In our increasingly complex world, the ability to communicate effectively is more crucial than ever. Whether in professional negotiations, personal exchanges, or global discourses, the way we communicate often determines success or failure. The Harvard Communication Concept, developed at the prestigious Harvard Negotiation Project, offers a structured approach aimed at promoting understanding, avoiding conflicts, and finding mutually satisfactory solutions.

• Interests Over Positions: Focus on internests behind the positions Why do the involved parties want what they want? This helps to find common ground.
• Options before decisions: Before decisions are made, various options should be developed. This promotes creative solutions.
• Objective Criteria : Decisions should be based on objective criteria, not on subjective opinions. This makes the communication fairer.
• Win-Win-Orientation: The goal is to find solutions that benefit all parties involved, rather than seeking a compromise on the lowest common denominator.

Interests Over Positions

A central aspect of the Harvard concept is distinguishing between positions and interests. While positions are what people say they want, interests are the reasons behind these statements—the actual needs and desires. By recognizing and addressing these interests, it becomes possible to find solutions that go beyond the initial demands and reach a deeper level of understanding.

Developing Options

Another important point is the development of options before making decisions. Instead of committing to a solution prematurely, the concept encourages creativity and the exploration of a variety of possible solutions. This open exchange of ideas can lead to innovative solutions that might otherwise have been overlooked.

Objective Criteria as a Basis for Decision-Making

The Harvard concept also recommends making decisions based on objective criteria. Rather than relying on subjective opinions or the desire for power, decisions should be made based on data, facts, and recognized standards. This promotes fairness and neutrality in communication.

Win-Win Orientation

Focusing on win-win solutions is another core element. The aim is not to maximize one’s own advantage at the expense of others but to find solutions that benefit all parties. This fosters long-term relationships and trust.

Practical Application

The concept can be applied in various areas:

• In the professional environment: For resolving conflicts within teams, in negotiations with business partners, or in leadership communication.
• In personal relationships: To clarify misunderstandings, resolve conflicts, and build a deeper connection.
• In public communication: In debates, political discussions, or when exchanging opinions on social media.

The application of the Harvard Communication Concept is diverse. In the professional context, it can help lead more effective negotiations, resolve conflicts within teams, and create a more positive work atmosphere. In personal relationships, it enables deeper understanding and can help resolve conflicts constructively.

Tips for Practice

• Active listening: Try to truly understand what the other person is saying and acknowledge it.
• Show empathy: Put yourself in the other person’s shoes to better understand their perspective.
• Be open to new information: Be willing to change your own opinion when you receive new information.
• Give constructive feedback: : Express criticism in a way that builds up, not down.

Challenges and Solutions

Implementing the Harvard concept can also bring challenges. Misunderstandings, emotional barriers, and entrenched positions can make communication difficult. Here, it’s important to actively listen, show empathy, and be open to the perspectives of others. Constructive feedback and the willingness to question one’s own assumptions are also crucial.

Conclusion

The Harvard Communication Concept offers a valuable framework for effective communication. By encouraging us to look beyond positions, seek creative solutions, apply objective criteria, and aim for win-win solutions, it can help us achieve better outcomes in a variety of situations. The ability to communicate effectively is a key skill in today’s world, and the Harvard Communication Concept provides practical tools to develop and refine this ability.

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From the customer journey to the customer experience

The customer journey is the strategic foundation of personalized customer experiences. When developing such a customer journey, the primary goal is to understand and accompany our customers step by step along their customer lifecycle. Key questions are posed, the answers to which inform this strategic paper:

• What stages does a visitor go through before becoming a happy customer?
• What touchpoints are there along this path between customers and companies?
• What needs, questions, pain points and motivational drivers move our customers?
• How and where can we as a company meet these needs?
• How do we get the customer from one phase to the next in a coordinated process?

All of this – and more – is poured into a semi-fictional customer journey for a semi-fictional buyer persona. However, since this basic strategic concept is only “semi” and real customers are not satisfied with half measures, the development of a buyer persona and customer journey can only be the first step towards a fulfilling customer experience in the “Age of the Customer”.

This path from the ideal customer to our real customers can only be achieved through personalization, which in turn is based on real customer data. But, let’s go in order.

What is personalization?

Today, personalization along the customer journey means providing individual experiences and content tailored to the needs, wishes, and habits of our (potential) customers. Accordingly, the personalization of the customer journey is the further development of advertising towards a digital dialog and exchange with the customer. Data plays a central role in this, because collecting, structuring, analyzing, and using information about demographics, interests, and behaviors helps us design campaigns, content, and experiences that really resonate with our target audiences.

Why is personalization important along the customer journey?

The importance of personalization is understood at the latest when you are already greeted at your favorite pub with your established drink request. It’s about being seen and understood – that’s no different in a digitized world. Anyone who likes to spend a lot of time online appreciates it when he or she receives customized recommendations and offers. This can be shoes, but also personalized content as well as an aborted purchase process that is pointed out.
The online world that surrounds us has led to high demands on the customer experience among consumers: It should always be fast, relevant and simple. In other words, we’re used to getting what we want, when and where we want it – and companies that enable us to have these personalized experiences have a clear competitive advantage.
For personalized customer experiences to work, companies and especially marketing departments need to gain a 360° view of their customers. This is the only way to arouse the necessary emotions and build relevance.

What is a 360° customer view and what is it good for?

As the name suggests, a 360° customer view is a comprehensive understanding of the customer. This means that as a company, you always have in mind which touchpoints the customer has used on which channel, at what time, for what purpose, and with what result. In the best case, this image is available in real time with one click, as we described in our article on the Golden Record. A 360° customer view is a holistic and up-to-date view of every customer of a company. This data-driven view enables companies to understand and act on each customer relationship. Such a data- and customer-centric approach offers many advantages for the company:

• Customer needs and trends are identified at an early stage
• Customer loyalty and brand loyalty are strengthened
• forecasts about customer behavior can be made
• there is a reduction in costs as well as higher efficiency in customer acquisition and marketing
• better product development
• Improved customer service
• Increasing revenues through higher conversion rates and more up-selling and cross-selling opportunities
• better customer communication has a positive impact on the brand image in the long term

How do you get a 360° customer view?

The question of how we arrive at a 360° customer view has already been teased out a little above: Only a Golden Record leads us to a valid Golden Profile. To create a 360° customer profile, not only master data but also real-time transaction data must be used. We need: – the master data – descriptive data (demographics, needs, etc.) – customer-related transaction data (orders, payments, click behavior, etc.)

