Today's Guide to the Marketing Jungle from Social Media Examiner... | Presented by |  |
It's Pickled Peppers Week, Alluser! Pass the peppadews, please.
In today's edition:
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🏋️ Today's Tip of the Day is for AI training
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📦 Product positioning strategy
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YouTube Shorts updates
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Facebook video tools
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🗞️ Additional industry news from Snapchat and more
Are you trying to train AI to write for you? Are you running into problems because you don't have enough examples of your own good content? Concerned about the ethical and legal issues of using others' content?
Avoid Copyright Infringement
The most ethical way to build a content library is to hire a copywriter until you have enough content to train your AI.
This ensures that you don't infringe on someone else's copyright and that your training data truly reflects your brand voice.
If you do use others' content for training data, be sure to obtain their permission first.
Today's advice provided with insights from Jeff J. Hunter, a featured guest on the AI Explored podcast.
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B2B Product Positioning: How to Be Certain Your Product Sells
Product positioning defines how your product is the best in the world at delivering value to a specific set of customers. It's an input to almost everything in marketing and sales, from messaging to sales pitches.
Weak positioning leads to confusion, longer sales cycles, and lost deals.
On the other hand, strong positioning leads to sales meetings where customers quickly grasp your value proposition and are ready to discuss pricing and implementation details.
This approach, developed by April Dunford through years of experience in B2B tech companies, provides a structured way to articulate your product's unique value and appeal to the right customers.
Identify Competitive Alternatives
These aren't just direct competitors but also include competitive alternatives–how customers solve the problem today without your product. Understanding these alternatives is crucial for effective positioning.
For a customer service software company like Help Scout, competitive alternatives might include:
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Shared email inboxes (e.g., support@company.com)
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Generic help desk software (e.g., Zendesk)
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Manual processes or spreadsheets
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Legacy systems not designed for customer service but being used for that purpose
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Doing nothing (in rare cases)
Define Your Differentiated Capabilities
Next, identify the unique features and capabilities that set your product apart from the competitive alternatives. These should be things that your competitors can't or don't offer.
The key is to identify capabilities that solve real, pressing customer problems.
For Help Scout, differentiated capabilities might include:
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A user interface that looks like a familiar shared inbox
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Advanced features like prioritization and assignments
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A focus on delivering a fantastic customer experience rather than just reducing costs
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The ability for customers to choose their preferred communication channel (email, chat, phone)
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Personalized interactions (e.g., addressing customers by name instead of ticket numbers)
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Features designed to improve customer loyalty and increase purchase size
Translate Capabilities into Customer Value
This step is crucial for turning features into benefits that resonate with decision-makers. Dunford emphasizes that this is often the hardest step, as value is in the eye of the beholder and may take time to emerge as a clear competitive advantage.
To uncover true value, conduct win/loss analysis interviews with customers. Ask about their decision process, what triggered their search for a solution, and why they chose you over alternatives.
Ask customer feedback questions like:
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What were you doing before you started using our product?
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What made you wake up one morning and decide you couldn't keep doing it that way?
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Who else did you consider, and how did you make that list?
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Why did you choose us and not the other options?
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Now that you're using the product, has anything surprised you (positively or negatively)?
The value of Help Scout's familiar shared-inbox interface is that it's easy for sales reps to get up and running quickly. There's no lengthy training period, so a business can use it immediately, avoiding a backlog of tickets during implementation.
Help Scout's customer-centric product positioning looks like this:
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Capability: Focuses on delivering amazing customer experiences
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Value: Improves customer loyalty, increases purchase size, enhances referrals
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Further value: Drives business growth rather than just cost reduction
Define Your Target Customer Profile
Based on the value you provide, identify the characteristics of customers who will care most about that value. This will help you focus your marketing and sales efforts on the right prospects in your target market.
Remember, in B2B, you're not trying to sell to everyone but to those who best fit your unique value proposition.
Choose Your Market Category
Finally, select a market category to help customers quickly understand what you do and set the right expectations. This category should align with your value proposition and target customer profile.
You want to help customers put you in a mental box so they know who to compare you to and what to expect.
Instead of generic "help desk software," Help Scout might position itself as "customer service software for growing e-commerce businesses." Similarly, a CRM system could be positioned as a "CRM for investment banks" and a database product as a "data warehouse" to communicate its specialized capabilities better.
Today's advice is provided with insights from April Dunford, a featured guest on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.
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Facebook AI Video Expansion and Image Animation: Today, Meta is expanding its suite of tools and introducing video generative AI features to support businesses throughout the ad creation process. Meta is also introducing Image Animation, allowing advertisers to generate video creative from a single static image for Instagram Reels. The company has begun rolling out these new features and plans to make them more widely available by early next year. Source: Facebook
Snapchat Ads Types: The first new placement, Sponsored Snaps, is being tested with Disney. Sponsored Snaps allow businesses to send full-screen vertical video messages directly to Snapchat users. Users can open these Snaps, reply to the advertiser, or use a call-to-action link. These Sponsored Snaps are visually distinct in the inbox and do not have push notifications. The second new placement is Promoted Places, which is being tested with McDonald's and Taco Bell. Promoted Places highlight sponsored locations on the Snap Map to help users discover interesting places to visit. Source: Snap
X Revenue Sharing: The new payment structure is based on engagement from Premium users rather than ads in replies; ads in replies will no longer affect creator payouts. Moving forward, creators will earn revenue when their followers who subscribe to X Premium engage with their content. Source: @X via X
YouTube Shorts, Studio, and More: YouTube is introducing a feature that allows users to reduce the number of Shorts in their home feed temporarily. Users can access this option through the three-dot menu beside any Shorts grid. A Shorts Templates feature allows users to recreate or repurpose videos they have seen, including inherited elements like audio, segment timing, and text. YouTube Studio mobile now supports landscape view on both Android and iOS devices. A new "Notify Me" option is being added to Shorts music previews, allowing creators to receive notifications when the full-length version of a previewed song is released on YouTube. Source: YouTube
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