Best Free Online Marketing Guide For Online Entrepreneur

Anyone in the creative life knows there’s not really anything new under the sun. There are only seven stories; all art is derivative; fashions are cyclical. But technology? That keeps changing. It keeps moving forward, inexorably, leaving behind those who can’t get with the program. Or does it? What hit me was that although technology changes, although the delivery method changes, many emerging online trends mirror things from the past. Things which have come and gone – ebbed in and out of our way of life. And it made me wonder whether the same will happen again. The stimulus for this realization was learning about Pinterest’s ‘live shopping events’ with ‘creators’, where regular people will watch richer people talk up their products and sell things with their charm and sparkling wit. And I couldn’t help but bitterly mutter ‘millennial QVC’. Indeed, I shook my fist so hard that I put my back out and needed to play Parappa the Rapper for a while to calm myself down. Now, look, ...

Actor Bill Pullman revisits one of his most famous scenes to celebrate our independence from the coronavirus and the confines of our own homes. Budweiser’s epic new ad and a free beer offer aims to raise vaccine awareness and education in partnership with the humanitarian organization Direct Relief. Budweiser pledged to buy the United States ‘a round on us’ if it hit the White House’s 70% vaccination goal by July 4. While this target won’t be met, the iconic American brewer decided we all deserved a free Bud anyway. Beginning Friday, legal drinking age consumers can go to MyCooler.com/beer to get their free beverage. To celebrate a moment when America finally can get together in-person and hoist a Budweiser, the brand created an epic 2+ minute ad starring Independence Day actor Bill Pullman. Titled ’Go Fourth, America’, the spot celebrates our freedom “from being cooped up while baking bread and ignoring basic hygiene”. Instead of defeating aliens, Pullman calls for Americans to d...

TikTok has furthered its involvement in football by signing a sponsorship with Wrexham AFC, the club gaining media waves from its joint owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. Their ownership, part of a media journey resulting in a Netflix series, will also be pushed on TikTok for the next two seasons via the club account.  Furthermore, the TikTok name and logo will be appearing across the new shirts. In particular, the deal promises to ‘break new ground’ via additional reach in the TV show Welcome to Wrexham. Humphrey Ker, executive director at Wrexham AFC, said: “We were blown away by the ideas that TikTok had for their partnership with the club. The opportunity to access the full breadth of their platform creates a community-building opportunity many will envy.” Reynolds and McElhenney will make appearances on the TikTok account, baiting fans on to the platform.  <blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite=" https://www.tiktok.com/ @wrexham_afc/video/69795718427595...

Despite the recent update from Google pushing back the timeline for the withdrawal of the third-party cookie, brand marketers are still worrying about how this impending change, combined with the many new data privacy restrictions being introduced to iPhones, will impact their ability to target consumers with relevant advertising. However, rather than fear these changes, marketers should welcome the steps being taken to safeguard consumer data privacy and recognize the opportunity to leverage the massively rich, privacy-compliant consumer datasets that are still available to them. At Blis, we believe that taking cookies off the table and turning instead to localized, anonymized consumer data and the valuable insights contained within will ultimately lead to better, more relevant and more effective ad campaigns than before. Location data, plus… We specialize in providing marketers with highly accurate, anonymized consumer location data. This authenticated information on where consum...

30-second summary: Being agile does not mean being reactive Agility can be a tool that goes beyond marketing and empowers your entire business in uncertain times How do you shift from temporary knee-jerk reactions to strategic responses with marketing agility? CFA Institute’s CMO and Managing Director encapsulates agility and its impact on business growth in a post-pandemic world Today’s marketing leaders know that agility is no longer a “nice to have”. Marketing agility is essential to a brand’s ability to survive and thrive. The massive transformation spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic made agile marketing more important than ever before. According to McKinsey , “agile, in the marketing context, means using data and analytics to continuously source promising opportunities or solutions to problems in real-time, deploying tests quickly, evaluating the results, and rapidly iterating. At scale, a high-functioning agile marketing organization can run hundreds of campaigns simultan...

