Insights

Commercial real estate conversions spread revitalizing real estate value from the property at hand to the surrounding submarket and overall property sector.

U.S. office market vacancy recently hit a 30-year high while the housing market still registers a shortage of millions of homes and apartment units. One man's problem is another man's opportunity, it’s been said, and that’s reflected in the real estate world with the increasing number of conversions of commercial buildings into multifamily housing properties.

In the past decade-plus, the retail, industrial and office sectors have all gone through substantial real estate revolutions thanks to man-made (i.e., e-commerce) and pandemic disruptions. Property conversions have been a reality for decades, but those sudden shocks have brought them into greater focus, if not outright need. Behind the Facade: The Feasibility of Converting Commercial Real Estate to Multifamily, a National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) Research Foundation and Urban Land Institute (ULI)  report, explores the feasibility and applicability of converting obsolete or underused commercial properties.

‘Adapt or die’ can seem like a simple (yet stark) decision in business, but with real estate property conversions there are many details to cover. There are many advantages, too, beyond moving from, for example, suburban office, a 23^rd ranked real estate segment for investment and development prospects, to the No. 2 property segment in moderate-income apartments (averaged from its No. 1 and 3 rankings, respectively, in PwC and ULI’s 2023 Emerging Trends in Real Estate report).

According to Behind the Façade, speed and applicability are major benefits in property conversions. One developer said that six to 10 months can be saved on conversion work versus a ground-up project. Secondly, real estate repurposing works well from cities to the suburbs, according to first-hand data from the developers of 29 commercial-to-multifamily conversion projects. Lastly, one perceived disadvantage, dealing with existing occupancy before conversion work, seems to be less of an inhibiting factor. “The developers that needed to negotiate lease terminations with tenants of occupied properties did not report any impediments,” reported RE Business Online.

Adapting a building requires flexibility in planning and process, too. As REBO reported, redesign and reconfiguration can happen in real-time with conversion projects. In the high stakes business of real estate development, it’s always a good idea to have an experienced team of general contractors, architects and engineers. Not surprisingly, property conversions can throw developers a curveball or two. Call it the Forrest Gump-box of chocolates aspect of real estate.

“You really don’t know what you’re getting into until you take off the façade and walls, bring it down to the concrete,” said one developer that was converting a 1960s-vintage property. “Floor plates, column grids, floor-to-floor height, window systems, HVAC, sewer outfall and so much more need to be studied.”

Adaptive reuse and other real estate conversion projects offer great revitalizing value beyond the property in question to the surrounding submarket, sustainable savings, boosted tax revenues and a more balanced overall property sector.

“’Location, location, location’ has been the fundamental rule of the real estate industry, but to be spot on ‘highest and best use,’ another real estate maxim, must follow,” said Michael Rivera, infinitee’s creative director. “In short, be where the demand is and create — and sometimes convert — space that best optimizes the potential of the land or location. From award-winning ground-up development to national chains reimagining their built environment, we’ve been there to assist with innovation and expertise that deliver measurable marketing results.”

In the dynamic world of SEO, brands must stay on top of system changes and industry trends to keep marketing content in place and on pace.

Brands must stay on top of marketing trends, but SEO is a whole different beast as key changes can happen instantaneously, not organically, through algorithm updates by Google. A flip of the switch can leave your website optimization in the dark.

In our last post, we focused on search engine writing tactics to give your website the best chance of being found during web searches, but what if that connection literally changes overnight and your SEO content suddenly is not maximizing the opportunity to rank in results pages?

SEO trends are a content topic that has to be constantly updated “because there isn’t another industry which is as dynamic as SEO,” according to Stan Ventures. The SEO experts offered the following top SEO trends (and more) to keep in mind when optimizing your website content relevance and resulting traffic.

Blogger Outreach & Influencer Marketing

With “the sun setting upon personal blogs” as most struggle to find their true audience, brands may have to reassess their influencer marketing strategy. Most bloggers will shift to reputable sites within their specific niche to publish content so that it gets the desired levels of engagement and traffic. As Google moves more towards being an entity-based search engine, i.e., mapping each author (an entity) to a particular niche (another entity), SV asserts that “authors and brands must ensure that they have enough digital evidence to prove their credibility and experience in a niche.”

