Almost Timely Archives - Page 16 of 18 - Christopher S. Penn

Almost Timely News, 30 January 2022: Video Newsletter Edition, Poll Results, A/B Testing

Almost Timely News, 30 January 2022: Video Newsletter Edition, Poll Results, A/B Testing :: View in Browser

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Watch This Newsletter

Click here for the video version of this newsletter on YouTube »

Click here for an MP3 audio only version »

What’s On My Mind: Newsletter Format Results

Well, this was a surprise. I was expecting the vast majority of you to vote for a text-only newsletter, and a handful to vote for rich media formats like audio and video. Instead, this happened:

Newsletter poll results

While a text newsletter is still your preferred format, the other two formats weren’t as far behind as I expected.

So, what happens next? Here’s the trick with results like this. These results are statistically significant. There is a clear “winner”, a clear choice you’ve made. If we were naive marketers, I’d declare text newsletters the winning format and carry on.

But we’re not. We’re experienced marketers, and when we see results like this, we have to stop and think. More than a third of you said text as a format. Almost a third said audio, and just under a third said video.

Which means that if I produced only a text newsletter format, I’d be disappointing two thirds of you. So, we’ll give this a try and see what you think.

By the way, there’s a really important lesson in here, especially if you’re doing lots of testing. This is effectively an A/B test of sorts – well, A/B/C, I suppose, since the poll has three options. What would happen if I declared A the winner and ignored the preferences of B and C? I’d be focusing on pleasing a minority of you, at the expense of the majority.

Is that sound? Is that logical? No, of course not. No one would ever advise you to annoy 61.7% of your customer base, but if I chose only A and ignored B and C, I’d be doing exactly that.

And yet, we and our marketing software doing that every single day, aren’t we? Every time we set up a website optimization test or an email test and we get a 55/45 or a 60/40 split and we declare a “winner”, we are automatically saying the preferences of the minority don’t matter – even when that minority is a sizable portion of our audience.

What if… there were more buyers in B than A? What if the people who chose A were terrible customers and the people who chose B were great customers?

The only time I’d feel comfortable declaring winners and ignoring the preferences of the non-winners is if there was an overwhelming majority, like a 95/5 split. And even then, I might want to dig into who’s in the 5% to see what, if anything, makes that population behave differently.

In the meantime, we’re going to try this experiment. For the next few issues, I’m going to see what it will take to make at least some of it available by video and audio (because making video implicitly means making audio) and see how you react to it. If the videos and audio downloads get no views and listens, then we’ll just stick with text. On the other hand, if they take off wildly, I’ll know to keep doing them. Either way, we’ll use data to drive the decision-making process.

I hope you see how this process should inform your data-driven marketing as well.

Share With a Friend or Colleague

If you enjoy this newsletter and want to share it with a friend/colleague, please do. Send this URL to your friend/colleague:

https://www.christopherspenn.com/newsletter

ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

If I had to pick one thing for you to take a look at, it’s the Mind Readings piece on the language of our goals, how we talk about our goals.

Skill Up With Free Classes

These are just a few of the free classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

Get Back to Work!

Folks who post jobs in the free Analytics for Marketers Slack community may have those jobs shared here, too. If you’re looking for work, check out these five most recent open positions, and check out the Slack group for the comprehensive list.

Advertisement: AI For Marketers, Third Edition

With every software vendor and services provider proclaiming that they too are an AI-powered company, it’s more difficult to demystify artificial intelligence and its applications for marketers. What is AI? Why should you care? How does it apply to your business?

In the revised Third Edition of AI for Marketers, you’ll get the answers you’ve been looking for. With all-new practical examples, you’ll learn about attribution modeling, forecasting, natural language processing, and how to start your AI journey.

Get your copy now in the version that best suits you:

» AI for Marketers, Digital Edition comes in Kindle, ePub, and PDF formats »

» Ai for Marketers, Print Edition »

What I’m Reading: Your Stuff

Let’s look at the most interesting content from around the web on topics you care about, some of which you might have even written.

Social Media Marketing

Media and Content

SEO, Google, and Paid Media

Advertisement: Supermetrics for Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio is an incredibly powerful tool for bringing your data into one place for analysis. Out of the box, it serves up Google ecosystem data that marketers need – Google Analytics, Google Search Console, YouTube, Google Ads.

But what about… Facebook data? LinkedIn data? SEO data? Data from your CRM or marketing automation software? That’s where Google Data Studio has some gaps.

Fill those gaps with the Supermetrics Integration for Google Data Studio with over 70 different supported integrations like most social networks, CallRail, Adobe Analytics, Bing Ads, Pinterest, Stripe, Semrush, Salesforce, and so many others. Get ALL your marketing data in one place for easy reporting.

Click here for a free trial of Supermetrics for Google Data Studio »

Tools, Machine Learning, and AI

Analytics, Stats, and Data Science

All Things IBM

Ad: Make Better Videos with Techsmith Camtasia

If you enjoy my videos, like You Ask, I Answer, Do Something With Your Marketing, Saturday Night Data Party, and many others, then consider using the platform I use to edit and publish them: Techsmith Camtasia. Camtasia is just the right balance between too easy and inflexible, like iMovie, and absurdly complex and expensive, like Adobe Premiere. It’s got just the right features, from subtitle editing to all the usual transitions and special effects, and it’s a desktop app, so there’s none of this crazy trying to “edit in the cloud” (which is insane for video production). If you need to produce videos, screencasts, and even animations, give Camtasia a try.

Learn more about Techsmith Camtasia »

How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

My blog – daily videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes
My YouTube channel – daily videos, conference talks, and all things video
My company, Trust Insights – marketing analytics help
My podcast, Marketing over Coffee – weekly episodes of what’s worth noting in marketing
My second podcast, In-Ear Insights – the Trust Insights weekly podcast focused on data and analytics
On Twitter – multiple daily updates of marketing news
On LinkedIn – daily videos and news
On Instagram – personal photos and travels
My free Slack discussion forum, Analytics for Marketers – open conversations about marketing and analytics

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You!

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn

January 29, 2022

Almost Timely News, 23 January 2022: Newsletter Format, Mind Readings

Almost Timely News, 23 January 2022: Newsletter Format, Mind Readings :: View in Browser

Get my 12 Days of Data eBook totally free, no forms to fill out »

What’s On My Mind: Newsletter Format

I was wondering something… this week, as you remember, I published our quarterly ad as a video, and hundreds of you viewed it (thank you!). That got me thinking… would you also like this newsletter in multiple formats?

Let’s take a quick poll. Just click on your preferred format below – and you can click more than one. There’s no form to fill out or anything, this is literally the voting process.

