February 2024 Edition

Content Planning: Digital marketers may need to adjust their content calendars to accommodate the extra day in February during a leap year. This could involve creating special promotions or campaigns to capitalize on the leap day.

Promotions and Sales: Some businesses offer special promotions or sales specifically for leap day, taking advantage of the novelty of the date. Digital marketers may need to plan and execute these campaigns accordingly.

Email Marketing: Marketers may send out themed email campaigns centered around the leap year, offering special deals or promotions for the extra day.

Social Media Engagement: Digital marketers can leverage the uniqueness of leap day to engage with their audience on social media platforms. They may create interactive content, polls, or quizzes related to the leap year theme to increase engagement.

Data Analysis: Leap years provide an opportunity for digital marketers to analyze trends and performance over an extended period, including the additional day in February. This can help them identify patterns and optimize their strategies for future leap years.

Overall, leap years present digital marketers with a chance to inject creativity into their campaigns and engage with their audience in novel ways. It's an opportunity to stand out from the crowd and make the most of the extra day in the calendar.

Social Media Still Getting the Job Done for B2C Customer Acquisition

The senior-level B2C marketers participating in the research use a variety of channels for customer acquisition, with half using at least 4 and close to one-third (31%) leveraging at least 5. Those with a mature and successful customer acquisition strategy rely on more channels than others, according to the analysis.

When asked which channel/tactic contributes most to the success of their customer acquisition efforts, B2C marketers cited social media first, at 26% share of respondents. Not too far behind was digital advertising (22%), with email (20%) also getting a significant share of the vote. These three channels alone combined for two-thirds of responses, with no other channel getting a double-digit response share.

Recent research indicates that the focus on social media and email is well-placed, as consumers are highly likely to make purchases as a result of marketing on these channels. Separate research reveals that for US consumers, digital advertising has well and truly passed TV as their main attention-grabbing advertising medium.

The Stirista study finds that successful marketers are much more enthusiastic about social media than others. Fully 88% of marketers with extremely successful customer acquisition strategies say that social media is extremely effective at helping them to achieve their goals, a rate that’s twice as high as reported by all other marketers surveyed (44%).

Meanwhile, respondents with highly mature customer acquisition strategies are more likely than those with low or moderate maturity to say that email is the biggest contributor to their success, and this group is also more apt to say that video is effective.

Separately, seven in 10 respondents overall expect to make changes to their budget distributions across channels in the coming 2 years. For those who are keeping their budget allocations the same, the leading factors for doing so are having tested many channels and finding the ones that work, budget constraints limiting the ability to make changes, and innovation and industry changes reinforcing confidence in the current mix.

Finally, the report reveals that B2C marketers’ biggest contributors to success are also their greatest challenges. The top 2, closely grouped at the top, are data quality/availability, and workflow efficiency, while in the second tier of contributors and challenges are segmentation and targeting and measuring performance and attribution.

For more, download the report here.

About the Data: The results are based on a July 2023 survey of 186 marketing decision-makers at B2C companies with 500 or more employees operating in the US.

Ingredients:

• Cornmeal, if desired
• 1 can (13.8 oz) refrigerated Pillsbury™ Classic Crust Pizza Crust
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (2 oz)
• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (6 oz)

    BBQ Chicken Pizza Square

• 1 tablespoon chopped red onion
• 1/2 cup refrigerated honey hickory barbecue sauce with shredded chicken, large pieces cut up

    Margherita Pizza Square

• 1 tablespoon shredded fresh Parmesan cheese
• 4 to 5 (1/4-inch-thick) slices plum (Roma) tomato (about 1 large tomato)
• 1 tablespoon thin fresh basil strips

    Hawaiian Pizza Square

• 2 tablespoons pizza sauce
• 2 slices Canadian bacon, quartered
• 1/4 cup pineapple tidbits, well drained (from 8-oz can)

    Pepperoni Pizza Square

• 2 tablespoons pizza sauce
• 8 to 10 slices pepperoni (from 3-oz package)

Steps:

1. Heat oven to 425°F. Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray; sprinkle with cornmeal. Unroll dough; place on cookie sheet. Starting at center, press out dough into 14x12-inch rectangle. Brush dough with olive oil.
2. Bake 6 to 8 minutes. Sprinkle Cheddar cheese in the shape of a "plus sign" on crust, dividing the crust into four squares. Top each square with 1 of the 4 variations listed above to make 4 different squares; if desired, on the Pepperoni Pizza Square, arrange the pepperoni to make a happy face. Top entire pizza with mozzarella cheese.
3. Bake 10 to 13 minutes longer or until crust is deep golden brown and cheese is melted and bubbly. Cut pizza into 4 squares; cut each square into 4 squares to make a total of 16 squares.

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