Experiential Differential

Speaking of experience, SEO rankings eat it up. Actually, it’s the new addition to Google’s EAT acronym: Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. From online stores to product review sites, Google uses the EAT criteria to understand how accurate, honest, safe and reliable the content is so that its search results will appropriately weight the content and sites for online searchers to be able to make the best, most informed decisions.

Are you experienced? Google will be measuring that. “If I’m reviewing a Stock Market app, in addition to checking my experience in the stock market, Google will now check within the content if I’ve actually used the app,” writes SV’s Dileep Thekkethil.

“Passage Indexing”

Google’s new algorithm called Passage Indexing, in effect, combines the best of “keep it simple” and in-depth, long-form content, which we covered last time. It will now use the natural language processing feature while indexing web pages and try to understand the meaning of each passage within the page, SV reports. That means that short paragraphs or excerpts from a bigger content effort can stand on their own, i.e., stand out in search results, no matter how many sections down the info might be in your long-form piece. Tactically, to benefit the most from this algorithm, brands should commit to highly structured content, including sections that each focus on a subtopic.

“If creativity is intelligence having fun, as Einstein said, then SEO is like the scientific side of the content equation, the power and discipline that ensure a brand’s originality and expressiveness reach the biggest audience,” said Tori Alexis, one of infinitee’s  Brand Managers. “Combining the art and science in your marketing content platform is smart — and can be fun, too. We’re here to help with innovative, creative, highly-engaging and high-impact marketing strategies.”

CLICK HERE for Part 1 of this conversation.

Quality SEO content is the key to finding your digital audience and commencing the conversion funnel.

If a content piece posts in the worldwide web woods, and there’s no one around to see it, does it make a difference? Absolutely not. Like resume sending, audition getting and anything at the start of the marketing sales funnel, you and your content must be seen first. That critical online business priority has led to a global search engine optimization (SEO) market that is expected to reach $122.11 billion by 2028.

To give your website the best chance of being found during web searches you need to produce quality SEO content, which will “please search engines enough” that they’ll rank your work well in results pages. To do that, start with these search engine writing basics:

Learn & Leverage

‘Know your audience’ is the most common rule in the content business, but for SEO it means comprehending search intent and tactically what keywords people will use in their searches. The more content answers people’s questions and addresses their search queries the higher ranking it will get. “It’s almost impossible to create ranking content without finding the right keyword,” writes Smart Blogger’s Liliana Benzel. Find them, know them, a key step and part of your content strategy before the actual writing process starts.

A content corollary to understanding one’s audience is to know your competition. After all, your content is competing against theirs for rankings, clicks and conversions. Reading competing posts already ranking on Google for your keywords is a good way to know the focal and tactical standard that is required.

The Write Stuff

It’s important to write for your intended targets but also for the system. After all, the latter ranks on that search intent, which comes from the people and the keywords they search on.

There’s no second chance to make a first impression, and so it is with headlines in SEO writing. To boost click-thru rate (CTR), try to use the following in headlines: numbers and percentages, the current year and special characters, such as parentheses, brackets and ampersands. Benzel adds that meta descriptions are second only to headers as the first things that readers see on search engine results pages so keep them dialed in and optimized.

Long-form content not surprisingly tends to keep visitors on the webpage for longer, which is a good thing according to SmartBlogger. Size matters per Google’s algorithm, which can even penalize shorter content. And remember the importance of quality subheads to get readers, nearly 80% of which scan a new page before reading it, to commit to a fuller exploration of said content.

Old & New School Elevation

Google likes links. When creating SEO content, make sure to link to external, high-quality content and to other content from your own website. This leverages authoritative sites to boost SEO ranking and, in the latter scenario, maximizes readers’ staying time while also making it easier for search engines to index your site pages.

The old rules of engaging content still apply: visually appealing copy — always optimize images — with multiple entry points will attract the most eyeballs. And commit to multiple rounds of editing as if the world will be viewing your content… because that’s the goal for top-quality SEO writing.

“Your website is your window to the world, but it’s a big place that can be daunting to navigate,” said Marcia Homer, infinitee’s Director of Brand Management. “To find your audience amidst all the commotion and ultimately feed your business, quality SEO writing is essential. Brands must do all they can to maximize connections back to their 24-7 marketing hub, the company website.”

TO BE CONTINUED

STAY TUNED for Part 2 of this conversation!