I’m curious to see what your answers are.

A little behind the scenes too: what I’ve done to make a super simple poll is send every option to the same landing page, but each option has a unique query parameter (that thing after the question mark in the URL):

Voting options behind the scenes

Once you arrive on my website, Google Analytics reads the URL, ingests its tags (UTM tracking codes), and then records the rest of the information. That means anything I put on the URL also gets recorded. Here’s an example from last year:

Voting example

You can see the results of the poll right in Google Analytics, which keeps things very easy and straightforward.

Why wouldn’t I just rely on the click tracking in my email marketing software? Because we know that open and click tracking in email marketing are a little squishy. I can still do that tracking there, but Google Analytics filters out most bots and spiders if you’ve turned that setting on. That means that the data I get in Google Analytics should be a little more reliable and human.

Why is email marketing click tracking data squishy? Some folks have mail systems and servers that pre-fetch mail. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection does this, which badly skews open rates. In businesses, companies that use high-end firewalls and other cybersecurity protections often have servers that will open and click on every link in an incoming email to check it for malware and viruses. That means, as an email marketer, you may see higher click-through rates than are actually real.

So that’s why I use this particular method for polls in my email newsletters. It’s the least amount of work for you and my best effort at reliable data for me. Feel free to use this technique in your own email marketing!

Share With a Friend or Colleague

If you enjoy this newsletter and want to share it with a friend/colleague, please do. Send this URL to your friend/colleague:

https://www.christopherspenn.com/newsletter

ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

This week, I debuted a new series called Mind Readings. These are topics I had some thoughts about that I wanted to share with you, but weren’t questions anyone asked. They’ll be interspersed with the questions you send me.

Skill Up With Free Classes

These are just a few of the free classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

Get Back to Work!

Folks who post jobs in the free Analytics for Marketers Slack community may have those jobs shared here, too. If you’re looking for work, check out these open positions.

Advertisement: AI For Marketers, Third Edition

With every software vendor and services provider proclaiming that they too are an AI-powered company, it’s more difficult to demystify artificial intelligence and its applications for marketers. What is AI? Why should you care? How does it apply to your business?

In the revised Third Edition of AI for Marketers, you’ll get the answers you’ve been looking for. With all-new practical examples, you’ll learn about attribution modeling, forecasting, natural language processing, and how to start your AI journey.

Get your copy now in the version that best suits you:

» AI for Marketers, Digital Edition comes in Kindle, ePub, and PDF formats »

» Ai for Marketers, Print Edition »

What I’m Reading: Your Stuff

Let’s look at the most interesting content from around the web on topics you care about, some of which you might have even written.

Social Media Marketing

Media and Content

SEO, Google, and Paid Media

Advertisement: Supermetrics for Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio is an incredibly powerful tool for bringing your data into one place for analysis. Out of the box, it serves up Google ecosystem data that marketers need – Google Analytics, Google Search Console, YouTube, Google Ads.

But what about… Facebook data? LinkedIn data? SEO data? Data from your CRM or marketing automation software? That’s where Google Data Studio has some gaps.

Fill those gaps with the Supermetrics Integration for Google Data Studio with over 70 different supported integrations like most social networks, CallRail, Adobe Analytics, Bing Ads, Pinterest, Stripe, Semrush, Salesforce, and so many others. Get ALL your marketing data in one place for easy reporting.

Click here for a free trial of Supermetrics for Google Data Studio »

Tools, Machine Learning, and AI

Analytics, Stats, and Data Science

Ad: Make Better Videos with Techsmith Camtasia

If you enjoy my videos, like You Ask, I Answer, Do Something With Your Marketing, Saturday Night Data Party, and many others, then consider using the platform I use to edit and publish them: Techsmith Camtasia. Camtasia is just the right balance between too easy and inflexible, like iMovie, and absurdly complex and expensive, like Adobe Premiere. It’s got just the right features, from subtitle editing to all the usual transitions and special effects, and it’s a desktop app, so there’s none of this crazy trying to “edit in the cloud” (which is insane for video production). If you need to produce videos, screencasts, and even animations, give Camtasia a try.

Learn more about Techsmith Camtasia »

How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

My blog – daily videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes
My YouTube channel – daily videos, conference talks, and all things video
My company, Trust Insights – marketing analytics help
My podcast, Marketing over Coffee – weekly episodes of what’s worth noting in marketing
My second podcast, In-Ear Insights – the Trust Insights weekly podcast focused on data and analytics
On Twitter – multiple daily updates of marketing news
On LinkedIn – daily videos and news
On Instagram – personal photos and travels
My free Slack discussion forum, Analytics for Marketers – open conversations about marketing and analytics

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You!

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn

January 22, 2022

Almost Timely News, 16 January 2022: Social Media Success, Business Strategy

Almost Timely News, 16 January 2022: Social Media Success, Business Strategy :: View in Browser

Get my 12 Days of Data eBook totally free, no forms to fill out »

What’s On My Mind: When Social Media Works

For those of us who feel like social media marketing is like pushing a boulder uphill repeatedly, it can seriously call into question whether or not unpaid social media is worth it. Can anyone achieve any level of success with unpaid social media?

The answer is an unequivocal yes.

It’s possible for social media channels to drive enormous amounts of traffic and conversions. I witnessed this firsthand on a volunteer campaign I was helping to operate this weekend; the goal was to drive 100 new members to a non-profit organization’s Discord server in the next 12 months. With just basic content creation and outreach to influencers on the overall cause’s hashtag, they achieved that result in 2 days:

Social media campaign results

How? How could such a thing be possible? It comes down to one thing: passion.

The crowd this organization was trying to reach didn’t really have a home, a community, a place to gather online. Large groups of people simply shared content and connected with each other ad hoc using hashtags and popular personalities. Once this group of very passionate people found a place to call home, they flocked to it with abandon.

Now, is this pace sustainable? No. This campaign took advantage of a few concurrent factors:

There wasn’t a single strong community already, so this was an audience looking for a community. If there had been an existing strong community, this campaign would have done poorly.
The fans of this cause are absolutely rabid, and thus will flock to nearly anything with a connection to their cause.
Other than joining the community (which is free), there’s no other substantial call to action, so the barrier to entry and resistance is already low.

That said, what could we learn from this, as marketers? If we’re trying to create traction for something we’re promoting, what does this teach us?

By far, the most critical factor is that passion, that emotional energy. With it, your marketing creative and your campaign has to work less hard to achieve the same results as something which lacks emotional investment. If what your brand and campaign doesn’t have that kind of emotional energy, figure out some way to create it, to find purpose behind what you’re doing that’s bigger than just your company’s success.

