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THE AGE OF BEING 'VERY ONLINE' IS OVER

Social feeds have shifted to being stages for brands and influencers rather than spaces for real interaction.

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MANY DISCOVER PRODUCTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA BUT FEW PURCHASE

While 73% of shoppers discover products on social media, only 10% buy directly on the platforms. Most customers opt for marketplaces or retailer websites instead. Despite the trend, 37% of customers say they are open to purchasing through social media which suggests the hesitation may be due to trust and checkout friction.

INFLUENCER MARKETING INSIGHTS FROM 50 CMOS AND INFLUENCERS

The majority of CMOs agree that consumers prefer influencers who stay true to themselves, even if it's polarizing. 78% of CMOs feel that influencers who present their true selves resonate more with audiences. There's also a growing focus on qualitative insights beyond vanity metrics. 76.5% of brands are shifting budgets toward influencer marketing, especially micro-influencers.

CATEGORY LADDERS: HOW TO GET BUYERS TO THINK OF YOUR BRAND FIRST

Buyers remember a shortlist of brands in any category, with more familiar brands in high-interest categories like cars and fewer in low-interest ones like batteries. To increase the chance of being chosen in B2B, brands should associate themselves with specific customer problems, define their category correctly to avoid confusion, and maintain ongoing engagement to stay top of mind. Without consistent marketing, even brands that make it onto a buyer's mental “ladder” risk being forgotten before a purchase decision. Staying relevant ensures that the brand is remembered when the need arises.

QUICK TIP FOR WEBINAR FOLLOW-UPS

For webinar follow-ups, skip the generic "we missed you" emails and long recordings. Instead, send a concise, actionable recap in text format. A strong follow-up includes 3 key takeaways and 3 tactical tips the recipient can apply immediately. Keep it brief and valuable, something they can read in under a minute. This approach delivers real value, even to those who didn't attend.

JUPITRR AI

Jupiter streamlines the process of adding B-rolls to videos. It can auto-add relevant stock footage, charts, memes, and more. It claims to speed up social media reel creation by 10X by reducing editing time.

YOUTUBE AND INDUSTRY LEADERS ANNOUNCE THE YOUTH DIGITAL WELLBEING INITIATIVE

YouTube partners with global content creators to promote high-quality, age-appropriate content. Building on YouTube Kids and supervised experiences, it prioritizes media literacy, digital citizenship, and safeguards against harmful content. Key partners include Khan Academy, Moonbug, and The Wiggles.

TOP 4 DESIGN TOOLS TO ENHANCE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

PosterMyWall offers an all-in-one marketing toolkit with social media management, while Canva provides a visually intuitive platform ideal for businesses and educators. Adobe Express integrates with Creative Cloud for professionals familiar with Adobe products, and VistaCreate is good for small businesses with a library of templates and internal storage.

PHYSICS X BRANDING

Brands lose their uniqueness as they scale unless they invest in maintaining differentiation. Starbucks and Nike dulled their identities by prioritizing efficiency but are now working to regain their edge. Guardrails, rooted in brand values, protect a brand's distinctiveness by preserving elements that build long-term loyalty, like Costco's $1.50 hotdog or HBO's creative freedom. Companies need to identify these guardrails and protect them as brand investments, not operational costs, to avoid becoming average and losing customer loyalty.

LESSONS IN BRANDING FROM SEVERANCE: THE DARK ART OF LUMON'S CORPORATE IDENTITY

Severance's Lumon shows how branding shapes perception through nostalgia, design, and psychology. Its retro corporate style, softened logo, and Brutalist architecture create familiarity. Strategic color usage, propaganda-like artwork, and hierarchical structures manipulate employees and viewers. Food rituals and workplace design subtly enforce authority. Lumon's branding embeds its identity into every sensory element, proving that branding is much more than logos.

THE NEW WAY TO BUILD SOFTWARE

Replit's growth shows that user experience and positioning are as critical as the technology itself. The platform's success stems from progressive disclosure which keeps the interface simple for beginners while offering deeper functionality for advanced users. The approach ensures accessibility without sacrificing power. Additionally, Replit's hybrid pricing model mixes subscriptions with pay-as-you-go credits, a strategy that maximizes value perception for customers and revenue for the company.

FIVE DRIVERS OF SUCCESSFUL MARKETING ORGANIZATIONS

A study of nearly 600 companies found that successful marketing orgs prioritize the fundamentals, have clarity around growth goals, excel at cross-functional integration, are adopting AI, and have influence in the C-suite.