These key marketing metrics will provide insights on volume, activation and costs, while helping to keep tight with sales.

A wise man once said that marketing alone is just art, and sales by itself is “just talking.” But joining forces, the two disciplines “can work magic.” To work wonders or simply better grease the conversion funnel, B2B marketers must crystallize how their efforts are supporting a company’s sales platform. That means cold, hard numbers, better known as key performance indicators (KPI).

Before setting KPIs — and before getting to LinkedIn’s 10 most common B2B marketing KPIs and how to use them — you and your marketing team must get SMART. That means Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound with your campaign goals. Without those important criteria, the KPIs will not provide an effective indication of your progress.

In simple terms, let’s divide the most common B2B marketing KPIs into the following groups: getting people to show up, getting them to participate and, like every business must do, figuring out what the varying degrees of participation and action all cost.

Volume KPIs

Website traffic, the total number of visitors to your website, is a general measure, but it can be helpful as a baseline to compare other metrics, such as organic and paid traffic. The former is the total volume of visitors arriving at your website from a search engine while the latter is the number of people coming to your site through paid promotion. Organic traffic indicates that your content is successfully being discovered in searches while paid traffic tells you how much ads, sponsored content and paid search efforts are driving people to your content and landing pages.

Activation KPIs

Window shoppers might make your store look popular, but it’s not what businesses are all about. The objective is getting customers inside and buying products and/or services or, of course, the virtual equivalent. From a KPI perspective, click through rate, conversion rate and marketing qualified lead (MQL) to sales qualified lead (SQL) conversion rate tell you whether or not your marketing efforts are compelling visitors to take the desired action.

Click through rate (CTR), the number of total impressions divided by the number of clicks, sheds light on how your messaging, creative content or calls to action are getting visitors to take action and respond to your email marketing, paid search, sponsored content or other campaign. Conversion rate measures the number of visitors to a page who take whatever action your campaign intended, whether downloading an ebook, filling out a form or making a purchase. And the MQL to SQL conversion rate reflects “the relevance and readiness of audiences being reached through a campaign,” writes LinkedIn’s Alexandra Rynne.

Cost-Based KPIs

Smart business calls for constant cost-benefit analysis. With cost-based KPIs can come a lot of benefit. After all, it’s not enough to achieve a result; a business must do it efficiently. Cost per click, cost per lead and customer acquisition cost help reveal the level of efficiency and more specifically how well marketing is working together with sales.

“We hear of ROI a lot in business, but it’s important to focus on and commit to KPIs on the tactical front line to be able to properly assess how your marketing efforts and campaigns are performing,” said Tim Patton, infinitee’s CEO. “The big-picture priority we should commit to more is customer lifetime value, how when you’ve successfully moved beyond a transaction to developing a relationship with a customer that not only supports the long-term bottom line but also helps you optimize all of the above.”

The goals of digital marketing may stay the same, but not the how-to, forcing marketers to stay on top of the latest tactical trends to maximize customer connection.

“If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me” wasn’t written by a Millennial, but the song might as well have been. In its own, unique and perhaps unintentional way, that generation has taught us there are more effective ways to communicate and connect. So it is with digital marketing, which with its benefits of wider reach, hyperlocal penetration, easier personalization and targeting, better customer connection and higher conversions, has quite a nice ring to it.

The centrality of digital marketing in modern-day business for promoting products and services may not change much, but the practical trends for maximizing a company’s online efforts do. According to Data Science Central (DSC), “if businesses can pay attention to [the following] trends and curate marketing practices to align with them, they will have better opportunities to boost their growth and generate promising leads.”

Top Tools

Let’s face it: making your customers or would-be ones wait for a response or do an often times frustrating search on their own for actionable info is not the way to encourage them to proceed through your marketing-sales funnel. That’s why chatbot use on business websites will continue to grow in popularity as a marketing tactic. Chatbots increase customer engagement, convenience and that sense of reliability, which is a key part of customer loyalty.

And why should bottom line growth stop at the border? Some businesses may cite the language barrier as a reason, but increasingly machine translators on international brand websites are allowing customers to access information from any location in the world, a rising trend according to DSC.

Third & Zero Parties

As we’ve said before in this space, influencer marketing will continue to grow, helping build trust and authenticity with consumers. After all, whom do you trust more about a product or service – a stranger posting on Twitter, a TV advertisement or an established authority on the matter? Influencer marketing aims to leverage influencers, whether creators, subject matter experts, industry pros or others, to that effect.

