06Jun

Facing tighter digital media budgets even as consumers spend more time online than ever, marketers have a new tool to help them spend those fewer dollars more effectively.

Google’s new Rising Retail Categories lists the fastest-growing product categories based on what users search for. With the interactive tool a marketer can drill down by category, locale and week, month or year to see what’s trending and the top search terms being used.

For May, the top retail categories had a 200% increase over the month before. Topping the list are “Golf bag accessories.” By far, the top search query is “golf push cart” with the biggest volume of searches coming from Michigan, Illinois, California and New York.

For the week of Mother’s Day, greeting cards was the top retail search category and “happy mother’s day” the top increasing query.

Announcing the launch of the Rising Retail Categories, Google Product Manager Pallavi Naresh said that marketers have long used Google Trends to understand consumer interests and discover how they are changing. “Since COVID-19 began, we’ve heard from our retail and brand manufacturing partners that they’re hungry for more insights,” she said.

“But if they don’t know what to look for, there isn’t an easy way to understand which product categories are gaining in popularity, and might pose an opportunity,” Naresh said, explaining Google launched the new tool to make it easier for marketers and retailers to know at a glance what product-related categories are the fastest growing in search.

Marketers will still look to Google Trends for insight to products that don’t make the Rising Retail Categories list. Bigger businesses and marketers with more ample budgets also have numerous marketing services available to them, which a broader perspective and greater depth on consumer search and buying intent.

While the new tool is modest in the amount and type of product trend data it offers, it is one more tool in the toolbox the search giant’s ThinkWithGoogle provides for free, making it especially attractive to small businesses and tight-budget retail marketers.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

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Influencer is the Hottest New Marketing Career (Sample)

When the pandemic hit and Americans hunkered down, spending on essentials and entertainment, but on little else, brands naturally cut their marketing budgets.

One area that survived was social media influencers. After dipping slightly at the outset of the quarantine, social influencer spending quickly returned to pre-COVID levels. Meanwhile, other advertising, including digital, continued to decline so much that 7-in-10 CMOs have seen an average 19% cut in their marketing budgets.

From an almost accidental niche specialty, influencer marketing has become a big part of digital marketing. Spending on social influence was estimated to hit $9.7 billion this year.

Marketers report that for every $1 they spend on social influence they earn an average media value of $5.78. No surprise then that influencer jobs have become one of the hottest new marketing careers. By virtue of the relationship they’ve established with their audience, social media influencers can introduce their followers to a new brand, or boost an established brand’s sales simply by posting about them.

Until recently, influencers didn’t see what for many began as a hobby as a career. They wrote blogs, posted videos and images to YouTube and Instagram channels and otherwise produced content about what most interested them. As they gained followers, they gained influence and companies noticed.

Kylie Jenner, with 164 million Instagram followers, can drive huge sales for her cosmetics line and for other products she promotes. So effective is her influence that companies pay her hundreds of thousands, even up to a million to post about their products.

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Jun 6, 2023

Honor Martin Luther King, Jr. with a ‘Day On’

Today we honor the memory of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Schools, financial markets, banks, government and many businesses will be closed. But, unlike in years past, because of COVID the nation will celebrate quietly. Parades and gatherings have been canceled with observances moved online.

MLK Day 2021 - blog.jpg

What hasn’t changed is the spirit of the day. MLK Day is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service. It should be a “Day on, not a day off,” says AmeriCorps, which has led the day’s volunteer efforts since Congress first adopted the holiday.

Though in-person volunteer efforts are limited, AmeriCorps has dozens of COVID-safe suggestions for individuals, groups, businesses, and organizations. There’s also a search to find volunteer opportunities near where you are.

The work doesn’t have to be done today. But it can start today.

Photo by History in HD

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