Second, is there a community for what you do already out there? If not, and there are people searching for a community, do your best to identify and reach out to them. That group of people seeking a focal point for their energy could be the jump start you need to build a community of your own.

Third, if your audience has passion and energy, chances are you won’t need budget – at least, not very much of it. People who are emotionally motivated to seek out a collective, to find and meet up with others like them need little encouragement to take action. Other than building basic awareness, as a marketer you don’t really need to do anything else.

Unpaid social media can work extremely well if you’re working with an audience that already cares deeply about what you do, and you’re the rallying point around that emotional investment. If you can create that investment, that care, or nurture it if it’s already there, unpaid social media can still be a powerful marketing tool.

Share With a Friend or Colleague

If you enjoy this newsletter and want to share it with a friend/colleague, please do. Send this URL to your friend/colleague:

https://www.christopherspenn.com/newsletter

ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

Got a question you want me to answer on the air? Just hit reply and ask.

Skill Up With Free Classes

These are just a few of the free classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

Get Back to Work!

Folks who post jobs in the free Analytics for Marketers Slack community may have those jobs shared here, too. If you’re looking for work, check out these open positions.

Advertisement: AI For Marketers, Third Edition

With every software vendor and services provider proclaiming that they too are an AI-powered company, it’s more difficult to demystify artificial intelligence and its applications for marketers. What is AI? Why should you care? How does it apply to your business?

In the revised Third Edition of AI for Marketers, you’ll get the answers you’ve been looking for. With all-new practical examples, you’ll learn about attribution modeling, forecasting, natural language processing, and how to start your AI journey.

Get your copy now in the version that best suits you:

» AI for Marketers, Digital Edition comes in Kindle, ePub, and PDF formats »

» Ai for Marketers, Print Edition »

What I’m Reading: Your Stuff

Let’s look at the most interesting content from around the web on topics you care about, some of which you might have even written.

Social Media Marketing

Media and Content

SEO, Google, and Paid Media

Advertisement: Supermetrics for Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio is an incredibly powerful tool for bringing your data into one place for analysis. Out of the box, it serves up Google ecosystem data that marketers need – Google Analytics, Google Search Console, YouTube, Google Ads.

But what about… Facebook data? LinkedIn data? SEO data? Data from your CRM or marketing automation software? That’s where Google Data Studio has some gaps.

Fill those gaps with the Supermetrics Integration for Google Data Studio with over 70 different supported integrations like most social networks, CallRail, Adobe Analytics, Bing Ads, Pinterest, Stripe, Semrush, Salesforce, and so many others. Get ALL your marketing data in one place for easy reporting.

Click here for a free trial of Supermetrics for Google Data Studio »

Tools, Machine Learning, and AI

Analytics, Stats, and Data Science

Ad: Make Better Videos with Techsmith Camtasia

If you enjoy my videos, like You Ask, I Answer, Do Something With Your Marketing, Saturday Night Data Party, and many others, then consider using the platform I use to edit and publish them: Techsmith Camtasia. Camtasia is just the right balance between too easy and inflexible, like iMovie, and absurdly complex and expensive, like Adobe Premiere. It’s got just the right features, from subtitle editing to all the usual transitions and special effects, and it’s a desktop app, so there’s none of this crazy trying to “edit in the cloud” (which is insane for video production). If you need to produce videos, screencasts, and even animations, give Camtasia a try.

Learn more about Techsmith Camtasia »

How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

My blog – daily videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes
My YouTube channel – daily videos, conference talks, and all things video
My company, Trust Insights – marketing analytics help
My podcast, Marketing over Coffee – weekly episodes of what’s worth noting in marketing
My second podcast, In-Ear Insights – the Trust Insights weekly podcast focused on data and analytics
On Twitter – multiple daily updates of marketing news
On LinkedIn – daily videos and news
On Instagram – personal photos and travels
My free Slack discussion forum, Analytics for Marketers – open conversations about marketing and analytics

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You!

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn

January 16, 2022

Almost Timely News, 9 January 2022: Obstacles to Your Goals, You Ask, I Answer

Almost Timely News, 9 January 2022: Obstacles to Your Goals, You Ask, I Answer :: View in Browser

Struggling to demonstrate marketing’s value at your agency or department? Watch this on-demand session to learn how to show real value in reporting and ROI »

What’s On My Mind: Two Sets of Obstacles

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about giving yourself an annual review. Last week, we talked about setting goals. This week, let’s talk about obstacles.

Obstacles are those things which get in the way of you achieving your goals, and they come in two flavors, external and internal. To achieve our goals, we have to overcome both sets.

External obstacles are pretty clear cut most of the time. They’re conditions external to us that make it tougher to achieve our goals. If you’ve got a goal to make a million dollars in income this year and you’re working at a wage of 7.25 an hour, your job is an external obstacle to achieving your goal. There simply aren’t enough hours in the year for you to make a million dollars, so you can’t achieve your goal that way.

The way I define an external obstacle is something you don’t really have control over in any significant way. It’s outside of you, in the external world. Yes, you can absolutely change jobs, in the example above, but you can’t change the job itself. In business, if you have a goal of earning a million dollars in revenue for the year and your clients are paying you 500 a month, and you have 5 clients, you’re not going to achieve your goal. Yes, you can make changes but you can’t fundamentally turn 500/month clients into 50,000/month clients in a reasonable timeframe.

Internal obstacles are different – these are things you do have control over. On a personal level, these are the attributes you possess which may be counterproductive to achieving your goal. If you want to make a million dollars but you don’t want to work hard, that personality attribute is an obstacle. There may still be ways for you to achieve your goal, but you’re swimming upstream against yourself. If you want rewarding interpersonal friendships and relationships but you have a cargo plane’s worth of unresolved trauma, that may be an internal obstacle to your goal.

On a business and professional level, if the fear you have of leaving your job outweighs the potential reward of finding a job better suited to you, that fear is an internal obstacle. If your company wants to generate a million dollars of revenue and you have unproductive workers, that’s an internal obstacle. However, unlike external obstacles, you have more control over these internal obstacles.

Chances are, if your goal is big enough, bold enough, audacious enough, you will have both internal and external obstacles in your way. For example, if you want to improve your fitness levels, you need a way to do that – which may be constrained by resources – and you need the internal motivation to do that. External and internal obstacles exist in the way of your goal.

What makes obstacles especially challenging is their opacity. We may set out to achieve a goal and be discouraged along the way – but we may not know why, may not be able to see clearly why we fell short of our goal. So, what we need to do is list out in great detail what the internal and external obstacles are. Take the goal you set from last week’s newsletter and make a bullet-point list of the external and internal obstacles which would stand in the way of achieving that goal.