From the influence of third parties to the data collection of none: “zero-party data” methods, such as form building, are ways brands can better understand their customers by the latter’s intentional sharing of personal information so that companies can then tailor their marketing practices.

Application Elevation

Email marketing, a core competency in any successful digital marketing platform, will see a boost this year, according to DSC. To connect with consumers in a fresh, personal and special way for product launches, remember the e-marketing importance of customer behavior tracking and proper audience segmentation.

On that timely, targeted theme, real-time messaging is becoming an advantageous way for brands to connect with customers. Conveniently and cost-effectively informing and empowering them with promo updates, product news and more is becoming more and more popular with businesses, DSC asserts.

Also, marketing applications are increasingly helping brands advertise products and services. It’s simple, efficient and gets brands in front of new audience segments.

“We need to remember a consequence of this digital marketing age is the decline in consumer patience,” said Vince Vitti, infinitee’s VP, Business Development. “A critical question then follows: how do we as brands react to that reaction? We can help with brand gratification methods to keep customers positively engaged during those times when their expectations might not be met.”

Marketers can use automation in different ways to maximize audience engagement, increase sales and free up bandwidth for more strategic pursuits.

Easier, faster and more accurate amount to the Holy Grail of business. No matter what market, industry or era, these have been constant objectives. That’s why tech always advances and why business always follows. Marketing automation helps companies generate leads and sales, while freeing up people for more strategic efforts.

The Sends of Change

Tech tools might be viewed as an “easy button,” but for effective marketing, you still have to do the work to get to know your customers and target audience. From junk mail to spam calls and emails, there are plenty of reminders in daily life of messaging attempts that aren’t targeted and finish way off the marketing mark.

With customer behavior tracking and proper audience segmentation, targeted emails can be an excellent way to use marketing automation to nurture leads, while also allowing marketers to track campaigns and measure ROI, according to Syed Balkhi, company founder and content management system expert. Targeted emails include content relevant to the receiver’s interests, thereby helping them get to know your brand more and increasing the likelihood of turning them into customers. Also, a personalized email drip campaign keeps recipients engaged over time at various touchpoints and thus more likely to proceed down the marketing funnel to sales conversion.

As discussed before in this space, getting a potential customer’s attention is not enough. By offering deals and incentives with marketing automation, i.e., email marketing, “you can give leads an extra nudge that encourages them to take the next step and become paying customers,” Balkhi writes. In a similar automation vein, push notifications can be used to seize the marketing moment by sending timely reminders to prospective customers who are about to leave your website or are exhibiting other visitor behaviors.

In Game

Outreach is naturally the main thrust of a marketing program, but prospective customers need to have a place to go when interested in your products and services. Creating custom landing pages is another great way to nurture leads via marketing automation, according to Balkhi. There’s a reason why they are sometimes known as lead capture pages. It’s not advantageous to direct targeted visitors to a general homepage; time is money or rather less money if you’re adding too many steps to the customer’s journey.

Custom landing pages should be designed to appeal directly to the needs and interests of leads. Depending on where the person is in the buyer’s journey, the appropriate landing page could offer a free trial, guide or other resources.

Right Time & Place

The idea of a blog post on a billboard is absurd, but companies do regularly churn out content without thinking of the proper distribution and engagement. “You need to repurpose your content or simply share it with the right people at the right time and through the right channels,” Balkhi writes.

A content experience platform can help. It allows marketers to tag content according to different factors, including buyer persona, sales funnel stage, channel, and content topic and type. Couple that with the customized landing pages and companies can be on the level with each segment of their audience and thus more likely to convert leads.

Of course, content marketing and distribution must involve social media. Automation platforms can help distribute, organize, and publish material in a much more targeted and comprehensive way. They help maximize valuable engagement by tagging or categorizing content based on the mood, intention, or type of post and then automatically assign pieces to different social media networks, saving lots of valuable time.

“The  numbers don’t lie — spending on marketing automation software will more than double by 2031 to $11.2 billion,” said Marcia Homer, infinitee’s Director of Brand Management. “Marketers have to do more to connect with potential customers and with marketing automation they can actually do more with less. We are here, of course, to help with the extra time and resources you’ll have to devote to elevating your branding strategy.”