Social media ROI is one of the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) in marketing. It is often expressed as a percentage. KPIs allow you to compare and contrast different marketing channels to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of each channel.  Unlike measurements such as likes or shares, which are specific to social media, you can easily compare the ROI of all your social networks to that of your search engine advertising or email campaigns. This is because analyzing your ROI across various channels allows you to rationalize the impact of all your marketing efforts with one clear concise single measurement. This analysis helps you identify immediately which social networks are most profitable as well as cost-effective for your business. How do you measure customer engagement on social media? Engagement is often considered to be one of the most valuable metrics for measuring lead generation on social media. However, you need to consider a multitude of factors...

When the marketing textbooks are written about the impact of lockdown, there will likely be a section dedicated to social listening. This key tactic has left an indelible mark on how both McDonald’s and Chipotle market to their fan base and beyond. Helping lead the charge are two of The Drum’s Future 50: Faizan Tahir, senior marketing manager, calendar planning, McDonald’s and Neiv Toledano, senior social media strategist, Chipotle. “Chipotle is my life!” This proclamation went viral on Vine when that was still a thing. Looking to bring a little fun into people’s lives during the ominous days of February, Chipotle re-created this famous meme with the now 12-year-old Ron Murray. The internet applauded. Chipotle’s social media team had done it again. “Our goal on social is really to supercharge our superfans. That’s the number one thing,” says Neiv Toledano, senior social media strategist, Chipotle. Toledano is one of The Drum’s Future 50 honorees this year. “At a time when there a...

Recruiting the next generation of creative superstars has never been easy for agencies, but with home working the norm it’s been more challenging than ever. The Drum spoke to BBH Singapore chief creative officer Sascha Kuntze about why the agency is gamifying the process in a virtual office.  While most of The Drum’s interviews are conducted virtually these days, speaking to BBH Singapore’s Kuntze in his virtual office space was a new experience. The agency has entirely recreated the office space in the style of a retro computer game via the video calling platform Gather. The accuracy of the representation is very close to the real office, complete with pool tables, meeting rooms and BBH Singapore’s unique ‘red library room’, which runs as a central focal point of the warehouse-style space.  Show me entity :: 37744 Turned into a computer game that shares a likeness with Stardew Valley or older retro games, it’s a genuinely fun space to interact with people in a way...

Online gaming is one sector that has benefited enormously in post-pandemic India. Thanks to restricted mobility and fewer entertainment options, consumers have taken to gaming like never before. Girish Menon, partner and head (media and entertainment) at KPMG India, takes a look at what is making this sector tick, along with key takeaways for marketers. The online gaming segment has grown at a rapid pace over the last three or four years in varying degrees across the globe and is now competing with traditional forms of entertainment for consumer attention. Even as Covid-19-induced lockdowns had an adverse impact on the economy and traditional segments of the M&E industry, online gaming is one of the unique sectors that got a leg up in terms of both consumption and monetization. The India story has been particularly standout in terms of the overall growth shown by the segment. According to a recent report launched by consulting firm KPMG to better understand the burg...

Early next year, Chrome will follow the lead of Safari and Firefox and stop enabling third-party cookies. Cross-site tracking will only be possible on one browser in 10 and the foundations of current online ad targeting will be taken away. As a result, marketers are focusing more and more on the data they collect from their own customer interactions and how they can leverage that with partners. But this process is revealing a series of gaps in trust between the various stakeholders; not just between the company and its partners or between the company and its customers, but within the company itself. “It’s becoming more and more important for brands to prepare for a future where they need to create a unified view of their customer without access to any third-party data,” explains Vihan Sharma, managing director for Europe at data connectivity platform provider LiveRamp. “Therefore, data collaboration with partners becomes key. The role of technology in this situation is to reduce the ...

Each week, we ask readers of The Drum – from brands, agencies and everything in between –  for their advice on real problems facing today’s marketing practitioners. Working from home certainly has its advantages. The dress code is relaxed, you’re in charge of Spotify and the commute is very short. One downside, however, is your reduced visibility – especially to managers and supervisors. And if they can’t see you working hard, you might miss out on credit due your way or opportunities for advancement. In the UK, employees who work from home have been found to be half as likely to be promoted , as staff that work from the office That concern will surely grow in coming months, as workers across the world are gradually summoned back to the office. The boss of Morgan Stanley, for example, warned staff last week their careers would stagnate if they opted to remain at home. So, how can you make sure you’re standing out from the pack? We asked our new Future 50 inductees for their...

