Dan Galante

I covered the Digital Agency Expo in New York. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this event, Digital Agency Expo is a conference focused on how to build, grow and scale a Digital Agency in 2019.

Ryan Deiss, the co-founder, and CEO of Digital Marketer opened up Digital Agency Expo.

In his opening talk on how to recession-proof a Digital Agency, Ryan identified three Key skills that agency owners and marketers need to master for success.

1. Master the skill of Copywriting

2. Master Email Marketing

3. Be able to create Partnerships

Ryan challenged the concept of a Full-Service Agency. He also argued against the notion that a bigger Agency is more profitable and can consistently produce high-quality results.

Ryan also recommended books to read along with a model for a successful agency.

It was an insightful talk.

Another great talk was delivered by Keap CEO Clate Mask. He outlined the five Stages of Agency growth. Clay also shared how he struggled to get his business off the ground. He kept going despite being told to get a job. His advice for when things get tough:

Evan Radisic of Proposify shares the State of Proposal research. Proposify examined 1.6 million proposals creating a blueprint of a winning proposal.

One of my favorite talks was the Keynote by Gary Vaynerchuck. Gary shared how to create, grow and scale a digital agency. He shared how he built multiple businesses on a shoestring budget despite his humble beginnings. Gary also took questions from the audience. I have included a portion of the talk here.

Additional resources for Agency Owners include:

The Digital Marketer Certified Partner Program and War Room.

I want to thank Digital Agency Expo for having me as their guest.

There were so many great speakers at the event. I will post supplemental pictures on Facebook and Instagram.

Additional resources for Agency Owners include:

The Digital Marketer Certified Partner Program and War Room.

I asked my LinkedIn audience If the Sales and Marketing functions were merged and run by Sales, What would be your main focus? Why?

As you can see, 68% of those surveyed said that increased lead generation and demand generation was a top priority. What this means is that people see Marketing as a vehicle to increase Sales and Revenue.

Free Trials

Previously, I have discussed the marketing strategy of free trials, discounted trials, and loss leaders.

Free Samples

Another great marketing strategy for brands to get prospects and current customers to try a new product or retry an existing one is to offer a free sample. This can be done by handing out the product sample during online, field, and tradeshow marketing.

Field & Trade Show Marketing

Samples can be in the form of a physical product, a link to an online offering, offering a discount to make a purchase. Recently, I attended the 9th Avenue International Food Festival in New York. I received sample food products. One of the vendors offered a food sample and a coupon to make a purchase.

At Tradeshows, brands can offer physical and digital products in exchange for customer information. This is an excellent tactic for lead generation. Most times brands scan the badge of customers to collect this information.

Online Marketing

Brands can also reach customers online to get them to request a free sample. The sample can come in the form of a download or a physical offering depending on the product type.

Brands can also offer branded merchandise as a way to be remembered by prospects and customers.

How have you used free samples to attract new customers, renew, upsell, and cross-sell existing customers?

Share your thoughts and join the conversation.

Additional places to find my content and blog

WordPress: https://dangalante.me/

Tumblr: http://www.askdangalante.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/DanGalante

Medium https://medium.com/@DanGalante

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/trendsettingsm

Anchor https://anchor.fm/dangalante

About Me

I’m a Strategic Marketer with Field Sales, Sales Enablement, Content Creation, and, Classroom Teacher/Trainer skill sets using Marketing to drive Sales/Growth.

As a Marketer, I’ve worked with Start-Ups, a Political Campaign, and a Digital Marketing Conference.

I’m certified in Inbound Marketing with classes in Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, SEO, and SEM.

Before teaching, I was an Outside Sales and Marketing Rep. selling and marketing dental products to Dentists using consultative selling, trade show marketing, field marketing, and market research.

I publish Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; a blog that covers industry events and trends.

I’m seeking a full-time role in

Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Competitive Intelligence, Demand Generation, Social Media Marketing,

Sales Enablement, Enablement, Sales, Account Management, Customer Success, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Employer Branding, and Recruitment Marketing.

