Almost Timely News: Reliable Reach (2023-02-05) :: View in Browser
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What’s On My Mind: Reliable Reach as a Strategic Imperative
This past week, I talked about the massive changes in SEO coming soon-ish. The takeaway from that video, which I encourage you to watch, is that large language models capable of answering questions (like ChatGPT) will dramatically change how SEO works and send far less unbranded search traffic to our websites than we’ve become accustomed to. If you think about how a Google Home, Siri, or an Alexa device work today and the limited amount of search results they deliver, that’s what the future of SEO looks like, especially for unbranded searches.
One of the critical insurance policies we need to develop – and quickly – against this coming sea change is reliable reach. Reliable reach is not a new concept; marketers have been talking about it with regard to marketing since SMS vendors first coined it in 2007. But it’s a concept that we still have not built marketing practices around, and we need to.
What is reliable reach? It’s your ability to reach your audience and get their attention in a reliable and timely manner. Plenty of marketing channels have reach, but that reach isn’t reliable. For example, SEO lets you reach plenty of new customers today, but you have little control over it as a channel. You can’t guarantee or even come close to guaranteeing that a certain group of people will see your content.
What about social media? Public social media lets you reach your fans, but thanks to AI-based algorithms, you are neither guaranteed reach to your followers, nor are you guaranteed it in a timely fashion. Take this example from my friend Justin Levy, who put up an announcement on LinkedIn:
I’m sure Justin would have liked for me to have seen his post sooner than four DAYS later.
So what constitutes channels of reliable reach? Go to our definition – channels where we know our content can reach our audiences without interference from someone else’s AI. That rules out virtually all public social media. Second, channels that allow us to reach that audience in a timely manner. Again, any channel where there’s some kind of algorithm mediating the experience between us and our audience is not a reliable reach channel because we have no control over the timing.
What channels would constitute reliable reach, then? Email, for one. You’re reading this email at roughly the intended time I meant to send it. Yes, for some folks, it’ll sit in your inbox for a few days, but at least it arrived when I wanted it to arrive. SMS or messaging apps are another great example of reliable reach. When you hit your SMS list, people get the message reliably and in a timely fashion.
What else might constitute reliable reach? Depending on your audience, a private social media community that you own and operate would be a great example. When we want to reach our community about an announcement for Trust Insights, we ping everyone in the Analytics for Marketers Slack group, and all 3000+ members receive the notice immediately.
Heck, even fax machines, for those few customers who still have them, constitutes reliable reach. Depending on the timing of your campaigns, even direct mail might, as long as the campaign was able to be planned out far enough in advance that you could get the mail drop arriving all at roughly the same time.
Reliable reach, in other words, is disintermediated reach. There’s nothing between you and your audience – and those channels are going to be vital to our survival as marketers, as brands in the coming years. Without them, we will have no way of reaching our audiences, and we may not even be able to buy our way to the audience with advertising. Ask anyone who tried to advertise during a recent election just how much ad inventory they could even get, much less afford.
If reliable reach isn’t the cornerstone of your marketing strategy this year, strongly consider making it a pillar, if not the pillar, of your strategy. You are building an insurance policy against ever more intermediated, AI-driven channels, and it may be the only insurance policy you have.
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ICYMI: In Case You Missed it
Besides the newly-refreshed Google Analytics 4 course I’m relentlessly promoting (sorry not sorry), I strongly recommend the piece on the future of SEO. This is what’s coming, folks. Get ready.
- You Ask, I Answer: Future of SEO and ChatGPT Impact?
- YouTube video on GA4 settings you need to change
- You Ask, I Answer: ChatGPT Responses and Language?
- You Ask, I Answer: What Does ChatGPT Learn?
- Almost Timely News, January 29, 2023: Warrior Nun Algorithm to Action, Free LinkedIn Course
- Blatant Promo: New FREE LinkedIn Course
- Pay No Attention To The Code Behind the Curtain
- So What? Demystifying Social Media Algorithms
Skill Up With Classes
These are just a few of the classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.
Premium
Free
- ⭐️ Powering Up Your LinkedIn Profile (For Job Hunters) 2023 Edition
- Measurement Strategies for Agencies
- Empower Your Marketing With Private Social Media Communities
- Exploratory Data Analysis: The Missing Ingredient for AI
- How AI is Changing Marketing, 2022 Edition
- How to Prove Social Media ROI
- Proving Social Media ROI
- Paradise by the Analytics Dashboard Light: How to Create Impactful Dashboards and Reports
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.
