"Marketing AR, Outdated Personas, and Welcome Stephanie" The IMPACT Show Ep. 38 [Show Notes]

Wait, where is Nick Sal? 

In this week's episode of The IMPACT Show, Bob and I discussed the key question marketers face when it comes to AR, how your approach to buyer personas is outdated, where in the world Nick Sal might be and more.

Just in case you missed us live (or if you want to relive the magic), you’ll find the episode’s show notes below as well as the recording.

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Have feedback or questions? We’d love to hear it. Comment on this blog or email us at show@impactplus.com

Welcome, Stephanie!

I am officially part of the IMPACT team! As the director of audience engagement and community I will be there to answer any questions you have in Elite. I will also be continuing to co-host The IMPACT Show! Get ready for even more exciting updates to come soon to Elite. If you're not already there, be sure to join us! Speaking of Elite...

What Marketers Be Talkin' 'Bout

Where we go over what you're saying in IMPACT Elite.

IMPACT Elite is a community of passionate inbounders looking to help other marketers (and sales and customer success people) succeed. We’d love for you to join us! We’d love for you to join us! Go to impactplus.com/elite or just search the IMPACT Elite Group on Facebook and request to join. 

1. Thorstein Nordby posted: "Hi everyone, I've been tasked with writing a post on the topic of "How to create a winning organization through technology" and I want to tie this back to sales and marketing. Any recommendations on any interesting angles I could take on this topic?"
   
   • Bill Kerschbaum: Marketers use a lot of technology to help do their work more efficiently - and to build their business through increased sales. The best sales and marketing teams are well-aligned through an SLA, and use various software tools to collaborate, measure success, and automate their processes.
   • Dakota Hersey: I agree with what everyone on this post has said! Other specific examples could be having teams use Slack to keep communication open between sales, marketing, product, customer support –– all of those people are needed in generating leads and producing content that matters.
   • I weighed in and said when technology is set up to create efficiency and save time, it's at its best. I love finding ways to automate previously tedious things which frees up time for me to do things like writing. Some of my favorite tools are also things where I can record a short video walkthrough of something instead of typing a long email or having a meeting.
2. Todd Laire asked: "Any agency owners or team members who have implemented the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and have an example of a Scorecard they use for their team? What are you tracking from your teams roles specifically? Happy to share mine."
   • There were lots of great comments on this thread in Elite.
   • Bob weighed in on the show 

Digital Marketing News

Where each week, Bob and I share one thing from the world of digital marketing that caught our eye.

MarTech Today: Marketers have one main question to answer when it comes to AR

• Here’s the key question marketers face when it comes to augmented reality (AR): What kind of reality wants to be augmented, and why?
• Bob talked through a few examples from the article that he enjoyed.
  • RedBubble's AR app allows you to see how throw pillows will look on your couch. 
  • Sally Hansen created an experience where shoppers can put their hands in a machine that scans their skin pigmentation and allows them to see their fingers with a variety of virtual nail polish options. 
• Key Takeaways:
  • If AR is going to be around for the long-term it needs to really solve a problem. We shouldn't do it just to do it. 
  • There are also times where it may not work well. An example in the article talks about AR "magic mirrors" that allow users to see clothes on themselves but it doesn't necessarily take into consideration how the clothing would fit or feel. 

Search Engine Land: [UPDATED] Google Ad Grants policy changes include 5% CTR minimum

• Ad Grants is an AdWords program that provides search advertising grants of up to $10,000 per month to non-profits.
• Changes to the program took place on January 1st, 2018 and featured several policy updates. 
• Google is lifting the $2 bid cap for campaigns using the Maximize Conversions bid strategy.
• There is a new requirement for accounts to maintain a minimum 5% click-through rate (CTR). The previous CTR minimum was 1% which. According to the article, Google says the 5% CTR is still lower than the current program average. 
• Key Takeaways:
  • If you're a nonprofit not participating in Ad Grants you should look into it. It's basically free advertising dollars for your nonprofit. 
  • These updates will hold those using Ad Grants dollars to a higher standard than before and follow other best practices. 

IMPACT Updates 

• Giving our personas some TLC
  • Since the entire branding team was in the office this week, we decided to give our personas some much needed TLC. 
  • We took real people we know who engage with our content and mapped them back to the personas. In doing this, we realized an entire persona was not needed and was rather a quality shared by all our personas. 
  • We scrapped this persona and created a new, more accurate one in its place. 
  • It's really important to keep your personas updated. It's not enough to create them once and never look back.
• 50 videos in 48 hours - How did we do it? 
  
  • While Marcus and Zach were in the office we recorded over 50 videos.
  • From videos Marcus recorded for our site to employee signature videos for almost everyone in the company, we really made good use of our time.
  • How did we do it? Marcus and Zach are masters at this! They gave us great tips and really know how to fly through video production.
  • If this sounds interesting to you for your organization you should check out our video marketing workshops. 
• What are video marketing workshops?
  • Available in one or two-days (depending on your needs), these video workshops give your team the professional techniques and communication principles it needs to not only build a lively video culture, but build confidence in front of the camera and produce finished pieces your audience will watch and love.

... let's move on to our next topic, but before we do...

Start thinking about how the things we’re talking apply to your company. If you have any challenges or questions that you want us to address, leave a comment or send us an email to show@impactplus.com.

We’ll get to as many as we can either at the end of the show or during next week’s episode.

Next Steps:

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We're going to IMPACT Elite to ask what you want us to talk about, so jump in on the post there.

Join Us Next Week! 

We'll be back again next Thursday, February 15th at 1:00 PM ET. 

Until next time... get out there and make it happen.