2021 Challenges, UX Testing, Scaling Marketing
Take our one question survey and let us know what challenges you’re facing moving into 2021
Last week, we asked you to fill out the survey (link above) so we could learn what the major challenges of 2021 might look like for marketers. For those who have participated, thank you! What have we found thus far in your responses?
First, virtual events are a challenge for you. It’s no surprise that virtual events are struggling; first, there’s a glut of content being given away just for eyeballs. Companies more or less threw open the doors in the early days of the pandemic just to keep mindshare, and almost anything you could want can be found for free on YouTube. Second, we’re all kind of tired – and by kind of, I mean really tired of staring at screens. The last thing someone wants to do is stare at the screen some more to watch some slides and a talking head.
Second, focus has moved down the funnel. Again, unsurprising – we’re in a recession any way you slice it, and a bad one. Despite a soaring stock market, Wall Street isn’t Main Street, and Main Street is hurting. Any time seas get rough, stakeholders automatically move their focus to the bottom of the funnel. What’s selling? What’s bringing in money? How many leads did we get? How do we get more, better leads?
Third, scaling is big. Scaling, at least in the context of your responses, means doing more with less. Budget cuts, headcount reductions, you name it – companies are tightening belts while simultaneously asking us to deliver more than ever. How do we do more with less and not work 100 hours a week?
We tackled our perspectives on some of these questions this week on the podcast, but there’s plenty of room for exploration. If you’ve got a perspective to share on these topics, join our free Slack group, Analytics for Marketers, and add your point of view to the discussion on how you’re addressing these challenges.
And please do answer the survey if you haven’t taken it yet!
In this week’s In-Ear Insights, we discuss scaling and bottom of the funnel focus as part of the 2021 challenges we’re all facing together. How do we scale? How do we free up time during the workday while still maintaining a life outside of work?
Watch/listen to the most recent episode of In-Ear Insights here »
On last week’s So What? we looked at the basics of conducting a UX/UI audit on your website with the new, free Microsoft Clarity software. See what the tool does and doesn’t do and how you can get started auditing your site for usability.
Watch the most recent episode of So What? here!
Coming up this week on Thursday at 1 PM Eastern Time, we’re going to answer a question bugging some of our social media marketing friends: do hashtags make a difference in engagement on Instagram?
Are you subscribed to our YouTube channel? If not, click/tap here to subscribe!
In this week’s Rear View mirror, we’re highlighting our second annual 12 Days of Data. This series runs at the end of every year when we look back at the data from the year on major topics of concern.
2020 has been quite a year, and the data reflects it. In addition to reviewing the stats, we also provide our recommendations on what you should do with each of the data reviews to guide your strategy for the coming year.
Here’s what’s on tap and what’s already available:
- Facebook Brands Stats for 2020
- Facebook Influencers Stats for 2020
- Instagram Brands Stats for 2020
- Instagram Influencers Stats for 2020
- Overused Words in Press Releases for 2020
- News Release Stats for 2020
- Media Outlet Totals for 2020
- Top News and Web Stories for 2020
- Content Republishing Stats for 2020
- SEO Link Decay for 2020
- Discord and Slack Stats for 2020
- Marketing Jobs Stats for 2020
- {PODCAST} In-Ear Insights: 2021 Marketing Challenges
- 12 Days of Data 2020, Day 2: Facebook for Influencers Key Metrics
- 12 Days of Data 2020, Day 1: Facebook for Brands Key Metrics
- Marketing Analytics, Data Science and Leadership via December 7, 2020 Week In Review
- So What? How to do a UX Audit
- In the Headlights, December 2, 2020: Your 2021 Marketing Challenges, Viewthrough Conversions, Dashboards
- {PODCAST} In-Ear Insights: Viewthrough Conversions and Attribution Analysis
- Google Analytics 4 Readiness Audit
AI Academy for Marketers is an online education platform designed to help marketers understand, pilot, and scale artificial intelligence. Join Katie Robbert, CEO of Trust Insights, and Christopher Penn, Chief Data Scientist of Trust Insights, for three separate courses in the academy:
- 5 use cases of AI for content marketing
- Intelligent Attribution Modeling for Marketing
- Detecting and Mitigating BIAS in Marketing AI
The Academy is designed for manager-level and above marketers, and largely caters to non-technical audiences, meaning you do not need a background in analytics, data science or programming to understand and apply what you learn. One registration gives you unlimited access to all the courses, an invitation to a members-only Slack Instance, and access to new courses every quarter.
Interested in sponsoring In The Headlights? Contact us for sponsorship options to reach over 14,000 analytically-minded marketers and business professionals every week.
Shiny Objects is a roundup of the best content you and others have written and shared in the last week.
Data Science and AI
- 20 Core Data Science Concepts for Beginners
- How Data Science and AI Complement Lean Six Sigma via Data Science Central
- You Ask, I Answer: Top 6 Marketing Persona Mistakes?