Then, start thinking about what strategies and tactics you could use to slowly dissolve those obstacles, make them less challenging. How could you deplete their power to stand in your way? By forcing transparency on your obstacles, you reduce their ability to hinder you and tame their size from mythical beasts to annoying pests.

Share With a Friend or Colleague

If you enjoy this newsletter and want to share it with a friend/colleague, please do. Send this URL to your friend/colleague:

https://www.christopherspenn.com/newsletter

ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

This week, You Ask, I Answer returned! The show is back on the air, so catch up on this week’s episodes. Got a question you want me to answer on the air? Just hit reply and ask.

Skill Up With Free Classes

These are just a few of the free classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

Get Back to Work!

Folks who post jobs in the free Analytics for Marketers Slack community may have those jobs shared here, too. If you’re looking for work, check out these open positions.

Got an open position you want to share? Post it in the Analytics for Marketers Slack community!

Advertisement: AI For Marketers, Third Edition

With every software vendor and services provider proclaiming that they too are an AI-powered company, it’s more difficult to demystify artificial intelligence and its applications for marketers. What is AI? Why should you care? How does it apply to your business?

In the revised Third Edition of AI for Marketers, you’ll get the answers you’ve been looking for. With all-new practical examples, you’ll learn about attribution modeling, forecasting, natural language processing, and how to start your AI journey.

Get your copy now in the version that best suits you:

» AI for Marketers, Digital Edition comes in Kindle, ePub, and PDF formats »

» Ai for Marketers, Print Edition »

What I’m Reading: Your Stuff

Let’s look at the most interesting content from around the web on topics you care about, some of which you might have even written.

Social Media Marketing

Media and Content

SEO, Google, and Paid Media

Advertisement: Supermetrics for Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio is an incredibly powerful tool for bringing your data into one place for analysis. Out of the box, it serves up Google ecosystem data that marketers need – Google Analytics, Google Search Console, YouTube, Google Ads.

But what about… Facebook data? LinkedIn data? SEO data? Data from your CRM or marketing automation software? That’s where Google Data Studio has some gaps.

Fill those gaps with the Supermetrics Integration for Google Data Studio with over 70 different supported integrations like most social networks, CallRail, Adobe Analytics, Bing Ads, Pinterest, Stripe, Semrush, Salesforce, and so many others. Get ALL your marketing data in one place for easy reporting.

Click here for a free trial of Supermetrics for Google Data Studio »

Tools, Machine Learning, and AI

Analytics, Stats, and Data Science

All Things IBM

Ad: Make Better Videos with Techsmith Camtasia

If you enjoy my videos, like You Ask, I Answer, Do Something With Your Marketing, Saturday Night Data Party, and many others, then consider using the platform I use to edit and publish them: Techsmith Camtasia. Camtasia is just the right balance between too easy and inflexible, like iMovie, and absurdly complex and expensive, like Adobe Premiere. It’s got just the right features, from subtitle editing to all the usual transitions and special effects, and it’s a desktop app, so there’s none of this crazy trying to “edit in the cloud” (which is insane for video production). If you need to produce videos, screencasts, and even animations, give Camtasia a try.

Learn more about Techsmith Camtasia »

How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

My blog – daily videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes
My YouTube channel – daily videos, conference talks, and all things video
My company, Trust Insights – marketing analytics help
My podcast, Marketing over Coffee – weekly episodes of what’s worth noting in marketing
My second podcast, In-Ear Insights – the Trust Insights weekly podcast focused on data and analytics
On Twitter – multiple daily updates of marketing news
On LinkedIn – daily videos and news
On Instagram – personal photos and travels
My free Slack discussion forum, Analytics for Marketers – open conversations about marketing and analytics

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You!

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn

Almost Timely News, 2 January 2022: Happy New Year, Goal Setting

Almost Timely News, 2 January 2022: Happy New Year, Goal Setting :: View in Browser

I’ve got a video series relaunch starting up soon. If you’re not subscribed to my YouTube channel, please hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss it!

What’s On My Mind: Goal Setting for 2022

Happy New Year!

Last week, we talked about giving yourself an annual review. This week, let’s talk about setting goals. It’s appropriate for the time of year – as so many people love to say, new year, new year. So, how do we set a goal effectively?

The short answer is the 6Ws, the timeless framework. A goal or New Year’s resolution without any details really is just a wish, and wishes have a tendency to not come true in the real world. Let’s do two examples, one personal and one professional.

First, personal. Let’s say I want to run a 10K this year. I’ll break this down by the 6Ws.

Why? Why am I doing this? For my health? A sense of accomplishment? Boredom in the pandemic? Why is this a goal I’ve set? For me, I want to run a 10K simply to prove to myself that I can. I’ve been running since relatively early in the pandemic as a hobby, and I’ve come to enjoy it. I did a 5K in 2021, which was a milestone achievement for me, and I want to extend that.
What? What am I going to do to make this happen? I need to run consistently and with a training program.
How? This is where most goals fall apart. There’s no plan in place to make them happen, no tactical nitty-gritty. For me, I have a mileage and training plan to reach that point; I’m currently able to run about 8K consistently so now it’s closing the gap. I need to add some shorter conditioning runs and make a couple of dietary changes as well.
When? When is this goal due? I aim to have run a 10K by April, 2022.
Where? Where will I achieve my goal? Are there specific places I need to be? For me, of course, it’s either a treadmill or the open roads near my house.
Who? Who will hold me accountable to my goal? Goals are easier to achieve and harder to ignore if there’s someone else watching over us.

The 6W structure helps us bring our goal to life and understand where we have clarity about achieving our goal and where we need additional help. Let’s take a look at something professional. Suppose I want to learn Adobe Premiere better.

Why? Why is this goal important? I want to produce better, more professional videos and the tools I have now are too constraining to let my ideas come to life.
What? I specifically want to learn Adobe Premiere and After Effects for making more professional marketing videos. I’ve watched a ton of video on YouTube by many different creators and seen things I want to replicate – but I can’t with my current tools and knowledge.
How? For me, I have a list of the things I want to be able to replicate, and I consume lessons on YouTube from various Premiere experts to see the different approaches for achieving the ideal outcome. If I need it, there are also plenty of professional communities I can join that will let me connect with peers to see how they’re doing and creating.
When? I’m rolling out a new show Very Soon™, probably within a week or two, but this is ongoing. I’d like to get my workflow nailed down by the end of January.
Where? I’ll be practicing shooting footage in different locations in and around my home. Online, I’ll be publishing on YouTube.
Who? You! I’ll be looking to you to give me feedback, to tell me whether I’m improving whether I’m creating more value for you or not.