Marketing bloggers can follow these content creation steps for the best chance to generate internal traction and trigger external action.

Good content turns your head, fixes your eyes and engages your mind. From a bookstore to a billboard, a wide variety of written content is designed to be consumed — or, more precisely, marketing and other creative minds have put forth their best content effort to attract people to products with the staying power that leads to successful business.

The attention of some audiences, like sports or Harry Potter fans, comes easier, but what about engaging people who have no prior connection to your products or services? That’s the big challenge facing marketing bloggers. Maximizing the following “AIDA” content creation path will help:

Attention

Nothing is achieved with a blog post if a person’s attention is not captured first. So what are the critical elements to get your content noticed and pull readers in?

First, create a catchy, topical headline. A descriptive deck can help explain the blog post’s more fully, ensuring that the audience quickly identifies the goal and relevance of the write-up. Also, make sure titles and headings contain relevant, search-able keywords.

Consistent, easy-to-process article structure is a must, as are appealing photos and other entry points, such as pull quotes and graphs. This first step in creating attractive and effective blog posts has only grown more imperative with social media distractions and the other factors contributing to shorter consumer attention spans.

Interest

After capturing the reader’s attention, it’s time to cultivate their interest in your content. As covered in ReadWrite, the best way to do so is by using simple language and authoritative phasing and always staying sharp with grammar.

Gaining the interest of readers first requires a smooth experience: they want to get the scope of the work right away without any hurdles or confusion. Simple wording and good flow, i.e., transitions, make that possible. An authoritative tone adds to the momentum of the reader’s experience and compels them to continue on to the value statement and call to action. Finally, air-tight grammar, which exudes focus and professionalism, is like the glue that keep the boat together and readers onboard with your content mission.

Desire

Congratulations, you’ve gotten your readers’ attention and gained their interest. Many bloggers unintentionally offer an exit ramp from their content goal during those steps, but you’re ready to go further, into a prospective client’s mind where they feel actionable desire.

You must understand the topic thoroughly so you know the audience, the appropriate tone to use, the needs or challenges they experience related to the subject and then how your solution or argument brings value to that audience. Relatability is essential so use ‘real life’ examples. Statistics not only display your knowledge about the effectiveness and reliability of a product or service — always provide authoritative links to data, ReadWrite reminds — but also provide a real world, metrics-based picture of the implications of the offering.

Action

You’ve provided in blog form the compelling stepping stones to decision time. Now tell the reader how they can take action. Engaging with the blog post (including sharing!), asking the audience for feedback and asking the prospect to subscribe are “ideal” components of a call to action, according to ReadWrite. Keep the audience engaged and interacting and they will keep your company and value proposition in mind.

“We tend to think of a blog post as one topic or angle, but it’s also a series of connections and steps that are only reached if the one prior to it has effectively done its job,” said Marcia Homer, infinitee’s Director of Brand Management. “Like enticing a deer to eat from your hand with a string of measured, trust-earning steps, it’s about deft persuasion, rather than any push or pull, that will get readers to consume your blog content and then ultimately act on your offering.”

At infinitee, we’re INto tracking trends that impact our clients. For more than 30 years, our Atlanta-based agency has helped clients capitalize on branding and marketing trends, including print and digital media. To learn how we can help your company, call Vince Vitti, VP of Business Development, at 404-231-3481.

B2B influencer marketing helps build lasting relationships, improve brand reputation and awareness, and generate new leads.

The marketing-sales funnel turns 125 years young in 2023, and marketers still approach it with youthful zeal to try to squeeze every ounce of energy and advantage from it to benefit their bottom lines. A renewed focus on the last stage of the funnel, trust, has led to a new approach: influencer marketing.

Whom do you trust more about a product or service – a stranger posting on Twitter, a TV advertisement or a long-time, influential friend? While influencer marketing isn’t about enlisting your buddy to sell you on stuff, it does attempt to leverage influencers, whether creators, subject matter experts, industry experts or others, and the authenticity and trust they engender.

“B2B influencer marketing provides an ideal way to combat disintegrating brand trust,” writes Lane Ellis, a veteran social media and content marketing manager, adding that this type of influencer marketing is the “business-oriented cousin to the B2C Instagram entertainment and lifestyle influencer.”

