critical, but the relationships that we gain in the jobs that we have are huge.” — Rob Perez “When I restarted my thinking and stopped being afraid of making mistakes, discomfort or the unknown, I was able to pursue my creative passions and experiences without limitations.” — Michelle Bazis “Being a survivor is not just limited to living through a tragedy. Being a survivor is taking that tragedy and making it purposeful.” — Leon Ford “Be grateful for all the obstacles in your life. They have strengthened you as you continue with your journey.” — Hassan…