Today in Digital Marketing - The Myth of the 99¢
Episode Date: December 6, 2022NEW: Get The Top Story each day on LinkedIn!Snapchat might be taking a page from Twitter Blue soon... Instagram keeps wanting to be a CRM... Should prices really end in a 9? A major email service hit ...by ransomware. And guess which platform's mobile app is starting to break — here's a hint: It rhymes with Quitter!If you like us, you'll love the Ariyh Marketing Science Newsletter — marketing tactics based on science. Get three-minute marketing recommendations based on the latest scientific research from top business schools.👉 SIGN UP FREE NOW✨ GO PREMIUM! ✨ ✓ Ad-free episodes ✓ Story links in show notes ✓ Deep-dive weekend editions ✓ Better audio quality ✓ Live event replays ✓ Audio chapters ✓ Earlier release time ✓ Exclusive marketing discounts ✓ and more! Check it out: todayindigital.com/premiumfeed ✅ Follow Tod on Social Media (LinkedIn, Mastodon, TikTok, etc.) 🤝 Join our Slack: todayindigital.com/slack📰 Get the Newsletter: Click Here (daily or weekly)Or just The Top Story each day on LinkedIn. ✉️ Contact Us: Email or Send Voicemail⚾ Pitch Us a Story: Fill in this form📈 Reach Marketers: Book Ad🗞️ Classified Ads: Book Now🙂 Share: Tweet About Us • Rate and Review 🎤 Follow: LinkedIn • TikTok • FB Page/Group------------------------------------🎒UPGRADE YOUR SKILLS• Inside Google Ads with Jyll Saskin Gales• Foxwell Slack Group and Courses Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin and produced by engageQ digital on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw First Nation on Vancouver Island, Canada. Associate Producer: Steph Gunn. Ad Coordination: RedCircle. Production Coordinator: Sarah Guild. Theme Composer: Mark Blevis. Music rights: Source AudioSome links in these show notes may provide affiliate revenue to us.Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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It's Tuesday, December 6th. Today, Snapchat might be taking a page from Twitter Blue soon.
Instagram keeps wanting to be a CRM. Should prices really end in a nine?
A major email service hit by ransomware. And guess which platform's mobile app is starting to break?
Here's a hint. It rhymes with quitter.
I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing.
All right, we start today with some media buying news.
Snapchat may soon try to lure you into its subscription offering with increased reach,
the platform testing a new feature that will boost your brand's stories to more viewers.
But unlike other paid boosted ads like those on Instagram,
Snapchat is experimenting with their reach tool as part of its paid subscription tier.
Yesterday, a back-end app researcher discovered the new option for Snapchat Plus subscribers called Story Boost.
According to a screenshot, Story Boost lets premium users get more views on their stories, while people who follow that account will not be informed that they've been boosted.
How would it work?
According to Social Media Today, quote, presumably it would ensure that your story is given priority and displayed among the first stories for each of your contacts every day.
Not sure that there's much else that Snap could do here, as all of your connections can see your posted stories already, though I guess if it were
a public story, Snap could also highlight it to more randoms or showcase your story via other
discovery means, unquote. At this point, it's not 100% clear. Honestly, sounds a bit like the new
Elon Musk version of Twitter Blue, where subscribers to that monthly upgrade would have their content
moved higher in the algorithm. Snapchat declined to comment on the feature, which is still
in testing. No, it's not just you. The Twitter app on iOS is a bit broken. Some users reporting
that certain key security features aren't working on iOS and that the app is plagued with privacy
setting glitches. TechCrunch reports that some users
are unable to protect their tweets
or toggle direct message privacy settings.
When they attempt to do so,
a pop-up appears that says,
some settings failed to save.
These privacy features appear to still work on the web,
but if these privacy toggles can't be accessed on the go,
it could pose a risk to brands
and social media
managers during an emergency. Furthermore, as TechCrunch rightly points out, these issues could
be seen as a precursor of what's to come. Users worry that as Twitter's team shrinks, more features
will break and the site could become unsafe. When asked where Twitter will be in a year,
the former head of trust and safety for the company responded at a conference last week saying he doesn't anticipate a specific moment when it will collapse. Rather, he said the user experience will likely deteriorate over time. with DMs, Instagram is working on new DM labels that will let you manage interactions with your
customers in your inbox to make things a little less chaotic. The five labels for business include
flag, booked, ordered, paid, and ships. For small businesses or brands that may not have the means
to onboard CRM tools, this could be a simple way to manage interactions with your brand.