The marketing move is definitely getting results, i.e., customers to proceed through the marketing-sales funnel and buy the product or service in question. The B2B influencer marketing vertical was projected to reach $11.7 billion in revenue at the end of 2022, with over 38% of B2B firms exploring influencer marketing for lead-generation and more, according to AdAge. Average brand boost could reach 16.6% with a sound influencer marketing strategy, according to an analysis by the Harvard Business Review, with influencer originality accounting for a 15.5% rise in return on investment.

U.S. organizations are expected to spend $6.16 billion on influencer marketing during 2023. Nearly six out of every 10 (59%) marketing leaders noted that they considered B2B influencer marketing a priority today, according to 2022 survey data from the  Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

Focus & Favor

The world of media messaging has never been more expansive while consumer attention spans have never been shorter. B2B influencer marketing helps counter that challenging landscape, building lasting relationships, improving brand reputation and awareness, and, of course, generating new leads. And given Hootsuite’s findings that 42% of organizations exceeding 1,000 employees work with influencers and creators and only 28% of smaller businesses (under 100 workers) do, your company could seize almost instant upside with a quality influencer marketing initiative.

The “influencer economy” is undeniable. Influencer recommendations have even surpassed those of friends and family among the most important factors in purchase decisions, according to one report. Ellis does offer a note of caution though: given that “crafting award-winning B2B marketing content that elevates, gives voice to talent and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort” it’s a good idea to partner with a leading digital marketing agency.

“We talk a lot about the need for brands to be authentic, responsive and create meaningful experiences for consumers,” said Marcia Homer, infinitee’s Director of Brand Management. “An effective influence marketing program definitely hits on the authentic and meaningful. People relate to and trust people more than companies so brands are smart to lead with that personal embodiment of expertise and reliability.”

What new trends should retailers stay on top of to find success in 2023?

Staying on top of trends can sometimes sound business cliché, but being in the know about new and changing industry currents can open up new opportunities and differentiate your company in all the right and revenue-producing ways. As we’ve discussed before, retail is an especially dynamic sector that requires constant monitoring. Be sure your company stays abreast of these retail trends in convenience, service, and safety and reliability.

Convenience

E-commerce, which was born out of the Great Recession and surged during COVID-19, is here to stay. That should be a no-brainer, but did you know that there are now an estimated 12 to 24 million e-commerce stores globally and that nearly 6 of every 10 Internet users are buying online each week? eMarketer predicts that e-commerce’s cut of the total retail market will eclipse 22% this year, and global e-commerce sales will grow to $8.1 trillion by 2026.

On the in-person retail convenience front, self-service checkout will become more and more of a factor. Driven by increasing costs of retail store space, longer customer wait times and, of course, labor headwinds, both shortage and costs, the self-service checkout market was expected to grow at 13.3% from 2022 to 2023 after reaching a $3.44 billion worth in 2021.

From high-tech to high-touch service, appointment shopping allows consumers to schedule exclusive time in-store to browse products. This omnichannel and experiential retail sales strategy gives customers greater choice as well, where they can browse and test products or book an appointment to buy online and pick up in-store.

From clicks to bricks, customers want efficiency and the ability to choose their own retail experience. Retailers should be able to deliver these conveniences in quality, personalized ways.

Service

Okay, Boomers, we know chatbots aren’t your favorite part of retail user interface and customer service, but the numbers and efficiency don’t lie. Gartner predicts that one out of every four companies will use chatbots as their main customer service tool by 2027. And it’s little wonder why considering the cost savings, always-on customer service and other benefits the tools provide.

Speaking of always-on, retailers navigating the unprecedented level of customer service expectations should be providing reliable 24/7 customer support. Hootsuite cites a Retail Dive survey showing that 93% of respondents would be more patient about shipment delays if the brand offered great customer service. A conversational AI chatbot works around the clock and never complains!

Safety & Reliability

Safety first, it’s been said, but it’s an even bigger priority given how social media platforms gather and utilize data and the fact that since 2020 the retail sector has been the most targeted industry for cyberattacks, according to Hootsuite. Statistics show that more than four out of every 5 Americans (81%) have expressed concern about how companies collect private data, and governments from the EU to California to China are responding with new laws. There should be no cutting corners when it comes to protecting your retail customers’ data.

