Thinking about starting a podcast for your brand?

Will it be narrative or non-narrative?

Consider this:

When tested for brand favorability, brands that took a narrative approach to their podcast saw an average lift in favorability ten percentage points higher than those using a conversation or interview format.

I posted earlier this week about the new ChatGPT multimodal and how it's a glimpse into the future of how we interact with computing devices.

The Future: Consumer Computing

You can now (or soon can) talk to ChatGPT and ask it questions via pictures. This is a glimpse into the future of computer interfaces.

CuriousMarketers.ClubKyle Mensing

The next day, the All-In Podcast talked about much the same thing.

I think they—via the illustrations below—prove this belief out even more. (They also mention that inputs can (or will) have more options than just images and voice. Code Interpreter let's you input documents and code snippets, so that makes sense.)

Humans have five major sensory inputs we use to feed our brain computers. Up to this point, we've had one input type to interact with computers: text.

Multimodal is a way of mapping our multi-sensory experience onto interactions with computers, making them more natural for us.

We've adapted ourselves to the limits of computing. Now we might be able to adapt our computers to ourselves.

I don't love the examples OpenAI used in their demos. I see the hints of what they promise, but they lack oomph. This example though, this perfectly shows how you can use multimodal in your day-to-day to make life a bit easier:

To drive this point home even further, here's one of the guys who'd be on the Mount Rushmore of modern AI development sharing his take:

TLDR looking at LLMs as chatbots is the same as looking at early computers as calculators. We're seeing an emergence of a whole new computing paradigm, and it is very early.

-Andrej Karpathy

And Google's BARD can now interface with a host of Google apps and services, almost creating a true smart, personalized assistant.

How do we extend our brand experiences into this new environment?

What does "brand" mean in this future?

(Basically, take all the questions people had about brands and the metaverse after the Grand Meta Rebranding™ and replace "metaverse" with "multimodal AI chat".)

Consumers are spending less on streaming TV services while increasing their usage of ad-supported options.

Peak streaming is behind us and providers have to start charging more to make the numbers work.

This means 2 things:

• We’re prime for a re-bundling
• More advertising options for marketers

All we have as marketers is trust.

If that’s a currency we’re willing to spend, then we get what we buy.

-Tod Maffin

OpenAI announced ChatGPT Multimodal.

ChatGPT can now see, hear, and speak

We are beginning to roll out new voice and image capabilities in ChatGPT. They offer a new, more intuitive type of interface by allowing you to have a voice conversation or show ChatGPT what you’re talking about.

I heard the news through a rather breathless podcast about the drop and was trying to find my way out of the hype machine, but I think this is actually a big deal.

Previous AI tools were really just supercharged versions of existing tech options. ChatGPT was autocomplete on steroids. DALL-E was reverse image recognition. AR filters were Hipstamatic 2.0.

But this new GPT4 feature is something more.

It's a new way for users to interact with computing devices in ways more natural to the history of human experience and development.

Here's one of the examples from the announcement:

If I were to ask someone to help me face-to-face, I would point out the bike and ask (just like the demo). I wouldn't give them the specific bike make and model as a preface to my question.

When I'm trying to get a question answered, I'm looking for an answer. I'm not specifically looking for a list of links to click about or a YouTube video to scrub through or a PDF to scroll through.

This is the closest analog of human-to-human information seeking interaction I've seen from tech outside of limited voice assistant stuff.

We're moving closer to ambient computing—when the screen gets deemphasized and devices act more as extensions of your person than external boxes you tap at. AirPods, smart watches, and voice assistant devices are the forerunners of this trend. Multimodal is a power up.

If true AR glasses are feasible (big "if" on the technical hardware end of things right now), think about not even needing to take a picture for that bike example. Simply look at your bike and ask for help lowering the seat and get instructions overlaid on your field of vision.

We as marketers need to start thinking through how we can best serve customers through experiences like this in the future. And how our methods of distribution and promotion will change.

TikTok Shop is going hard for the holidays, but not everyone is pumped about it.

Quickly, quietly, TikTok is handing China the economic checkmate it needs to sunset the idea of American Dynamism for good.

Geopolitics isn’t my arena, but I’m not high on TikTok Shop.

Because: the intention to produce their own goods in China has already been stated. Plus, China has no incentive to create a platform that benefits Western brands over Chinese companies.

Having a product go big on TTShop seems like an invitation to have it copied and branded by the platform to compete with you.

The algorithm is the brain behind my opinion.

via the Digital Folklore podcast

See what I mean?

We are the messaging team on TikTok. Our team’s mission is to facilitate meaningful user connections through TikTok’s messaging experience, which is still in its infancy.

Collaborative creation is now creation and distribution.

Social media is splintering into content created by the few and private sharing by the many.

Or, all social apps are becoming messaging apps.