For many small and medium-sized companies, such an aligned “golden customer profile” presents challenges, because a synchronized and unified database across different touchpoints is anything but easy to build. On the way to this goal, marketing automation software can be a useful and helpful solution. There are various providers on the market here, from free open source solutions to expensive complete packages. It is not possible to make a blanket statement about which automation software is the most suitable for which marketing, as this assessment depends on many different factors. It is best to start with an internal analysis of touchpoints, communication channels, and customer data, and derive requirements for the respective company based on this.

Ways and tactics to personalize the customer experience

The control center of any personalized customer journey is most certainly the internal marketing automation software or, if it does not yet exist, the company’s own content management system. Most modern systems today offer at least some kind of rule-based personalization. The lack of such an integrated and easy-to-use option for personalization should be one of the clear exclusion criteria when selecting a platform.

WHAT CAN RULE-BASED PERSONALIZATIONS BE AND WHAT DATA DO THEY APPLY TO?

The simplest data we can use to customize customer experiences is classic environmental data.

• Time and date: A simple “good morning” in the app or a Merry Christmas on the website are already a first step towards personalizing customer experiences, building on publicly available information.
• Location: The appropriate country and language selection or a presetting of shipping options for a specific IP address is also a personalized customer experience.
• Weather: The weather can also be a relevant factor for the customer experience for many a company. One thinks of tourist regions, transport companies, but also in retail the integration of weather data now enables more accurate sales forecasting.
• Mobile or desktop: Playing out content depending on the receiving device is also part of personalization.

In addition to this standard general data, we can also use behavioral and usage data as triggers for personalization of the customer experience, subject to consent. Here are a few examples:

• First or repeat visit: Depending on whether visitors are visiting our website for the first time or a repeat visit, the content shown can be adjusted accordingly.
• Retargeting: The broad and diverse field of retargeting can be wonderfully viewed from the perspective of personalization. Use the potential!
• Click behavior: What click behavior do our newsletter subscribers show, for example? Ever thought about sending different mails depending on click behavior?
• Referrals: Where is the visitor coming from? Is it an ads campaign, an affiliate program, or a social media post? Why don’t you refer to it?
• Matching recommendations: Who does not know? “Customers who bought this product are also interested in …”. What works for technology, clothing and books can also be applied to content.

In addition to these manually set rules of personalization, a young approach is gaining more and more attention: AI-based personalization. The more complex projects become and the more diverse the target groups, the faster marketing reaches its operational end with manual regulations. This is where artificial intelligence can make a promising contribution. Some automation tools have already integrated AI into their solutions, so it’s worth being curious here.

Outstanding customer service as a key customer experience

Away from all the automation and artificial intelligence, there is one point that many a company overlooks in the perfect customer experience, but every (potential) customer follows with eagle eyes – customer service on all channels.

Dealing with questions, input, criticism, and complaints is central to designing personalized customer experiences. How do you deal with customer testimonials and reviews? How long does it take for you to process complaints through the ticketing system?

A 360° customer view, coupled with marketing automation and supported by artificial intelligence are important levers, but not everything, when it comes to personalizing customer experiences. People often forget to feed customer feedback back into the customer journey with empathy. This blind spot has potentially far-reaching negative consequences for the company, but in return is very easy to fix.

In our digital world, the 360° customer view is an important benchmark for companies. But at the same time we have to realize that customer data, even if it is well prepared and synchronized, is only data and not the customer himself. Therefore, an empathetic understanding of the human being behind the data set is and will remain crucial in order to be able to implement a functioning personalization of the customer experience.

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Top 5 AI tools for content generation

AI-powered content generation tools are becoming increasingly popular. They enable companies to create content faster and more efficiently. Here are the top five AI tools for content generation:

1. Acrolinx helps companies create high-quality content. The platform analyzes texts in real time and provides tips for optimization.
2. Wordsmith enables companies to automatically generate reports and articles. The platform uses AI to customize the content.
3. Articoolo is a tool for automated content generation. Users can simply enter a topic and the tool automatically generates an article.
4. Quill is a platform that automatically creates personalized content. The platform uses AI to customize the content.
5. Hemingway improves texts. The tool analyzes texts and provides tips for improving readability and comprehensibility.

Top 5 AI tools for social media

AI-powered social media tools can help companies optimize their social media presence and better reach their target audiences. Here are the top five AI tools for social media:

1. Hootsuite Insights analyzes social media data. The tool uses AI to analyze data and help companies optimize their social media strategies.
2. Sprout Social is a social media management tool. The tool uses AI to help companies better understand and target their audiences.
3. Lumen5 creates video content for social media and uses AI to generate video content from text.
4. Drift is a lead generation tool for social media. The tool uses AI to help companies better reach their target audiences and generate more leads.
5. Buffer: is also used for social media management and helps optimize social media strategies.

Top 5 AI Tools for Video

AI-powered tools for video enable companies to create and optimize video faster and more efficiently. Here are the top five AI tools for video:

1. Vidyard supports video analysis and optimizes video content
2. Wibbitz is a program for automated video generation. The tool uses AI to automatically generate video content from articles.
3. Magisto helps automate video editing and uses AI to automatically edit and optimize videos.
4. Vantage supports automated video production and to generate and optimize videos automatically.
5. Animoto automates video productions. The tool uses AI to automatically generate video content from images and videos.

Top 5 AI tools for photography

AI-powered photography tools can help businesses create and optimize high-quality images faster and more efficiently. Here are the top five AI tools for photography:

1. Luminar uses AI to automatically optimize and beautify images.
2. Prisma is an image editing app. The app uses AI to automatically optimize and beautify images.
3. Google Photos: Google Photos is an app for managing photos. The app uses AI to automatically organize and tag images.
4. Adobe Sensei: Adobe Sensei is an image analysis platform that automatically analyzes and optimizes images.
5. DeepArt.io: DeepArt.io is a tool for automated image processing. The tool uses AI to automatically optimize and beautify images.

Outlook: Where is the trend in marketing going with AI?

AI will play an increasingly important role in marketing in the future. Companies will increasingly rely on AI-powered tools to optimize their marketing strategies and deliver personalized content. Especially in the area of automated marketing processes and personalized content, AI will play an increasingly important role in the future. Integrating AI into marketing offers companies many benefits. AI-powered tools can help companies better understand their audiences, optimize their marketing strategies, and deliver personalized content. By automating marketing processes, companies can also save time and resources. AI-powered tools offer businesses many opportunities to optimize their marketing strategies and deliver personalized content. Especially in the area of automated marketing processes and personalized content, AI will play an increasingly important role in the future. Companies that rely on AI-powered tools can make their marketing strategies more effective and reach their target audiences better.