SEO, Google, and Paid Media
- 5 Ways to Optimize Your App For SEO
- 7 Example Projects to Get Started with Python for SEO
- Top 16 SEO Podcasts for 2021
Social Media Marketing
- Growing Your Social Media Audience via Sprout Social
- Social Media Trends You Need to Know in 2021 via Convince & Convert
- Talkwalker 2021 Social Media Trends Report via Earned Media Podcast
Content Marketing
- How to Come Up With Tangential Content Ideas Whiteboard Friday via Moz
- Healthcare Content Marketing Stats via Study
- Optimizing Content Directories via Kevin Indig // G2
Get Back To Work
We’ve changed things up in Get Back To Work, and we’re looking at the top 310 metro areas in the United States by population. This will give you a much better sense of what the overall market looks like, and will cover companies hiring in multiple locations. Want the entire, raw list? Join our Slack group!
What do you do with this information?
By looking at this data, you’ll see what the most popular titles are; use any of the major job/career sites to ensure your resume/CV/LinkedIn profile matches keywords and phrases for those titles. For companies, search job sites for those companies specifically to see all the open positions and apply for them.
You can also hit up LinkedIn and see who you know at companies listed, and see if your connections have any inside tips on hiring.
Top Marketing Positions by Count, Manager and Above
- Marketing Manager : 403 open positions
- Digital Marketing Manager : 266 open positions
- Social Media Manager : 221 open positions
- Director of Marketing : 123 open positions
- Account Manager : 114 open positions
- Marketing Director : 111 open positions
- Communications Manager : 88 open positions
- Demand Generation Manager : 64 open positions
- Project Manager : 64 open positions
- Product Manager : 58 open positions
Top Marketing Hiring Companies by Count, Manager and Above
- Pearson : 177 open positions
- Google : 139 open positions
- Amazon.com Services LLC : 133 open positions
- Deloitte : 122 open positions
- New Relic : 59 open positions
- Thermo Fisher Scientific : 58 open positions
- American Heart Association : 55 open positions
- Symphonic Digital, LLC : 43 open positions
- Facebook : 33 open positions
- JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. : 33 open positions
- Microsoft : 33 open positions
Top Locations of Hiring Companies by Count, Manager and Above
- New York, NY : 584 open positions
- Austin, TX : 335 open positions
- Seattle, WA : 320 open positions
- San Francisco, CA : 310 open positions
- Chicago, IL : 275 open positions
- Remote, NA : 275 open positions
- Boston, MA : 263 open positions
- Atlanta, GA : 252 open positions
- Los Angeles, CA : 189 open positions
- Dallas, TX : 179 open positions
- Philadelphia, PA : 179 open positions
Methodology: Trust Insights uses the Indeed.com API to extract open positions from a geographic area focused on marketing analytics, marketing, social media, data science, machine learning, advertising, and public relations, with a filter to screen out the most junior positions.
Featured Partners
Our Featured Partners are companies we work with and promote because we love their stuff. If you’ve ever wondered how we do what we do behind the scenes, chances are we use the tools and skills of one of our partners to do it.
- Hubspot CRM
- StackAdapt Display Advertising
- Agorapulse Social Media Publishing
- WP Engine WordPress Hosting
- Techsmith Camtasia and Snagit Media Editing
- Talkwalker Media Monitoring
- Otter AI transcription
- Our recommended media production gear on Amazon
Join the Club
Are you a member of our free Slack group, Analytics for Marketers? Join 800+ like-minded marketers who care about data and measuring their success. Membership is free – join today.
Upcoming Events
Where can you find us in person?
- MarketingProfs Friday Forum, January 2021, virtual
- MarketingProfs B2B Forum, March 2021, virtual
Going to a conference we should know about? Reach out!
Want some private training at your company? Ask us!
Stay In Touch
Where do you spend your time online? Chances are, we’re there too, and would enjoy sharing with you. Here’s where we are – see you there?
- Our blog
- Slack
- YouTube
- In-Ear Insights on Apple Podcasts
- In-Ear Insights on Google Podcasts
- In-Ear Insights on all other podcasting software
Required FTC Disclosures
Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, Trust Insights receives financial compensation for promoting them.
Trust Insights maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Talkwalker, Zignal Labs, Agorapulse, and others. All Featured Partners are affiliate links for which we receive financial compensation. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which we may receive indirect financial benefit.
Conclusion
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Trust Insights (trustinsights.ai) is one of the world's leading management consulting firms in artificial intelligence/AI, especially in the use of generative AI and AI in marketing. Trust Insights provides custom AI consultation, training, education, implementation, and deployment of classical regression AI, classification AI, and generative AI, especially large language models such as ChatGPT's GPT-4-omni, Google Gemini, and Anthropic Claude. Trust Insights provides analytics consulting, data science consulting, and AI consulting.