As you think about your goals, personal and professional, for the new year, consider examining them through the 6W lens to find gaps that could set you back.

Share With a Friend or Colleague

If you enjoy this newsletter and want to share it with a friend/colleague, please do. Send this URL to your friend/colleague:

https://www.christopherspenn.com/newsletter

ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

If I had to suggest only one of these articles to read from this week, it would be the latest entries in our 12 Days of Data 2021 edition. I put this series together every year and it’s always an eye-opening delight to see the year in review from a data perspective. Let’s get caught up!

Skill Up With Free Classes

These are just a few of the free classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

My blog – daily videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes
My YouTube channel – daily videos, conference talks, and all things video
My company, Trust Insights – marketing analytics help
My podcast, Marketing over Coffee – weekly episodes of what’s worth noting in marketing
My second podcast, In-Ear Insights – the Trust Insights weekly podcast focused on data and analytics
On Twitter – multiple daily updates of marketing news
On LinkedIn – daily videos and news
On Instagram – personal photos and travels
My free Slack discussion forum, Analytics for Marketers – open conversations about marketing and analytics

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You!

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn

Almost Timely News, 26 December 2021: Annual Reviews, 12 Days of Data

Almost Timely News, 26 December 2021: Annual Reviews, 12 Days of Data :: View in Browser

Learn the fundamentals of marketing analytics in a brand new talk »

What’s On My Mind: Annual Reviews

Wherever you are, whatever your belief system, I hope that you have a chance to rest this holiday season, gather together with people you care about, and refresh yourself for the year ahead. This past year was a blur, while 2020 felt like a slog, but there are some days when I still think it’s March 657, 2020. Thank you for being here with me this year.

This week and next, the newsletter will be a little shorter. Actually, a lot shorter, because we all want to enjoy the holidays as best as we can. One interesting exercise I think worth considering is a non-work catalog of the year. We all do reviews of some kind, be it quarterly reviews, annual reviews, etc. and we have – or should have – a decent sense of where we are in our professional lives.

So… when was the last time you gave yourself a non-professional annual review?

Look at the things we ask on annual reviews, like the GOOD framework from Quantum Workplace:

Goals: What goals did you set out for the year? Did you achieve them?
Obstacles: What things stood in the way of your goals? Were you able to work around them?
Opportunities: What did you pursue for learning and professional development to increase your skills?
Decisions: What will you do more of next year? What will you do less of?

That framework is useful for the workplace, but also really useful for the rest of your life.

Where are you with your friendships and relationships? What goals, obstacles, opportunities, and decisions did you have this past year? For example, I’ve doubled down on Slack and Discord and participating in some creative communities that have really nurtured my soul, something essential during the last two years.

Where are you with your personal finances? What goals, obstacles, opportunities, and decisions did you have this past year? For example, I set some saving goals this year that I managed to hit.

Where are you with your spiritual life? What goals, obstacles, opportunities, and decisions did you have this past year? For example, I set a goal to do more meditation, and missed that goal.

Where are you with your health? What goals, obstacles, opportunities, and decisions did you have this past year? I set a goal this past year to run a 5K. Not only did I do that, I managed to improve my fitness so much that I basically run a 5K every weekend.

Where are you with your self-expression? What goals, obstacles, opportunities, and decisions did you have this past year? For example, I started doing more creative writing in 2020 and wanted to continue in 2021, and I managed to do quite a bit more, exceeding my goal.

Before we can talk about our goals and plans for the next year, we need to look at the year that was. We need to do our performance review for the non-work parts of our life – and if it turns out that we got a bad review, that’s okay. That’s the place we start for building a better plan for the next year, and unlike a job where a bad review just gets us fired, a bad review in our personal lives is the blueprint for what’s next for us.

Take the time if you can to do this review for yourself and see how 2021 went for you for everything outside your work.

Share With a Friend or Colleague

If you enjoy this newsletter and want to share it with a friend/colleague, please do. Send this URL to your friend/colleague:

https://www.christopherspenn.com/newsletter

ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

If I had to suggest only one of these articles to read from this week, it would be the latest entries in our 12 Days of Data 2021 edition. I put this series together every year and it’s always an eye-opening delight to see the year in review from a data perspective. Let’s get caught up!

Skill Up With Free Classes

These are just a few of the free classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

Thank You Notes

These are the places you’ve interviewed me – on your podcast, on your blog, in your newsletter. Thank you!

How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

My blog – daily videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes
My YouTube channel – daily videos, conference talks, and all things video
My company, Trust Insights – marketing analytics help
My podcast, Marketing over Coffee – weekly episodes of what’s worth noting in marketing
My second podcast, In-Ear Insights – the Trust Insights weekly podcast focused on data and analytics
On Twitter – multiple daily updates of marketing news
On LinkedIn – daily videos and news
On Instagram – personal photos and travels
My free Slack discussion forum, Analytics for Marketers – open conversations about marketing and analytics

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You!

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn

December 25, 2021

Almost Timely News, 19 December 2021: Empathy Deficit, 12 Days of Data

Almost Timely News, 19 December 2021: Empathy Deficit, 12 Days of Data :: View in Browser

Learn the fundamentals of marketing analytics in a brand new talk »

What’s On My Mind: The Empathy Deficit

What is empathy, and why do we care? The short, academic definition is:

The term “empathy” is used to describe a wide range of experiences. Emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. – The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

We live in a massive empathy deficit at the moment. One look at the headlines or a site like NotAlwaysRight.com and conversations about how we treat each other, about how we do business with each other, and the deficit is clear. We lack empathy almost entirely in our interactions with others.

Why? Why have things gotten so bad? It isn’t just the pandemic, though certainly the added strain and trauma of a global disease is part of the puzzle. Our empathy deficit has been decades in the making, however.

What does empathy do for us? It helps us bond, it helps us find common ground, it helps us soothe and comfort each other in times of trouble. When we express empathy, we help others and help ourselves in the process. From a human perspective, empathy is a really good thing, and we need more of it in our lives.

From a commercial and control perspective, it isn’t. If your job is to sell more stuff by any means necessary, persuading people that they can soothe their pains through purchasing things – we even invented the term retail therapy to explain this – is what you’re after. In fact, we go out of our way as marketers to reinforce the self over others; count how many times during the holiday shopping season you see messaging and marketing about what you deserve, buying a little something for yourself, treating yourself right. That’s not to say you don’t deserve nice things, but the messaging and marketing is encouraging you to face inwards instead of outwards towards others.

The expression of empathy is counterproductive to this commercial goal. If people find comfort and calm in each other, then they don’t need to buy our stuff to make themselves feel better. If they find self-worth and value in a community, then retail therapy rings hollow.

