10 Tips to Transform Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Picture this.

The year is 2010, and you’re watching your favorite show on Hulu.

If I had to guess, you’re either anticipating the discovery of what’s in “The Hatch” (if you were a “Lost” fan) or laughing along to Michael Scott’s antics (any “The Office” fans out there?).

Suddenly, you’re met with 180 seconds of advertisements.

While the ads begin rolling and Ford begins to tout the impressive MPG of its F150, you switch tabs and check email. Or jump to check the score of your hometown baseball team on ESPN.

Whatever you do, you DO NOT pay attention to whatever ad is trying to grab your attention!

Sound familiar?

Let’s take a trip down memory lane…

It was over ten years ago we launched the first-ever version of Jebbit.com.

At that point in time, the key insight driving Jebbit was embarrassingly simple, probably because intuition and a beginner’s mindset were the only tools available to a group of college students naively aiming to disrupt Marketing.

Our  V1 of Jebbit aimed to give brands a simple solution to the “Why are consumers ignoring me” problem.

We paid consumers for their time with a brand.

Go figure, it worked. College students, the most easily distracted humans on this planet, were suddenly giving brands minutes of their time to answer questions about their over-ear headphones or on-demand rental cars.

Why?

Well, brands were giving these consumers immediate VALUE (in this case, in the form of $$$).

Naturally, our challenge evolved: How can brands get consumers to care about their content… without needing a monetary incentive?

We learned that one of the best ways to engage your consumers is with interactive experiences. Interactive experiences can take the form of quizzes, surveys, email campaigns, social media campaigns, and so much more.

Well, after 10 years and thousands of learnings across hundreds of brands, we’ve developed a simple collection of best practices that ANY BRAND at ANY TIME with ANY PIECE OF CONTENT could employ to immediately see a lift in consumers caring about their message!

These tips may be simple, but they’re often forgotten or ignored.

And the implications should be obvious. If as brands, we can drive consumers to pay attention to our message, we’ll see our most sacred metrics improve along with it.

Of course, I’m talking about your bounce rates, CTRs, time-on-site, conversions, lead captures, 1st-Party Data capture, and beyond.

How to Power Relevant Digital Experiences to Every Consumer

Tip #1: Speak to Your Consumer the way YOU want to be spoken to

This first one is simple, but SO frequently side stepped by marketers. Let’s put it this way: do you prefer reading an Accounting 101 Textbook or Harry Potter?

If you answered “any non-fiction novel over any textbook,” then you’re like 99.9% of us.

So, why does our marketing copy sound like it went through 12 rounds with Legal? Why do we write content that sounds robotic, or scripted?

Keep it FUN folks. Bring the personality of your brand out in your content. Humorous, casual, and personable copywriting wins 100 times out of 100!

Tip #2: Don’t Propose on the First Date

Duh!

What’s almost as obvious? Don’t throw the kitchen sink at your audience when they first open your email or first click on your Instagram Ad.

In Jebbit experiences, I’m talking about the first screen of the quiz, survey, giveaway, etc. Remember, your consumer will make a decision within milliseconds of opening.

“Will I bounce or engage,” they’ll subconsciously ask themselves.

Of course, this applies beyond Jebbit.

Are you driving consumers from your Facebook ads to landing pages littered with products? Does your home page have >10 clickable units? Does your email have 17 “Shop Now” CTAs?

Keep that first view simple and manageable, they’ll engage. If they’re met with a wall of text, they’ll bounce.

Here’s a Fun Fact: if you can drive the consumer to take the first action, your consumer is 90% likely to take the second step!

Tip #3: Scrolling is Bouncing

I’m building off Tip #2 and keeping on the theme of simplicity.

Make sure you avoid asking your audience to scroll whenever possible. Is your “Get Started” CTA below the fold? If so, you can expect that click rate to cut in half.

In fact, we’ve noticed in Jebbit experiences that an answer choice or a CTA is 20-40% less likely to be clicked if below fold!

Remember, we’re talking about the same species that now has robots as vacuum cleaners… we’re human, which means we don’t want any extra work!

Tip #4: Short is Sweet

We’re asked all the time: “How many questions should I have in my Jebbit experience?”

Well, after thousands of experiences, we’ve found a sweet spot.

Consumers begin dropping out of Jebbit content at some point between the 4th and 6th question. Those 96-99% response rates will begin deteriorating into the mid-90’s and even 80% response rates if you ask too much of consumers.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. We’ve seen experiences with 10, even 20+ questions successfully maintain their 90%+ completion rates. Of course, the key is VALUE. If your experience promises tremendous value, you can ask more questions!

Tip #5: Eliminate the Decision Fatigue

There is a fantastic NY Times article that longtime Jebbit advisor Diane Hessan once shared with us. We still talk about it as we onboard every new teammate in their first week at Jebbit.