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What is a conversion rate?

In online marketing, we use the term “conversion” to describe a measurable conversion, i.e. the conversion of a visitor into a potential customer. The visitor has therefore taken the action that the website operator intended. This can be many different things, such as filling out a form, signing up for the newsletter, or making a purchase in the online store. The conversion rate describes the relationship between visitors to a website and the number of interactions that have been set as a conversion. If about 10 out of a total of 1,000 visitors to the website sign up for the newsletter, the conversion rate is 1 percent.

Is a high conversion rate good?

The short answer: yes, it is. A high conversion rate is a very good starting point for achieving the set corporate goals by means of online marketing measures. But: A high conversion rate is not everything. It is the beginning of a comprehensive customer journey that needs to be designed in the best possible way.

However, what is a good conversion rate is not so easy to define. This depends on many, sometimes very individual factors. The central lever for high conversion rates is the right target group. People who are not interested in the offer will not convert. The quality of the offer also plays a central role on the way to a qualified lead. In addition, the usability of your website also plays a crucial factor, as well as the industry, your brand awareness, competition, and search engine ranking.

You want concrete figures? We understand that. There are countless statistics on conversion rates on Google, here is a first impression: The conversion rate of banners is among the lowest with less than one percent, Google Ads are on average about 3.5 percent and in partner search you can be happy about a conversion rate of just under ten percent. In your first attempts at optimization, try to set an initial approximate value as a guide. You will quickly notice if this is a good fit for you and your business.

Why is conversion rate optimization so important?

Getting the best out of painstakingly generated traffic is the goal of conversion rate optimization (CRO). In this way, we achieve more orders, prospects and sales. However, conversion rate optimization is not always easy. Increasing online competition and sensory overload on traffic channels makes it increasingly difficult to increase conversion of visitors to prospects and buyers. That’s why online marketing must no longer be just about increasing traffic, but improving conversion. But how can you set up a successful strategy for CRO? What levers can we operate?

What influences the conversion rate?

There are many factors that influence the conversion rate. Due to this large number, it is not possible to list and describe all of them, but two basic types can be distinguished:

• short-term, controllable
• long-term, uncontrollable

While the short-term influencing factors can be controlled through repeated testing and adjustment, the long-term factors are difficult or impossible to control.

These short-term factors include, among many others:

• Traffic channels
• Products & Offers
• Content (variety and adaptation to the customer journey)
• Website security
• Usability process

The list of potential influencing factors is long. Therefore, it should not be tried, exchanged and tested haphazardly. It is important to take a close look at a few points at the beginning, formulate concrete theses and then verify or falsify them. Meaningful and clearly defined hypotheses are the basis for a successful CRO. What about the long-term factors? Most of these are socio-political developments over which we as a company have virtually no influence: Changes in the legal situation, armed conflicts or even social trends can influence the performance of our conversion rate – positively or negatively. Seasonal fluctuations, such as bookings for skiing vacations or sunscreen products, play a special role. This is nothing unusual, but should be considered in a CRO strategy.

Conversion rate optimization methods

Many factors condition many methods and approaches to CRO. Before we get to those in the user experience space, here’s a quick reminder of what methods always work to optimize CR:

• Generate more and better traffic
• Combine call-to-actions with matching lead magnets
• Optimize mobile view and loading speed
• Publish better, i.e. target group optimized content
• Refinement of the Customer Journey
• Keywords customization
• Simplification and “decluttering” of the website
• Text as a UX factor in conversion optimization

When it comes to user experience, text plays an important role. Unlike usability (user-friendliness), which is primarily about a clear structure and smooth flow on the website, UX design aims to evoke the best possible feeling in the visitor. The appropriate words, paraphrases and terms put the visitor in the right mood, create mental cinema and emotions. So it’s very important to know your target audience and which keywords are actually being used and whether you’re hitting the tone of the buyer persona.

It can be as banal things as the difference between potatoes and potatoes, which encourages visitors to click. Do you know where your visitors are coming from? Then they adapt to their language.

Colors at the CRO

Colors are among the most important tools when it comes to putting people in the right mood. Different colors evoke different emotions and can attract users’ attention. The color palettes we choose are more than just visual decoration, they can have game-changing effects on conversion rates. A CTA button, for example, is made up of four important factors: Placement, shape, text and color. When these four aspects are aligned, you have a great effect. The color of the button is one of the longest-running debates at CRO. There are numerous A/B test results that show that changing the color of a CTA button has a massive impact on the number of conversions.

You want to try something color-wise? Then take a look at Adobe Color Reel or coolors.typography, image and video for better conversions. As I said, it’s all about creating a suitable mood image that picks up the user where they are. This applies not only to language, but also to visual impressions on the website. The choice of typography (font, font size), the imagery used and the presentation of the videos can contribute a lot to the acceptance of the offer. The aim is to put our target group in a “buying mood”, i.e. to create a feel-good atmosphere.

What exactly our target group wants to see, we can only find out step by step. The better we know our buyer persona, their preferences and habits – e.g. whether this person prefers reading or watching videos – the easier it will be for us to do CRO.

Customize CTA buttons for conversion rate

If we have accompanied our website visitors to the call-to-action with the right texts and images, this very button should also catch the eye. The size, placement and color of the CTA button should stand out strongly at all times. To increase the conversion rate, you can also place the button sticky, i.e. it scrolls along at all times and remains in the field of view. If Google is to be believed, the ideal place for CTAs is just above the “above the fold” boundary and the ideal shape is a vertical one.

The position of the CTA button is also important. There are places where our call to click simply performs better than others. Here Grow & Convert have put together an exciting table – with reference to personal experiences with newsletter signups.

• CR in the sidebar: 0.5 – 1.5%
• CR at the end of the contribution: 0.5 – 1.5%.
• CR with pop-ups: 1 – 8%
• CR with sliders and bars: 1 – 5%
• CR with a full-screen welcome opt-in: 10 – 25%.
• CR of highlight boxes: 3 – 9%
• Navigation bar: variable

Trying out CTA buttons is one of the first and easiest steps to change your conversion rate. It is important that you do not change too much at once, as this will make it unclear what actually caused the CR to change.

Forms in the CRO process

Forms are an important part of the customer journey, a point where it becomes very clear whether we have done our job well up to there. If the user has followed us to the form and is willing to fill it out, then we have been able to build enough trust. If users bounce off the form, we know that this is where we need to start optimizing. Basically, the fewer input fields, the higher the conversion rate. It is therefore worthwhile in the first step to query only the fields that are really necessary – everything else can wait.