Second, if your job is to persuade people to support your cause, there’s no easier way to rally people to your banner than by creating an enemy to rally against. Politicians and demagogues have done this since time immemorial, creating us vs. them divisions where divisions didn’t previously exist. We even create those divisions for commerce; rallying Red Sox fans against Yankees fans to sell more stuff. What’s changed in the last 20 years is the reach and power of this kind of messaging and marketing, and the artificial intelligence algorithms used to reinforce it.

If you’re trying to create an us vs. them split, empathy is your enemy. You can’t rally people to your cause if they don’t believe the “other” is really the enemy. On the other hand, if you can convince people to abandon empathy and demonize others, you can make the division so stark that it becomes as powerful and as compelling as religion, making your cause part of their identity. Consider the state of politics in many nations right now, so divisive and so ingrained in people’s identities that it is literally killing them.

What’s the solution to the decimation of empathy? As marketers, we owe it to ourselves and to our communities to abandon tactics that persuade people to deprive themselves of empathy. If our products and services are good enough, we should be able to reach people without resorting to soul-crushing marketing tactics. Instead of telling people to simply buy more stuff to feel better, let’s find ways to persuade people to behave with more empathy towards each other and work our products and services in more organically to the ideal outcome.

As individuals, we desperately need to find our tribes, find our people in the world and start there, start rebuilding a sense of concern and care for those closest to us – and then those close to them, and so on and so on until we remember why we should care about each other – and how good it feels when we do.

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Share With a Friend or Colleague

If you enjoy this newsletter and want to share it with a friend/colleague, please do. Send this URL to your friend/colleague:

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ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

If I had to suggest only one of these articles to read from this week, it would be the latest entries in our 12 Days of Data 2021 edition. I put this series together every year and it’s always an eye-opening delight to see the year in review from a data perspective. Let’s get caught up!

Skill Up With Free Classes

These are just a few of the free classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

Thank You Notes

These are the places you’ve interviewed me – on your podcast, on your blog, in your newsletter. Thank you!

What I’m Reading: Your Stuff

Let’s look at the most interesting content from around the web on topics you care about, some of which you might have even written.

Social Media Marketing

Media and Content

SEO, Google, and Paid Media

Advertisement: Supermetrics for Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio is an incredibly powerful tool for bringing your data into one place for analysis. Out of the box, it serves up Google ecosystem data that marketers need – Google Analytics, Google Search Console, YouTube, Google Ads.

But what about… Facebook data? LinkedIn data? SEO data? Data from your CRM or marketing automation software? That’s where Google Data Studio has some gaps.

Fill those gaps with the Supermetrics Integration for Google Data Studio with over 70 different supported integrations like most social networks, CallRail, Adobe Analytics, Bing Ads, Pinterest, Stripe, Semrush, Salesforce, and so many others. Get ALL your marketing data in one place for easy reporting.

Click here for a free trial of Supermetrics for Google Data Studio »

Tools, Machine Learning, and AI

Analytics, Stats, and Data Science

All Things IBM

Ad: Make Better Videos with Techsmith Camtasia

If you enjoy my videos, like You Ask, I Answer, Do Something With Your Marketing, Saturday Night Data Party, and many others, then consider using the platform I use to edit and publish them: Techsmith Camtasia. Camtasia is just the right balance between too easy and inflexible, like iMovie, and absurdly complex and expensive, like Adobe Premiere. It’s got just the right features, from subtitle editing to all the usual transitions and special effects, and it’s a desktop app, so there’s none of this crazy trying to “edit in the cloud” (which is insane for video production). If you need to produce videos, screencasts, and even animations, give Camtasia a try.

Learn more about Techsmith Camtasia »

Good Reads, Long Reads, Interesting Stuff

Fun, Games, and Entertainment

Economics, Politics, Environment, and Society

Advertisement: AI For Marketers, Third Edition

With every software vendor and services provider proclaiming that they too are an AI-powered company, it’s more difficult to demystify artificial intelligence and its applications for marketers. What is AI? Why should you care? How does it apply to your business?

In the revised Third Edition of AI for Marketers, you’ll get the answers you’ve been looking for. With all-new practical examples, you’ll learn about attribution modeling, forecasting, natural language processing, and how to start your AI journey.

Get your copy now in the version that best suits you:

» AI for Marketers, Digital Edition comes in Kindle, ePub, and PDF formats »

» Ai for Marketers, Print Edition »

How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

My blog – daily videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes
My YouTube channel – daily videos, conference talks, and all things video
My company, Trust Insights – marketing analytics help
My podcast, Marketing over Coffee – weekly episodes of what’s worth noting in marketing
My second podcast, In-Ear Insights – the Trust Insights weekly podcast focused on data and analytics
On Twitter – multiple daily updates of marketing news
On LinkedIn – daily videos and news
On Instagram – personal photos and travels
My free Slack discussion forum, Analytics for Marketers – open conversations about marketing and analytics

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You!

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn

Almost Timely News, 12 December 2021: Content Reuse, 12 Days of Data

Almost Timely News, 12 December 2021: Content Reuse, 12 Days of Data :: View in Browser

Learn the fundamentals of marketing analytics in a brand new talk »

What’s On My Mind: Intelligent Content Reuse

Want to know a useful, helpful trick for making the most of the end of the year (or any time of year, really), content-wise? Gather up your best content and bundle it up for your audience.

For example, every year, I gather up the cold opens (this first section of my newsletter) for the entire year and publish it as an eBook. The amount of extra effort this requires is negligible compared to the act of actual content creation.

How do you do this? It depends on what content you have, but here are a couple of thought starters.

If you have a newsletter like this, and you publish frequently (weekly or more often), then simply publish the archive as a collected eBook. You can organize by topic or by date.
If you have a series of YouTube videos or podcasts, consider having them transcribed if you don’t already and then assemble that as an eBook, again by date or by topic.
You can also do a retrospective episode, reviewing the content you created during the year and providing links and such back to the original episodes.
If you have a blog, pull a report like this in Google Analytics:

Share With a Friend or Colleague

If you enjoy this newsletter and want to share it with a friend/colleague, please do. Send this URL to your friend/colleague:

https://www.christopherspenn.com/newsletter

ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

If I had to suggest only one of these articles to read from this week, it would be the first two entries in our 12 Days of Data 2021 edition. I put this series together every year and it’s always an eye-opening delight to see the year in review from a data perspective. Here are the first two entries in the series.

Skill Up With Free Classes

These are just a few of the free classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

Thank You Notes

These are the places you’ve had or mentioned me – on your podcast, on your blog, in your newsletter. Thank you!