The article explains the concept of “Decision Fatigue” and explains why Product Match and Personality Quiz experiences became the highest performing content type across our customer base.

So what’s Decision Fatigue? Well, have you ever been asked these painful words on a Friday evening after a long week at work?

“So, where do you want to go out to dinner tonight?”

Assuming you have, you’re probably wincing at the thought of the headache that question brings on. But why is this question so difficult to answer?

Very simply: our minds struggle to make decisions when the options are endless, especially after a week of making many decisions. Instead, our minds love options (the fewer the better). Think about how easy it is to choose between 3 restaurants, rather than choosing one from an undefined list of 250!

The same is true for our content. Present too many options to a consumer, they’ll freeze (or worse yet, they give up and leave).

Instead, ensure your content guides the consumer using simple questions. Four answer choices, all above the fold, easy to read. Ahhhh, Decision Fatigue no longer!!

Tip #6: Simple Always Wins

It’s official, “simple” is now the most used word in this blog post. But for good reason.

I’ve seen it time and again. Teams toil over content, adding bells and whistles over weeks of reviews. But still, the teams who build and launch within days seem to outperform the labor-intensive masterpieces.

WHY??

Well, consumers prefer simplicity.

For example: experiences with busy imagery or color ways that distract the consumer from the core objective of the content… well, they lose out to the content with a single image or even just a simple background color.

The same is true with your copywriting. The less a consumer needs to read (and yes, I know I’m breaking my own rule with this 4,000 word novel), the higher the chance they continue with the content.

So keep it simple.

Tip #7: Always put Customers First

This one is arguably the most important, so take out your notepad!

If you don’t put the customer ahead of your own wants and needs as a brand, you will lose the customer. Your brand and your goals DO NOT MATTER to your customer.

So, as you’re preparing your experience, think about what VALUE you’re delivering to the consumer.

Here’s a simple place to start: Run a Customer Value Audit.

Ask yourself, am I delivering any form of genuine value to my consumer with this particular experience?

Top forms of genuine value:

• Entertain your customer
• Teach your customer
• Test your customer
• Save your customer time
• Give your customer a Recommendation
• Unlock a Benefit for your customer

Ensure your customer is at the heart and they will thank you.

Tip #8: Always ask: What’s in it for your customers?

Ok this is similar to the above, but in all likelihood the end of your experience is asking for an email address. After all, Google and Apple’s Third-Party Cookie news on top of GDPR & CCPA should have us all building our war chests of 1st-Party email bases.

But before you put that lead capture form in front of your consumer, what are you offering them?

I’ve seen it a million times. An experience ends with a lead capture form that reads: “Enter your email address to keep in touch with {brand here}.”

No surprise, lead capture rates are terrible.

Instead, think about offering something of value to that customer. Instead, that lead form should read something like: “Enter your email address and…

• we’ll send you the products matching your personality.”
• we’ll throw in 10% off your purchase.”
• we’ll send along early access to our exclusive eBook.”

Note how not all of these offer monetary incentives, but still offer genuine value to the consumer!

Tip #9: Transparency

So, you’ve just gotten home from a wonderful vacation and you check your email in preparation for the return to work. Sitting in front of you is an email from the airline asking you for feedback on your experience.

You begrudgingly start the survey… you answer a few questions… then a few more… and one more. Then you think to yourself, “when is this survey over!!”

Which brings me to my second to last Tip (see what I did there:)

At the outset of your experience, make sure you clearly outline for your customer what can be expected.

Let them know how many questions they’ll be answering, how much time may be required, or what they might receive upon completion.

If you’re transparent and successful in setting expectations, then you’re sure to see Engagement and Completion rates rise.

Remember to build trust and give your customer the assurance that they’re not walking into a trap.

Tip #10: Be Relevant & Personal

Last, but certainly not least… in fact, this point separates the marketing novices from the experts:

If you’re asking questions and learning something about your customer, make sure to return the favor, in the form of personalization!

Tell your customer something about themselves they may not have known, show them a product they’re sure to love, recommend content, take them to content they’ll love.

Whatever you do, make sure you’re treating the conversation… like a conversation. Prove to your customer you’re listening and using the information to make their lives easier, more interesting, more productive, or more entertaining.

If you can immediately show a customer that you listened, it maximizes the likelihood that they maintain and grow that relationship with you over the long run!

Connect at Every Stage of the Customer Journey

Phew, did you make it to the end?

Well folks, if you’ve made it this far, then you’ve now soaked in 10 years of learnings in under 10 minutes. The best part is each of these tips drastically improve the consumer experience.

Whether you want to apply just 2 or 3 of these tips to start, always be willing to test, iterate, and most importantly LEARN!

As always, let us know what you find.

We’re 99% sure the results will delight you. We’re 100% sure your customers will be even more delighted!

Feeling inspired? You can start building your very own Jebbit experience for free today!

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