The labels are currently in limited testing.
One of the tasks of many digital marketers is to put their products online, in an e-commerce
storefront, or promote it on social media. And you can't do either of those without one
important data point. The price. It's established wisdom that a price ending in a nine, like $19.99, helps consumers frame the purchase as a much cheaper product than one priced just a penny higher at $20.
This has been a widely adopted best practice for literal generations.
But is it still correct today?
Ana Maria Ortega is a marketing professor in Colombia. She recently published a research paper called Psychological Pricing, Myth or Reality?
The Impact of Nine Ending Prices on Purchasing Attitudes and Brand Revenue.
I spoke with her yesterday.
It's not just about how much money do I need to buy a product.
It's about what the nine is telling me about the product.
Is it a discount? Is the brand trying to push the product into the market?
And for instance, brands like Apple, which are very positioned and are related to premium products, can benefit more of using round prices.
Because round prices tend to give the public the confidence that the product is premium, that there is scarcity.
Her full paper is a Google search away. Again, it's called Psychological Pricing,
Myth or Reality. Or there is a direct link in today's premium newsletter.
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LinkedIn announced some new analytics for B2B creators today.
These updates expand on the creator analytics launched earlier this year.
Starting today, creators can track their follower growth
over time with new data available in the audience tab.
This is in the app, of course.
There's also a new demographics section
located just below follower growth in the audience tab,
which breaks down followers by company name,
company size, industry, job title, location,
seniority,
and top performing posts.
And finally, creators can see up to three of their top performing posts in the post tab.
Top posts are ranked either by impressions or interaction over a selected date range.
Cloud computing giant Rackspace confirmed today that it has been hit with a ransomware attack
that left a number of its customers without access to email. Late last week, Rackspace's
hosted Microsoft Exchange service began experiencing issues. At the time, Rackspace
posted a notice saying it had powered down and disconnected the service due to a security
incident. Now, five days later, the company is blaming a ransomware attack for the ongoing outage.
There is still no word on data security.
Rackspace said the investigation is in its early stages,
and that it does not know yet what, if any, data was affected.
The company added, customers will be notified if sensitive information has been compromised.
BuzzFeed is the latest media brand to announce layoffs due to reduced spending on digital ads.
It announced today that it is laying off around 180 employees that amounts to about 12% of its workforce, quoting Adweek. BuzzFeed in particular has struggled to adapt to a shifting digital
ecosystem as the social platforms it relies on for traffic
have pivoted to promote vertical video.
Since going public, BuzzFeed Inc.
has seen the price of its stock drop
from $10 per share to around $1.10,
a decline that has prompted it to cut costs
amid pressure from investors.
And finally, if you're looking to up your Pinterest game,
the platform is hosting a webinar tomorrow in collaboration with PixArt,
where you'll learn how to create engaging pins, embrace idea pins,
those are the TikTok format,
and explore what's next using their AI image generator.
Now, if you're looking for that research paper on pricing, again, it's called Psychological Pricing, Myth or Reality? The Impact of Nine Ending Prices on Purchasing Attitudes and Brand Revenue.
And if you dig these interviews with marketing scientists, be sure to check out the ARRI newsletter.
Again, I'm probably mispronouncing that. It's spelled A-R-I-Y-H.
They cover marketing tactics based on science.
Subscribe and you will get three-minute marketing recommendations based on the latest scientific research from top business and marketing schools.
We've made an affiliate short link for you.
It's todayindigital.com slash science.
And you can also sign up with the link in the show notes.
And our LinkedIn newsletter is called The Top Story.
It'll send you our top digital marketing story each day to your inbox and in your LinkedIn feed.
You can sign up for that at todayindigital.com.
It is completely free.
There's also a link in the show notes.
Sun finally came out.
Not enough to melt the snow, but it's a start, right?
See you tomorrow.
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