What I’m Reading: Your Stuff

Let’s look at the most interesting content from around the web on topics you care about, some of which you might have even written.

Social Media Marketing

Media and Content

SEO, Google, and Paid Media

Advertisement: Supermetrics for Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio is an incredibly powerful tool for bringing your data into one place for analysis. Out of the box, it serves up Google ecosystem data that marketers need – Google Analytics, Google Search Console, YouTube, Google Ads.

But what about… Facebook data? LinkedIn data? SEO data? Data from your CRM or marketing automation software? That’s where Google Data Studio has some gaps.

Fill those gaps with the Supermetrics Integration for Google Data Studio with over 70 different supported integrations like most social networks, CallRail, Adobe Analytics, Bing Ads, Pinterest, Stripe, Semrush, Salesforce, and so many others. Get ALL your marketing data in one place for easy reporting.

Click here for a free trial of Supermetrics for Google Data Studio »

Tools, Machine Learning, and AI

Analytics, Stats, and Data Science

All Things IBM

IBM Watson Health event examines datas future role in life sciences via SiliconANGLE

Ad: Make Better Videos with Techsmith Camtasia

If you enjoy my videos, like You Ask, I Answer, Do Something With Your Marketing, Saturday Night Data Party, and many others, then consider using the platform I use to edit and publish them: Techsmith Camtasia. Camtasia is just the right balance between too easy and inflexible, like iMovie, and absurdly complex and expensive, like Adobe Premiere. It’s got just the right features, from subtitle editing to all the usual transitions and special effects, and it’s a desktop app, so there’s none of this crazy trying to “edit in the cloud” (which is insane for video production). If you need to produce videos, screencasts, and even animations, give Camtasia a try.

Learn more about Techsmith Camtasia »

Good Reads, Long Reads, Interesting Stuff

Fun, Games, and Entertainment

Economics, Politics, Environment, and Society

Advertisement: AI For Marketers, Third Edition

With every software vendor and services provider proclaiming that they too are an AI-powered company, it’s more difficult to demystify artificial intelligence and its applications for marketers. What is AI? Why should you care? How does it apply to your business?

In the revised Third Edition of AI for Marketers, you’ll get the answers you’ve been looking for. With all-new practical examples, you’ll learn about attribution modeling, forecasting, natural language processing, and how to start your AI journey.

Get your copy now in the version that best suits you:

» AI for Marketers, Digital Edition comes in Kindle, ePub, and PDF formats »

» Ai for Marketers, Print Edition »

How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

My blog – daily videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes
My YouTube channel – daily videos, conference talks, and all things video
My company, Trust Insights – marketing analytics help
My podcast, Marketing over Coffee – weekly episodes of what’s worth noting in marketing
My second podcast, In-Ear Insights – the Trust Insights weekly podcast focused on data and analytics
On Twitter – multiple daily updates of marketing news
On LinkedIn – daily videos and news
On Instagram – personal photos and travels
My free Slack discussion forum, Analytics for Marketers – open conversations about marketing and analytics

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You!

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn

December 11, 2021

Almost Timely News, 5 December 2021: Share of Memory, Auditing Google Analytics

Almost Timely News, 5 December 2021: Share of Memory, Auditing Google Analytics :: View in Browser

Learn the fundamentals of marketing analytics in a brand new talk »

What’s On My Mind: Share of Memory

I finally got a chance to upgrade my work laptop after three years. At the time, my last laptop was state of the art, but a lot has changed in three years. Part of the process of upgrading machines for me is to back up my data but none of the applications. In this case, that’s essential because the new Apple Macs have entirely different processors now, so older apps wouldn’t deliver the benefits of the new hardware.

So what I do when faced with a fresh new environment is reinstall apps from memory. I remember what I use on a regular basis and I install those things first. Only after I’ve done that do I look at my old computer and install the stuff that I forgot about and missed.

Installing new stuff

This tells me a couple of things. First, it tells me what I think is most important. For example, when I started installing this new machine, literally the first thing I installed was R and R Studio, my coding environment for much of my data science work at Trust Insights. Without that, I literally cannot do my job.

What’s interesting is what gets left behind. What apps didn’t make the first cut. What apps I frankly don’t need, period, and don’t make it over to the new machine at all. These apps don’t have mindshare. They don’t have space in my head dedicated to them, space in my brain that indicates their importance.

What does any of this have to do with marketing? Suppose I ran a mass unsubscribe tool on every publication and subscription in your inbox. What email newsletters would you remember to re-subscribe to? This happens more often than you think – when people change jobs, anything they subscribed to at their old work address is forgotten, and they have only their memories to rely on for what matters to them. Is your content on that mental list? Would you make the cut if your audience had to start over?

The same is true of your blog. Your podcast. Your YouTube channel. Any communications medium where your audience has to remember you – whether it’s to remember you exist, remember to download things, remember to watch or listen.

This is share of mind, share of memory. How much share of memory do you have? If your audience accidentally deleted all their bookmarks and subscriptions tomorrow, how many of them would come back?

The answer, of course, is directly proportional to the value you provide. Just as the apps that don’t provide regular and frequent value to me are forgotten, our audiences will forget us if we aren’t providing them the same kind of regular, frequent, and great value. The only way to avoid being consigned to the dustbin of memory is to dramatically increase the value we provide.

Share With a Friend or Colleague

If you enjoy this newsletter and want to share it with a friend/colleague, please do. Send this URL to your friend/colleague:

https://www.christopherspenn.com/newsletter

ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

If I had to suggest only one of these articles to read from this week, it would be the piece on building an audit tool for your Google Analytics governance in Google Data Studio. it’s a short 7-minute YouTube video with step-by-step instructions to help you start solving some of your Google Analytics data quality mysteries.

Skill Up With Free Classes

These are just a few of the free classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

Thank You Notes

These are the places you’ve had or mentioned me – on your podcast, on your blog, in your newsletter. Thank you!

What I’m Reading: Your Stuff

Let’s look at the most interesting content from around the web on topics you care about, some of which you might have even written.

Social Media Marketing

Media and Content

SEO, Google, and Paid Media

Advertisement: Supermetrics for Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio is an incredibly powerful tool for bringing your data into one place for analysis. Out of the box, it serves up Google ecosystem data that marketers need – Google Analytics, Google Search Console, YouTube, Google Ads.

But what about… Facebook data? LinkedIn data? SEO data? Data from your CRM or marketing automation software? That’s where Google Data Studio has some gaps.

Fill those gaps with the Supermetrics Integration for Google Data Studio with over 70 different supported integrations like most social networks, CallRail, Adobe Analytics, Bing Ads, Pinterest, Stripe, Semrush, Salesforce, and so many others. Get ALL your marketing data in one place for easy reporting.