Supply chains have not been safe nor sound in recent years as major upheavals, including pandemic and war, threatened retailers’ flow of goods. There’s definitely no convenience or even service without healthy and reliable supply chains. Retailers should rely on innovation and, yes, staying atop the trends to keep their logistics flexible, agile, and thus successful.

“Retail trends change, but the values — convenience, service, safety — stay the same,” said Marcia Homer, infinitee’s Director of Brand Management. “Find people and a marketing team that match your strong values, and it helps if the team has navigated 30-plus years of trends. Our team’s experience and belief in limitless possibilities can guide you down the long and winding road of retail.”

Mobile, personal and interactive priorities continue to expand for marketers aiming to maximize engagement.

It's been said that ignoring digital marketing is like opening a business but not telling anyone. And not improving your online marketing is akin to taking two steps back for every one you go forward, given the pace and expansion of the industry, which is expected to see a compound annual growth rate of 9% until 2026.

To keep on the right digital marketing course, a company should keep a close eye on key trends, including collecting more precise personalized user data, creating mobile-first content, especially short video content, and incorporating interactive media into content strategy. That advice comes straight from a tech entrepreneur and CEO who’s “been in the digital marketing game since the AOL days — before even Google and certainly long before Snapchat and TikTok were ever a thing.

‘Say My Name’

Contrary to the movie Godfather, digital marketing should be both personal and business. Just because a company wants to cast a wide marketing net doesn’t mean it can’t be personal, i.e., strive for personal engagement in its digital marketing. As Amine Rahal writes at Entrepreneur magazine, “We naturally love to be addressed by name, as doing so is dignifying and a marker of respect.”

Designed to collect personal, actionable information about a consumer’s site visits, third-party cookies are on the way out, with Google announcing a 2024 phase-out on its Chrome browser. That puts the onus on brands to be more proactive in getting a lead's name and other identifying information when they sign up. In short, collecting personalized user data will increasingly be something companies will have to do on their own.

Attractive & Interactive Content

A picture is worth a thousand words, and stunning visual marketing content can be worth even more in this mobile world. The good news is that your company’s content is never farther away than a person’s hand, pocket or pocketbook, but on the flip side, there’s so much mobile device competition for attention spans that are getting increasingly shorter.

To keep up with the pace of business and stay top of mind with consumers, Rahal suggests ramping up visual content production with infographics, reels and informative videos. Citing TikTok nearly doubling its monthly users in 2022 to almost two billion, the digital marketing guru recommends creating short, vertical video content in the 30-second to 3-minute range. Content optimization goes especially for mobile devices, which account for 54% of web traffic and growing.

Finally, digital engagement is much more effective when marketing content is interactive. People will always want their voice to be heard and to be able to get more from both information and entertainment perspectives. Rahal recommends including polls, quizzes, rating sliders, and “Ask a Question” widgets in mobile marketing content. Forbes reported that voice assistant use (e.g., Siri and Alexa) was projected to increase more than 30 percent from 2018 to 2022, showing increasing promise for voice-enabled search marketing. Engagement is simply more effective when consumers are participating rather than being passive onlookers.

“In our fast-paced marketing world, brand creation and management are not merely presenting a pretty picture to your audience, it’s increasingly about putting the consumer in your company’s picture and story with personal and interactive engagement,” said Marcia Homer, infinitee’s Director of Brand Management. “The digital marketing river can seem dauntingly fast, wide and deep, but with a limitless possibilities mentality and decades of experience we’ll guide you around the obstacles to make all the right connections.”

New channels and trends get the attention while these marketing fundamentals get the business-critical engagement.

“Success comes from standing out, not fitting in,” said Don Draper on the popular TV series Mad Men. Yes, effective marketing content must be outstanding, but the tactics used by a company to distribute it should adhere to the tried and true formula: know your audience, pick the right time and place, and then deliver value to that audience.

No matter which area of communications, it’s critical to know one’s audience. Otherwise, the goal of connecting with people is very difficult to reach.

Writing in Inc., Amy Balliett relays important stats with regard to marketing content: four out of every five customers expect a personalized experience from brands while nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of them are annoyed with companies that convey generic marketing messaging. Given that 42 percent of marketers still don’t segment their audiences and only 4 percent of those that do rely on more than one data source to inform this important subgrouping tactic, a smart marketing company or team can really achieve some competitive separation on this step alone.