As it works to better align the app with evolving user behaviors, Instagram’s rolling out a new option to share feed posts with Close Friends only, providing another way to facilitate more enclosed group engagement.

Buzzword bingo: social is becoming a dark forest

Apple suddenly remembered it had a podcast app and wants to pull a Spotify and YouTube Music by diversifying the (non-music) content you can listen to.

Apple Podcasts becomes the best way for listeners to access many forms of premium audio content — podcasts, news briefs, narrated articles, radio shows with full music, educational courses, guided meditations, sleep sounds, and much more — all in one place.

We’ve had the golden age of TV. Time for the golden age of audio.

In the world of email marketing, clicks are more valuable than opens. Especially now that many email providers have anti-tracking measures that spoof opens (either inflating or deflating your number depending on implementation).

Reporting on open rates is like reporting on impression totals for paid ads.

This thread gets a lot deeper on this topic.

Speaking of holiday shopping season, it’s not all about the Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) madness.

According to the new Capterra “2023 Retail Holiday Preparations Survey,” Labor Day is displacing Black Friday and Cyber Monday as the top-performing holiday sales event [for small-to-mid-sized retailers].

Holiday shopping is starting earlier and earlier (thanks pandemic supply chain shenanigans!) and BFCM is getting more and more dominated by big budgets and frothy algorithm auctions.

Once the online checkout process starts, you want it to be as easy as possible for the shopper.

Shopify is trying to help merchants out with its new one-page checkout.

If you can’t enable it yet, you should be able to within the next week or two. Perfect timing to iron things out before the holiday season kicks off.

Looking to grow your business? Here are 5 to-do's you can use to increase your customer count, according to Hubspot's CMO.

Pick 1, do them all, your call.

Let's dive in.

Better Conversion Rates

Chances are your current conversion rates are somewhere south of 100% (and if they're not, stop reading this and enjoy your success), which means they can be improved.

This is the best place to start since the changes happen on a platform you own and control. Plus, it means more customers without more traffic and any increases in traffic should scale this up.

Some places to start:

• Make sure your phone number is on your site
• Use a consistent message throughout the conversion journey
• Provide (way) more value than anyone else

Follow Up Faster

The best way to turn someone who is interested into a customer is to not let them lose interest.

This is what social users expect:

How can you respond faster?

• Automation (whether via autoresponders or AI)
• Better internal processes to incentivize more rapid responses

Customer Referral Program

Word-of-mouth always wins.

Turn your biggest fans into your best marketing and reward them for doing so.

(Assumes you've made something worth talking about in the first place, of course.)

Improve Net Promoter Score

What is net promoter score? It's that quick survey you've probably seen about how likely you are to tell a friend on a scale of 1-10. SaaS companies in particular love this metric.

I think it's a bit overhyped, but if it makes sense it can be useful data to have. Bonus points if you don't let people answer with 7, that's the cop-out answer on a 1-10 scale.

Beyond the specific tool used to collect/implement, listening to customer feedback is usually a good idea.

That doesn't mean you have to do everything they say, the customer is not always. But listening to what your customers say and how they say it can unlock insights to improve your experience, and create more customers.

All The Traffic!

You knew this one was coming. At some point, if you're still looking for growth, the only way is to get in front of more people.

But that doesn't mean you just start flooding every platform du jour with your brand.

Obsess about 1-2 core channels

Organic search and paid advertising are the classics. The first is for long term dividends, the second is for reach and sale.

If you have the capabilities, something like YouTube or a podcast could be a good channel for you. Content can create a moat via parasocial relationships. Similar to cultivating a community. These efforts are hard for other brands to duplicate and can create deeper relationships with your core fans. This also means these efforts are harder to make and maintain.

Don’t spread yourself too thin

Max out one or two channels that drive traffic and performance. Don't get distracted by new and shiny things or that one quick hack you saw in a headline, focus on your top channels and make sure they're finely tuned.

Once you've maxed those out you can think about other channels. Just make sure the new channels don't come at the expense of your top channels.

TL;DR:

5 ways you can get more customers (chances are there is at least 1 item on this list you aren't doing):

• Improve your conversion rates
• Respond faster
• Start a customer referral program
• Improve your net promoter score (/listen to customer feedback)
• Get more traffic

The person who tells the best story rules their corner of the world.

-James Clear

Brands are stories

More ads in more places, Microsoft is rolling out Conversational Ads in Chat.

First up:

Compare & Decide Ads pull all the relevant data of various car models into a succinct table so the user can easily evaluate different options based on the criteria they find most important.

Sounds like Wirecutter et al but as an ad placement directly in the search/chat results.

Interesting note from the announcement:

Our demographics data shows that Chat usage skews to young adults across all verticals

Update time!

Apple emergency updates fix 3 new zero-days exploited in attacks