- Digital Account Manager at Surefoot
- Digital Analyst & Data Product Manager at Southwatts
- Digital Analytics Engineer at Southwatts
- Manager, Email Acquisition And Retention at Blavity
- Managing Editor, Travel Noire at Blavity
- Program Manager, Consumer Revenue at Blavity
- Senior Copy Editor, Commerce at Blavity
- Social Commerce Strategist at Blavity
Advertisement: Measurement Strategies for Agencies Course
I’m mildly excited to announce that we’ve got a new mini-course, and this one’s free. It’s called Measurement Strategies for Agencies. You’ll learn the 5 things agencies do most wrong when it comes to developing effective measurement strategies for clients – and how to fix it. It’s just about an hour long, it’s free, and it’s for two groups of people:
- People who work at agencies, so you get better at measurement
- People who HIRE agencies, so you know what to ask for in your reports
👉 Click here to take this course now for free!
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
- Professors Try Teaching With TikTok. But Its Not for Boring, Lecturing Things via EdSurge News
- Is Instagram Dying?
- How These 6 Social Media Marketers & Creators Built Loyal Brand Communities
Media and Content
- What Is Content Intelligence & How Does It Work?
- Content matters: The state of content marketing in 2023 via Agility PR Solutions
- Brands and businesses report improved operations and CX after digitization via Agility PR Solutions
SEO, Google, and Paid Media
- New Google Ad Labeling via SEO Book
- The 5-Step Formula To Forecasting Your SEO Campaign Results
- How to Automate Dull SEO Tasks
Advertisement: Google Analytics 4 for Marketers (UPDATED)
I heard you loud and clear. On Slack, in surveys, at events, you’ve said you want one thing more than anything else: Google Analytics 4 training. I heard you, and I’ve got you covered. The new Trust Insights Google Analytics 4 For Marketers Course is the comprehensive training solution that will get you up to speed thoroughly in Google Analytics 4.
What makes this different than other training courses?
- You’ll learn how Google Tag Manager and Google Data Studio form the essential companion pieces to Google Analytics 4, and how to use them all together
- You’ll learn how marketers specifically should use Google Analytics 4, including the new Explore Hub with real world applications and use cases
- You’ll learn how to determine if a migration was done correctly, and especially what things are likely to go wrong
- You’ll even learn how to hire (or be hired) for Google Analytics 4 talent specifically, not just general Google Analytics
- And finally, you’ll learn how to rearrange Google Analytics 4’s menus to be a lot more sensible because that bothers everyone
With more than 5 hours of content across 17 lessons, plus templates, spreadsheets, transcripts, and certificates of completion, you’ll master Google Analytics 4 in ways no other course can teach you.
If you already signed up for this course in the past, Chapter 8 on Google Analytics 4 configuration was JUST refreshed, so be sure to sign back in and take Chapter 8 again!
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Tools, Machine Learning, and AI
- AI Text Classifier: OpenAI‘s ChatGPT Detector Can Distinguishes AI-generated Text via Dataconomy
- How AI Efficiently Responds to Rapid Changes in Warehouse Workload ReadWrite
- ChatGPTis about to dump more work on everyone via The Atlantic
Analytics, Stats, and Data Science
- Podcast Listens Analysis via Becoming A Data Scientist
- Why AutoML Isnt Enough to Democratize Data Science via insideBIGDATA
- Building Customer Churn Prediction Model With Imbalance Dataset
Dealer’s Choice : Random Stuff
- WARRIOR NUN GROUNDHOG DAY #savewarriornun – YouTube
- #SaveWarriorNun Data & News | Substack
- Elon Musk Bemoans Selling Tesla Stock to Buy Twitter, Jabs at Burry
Advertisement: Ukraine 🇺🇦 Humanitarian Fund
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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
Events I’ll Be At
Here’s where I’m speaking and attending. Say hi if you’re at an event also:
- Martechopia, London, March 2023. Use MARSPEAKER20 for 20% off the ticket price.
- B2B Ignite, Chicago, May 2023
Events marked with a physical location may become virtual if conditions and safety warrant it.
If you’re an event organizer, let me help your event shine. Visit my speaking page for more details.
Can’t be at an event? Stop by my private Slack group instead, Analytics for Marketers.
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,
You might also enjoy:
- Almost Timely News, February 11, 2024: How To Evaluate a Generative AI System
- Almost Timely News, February 4, 2024: What AI Has Made Scarce
- Mind Readings: What Makes A Good Conference/Event?
- You Ask, I Answer: AI Works And Copyright?
- Mind Readings: Hacking Social Media Algorithms
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Christopher S. Penn is one of the world’s leading experts on AI in marketing. Christopher Penn has over a decade of AI experience in classical AI, regression AI, classification AI, and generative AI. Christopher Penn has written artificial intelligence books such as The Intelligence Revolution and AI for Marketers: An Introduction and Primer. Christopher Penn is an AI keynote speaker around the world.
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