Open on the title, industry, company, location, and level. Reach out on LinkedIn or at dan@dangalante.com to start a conversation.

I covered Advertising Week in New York. Advertising Week is where the best minds of Marketing and Advertising meet to share and learn best practices.

Matt Scheckner Global CEO of Advertising Week shares his thoughts at the opening breakfast.

There were great panels and workshops.

My key takeaways from Advertising Week 2019 were:

1. Brands need to better understand emotional intelligence and be able to apply it to their content creation. Other emotions besides happiness drive purchases. Spencer Gerrol the CEO of Spark Neuro shares insights from a biometrics study on how emotion in content affects brand value.

Spencer also did a live demonstration showing how the brain responds to Ads in real-time.

2. According to Gary Vaynerchuk, Marketing is becoming more like Sales in terms of being results-driven. Brands will eventually need to create up to 500 pieces of content per day to engage the ever-increasing buyer personas and customers’ tastes. Gary also shared the idea that LinkedIn is the best platform for organic reach.

3. Brands need to organize their organizations around the customer journey and experience. Philips SVP of Digital Marketing and E-commerce Blake Cahill shared how the company is organizing and transforming around the Customer Journey. He provided actionable steps companies can take to better serve customers.

4. The funnel of today will look like a flywheel by 2030.

Nikki Issac of Mircosoft shares Microsoft’s Research on Marketing and the Customer Journey. She also moderates a panel with Esteban Ribero of Performics.

Brands need to use data and AI to better understand their customers. According to research conducted by Microsoft, only 20% of today’s marketers have a high customer experience quotient (CXQ). A high(CXQ) means that brands fully understand user intent to create their customer journey; improving their performance to increase customer engagement.

Why should Brands be Customer-Centric? Brands that were Customer-Centric saw a 45% increase in ROI/ROAS.

We will see the rise of the Chief Journey Officer or CJO.

Where are you on the Journey?

5. Brands need to understand the role of Social Media in Customer Journey and how it impacts customer buying habits and decisions.

Businesses need to improve how they use Social Listening

and Analytics tools to understand customer intent.

A framework needs to define and address KPIs at each touch-point in the customer journey.

Why is this important?

More Marketers believe Social Listening is important.

6. Brands need to apply design thinking to cultivating empathy for end-users, interpreting and framing problems they experience, creative solution generation, and continuous prototyping and testing. The goal is to provide creative solutions for the end-user.

7. Brands need to listen and understand the customers of tomorrow. It is not just about Gen Z but Gen Alpha. Gen Alpha will be more active on social issues and more open to challenging the status quo than Gen Z.

8. According to Samsung Ads, with the rise of the Connected TV, Brands will be able to track and measure the effectiveness of their TV ads, similar to online advertising. Targeted TV is of critical use for advertisers because TV is viewed on Mobile, Desktop, Native Smart TV and Display. Advertisers expect to be able to track customers across platforms while producing ROI/ROAS reports just like online advertising.

9. Televised sports will increase its presence in Television programming. Soon, Sports Betting will be Televised according to CEO Chris Ripley of Sinclair Broadcast Group. Eventually, gamblers will be able to view Sporting events and place bets in real-time over their Smart TV and/or connected devices. This will provide gamblers with great customer experience.

10. Any business can use technology and creativity to: build community, start and scale an eCommerce business, create content and campaigns that convert.

Facebook’s Mark D’Arcy, CCO and VP of Global Business Marketing showed how to do this using Facebook.

Mark also spoke on Facebook’s social initiative Boost with Facebook. Boost with Facebook helps break down socioeconomic barriers by offering people the chance to up-skill on everything from using Facebook to finding a job. Boost with Facebook is a combination of online learning and live workshops.

Advertising Week 2019 was a great event. I want to thank everyone that made the event possible. On a personal note, I want to thank Matt Scheckner the Global CEO of Advertising Week and the Sunshine Sachs Communications team for having me as their guest.

What did you learn from Advertising Week 2019?

Join the conversation.