Conversion Rate: Conclusion

Conversion rate optimization is an iterative process, there is always something to try and improve. In addition, the preferences of our target group also change with the trends of the time – a real “end” of optimization is therefore rather unlikely. Even though the topic is huge and the optimization possibilities almost infinite, it is worthwhile to approach the process strategically and thoughtfully. Supported by tangible user data (see also our article on the Golden Record ), the appropriate levers for the CRO can be found quickly.

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What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science. It deals with the automation of intelligent, human behavior. Since there is no single definition of “intelligence,” AI is also difficult to narrow down. In the most common cases, artificial intelligence describes an attempt to understand and mimic the human brain, its functions and learning steps – usually in the form of a computer or computer program. Artificial intelligence, then, is a term used to describe applications in which machines perform human-intelligent tasks such as learning, judgment, and problem solving. These AI applications can be very diverse, ranging from “simple”, logical computational sequences, such as the digital chess opponent, to algorithms, to futuristic ideas of humanoid, autonomously acting and thinking robot humans, as in the movie “I, Robot”.

How does artificial intelligence show up in marketing?

Humanoid robots don’t exist in marketing today, but if we look at the marketing materials of most martech companies, AI-powered tools are now ubiquitous. MarTech is the combination of marketing and technology. The term refers specifically to key actions and tools that use technology to achieve marketing goals.
The technological capabilities in this space have evolved so quickly that, ironically, many marketers themselves are struggling to holistically grasp where and how they can apply AI to their strategy, processes, and talent to get the most out of this technology. The difficulty here is not skepticism about the tools. The sheer variety of options requires massive rethinking – and that takes time. All processes that have already been implemented must be scrutinized and the resources freed up by the new application must be reallocated.

Status quo of AI in content marketing

In the area of content marketing, the State of Marketing AI Report 2021 found that this is one of the most important areas where AI is already being used. Of the ten AI use cases for marketing, six were related to content creation and/or assessment and improvement:

• Gain insights on top content and campaigns
• Create data-driven content
• Prediction of successful advertising media (e.g., digital ads, landing pages) without prior A/B testing.
• Delivering individualized content experiences across all channels
• Selection of keywords and topic clusters for content optimization
• Optimization of website content for search engines

How AI supports content marketing in advance

Away from some bad news about AI in content marketing, which wanted to evoke the job loss of many marketers, we would like to emphasize the advantages of using AI at this point. No matter how good, artificial intelligence will not put everyone in the marketing industry out of work for a long time yet. On the contrary, it is rather the small-scale, tedious and laborious auxiliary work that can be replaced by AI. This leaves much more space and time to draw qualitatively valuable conclusions from prepared information. What can AI already do in content marketing today?

• Artificial intelligence generally helps perform repeatable and automated tasks smarter, faster, and at scale.
• It provides use cases for content research, planning, and strategy.
• Even before content production, AI can help develop a relevant and effective content calendar.
• Artificial intelligence-based tools can search the Internet to gather data and generate topics, keywords, and content ideas based on current and historical trends.
• AI mines unstructured data, particularly in social media, to find brand and category mentions, based on which topic suggestions can be created that match the current sentiment of target audiences.
• The tools help identify the best A/B testing options to boost content performance.
• AI supports in the ongoing content creation process

Not only upfront, but also in the content creation process, AI can be a great help for marketers. Here are some promising possibilities: AI helps develop article structures, tables of contents, and first drafts of long content. This saves a lot of time and massively supports the implementation.

Artificial intelligence creates really solid micro-content like social media posts, search and display ads, email subject lines and sales copy, as well as formulaic content like press releases and boilerplate copy. In keeping with the spirit of sustainability, AI also helps to recycle extensive content. Transforming evergreen content into case studies, infographics, product descriptions, or video scripts, as well as translating content into multiple languages are great use cases. What AI is also very good at is long-form technical content. Financial and annual reports or technical manuals, which previously hardly made a marketing heart leap, can now be easily delegated and automated. The large area of chatbots could also gain new and lasting momentum through the targeted use of really good AI tools.

AI in quality control and follow-up

As you might expect, AI can also make a valuable contribution to quality control and follow-up. In many places, this is already happening without us actually being aware of it. Here are a few specific examples:

• AI gives us appropriate recommendations for personalizing content and products.
• AI tools are unbeatable when it comes to saving time: From research to content creation, its distribution and measurement. This leaves more time for other tasks.
• Across the SEO space, artificial intelligence can boost performance. This way, the best keywords can be integrated and performant SEO strategies can be designed.
• Artificial intelligence supports with recommendations to increase the content effectiveness of content. What is really clicked, liked and read can be derived easily and quickly.
• Content and workflow standardization: Intelligent content management platforms can help streamline the process from planning to creation and distribution, especially for larger, dislocated teams.

AI in content marketing: big change and big opportunity

AI is getting exponentially better at understanding, writing, and speaking human-like language. For this, it needs local languages, grammar, punctuation, brand style guides and other parameters. Feeding AI with this input and setting a guideline for its development will certainly be the future field of activity in marketing. The fact is, AI is giving a traditionally rather time- and labor-intensive human activity, such as writing, a speed and scalability that is not humanly achievable. Instead of seeing this fact as a danger, we should recognize the opportunities in it.

However, accuracy, context, and nuance are still areas for human intervention. Even though AI is constantly learning, well-trained editorial teams and strategic quality control are still important and will have to do this much more in the future. Using AI in content marketing will no longer be about doing a lot, but doing the right thing. Although many marketers have also been committed to this guiding principle in the past, this emphasis was not apparent in many an implementation.

In very practical terms, AI can help conserve resources: Writing resources, for example, are expensive and should be used where they are really needed. When processes are organized in a way that shifts much of the routine and volume-heavy work to AI tools, the people behind the content can do more value-added tasks. It is important that we learn how to work with AI and how to make greater use of the newfound time for content context and relevance, increased quality control, strategy alignment, and fact checking. Keyword “process optimization”: integrating AI-powered content marketing tools across martech is important for efficient and seamless workflows, but equally important is the issue of incorporating subject matter expert, management, and legal approval workflows into AI-created content. Here, too, more workers will be needed who cannot be replaced by AI. We also need to ensure we build internal expertise to make the most of the technology and engage employee:s in AI training to generate more relevant industry and brand-focused content. Considerations Before Investing in AI Tools for Content Marketing Where do marketers start on the path to using AI tools for marketing processes and ideally? At the beginning, there is still the content strategy and the overview of the use cases.