US podcast advertising spend is projected to rise from $758m in 2020 to $2.4bn in 2025. Forrester claims that’s a compound annual growth rate of 26%. With this level of investment, it is no surprise companies like Spotify are racing to build comprehensive targeting networks in audio. The Drum explores Forrester’s 2021 Podcast Advertising Forecast and pulls out four pivotal trends. Lagging growth Podcasting growth lagged behind digital advertising in general in 2020. The report anticipates a recovery this year and acceleration in 2022. It reads: “Podcast advertising growth will benefit from a rebound in mobility, a recovery in brand advertising, and investments by digital media platforms in better podcast monetization.” It had the combined digital advertising revenue of Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft (Bing), Twitter and Snap grow at 15% in 2020, slower than 2019’s 20% but still respectable. The digital shift and a surge in e-commerce drove that. It estimates that US podcast a...

Spotify has expanded the Spotify Audience Network beyond the US, encouraged by early results from the advertising product and the effectiveness of targeting in the audio space. Having been in the US since April, the audio marketplace has been made available in the UK, Australia and Canada. The Drum explores what this means for the audio company.  What it means It makes available listeners across ad-supported music and premium podcasts – including those hosted on Spotify-owned Megaphone and Anchor. It’s a growing part of the business, with testing already under way to introduce the format on its self-serve ad platform Spotify Ad Studio, starting with Spotify Originals and Exclusives for US advertisers. Spotify claims that nearly 60% of its US podcast advertiser base is advertising with the Spotify Audience Network. This includes Volkswagen and Saks. It promises “a broad range of easy-to-use, audience-based targeting tools including demographic targeting, geogra...

Another week, another wave of senior appointments and departures at brands, agencies and media owners. Check out our global round-up of who is moving where (and why it matters) below, then head over to our  People on the Move  hub to see who else has been moving up the career ladder. Over the past seven days, we’ve seen changes at Dunkin’, Pernod Ricard and IPG. If you’re looking to make your next move, remember to subscribe to our bi-monthly newsletter, Working it Out,  which gathers up the best new marketing vacancies and helps you get interview-sharp. Got a People on the Move story or tip-off for us? Send it to  peopleonthemove@thedrum.com  for consideration before next Tuesday. Brands Dunkin’ has announced the appointment of marketing veteran Rafael Acevedo to the position of Dunkin’ US chief marketing officer, effective immediately.  Acevedo will report directly to Scott Murphy, head of the inspire beverage-snack category and president o...

While gearheads may dream of a relaxed cruise on the open road, the reality for most drivers is more stressful. According to DDB Sydney, 79% of Australians experience some kind of anxiety around driving. And 59% of drivers fear parallel parking, worrying that they will hold up traffic or ding another vehicle in the process. That insight has led to the agency’s latest campaign for Volkswagen, which reimagines carriageway conundrums such as merging on to the highway, navigating vast roundabouts or emergency braking for pedestrians as slasher film posters.  Show me entity :: 37737 The campaign sells drivers on the Volkswagen Tiguan’s driver assistance features, which promise to turn tarmac nightmares into driving doddles. Volkswagen Australia marketing communications manager Rowena Kanna said: “The research highlighted what we knew to be true, albeit anecdotally, which is that these little road stresses can quickly creep up to become genuine anxieties and fears. ...

Rapper and weed evangelist Fetty Wap is the new face of Grow House, a digital ecosystem bringing together cannabis, cryptocurrency and NFTs. Alongside social media guru Branden Hampton, the rapper is generating new cultural capital – and perhaps accelerating the growth of real capital – at the intersection of two sectors on the cusp of blastoff. Fetty Wap, the Grammy-nominated hip hop artist whose viral track Trap Queen earned him numerous awards, is the new face of Grow House, a crypto-cannabis crossover startup. Grow House bills itself as the first-ever decentralized cannabis game. Like an adult Farmville, in the Grow House ecosystem players can grow their own virtual weed and earn $GROW tokens, the cryptocurrency powering the platform’s virtual economy. Players can ‘plant’ $GROW as well as other cryptocurrencies to grow Money Trees and watch their yields grow. They can also plant seeds that ‘grow’ into tradable non-fungible token (NFT) ‘plants’. Plus, the ...