LEO CHICAGO TURNS BOY'S VIRAL 911 ICE CREAM CALL INTO A SWEET TILLAMOOK CAMPAIGN

Tillamook's “Meltdown Line” campaign playfully offers free ice cream to ‘victims' of ice cream theft.

THE UNTAPPED POTENTIAL OF SHORT-FORM VIDEO AND CREATOR CONTENT ON YOUTUBE

The creator economy is too significant for brands to ignore, as creators build communities and turn fans into customers. Despite YouTube's reach, many brands have yet to fully embrace creator partnerships, leaving a “white space” for early adopters. Creator-led content delivers 12X more impressions and 17X more engagement than brand-owned content, with Shorts playing a key role in this growth.

ROKU'S LATEST AD EXPERIMENT JUST BLEW UP IN ITS FACE

Roku's test of startup video ads, which play before the home screen loads, caused backlash from users, with many threatening to switch to competitors. While Roku framed it as a test, angry reactions flooded forums. The company may pull back on this experiment, but the broader trend of increasingly aggressive streaming ads does not seem to be slowing down.

CLOUDFLARE'S RADICAL TRANSPARENCY

Cloudflare uses radical transparency to build customer trust by publicly sharing detailed post-mortems of incidents, even highlighting internal failures. Its System Status page provides real-time, granular updates on service performance and offers APIs that allow customers to integrate notifications into their own systems. Cloudflare also publishes in-depth research on its security techniques, which positions itself as a thought leader and attracts top talent. This strategy creates a trust-driven cycle where transparency boosts adoption, fuels innovation, and enhances security.

SMILING PHOTOS INCREASE BOOKINGS

Smiling in profile photos increases bookings for hospitality services. Research with 9,248 Airbnb hosts showed that smiling hosts were rated 16% more competent, 44% warmer, and 8% more likely to get booked. Male hosts benefit more because they are generally perceived as less warm, making smiles more reassuring. For maximum trust, place smiling photos on “About Us” or CTA pages and adjust smile types based on cultural preferences.

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CONTENT MARKETING IN A POST-SEO WORLD (WEBINAR)

This webinar will cover how to build authority in an AI world, create content that AI cites, and steps to thrive in a post-SEO world. The event will take place on March 20 at 11 AM PT and is free to attend.

FOTOR

Fotor is an online photo editor that allows image enhancement, graphic design, and AI-powered editing. It's meant for non-designers and has customizable templates for social media, marketing, and personal projects. Users can access it via web or mobile app, with both free and premium options available.

FAREWELL PHOTOSHOP? GOOGLE'S NEW AI LETS YOU EDIT IMAGES BY ASKING

Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash can generate and edit images directly in chat, removing objects, altering angles, and even erasing watermarks. Unlike previous models that relied on separate diffusion systems, this multimodal model integrates text and image generation into a single neural network. The results are still not perfect, but they signal a shift toward AI-powered media manipulation that could drastically change how digital content is created.

THE UNDER-THE-RADAR PINTEREST CREATOR SPACE IS GETTING MORE POTENT

Pinterest's transformation from a content-sharing platform into a discovery-driven shopping engine is gaining traction. Its Paid Partnerships program and ML-powered recommendations are helping brands connect with creators in ways that drive measurable sales, rather than just impressions. Unlike competitors that rely on audience targeting via digital IDs, Pinterest's approach is based on search behavior and purchase intent, making it less vulnerable to shifts in data privacy regulations.

NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE HELL AN AI AGENT IS

The chaos around AI agents stems largely from marketing, as companies dilute the term for hype and differentiation. Originally a technical concept, "agent" now lacks a clear definition. OpenAI, Microsoft, and Salesforce all have conflicting definitions. While this gives companies room to tailor agents to their needs, the lack of clarity makes it harder to set expectations and measure success.

APPLE INNOVATION AND EXECUTION

Apple's struggles with AI and product execution signal deeper issues in its innovation cycle. The delayed Siri update is concerning, but the bigger issue is that Apple seemingly didn't anticipate the delay. This is part of a broader pattern of missteps, including the premature Vision Pro launch. It is unknown whether Apple still has the ability to redefine industries or if it is slipping into systemic poor execution.

YOUR CONTENT IS TOO SMART FOR ITS OWN GOOD

Most people read at an 8th-grade level, so use simple language to make content more accessible without sacrificing meaning.