“Rather than jump on the next big trend in content, step back and carefully evaluate your audience,” Balliett advises. “Marketers that deliver the right message to the right consumer see an average five to eight times increase in ROI on marketing spend and a 10 percent increase in sales. It takes insights to see that kind of kickback!”

Right Time & Place

Customers’ attention spans are not getting any longer. In the social media era, there’s so much content out there that 32 percent of folks are feeling overwhelmed. Some marketers have responded with high content volume themselves, which on one hand enables more entry points to their brands, but on the other hand, adds to the swamp effect.

“Great marketers don't simply deliver content based on a preset publishing calendar, they instead identify the times their audience is the most approachable and build from there,” asserts Balliett.

Where to connect with a brand’s audience is just as important as when, but again volume is a challenge. There are so many new channels and trends out there. Is it the best use of your marketing spend to overextend by trying to ride the next wave and capitalize on, as Balliett says, the next Twitter? Marketers should do their homework and figure out where their audience segments spend most of their time.

“You'll see far more success connecting with 100 attentive people than you would trying to get the attention of 1,000 disengaged individuals across disparate venues,” Balliett adds.  

Value Creation

It’s not enough for your marketing content to be timely and on target. It also must deliver value to the audience.

Balliett, who shares that 42 percent of marketers view creating content that appeals to different segments of customers to be the biggest challenge, provides an example from LinkedIn. An audience segment that is found to regularly visit a certain LinkedIn Group would find value in the compilation of group quotes made into a handy eBook of tips.

“In a business world where marketers increasingly find it more difficult to capture the attention of their core audience, all the while being asked to do more with less, let’s recommit to the core marketing fundamentals,” said Amy Norton, infinitee’s Director of Strategy & Accounts. “And never forget that you have expert help to rely on — with more than 34 years of branding experience.”

The retail-ification of shared workspaces was destined to be in a world of mixed-use development, omnichannel shopping and hybrid work models.

It was said in 2018 that the future of healthcare is retail. If it works for medical office space, why not regular office space?

Sure enough, the trend of coworking spaces setting up in retail places, which grew before the pandemic especially in low-demand places like malls, has gotten even stronger over the past couple of years. Old school (mixed-use development) and new school (omnichannel shopping and hybrid work) naturally agree on this fantastic fusion.

"Our best-performing locations are within mixed-use developments, like retail centers,” Jamie Hodari, cofounder and CEO of Industrious, told Forbes. “Much of this is driven by the fact that people want to go to workplaces that are conveniently located and easy to access. This means spaces that are nearer to home and that don't require anyone to get into an elevator to go 10+ floors up, but that rather they can go in and out of in a matter of seconds.”

Sounds familiar to the retail customer experience (CX) that we’ve often focused on in this space. Just like retail customers, workers want a frictionless and connected online and in-person experience. Consistent, positive interactions on the worker side advance both top of mind and the bottom line for the provider.

Community-based ecosystems rather than office solutions, “partnerships with retail-tech startups and corporates, utilization of the retail environment for product testing, investment in design and flexibility and a criteria for member selection” are key ingredients for success for coworking spaces in retail places, according to Megan Hanney. The senior consultant in the strategic advisory team of CBRE listed the following benefits: close proximity to leisure uses, strong transport links, position at the forefront of retail innovation, extra visibility for increased footfall and popular uptake of private office memberships.

“The main challenges for [coworking] operators include lack of control over building operations, potential lack of daylight and opening hours, along with frequent positioning in remaining space on higher floors,” Hanney added. “The main challenge for shopping center owners is the decision to share revenue by letting space to an operator or launch their own coworking brand as a new entrant to the workspace market.”

Still, the benefits seem to far outweigh those challenges. Cheaper operating costs, networking opportunities, better amenities than most traditional office locations (and Starbucks lounges) and, of course, flexibility will keep companies interested in shared workspaces. And keep smart retail landlords happy.

“The office and retail sectors have both been in a state of flux, so why not combine what they do best?” said Tim Patton, infinitee’s CEO. “Retail developments have always been looking for ways to have a bigger and even ‘built-in’ consumer population, and office providers are striving for more convenient, scalable solutions. As a firm with a ‘limitless possibilities’ customer service mentality we embrace this new fusion of space.”