As with any other technique, clarity is first needed about what is to be achieved and why. The tools applied are the how in the implementation. So, once it’s clear where you want to go, it’s a matter of figuring out what tools can help you along the way to work faster and smarter to achieve your strategic goals. Identifying the right use cases is a natural outcome of this process. Important selection criteria for AI tools are based on this:

• the quality of the generated content
• the user friendliness
• the research capability of the tool Here we usually have no choice but to try, test, compare and exchange with others.

Conclusion: AI in content marketing

AI content tools will change the way the performance of marketers, authors and content itself is measured – that’s clear. As I said, it’s not about creating more, it’s about creating better content. Content creators with AI tools that are able to research and create content more efficiently gain additional kudos because they deliver significantly more productive, higher quality content and improved conversions.

It’s true, marketers still have a lot to learn, but in an exciting and opportunity-filled field of development. The potential of AI-powered technologies is obvious when it comes to reducing costs, increasing revenue, and even providing differentiated content experiences. AI also provides us with valuable services when it comes to condensing data into a golden record. What makes us hesitate in part is not the fear of AI per se, but our need for more understanding and knowledge about how this potential can best be used and integrated in a sustainable way.

Properly applied, AI could be the perfect solution for our digital world, taming the content and data tsunamis while sustainably improving what humans are really good at – creating context.

Who got the desire to try something yourself? Here are two links to it: Rytr – text creation with AI [Craiyon] (https://www.craiyon.com) – image creation with AI

The post AI in content marketing first appeared on Zensations.

Marketing and UX must work together even better and more coherently in the future to bring products and services to the target group. User experience is no longer the exclusive preserve of designers, and in the same way, a fundamental understanding of marketing should – in the best case – permeate all areas of a company.

What is User Experience (UX)?

Very simply put, UX (user experience) refers to the experience and feelings a person has when interacting with, using, clicking on, and leaving a website, app, ad, etc. This user experience begins with the question of how users are made aware of the content and how the entire process ultimately takes place.
There are many aspects that make up a good UX.

These include for example

• User friendly: Is the user friendliness guaranteed?
• Desireable: Is the application aesthetically pleasing?
• Useful/Valuable: Is the content useful and helpful for the target group?
• Findable: Can the appropriate content be found easily?
• Credible: Is the content trustworthy?
• Together, they represent the metrics of a good UX design. (If you want to know more about this, we recommend the book “Information Architecture for the World – Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites” by Peter Morville).
• The focus of UX is always on the individual. It’s always about maximizing the user’s experience. However, it is not exclusively about the design, but about the variety, coherence and satisfaction of the entire interaction process.

What is UX Design?

UX design, on the other hand, refers to the creation of structures and processes that meet the expectations of users and make interaction with content user-friendly. What “user-friendly” means at this point depends heavily on the target group itself. What the user’s needs and expectations are is the shared workspace of UX design and marketing.

… and what is marketing?

Marketing means nothing more than making people aware and pointing out that a certain product or service exists and can satisfy the needs of the target group. The fact that this cueing is becoming louder, shriller, and more disruptive in our digital world of content overload contradicts the user experience approach – and it is this realization that brings us back to the opening thoughts of this post. The question remains: How can marketing and UX go hand in hand to meet the needs of users and those of the company in equal measure? Mind you: not only online, but also in the analog world.

What connects marketing and UX

Although the relationship of these approaches may not seem so straightforward, UX and marketing have some things in common.

1. Data & Research Data and the results of research activities form the basis of both approaches, because understanding what makes the target group “tick” is essential for both marketing and UX. Learning from the past and deriving new trends from it is important and can provide a decisive market advantage. Both want to stay one step ahead and understand users better than the competition. (For more on the exciting topic of data in marketing, see our article on the Golden Record).
2. Psychology Understanding about behavioral psychology in all its forms and how to apply it in terms of one’s goals is relevant to both approaches. On the one hand, the aim is to awaken needs, to lead people to a certain action and to convey a very specific mood. Psychology provides both approaches with a few important tools for this.
3. Goal orientation Both marketing and UX have clear goals to achieve. It is these overarching goals that are at the heart of how the two approaches work together, as one will not get far without the other. What distinguishes marketing and UX

However, it is precisely in the goals themselves that marketing differs significantly from UX, and it is at this point that their collaboration becomes exciting.

1. Focus on conversion vs. focus on user experience The central goal of marketing efforts is to sell products and services, to move through the sales funnel relatively quickly. It can therefore happen that marketing appears quite “pushy”, which some users perceive rather negatively. UX, on the other hand, aims to design the entire process, handling and mood in such a way that the user always has a benevolent feeling. These two approaches may or may not be opposite. The fact is, there is potential for conflict if coordination and communication do not run smoothly.
2. Trends and studies vs. real user behavior We’re all familiar with this: what people say in opinion polls often has little to do with their actual actions. This applies to political voting behavior just as much as to their purchasing behavior. While marketers tend to turn to trends and studies as a basis for decision-making, UX designers have only one source of inspiration – the user data itself. At this point, then, another exciting intersection of the two approaches emerges. The question that needs to be answered: How can the trends and survey results be explained in the shadow of real user behavior? On the other hand, what makes people behave differently than they pretend or would like to?

• Successful collaboration between UX and marketing – this is how it works It’s clear that marketers and UX designers should work together today rather than tomorrow. In addition to the intersections already mentioned above, the following points should also be worked out together.
• Refine Buyer Persona: No marketing without persona. But does the UX data actually reflect that person? Can the theories that have been put forward in marketing about the ideal customer be confirmed with current user behavior? What do the numbers tell us about interests, wants and needs? Customize Customer Journey: Similar to the Buyer Persona, the customer journey can be optimized using the experiences and data from the two approaches. Which touchpoints are really used and how often? Which content performs best? Where does the customer journey break off?
• Ensure technology: All technical requirements for a successful customer experience must be met. A close look at technical errors, loading time and a good meshing of tools and systems should be ensured. Even small errors can lead to high bounce rates, frustrating UX designers and marketers alike.
• Test repeatedly: The jointly designed applications must be tested and re-evaluated regularly and by both sides. Why one-time testing is not enough? Because user behavior can change all the time and both teams need to react to these changes in time to be successful with their targets.
• Establish iterative processes: Not only should testing be repeated over and over again, but the entire joint work process is a regular cycle in the best case. Personas, customer journey, technology, testing – once a quarter an update of numbers, conclusions and actions should be ensured.

UX AND MARKETING COMBINED

Successful collaboration between UX and marketing is one of the keys to business success, especially in our digitalized world. The fact that the two approaches think differently about some issues should not obscure the fact that they also have much in common and share a wealth of common areas for action. Shaping this together in an iterative process is the core message of this article.

