NJ Digital Marketing Conference Highlights Transformational Digital Marketing Trends

This year’s New Jersey Digital Marketing Conference (NJDMConf) took place on July 20, 2018 at Bell Works, Holmdel. Formerly an AT&T Bell Labs research facility and considered to be the birthplace of the greatest technological advances in history, Bell Works was host to hundreds of marketing professionals from all over the tri-state area.

During this full-day event, attendees were given the opportunity to network and learn from industry leaders about the latest trends, insights and tools in digital marketing.

Pete Schauer, marketing director for conference host SEM Geeks, said his goal for the conference was to “Bring marketing folks together, provide relationship building opportunities and educate them to enable them to take away actionable strategies that they can use in their day-to-day marketing activities.”

Featuring six speakers, the event kicked off with Dani Toth, account strategist and digital ad campaign expert at Google, whose presentation, “Getting Smarter with Data: Using Machine Learning To Power Your Marketing” discussed how individual customized data could be used by marketers to work smarter, not harder.

She explained how early mass marketing efforts were focused on a one-size-fits-all experience and purchasing media in silos, and how data-gathering technology has turned that model upside down. Today’s organization has the ability to know when to engage with users, and most importantly, which media channels are appropriate.

“Technology gives us the opportunity to drive customer-centered experiences at every single touch point,” said Toth. Leveraging audience data like what is available through Google is what is used to ensure successful marketing by targeting users at the transaction point.

She also reviewed several customer centric marketing models with a shared theme of building customer relationships. Customers are on multiple platforms and if one is able to leverage data and customize, that’s where the most impact will be seen. Toth emphasized the need to set a specific goal as to whether an organization wants to sell product or increase brand reach.

Google Analytics solutions allow marketers to combine rich data with technology to see results through their targeting services. They offer marketers insight as to when users are graduating school, moving, getting married, etc. which can then be used to determine who may be in the market for an organization’s services. Any organization wishing to reach more prospects can upload data to Google, then use it to find additional customers that match their prospects’ footprint in order for you to sell to them effectively.

“Data can be used by marketers to help organizations rethink their customer journey,” explained Toth. It enables organizations to remain relevant by using customer insights to deliver better marketing ROI and forever change the way organizations interact with customers.

The next presenter was Ty Lingley, a strategic partnership executive at Unbounce, presenting on “How to Create High Converting, Dynamic Landing Pages.”

Lingley noted that anytime a marketer asks prospects to take action, it wants as many of them as possible to respond favorably. Most marketers send traffic to their website which he cleverly named, “Brand Central Station.” He explained that in a campaign, a marketer’s goal is to get as many people as they can to say yes, and when you add too many places to go, it’s too distracting.

“Attention ratio is the number of things a prospect can do and what you want them to do. Your ideal attention ratio should be 1:1,” explained Lingley. “When the attention rate equals this number, your conversion rate increases,” he added.  There should be one conversion goal: decide if you want prospects to download content, take a demo, etc.

He also reviewed five critical elements of a marketing campaign:

1.       Unique Selling Proposition-headlines that states page purpose

2.       Hero Shots-show product or services as used by people in real-time

3.       Benefits-speak directly to the pain your prospects have and ask what problem you are solving for your prospects

4.       Proof-showcase your customers in order to build trust and persuade through “herd mentality”

5.       Call to action-include one conversion goal with two elements: button design and button copy