Click here for a free trial of Supermetrics for Google Data Studio »

Tools, Machine Learning, and AI

Analytics, Stats, and Data Science

All Things IBM

Ad: Make Better Videos with Techsmith Camtasia

If you enjoy my videos, like You Ask, I Answer, Do Something With Your Marketing, Saturday Night Data Party, and many others, then consider using the platform I use to edit and publish them: Techsmith Camtasia. Camtasia is just the right balance between too easy and inflexible, like iMovie, and absurdly complex and expensive, like Adobe Premiere. It’s got just the right features, from subtitle editing to all the usual transitions and special effects, and it’s a desktop app, so there’s none of this crazy trying to “edit in the cloud” (which is insane for video production). If you need to produce videos, screencasts, and even animations, give Camtasia a try.

Learn more about Techsmith Camtasia »

Good Reads, Long Reads, Interesting Stuff

Fun, Games, and Entertainment

Economics, Politics, Environment, and Society

Advertisement: AI For Marketers, Third Edition

With every software vendor and services provider proclaiming that they too are an AI-powered company, it’s more difficult to demystify artificial intelligence and its applications for marketers. What is AI? Why should you care? How does it apply to your business?

In the revised Third Edition of AI for Marketers, you’ll get the answers you’ve been looking for. With all-new practical examples, you’ll learn about attribution modeling, forecasting, natural language processing, and how to start your AI journey.

Get your copy now in the version that best suits you:

» AI for Marketers, Digital Edition comes in Kindle, ePub, and PDF formats »

» Ai for Marketers, Print Edition »

How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

My blog – daily videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes
My YouTube channel – daily videos, conference talks, and all things video
My company, Trust Insights – marketing analytics help
My podcast, Marketing over Coffee – weekly episodes of what’s worth noting in marketing
My second podcast, In-Ear Insights – the Trust Insights weekly podcast focused on data and analytics
On Twitter – multiple daily updates of marketing news
On LinkedIn – daily videos and news
On Instagram – personal photos and travels
My free Slack discussion forum, Analytics for Marketers – open conversations about marketing and analytics

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You!

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn

December 4, 2021

Almost Timely News, 28 November 2021: The Roundups Are Coming, Temporal Vectorization in SEO

Almost Timely News, 28 November 2021: The Roundups Are Coming, Temporal Vectorization in SEO :: View in Browser

Learn the fundamentals of marketing analytics in a brand new talk »

What’s On My Mind: The Inevitable Year End Roundups

Every year, just before the Thanksgiving holiday, the emails come in. “We’re doing a roundup/trend forecast of what’s hot in marketing and would like you to contribute.”

The Roundups Are Coming

While I’m always pleased that folks ask, the reality is that these roundups tends to be one of two things when they finally make it live.

They’re tired rehashes of the obvious. Mobile has been a trend since 2007. Privacy has been a trend since the early 2010s. VR/AR has been a trend since the mid 2010s.
They’re sales pitches for whatever the brand is selling. The CDP company will publish roundups and trends saying CDPs are the next big thing. The AI company will do the same for AI. Popular speakers on Clubhouse will say social audio is the thing. NFT sales folks will say it’s NFTs.

So, how do we do this better? Unsurprisingly, I’m going to suggest instead of asking for people’s opinions, we look at data. (shocking, I know) Here’s a couple of different ways we could slice this. Let’s say we’re all about content marketing. So we’ll take the top X headlines this year by organic traffic for the content marketing keyword space and slice up our data. What are the words and phrases that the top 25% (the upper quartile) use that are different than the words and phrases that the bottom 25% (the lower quartile) use? That’s a way of picking apart the data and showcasing what really stood out this year.

Content Splits

While many of these terms also suffer from the curse of the obvious, there is one angle that I think is interesting and might bear more digging into. When we look at both the words overall and some of the articles that make it up, 2021 was the year ad and PR agencies started admitting they weren’t especially good at content marketing and started getting more help from outside parties. Larger agency conglomerates simply vacuumed up content marketing agencies, while smaller agencies sought to add specialists when possible, albeit in a tight job market.

We could do the same with tweets, or Google News articles, or blogs just from a selected group of companies. But whatever it is, instead of purely self-serving opinion or the blatantly obvious, we’ll at least come up with something slightly more based in reality.

So please, as you do your year-end recaps and prognostications, use some of the bountiful, inexpensive or even free data available to you to spot trends and find what stands out in a crowded media space.

Share With a Friend or Colleague

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ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

If I had to suggest only one of these articles to read from this week, it would be the piece on temporal vectorization in SEO. This is a new way of thinking about your SEO keywords and topics.

Skill Up With Free Classes

These are just a few of the free classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

Thank You Notes

These are the places you’ve had or mentioned me – on your podcast, on your blog, in your newsletter. Thank you!

What I’m Reading: Your Stuff

Let’s look at the most interesting content from around the web on topics you care about, some of which you might have even written.

Social Media Marketing

Media and Content

SEO, Google, and Paid Media

Advertisement: Supermetrics for Google Data Studio

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Tools, Machine Learning, and AI

Analytics, Stats, and Data Science

All Things IBM

Ad: Make Better Videos with Techsmith Camtasia

If you enjoy my videos, like You Ask, I Answer, Do Something With Your Marketing, Saturday Night Data Party, and many others, then consider using the platform I use to edit and publish them: Techsmith Camtasia. Camtasia is just the right balance between too easy and inflexible, like iMovie, and absurdly complex and expensive, like Adobe Premiere. It’s got just the right features, from subtitle editing to all the usual transitions and special effects, and it’s a desktop app, so there’s none of this crazy trying to “edit in the cloud” (which is insane for video production). If you need to produce videos, screencasts, and even animations, give Camtasia a try.

Learn more about Techsmith Camtasia »

Good Reads, Long Reads, Interesting Stuff

Fun, Games, and Entertainment

Economics, Politics, Environment, and Society

Advertisement: AI For Marketers, Third Edition

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How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

My blog – daily videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes
My YouTube channel – daily videos, conference talks, and all things video
My company, Trust Insights – marketing analytics help
My podcast, Marketing over Coffee – weekly episodes of what’s worth noting in marketing
My second podcast, In-Ear Insights – the Trust Insights weekly podcast focused on data and analytics
On Twitter – multiple daily updates of marketing news
On LinkedIn – daily videos and news
On Instagram – personal photos and travels
My free Slack discussion forum, Analytics for Marketers – open conversations about marketing and analytics

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You!

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn

November 27, 2021

Category: Almost Timely

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