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The ultimate data set

The golden record in marketing describes the ultimate customer data record, i.e. that data point where all information about a (potential) customer converges. In current practice, data about a single person interacting with our company is usually stored in multiple systems that are generally unrelated to each other. This leads to a lot of individual information, duplicate entries and data that cannot be meaningfully traced back to one person. Good examples are registration data for the newsletter, data records for online purchases, data from the service center, and general inquiries that come in via e-mail, for example. As a rule, a person is associated with different information in different systems. In many cases, this makes personalized, pinpoint marketing nearly impossible.

The Golden Record is the one central record that brings together all the scattered information about a customer.

With such a central customer data set, the quality of the collected data increases and companies have very accurate and easily usable data about the target group at their disposal. In practice, this enables us to communicate in a targeted manner and, last but not least, saves a lot of time, as there is no need for tedious searching for entries.

The advantages of a Golden Record in marketing

• A central customer data set enables us to
• Understand customers better
• refine a coherent buyer persona
• Track the customer journey seamlessly
• Gain a 360° view of our target group
• Better manage and coordinate communication with our customers across multiple channels
• Addressing customers in a targeted manner
• increase customer satisfaction
• Manage marketing and communication campaigns more accurately
• Expand cross-selling and up-selling opportunities
• create better reporting
• to derive well-founded analyses and future scenarios from them

All in all, then, there is enormous potential for development, growth and revenue in a consolidated customer data set.

How to create a Golden Record?

One thing is clear, creating and maintaining a Golden Record is not an intern’s job. All those who briefly considered this option, we must disappoint at this point. The good news is that there are better, more accurate and automated systems for this. These are called MDM (Master Data Management) systems and are the data turbo for companies. Master Data Management Systems are solutions that allow an organization to collect information from disparate data systems in one place, cleanse and consolidate the information pulled. This solution is based on a set of rules with clear workflows that structures the collected data, relates it to each other and prioritizes it. What already seems complex when you read it, is also complex in practice. Because before the MDM tool can start its work (in real time, in the best case), the conditions for the above-mentioned set of rules must first be thought through and implemented.

Challenges in condensing customer data

So the biggest challenge in implementing such an MDM system is thinking through and creating the processes. You need to be aware of all the data sources, what input fields are available, which data sources are more likely to generate reliable information, and how each input field relates to each other. And ultimately, there is also the question of which data source gets data sovereignty over an entry. An example: The data field “Name” is available for the online order form, the newsletter registration and the lottery opt-in. Which field do you now attach what importance to? Is “name” first or last name? Which data source has the decision-making power in the Golden Record? As you can see, the 08/15 input field “Name” alone poses the first complex questions.
Merging data with different input fields and thus understanding that these different data sets are one and the same person is another key challenge. How does the MDM know that the phone number from system X belongs to another record from system Y (e.g. name and address)? These steps need to be considered in advance and “taught” to the system.
No matter how well thought out our workflows are and how clean the data is, there will still be no way around a human data manager. There will always be data sets that need to be assessed, cleansed and merged by humans.

From Customer Golden Record to Golden Profile

We have already shown above many advantages of a Golden Record in marketing. We would like to highlight one in particular at this point, as its importance is becoming increasingly clear: the 360° perspective on our customers. Creating a 360° customer view and thus a unique customer profile is the logical next step in condensing and using customer data. However, bringing a customer’s diverse information and touchpoints into a single profile is complex. Unlike the classic golden record, not only master data but also transaction data is relevant for creating a “golden customer profile”.

FOR A GOLDEN PROFILE OF YOUR CUSTOMER YOU NEED:

• the master data from the Golden Record
• data describing the customer, such as demographics, needs, preferences, desires, etc.
• any customer-related transaction data such as orders, payments, dwell time, active touchpoints, click behavior, etc.

Important for such a Golden Profile would be, besides sufficient qualitative data, the possibility that this data profile communicates with the linked systems. That is, if the record changes in one system, not only should the corresponding entry in the profile change, but all other records for the same information in other systems should also change. So it’s about synchronizing all existing records across all systems. Only when this two-way communication of data is enabled will a real-time picture of a 360° customer emerge. This means a lot of work for our business processes and communication systems. Big Data and AI will play a central role in this, because the speed of generated data across diverse platforms is almost impossible to manage manually, especially in the B2C sector. It remains exciting to see how quickly and, above all, where the discussion and practical implementation in this area will develop. The issue of data security in particular is bound to gain momentum as a result in the coming years.

The post The Golden Record in Marketing: Advantages, Challenges, Opportunities first appeared on Zensations.

In B2B, there are usually multiple decision makers, the investment is higher, and the sales process takes longer. Here, it is also usually the sales people and sales employees who are responsible for social selling.

In the case of B2C, purchasing decisions are usually made very personally and quickly, there is no need for major coordination, and expenditure is often kept within manageable limits. This is often where marketing and customer service, as well as brand ambassadors, come in.

Exactly how social selling is implemented in individual companies and certain industries varies from company to company and depends on the corporate philosophy and internal structures.

Why is social selling important?

The Internet has subjected marketing and sales to massive change. Customers can get information, research basics and compare products with just one click. For companies, this means that they have to know their potential customers really well and accompany them throughout the entire customer journey. Simply “slamming” in the supposedly suitable offer is not enough.

Social media make it possible for us to better identify and understand the problems and challenges of our target group. In this way, we can then provide the necessary assistance and thus openly demonstrate our competence. In addition, other experts and colleagues can be contacted via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn to reinforce our authentic commitment to providing sustainable assistance. Plus: The Internet enables communication in real time. No sooner is the question asked than the first answers start pouring in. The question companies should ask themselves here is whether any of their employees are one of those first responders.

It is no longer a secret that opinions are primarily formed online. This is where social networks play a crucial role, especially when it comes to sharing experiences – an important factor in many purchasing decisions! So it makes perfect sense for companies to intensify their social listening and focus on social selling.

Which networks are suitable for social selling?

The networks where your customers are on the move are always suitable for social selling. This can be Twitter and Facebook just as much as LinkedIn or the Internet forums that seem a bit dusty these days.

Today, there are an almost unmanageable number of social networks and every industry or niche has its focus. The “usual suspects” are quickly found, but you should also take a look at Reddit, Discord, Twitch or WeChat. Maybe that’s exactly where you’ll find the right people to talk to.

