ClickZ NYC 2015 Day 2 Wrap Up

Day 2 of ClickZ NYC finds us back in Times Square for another day filled with great speakers and great content.

Digital Innovation at the White House

Day 2 got off to an interesting start with Leigh Heyman, Director of New Media Technologies, Executive Office of the President. Leigh spoke about various things going on in the media world of the White House. First up was the run down on this year's State of the Union Address. Getting a behind the door look at how they pulled it off in the digital age was interesting for a nerd like myself.

Once the speech was finalized, the team had an 8 week window in order to dissect all the information and prepare collateral. Not only did they need to build out a site, they had to create graphical elements like infographics, charts and graphs plus program interactive sections that can be shared via social channels. Included in this year's SOTU was a live video feed and what they called a 'river of content.' This river of content was a stream of constantly updated river of photos, tweets and Facebook posts that ran under the video. Using new methods, they were able to increase time on page by 45%. That might not sound impressive to some but that translates to 18,000 poll responses, 17,000 river of content shares and 40,000 email sign-ups. 52% of their traffic was on mobile and/or tablet live streaming. Leigh also touched on White House sponsored hackathons hosted at 1600 Pennsylvania that sifted through all of the open White House data. Hackers were able to use this data to build sites or programs that the public can then use. For more on that check out http://api.whitehouse.gov/, http://github.com/whitehouse and http://whitehouse.gov/developers.

The Magic of Mobile: Effective Mobile Tactics

This was worth the price of admission. John Shehata of ABC News brought the thunder and did so in an extremely passionate and animated way. Not only does John get it, he loves to share it. John shared a ton of information that touched on mobile, its affect on us now and to come. For instance, search, much like on desktop, is the #1 content discovery tool for mobile users. Google has made some drastic changes to accommodate this including creating a new mobile-only index. Sites that aren't mobile or responsive run the risk of not showing up in the Google mobile index.  So, in essence, searchers on desktop and mobile can potentially see different results. For more on that, check out Google post on their Webmaster Blog http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search.html.

Master the Formula for Compelling Ad Copy

This was a one-two punch from Frank Palmieri and Hobson Powell of Yahoo! This was basic ad copy writing stuff, but it's always good to get a refresher on things. If you're unfamiliar, in popular search results, Google and other search engines like Yahoo! pepper their results with paid advertising. These may seem like lines of rambling copy, but a well written ad follows some pretty interesting guidelines. For instance, much like all marketing, you want to connect on an emotional level but you also want to speak the end users' language. You want to talk your audience and not over their heads. Other elements like 'igniters' elicit a response. Some could be questions or lists; 'Ten Greatest Cities' or 'Hurry, Limited Time Only' ignite a need to convert in the searcher. There are also 'enlighteners' like differentiators or headlines that include benefits, which help your copy immensely. Rhythm is also important. Many times each line of an ad is dissected so much that each line stands on its own and doesn't fit with other lines in the ad. It's important that you try to think how the person that searched for something and triggered your ad would think. What would make them click? What would turn them away? Emotion, language and credibility are very important.

Master the Science of Engaging Ad Images

It's no secret that images connect more with users that simple text. The right image can help someone figure out instantaneously if this is what they are looking for or not. This was another one-two punch from Yahoo! featuring Hobson Powell again with Patrick Salmon. The team at Yahoo! ran ad tests for a coffee company. Some ads showed just coffee, some a mug and others showed a dad feeding an infant with a bottle and a coffee maker in the background. Not surprisingly the image with the baby garnered more clicks. Testers stated that they were more than likely to click on the image with the father and baby out of curiosity and a sense of connectedness of being fathers of newborns themselves. The image itself promoted a positive and inspirational situation that resonated with people. Using images can be tricky and you do run the risk of having a larger Bounce Rate. Knowing your audience and what makes them tick will give you a leg up in image creation. As marketers or business owners, we need to take a step back and forget what we want to do and instead think of what we should do.

Final Thoughts

This was my first ClickZ conference in a few years and I was not disappointed. The content was great, the location was amazing and the food was top notch. My only complaint is that I don't live in NYC. For a recap of Day 1 check out my ClickZ NYC 2015 Day 1 post. Contact us at Blue Sky Marketing if these posts get you thinking about online marketing and promoting your own business.