8 TRENDS IN B2B SOCIAL

B2B social growth comes from founder-led content, bold takes, narrative-driven posts, and well-timed product launches.

7 CANVA HACKS

Canva can auto-generate video captions, translate ads into 100+ languages, and add interactive polls and quizzes into presentations.

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TARIFFS TRIGGER ‘HORRIFIC' PLUNGE IN CONSUMER SENTIMENT

Concerns over tariffs and economic uncertainty have weakened outlooks on personal finances, labor markets, and business conditions. The Federal Reserve is expected to keep interest rates steady while monitoring inflation expectations. Analysts warn that declining sentiment could slow consumer spending, with rising savings rates and cautious retailer forecasts signaling a potential downturn.

SOBERING REVENUE STATS OF 70K MOBILE APPS SHOW WHY DEVS BEG FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS

Most mobile apps struggle to generate revenue, with fewer than 20% making $1K per month within two years. The top 5% of apps now earn 500X more than the rest, widening the revenue gap. Developers increasingly push subscriptions, as most trial sign-ups happen on the first day, and retention rates are low. Apps are expected to introduce more paywalls, upsells, and alternative pricing models to stay afloat.

GUIDE TO SIGNAL-BASED CAMPAIGNS

Signal-based campaigns rely on behavioral and data-driven intent signals to determine when a potential buyer is ready to engage. Setting them up involves structuring a CRM with tiered accounts and enriched contact data, defining account engagement stages to track progress, setting clear rules for sales and marketing handoffs, and implementing workflows to act on signals efficiently. These campaigns improve conversion rates by reaching the right people at the right time, but they require careful execution.

FIVE PLG TACTICS EVERY SALES-LED COMPANY SHOULD DO

Interactive demos help sales teams qualify leads faster, with companies like Amplitude attributing 30% of their pipeline to them. Time-based trials create urgency, accelerate deal cycles, and increase conversions by letting prospects experience the product firsthand. Self-serve activation reduces churn and improves retention by ensuring new users engage with the product without relying on high-touch onboarding. Tracking product signals enables proactive expansion efforts, improving Net Dollar Retention by identifying upgrade opportunities early. UGC builds trust and drives growth for companies like Salesforce and ServiceNow, which leverage customer contributions to enhance engagement.

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INSIGHTS FROM 20,000 A/B TESTS WITH CONVERSION (WEBINAR)

Stephen Pavlovich and Steph Le Prevost from experimentation agency Conversion will present key takeaways from analyzing 20K+ A/B tests and their results. The online webinar takes place on March 19 at 8 AM PT.

AI NOTETAKERS: BRAND BREAKDOWN

Fathom emphasizes speed, Fellow focuses on teams and security, and Fireflies positions itself as an AI-powered search tool. Grain offers video recaps, Granola prioritizes simplicity, and Otter serves as an all-in-one solution. Tactiq provides a browser extension for transcription, while tl;dv uses witty branding and AI-powered call summaries.

HOW MORE TOOLS AND TACTICS HURT MARKETING PERFORMANCE

Marketing teams often overload their tech stacks, leading to wasted effort. Mid-market companies use an average of 255 apps, many for marketing. To stay effective, companies should focus on high-impact tools, prioritize valuable channels, and streamline processes. Automation adds complexity if it doesn't truly reduce effort.

HOW AND WHEN "WORK–LIFE" MESSAGING IN MARKETING CAN BACKFIRE

Work-life messaging increases engagement for simple products like personal care and planners, but backfires for resource-heavy ones like education and travel. Research shows consumers often perceive these messages as reminders of conflicting demands, reducing interest in complex purchases. The findings challenge the common assumption that positioning a product for both work and personal life is always effective.

WILL PEOPLE BUY CARS ON TIKTOK?

TikTok is expanding into automotive advertising with two new ad formats. Inventory ads target buyers ready to purchase, while model ads focus on those still considering options. With 37% of adult users shopping for cars and 56% watching reviews, TikTok aims to move consumers from discovery to action. Early results show increased engagement and lower acquisition costs, with Peugeot (a French car brand) reporting a 95% improvement in cost-per-engage session, a 40% decrease in CPA, a 78% increase in CTR, and a 40% boost in engagement.

6 EMAIL CAMPAIGNS YOU CAN RUN ANYTIME

Email inspo for FAQ campaigns, founder stories, and customer reviews.

HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR B2B DEMAND GEN BUDGET

A one-page guide on determining the budget required to reach your target audience.

social media. Learn more about running your first campaign.