One social network in particular excels at social selling: LinkedIn. LinkedIn introduced the Social Selling Index (SSI) in 2014, a metric that measures the success of social selling activities. Four areas are used for this evaluation:

• How strong is your brand presence on LinkedIn? Do you have a meaningful profile?
• Can you find the right people?
• Do you engage in content-rich discussions and share valuable content yourself?
• Do you build and maintain sustainable relationships? To calculate your personal SSI score, simply log in to your LinkedIn account and go to the Social Selling Index dashboard. You can now consider this score as a starting point for your actions and efforts.

What challenges do you face with social selling?

As with all other measures aimed at business success, we can also encounter challenges with social selling. The beauty of these challenges is that they are the same in many areas of the company, or in other words, they are not unknown:

• Without strategy, no focus
• Without focus, no goal achievement
• Without clear goals, no measurement of success
• Without precise target group analysis, no suitable social media network
• Without sufficient target group knowledge, no suitable content and offers
• Without sufficient time and effort, no feedback and interactions

In summary, this means that for success in social selling we need not only sufficient time, but also a formulated strategy with clear goals and descriptions of the people we want to reach (in all their diversity and complexity). I am deliberately avoiding the word target group here. If you don’t work out these basics in advance, you will put a lot of energy into unnecessary measures and ultimately only reap frustration.

The best tips for your social selling

Now that you’ve read a lot about social selling at this point, here are a few more concrete tips for implementing it in your everyday life.

• Establish a daily routine for social media engagement.
• Listen to the conversations of potential customers in the networks and then use their expressions and language
• Be really (!) helpful, inspiring or funny, in any case find your own style
• Focus on dialogue instead of selling and not wanting to sell on pressure
• Be attentive and mindful, because everyone likes to feel special – including potential business partners.
• Maintain relationships on a sustained and ongoing basis. When it has to be sold, it is too late.

Whether you’re doing social selling in B2B or B2C, we’d like to finish by sharing three trends to ensure efforts get the right amount of attention: Diversity, creativity and video content are currently high on the agenda! If these approaches can be brought in a personal way, social selling is bound to be a success.

The post Is social selling equally suitable for B2B and B2C? first appeared on Zensations.

What is Growth Marketing?

Growth marketing is next-generation marketing, because it is by no means limited to the field of marketing itself. Growth marketing involves the entire company, from product development and support to corporate communications. In growth marketing, the company itself, with its corporate philosophy as much as with its banner advertising, acts as a growth driver. Growth marketing works through every fiber of the organization and has only one goal: to deliver the best experience and outcome to users at every touchpoint, turning them into satisfied customers, fans and ultimately brand ambassadors. That’s the big idea behind the comprehensive marketing concept. Broken down to the everyday work of a growth marketer, this means: growth marketers use growth hacks and techniques with which they regularly interact with users on different channels, along the entire sales funnel. The experimental approach is crucial here, because one should not be afraid of making mistakes. It is a matter of trying out measures quickly, arriving at valid figures quickly and then drawing the right conclusions from them quickly. The term “growth marketing” itself originated with Sean Ellis, a former marketer at Dropbox. At the time, he used the term “growth hacking” to describe the further development of traditional marketing across departmental boundaries with the aim of achieving the fastest possible user growth. From then on, the concept of growth hacking took off and is now an essential part of any marketing strategy.

Growth Marketing in action

Traditional marketing always pulls the same measures out of the hat to reach potential customers: Sales, promotions, newsletters, advertising campaigns with the same keywords, online and digital advertising… the results achieved are usually below expectations. The user-market behavior described above is used as an “explanation”. However, nothing changes in terms of strategy or access. So traditional marketing efforts tend to be set up and forgotten. The situation is completely different with growth marketing, where the data and figures that constantly roll in are immediately channeled back into optimizing the measures that have been set. And the tools? These are mostly already well known to us: A/B testing, content marketing, mail campaigns, SEO, etc. However, the measures are mostly put together in a new way and interpreted in a data-driven way. So growth marketing is heavily numbers-driven. At the same time, it is also a stochastic process – with many innovative, creative, quirky measures, you simply don’t know in advance whether they will deliver the hoped-for results or not. Chance is therefore a constant companion in growth marketing, one that is definitely kept in check by a love of numbers and data.

What makes a good growth marketer?

Growth marketing is fun when you hire the right person to do it. A person born for growth hacking

• loves numbers, data, facts. They are the faithful companion and are not perceived as a burden, but as constantly arriving feedback that steers one’s own work in the desired direction.
• is creative and playful. In the spirit of Pippi Longstocking, Growth Marketers simply think of the world differently: “I’ve never done this before, so I’m sure I’m good at it!” is a central guiding principle of these personalities.
• has a pronounced product focus. He or she is absolutely convinced of the benefits of the product and does not sell with tricks or features. Growth hackers inspire!
• is a Swiss army knife in the area of know-how and skills. Only those who understand the entire range of all possible and necessary measures and, in the best case, can apply them themselves immediately, will also use them in a targeted manner.
• is not afraid to make mistakes. Only those who try things out can know whether and how they work. Figures and data help to quickly correct steps that have been taken.
• tells the best stories! Despite all the data, the story that is told must also fit. The focus here is on understanding the corporate philosophy and transporting it to the customer.
• always keeps the overview.
• takes stress and setbacks in stride; after all, it’s part of the game.

Important elements of a growth marketing strategy

Growth marketing integrates very well with existing marketing, but has a particular focus on certain points in the strategic approach.

A/B TESTS

Testing different variants in real-time operation – and yes, there may be more than two variants! – is one of the central control elements in growth marketing. These tests are used in a wide variety of areas: whether it’s social media ad placements, newsletters, landing pages, or call-to-actions… little is left to chance here, but many things are tested against each other. The winning variant gets the award – but also only until the next round!

MULTI- AND CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING

Our potential customers are on different channels, some on many, some only on some. A successful marketing strategy takes this into account – so does growth marketing. That’s why it’s especially important for growth marketers to think in terms of multi-layered channels. This requires a deep understanding of the target groups’ preferences and communication habits that characterize our customers. Meeting people where they are, with the means that appeal to them, is the core of a growth-driven multi-channel strategy.

CUSTOMER TRAVEL

Speaking of target group understanding: The customer journey, the customer lifecycle, is the most important compass for successful growth marketing. If you don’t understand where potential customers come from, how they pay attention, make decisions, and use the products they buy, you’ll have a hard time in marketing in general, but especially in growth marketing. It is along this customer journey that typical growth marketing success stories can be told.

Growth Marketing Recipes for Success

Where can growth marketing approaches be used particularly effectively? This question was certainly burning under our nails at the beginning of the article and is now being tackled.

NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

Acquiring new customers is a tough business. Anyone who pushes too hard for sales here has often lost the customer right at the start. Growth marketers try to build a long-term strategy here that is based on trust and always offers the potential customer the opportunity to decide for themselves. Content marketing is one of the central measures when it comes to winning new customers in growth marketing: Stop selling, start being useful!

Starting with a well-developed persona, the first step is always to understand even better where the trigger points and interests of potential buyers lie. But it is also about communicating the company in its entirety, with its corporate philosophy and purpose. As Simon Sinek rightly says: “People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it!” It’s up to marketers and communications professionals to deliver that message.

ONBOARDING

Once purchased, a new customer gives us the ideal opportunity to increase engagement with our brand and collect even more information and data along the way. The goal of growth marketing at this point is to make the customer journey the best it can be and the most supportive for the new user – across multiple channels. Growth marketers don’t just want happy buyers, they want to understand what excites customers and what they need for absolute happiness, so that they can subsequently delight even more (future) customers.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Who is more credible than an absolutely enthusiastic user? No one. This is exactly why referral campaigns are extremely well suited for growth hacking. The social proof that comes from referrals is huge; after all, we all value recommendations from friends, colleagues and family members. The central question at this point: What do you offer the recommender and what do you offer the new user? Here, a colorful playground opens up for enthusiastic growth hackers. Not only the goodie but also the way to it offer a colorful palette of possibilities and many potential measuring points.

LOYALTY AND CUSTOMER RETENTION

We all know it: It is better to keep existing customers instead of constantly generating new ones. Yet this final stage of the customer journey usually enjoys the least attention – not so with Growth Hacking! Warum? Existing customers buy more easily than unknown people do. The prerequisite for this behavior is a pronounced satisfaction with the existing product. The goal at this point must therefore be to show our customers that they are very important to us and that they are “part of the family”. Therefore, they always get the VIP treatment. Customer loyalty campaigns are a great way to convey this sense of belonging to our existing customers. It is important to know what our customers love about our products and what is still missing for perfect happiness. Again, it is figures, data and facts that we need in order to be able to derive meaningful and effective measures here.

These days, growth marketing is certainly something we should all take to heart. The great thing is that everything we need for this is already available to us. Our focus as marketers should be on continuously testing and optimizing the actions we set in place to increase engagement and improve our customers’ experience. We need to move away from the watering can principle to highly personalized access. And while we are creatively drawing from the full, we are constantly gathering empirical data in the form of figures, which we iteratively incorporate into our next measures. What sounds like a lot of networked, multi-layered work can also be seen as a playground for creative, bold, and numbers-loving marketers. In any case, we really like this point of view.

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Where does FOMO come from and why does it trigger us?

Missing out on something is a universal fear that goes way back into human history. In the past, being left behind could reach life-threatening proportions in extreme cases. FOMO is so powerful because it’s ingrained in our brains, says psychologist Anita Sanz . “When we roamed in small groups, it was critical for survival to stay informed,” she says. “For example, if you weren’t aware of a new food source, you literally missed something that could mean the difference between life and death.” With that in mind, it’s no wonder we all prefer to “be there.” FOMO triggers our deepest needs – survival, among others.

Even today, FOMO works perfectly in intelligence. Reports of war and terror can indeed make the difference between life and death. But we don’t want to go that far here. We also find the fear of missing out on something in connection with the use of digital media – especially social media, and since 2013 the term FOMO has even been officially in the Oxford Dictionary.

How FOMO works in marketing

With exclusive offers that we should not miss or newsletter subscriptions that keep us up to date, online marketing has been acting more or less “unconsciously” for a long time. That is, whenever it is suggested that we are otherwise missing out on something. Push notifications from our social media channels on the smartphone also hit the same trigger.

FOMO-based marketing, on the other hand, uses this particular level of emotion in a very targeted way. Our need to have the latest info on an ongoing basis is deliberately addressed and reinforced. In this way, the attention of the target group is quickly reached and an enormously effective sales lever is activated. A 2013 study shows that 60% of respondents buy related items within the first 24 hours as a result of FOMO marketing. Food, travel and the event and party sector are predestined for such FOMO tactics.

New incentives and products are constantly reaching us via smartphones and mobile devices, coupled with the urge to want them. FOMO marketing triggers the desire not to miss anything and thus encourages people to buy products or services. Users become customers. The short reaction time and quick readiness to act brought about by FOMO favor impulse buying. Customers are cleverly told that it is better to buy now than to regret it later. They buy because they feel they are missing out on something good otherwise. We all know it: Some still from the tele-shopping channel, where the available quantity of the product decreases every minute, others again link the countdown on a sales page with it. Both have the same goal: to suggest to the customer that he should decide and take action now!

Who and where is the target audience of FOMO marketing?

Social media is the ideal playground and Millenials are the largest potential audience, according to the summary. Millenials, the later Generation Z, but also generally users of social networks and frequently used apps are the largest FOMO audience. With three billion active social media users worldwide, there is a huge target group here that is easy to reach with this strategy. Research results and https://strategyonline.ca/2015/03/09/the-impact-of-fomo/ suggest that FOMO is most prevalent among Millenials. Over 60% react to FOMO with a buying reflex. However, a recent study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships suggests that fear of missing out is not exclusively related to younger age. According to Washington State University psychologists, people with feelings of loneliness, lower self-worth, and less self-care exhibit a tendency toward FOMO. Possibly the need to belong is also actively served here. If so, that’s a point where you should also include ethical considerations in your marketing.

FOMO in the social media environment

Social networks provide a permanent insight into what is happening in the world and what other people are doing in their everyday lives. More choices are consistently displayed in real time than users can track in the time available. The desire to stay tuned online to constantly keep track of what they would miss without using the medium is increasing. Who wouldn’t want to be there and share in great experiences of others when you already don’t have them yourself?

Posted pictures of great experiences of the friends strengthen the impression of having missed something. In addition, in the virtual world of social media, it is many times easier to maintain a large number of friendships. This would require significantly more effort in the real world. Likes and positive reviews are equated with well-being and create a sense of belonging. Everything you need seems to be available in the filter bubble of digital media. The perception is clearly distorted and confirms to the user that he is missing out on something if he does not stay online. Social platforms thus provide the ideal breeding ground for FOMO.

Incidentally, the counter-movement of FOMO is called JOMO “Joy of missing out”. This is where you rejoice in what you’ve missed. It is even wanted not to be everywhere, because it brings the superior feeling of being independent. The online behavior of friends is very well observed and tracked, but the reaction and the feeling is different. You emancipate yourself from the filter bubble. In addition, there is a trend toward digital detox: consciously refraining from consuming digital media in phases.

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